The vitally important work of Christopher Knowles, and the power and wisdom of the stars

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

In my opinion, Christopher Knowles is one of the most important authors and researchers exploring the abundant signs of esoteric symbolism in pop culture and the media, and the evidence of the ongoing practice of ritual magic by certain groups wishing to influence events on the world stage -- and behind the scenes.

In his work, he finds and unravels numerous interlocking threads which indicate application of ancient wisdom, incorporating ancient myths and ancient gods -- and references to specific constellations. 

To summarize and begin to explore the amount of evidence of such ongoing ritual magic, which he has documented in his long-running blog entitled The Secret Sun Speaks, would take an entire book (if not a multi-volume series). The interested reader is advised to examine the extensive writings of Chris Knowles at that blog as well as in his published books, and listen to his numerous interviews on podcasts over the past several years.  

I have previously referenced some of these in blog posts such as this one and this one.

The subjects Chris Knowles explores are numerous and wide-ranging -- and yet intertwined -- and include the the ancient Mysteries (or mysteria), the continuing importance (and power) of the ancient gods and beliefs, the ongoing importance of the ancient cult of Mithras, the deliberate infliction of trauma upon men, women and children in our society, and the evidence that intelligence agencies are active participants in the mix of topics that he is investigating: all subjects which I also touch upon in my own research and writing in certain places.

However, if I were to attempt to summarize what I see as the heart of what Chris has been exploring, I would express it in terms that include his discovery and discussion of the undeniable evidence that certain powerful groups and individuals have been deliberately practicing ritual magic (continuing to this day) in order to invite powerful forces from the Other Realm to enact change in our reality -- and the even more disturbing evidence that the Other Realm is answering in response, in ways which appear to defy explanation by even the most "conspiratorial" human agency.

Some of the most compelling evidence that Chris Knowles has described can be referenced under the heading of the "Song to the Siren," in which he details evidence of a pattern of deaths and recurring allusions which connect to ancient myths involving Sirens -- alluring mythical monsters encountered for example by Odysseus in Book 12 of the Odyssey: their irresistible song lures sailors to their death.

Chris shows that these strange, water-related (and "Siren-related") deaths fit a pattern which suggests ongoing occult ritual including human sacrifice to influence the unseen realm -- or perhaps caused by forces from the unseen realm. For an explanation of the patterns that he has uncovered, see the blog posts linked above, which contain interviews with Chris on podcasts including two from the Higherside Chats podcast, all from 2017.

The amount of connections that he details is amazing, and defies explanation by "mere coincidence." What's more, many of the connections appear to relate to songs by a specific singer with a Siren-like voice, songs with titles that appear to be prophetic in remarkable ways, or which were released on dates which later became significant in the web of intertwined threads which Chris has been exploring with his work.

Chris explains that the pattern of the Siren relates to very ancient myths, often myths involving the seduction and destruction of young men who fit the description of a "shepherd-boy," including the pattern of Inanna and Dumuzid (discussed in the conclusion of my most-recent book, Myth and Trauma) or the pattern of Aphrodite and Adonis (also known as Venus and Adonis) from the myths of Ancient Greece and Rome. 

We can see this same pattern emerging in ancient accounts of the Sirens who haunt lonely cliffs along the sea and who lure sailors to their doom with their irresistible Song of the Siren. 

For example, in ancient myths involving the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts, the ship Argo and its illustrious crew sail past the rocky home of the Sirens, where the singing would have surely drawn them in, had Orpheus (one of the heroes who sailed with Jason on his quest) not taken out his famous lyre and sung so winningly that he succeeded in keeping the other Argonauts from steering the ship into the rocks to join the Sirens -- all but one member of the crew, named Boutes or Butes, who could not stop himself from leaping into the sea and swimming with all his might towards the Sirens.

The ancient mythographers tell us that Boutes would most certainly have perished in that encounter, had not the very goddess of love and beauty herself, Cyprian Aphrodite, had pity upon the wayward Boutes and rescued him from the waves, after which one ancient source tells us, "having saved his life, she took him to her heart, and found a home for him on the heights of Lilybaion" (Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica Book 4).

Those who know their constellations should recognize that the very name of this smitten sailor, who could not resist flinging himself overboard into the sea to try and join the Sirens, is linguistically nearly identical to the name of the constellation Boötes, or the Herdsman -- thus showing that the pattern of the Siren seducing the shepherd and luring him to his destruction is present in this ancient myth (among many others).

Intriguingly, the mysterious figure of the Siren can be identified with a constellation in the night sky as well, and one which plays an absolutely critical role in the world's ancient myths. The figure of the Siren is sometimes (although definitely not always, as discussed below) associated with the mythical Mermaid, human from the waist up and fish-like from the waist down -- sometimes having one tail, and sometimes envisioned as having two fishy tails.

What figure in the night sky could have a human torso and a fish-like tail -- or two fish-like tails?

As it happens, this is a pattern we encounter in myths over and over -- see for instance the discussion of the identity and description of the powerful monster Typhon (examined in Myth and Trauma, pages 80 through 100), or of the Matsya avatar of Vishnu in the ancient Vedic myths of India (examined in The Ancient World-Wide System, on pages 614 - 618). The celestial foundations of these fish-tailed entities are explored in both books, and in both cases are found to relate to the same important constellation.

We have also encountered the same pattern in a previous examination of the wrestling-match between Heracles and Triton, depicted on many surviving pieces of ancient pottery, including this beautiful hydria (or "water-jar") which I saw on display in Boston's Museum of Fine Art and which I discussed in this previous post from 2016. Once again, my analysis suggests that the same constellation plays the role of the fish-tailed entity in that mythical episode as well.

Thus, it should come as no surprise to find evidence that the figure of the Siren can be seen to be associated, at least in many instances, with the very same constellation in the heavens: the towering figure of the constellation Ophiuchus.

Ophiuchus is an extraordinarily important figure in the world's ancient myths, as I have come to realize after examining literally hundreds of them and seeing in how many of them Ophiuchus plays a pivotal role. In the case of the figure of the Siren, as well as other mythical entities with one or sometimes two fish-like tails, we can see the foundation for this association in the fact that the outline of Ophiuchus has a central body flanked on either side by what is sometimes envisioned as a serpent, one so long that its tail is on one side of the central body of Ophiuchus (the east side) and its head is on the other (the west side).

As it turns out, the constellation Ophiuchus does have two human-like legs below the central body, but these are rather faint and also rather short, and in some cases the ancient myths appear to have envisioned the two serpent-halves as the "serpentine" legs of the constellation (such as in the case of Typhon, who is often described in ancient myth and depicted in ancient artwork as having two serpent-tails emanating from the waist down, where his legs would normally be expected to be). In some cases, one or both of these "serpent-halves" on either side of Ophiuchus can be envisioned as a fish-tail, or in some cases two fish-tails, replacing the legs of the figure.

