What is Myth

What is myth?

--> Is myth a form of historical record? Perhaps a "euhemerized" version of history in which historical figures are transformed over time into mythological characters, and even into gods?

--> Or, is myth a remnant of humanity's "pre-scientific" attempts to understand and explain the natural world -- resorting to superstition because "science" was beyond their grasp?

--> Or, perhaps myth is an ancient form of the "opiate of the masses" (or "opiate of the people") -- an early and effective form of "mind control" designed to enslave, oppress, and subdue using belief.

In my latest video, "What is Myth," I explore this question and endeavor to demonstrate that myth is actually none of the above -- that all of the above explanations fall terribly short of the truth, and that the answer is so much bigger and more amazing than any of them (so big, in fact, that we cannot adequately get to the bottom of what myth really is).

Bless, and curse not: How Literalism Inverts the Message of the Ancient Myths & Scriptures

If the world's ancient myths, scriptures and sacred stories are conveying their message using a language of celestial metaphor, then attempting to interpret them as if they are speaking literally invites misinterpretation of their message.

In fact, I have often declared my opinion that literalistic interpretations of ancient scriptures which are not speaking literally actually invert the intended message of those ancient teachings. 

For example, in the preceding blog post, I said that:

Literalist Christianity, which inverts the esoteric message of the ancient scriptures by externalizing and "physicalizing" that message, has played an absolutely vital role (particularly in previous centuries, but continuing to play an important role to this day) in providing false justification for imperialism, feudalism, military conquest, and oppression.

In a new video, entitled "How Literalism Inverts the Message of the Ancient Myths & Scriptures," I provide some discussion and some examples which supports the assertion that literalistic attempts to interpret non-literal ancient myths not only risks missing their profound message, but can actually result in standing that message on its head, and reaching conclusions which are "180-degrees out" from the original message.

In this video, we visit the important subject of blessing versus cursing, and the emphasis placed on blessing and not cursing in the ancient scriptures of the so-called "Old" and "New" Testaments in what we call the Bible, noting that blessing versus cursing is also a central subject in other myths around the globe. We see that passages in the Bible repeatedly admonish us to bless and not to curse -- and, although outside the scope of this particular video, there are many episodes in the Biblical texts which dramatically illustrate this same lesson, such as the story of Balaam and the Ass, and the story of the Judgment of Solomon (see also the video entitled "The Blessing Mother, the Cursing Mother, the Dream and the King").

We then see how literalistic interpretations of ancient stories tends to externalize their message, which has often led in the past to conclusions that have been used to attempt to falsely justify racism, exploitation, oppression, and other forms of denying the inherent value and dignity of some men and women.

I'm convinced that this is a very important subject, because obviously "cursing" in the form of treating some people as though they are worth less than others -- which is a form of denying the divine spark which is inherently present in each and every man, woman and child and which naturally and irreversibly gives them infinite worth, such that no one is "worth less" than anyone else -- continues to this day and can be seen to inform the wars, exploitation, theft, and oppression that we see all around us right now, and which has informed imperialism, colonialism, and the enslavement of others in past centuries.

Empire of Lies

George Orwell declared: "Who controls the past controls the future."

The erasing of the past is a powerful weapon of control -- and one which is not restricted to fiction such as Nineteen Eighty Four or The Planet of the Apes (original 1967 film adaptation).

It is going on all around us, all the time. We are deliberately kept ignorant of critical truths regarding our ancient past, and of the events in the intervening centuries which have brought us to the point where we stand at this moment.

Deprivation of the knowledge of their own history renders populations unable to perceive what is actually going on in the present, and renders men and women unable to influence their future, or change its direction.

In his 2017 book J is for Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception, historian and economist Michael P. Hudson explains that history has been deliberately suppressed, and that vocabulary has been deliberately inverted in order to prevent the majority of the people from understanding what is going on.

