Special thank-you to the entire team responsible for the Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge, who just this week (in fact, about 15 hours ago) made my entire presentation available for anyone to view at no charge on the web (video embedded above and URL here).
Also, special thank-you to Deniz D for noticing that the presentations have been unlocked and for letting me know!
Now you can transport yourself back to another time and place, all the way back to the 6th of October, 2019 (which seems like it was about ten years ago now), and watch practically all of the presentations from that special conference, just as if you were there (and, if you actually were there, you can watch them again, or pick up on any that you might have missed for one reason or another!)
As I wrote immediately following the event, the Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge is truly a special gathering with a unique atmosphere and spirit. I hope you will enjoy watching the presentations from that day if you have not been able to watch them previously -- and I hope that you will have the opportunity to attend a future conference in person, if at all possible!
Thank you for considering these important subjects -- please feel free to share with anyone for whom these discussions might be positive and beneficial.
The 25th of July is traditionally the day set aside in Western literalist Christianity for the Feast of St. Christopher and the veneration of this figure -- although around 1969 this particular feast was removed from the calendar due to doubts regarding the historicity of the story of Christopher's life.
Despite this setback, St. Christopher remains one of the most popular of saints.
Recently, I received a question on social media from an insightful individual who asked whether the story of Christopher carrying travelers across a river -- and in particular the most famous part of the Christopher legend, in which he carries the Christ Child across the river -- might have something to do with carrying the Sun across the Milky Way.
See my investigation of the celestial foundations of the St. Christopher story in this new video, and please share with those for whom the above message might be positive and helpful.
I am convinced that when we understand that the world's ancient myths, scriptures and sacred stories are based on celestial metaphor, we can (and should) still go to them for their profound wisdom and message for our lives -- and that we retain all their positive aspects -- while at the same time we should realize that this understanding undermines the negative aspects of literalist dogma which teaches that the literalist Christian scriptures and tradition have an exclusive claim to "truth" and historicity (they obviously do not, being based on the same ancient world-wide system of celestial metaphor which underlies the myths of cultures around the globe).
In other words, we keep all of the positives while letting go of the negatives.
I hope you will enjoy this new video -- thank you so much for your interest in, and support of, my work!
Big thank-you to Jay Henehan for inviting me over to his How to Kill a Sacred Cow podcast for a conversation about myth and meaning and several other subjects in between.
I hope you will enjoy the conversation. No violence to anyone, sacred cow or otherwise, was contemplated or discussed.
Jay really did his research prior to the show and had some excellent insights to offer and questions to ask -- and I really appreciated that some time prior to the show he mentioned that he wanted to zero-in on artwork found on ancient Greek pottery. As we were chatting just prior to the show itself, I learned that he had been an art student in Massachusetts and had focused some of his research on the spectacular artwork found on the Greek vases on display in the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, which is a museum that I love as well.
During our conversation, I posted a photo from my visit to the MFA (Boston Museum of Fine Art) from 2016, but incorrectly labeled it as being from 2017 (sorry about that!). Longtime readers of this blog will no doubt recognize the photograph and the famous bell-krater seen in the photo.
Here is another post showing another ancient Greek vase which I encountered on that 2016 trip (this one is labeled as a hydria in the museum). This one will go well with some of the art and stars that Jay and I explored in our conversation last week, although this particular hydria was not part of our discussion.
Please give Jay some positive feedback for a great show -- he was a very gracious host and I very much appreciated the opportunity to delve into some of these subjects with him and share them with you!
Thanks for watching and please feel free to share with anyone who would find these subjects to be of interest.
I was happy to receive a message today from my friends Phil, Matt and Ben over at the Amish Inquisition podcast informing me that they had posted a new episode featuring a video interview with Simon Shack and Patrik Holmqvist regarding the Tychos model of our solar system, and the abundant evidence casting serious doubt on central tenets of the Keplerian model which we all are taught from an early age and which we tend to accept without question.
This interview is very much worth your consideration and attention, and afterwards you may want to dive deeper into the evidence and analysis presented by Simon in his book, which he has made available for free in its entirety online here, as well as check out the Tychosium digital planetarium which Patrik crafted, based upon the model developed by Simon in his book and his research.
During the conversation, Patrik and Simon use the Tychosium to illustrate some of their arguments, both arguments illustrating the problems with Kepler's model and arguments demonstrating the way that the Tychos model neatly explains those problems.
One of the strongest arguments they discuss is the concept of stellar parallax -- and the stubborn readings of so-called "negative stellar parallax" which astronomers continue to observe, causing a king-sized problem for the Kepler model (but constituting a powerful argument in favor of the Tychos model).
Another powerful argument discussed in this conversation is the troubling pattern of the so-called "empirical sidereal intervals" of the planet Mars, in which Mars is observed from earth to align with any specific star at intervals of about 707 days (for seven times in a row) followed by a "short interval" or "short ESI" of only about 543 days -- a pattern very difficult to explain using the conventional paradigm.
Once again, although this unusual pattern causes king-sized problems for proponents of Keplerian-type models of solar-system mechanics, it is easily explained by the Tychos model, and thus constitutes yet another strong piece of evidence in favor of the Tychos model, even as it calls into serious doubt the conventional model.