This explanation -- and the many parallels in other myths -- makes me quite confident that the figure of the Siren is closely associated with Ophiuchus.

Below is a diagram of the constellation Ophiuchus, juxtaposed with an image of a Mermaid, from the 1500s. This Mermaid happens to have two tails, which is very common in previous centuries (and continues to be seen to this day in the deliberately old-school depiction of the Mermaid in the corporate logo of Starbuck's, named of course for one of the three harpooners aboard the voyage of the Pequot in Herman Melville's Moby Dick).

The parallels between the form of the Mermaid (with her two tails) and the outline of Ophiuchus should be intuitively obvious to the casual observer:

image of Mermaid: Wikimedia commons (link).

Take a good look at the constellation, and if necessary cover up the "human-like" legs at the bottom of the central body of the constellation with one hand. If you do so, you will see that the parallels between the two-tailed Mermaid and the constellation Ophiuchus are unmistakable.

Note that the artist from the 1500s has drawn the arms of the Mermaid in such a way that each grasps one of her two fish-like tails. This decision on the part of the artist can be seen to follow the pattern of the constellation in the sky (I show the outline of Ophiuchus as suggested by H. A. Rey in the diagram above which uses a screen-shot from the free and open-source online planetarium app, Stellarium).

Indeed, the artist has chosen to depict one arm (on the left as we face the image) up higher on the tail to the left (her right, for the Mermaid), while the other arm goes downward to contact the other tail (on our right as we face the page, and on her left for the Mermaid) closer to the "thigh" area. 

This positioning of the arms in the 1500s artwork is quite remarkable: it corresponds almost perfectly to the outline of the constellation Ophiuchus in the heavens, as published in H. A. Rey's book The Stars: A New Way to See Them in 1952!

Below I have reproduced my juxtaposition of the star-chart and the Mermaid, this time adding arrows to indicate the positioning of the arms, just to make it absolutely clear:

Anyone observing the diagram above would be hard-pressed to argue that the artist from the 1500s was not deliberately incorporating the outline of the constellation Ophiuchus in the depiction of the Mermaid -- or at least following a received artistic tradition in which Mermaids were understood to be associated with that constellation and were consistently depicted with conventions indicating the constellation Ophiuchus in the form of the Mermaid.

Based on my analysis of hundreds of myths -- and my earlier work suggesting a direct connection between the fish-tailed figures of Triton and Typhon in Greek myth, as well as the Matsya avatar of Vishnu in Vedic myth, with the constellation Ophiuchus -- I am quite confident that we can see a clear connection between the figure of the Siren (as well as the related figure of the Mermaid) and the towering constellation Ophiuchus.

Some well-informed readers at this point may be wondering about the mythological tradition, clearly articulated in many ancient sources, in which the Sirens are described not as having fish-tails like a Mermaid but rather as having the beautiful faces (and usually the beautiful upper-bodies) of women, but bird-like legs down below the waist, and sometimes bird-like wings as well. I am convinced that in this version as well, the Sirens are primarily associated with the constellation Ophiuchus, although during the encounter of Odysseus with the Sirens in the Odyssey it would appear that the constellations Cygnus and Aquila take on the role of Sirens as well (as I discuss in my 2016 book, Star Myths of the World, Volume Two: Myths of Ancient Greece).

You can see from the outline of Ophiuchus in the diagrams above that the constellation could be envisioned as having "chicken legs" beneath the tall central body, which would explain why the same constellation can be envisioned as Sirens who have a human torso and bird-like legs, and also as Sirens who have a human torso and either one or two Mermaid tails. If the bird-leg version is selected, then the two "serpent-halves" on either side of the constellation's central body can be envisioned as "wings" instead of as "fish-tails" (and note that Ophiuchus figures in myth can be shown to have wings in many, many different examples -- see for instance this discussion of a recently-unearthed mosaic floor in the ruins of ancient Pompeii).

The most ominous aspect of the research the Chris Knowles has been pursuing involves the frightening evidence that the pattern of the Siren is associated with the death or deaths of young men, often by drowning. This pattern is of course consistent with the Siren and Mermaid pattern in myth, in which the powerful and irresistible Siren draws men to their doom. 

It can also be seen to be based on the stars. 

The figure of a Herdsman is closely associated with the constellation Boötes, as mentioned above, but the figure of a Shepherd-boy is most commonly associated in ancient myth with the constellation Sagittarius, which is located next to the Goat of Capricorn and thus can be envisioned as tending to goats or to sheep (both related and both associated with the pastoral life). Several of my books in the Star Myths of the World Series provide evidence that the constellation Sagittarius plays the role of a shepherd-boy in myth (including in the Odyssey, in which at one point the goddess Athena disguises herself in the form of a shepherd-boy when appearing to Odysseus).

The constellation Sagittarius is situated very close (indeed, basically adjacent) to the larger and more ominous-looking constellation Ophiuchus, as shown in the star-chart diagram below:

This proximity, and the fact that Sagittarius-figures interact with Ophiuchus-figures in many different ancient myths from around the world, helps explain the pattern Chris Knowles has identified in which the Siren draws the Shepherd-boy to her, often to his own destruction. 

There are many variations on this same basic pattern in myth and folklore across cultures and across time -- but in many of the stores, the death of the Shepherd-boy involves water. 

This too can be seen to reflect a pattern in the stars above. 

The brightest and widest part of the Milky Way band itself passes between the constellation Sagittarius and the constellation Ophiuchus. You can see this brightest and widest part of the Milky Way in the star-chart above, in which the colors have been inverted for easier visibility of the constellation outlines. Because the colors are inverted, the stars (which are shining bright dots against a dark night sky in reality) look like black dots on a light background sky. Thus, the Milky Way, which normally shines like a glowing pathway in the heavens, appears as dark clouds and smudges in the inverted diagram above.

Below is another version of the same star-chart, this time with the general outlines of the Milky Way indicated for ease of identification:

This diagram helps explain the prevalent myth-pattern in which the Siren-figure or related goddess draws the Shepherd-boy figure to her, ending in his destruction (often by water).

Below is a piece of artwork, also from the 1500s, showing one variation on this pattern, known as the Poet and the Siren: 

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

In the above artwork, we can see that the Siren-figure is again depicted with two tails, and that her hands once again are drawn such that she is grasping one tail with each hand. Note that in this case, the artist has the hand on our left going lower, and the hand on our right going upwards -- the exact opposite of the earlier example, and also the opposite of the way we see Ophiuchus in the heavens. 