To sketch out the thesis using extremely broad brush-strokes, Professor Hudson explains that the classical economists of the eighteenth century -- including Francois Quesnay in France and Adam Smith in Scotland -- sought "to free society from the rentier legacy of feudalism: a landlord class, predatory banking and the monopolies that bondholders convinced governments to create as means of paying off national war debts" (58 - 59). 

Feudalism in Europe was characterized by the receipt of wealth based on the labor of others, yielded up as ground rent from those who worked the land to those who owned the land, because their ancestors had conquered it (although instead of saying that this was the reason, literalist Christianity was invoked to argue that this arrangement was divinely ordained). Literalist Christianity was an essential component to the European feudal system, and in my 2014 book The Undying Stars I examine the abundant evidence that a new and virulent form of literalist Christianity was deliberately employed during the third century forward as a means of imposing such a system, in conjunction with the equally deliberate destruction of knowledge of the ancient gods and the ancient wisdom.

As Professor Hudson explains, this eighteenth- and nineteenth-century project of freeing society from the rentier legacy of feudalism gathered so much steam that by the close of the 1800s, the rentier interests, perceiving the threat, mounted a counteroffensive to contain it by teaching that there is no distinction between earned income and unearned income (rentier income), and by fraudulently co-opting the legacy of classical economists such as Adam Smith by claiming that the classical economists were seeking freedom for rentier interests (feudalism and its legacy), instead of freedom from those same feudalistic drains on the economy.

Professor Hudson writes: "Turning the tables on classical political economy, rentier interests act as plaintiffs against public regulation and taxation of their economic rents in contrast to Adam Smith and other classical liberals [ . . . ]" (167). While the classical economists (including Adam Smith) wanted an economy to be as free from rent-seeking as possible, those overturning classical economics preach "free markets" and "deregulation" in order to create markets that are free rent-seeking, monopolies, and the privatization of that which the classical economists perceived to be the gifts of nature which belong to all men and women ("the commons").

Neoliberalism, the paradigm embraced with very minor deviations by both major political parties in the united states (since at least 1980), is thus revealed by Professor Hudson to be a form of neo-feudalism, and should actually be called "anti-liberalism" or "anti-classical" economics (it is also associated with imperialism, colonialism, and neocolonialism), and its most odious and oppressive characteristics actually have nothing to do with socialism (despite what many people have been led to believe, who have never been taught about what the classical economic project of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was all about) and can in many cases be accurately described as fascistic.

Because this history has been obscured and suppressed, it is difficult for the majority of people to perceive the pattern in the momentous events which are taking place around us right now, and which continue to unfold as this is written.

However, because Professor Hudson has such a clear grasp of history, including the suppressed history of economic thought, he is uniquely able to provide insights into recent events, such as in the above interview published on April 6th entitled "The Economics behind the Skripal Poisoning" -- the written transcript of which can also be found in its entirety online here.

In that interview, Professor Hudson argues that the motivation behind the extremely suspicious Skripal incident, which was immediately blamed on Russia without any of the provisions which would be expected if "the rule of law" were actually honored the way those who like to claim that "the west" operates under the rule of law in contrast to the rest of the world, and which led to the mass expulsion of Russian diplomats by western nations including the united states, should be understood in light of the pattern of neo-feudalism described above.

Prominent British politicians declared that scientists had conclusively proven that Skripal and his daughter had been poisoned by a nerve agent more potent than the most potent nerve agent that I remember learning about during my eleven years as a regular army officer during the 1990s and early 2000s. Later, however, those politicians were embarrassed when no scientist would publicly back those definitive claims. See for example the arguments and linked evidence provided in this analysis by Professor Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research.

As that article (and the articles it cites) points out, the official story of the details of the poisoning have changed significantly, with the nerve agent being said to have been in the daughter's luggage, then in the father's BMW, and then on the doorknob and in the vicinity of the front door to Skripal's residence -- despite the fact that the Skripals were supposedly discovered in a mall, suffering from the effects of the nerve agent.

