Friday, August 30, 2019

Public service announcement: Beware of Disconnection Syndrome ! ! !



I would strongly suggest everyone who is living in a culture where the "modern western diet" is prevalent (and this includes more and more people in more and more countries around the world, as traditional diets are systematically eradicated in what almost appears to be a coordinated campaign of conquest) take the time to become familiar with the research and analysis offered by David Perlmutter, MD, a board-certified neurologist -- as well as investigating the research of other doctors who have arrived at some similar conclusions as those reached by Dr. Perlmutter.

Dr. Perlmutter's 2013 book Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar -- Your Brain's Silent Killers is one which had been sitting on my bookshelf for a few years without actually being read, but after hearing a recent interview on The Higherside Chats with Dr. Stephen Hussey (posted on May 19 of this year, but one which I only just recently got around to playing -- you can find that interview here on the THC website) and hearing Dr. Hussey's arguments that many serious cardiovascular problems are caused not by consumption of fat and cholesterol but rather by inflammation which is caused by consumption of sugars and carbohydrates (carbohydrates themselves being long chains of sugar), an argument I had heard elsewhere over the years but had not given enough attention, I remembered Dr. Perlmutter's book and decided to crack it open.

I will now repeat what I said above: I would strongly recommend that everyone read Dr. Perlmutter's book from start to finish, and carefully consider the evidence, arguments and analysis presented in that book. Whether you agree with his conclusions or not is up to you to decide for yourself, of course, but his arguments and the evidence he presents to back up his conclusions are extremely compelling.

If you cannot or don't want to take the time to read through his arguments in the book itself (which again, I would very strongly recommend), you can also listen to some of his many interviews or watch them on YouTube, such as the interview embedded above (and you can easily find many more interviews simply by searching any podcast service for his name). However, I would argue for reading the book (I have absolutely no connection to Dr. Perlmutter or his publishing company and receive no compensation of any sort for saying so -- I am publishing this recommendation as a sort of "public service announcement" because this subject is vitally important to everyone faced with the food choices prevalent in the "modern western diet," which is to say just about everyone within range of this blog post).

In his book, Dr. Perlmutter explains that in the united states, the typical diet has changed drastically since the beginning of the 20th century -- and that in the years following World War II these changes accelerated dramatically, particularly with the widespread proliferation of the so-called "lipid hypothesis" (blaming cardiovascular disease on the consumption of animal fat) and the initiation in 1956 of a campaign by the American Heart Association to push what they called the "prudent diet,"
which called for replacing butter, lard, eggs and beef with margarine, corn oil, chicken, and cold cereal. By the 1970s, the lipid hypothesis had become well established. At the heart of this hypothesis was the unyielding claim that cholesterol caused coronary artery disease. 83.
Dr. Perlmutter points out that despite numerous studies contradicting this dogma, it continues to be taught. He writes that,
Even though the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has since converted its food guide from a pyramid to a plate, it still communicates the idea that "fat is bad" and "carbs are good." In fact, the new "My Plate" doesn't feature fats at all, making it very confusing for consumers to know how fats fit into a healthy diet, and which kind. 83.
As you will see if you read his book, there is overwhelming evidence which argues that sugars and carbohydrates can cause the body to initiate immune responses leading to inflammation, and that subjecting the body to inflammation can eventually cause horrific damage to organs including the brain. Gluten in particular receives a chapter of its own in which Dr. Perlmutter explains that consumption of gluten can trigger elevated levels of antibodies even in individuals who do not think that they are "gluten intolerant" -- resulting in the body's production of "inflammatory cytokine chemicals" which "are highly antagonistic to the brain" (52) and can be causing damage even though the individual experiences no negative physical reactions in the gut the way that others who are "gluten intolerant" do experience when they consume foods containing gluten.