That is because this artist, for whatever reason, has decided to invert the scene such that left is right and right is left. Note that the poet-figure, who is enthralled with the figure of the Siren in the sky, is to the right, even though the constellation Sagittarius in the star-charts can be found to the left (that is, to the east as we face the star-chart in this case) of Ophiuchus in the heavens. The artist has simply "flipped horizontally" the scene in the artwork compared to the way we see it in the sky, but in all other respects the artist has maintained the correspondences to the heavenly scene.

Note too that the Siren figure is depicted among billowing clouds and above a wide bay or harbor (both the clouds and the wide body of water being indicative of the Milky Way, and of its widest and brightest region which is known as the Galactic Core or the Galactic Center and which is between Sagittarius and Ophiuchus). The artist has even drawn some stars above her head, seven in number, in order to make us completely aware that this is in fact a celestial scene.

So, what does it mean that someone (as Christopher Knowles shows in his research) appears to be deliberately invoking this frightening pattern -- and what does it mean that forces in the Invisible Realm appear to be answering that call in some instances?

While this is a very disturbing subject, and one most people tend to avoid considering in daily life, what it means is that the Invisible Realm is very real. We should actually not be surprised to find that the realm of the gods does indeed respond when we call to it. In fact, that is exactly what the myths tell us will happen.

As an aside (but related), I also wonder whether the strange and thus-far unexplained mailing of seeds which has been reported around the United States and elsewhere, in which packages of seeds show up in the mail to people who never ordered any seeds, might have something to do with an invocation of this same pattern or of a related pattern, in that the fish-tailed god Matsya (an avatar of Vishnu) was the one who appeared prior to the great Deluge in order to help the righteous Manu (a Vedic Noah-figure, and one whose name recalls other Noah-figures, including of course Noah but also Uta-Napishtim), and to give him seeds in order to preserve the growing things of the earth following the Flood.

As the evidence presented by Christopher Knowles in his research shows very clearly, there are groups who are deliberately trying to influence our world through the practice of ritual magic -- and that magic relates to the ancient myths and their foundation in the stars. As Chris says in a blog post from December of 2017: "Any serious study of magic and occultism is going to eventually lead you to the stars."

From the discussion above, and from the evidence Chris has uncovered, these practitioners in many of these cases are invoking the Invisible Realm with the intent to harm others, in dark and disturbing ways, and indeed to inflict greater trauma upon men and women and even children.

But, as I discuss at length in my latest book, Myth and Trauma, it can be shown that such applications are by no means the intended use of the ancient Star Myths given to all cultures of the world: quite the contrary. 

Indeed, it can be shown that the myths have as a primary focus the healing of trauma and the empowering of men and women to recover their connection to Self and -- through that connection -- their connection to those around us, to nature, and to the realm of the gods itself.

In fact, the figure of the Siren can be seen as a negative and destructive inversion of other wisdom-figures who are associated with the constellation Ophiuchus, including the goddess Athena, who can also be shown beyond any doubt to be associated with this constellation and who helps Odysseus throughout the Odyssey in his journey to recover from his own "dislocation." 

Athena is the goddess of wisdom, but the Sirens can be seen as offering a seductive promise of wisdom -- one that actually leads to destruction rather than to restoration. 

In the Odyssey, we have the opportunity to hear their beguiling song, through the account of Odysseus himself, who instructs his crew to lash him tightly to the mast of his ship and to plug their own ears with beeswax, so that they cannot be seduced by the call of the Sirens. No matter how hard he begs to be released, he tells the men in advance, they must not untie him, but only add to the ropes restraining their captain when he cries out for them to let him go.

In this way (following a plan given to him by another goddess, the bewitching Circe of Aeaea), Odysseus is able to hear the call of the Sirens without being drawn to his death, and this is what they offer him in their song:

"Come closer, famous Odysseus -- Achaea's pride and glory --
moor your ship on our coast so you can hear our song!
Never has any sailor passed our shores in his black craft
until he has heard the honeyed voices pouring from our lips,
and once he hears to his heart's content sails on, a wiser man.
We know all the pains that the Greeks and Trojans once endured
on the spreading plain of Troy when the gods willed it so --
all that comes to pass on the fertile earth, we know it all!" 

Book 12, 200 - 207, trans. Fagles.

Notice how they appeal to Odysseus: first praising him as the pride and glory of all Acahaea, then offering to give him wisdom, and the knowledge of all that has come to pass to those who fought at Troy (Odysseus, separated from the rest of the fleet, knows nothing of who has made it home and who has not, and eagerly desires to know it). Most of all, however, they offer knowledge of all that comes to pass upon all the fertile earth!

Of course, the Odyssey does not paint wisdom -- or the desire for wisdom -- in a bad light: not at all. Indeed, as mentioned above, the central figure of Odysseus is widely respected as the wisest of the Achaeans, as he demonstrates again and again throughout the epic (except in the rare cases in which he loses control of himself, which inevitably lead to his long dislocation from his proper role as husband to his wife Penelope, father to his son Telemachus, and king of his people back in Ithaca). And, as also mentioned above, the most prominent divine figure in the entire Odyssey, from start to finish, is the very goddess of wisdom, Athena herself.

So the poem never implies that wisdom or its pursuit is wrong -- but the Sirens clearly represent a false promise of wisdom, a short-cut to wisdom (if you will), and one that leads to destruction. What it holds out in its offer, it does not deliver. Perhaps it gives temporary ease and comfort -- but those who stop at rock of the Sirens never leave: they are reduced to bones and tattered skin, forgetting who they are and where they were going.

Thus, the discovery that the same constellation can play the role of the Sirens (with their false promise of wisdom) and also the goddess Athena (the true goddess of wisdom) is most revealing.

They myths show us, time and again, that we can go to the Invisible Realm for many purposes -- and that it will in fact answer. But just as with the episode in the Bible in which Solomon was asked what he would be given, or the episode in the myths of ancient Greece known as the Judgment of Paris, the myths show us that we can choose wisely and in ways that restore our own connections and that help and uplift others, or we can choose unwisely (a path represented in this episode by the seductive but deceptive offer of the Sirens).

The ancient myths teach us that wisdom is actually available to us -- and that it comes from recovering our Self. And the ancient myths teach that the assistance of the realm of the gods is also available to us as well -- and that we are able to connect with its help as we reconnect with who we are.

It is dismaying and disturbing that some groups and individuals appear to be choosing to invoke the power of the Other Realm in order to harm and oppress and traumatize. But there is a version of the ancient myth of the Sirens which says that once someone sailed past them without giving in to their charms, then their power would be broken. 

