Common symbology between Mithraic temples and the Knights Templar, and what it might mean

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Previous posts have explained that in the ancient system of metaphor found in the world's ancient mythologies, the "summer half" of the year (in which days are longer than nights) was variously allegorized as a heavenly mountain, a high hill, a gleaming city, or the land of Paradise or Heaven.  

The "winter half" of the year (in which nights are longer than days) was variously allegorized as a deep pit, a land of bondage or toil or slavery, Tartaros, Hades, Sheol, the Underworld, Amenta, or Hell.

In between these two halves of the year were two "crossing points," where the fiery path of the sun (the ecliptic path) crosses the celestial equator each year -- the two equinoxes (one in the spring and one in the fall).  

Previous posts have demonstrated that the ancient systems of metaphor often depicted sacrifices at these "crossing" points (including, appropriately enough, the crucifixion of Christ, which is replete with both autumnal and vernal imagery). For more detailed examination of some of the equinox sacrifice metaphors, and the celestial clues which indicate that these sacrifices align with the equinox in the ancient esoteric system of astronomical allegory, please see the first three chapters of The Undying Stars, chapters which are available to read online here (in particular, you'll want to read the third chapter, which begins on page 26 of the book, using the page numbers as they appear on the book pages themselves).

However, the ancient system did not always depict these equinox crossing points with sacrifice myths: sometimes they involved passage through a narrow and dangerous doorway, gateway, or channel between two rocks (such as the Symplegades encountered by Jason and the Argonauts of Greek myth), and sometimes they involved other metaphors (see for instance the series of three examinations of Virgo myths through various ancient cultures, including those of Scandinavia, the Americas, and Japan).

Another way that the equinox "crossings" have been allegorized in ancient symbology is the use of figures with their legs distinctively crossed, in the symbolism employed in the cult of Sol Invictus Mithras. The cult of Mithras was an exclusive secret society, which met in underground grottos called mithraea, or in buildings designed to feel as if they were underground. As David Ulansey explains in his important 1989 publication, Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World, the Mithraic mysteries were so secret that virtually nothing of their inner workings was ever written down -- or if it was, none of it has been known to survive into the present. He writes that they:

centered around a secret which was revealed only to those who were initiated into the cult.  As a result of this secrecy, the teachings of the cult were, as far as we know, never written down.  Modern scholars attempting to understand the nature of Mithraism, therefore, have been left with practically no literary evidence relating to the cult which could help them reconstruct its esoteric doctrines. 3.

However, he explains, the remains of the mithraea which have been discovered scattered throughout the lands of the former Roman Empire do provide important material for modern analysts to examine, in particular, the symbols found in the scenes which are found upon the walls of these ancient meeting-places.  Ulansey writes:

But the Mithraists did leave to posterity a key for unlocking the  inner mysteries of their religion.  For although the iconography of the cult varies a great deal from temple to temple, there is one element of the cult's iconography which was present in essentially the same form in every mithraeum and which, moreover, was clearly of the utmost importance to the cult's ideology: namely, the so-called tauroctony, or bull-slaying scene, in which the god Mithras, accomplanied by a series of other figures, is depicted in the act of killing a bull.  This scene was always located in the central cult-niche of the mithraeum. 6.

Professor Ulansey's 1989 book is important in that in it, Ulansey challenges the conventional theories that had been accepted up until that time regarding the origin of the symbols (which held that they must have come from Persia and ancient Persian myth, since most scholars accepted the idea that Mithraism somehow came into the Roman Empire from Persia, an idea which Ulansey shows to have been almost entirely championed in modern times by a single nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century scholar, Franz Cumont). 

Ulansey's text labors to advance an alternative thesis, that the symbolism of the tauroctony is almost entirely celestial and primarily zodiacal, and that its central scene of slaying the bull has clear ties to the precession of the equinoxes. Towards this end Ulansey musters overwhelming evidence, and it is safe to say that on this point his arguments are decisive in favor of the fact that the imagery present relates to the zodiac signs and neighboring constellations, and the ages-long motion of precession.

One of the extremely interesting parts of Ulansey's argument concerns his interpretation of two mysterious figures who appear in many (but not all) of the tauroctonies, two torchbearers known as Cautes and Cautopates (we know their names from dedicatory inscriptions, as Ulansey explains on page 62).  These figures often (but not always) have crossed legs, and in most (but not all) of the tauroctony scenes in which they appear, one of them (Cautes) has his torch pointing upwards, and the other (Cautopates) has his torch pointing downwards.  

Ulansey presents cogent arguments for identifying these figures, with their crossed legs and torches, as indicative of the crossing of the fiery arc of the sun's path down into the lower or wintery half of the year (at the fall equinox, indicated by Cautopates with his lowered torch) and up into the upper or summery half (at the spring equinox, indicated by Cautes).  I discussed Ulansey's arguments, along with supporting arguments from Hamlet's Mill (which show that fire-imagery is very common at the points of the equinoxes in many of the world's ancient sacred mythologies) in my first book, The Mathisen Corollary (in chapter 10).  Some scholars have challenged Ulansey's identification of Cautes and Cautopates with the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, but he presents counters to their attacks in his book.

You may be able to spot Cautes and Cautopates in the tauroctony scene above, which is from an ancient mithraeum and which is currently on display in the Kunsthistorisches museum in Vienna.

In that particular tauroctony, Cautes appears on the right side of the bull-slaying scene as we look at it, with his torch's flame pointing upwards, and Cautopates appears on the left as we look at it, with his torch's flame distinctly pointed downwards.  Below is another image of the same scene, this time with Cautes and Cautopates outlined with red rectangles, and the direction of their torches indicated by red arrows (the point of the arrow going towards the respective flames of the torches):

Below is another tauroctony scene from a different ancient mithraeum, which also features Cautes and Cautopates.  Can you spot them and their crossed legs and torches (one pointing down for Cautopates and one pointing up for Cautes)?

image: Wikimedia commons (link)

Once again, they should be relatively easy to spot.  Their crossed legs are very clear in the above image, due to the way they happen to stand out in the photograph.  Below is the same image, with boxes drawn around Cautes and Cautopates to indicate their location, and arrows on each torch pointing in the direction of the flame, which is pointing down in the case of Cautopates on the left, and up in the case of Cautes on the right:

Based on what we have discussed in many previous posts at this point, Ulansey's argument that these two figures represent the two equinoxes is almost certainly correct.  Below is the now-familiar image of the zodiac wheel of the year, which has a large "X" at each equinox to indicate a "crossing."