Dr. Perlmutter explains that:
[. . .] we may all be sensitive to gluten from a neurological standpoint. We just don't know it yet because there are no outward signs or clues to a problem happening deep within the quiet confines of our nervous system and brain. Remember, at the heart of virtually every disorder and disease is inflammation. When we introduce anything to the body that triggers and inflammatory response, we set ourselves up for taking on much greater risk for a medley of health challenges, from chronic daily nuisances like headaches and brain fog to serious ailments such as depression and Alzheimer's. We can even make a case for linking gluten sensitivity with some of the most mysterious brain disorders that have eluded doctors for millennia, such as schizophrenia, epilepsy, depression, bipolar disorder, and, more recently, autism and ADHD. 61.
He also explains that because gluten has properties that make it useful in creating processed foods ,and also has the effect of stimulating pleasure receptors in the brain, grains have been deliberately altered in the decades since World War II in order to produce new types of gluten -- and that these types of gluten appear to be far more likely to produce harmful immune response than the foods of previous centuries. He writes, "Modern food manufacturing, including bio-engineering and specifically hybridization, have allowed us to grow structurally-modified grains that contain gluten that's less tolerable than the gluten that's found in grains cultivated just a few decades ago" (63).

While at first glance, this subject may seem to have little to do with the primary focus of this blog, the issues to which Dr. Perlmutter is trying to alert the world clearly involve a disconnection from traditional knowledge and indeed from nature itself, a theme which is also central to the systematic overthrow of our connection to the ancient wisdom given to every culture on the planet in the form of the ancient myths and sacred traditions contained in what Dr. Peter Kingsley refers to as the "original instructions" which have been eradicated in much the same way.

This disconnection (in both cases) is a disconnection from the source of life itself -- and my research and writings are aimed at fostering a reconnection with the wisdom given to us in those original instructions, in part through greater understanding of the language which the ancient myths use to convey their message, which is a metaphorical language based on the constellations and heavenly cycles (deliberately denied and suppressed by literalism and especially by literalist Christianity).

This post is not intended to suggest in any way that Dr. Perlmutter knows of or would agree with my writings and conclusions. However, in the interview linked and embedded above, beginning at about the 0:16:36 mark in the video, he makes the following statement, which is also worthy of careful consideration:
We need to reconnect with ourselves, our neighbors, our communities, other countries and reconnect with the planet -- so, on multiple levels we're suffering from "disconnection syndrome" [. . .]. Our ancestors were deeply connected to the signals of the planet, to the signals of their body, to the signals of the seasonality of their lifestyle choices. And modern life is really very much disconnected.  And it's not just because it's figurative. It's really quite literal that these reconnections are salubrious, meaning: when we reconnect to the diurnal cycle of the day, and go to sleep when it's dark, and darken our rooms, and get restorative sleep. When we reconnect to seasonality in terms of our food choices: these are all important reconnections to chronobiology -- the way our bodies are designed to respond to the rising of the moon, the setting of the sun, and the seasons as well. So a lot of what we're recognizing is the importance of that. You know, it's beyond poetic.
Note that in this passage, you have just heard a modern board-certified neurologist confirm for you, in case you had any doubt, that our bodies are connected to the rhythms of the heavenly cycles, including the rising of the moon.

Today marks a New Moon, a fact of which I hope you were already aware, if you have been paying attention to the heavenly cycles including the cycle of the moon (and if you haven't been thus far, you just heard a well-respected doctor and a leader in his field confirm to you that you should be!).

I strongly recommend reading the arguments presented by Dr. Perlmutter in his book, which go far beyond the very limited summary introduction I've provided above, and considering them very carefully, along with the arguments of other doctors and researchers who have arrived at similar conclusions. Our diet is only a part of the "disconnection syndrome" that Dr. Perlmutter describes in the passage cited above -- but it is an extremely important part of it, and one which obviously carries with it tremendous consequences, and one in which the "conventional wisdom" continues to push a very dubious and perhaps extremely harmful paradigm, in spite of the overwhelming evidence suggesting that that paradigm is dangerously flawed.

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Brand-new article on myths and the paradigm of humanity's ancient history published at Lost Origins



I've just published a brand-new article discussing the worldwide connection between the myths and the stars over at the equally brand-new "Media Rabbit Hole" section of Lost Origins, a terrific podcast hosted by Andrew Tuzson and Christopher "CK" Kingsley focusing on ancient mysteries, alternative historical theories, and lost civilizations.