I believe that these are very important subjects for us to understand in the situation we find ourselves facing in the world today. And I believe that the research and discoveries that Christopher Knowles has made and has shared with the world are critical to our greater understanding of these concepts.

Meditations: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Last night was the one-year anniversary of the release of Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time  in Hollywood (originally released on July 26, 2019). 

So I watched it again on its one-year anniversary.

I recommend watching Tarantino's movies more than one time and thinking about what that director might be trying to say with each one of his movies. He is obviously brilliantly talented (inspired) and  through his art exploring extremely important subjects which may appear on the surface to be about events that happened in the past but which ingeniously expose forces which continue to profoundly shape our lives and our world right up to this day.

Perhaps the most startling aspect of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is of course the fact that the movie builds up to one of the most notorious multiple-slayings in American history and then subverts the viewer's fears with an unexpected alternative outcome -- which may at first be extremely off-putting, but which invites us to ask ourselves what on earth director Quentin Tarantino may be trying to say with this plot twist in a movie with a title that invokes the opening formula of fairy tales while simultaneously exposing at every turn the ability of Hollywood to entrance and those who buy into its illusion-generating machine.

I would argue that it is very possible to interpret Tarantino's latest masterpiece as suggesting that everything we actually believe (to this very day) about the notorious "Manson murders" is a fairy tale, shaped by the powerful media machine which has the power to create unreality and make the world buy into it.

To this day, the vast majority of the men and women who were alive during the summer of 1969 -- and those who grew up afterwards -- have a very twisted understanding of what those horrific murders were actually about, in large part because the media machine (including Hollywood) has imposed an alternate reality on our minds . . . which Tarantino may be pointing out (and poking fun at us, as he does so).

If you want to hear a penetrating alternative analysis of what the brutal murders of the summer of 1969 were actually about -- in contrast to the fiction that has been woven around those despicable killings -- then I would recommend going over to the website of the long-running Guns and Butter radio show and podcast, where you can visit the "archived shows" section and scroll almost all the way down to the very bottom, in order to find and listen to show #91, which is a replay of a broadcast by legendary investigator Mae Brussell (1922 - 1988) which she delivered on October 13th, 1971 (just two years after the murders) and in which she points out abundant evidence which suggests that these killings were part of a deliberate campaign of terror designed to petrify "middle America" and push the country towards fascism, while simultaneously crushing the "counter-culture" and associating the communal, anti-war hippie movement as violent, militaristic, and dangerous.

You can also read a transcript of that entire 1971 broadcast by Mae Brussell at the Mae Brussell website here (and at that website you can also purchase a set of discs containing audio files of all of Mae's seventeen years of weekly broadcasts).

In that remarkable hour of analysis from October of 1971, Mae argues that the "Manson Family" were agents provocateurs, given resources including money but also weapons and vehicles and military equipment, and noting that certain specific figures appear to have involved with spreading the Manson story who previously appeared in connection with the assassination of President John  Kennedy.

She also argues that the electoral process in the United States had been subverted in order to institute  corporate fascism, while promoting a narrative of "capitalism versus communism" (ushering in corporate fascism while getting everyone to look in another direction, distracted by a narrative that didn't even mention fascism). Eerily, Mae describes the fascist coup taking place in Greece during that same time period, in which nationwide edicts were imposed which declared:

"No gathering in the open country of more than five persons.
No gathering in any closed space at all.
No anti-national propaganda, such as anti-war or anything against a public official.
No marches or dissentions."

Does any of that sound familiar to the listener today?

Mae says that when she saw the restrictions being imposed on the people of Greece in the late 1960s, she asked herself: "Is this a test case of what the United States could do to its people if it had to?"

Near the very beginning of the interview, Mae says that one of the reasons so many people have a very difficult time seeing through what is going on is that clandestine operations use deception which can best be compared to actors on a stage, playing roles. She says:

In this world, in this strange world of covert overthrow of the governments and clandestine armies and secret operations, the problem we're facing is that you are working with two realities: you're working with what we assume is the real way to function and move, and we are working with a system of what we call power: exchange of power, economic power, power over people, controlling their lives. In order to do that you disguise certain persons and send them into roles to influence; they become actors on a stage and they influence our minds in a way that is not real but effects a reality that will touch us later.

She argues that Manson was consistently portrayed as a hippie in the media, but that he actually hated hippies:

He was not a hippie or a part of the youth culture. They bought him a guitar, let his hair grow, put a leather jacket on him, gave him money, gave him a bus and credit cards, and told him to do his thing. [. . .] He was used by the news media to slam down on the hippies. [. . .] Charlie Manson was taught because he was going to pretend to be a hippie. He hated being called a hippie -- the book mentions it: he disliked being called a hippie.

Do these passages remind you of anything in the Tarantino movie? How about the fact that struggling western star Rick Dalton is told by director Sam Wanamaker (in preparation for the upcoming TV series Lancer) that Wanamaker wants Dalton's character to have longer hair ("something more . . . hippie-ish," Sam declares), a big droopy mustache, and a "hippie jacket" -- at which the costume director Rebecca says she can give him a fringed Custer-jacket and dye it dark brown: the exact description of Manson's most iconic garment!

In a direct parallel to the analysis of the Manson situation from Mae Brussell in 1971, we learn throughout the film that Dalton absolutely detests hippies.

So, what is director Tarantino exploring here? Is he perhaps suggesting that it is actually the violence-obsessed establishment (including the important "reality-creation" branch of the establishment represented by Hollywood) which in a very real sense acts out the terrorizing of the world population represented by the so-called "Manson murders" (murders which, as Mae Brussell points out, were not even carried out by Manson by rather by Charles "Tex" Watson)?

Is he perhaps saying that we are living in an absolutely commoditizing society, which reduces everyone and everything to a dollar sign (a theme epitomized by the plot-line of the fictional show Bounty Law in which Dalton stars at the outset of Once Upon a Time, the theme of reducing lives to a bounty of cash being a consistent pattern in other earlier Tarantino films as well), and that it is actually this system which is traumatizing the men and women of the world (in part through the reality-creation machine of Hollywood), and at the same time infantilizing them -- and that the Manson Family and the murders of the summer of '69 were actually an integral part of the society we are living in, rather than an alien force introduced by the "dangerous hippies" the way that the media told everyone at the time (and the way these murders are still portrayed and understood to this day)?

I suggest everyone take the opportunity afforded by this one-year anniversary to watch Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood again, and meditate carefully on what it might be trying to tell us.