As some of those analysts and articles point out, if the nerve agent was on the door handle and in the vicinity of the front door of their residence, there is simply no way that the Skripals could have walked (or driven) to the mall before passing out. I was in the regular army of the united states during the 1990s, and I received formal training about the effects of various chemical weapons. As anyone else who was in the united states military during those years knows, we trained extensively to be able to put on a protective chemical mask within nine seconds from the moment of receiving any type of chemical alarm (immediately closing the eyes and mouth and not breathing until the mask was on and firmly sealed), because a nerve agent acts so quickly to disrupt the signals sent by the nervous system which control the vital functions on which our body depends for life.

We were required to memorize the effects and symptoms of a nerve agent, and they are not pleasant to contemplate. They involve the loss of control by the nervous system over the beating of the heart, the activity of the lungs, the control of the bladder and bowels, and this loss of control over heart and lungs will result in rapid death unless an antidote is administered immediately. We carried auto-injectors containing such antidotes, as well as the antidote to the antidotes (because the antidotes themselves are so toxic), and learned how to administer them to ourselves and to others if necessary.

Other symptoms include vomiting and inability to control the muscles.

If the Skripals were in fact exposed to an extremely advanced nerve agent at their front door, they would not have been found slumped over on a bench in the mall.

As Professor Hudson explains in his interview:

The United States when it wants to isolate a country traditionally accuses them of chemical warfare. This goes back to George Bush's accusation that Iraq had chemical weapons of mass destruction. We know that was a lie. It goes back to Obama's claim that Russia and Assad were using chemical weapons in Syria. So I think when they say that Russia or Assad or Iraq is using weapons that's part of to generate a fear that is supposed to be met by military preparedness and defense.

He also suggests that part of the purpose is to counter resistance to calls for European countries to give more of their GDP to fund NATO -- the history of which itself deserves very close scrutiny. I would argue that in order to see the "very big picture," we must understand the ancient origins of the tyrannical feudal system in Europe, against which the classical economists were trying to struggle during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The proponents and beneficiaries of that feudal system fought back against the project of the classical economists, most especially beginning during the second half of the nineteenth century, and the descendants of the beneficiaries of feudalism continue to do so in the neoliberalism (or neo-feudalism) we see today.

Russia, as a country which actually threw off the yoke of that feudal system with its revolution in 1917 (only to fall under the sway of an even worse system, after no other European state followed their example or made a move to help them), continues to be a special target of those western feudal (and imperialist, colonialist) powers. It might be suggested that the united states also fell into that category, although the united states must now be acknowledged to be a leader among the neoliberal imperialist western states and to be a proponent of neo-feudalism rather than an opponent of it.

In the interview above, Professor Hudson suggests that the looting of the former Soviet Union, and the privatization of its public infrastructure and its abundant natural resources, was an important goal of the neoliberal west after 1989 and in the decades following.

In his definition of "imperialism" found in J is for Junk Economics (which was published long before the Skripal affair and the other events of the past days and weeks), Professor Hudson argues that because "Wars drain gold, and force mother-country governments into debt to bondholders," use of other methods is usually preferred rather than open military conflict:

Modern imperialism is largely financial. Armies are no longer needed to appropriate foreign real estate, natural resources or public infrastructure. Financial dependency makes debtor countries subject to IMF and World Bank "conditionalities" imposing austerity that forces them to pay creditors by selling off their public domain. This transfers assets to the United States and other creditor powers, while avoiding overt colonialism's expensive military overhead. US diplomats seek to consolidate American financial power by sharing gains with local client oligarchies that remain in the dollarized financial system and adopt neoliberal Washington Consensus policies. 123.

However, he goes on to say:

Pinochet-style "regime change" is mounted against countries that try to protect their political and financial independence by creating or joining rival currency blocs and banking systems (e.g., Libya and Syria). But like militarized colonialism, monetary imperialism tends to overplay its hand. When US strategists imposed trade and financial sanctions against Russia and Iran to block their steps toward monetary autonomy, the effect was to drive them together with China and other BRICS countries to break free by creating their own trading and currency clearing area. 123-124.