The way that the Tychos model explains this unusual pattern of Mars sidereal intervals takes a bit of time and explanation in order to properly illustrate -- and due to the pressures of time, it wasn't really fully explained during this particular conversation. For those interested, I recommend checking out the video that I made exploring some aspects of the Tychos model, back in August of last year, which you can find here (and embedded below):
I remain somewhat "agnostic" regarding the mechanics of our solar system, but it is undeniable that Simon Shack has presented overwhelming evidence which raises grave doubts regarding the viability of the Keplerian model (as well as showing evidence which raises serious doubts about Kepler's character -- Kepler in fact having been proven by modern research to have falsified his data). But the sheer difficulty we have of even considering the possibility that the Keplerian paradigm could be wrong -- a model that we have all been taught since childhood -- shows the power of swimming like a fish within a single paradigm all our lives, and one that is basically not allowed to even be so much as questioned.
For this reason, I believe it is extremely valuable to consider the arguments that Simon and Patrik are bringing to light which demonstrate the possibility that this "unquestioned and unquestionable" paradigm may indeed be incorrect, if only because it reveals so much about the power of unquestioned assumptions and the power of authority (both in academia and in the media) to shape our thinking and put boundaries on our curiosity.
At one point in the interview, around 0:43:27 in the YouTube video (and at about 0:41:00 in the audio file on iTunes and other podcast platforms), Simon says something extremely important about the way that supporters of the Keplerian paradigm appear to start with the assumption that their model must be correct, and then "work backwards" to explain the evidence and make it fit with the conclusion that they have already decided must be right -- which is "exactly the opposite of science," as Simon puts it.
An analogy might be a trial in which the guilt of a party is already predetermined by the judge, who then forces all the evidence to point towards that verdict, no matter how much the evidence might point in the exact opposite direction.
Needless to say, such an approach does not lead to good science -- and indeed, as Simon points out, such an approach is not actually science at all. It is exactly the opposite of science.
This should be a powerful lesson to us, not to do the same thing in areas of our lives where we simply assume that the things that people in the media and in academia tell us must of course be correct, especially in areas in which abundant evidence exists to call those paradigms into question.
My friend Kyle Delisle, a member of the Mohawk nation which of course is a member of the Iroquois Confederacy or Five Nations (later Six Nations), discovered celestial connections in the sacred traditions of the Iroquois, and is working with the Knowledge Keepers of his nation and writing a book exploring these and other aspects of his culture.
I had the opportunity to meet Kyle in person during our recent expedition to the Scablands region of Washington State and to discuss some of the myths of the Mohawk and also the other nations of the Iroquois (the Iroquois consist of the Onondaga, the Oneida, the Cayuga, and the Seneca nations, and later the Tuscarora nation as well).
Recently, Kyle was giving a presentation to the Knowledge Keepers of his and other Iroquois nations, and sent me some of the creation accounts which have been published in previous centuries based upon the oral traditions handed down through the generations, so that we could discuss some of the celestial elements in those preserved traditions of his people.
I prepared some slides and star-charts, and Kyle and I recorded a conversation discussing the creation accounts of the Mohawk and the Onondaga, and some of the evidence which points beyond doubt to celestial elements within those sacred traditions. Here is the link to that conversation (just over 2 hours).
This conversation was recorded on 18 June, 2021.
We originally kept the video private, so that he could review it with the Knowledge Keepers of the Iroquois, but with their permission and encouragement are now making that video public. In fact, Kyle told me, the message he was given was of wanting "as many people as possible to see it."
With that in mind, please enjoy the above conversation between Kyle and myself regarding the Mohawk and the Onondaga creation accounts. The accounts themselves that we are discussing can be found in a book entitled Iroquoian Cosmology, based on the work of John Napoleon Brinton Hewitt (1859 - 1937) and originally published in 1903.
And, please feel free to share this video with as many people as possible who would be interested in this subject.
As I say in the video itself, the Knowledge Keepers of the Iroquois are devoted to preserving the sacred traditions of their culture -- and not just dedicated to preserving them, but also dedicated to learning more about them, including their connection to the stars. They are aware of the precious nature of the wisdom given to their culture, and also aware that this wisdom was directly attacked by those who desire to stamp out the ancient wisdom given to all the peoples of the earth.
It is my conviction that we are all actually in very much the same situation, in that the ancient wisdom of virtually every culture has been attacked and in many cases much has been lost, over the course of many preceding centuries. We should be as devoted to preserving the ancient wisdom -- and to recovering all aspects of its message -- as are the Knowledge Keepers of the Iroquois and other Indigenous nations of North America.
I hope that the understanding of the system of celestial metaphor which underlies the ancient myths and sacred traditions of the world's culture -- and shows that they are all closely related in some way not currently understood -- will help others to explore the precious inheritance of the ancient wisdom given to men and women around the world in the stories of our ancestors.
The video explores some aspects of this important constellation -- including how to find it in the night sky (now is a good time of year to do so!), a bit about how it is used in ancient traditions and artwork, and a hint at some of its profound esoteric significance and the message it may have for our lives, even in this very present moment!
I hope you will enjoy the video, and that you will have an opportunity to go to an area with dark skies in order to try to locate Libra yourself, if at all possible.
Thank you for watching and for your interest in the precious treasure given to us in the world's ancient myths, and the stars!