I am convinced that anytime Tarantino shows us an "ending" which is blatantly different from the "actual historical events" that we think we know about some part of our past, he might be trying to tell us that we have been sold a pack of lies, made into a kind of "alternate reality" via the mighty Wurlitzer of the powers of the media.

If so, then the ending of his earlier film Inglourious Basterds (2009) might be suggesting that much of what we have been told -- and presently believe -- about the purported resolution of World War II might also be in need of re-examination.

As an aside (not really an aside), it is also possible to see in the characters of Rick and Cliff a classic expression of the ancient pattern of the "twinned pair" consisting of the anguished "doubting self" and the impervious and unwavering "essential self." See previous discussions such as this one and this one.

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Post-script, July 28:

I received an excellent comment from a reader who says in part:

I did not enjoy this film. I question the motives behind assassinating the character of Bruce Lee, the most revered of Chinese film stars here in the West. I see this as naked propaganda in an anti-China agenda. His myth was instrumental in creating our relationship with China during the '70s and destroying that myth is part of a co-ordinated effort to redefine it. Hollywood is a tool to shape our opinions. That it was once something else has become a fairytale.

My response was as follows:

Very valid comment: I dislike that part also. I have studied Wing Chun since 1992, including in China and from a friend of Bruce Lee who has been in many physical fights and attests to the fact that Bruce was an incredible fighter, "way better than you see in those god-damn movies." In fact, I used to hate all Tarantino films with a passion. However, I now believe he is exploring some powerful issues with his art and that he is (quite openly) saying, "this didn't happen: this is a fairy tale" and that throughout the movie he is calling attention to the difference between real and Hollywood-manufactured, with "Hollywood" standing for more that just "Hollywood" but in fact for the entire engine of manufacturing the violent and objectifying and commoditizing society that we live in, which works to reduce everyone to a dollar-sign just as we hear declared in the opening narration of the fictitious "Bounty Law" series. Whether Tarantino is saying all of this consciously or whether the gods are saying it through him, I don't know, although I suspect it is mostly or entirely conscious on his part because he explores these themes constantly throughout his films.  

I take this movie as deliberately trying to be unsettling at certain points by blatantly inverting reality, in order to send us the message that our reality has been inverted and manipulated and that it continues to be. But, no, I don't like that scene -- and I don't like watching people being fried with flame-throwers either, even if it is on film and I know that it is done with special effects. I don't like seeing history inverted, as it is in many points in that film, but I now believe that Tarantino is doing something quite important in this film (and exploring and exposing many important subjects in his many other films). 

Even the part in the movie where the dog Brandy notices the intruders could be seen as a message calling attention to a very important discrepancy in the actual summer of '69 murders, if you listen closely to Mae Brussell in her 1971 analysis linked above (or read the transcript of her broadcast, also linked above). 

Thank you for your comment because it is an important point that I should have addressed.

Refuting a Null Hypothesis for the Star Myth argument

Recently, a friend I've known for decades who also happens to be a professor at a top-tier private university wrote to say that while my arguments showing correlation between the stars and the myths are compelling and indicate a world-wide pattern of celestial metaphor in operation in the scriptures and sacred stories of cultures around the planet (including the texts collected into what we call the Bible), I have not addressed the "null hypothesis."

What is the null hypothesis? In statistics and inferential analysis, the null hypothesis refers to the base-case or default explanation which the proposed alternative hypothesis is trying to displace. It is not considered enough to merely show that another explanation fits the evidence: it is also necessary to show that the accepted hypothesis (the null hypothesis) does not satisfactorily explain the evidence.

He asked what evidence I could present to argue that the stories of the Bible are not actually describing literal and terrestrial historical events (and literal and terrestrial historical persons). He points out that, if only presented with evidence that the events and figures match the constellations, one could still argue that they are also literal and historical in addition to celestial.

Of course, such an argument would not really be very credible, to try to argue that virtually every single episode and figure described in the Bible, from Genesis all the way through to Revelation, just happened to line up with the stars in addition to being literal and historical accounts of physical terrestrial persons, simply "by coincidence." He recognizes implicitly that for one to make such an argument, one would have to argue that these events -- and the stars -- were ordered by an all-seeing divine Providence beforehand. Thus, he asks what evidence I would offer to argue against a proposed "null hypothesis" in which (in his words) "the Christian God put the stars where they are in order to enable the Holy Spirit to help everyone learn the same truths before the coming of Christ?"

This is actually a version of a question that I am asked quite frequently, which is whether or not I think it is possible for the stories and persons in the Bible to be both literal and celestial. It is very helpful that my friend recognized the need to state that for such a hypothesis to be argued, one would have to argue for divine intervention: there is simply no way to argue that the vast majority of the hundreds and hundreds of figures and events described in the Bible "just happen" to correspond to the stars if not for active and basically omnipotent Providence.

For those readers who wish to believe that the events described in the Bible are in fact literal and historical (even while lining up with the constellations in remarkable and extremely specific ways, over and over), I do not wish to dissuade them from such a belief: I strongly believe in respecting the beliefs of others, as long as those beliefs are not being used to try to falsely excuse the violation of the rights of others. 

That's why I have not generally spent a lot of energy arguing against this proposed "null hypothesis." However, my friend raises a very good point: if everyone believes that the earth is flat (for example), it is not enough to just show that a round earth would also explain the evidence -- a full argument for an alternative hypothesis requires showing evidence which refutes the null hypothesis as well (evidence which is difficult or impossible to explain with the flat earth hypothesis, in this example).

Therefore, I made the above video discussing some of the categories of evidence I would offer which is I believe causes some significant problems for the null hypothesis. The video is entitled "Refuting a Null Hypothesis (for the Star Myth argument)."

Please feel free to watch it if you are interested in those arguments -- and please feel free to skip it, if you do not want to question the historicity of figures and events in the ancient myths and sacred stories.

This information is intended to be helpful to others and not harmful, and is offered for those who are interested in exploring this subject (including those who have been harmed or even traumatized by proponents of literalist interpretations of the Biblical scriptures). I am absolutely convinced that the  Biblical scriptures (along with the other ancient myths of the world) have as a central theme recovery from trauma -- and that this message is much more easily understood when we listen to them in the language that they are speaking, which is the language of their celestial patterns and the heavenly cycles. 

And it can be shown that literalistic interpretations tend to invert their message -- which is why their message has so often had the exact opposite impact: inflicting trauma, instead of healing trauma.

Welcome to new visitors from Tin Foil Hat! (and to returning friends)

Big thank-you to Sam Tripoli, Xavier Guerrero, Johnny Woodard, and the Tin Foil Hat family for having me over for a conversation about myths, stars, higher self, the Anunnaki, the Maya long-count, and a few other subjects on the world-famous Tin Foil Hat podcast. 