Obviously, the same "Pinochet-style regime change" that was being attempted against Syria when Professor Hudson was writing that previous book is still going on to this day, and last night someone carried out a chemical attack with obvious parallels to the suspicious Skripal poisoning, parallels such as an immediate rush to judgment by the western neoliberal powers, nonstop and uncritical coverage by the controlled media outlets in a full-court press, a similar refusal to provide evidence or to pause to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation, not to mention a complete lack of rational motive by the alleged perpetrators, combined with an all-too-clear motive on the part of western powers in inflaming public opinion and justifying continued steps to gain access to the real estate, natural resources, and public infrastructure of the targeted country -- including military strikes or even invasion, if necessary.

What should be understood, but what is very difficult to understand when history has been deliberately suppressed, obscured, and altered, is that these latest developments are part of an extremely large and centuries-long pattern of imperialism and exploitation, stretching back at least to the adoption of literalist Christianity in the Roman Empire during the time of Constantine and his successors.

Literalist Christianity, which inverts the esoteric message of the ancient scriptures by externalizing and "physicalizing" that message, has played an absolutely vital role (particularly in previous centuries, but continuing to play an important role to this day) in providing false justification for imperialism, feudalism, military conquest, and oppression. Now, however, its influence diminished, literalist interpretation of ancient scripture is not enough to automatically guarantee support for military conquest abroad and austerity and neo-feudalism at home -- necessitating new mechanisms of manufacturing consensus or at least consent, including lies about chemical weapons.

All of these deceptions, however, are now wearing thin. The empire of deception is losing its ability to veil its crimes behind lies and platitudes, even with the full support of a complicit media.

As in the first film adaptation of the Planet of the Apes, at some point the evidence becomes so obvious that even Cornelius and Zira can see its implications, try as they might to "look the other way" and ignore those implications for as long as they can.

As we come to understand the past that has been hidden from us, this centuries-old Empire of Lies will be exposed. Those conspiring with that empire against the ancient wisdom given to all cultures of humanity should turn from collaborating against the gods and instead choose the course that lifts up  and elevates mankind -- every individual man, woman and child -- instead of trying to put them down to benefit just a few.

"The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice"

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

On this day fifty years ago, on Thursday the 4th of April, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was brutally murdered.

He was murdered one year to the day after giving his historic speech entitled "Beyond Vietnam," delivered on Tuesday the 4th of April, 1967. You can hear the speech in a video here.

There can be little doubt that the selection of this date for his assassination was deliberate.

On December 8th, 1999, a jury reached a unanimous verdict in a civil trial which commenced on November 15 of that same year. The unanimous verdict was that certain parties, including governmental agencies, participated in a conspiracy to murder Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The entire transcript of this momentous and tremendously important trial can be read online here. The evidence that is presented in the 2,735 pages of that historic document is absolutely shocking. Every man and woman around the world should take the time to become aware of what was revealed in that trial. 

Additional transcripts and interviews of witnesses, as well as other post-trial evidence and analysis, can be found in the 2016 book by the attorney for the King Family in that case (who spent decades researching and investigating the case), Dr. William F. Pepper, Esquire, entitled The Plot to Kill King: The Truth Behind the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

As William Pepper explains in one summary of what he calls "the broader conspiracy":

the conspiracy to kill Martin Luther King, Jr. extended well beyond Memphis, Tennessee, and, in fact, reached into the echelons of power at the nation's capitol. 179.

The extent of the operation, which included the deployment of military surveillance units, sniper units, photographers, and federal task forces, in addition to other official agencies below the federal level (including law enforcement) is staggering. The evidence of a well-coordinated cover-up, which included the murder of eye-witnesses after the assassination itself, is also stomach-turning.

Equally staggering are the implications of that multi-level conspiracy to murder Dr. King, and of the coordinated and ruthless cover-up.