As I discussed with Henrik Palmgren in my most-recent interview on Red Ice Radio, Mithraism (the cult of Sol Invictus Mithras) may play a far more important role in world history than most people (or even most conventional scholars of Mithraism or of ancient history in general) realize at this time. Historian and author Flavio Barbiero has published a book entitled The Secret Society of Moses: The Mosaic Bloodline and a Conspiracy Spanning Three Millennia (2010) in which he presents evidence that the cult of Sol Invictus Mithras was used as an underground "nerve center" for certain former priestly families of Judea whom Barbiero argues were brought to Rome after the conquest of Judea and the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem in AD 70, at the hands of the general (and future emperor) Titus, who was prosecuting the military campaign in conjunction with his father, Vespasian.

Admiral Barbiero argues that Mithraism basically functioned as an extremely effective secret society, and one which spread through certain strategically-chosen institutions in the Roman Empire, including the Praetorian Guard, the Roman army at large, the centers of trade and commerce (in particular the ports and customs-facilities) and the organs of the political bureaucracy.  It took some time (almost two hundred years), but this "nerve center" eventually gained so much power that it was able to install and remove emperors at will.  The extensive evidence to support this amazing claim is discussed at length in Barbiero's book, and it is also discussed in The Undying Stars in conjunction with that book's examination of the question of "what happened to the ancient wisdom?" Interested readers can also get an overview of the theory in this article which Flavio Barbiero published in 2010 on the Graham Hancock website.

According to this theory, the nobility which controlled Europe during the Middle Ages (as well as the leaders of the western church) almost certainly descended directly from the same lines of priestly families who came to Rome with Vespasian and Titus after the fall of Jerusalem.  Interestingly enough, Barbiero finds evidence for this theory (in addition to the bigger pieces of evidence which are discussed in that linked article and which make up the bigger part of his argument) in the fraternal orders which formed among the European nobility during the Crusades -- including the most famous of these, the Knights Templar.

Those familiar with the history of the Knights Templar may have already been struck by the distinctive "legs crossed" symbology in the foregoing discussion, from the temples of Sol Invictus Mithras.  Barbiero argues that it was probably within "some associations of nobles in which the most authentic spirit of the original institution of Sol Invictus could have survived" (333).  He makes note of the connection between the fact that the funeral monuments of Templar knights represent their effigies with their legs crossed, and says "we cannot imagine that it is a simple coincidence that in all the mithraea there are always two characters with their legs crossed in the same way" (337).

That the members of the noble families who were descended from those original priestly lines who defended the land of Judea and the Temple of Jerusalem against the invading Roman armies under Vespasian and Titus would form dedicated military orders which had secret rituals and shared symbology with the ancient cult of Sol Invictus perfectly accords with Barbiero's thesis. In fact, he writes of knights who made up the top rank of these military orders (such as the Templars):

To all effects, they were professional warriors dedicated to war, which always appeared to be a striking anomaly in the Catholic religion, in flagrant contrast to the pacifism preached by Christ.  In reality, this was no anomaly, but was instead a perfect continuation of the traditions of the priestly family.  Josephus Flavius was a priest but also a warrior and a military leader.  The followers of Sol Invictus had taken control of the Roman army and were, first of all, military men. 335.

Below are some images of the tombs of various Templar knights. In the first one, for example, you can see that the two knights on the right-hand side of the photograph (as we look at it) have their legs crossed:

image: Wikimedia commons (link)

Below is a drawing of another effigy of a knight from his tomb.  You can clearly see that his legs are crossed:

image: Wikimedia commons (link)

And finally, one more drawing of effigies of knights from medieval tombs.  The tomb closer to the viewer clearly depicts an effigy with the legs crossed in the same distinctive manner:

image: Wikimedia commons (link)

There is much more to this subject, but this connection alone constitutes yet another piece of evidence supporting Flavio Barbiero's theory as presented in his book, a theory which is very important for the question of "what happened" to the common system of celestial allegory which underlies virtually all of the world's ancient sacred texts (including those which found their way into what today we refer to as the Bible), and to the knowledge that this ancient wisdom should actually unite mankind, instead of dividing us.

Angkor Wat, Giza, Paracas and the World-Wide Grid

In their outstanding book Heaven's Mirror, Graham Hancock and Santha Faiia point out the undeniable fact that Angkor Wat is located seventy-two degrees east of Giza in Egypt (page 254).  

Seventy-two is an important precessional number.  It is highly unlikely that the site of Angkor Wat would be located such an important number of degrees of longitude from the site of the Great Pyramid at Giza simply by accident, especially because both the Great Pyramid and the art and architecture of Angkor Wat deliberately employ precessional numbers and symbology in their construction and (in the case of Angkor Wat) in their symbology, as Graham Hancock discusses in Heaven's Mirror and other books (including Fingerprints of the Gods).  

The fact that Angkor Wat bears a name which is made up of two sacred Egyptian words -- Ankh and Horus -- makes the connection between Giza and Angkor even more certain to be deliberate and not a coincidence.  Further, as Joseph P. Farrell and Scott D. de Hart discuss in their book Grid of the Gods, both sites contain pyramid structures; the pyramids at Angkor (shown above in an image from Wikimedia commons) happen to be shaped differently than the pyramids of Giza (being taller than they are wide, unlike those at Giza), but that may well be because their purpose is different, as Drs. Farrell and de Hart discuss in their book.

The fact that these two sites are separated by seventy-two degrees of longitude is an important piece of evidence supporting the assertion made by Drs. Farrell and de Hart, and by Graham Hancock and others, that the ancient astronomically-aligned sites on our planet are part of a global "grid" laid out by an ancient civilization or civilizations possessed of deep wisdom and sophisticated scientific understanding.  

Interestingly enough, Heaven's Mirror also reveals that one hundred eight degrees to the west of Giza lies another mysterious site: Paracas, on the Pacific coast of Peru.  One hundred eight is one of the most important and widely used precessional numbers in the mythology and traditions of the world.  It is, of course, 1.5 times 72.  Multiples of 108 which are found in numerous ancient myths and legends include 216, 432, and 540.  