The article is entitled "Myths and our Lost Origins" and argues that the evidence from myth puts unsustainable pressure on the conventional paradigm of humanity's ancient history such that the conventional paradigm will eventually have to be abandoned. 

This mythological evidence is undeniable and overwhelmingly abundant -- so abundant, in fact, that I have filled many books totaling thousands of pages exploring this evidence, and yet I readily admit that I have only just barely scratched the surface of the evidence which is available.

As this new article explains, the evidence from myth constitutes a compelling category of evidence which stands alongside all of the evidence found in archaeological sites around the world which also put irresistible pressure on the conventional paradigm of humanity's ancient past -- a conventional paradigm which is clearly so flawed that it will have to be completely replaced by a new paradigm capable of explaining the evidence which continues to mount and which cannot be ignored or dismissed forever by the present entrenched guardians of orthodoxy:
That the conventional paradigm of humanity's ancient history is gravely flawed and in need of radical revision is indicated by overwhelming evidence found around the world, documented for decades now by authors such as John Anthony West, Robert Schoch, Graham Hancock, and many others, but without acknowledgement (let alone acceptance) by the keepers of that conventional paradigm (primarily in academia). 
Those authors rightly point out that several of the individual pieces of evidence from antiquity would in and of themselves be sufficient to reveal that the standard academic paradigm of human history is untenable -- and taken in their entirety, when adding all the individual examples found literally around the globe, the weight of the evidence crushes that conventional paradigm completely . . . 
Click here to read the entire article exploring "Myths and our Lost Origins" over at the Lost Origins website.
I've had the opportunity to have terrific conversations with the Lost Origins team twice before, in podcasts recorded on June 10, 2019 (discussed here with links to the downloadable file) and on April 23, 2016 (discussed here with links to the downloadable file). 

Additionally, Andrew and CK will be present at the 11th Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge, coming up in just over one month in Newport Beach, California -- I am looking forward to seeing them there! They just published a new interview with Walter Cruttenden, the founder and original organizer of the conference itself, which is always well worth attending if you are able to do so. If you do come to this year's CPAK, be sure to find Andrew and CK and tell them how much you appreciate the important work they are doing to promote the work of authors and researchers exploring these subjects.

I hope you will enjoy this new article and the examples and evidence which it brings together in one place, and share it with friends and family (and stubborn academics!) -- and I hope to see you at this year's Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge, along with the Lost Origins team!


Friday, August 16, 2019

Brothers of the Serpent epic Star Myth extravaganza!



I recently caught up with the Brothers of the Serpent for an epic discussion of the stars, the myths, and the overwhelming evidence that the conventional paradigm of human history is gravely flawed and in need of radical revision. 

This was a video interview with Russ and Kyle Allen of the Brothers of the Serpent podcast -- you can see the video above or by following this link (and consider subscribing to their YouTube channel in order to be notified of future episodes as soon as they are published). Also present on the interview was their ever-present companion, the Watcher, who participated in the conversation with some insightful questions.

Our interview was recorded on August 14, 2019 and not very long into the interview a sudden violent thunderstorm rolled through the Texas hill-country where Russ and Kyle broadcast from their "Ten-by-Ten-by-Ten Tangent Cube of Science" and knocked out their internet connection for about an hour (coincidentally, or not, just as we were discussing "Earth's Big Roll" which may explain paradigm-shifting fossil discoveries on that mysterious continent). Therefore, the interview in the video above is divided into "before the thunderstorm" (up until about 0:38:00 in the video feed) and "after the thunderstorm" (beginning at about 0:38:00) and there is no actual "video" (only audio) until you reach the thirty-eight minute mark in the video.

If you want to download the audio file of the conversation, you can find it on the Brothers of the Serpent page on iTunes, as well as on many other podcast "catchers" on the web.

Kyle and Russ have obviously been seriously researching the subjects of pyramids, cataclysms, ancient cultures, and the amazing treasure of wisdom recorded in humanity's ancient myths and scriptures for many years, which led to some terrific discussion and brought out some new perspectives that haven't surfaced in previous podcast interviews -- I know you will enjoy the conversation, as well as Russ and Kyle's insights and sense of humor (and frequent infectious laughter which is a feature on all of their 108 previous podcast episodes as well)!