If one takes the time to think about what this evidence means, the implications are enormous, for every man and woman on the planet (not only in the united states).

Just as revealing is the astonishing lack of attention that this evidence -- presented in a court and declared by unanimous decision to indicate a conspiracy by governmental agencies to kill Martin Luther King, Jr. -- has received in the eighteen years since that verdict was reached. 

To this day, the majority of the people of the united states are completely unaware of the evidence which came to light in that trial. The annual commemorations of the life and death of Martin Luther King, Jr. continue to repeat the standard narrative which blames the assassination on patsy James Earl Ray, despite the fact that the evidence presented in the trial, and additional evidence and confessions which came to light after the trial -- as well as the unanimous verdict of the trial itself -- completely demolishes the standard or "official" narrative. 

All of this evidence -- and the verdict itself -- are conveniently and deliberately ignored by the media. This fact is evidence of yet another conspiracy: the control of the media. The evidence for the control of the media -- and the willingness of the media to participate in what can only be labeled as outright propaganda -- is made completely clear by this case of the murder of Dr. King, and the persistent refusal of the media to report on the evidence from a case that took place in 1999 which absolutely destroys the narrative which the media continue to obediently present to the public.

Dr. William Pepper, the attorney who represented the King Family in the 1999 trial, explained how the media actively began suppressing and "spinning" the result of the trial almost as soon as the verdict was reached:

Within twenty-four hours, the mighty Wurlitzer of the powerful private and public interests involved was in full volume. Analytical pieces suddenly appeared criticizing the judge, the defense counsel, and the jury. The trial was diminished in importance, and journalists blandly asserted that nothing had changed. To counter the inevitable spins, the closing arguments and the summary of the plaintiffs' case went up on the website of the King Center (thekingcenter.org), and arrangements were made to put the entire transcript on the site. 

A leading publicist of the government's position and the official line, Gerald Posner, was everywhere at once. On one television show after another and with a nationally syndicated op piece, he insisted that the King family had been duped and that the trial was a farce. I was able to publish a strong rebuttal of his banal generalizations only in the Washington Post. The New York Times allowed me two hundred words to respond to a one-thousand-word piece by a former US attorney general.

What was ludicrous about all of the criticism was that none of the critics had attended the trial or heard the evidence. Of all the media professionals commenting on the case, only Wendell Stacey, the local Memphis anchorman, at the risk of his job, attended court every day. At the end, he repeatedly said he was totally convinced that the jury was right and that he had never been so ashamed of his profession.

Though the lockstep media conformity was expected by all of us, it was nevertheless sad to see it at work again. In the end, the predictable performance of the media had been heralded by the testimony of William Schapp [sic, although spelled "Schaap" in the court transcript linked above] as he laid out the practice of government manipulation and the use of media for propaganda purposes. The King assassination and the search for the truth were a national security matter, and as such the mass and reputable fringe media would be effectively controlled in all aspects of coverage. 208.

You can read the court testimony of William Schaap for yourself, beginning on page 1,558 of the linked transcript above. Mr. Schaap's credentials are presented for the court record on page 1,559 and include being a practicing lawyer and graduate of University of Chicago Law School, practicing law since 1964, specializing since the 1970s in military law, practicing military law in Asia and Europe and serving as editor in chief of the Military Law Reporter in Washington, as well as acting as staff counsel for the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City, and as a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of CUNY.