Paracas is located in the Ica region of Peru, home to the mysterious elongated skulls which were recently in the news due to the results of DNA tests which are discussed in this article on the Ancient Origins website.  Paracas is also the home of an ancient geoglyph known as the "Paracas Candelabra" (shown below in an image from Wikimedia commons), which may reflect the constellation of the Southern Cross according to Graham Hancock's analysis in Heaven's Mirror. 

As Graham Hancock also points out in Fingerprints of the Gods, the ability to measure longitude accurately eluded "western civilization" until the 1700s, when John Harrison finally developed a chronometer accurate enough for precise longitudinal calculation (see discussion here regarding the "Longitude Prize").  The fact that Giza is seventy-two degrees west of Angkor Wat and one hundred eight degrees east of Paracas suggests that the ancients had a way of accurately measuring the globe.  

The fact of an ancient world-wide grid is not simply a piece of "gee-whiz" trivia.  As Drs. Farrell and de Hart discuss in the book linked above, such a grid may have been constructed in order to harness the enormous power of the earth, and potentially the power created by the motions of other planets in our solar system as well.  The fact that we today know little or nothing about such a grid -- and the fact that conventional academia reflexively suppresses such information and ridicules and marginalizes those who choose to investigate the evidence regarding this and other mysteries of mankind's ancient past -- suggests the possibility that vital information about our planet and our relationship to has been deliberately concealed for centuries.

Previous posts discussing the evidence for a world-wide grid can be found here, here, and here.

Columba, the Dove

This is an excellent time of year to look for the constellations beneath Orion, because Orion is now arcing highest across the sky in the hours before midnight, allowing viewers in the northern hemisphere especially to gaze at some of the constellations beneath his feet which are not easily visible during other parts of the year.

In particular, the constellation Columba the Dove is a rare treat for star-gazers this time of year, and one with important connotations.

To find Columba, the method that I use is to start from Canis Major, the Big Dog.  Canis Major is very easy to locate because it contains Sirius, the brightest "fixed star" in the sky.  For greater appreciation of the profound importance of Sirius, see the fascinating information discussed in this and this previous post.  Sirius, or Sothis in the Hellenized version of the Egyptian name for this star, was associated with the goddess Isis, the consort of Osiris, and Osiris was associated with the constellation Orion.  Sirius is very easy to locate near the constellation of Orion, following the line of his brilliant and easily-recognized belt towards its "lower" edge as it sits on his body -- for some directions, see this previous post or check out the star chart below, which shows Orion and Canis Major, as well as the location of Columba in relation to them:

Sirius is sitting on the upper shoulder of the Dog, and the four brightest stars of the constellation itself form a long rectangle which is the easiest way to trace the rest of its outline.  The lower two stars of this bright rectangle of Canis Major point right to the fainter stars of Columba the Dove.

Another landmark which can help you locate Columba the Dove is the constellation Lepus the Hare directly under the feet of Orion.  I personally do not really like the way it is outlined in the chart above: the way I prefer to outline it in my mind when I look at the sky is shown in the red lines in the chart below:

Not only is this outline much easier (for me) to trace in the sky, but it also really resembles the "Set Beast," whose distinctive shape is discussed in this previous post.  That post also includes some discussion of the theory advanced by Jane B. Sellers in Death of Gods in Ancient Egypt, in which she provides compelling arguments that the head of Lepus resembles the Set Beast and that its location under the feet of Orion corresponds to an ancient Egyptian myth regarding the judgment of Set by the Ennead of Egyptian powers.

As Lepus is outlined in the red lines of the chart above, his snout-like face is looking down towards Columba: specifically, directly towards the distinctive "triangle" of Columba which you can see in the chart above and which contains Columba's brightest and most important star, Phact (or alpha Columbae).  Using the two guidelines just described (the line drawn by the lower two stars of the rectangle in Canis Major, and the direction of the gaze of the "Set Beast" of Lepus located below the feet of Orion), you should be able to easily spot the triangle of Columba containing the star Phact.

Actually, there will be two "triangles" in the region of Columba if you are able to locate it in the sky.  Those two triangles are shown in the star chart below, where I have indicated them using blue lines to show you what you are most likely to see in the night sky when you go out to try to find the constellation Columba:

Columba is a very faint constellation, and very low in the sky for stargazers in latitudes above about 30 degrees in the northern hemisphere, so you may need to get away from any light pollution, even if you live in a very small town.  Your best bet is probably to drive out to where there are farmer's fields, if possible, and try to go after 9 pm, when Orion and Columba are heading towards their highest point in the heavens, which they reach right about midnight during this time of year.  In fact, as we will see in a moment, the "culmination" of Phact, when it reaches its highest point, takes place at midnight every year on one day in the current epoch, and that day is January 26th (today!), according to the Richard Hinckley Allen book cited below (with links).

The faint constellations below Orion are just about impossible to see except at the time of night at which Orion has gotten high up on his arc across the heavens; if he is lower on his arc (either on his way up from the eastern horizon or back down towards the western) then the constellations below his feet will be more likely to be below the horizon, or washed out by any glow near the horizon caused by electric lights from cities and towns.  Since Columba is below Lepus, and Lepus itself is below the feet of Orion, this means that it is really only during this time of year that northern hemisphere viewers have much chance at all of seeing Columba and Phact.

Columba is often described as a "modern constellation," since it was not included in the forty-eight constellations discussed by the extremely important ancient astronomer Ptolemy in his Almagest. The importance of the forty-eight constellations of Ptolemy is touched upon in this previous post on the "macrocosm" and "microcosm."  The importance of Ptolemy's work for deducing the existence of a far more advanced understanding of precession by ancients who lived thousands of years before Ptolemy is touched upon in this previous post.

While Ptolemy may not have mentioned the Dove, that does not necessarily mean that Columba was not an ancient constellation, however.  For example, in his 1899 publication Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning, talented polymath Richard Hinckley Allen (1838 - 1908) discusses Columba on this page, where he notes that the important esoteric philosopher Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 150 - AD 215) mentions a constellation which he calls Columba and associates it with the Ship.  In fact, Columba is very close to the mighty constellation of Argo Navis (the Ship Argo), which is located below Canis Major and standing somewhat vertically, so that it is mostly below the horizon for northern hemisphere viewers unless they are further south than 30 degrees north latitude.