The Brothers of the Serpent team will be co-hosting the upcoming Grimerica Contact at the Cabin 2020 at Bryce and Zion Canyons in Utah this coming April. If you would like to participate in that event, which will also of course feature Darren and Graham of Grimerica along with certified Wim Hof Method trainer Brandon Powell, along with star gazing and ancient myth discussions, be sure to reserve your space soon, because the event is selling out fast.

Welcome to every new visitor who found their way here due to hearing the Brothers of the Serpent podcast or watching the video! Hope you will visit again soon.

Links to some previous blog posts on subjects that we touched on during this conversation, for those who want to explore further, include:

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Welcome to new visitors from Lighting the Void! And to returning friends



Big thank-you to Joe Rupe for inviting me back to the Lighting the Void podcast for another memorable conversation about the stars, the ancient myths, and the message they have for us in this very present moment.

Above is an embedded YouTube 'video' of our conversation (it was an audio-only conversation), and you can download the audio file of this episode by visiting the Lighting the Void page on iTunes, or any number of other podcast catchers and podcast distribution sites.

Welcome to any new visitors to this blog who learned about my research via this conversation with Joe! 

Please visit my primary website about the Star Myths of the World at starmythworld.com where you will find links to other podcast conversations, videos that I've made about the connection between the ancient myths and the stars, descriptions of all my books to date along with sample content from each of them (and a link to purchase signed copies if interested, or consult your favorite local bookstore), a link to a variety of "resources" which can be found at the bottom of every page on the site, and of course a fully-searchable blog which at this point is fast approaching 1,200 posts for you to explore!

I hope you will enjoy our conversation. During the talk, we also discussed two exciting upcoming events: the Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge which is coming up in less than two months in October of 2019 in Newport Beach, California, and the Contact at the Cabin event hosted by the team at Grimerica in April of 2020 in between Bryce Canyon and Zion Canyon National Parks in Utah.

Note that if you would like to register for the Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge, you can enter my last name MATHISEN in the window that says "Enter a Discount Code" on this CPAK registration page and receive $50 off the regular price of attending this three-day seminar.

During this most-recent conversation on Lighting the Void, Joe and I touched on the following subjects -- below are links to some previous blog posts which contain further discussion for those interested in reading or seeing more:

Saturday, August 10, 2019

The Stars: An Extremely Ancient Way to See Them



Above is a new video I've just published entitled "The Stars: An Extremely Ancient Way to See Them," exploring the connections between the constellations and the world's ancient myths.

The video presents evidence using some ancient artwork which regular visitors to this blog and my other videos may have seen before -- because it is one of my favorite examples and is very hard to refute -- but also presents some new angles which I have not discussed before in previous videos or blog posts.

As a special bonus, this video deals with an extremely mythologically-important region of the night sky: the region containing the constellations Sagittarius, Scorpio, Ophiuchus, and the brightest portion of the great Milky Way band -- including the brightest and widest portion of the entire Milky Way, thought by astronomers to be our galaxy's central core. This particular time of year is one of the best times of year to go outside and view these constellations in person for yourself, if it is at all possible for you to do so.

Sagittarius and Scorpio (as well as Ophiuchus above, and the Galactic Core in between) are now wheeling across the sky along the highest part of their arcing path during the hours after sunset and up through midnight and beyond, for viewers in the northern hemisphere.

I hope you will enjoy my latest video and share it with friends and family members who may find this information to be valuable in their own lives. 

Also, everyone interested is encouraged to subscribe to the YouTube channel in order to be notified whenever I post a new video!

Thanks for watching.

Thursday, August 1, 2019

Naga Panchami



Earth, Moon and Sun have just passed through the point of their relationship which creates a New Moon, when the orbit of the Moon passes between Earth and Sun. This positioning occurred on July 31 at 8:11 pm Pacific (or 11:11 pm Eastern) in North America, although if you leave your clocks or your wristwatch on standard time as I do, instead of changing to the artificial and unhelpful "daylight saving time" during the summer half of the year, then those times would be one hour "later" on the clock dial.