Above is the video of the whole discussion, which took place on July 20, 2020.

To all those visiting for the first time (and returning friends!) please be sure to check out the resources at my primary website, Star Myths of the World (star myth world dot com), where you will find a host of ways to explore further the subject of the ancient myths and their relation to the stars and heavenly cycles.

Also, please check out my YouTube channel and subscribe to receive notifications whenever I post a new video!

Below are a few links to previous posts with some additional discussion (and sometimes with videos) related to some of the topics we touched on during this chat:

• "The buried divinity"

• "The present moment and the Higher Self"

• "Introducing Myth and Trauma: Higher Self, Ancient Wisdom, and Their Enemies"

• "Birth of the Buddha, Birth of the Christ"

• "Enkidu's Quest: What does it mean for us today?"

• "Who is Doubting Thomas?"

• "Introducing Star Myths Volume Three: Star Myths of the Bible"

• "End of the world anxiety?"

• "Artwork of the Maya demolishes the conventional historical paradigm"

• "Dr. Gabor Mate and the reconnection with your authentic self"

• "An incredible talk by Dr. Gabor Mate, and the relationship between the egoic mind and our authentic self"

• "Astrotheology against mind control"

• "The Vision of Ezekiel: Wheels within Wheels"

• "Literalism and Alien Contact"

I hope this conversation was positive in some way for your life. Visit again soon!

Act now to see the comet if you can!

If you are an observer of the night sky living in the northern hemisphere then you have probably  been out to see the mesmerizing Comet NEOWISE already, but just in case you have not yet done so I would strongly recommend making arrangements to try, if it is at all possible.

The comet is now definitely visible to the naked eye during the hours after sunset, and much easier to see than when I wrote my earlier blog post about this newly-discovered space traveler on July 9th, eleven days ago. 

At that time, the comet was visible in the dawn prior to sunrise and in the northeastern sky above the horizon, but now it is visible in the evening sky after sunset and in the northwestern sky, about halfway between the horizon and the lowest stars of the Big Dipper (depending upon your latitude). The higher in latitude you are (the further you are towards the North Pole), the higher above the horizon you will see both the Big Dipper and the comet. Of course, the horizon itself will depend on the terrain at your location and the relative position of your observing point compared to the terrain towards your north and west.

Above is a diagram I made showing the comet's general location relative to the Big Dipper for this evening, July 20, for an observer at about latitude 35 north. On successive nights, we are told that it will move slightly up and towards the left each night from its location in the above diagram, tracking along a path somewhat parallel to the lower edge of the Dipper's bowl.

The comet became visible to me at about 9:15 pm as I stared into the deepening twilight. As the light faded further and the sky grew darker and darker, the comet became even more visible and beautiful.

Comet NEOWISE is still most clearly seen with magnification such as binoculars or a telescope. However, it is now visible with the naked eye. 

As the comet moves further away on its orbit, it will become dimmer and dimmer -- so astronomers are telling us that the next couple nights may be the best chances to see it before it moves out of sight.

I hope that you will have an opportunity to go outside and see it for yourself if at all possible.

The Covid Trojan Horse

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The story of the Trojan horse is one of the most well-known of ancient references, still widely used in our language today to describe a ruse or deception through which a hostile force (which could easily be kept out) is allowed inside by inducing a false sense of security -- or even invited inside.

The Trojan horse gets its name from a ruse described in the ancient myths to allow a force of Greek warriors to get within the otherwise-impenetrable walls of the city of Ilium, also known as Troy.

The story of the Trojan horse is not actually found in the Iliad itself (the ancient epic which describes the battles of the Trojan War centered most especially on the rivalry between Achilles on the side of the Greeks and Hector on the side of the Trojans, with tension added to the plot by the decision by Achilles to withdraw from fighting when his pride is wounded by the actions of Agamemnon). The story is, however, referenced in the Odyssey (in Book 7), as well as in many other ancient sources, including a surviving play by Euripides (fifth century BC), and a detailed account in the Aeneid by Virgil (first century BC) and later by the poet Quintus of Smyrna (most commonly called Quintus Smyrnaeus).

You can find the account by Quintus Smyrnaeus online here: it tells us that the forces of the Greeks (referred to in the ancient epics by many other names rather than as "Greeks" -- including the Danaans, the Achaeans, and the Argives), exhausted after ten years of hard fighting without bringing an end to Troy, received advice from the seer Calchas, who received divine inspiration from Apollo through observing the actions of birds, that victory could only be won by some cunning stratagem rather than through sheer force alone.

At this all the Danaans wracked their brains for an idea that might work, but it was the master strategist Odysseus, son of Laertes, who devised the stratagem of the wooden horse: if the divine decree was that the walls of Ilium could only fall by deception, he said, then

a great Horse let us fashion, in the which our mightiest shall take ambush. Let the host [ie, the army of the Greeks] burn all their tents, and sail from hence away to Tenedos; so the Trojans, from their towers gazing, shall stream forth fearless to the plain. Let some brave man, unknown of any in Troy [ie, unfamiliar to any of the Trojans themselves, not known personally by any of them], with a stout heart abide without the horse, crouching down beneath its shadow, who shall say: "Achaea's lords of might, exceeding fain safe to win home [ie, very much desiring to get home safely], made this offering for safe return: an image to appease the wrath of Pallas for her image stolen from Troy [ie, as an offering to placate the anger of the goddess Athena, whose temple in Troy had been desecrated by the Greeks]. And to this story shall he stand, how long soe'er they question him [he must stick to this story now matter how the Trojans interrogate him], until, though never so relentless, they believe, and drag it, their own doom, within the town. Then shall war's signal unto us be given -- to them at sea, by sudden flash of torch, to the ambush, by the cry, "Come forth the Horse!" when unsuspecting sleep the sons of Troy.

This masterful plan of Odysseus was widely praised by all the warriors of the Danaan side, and the plan was thus put into action. The ancient myths tell us that a priest of the Trojans, named Laocoön, tries to warn the Trojans that the Greeks cannot be trusted (Virgil giving him the famous line: "I am afraid of Greeks, even those bearing gifts"). The priest advises the Trojans to set the horse on fire to be sure it is not harboring enemy soldiers. To silence this accurate warning, one of the gods who favors the Greeks over the Trojans (which one varies from account to account) send two great serpents up from the sea to strangle Laocoön and his two sons, in front of all the Trojans.