This association with the Ship constellation brings up the fact that a Dove-Ship combination features very prominently in ancient myth-cycles from multiple cultures.  The most obvious of these include the Dove that helped guide the Argo with Jason and the Argonauts (in Greek legend) through the Clashing Rocks of the Symplegades.  This important myth is discussed in Hamlet's Mill page 318, where the authors hint that the Clashing Rocks represent the March equinox, and that the voyage of those on the Quest for the Golden Fleece defeating the Clashing Rocks represent the movement of the Sun into a new "gateway" for the equinox: in other words, the dawn of a new precessional age (in this case, probably the Age of Aries, since the Argonauts were questing for the Golden Fleece of a Ram).  This connection between the Symplegades and the new equinox gate is discussed in conjunction with other myths of the same nature in Chapter Four of my 2011 book, The Mathisen Corollary (on page 85).

Another important ancient Ship which is clearly associated with a Dove is, of course, the Ark of Noah. Both of these prominent Ship-Dove combinations should be decisive proof that the ancients knew of the constellation we today call Columba, that they saw it as a Dove, and that they paired it with the Ship constellation, which is right next-door to Columba.

These ancient connections should be enough to get you excited about going out to look for Columba yourself, if you can possibly do so.  But there's even more!  In his 1940 book Lost Light: An Interpretation of Ancient Scriptures (discussed in this previous post, which also contains links to enable you to read the whole thing online), Alvin Boyd Kuhn discusses the spiritual significance of the symbol of the dove, and connects this discussion to the constellation Columba and specifically the star Phact (alpha Columbae). 

Noting that in the New Testament, the Holy Ghost is described as descending upon the baptism of Jesus (which he explains on page 395 to be "in itself a complete representation of the incarnational experience"), Kuhn writes:

Then the immersion took place.  And it was at the conclusion of the rite that the spirit from heaven descended upon him in the symbol of the dove.  This bird, sharing the role with the hawk and bennu or phoenix, emblemed primarily the life-giving power of the third element, air (mind).  Dove is traced to "Tef," the breathing force.  It stands in general for the divine energy of the soul.  In the planisphere another star beside Sothis, somewhat farther south, stood in position to announce the coming of the solar year and the sun-god.  This was the star Phact, the Dove.  The hawk, allied to the dove, was the divine symbol of Horus.  When divinized Horus received the hawk, Jesus the dove.  Horus rose as the dove as well as the hawk; for he exclaims: "I am the Dove; I am the Dove!"  396.

Note that in the Richard Hinckley Allen book linked previously, the discussion by that author of Columba and the star Phact includes the following interesting paragraph:

Although inconspicuous, Lockyer thinks that it [that is, Phact] was of importance in Egyptian temple worship, and observed from Edfu and Philae as far back as 6400 BC; but that it was succeeded by Sirius about 3000 BC, as alpha Ursae Majoris was by gamma Draconis in the north.  And he has found three temples at Medinet Habu, adjacent to each other, yet differently oriented, apparently towards alpha [Phact], 2525, 1250, and 900 years before our era: all these to the god Amen.  He thinks that as many as twelve different temples were oriented to this star; but the selection of so faint an object for so important a purpose would seem doubtful.

In that paragraph, Allen is commenting upon (and disagreeing somewhat) with the findings of the famous mathemetician, scientist, golfer, and lover of poetry, Norman Lockyer (who is credited with discovering helium, and who was also an early and influential archeo-astronomer).  Allen argues that so faint a star as Phact would hardly be the object of as many temple-alignments as Lockyer ascribed to the star by the ancient Egyptians, but the passage from Alvin Boyd Kuhn cited just before may argue otherwise.  

Note Kuhn's extremely interesting assertion that our modern English word "dove" is etymologically related to the ancient Egyptian word "Tef" (note that "t" is an unvoiced "d," and "f" is an unvoiced "v," so that the words "Tef" and "dove" are really linguistically close relatives, and nearly linguistically interchangeable).  The Egyptian goddess Tefnut was the twin sister of Shu the air, and the mother of Nut the starry sky and Geb the earth.

For all these reasons, it is important to become familiar with this fascinating (if somewhat difficult to locate) constellation, and the next few weeks will be some of the best times all year to go outside and appreciate it for yourself.

The profound importance of tea

There are many very ancient Chinese legends purporting to describe the origin of tea, but many of them attribute the discovery of tea to the legendary Shen Nung, who was said to have lived around 2800 BC.  In Shen Nung's Canon of Herbs, thought to have been compiled from texts written during a period beginning in 206 BC, it is specifically said that Shen Nung tested hundreds of herbs on himself, encountering seventy-two poisons each day, and used tea as his antidote.

As Daniel P. Reid relates the story in Art and Alchemy of Chinese Tea:

It is said that in the course of his intensive field work, Shen Nung once ingested 72 poisonous plants in an single day, after which he collapsed on the ground, teetering on the brink of death from poison.  As he lay there in agony, a breeze blew a few leaves from a nearby tree onto the ground beside him.  Noticing their distinctive aroma and vibrant green color, curiosity and force of habit prompted him to put a few leaves in his mouth and chew them.  He liked the taste, soon felt better, and quickly recovered his strength, so he chewed some more leaves and found that they completely cleansed his system of all toxins.  This is what he wrote about tea in his pharmacopeia:

Tea's essential flavor is bitter.  After drinking tea, the mind thinks more clearly and quickly, the whole body becomes light and agile, and vision improves.  34.

In her book, Tea: Aromas and Flavors Around the World, Lydia Gautier notes that Shen Nung's Canon of Herbs also states: "if one consumes tea for long enough, the body gains in strength and the mind in keenness" (106).  She goes on to say:

When one reads ancient Chinese texts, the benefits attributed to tea are extremely varied.

• It stimulates circulation of the blood in all parts of the body.

• It stimulates clear thinking and a lively mind.

• It speeds up the elimination of alcohol in the organs of the body.

• It increases the body's power to resist many illnesses.

• It accelerates the metabolism and oxygenation of the organs of the body.

• It prevents tooth decay.

• It has a purifying and fortifying effect on the skin, helping it to remain younger-looking.

• It prevents or reduces anemia.

• It purifies urine and aids diuresis.

• It improves the eyes and makes them shine.

• It combats the effects of heat in summer (tea is by nature cold, that is, yin).

• It aids digestion.

• It eases pain in the libs and joints.

• It reduces harmful mucus secretions.

• It eases thirst.