William Pepper summarizes some of what William Schaap revealed in his testimony: 

Half a day was occupied with the testimony of attorney William Schaap, who we qualified as an expert on government use of the media for disinformation and propaganda purposes. After providing the jury with a survey of these practices by governments throughout history in a detailed question and answer exchange, Schaap introduced the court to these practices of the United States government in other cases, or issues, where intelligence and/or national security interest were believed to be involved. A number of examples were cited. One, for example, involved a CIA propaganda story that was spread all over the world and widely believed for four years [ . . . ]. In fact none of the above was true. The story was revealed by the agent who promulgated it to be false and to have been totally concocted at the CIA station in Zaire and disseminated through the extensive worldwide agency network. Schaap revealed that his research clearly indicated that the agency alone -- not to mention its counterparts in the rest of the American intelligence community -- owned or controlled some 2,500 media entities all over the world. In addition, it had its people, ranging from stringers to highly viable journalists and editors, in virtually every major media organization. As we had seen and were indeed experiencing every day of the trial, this inevitably resulted in the suppression or distortion of sensitive stories and the planting and dissemination of disinformation. 185 - 186.

Everyone should take the time to read that summary several times until its implications can be absorbed. Indeed, it might even be best to copy it out by hand, in order to prevent the brain from skimming over it in order to avoid the implications of what is being explained. Then, take the time to read Mr. Schaap's testimony in the 1999 trial. The fact that the media has completely suppressed and refused to report on the evidence presented in that trial, and the verdict that was reached, is very powerful evidence indeed that exactly what is being alleged above ("the suppression or distortion of sensitive stories and the planting and dissemination of disinformation") is taking place to this day.

Nevertheless, the majority of the men and women in the united states (and perhaps in other countries as well) continue to believe that nothing is true unless it is repeated to them by the authority-figures in the media.

I highly recommend that everyone who has not yet done so also take the time to listen to some of the interviews that Dr. William Pepper has given since the publication of the above-linked book, which are available on YouTube and on numerous podcasts. Two of those are linked in this previous post. Others can be found by searching for William Pepper on YouTube or on podcast directories such as iTunes and others.

In his speech "Beyond Vietnam," delivered on this day fifty-one years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King said these famous words, which point to the reason that he titled the speech beyond Vietnam, because the issues he addressed went even beyond the issue of that particular war:

There is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter that struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. [. . . ] 

In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past 10 years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of US military "advisors" in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. [ . . . ]

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of value will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.

Fifty-one years later, we can all see how perceptive Dr. King's words were in that speech delivered in 1967, and how applicable they remain to this day (in part because Martin Luther King was deliberately silenced by forces who did not want that "far deeper malady within the American spirit" to be addressed in the way that Dr. King was addressing it).

One day after the verdict was delivered on December the 8th, 1999, the late Coretta Scott King and her children gave statements regarding the momentous trial and the evidence that was presented and the decision that was reached. Their statements deserve to be read in full, not only for their own sake but also because the controlled media has been allowed to use all its considerable powers to try to drown out the real message of what that verdict and that trial really tell us. 

Coretta Scott King and her children gave their statements regarding the message of that trial and the evidence it presented and the verdict that was delivered. Trasncripts of those statements can be found, in their entirety, online here.

Coretta Scott King said, in part:

As we pursued this case, some wondered why we would spend the time and energy addressing such a painful part of the past. For both our family and the nation, the short answer is that we had to get involved because the system did not work. Those who are responsible for the assassination were not held to account for their involvement. This verdict, therefore, is a great victory for justice and truth. It has been a difficult and painful experience to revisit this tragedy, but we felt we had an obligation to do everything in tour power to seek the truth. Not only for the peace of mind of our family but also bring closure and healing to the nation. We have done what we can to reveal the truth, and we now urge you as members of the media, and we call upon elected officials, and other persons of influence to do what they can to share the revelation of this case to the widest possible audience.

She also said:

My husband once said, "The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Those who continue to suppress the truth of what took place on this day in 1968 -- and to suppress the truths that came to light in the 1999 trial -- are placing themselves on the wrong side of that moral arc of the universe, and on the wrong side of the justice of which Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King spoke and for which they fought.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (and many others) fearlessly pursued aggressive nonviolent action in service to justice and truth and the inherent human dignity possessed as a birthright by each and every man, woman and child. It is our responsibility to continue their struggle, knowing that these principles are indeed aligned with the justice which originates from a realm beyond this material realm, and that this justice cannot be delayed forever.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The same ancient and profound worldwide system

images: Wikimedia commons link 1; link 2; link 3.