Against the warnings of those who suspect a trap, then, the Trojans wheel the wooden horse within the walls of their great city -- and there the hidden battle-hardened warriors of the Achaeans wait until it is time to creep out of their hiding place in order to open the gates of the city and sack it.

The description in the Odyssey has the beautiful Helen of Troy also grow suspicious of the wooden horse: suspecting there are Greek fighters hidden inside, she walks around the horse by night and calls out to the various warriors by name, imitating the voices and mannerisms of their various wives, all of whom she herself knows personally. One of the hidden warriors is fooled and is about to yell out in answer to Helen's trick, but Odysseus clamps his hand across the man's mouth in order to prevent his giving away their presence.

This famous episode of ancient myth, retold down through the centuries, is undoubtedly based upon the system of celestial metaphor which underlies the myths from cultures around the earth. As I explain (and demonstrate with abundant evidence) in my 2016 book Star Myths of the World, Volume Two: Myths of Ancient Greece, the great city of fair Ilium (or Troy) can be confidently identified with the Great Square of Pegasus, which plays the role of a walled city or a citadel or a fortress in many of the world's ancient myths across numerous cultures. 

Below is a star chart showing the position of the Great Square which forms the celestial original of the great walled city of Troy: can you find the location of the Trojan horse?

If you said the horse-shaped outline of the constellation Pegasus, then I am in agreement! Note that on the other side of the Great Square from the constellation Pegasus we find the constellation Andromeda, often envisioned as a beautiful young woman, sometimes in chains. The part about being chained comes from the set of stars near her upward-reaching arm, which can be envisioned as shackles and chains around her wrist.

Below is an artistic depiction of the Trojan horse deception from ancient times, this particular piece from the Gandhara region of ancient India, where elements of Greek culture and myth made their way along the mighty Silk Road:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Please note that in the above image we see the wooden horse, clearly identifiable as such by its distinctive wheels in the artwork. That horse is on the right as we face the image -- and on the left we see the figure of a woman, chained to a rectangular doorway or structure of some sort (the shackles and chains are visible on her wrists and her ankles, if you look closely). This juxtaposition of horse (on the right) and chained female (on the left) corresponds precisely to the positioning of the constellations Pegasus and Andromeda in the night sky (from the perspective of an observer in the northern hemisphere), providing very compelling support for my argument that the walls of Troy are associated with the Great Square in the heavens, with the horse Pegasus playing the role of the wooden horse (in this particular myth). 

There are in fact versions of ancient myth in which Troy is required to chain a young woman as a sacrifice to appease the wrath of a god who is sending a sea monster to destroy the city (in a pattern very similar to the more famous story of Andromeda and Perseus). In some ancient accounts, it is Heracles himself who fights off the monster (see this page for further detail). The main point to note is that this myth clearly supports the conclusion that Troy is associated with the Great Square, since a maiden in chains is undoubtedly associated with the constellation Andromeda. Thus our confidence for the identification of the Trojan horse with the constellation Pegasus can be quite high (and the ancient artwork above, showing both the horse and the chained maiden in the same scene, provides still further confirmation).

Readers familiar with my work and with the ancient star-myth system should have little difficulty in identifying Laocoön, the priest of doomed Troy, with the constellation Ophiuchus. This constellation often plays a role of intermediary between the realm of mortals and the realm of the gods -- as with the priest in this story, who meets a violent end.

One moral of the story, it should be easy to see, is the absolutely critical importance of listening to the  voice from the realm of the gods, which the Trojans fail to do in this story (the Greeks, by contrast, do take heed of the messages sent from the Invisible Realm). As discussed at some length in my most-recent book, Myth and Trauma, we each of us have access to the guidance of that mysterious dimension through our essential self -- but tragically we are often unaware of the existence of a higher self from who we have become alienated, and we are even quite resistant to the suggestion that we might be separated from our own essence. 

But another related lesson from this famous episode of ancient myth has to do with the way destructive forces can actually be invited into our lives by us, ourselves -- forces which we otherwise could easily resist, if only we were not traumatized and thus inattentive to the voice of the gods.

This picture, so graphically illustrated in the story of the Trojan horse, is true in our individual lives (for destructive addictions and behaviors), but it is also true on a wider societal level.

I would argue that right now, the declaration of this Covid pandemic and accompanying lockdown are being used as a massive Trojan horse in order to sneak a host of harmful policies into our midst, policies which under normal circumstances would have been immediately rejected, but which are actually being welcomed or even clamored for because of the massive "Trojan horse" which we see going on all around us.

Please understand that in saying the above, I am not in any way suggesting that the virus or biological agent itself (or viruses themselves, if there are multiple strains or multiple agents, which appears to be the case) is not "real" -- the evidence shows quite plainly that it is very real and very dangerous.

I am suggesting that there are many aspects of the response which we have all been experiencing and witnessing over the past several months which make absolutely no sense whatsoever, and which indicate that -- without denying the seriousness of the threat -- this situation is being used as a Trojan horse to usher in a host of programs which free men and women would otherwise vigorously oppose.

The following is a list of policy objectives which may be part of the hostile army being wheeled in under cover of the "pandemic Trojan horse":

• Mandatory universal vaccination: This objective has been openly declared by numerous high-ranking officials over the past few months since the start of the lockdown, and although such a proposal would normally be opposed in the strongest terms by the vast majority of men and women, it may be that many will now actually beg for it in order to be allowed to work, travel, and "return to normal" after experiencing enough lockdown and restriction;

• Introduction of RNA- and DNA-altering vaccinations: Agents designed to deliberately alter the RNA and DNA of men and women have never before been approved for human use, and yet they are now being widely tested and fast-tracked for widespread approval and deployment among the population in order to stimulate the production of antibodies which are hoped to prevent the disease, with little to no idea of what ramifications this type of alteration of the building blocks of life may have in the longer term on those injected, or on future generations, and with little to no idea of whether the production of antibodies will actually be effective in preventing infection by this or related strains of the agent or agents in question);

• Tracing where everyone goes and with whom everyone interacts: Using the ubiquitous "smartphones" carried by virtually every member of the public over the age of ten, it is now quite possible to recording everyone's movements and interactions with or without their consent or knowledge (although using the above-described principle of the Trojan horse, people may actually invite this kind of monitoring after the surreal experience of the past few months, although if asked a year ago if they would ever accept such a thing, most people would probably have said "never in a million years");