• It drives away fatigue and depression, bringing a general sense of well-being.

• Finally, it prolongs life.  106.

Modern studies do indeed show that tea has measurable health benefits.  Tea is rich in flavonoids which medical studies have linked to improvements in cardiovascular health as well as to other beneficial effects for maintaining mental and physical health.

Interestingly, the ancient Chinese sources cited above appear to link tea to the rhythm of the cosmos as well.  Readers of this blog will no doubt have noted that the number of potentially deadly herbs that the legendary Shen Nung ingested, seventy-two, is one of the most notable precessional numbers.  Seventy-two is the approximate number of years it takes for the subtle motion of precession to delay the position of the background of the heavens by a single degree (for a video that explains this phenomenon and some of its tremendous significance in ancient sacred scripture and tradition, see here).  The mention of this significant precessional number in the legend regarding the discovery of tea is almost certainly not accidental.

The evidence of an ancient association of the beneficial properties of tea to the celestial motion of precession becomes even more pronounced when we read, in one of the tea-related articles on Daniel Reid's website, that the Chinese calligraphic symbol for tea contains strokes which add up to the number 108, according to Frederick R. Dannaway in the article entitled "Tea as Soma, pt. 1" (towards the bottom of that webpage).

Of course, along with the number 72, the number 108 is also one of the most-commonly recurring precessional numbers in ancient mythology and sacred tradition.  In the Agnicayana fire ritual of Vedic and Hindu tradition (believed to be the oldest surviving ritual in the world), the traditional altar is supposed to be constructed of 10,800 bricks (a version of the number 108).  Many aspects of the Chinese martial arts incorporate the number 108 as well, including the legendary number of obstacles one had to overcome in the final test for a Shaolin monk, and the number of moves or techniques incorporated into the famous wooden man or wooden dummy.  

The fact that tea is associated by the very design of its Chinese calligraphic character with the number 108 is undoubtedly significant, and links this beverage with the subtle motion of the universe -- a phenomenon that was obviously considered to be of profound importance to ancient civilizations.  Researchers such as Graham Hancock and Jim Alison have also conclusively demonstrated that the ancient designers of the worldwide grid of megalithic monuments (some of them dating to extremely remote antiquity) incorporated the numbers 72 and 108 into the distances between these sites (measured in degrees of longitude).

It is a clear sign of the importance ascribed to tea that the ancients would take pains to incorporate these two numbers into the legend concerning the origin of tea, and into its written symbol.  As Daniel Reid explains in his book on the Art and Alchemy of Chinese Tea, tea was seen as having alchemical or transformative powers upon the men and women who drink it.  On page 87, he writes:

In Chinese, the term for "alchemy" is lien jin shu, literally "the art of forging gold."  But the "gold" they're talking about here is not the gold ore mined from the earth and forged by fire into ingots and coins.  They're talking about jin dan, the "golden elixir of life," an elusive energetic essence that resides dormant within particular plants and minerals, and which may be extracted and activated by various means and transferred into the human system, where it acts as a potent tonic to protect health, prolong life, and enhance mental performance.  This precious essence is the "green gold" in the alchemy of Chinese tea.

And, in the "Art of Chinese Tea" article near the top of the page from his website linked previously (here's the link again), he quotes Master Xhongxian Wu as saying that, "one may become enlightened by drinking tea," and notes that "here are many stories of Buddhist monks or Taoist hermits who suddenly "awakened to the Dao" (wu Dao) while savoring a cup of tea."

Given the health benefits, as well as the ancient connection to the profoundly important precessional numbers, and the serious assertion that "one may become enlightened by drinking tea," who would not want to begin each day or finish each meal with a cup of Chinese tea?  

While doing so, perhaps it would not be inappropriate to contemplate the turning of the earth through the lines still marked by the ancient megalithic monuments located along carefully-selected meridians, and the slow and subtle but inexorable motion of precession which delays the march of the constellations through the heavens, all of which are somehow linked to the cup of tea in your hands.

Comet ISON rapidly approaching perihelion, and some thoughts on fear-mongering, manipulation, and thinking for yourself

Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) is plummeting towards the Sun, and is now approaching perihelion (its closest point of approach).

The comet will slingshot around the sun at 2pm Eastern time on November 28th (which is 11am Pacific time, and since Pacific standard time is 8 hours behind Greenwich time, that means it will be 1900 Greenwich or Universal Time).

For intrepid observers who wish to try to observe the comet at or near perihelion, this helpful article from Sky & Telescope explains how to do it.  Note that you will have to block the Sun with a solid object, and use your naked eye.  Do not use a telescope or binoculars, which magnify the light and channel it right into your eyeball, and which can cause serious permanent damage.

Of course, you will have to be on a section of the globe that is facing towards the sun during the hours that Comet ISON is making its slingshot turn around the Sun -- that is to say, it will have to be daylight where you are, although if the Sun is just dropping below the horizon of the Earth's curvature, that would be a very handy "object" that you could use to block out the Sun and look for the comet.  If it is night-time where you are when the comet is reaching perihelion, you will be unable to see the comet's perihelion turn from that location using normal vision, since the entire bulk of our planet will be in your way.

That article also says that the comet will be within one "sun diameter" of our daystar during the three hour period from 1700 UT until 2000 UT (which is from 12 noon Eastern time or 9am Pacific standard until 3pm Eastern time and 12 noon Pacific).

Depending on the comet's condition after its "sungrazing" journey around the turn, it could become a spectacular object in the night sky (visible just prior to sunrise and just after sunset), and in some scenarios could become bright enough to see during full daylight.  And, as we have been told over and over, conditions could also lead to a scenario in which Comet ISON doesn't become very spectacular at all.

The video embedded above shows NASA footage of Comet ISON approaching the Sun over the  five-day period from 20 November through 25 November, composed of HD images snapped by the STEREO-A spacecraft and its Heliospheric Imager.  Here is a link to a page about the STEREO spacecraft (there are two of them, working in tandem, as you might expect) containing an outstanding graphic animation which shows where STEREO A was located when it took the sequence shown above.  The still-frame shot below shows where STEREO A was in relation to Comet ISON, the Sun, the Earth, and the planet Mercury on November 24 (near the end of the video sequence shown above).

Using the upper diagram, you can see why the Sun is located just out of the field of view to the right edge of the video above, and why Mercury is seen to the left and our planet Earth to the right.