The following is the introductory section of the chapter entitled "The Easter Cycle, part two," from Star Myths of the World, Volume Three (Star Myths of the Bible). The preceding chapter, entitled "The Easter Cycle, part one," examined the celestial foundations for many of the events of Holy Week described in the gospel accounts, such as the triumphal entry, the encounter with Zacchaeus, the cleansing or scourging of the Temple, the encounter with the fig tree, the upper room and the Last Supper, and the discussion of the betrayal by Judas which takes place over the table. The following chapter, from which the passage below is the introduction, deals with the events beginning with the Garden of Gethsemane and afterwards:

We arrive at last at the climactic events of the New Testament -- the arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus.

For centuries, these events have been regarded with the highest reverence and imbued with the deepest sense of awe and wonder by those who belong to the many families of Christian faith -- and I agree these stories (as with all sacred myths of all cultures) should be regarded with deep reverence. These sacred passages describe events having to do with some of the most profound spiritual concepts conceivable, and they do so in a way which is filled with both power and pathos.

However, I believe that these same profound and sacred concepts should be acknowledged to be present at the heart of all of the myths and ancient stories around the world, all of which employ the same celestial system to convey deep truths about ourselves, our cosmos, and the spiritual-divine realm which touches them both at every single point -- and about the unlimited God with whom we have to do.

It is today difficult to appreciate the awe and the reverence that the very similar events in the cycle describing the neteru Isis and Osiris generated within the hearts of those living in a culture steeped in the sacred myths and rituals of ancient Egypt, and who had grown up from their earliest days knowing and imbibing them both consciously and unconsciously. Or, try to understand the awe and the reverence that the cycle of annual movement and ritual and sacred tradition centered around Inyan Kaga in the sacred Paha Sapa / kHe Sapa, and the Sacred Hoop formed by the surrounding terrain features and mirroring the stars and constellations of the heavens, generates within the hearts of those still connected to the way of the Lakota and Dakota and described in the words of Black Elk and others who have expressed these things.

But it can, I believe, be conclusively demonstrated that the cycle of the casting down of Osiris and the Djed, and the raising back up of the same Djed, creates the same Sacred Hoop symbol, the same Great Cross (with the cast-down Djed forming the horizontal bar, and the raised-up Djed forming the vertical column) which is revered by the cultures of the Native Americans and which also forms the central features of the climactic gospel stories of the crucifixion and the humiliation and subsequent resurrection of the Christ -- gospel stories which are also built upon the silent motions of the stars, and which thus point to our connection to our planet and our universe, and our connection to all other people, and animals, and even inanimate things.

The world's myths employ externally different, apparently different, sacred metaphors and stories and symbols, but at their heart they can all be shown to be using the same ancient and profound worldwide celestial system, handed down to our ancestors at some now-forgotten and very ancient point in time (or taught to them by powers from another realm -- perhaps brought back to this realm by those who had learned how to go to and return from the Other World).

All those who have felt the power and awe which are generated by any of these sacred stories of humanity -- including the stories of the Easter cycle -- should acknowledge and respect the world's other sacred traditions which contain and convey the same sacred truths, even if they do so in different ways or from slightly different angles or perspectives.

And it is unfortunately yet undeniably true that the message can be misinterpreted or twisted, either intentionally or unintentionally, to say something almost completely the opposite of what was perhaps intended by the myths -- and I believe that this possibility is greatly increased if we do not listen to them in the "language" in which they are speaking, which is a spiritual language, an esoteric language, and a celestial language. 

The discussion of the Easter cycle events in this book is offered in that spirit and with hope of furthering our understanding of that language, so that the truth of our connection will be seen, and so we can be more able and willing to stand against actions and policies that divide or harm or oppress (using lies as their cover). [pages 680 - 682]