The Moon will now return, initially as a very thin sliver just east of the setting Sun, and moving farther east every day, growing ever thicker or "more full" as it does so (also described as "waxing"). Many traditional celebrations in the world's cultures are observed based on lunar calendars and specific days within this lunar cycle -- including the upcoming observance of Naga Panchami which originates in India and commemorates episodes and mythical figures described in ancient Sanskrit texts including the Puranas and the Mahabharata.

While some authorities feel the need to argue that the characters and events described in the ancient Sanskrit scriptures have their origins in literal and terrestrial historical events and figures, I have found abundant evidence to conclude that they are entirely celestial and metaphorical in their conception, at least as recorded in the ancient texts, and that in this regard they are closely related to virtually all of the world's other ancient myths and scriptures, including characters and events described in the scriptures of the Bible, and that indeed they are all using the same consistent world-wide system (itself probably originating in some now-forgotten culture of great spiritual sophistication which long predates even the most ancient cultures known to conventional history, including the cultures of ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, which themselves can also be shown to be using this system in myths and references found in the earliest texts known to us at this time).

Above is a new video I've just created entitled "Naga Panchami: celestial foundations," which explores some of the celestial foundations for those characters and events described in the Mahabharata and Puranas which relate to this annual festival.

** Note: I received some feedback that the sound was difficult to hear in the first edition of the video, so I recorded it all over again -- you can see the new version embedded below this post or by following this link **

Naga Panchami is celebrated in the fifth day after the New Moon during the lunar month of Shravana (that is to say, on the fifth day after the New Moon which just happened), which this year will fall on the 5th of August.

The name of this traditional day of worship and ritual derives from the Sanskrit word Naga which designates the great cobra serpents (who themselves rule an entire realm in the cosmos and who are sentient and very powerful, in some circumstances being benevolent to humanity and in some circumstances antagonistic) and the word Panchami, which designates the fifth day within either half of a lunar month in the Hindu lunar calendar.

On Naga Panchami, live cobras and effigies of cobras (Nagas) are worshipped, adorned with garlands, and anointed with milk. Additionally, in some areas, ant-hills are similarly adorned and decorated and milk is poured down their ant-holes in order to anoint the serpents thought to dwell within such mounds. 

As you will see in the above video, these practices -- and the ancient myths upon which they are founded -- can be clearly seen to be based on celestial metaphor which resonates with myths from other cultures around the globe. The ant-hill connection is particularly intriguing because in my most recent book, The Ancient World-Wide System, I discuss myths involving ant-hills and termite mounds which relate directly to characters and events found in the origin myths for the Naga Panchami worship (see especially the incidents related on pages 42 - 43 and pages 768 - 770 of The Ancient World-Wide System), and the evidence which relates these episodes directly to the constellations Ophiuchus and Scorpio, just as here in the Naga Panchami origin stories.

Thus, the observation of the ancient tradition of Naga Panchami provides us with yet another window into the world-wide connection between the myths and the stars, and their connection to our own lives and the rhythm of great natural cycles, as well as adding still further evidence to the already-enormous pile of evidence which points to the undeniable conclusion that the world's myths are based on celestial metaphor.

As I have been saying more and more in recent videos and writings, I am convinced that one of the central purposes of these ancient myths is to point us towards the reconnection with our own essential Self, from whom we become estranged and alienated during our "downward plunge" into this world and all of its entanglements and complications (akin to the setting of the stars and other heavenly spheres into the western horizon). One aspect of our recovery of the Self relates to the theme of "blessing versus cursing," which can be seen to be very central in many ancient traditions (including in the Biblical scriptures found in both the Old and New Testaments, so-called) -- and the mythical events and figures commemorated in the Naga Panchami observation clearly center around this theme.

I hope that you will find the subjects discussed in the new video above to be helpful in your own journey. It may be beneficial to contemplate these ideas with special intent on the upcoming day of Naga Panchami.