In the video at top (not shown in the animation or the screenshot) you can also see very clearly Comet 2P/Encke, the comet with the shortest period of all known comets (only 3 years per round trip).  It is actually visible from the beginning of the video, heading "downwards" as if it wants to intersect the more "horizontal" path of Comet ISON.  Encke does not show much of a tail until towards the end of the video, so it looks in the video much the way a satellite looks moving through the night sky to a viewer on earth -- but it is a comet, not a satellite.

There are actually five comets visible in the night sky from the northern hemisphere right now for those using binoculars or small telescopes, including C/2013 R1 Lovejoy (the most easily-visible of them all right now, discussed briefly in this previous post, and currently visible to the naked eye in the pre-dawn morning sky near Bootes the Herdsman, who sits near the Big Dipper smoking a pipe which is very close to the handle of the Dipper),  Comet C/2013 V3 Nevski (just discovered this month!), Comet C/2012 X1 LINEAR, Comet 2P/Encke, and Comet ISON.  Descriptions of these comets, and directions for locating them in the sky, can be found on the Comet Chasing page from Skyhound, the makers of SkyTools 3 observing software.  The Comet Chasing page also describes a comet visible with small telescopes and binoculars to viewers in the southern hemisphere, as well as other comets visible only for those with larger telescopes.

Until the discovery of Comet Nevski, the appearance of four comets in the sky at the same time (with one of them, ISON, getting so much notoriety from various commentators) was prompting some comparisons to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (who are found in the book of the Revelation or Apocalypse -- both words literally mean "the unveiling," although the word "Revelation" is the way to say "unveiling" that is descended from the Latin, and the word "Apocalypse" is the Greek way to say it).  They are described in Revelation chapter 6.

Here is an article from Clyde Lewis of Ground Zero Media that pulls together an impressive array of connections between the comets, predictions in the Revelation, the Maya calendar cycle that was the subject of so much discussion at the end of last year, and worrisome current events (including volcanic eruptions).  The article also points out that elsewhere in the Revelation (in fact in Revelation chapter 8:10-11), a great star is described which fell from heaven, "burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters" -- the name of this star is called Wormwood.

While not mentioned in that "Four Horsemen" article, there have been several troubling articles appearing on various internet sites arguing that dangerous levels of radiation or radioactive materials from the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster are now reaching the west coast and beginning to play havoc with marine wildlife.  However, some analysts have challenged some of these sensationalist claims, such as this article from deep-sea biologist Andrew David Thaler published on the Southern Fried Science blog.  Personally, I do not buy all of Andrew Thaler's arguments in this article, and believe some of those arguments are not well supported (at one point, he engages in a blatant ad hominem attack with no other evidence cited besides the ad hominem attack itself).

This controversy highlights the importance of doing some of your own "due diligence" when it comes to investigating matters that might be of great importance to your future.  When it comes to questions about the status of the fallout from the Fukushima disaster or questions about whether the current array of comets (and Comet ISON in particular) have anything to do with ancient apocalyptic prophetic literature, it is probably advisable to avoid being swept up by those who want to stir up fear (for whatever reason).  At the same time, while being wary of "fear mongering," it is equally important to avoid making the opposite error of complacency, or of too-rapidly dismissing possible dangers that might really be associated with these events.  For instance, just because some articles about the impact of the Fukushima radiation might be deliberately misleading and designed to create the maximum amount of fear and uncertainty among the widest possible number of people, it does not mean that we can dismiss the dangers of Fukushima altogether, or brand everyone who sounds an alarm bell on the subject as a "fearmonger."

For the record, none of the above statements should be interpreted as an accusation that Clyde Lewis's "Four Horsemen" article is being deliberately misleading or engaging in speculative fearmongering.  His article draws a number of interesting connections to a variety of ancient and modern subjects, and he tells his readers several times during the article that it is not meant to be read as a declaration that the apocalyptic doom some were trumpeting at the end of 2012 was "off by a year" and due at the end of 2013, but that on the other hand he thinks all these matters are worth being aware of.  That seems to be a responsible enough way to approach the subject.

However, I personally believe that the Maya calendar event of December 2012 referred to an astronomical event caused by the phenomenon of precession, and that "end of the world" prophecies  in sacred traditions around the world and across millennia generally refer to the end of a precessional age, not to physical or geological catastrophes that take place on the planet (they are referring to events in the sky).  Previous posts explaining the concept of precession include this one (which contains a video) and this one (which should make the impact of precession on the position of the stars completely clear).  For discussions of the Maya Long Count and 2012, and the connection to precession, see "The Maya Long Count and Galactic Alignment: the work of John Major Jenkins," and "The Staggering Implications of the Maya Long Count," among other posts from last year.

Similarly, I believe that most if not all of the events described in the book of the Revelation (or the Apocalypse) also refer to celestial phenomena.  For some discussion of this subject, see "The Scorpion and the Smoky Abyss."  That article discusses some verses in Revelation which some have taken to be referring to literal events on earth (for example, identifying the "locusts" of Revelation chapter 9 as helicopters in some horrific modern war that was being described by a vision given in ancient times), but which probably refer to constellations (the locusts of chapter 9 probably refer to the zodiac constellation of Sagittarius).  As Clyde Lewis states in the article linked above, the Four Horsemen have very clear astronomical connections as well.

However, just because those ancient sacred texts may not have been written to be understood in a strictly literal manner does not mean that certain people might not be using them as a script to try to follow: after all, the fact that millions of people believe that those ancient texts refer to literal events could give a huge boost in potential "fearmongering impact" to anyone who wanted to manipulate current events in conjunction with widely-known ancient verses.

Here is a link to a recent interview on Red Ice Radio with Richard C. Hoagland, who states during the second half of the interview that he believes Comet ISON might actually have been manipulated by humans who have access to extremely advanced forms of space travel (the so-called "secret space program") in order to arrive on specially-selected dates at a location and elevation which would produce significant numbers when measured from the site of major ritualistic events in early 2014 (such as the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics).

Whether or not you agree with this theory (I personally have not seen enough evidence to make a dogmatic assertion either way on that one, although it is certainly worth investigating), all of the above discussion seems to argue the importance of understanding the principles of the mechanics of the celestial objects whirling through our solar system, as well as the connections to the ancient sacred traditions of mankind, all of which reveal an extremely sophisticated scientific understanding of celestial phenomena, as well as a level of interest in these phenomena which implies their belief that these events are of more than just "academic interest" to men and women living on this planet.