• Deploying a comprehensive interlocking network of AI and facial recognition: The deployment of massive and ubiquitous AI and facial recognition, as uncovered by the brilliant investigative reporter Whitney Webb -- see links and discussion in this previous post and accompanying video -- has been on the agenda of certain well-connected groups for over a year -- and such a program can now be snuck-in using the cover of the pandemic (and, although it is difficult to know for certain, it is possible to speculate that the mandating of mask-wearing and social distancing in every place of business can serve a purpose of training AI and facial recognition programs to identify you using just the region around your eyes, perhaps along with your gait: if you think about it, massive global retailers and big-box stores already surveil everyone within their stores, and to the extent that many people pay with credit or debit cards at checkout, their identities can be matched with their film footage during their shopping trips);

• The implementation of a cashless society: A longtime goal of those who would love to compile data on every single purchase or transaction anyone and everyone makes, and also of those who make money from "interchange" fees assessed on every transaction using a card issued by a bank or financial institution (a massive toll assessed on every purchase you make, which primarily ends up going to the banks or other card-issuers, along with related financial players) -- and please note that being able to track your every purchase would also have the effect of enabling those who purchase books containing "dissident" ideas to be more easily tracked, something we have been moving towards with the steady elimination of physical bookstores over the past two to three decades, and now with the libraries all closed down for an indeterminate period of time as well; 

• The implementation of comprehensive and unconstitutional restrictions of free speech: No one can deny that the inalienable right to freedom of speech is being speedily abridged from many angles over the past several weeks, in a campaign which certainly began prior to the imposition of lockdowns but which definitely accelerated in recent months and continues to accelerate, with little resistance from a public which at this point is largely confused, demoralized, and divided to a degree we have not seen prior to the imposition of the lockdown in March of this year;

• The bankrupting of cities and states in order to impose greater austerity on the majority of the people, and force the privatization of lucrative public assets which connected players can acquire and use to amass tremendous fortunes: The imposition of austerity is a central feature of neoliberalism (discussed in numerous previous posts -- simply use the "search" function to find posts discussing neoliberalism, such as these), and the response to the government-imposed lockdown (at least within the United States) has been to create money for well-connected large players including corporations, churches, and financial institutions, while largely leaving most small businesses with few choices but to close their doors permanently, thus creating major financial crises for states and municipalities (which face greater spending while collecting fewer taxes) and ultimately forcing the drastic reduction of public services and eventually the cessation of many such services, and the privatization of the most lucrative aspects of the public domain, another key goal of neoliberal policy.

The above list, of course, is not exhaustive. Ancient accounts vary regarding the number of warriors who hid within the Trojan horse -- one tradition puts the number at forty. In addition to those threats listed above, it is quite likely that many other harmful initiatives are being rolled into our midst under the cover of the modern-day Trojan horse. 

These developments are massive in their potential for changing the world for the worse -- in some cases, permanently (messing with DNA, in particular, could have ramifications which could never be undone). Some of them are so shocking, and so offensive to inalienable human rights recognized in the Bill of Rights, that they could never have simply been instigated in normal times. It would take a very large Trojan horse to get some of these ideas through, but that is exactly what it appears we are currently experiencing.

The Covid operation has all the hallmarks of a Trojan horse of massive proportions. We would be wise to wake up to what is inside, and take decisive measures to prevent some of the above developments, before it is too late.

Welcome to new visitors from Mike and Maurice's Mind Escape! (and to returning friends)

Big thank-you to Mike and Maurice of the Mind Escape podcast for having me over to discuss the world's ancient myths, their connections to the stars, and some of the implications and lessons of that connection.

Welcome to all new visitors who are encountering my research for the first time: I hope that learning more about the myths will be a blessing to you in your life. 

Our interview was recorded on the evening of July 08, 2020 and was streamed live: you can see the video of our conversation above, or by following this link.

You can also hear the audio-only version and download the file here at Soundcloud,

or here at Apple's iTunes,

or here at Spotify.

However, because I specifically prepared slides to go along with the discussion, some of which (especially towards the end) contain star-charts showing constellations connected with the myth pattern we were looking at during this conversation, I would recommend watching the video version (you can also use the "settings" icon at the bottom of that video to speed up the playback if you want).

I enjoyed getting to interact with Mike and Maurice, with whom I had not spoken previously.

Here is a link to a previous post discussing their interview with Arthur Koopman's of the Secrets of the Norse website.

At one point during our talk, I did mention that during my preparation to visit their show, I had listened to several of their episodes, all of which I had enjoyed except for their discussion of the notorious "Urantia book," which was likely produced by a very racist proponent of eugenics during the first half of the twentieth century and which puts forward a vision of space visitors coming to our planet (which they supposedly call "Urantia") who are the supposed literal beings responsible for the accounts of Adam and Eve, Michael the Archangel, Jesus, and other figures in the Bible (all of whose stories can be shown with abundant evidence to be based upon metaphor involving constellations, rather than upon actual terrestrial events involving literal persons).

I pointed out that the text of the Urantia book itself contains flat-out racist statements and concepts, particularly in books 4 and 5.

Mike and Maurice were quite dismayed to learn about that, having heard about the Urantia book from various sources which don't reveal its problematic aspects and (being guitarists and musicians themselves) having learned that various guitarists they admired including Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Steve Vai had all been known to own a copy of the Urantia book and carry it around with them on tour. They both stated very clearly that they stand against all racism, and also immediately deleted their episode about the Urantia book.

I personally believe that some of these deceptive narratives such as the Urantia book are part of deliberate operations to try and slip objectionable ideas into wider distribution under cover of sensational stories about literal aliens (who re-cast the old literalist interpretations of the Biblical scriptures into new literalist re-workings involving alien beings or intelligences in an "updated form of literalism") and that it is very easy for men and women to be taken in by some of these operations.

Below is a video I published back in July of last year entitled "Literalism and Alien Contact" in which I discuss some of the racist and literalist aspects of the Urantia book, along with the literalistic elements common in many other "UFO narratives" from the twentieth century (including the texts and belief system propagated by the "Heaven's Gate" cult, which famously committed an act of mass suicide during the approach of the gorgeous Comet Hale-Bopp, the most-recent comet to be visible to the naked eye prior to the arrival of Comet NEOWINS in the night sky just this week).

I hope you will enjoy this conversation with Mike and Maurice of the Mind Escape podcast, and that if this is your first time visiting you will enjoy looking through the material available in the different sections of the Star Myths of the World website, including archived podcasts, videos, sample book content, a "resources" page containing online texts (a link to the "resources" page being found at the bottom of every page on the site), and of course a fully-searchable blog.

I also hope you will visit again soon!

After our conversation, I got a few hours sleep and then rose early the next morning to get my first view of the mysterious and beautiful Comet NEOWISE, which made for a memorable day! You can see my description of that experience, along with diagrams and tips on successfully finding the comet during the next two days while it is visible prior to sunrise, here.