When it comes to issues of major potential impact on our lives, we owe it to ourselves to do some analysis of our own and reach our own conclusions, and to avoid letting others tell us how to think, or manipulate us through fear.

A terrific time of year to view the crucial constellation of Aries, the Ram

This is a terrific time of year to view Aries the Ram in the dark hours before midnight, and with the  waning moon rising at 3:25 am (and later as the days go on), the sky is currently giving us the perfect levels of darkness needed to make out the fainter stars in this crucially-important constellation.

Aries may not be a very familiar constellation, because it does not really "leap out" at the casual observer of the night sky.  Most of the stars of Aries are very faint, but it does have two bright stars, and they are very easy to find at this time of year.  In his indispensable book The Stars: A New Way to See Them, the beloved author H.A. Rey explains how:

RAM (ARIES):  This constellation is rather inconspicuous and would be less famous if it were not in the zodiac.  Its two brightest stars, in the Ram's head, can be spotted easily halfway between the Pleiades and the Great Square of Pegasus.  42.

So, to find the Ram, the two landmarks that H.A. Rey gives us are the Pleiades and the Great Square of Pegasus.  Both have been discussed previously in this blog (see discussion below), and both are very easy to find, especially this time of year, when Taurus the Bull along with the Pleiades are prominent in the eastern sky after the sun goes down in the "prime-time" viewing hours before midnight, and the Great Square of Pegasus is almost directly overhead between 10pm and midnight (and climbing pretty close to directly overhead in the hours before that).   

To find the Pleiades, you can use the brilliant constellation of Perseus (use the diagrams in previous blog posts here and here), as well as the constellation Taurus (see the diagram in the second of those two Perseus links).

To find the Great Square, see the diagrams in these two previous posts: "The Great Square of Pegasus (and more evidence for ancient contact across the oceans)" and "Aquarius."

Once you have located those two landmarks (Pleiades and Great Square), you will be able to easily locate the two brightest stars of Aries halfway between the silvery cloud of the Pleiades and the unmistakable Square of Pegasus.  Those two stars make up the head of the Ram.  

In the diagram above,  the size of the dot indicates the brightness of the star.  The two largest dots in the chart of Aries are marked with the Greek letters alpha and beta, and their names are shown as Hamal and Sheratan, respectively.

From here, you may be able to trace out the rest of the Ram, especially if you have a nice dark sky.  The constellation stretches from the triangular head down towards the Pleiades, where the Ram's little tail sticks up towards the upper foot of Perseus.  In fact, locating the upper foot of Perseus is helpful in pointing towards the lower (faint) stars which make up the hind part of the constellation Aries the Ram. You can see both of the feet of Perseus coming into the diagram above from the top-left quadrant of the chart.  The "upper" foot is to the right in that chart, and the "lower" foot is to the left.  

I am calling them "upper" and "lower" here because if you go looking for Aries in the hours before midnight, the foot on the right in this chart will be higher in the sky and the foot on the left as you look at this chart will be lower in the sky, closer to the eastern horizon.

Below is a chart without the outlines of H.A. Rey, oriented with the Ram rising up towards the zenith head-first, as he will appear in the hours before midnight.  Note that the feet of Perseus are now "upper" and "lower" (all descriptions here are northern-hemisphere-centric, with apologies to my brothers and sisters in the southern hemisphere).

(mobile users please keep scrolling down for the rest of the post)

Note that there is one more very recognizable landmark near Aries, and that is the constellation marked "Triangulum" on the charts, located above the shoulder of the Ram (or to the upper left of the shoulder, when Aries is rising through his upward arc across the eastern part of the sky).  This constellation is very easy to find and can also help you to trace out the rest of Aries, using the charts above.

In spite of the fact that Aries is not extremely easy to trace out in the night sky, doing so is very satisfying, both in its own right and because (as H.A. Rey hints in the passage cited above) Aries is actually an exceedingly important constellation.  For Aries is a member of the zodiac -- those constellations occupying the band of the ecliptic, through which the sun appears to pass as we rotate on our axis -- and not just any member of the zodiac, either.  Aries is from ancient times the acknowledged leader of the zodiac band, the first of the twelve constellations who encircle the heavens along the same burning path traced out by the sun during the day.

For this reason, Aries the Ram figures prominently in almost every sacred tradition of the ancient world.    The connections are too many to mention here -- only a few examples from Hamlet's Mill will be cited to give an idea of the importance of this leader of the zodiac.  The authors of Hamlet's Mill assert on page 318, for instance, that the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts in Greek myth, in their search for the Golden Fleece, was "undertaken in all probability to introduce the Age of Aries" (when the inexorable motion of precession brought the heliacal rising on the March equinox into the house of Aries after an age in the house of Taurus).

They also note that Heimdal of Norse myth is in some way associated with Aries, pointing out that:

Grimm rightly says that it is worthy of remark that Hallinskidi and Heimdal are quoted among the names of the ram.  Heimdal is the "watcher" of the much-trodden Bridge of the gods which finally breaks down at Ragnarok; his "head" measures the crossroads of ecliptic and equator at the vernal equinox in Aries, a constellation which is called "head" also by Cleomedes, and countelss astromedical illustrations show the Ram ruling the head (Pisces the feet).  158-159.

In this important passage, we see that the "gateway to heaven" (which Heimdal guards, Asgard in this case being a type of heaven) is associated with the head and with Aries, and (as the authors of Hamlet's Mill point out), Aries is associated with the head.  You can read more about this important subject, and see a diagram in which the zodiac constellations are paired with their associated part of the human body, in this previous post.  It is also worth noting that Heimdal is described as the "son of nine mothers," and we have just seen that the constellation of Aries rises up from a point just above the stars of the Pleiades.

For much more on the importance of the constellation Aries, the interested reader is encouraged to view the numerous enlightening videos of Santos Bonacci, who explores the subject in great detail. 

For all these reasons, it is well worth the effort to get out and view Aries in person at this time of year, if at all possible.  It is a constellation of ancient and enduring significance.

Nabta Playa, Karnak, George Dodwell, and Antarctica

In the previous post, we saw a video in which archaeoastronomer and physicist Dr. Thomas G. Brophy analyzed the layout of stones at the ancient stone circle located in the Nabta Playa in a desolate corner of southwestern Egypt.  

Among other conclusions (some of them quite startling and all of them completely devastating to the conventional timeline of mankind's ancient past -- as well as to the assertions of conventional plate tectonic theory, as I argued), Dr. Brophy argues that the six stones inside the circle indicate the positions of the three stars of Orion's belt as it appears during the epoch in which Orion is most upright in the sky as he transits the meridian, as well as the three stars of Orion's head and shoulders during the epoch in which Orion is most tilted to the meridian.

One of the startling aspects of Dr. Brophy's analysis is the fact that calculations of the rate of tilt in Orion, caused by precession, means that the stones representing the belt stars are correct for the period from about 6500 BC up until about 4900 BC, while the stones representing the head and shoulders of the constellation are correct for a much older period, centered on 16,500 BC!

While it is certainly possible that the site's ancient designers were able to calculate the precessional tilt for a period around 16,500 BC, and encode that in the site (especially given the other very advanced skills and knowledge of astronomy that the other aspects of Nabta Playa's monuments appear to demonstrate), it is also possible that archaeoastronomers are mistaken in their calculation of the number of years we would have to go back in order to get Orion to tilt as much as is depicted by the head-and-shoulders stones at Nabta Playa.

The reason their calculation may be off is the assumption inherent in their calculation, that the rate of change of tilt has been fairly constant throughout the vast procession of millennia stretching back to 4900 BC and (even further) to 16,500 BC.  If the rate of change was more rapid during some portion of the time between today and those ancient epochs, then calculations based on a fairly steady rate of change would yield an artificially earlier date than calculations that started with assumptions of (for example) an increasing rate of tilt the farther back in history one goes.

There is independent evidence, however, that the tilt of earth's axis relative to the plane of the ecliptic was once violently disturbed, after which its tilt recovered, and that the rate of recovery was faster immediately after the violent ancient disturbance, and has slowed down since then.  If this scenario is correct, then Nabta Playa, while still of extreme antiquity, might represent time periods slightly more recent than those calculated using formulas that do not take into account the more-extreme axial tilt of the earth in ancient times.

In his book presenting the hydroplate theory (the 9th edition of which is now available in its entirety for viewing online here), Dr. Walt Brown discusses the evidence compiled by professional astronomer George F. Dodwell over the course of his career.  In the chapter of his book entitled "The Hydroplate Theory: An Overview," Dr. Brown has a subsection entitled "Changing Axis Tilt" (located near the bottom of this page on his website) which explains:

George F. Dodwell served as the Government Astronomer for South Australia from 1909 to 1952. In the mid-1930s, he became interested in past changes in the tilt of the earth’s axis. He collected almost 100 astronomical measurements made over a 4,000-year period. Those measurements show that the tilt of the earth’s axis smoothly decayed from 25°10' to its present value of 23°27'. Based on the shape of the decay curve, Dodwell estimated that this axis shift began in about 2345 B.C.²⁸ 

George Dodwell's own manuscript discussing the extensive evidence he collected from history documenting this conclusion can be found online here, on the website of  Barry and Helen Setterfield.  It is fascinating reading, full of details from ancient records of the obliquity of earth's tilt with respect to the ecliptic plane, including records and monuments from ancient China, ancient Egypt, and from classical astronomers from ancient Greece up through the Middle Ages and into the modern period.  

One example given by Mr. Dodwell is the famous Temple at Karnak in the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes (a portion of which is pictured in the image above), where the rays of the rising sun would enter the long Hypostele Hall of the Temple of Amun-Ra once per year at the summer solstice.  The sun does not go far enough north in its annual migration between the solstice rising points to shine along the original axis of this hall today, and calculations based on a constant rate of change due to precession yield a date of initial design and construction that appears to be earlier than the epoch in which archaeologists believe the temple was designed and built.  Mr. Dodwell explains, however, that calculations which take into account the more extreme tilt and the rate of decay he found from ancient records and monument around the globe would yield a more consistent date.

The upshot of all his careful examination is the irresistible conclusion that the earth's tilt was much greater the further back in time one looks, such that the line of the tropics (the Tropic of Cancer and of Capricorn) came further north and further south of the equator in ancient times, and the northernmost and southernmost risings of the sun on the summer and winter solstices were further north and south along the eastern horizon than they are today.  A curve drawn through a graphing of the obliquity measurements throughout the centuries shows a decay curve indicating a massive force imparted an unusual and excessive tilt to earth's axis, which has been correcting since that time, with the rate of correction much faster in the centuries immediately after the catastrophe (whatever it was) and the rate of correction slowly and asymptotically approaching the current angle of tilt.  

In other words, if we project back in time without taking this curve into account, we will be unaware of the much more rapid rates of change that took place in ancient times, and our calculations will be in error.  This possibility is something that analysts of Nabta Playa should consider.  Nevertheless, Dr. Brophy is certainly to be commended for his incredible analysis of this relatively recently-discovered archaeological site, and the possibility that the site encodes knowledge of axial tilt that may have been made more severe and may have changed more rapidly due to an ancient catastrophe does nothing to take away from the amazing implications of the monuments in the desert at Nabta Playa.  In fact, the possibility only adds to its significance, in my opinion.

While George Dodwell believes that an ancient asteroid impact with earth might have been the violent force that knocked earth's axis out of kilter and from which the axis has been recovering ever since, Dr. Brown provides cogent arguments to reach a different conclusion.  Among Dr. Brown's arguments are problems with the asteroid theory, and the argument that if the hydroplate theory is correct, then the events surrounding the flood would have rapidly altered the balance of the earth (principally through the rapid pushing up of the earth's major mountain ranges, and especially the Himalayas).  

The rapid formation of the Himalayas, according to the principles of physics, would have led to "Earth's Big Roll," an event for which there appears to be extensive evidence around the world, including in the continent of Antarctica, in certain features under the Indian Ocean, and in areas of the far north in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (among other places on earth).  To review some of this amazing evidence please visit some of the previous posts on that topic, including:

• "Earth's Big Roll"
• "Antarctica"
• "Palm trees discovered in Antarctica!"
• "90° East Ridge"
• "Lake Vostok and the deep liquid lakes on Antarctica"
• "What was this large ancient river fish doing in Ellesmere Island?"
• "Mammoths and the Flood"
• "Titanosaurs? In Antarctica? (Moooo)"