David Mathisen, Do Ancient Star Myths Tell the Same Story? |426|

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David Mathisen, Do Ancient Star Myths Tell the Same Story? |426|
by Alex Tsakiris | Sep 10 | Others, Spirituality
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David Mathisen has compelling evidence of a worldwide system of ancient knowledge in the stars.
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photo by: Skeptiko
Alex Tsakiris: [00:00:06] Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers and of course their critics. One thing that especially fascinates me is things hidden in plain sight, things that are not obvious until someone points it out and then once they do, you’re like, “Yeah, I kind of knew that.” It’s hard for me to imagine a better example than the stars in the sky in the universal stories that are told about those. I mean, why all of the epic myths? Why all of the heroic warrior God adventures? And why the heck are all civilizations, from all different parts of the world, telling the same story? Think about that last one for me.
So there’s this ancient guy in Polynesia sitting on a surfboard looking up at some random blob of stars, because that’s what they look like to most of us, and he’s telling the same sacred story as some Viking in Iceland who’s buried up to his waist in snow, and the same story that some African tribesmen hold sacred as something that’s been passed on forever.
That’s not supposed to happen. That’s not explainable by our current understanding of how anthropology works. We don’t have any archaeological evidence to support why all of these civilizations would be connected in that way.
Well today’s returning guest, David Mathisen, has almost single-handedly change the way we think about stars, and the star myths associated with them, and this hidden in plain sight kind of thing that I just talked about. His books, Star Myths of the World, Volume One, Two, Three. I think you’re up to Volume Four now, aren’t you David?
David Mathisen: [00:02:07] Yeah, Volume Four is Norse Myths and it was published in 2018 Alex.
Alex Tsakiris: [00:02:12] There you go see, I’m one volume behind. Hard to keep up with this guy, and he’s got a bunch of other books that will introduce you to excellent books, overwhelmingly clear convincing, I would say at this point undeniable evidence for the universal star myth hypothesis.
But what’s really cool, and I know I’m going on here for a while, but I wanted to get it up to this point because what’s really cool about today’s interview and what we’re going to get into, is the messages behind those myths. So if we can get to the point of saying, “Yeah, that seems pretty undeniable,” then we ought to take the next step and say, “What might be the message behind it?” I mean, if there was some great teacher, and just put a pin in that for a second, who took the trouble to spread this perennial wisdom throughout our world, throughout ancient civilizations, throughout our planet, then maybe we want to figure out what they were trying to tell us.
So that’s what we’re going to do today with my fantastic guest, star myth master, David Mathisen, who I have total respect for as a fellow seeker on the path, I [unclear 0:03:24] to you, even though in typical Skeptiko fashion of inquiry to perpetuate doubt, I’m probably going to have some contentious points with you on a couple of these issues. But that’s the kind of stuff I like to do, the level three discussion beyond the kind of usual stuff.
It’s so great to have you back David. I’m so glad you initiated this because this whole conversation is taken on a life of its own that I am really, really excited to get in the middle of. So, let me step back and say, welcome and thank you for joining me.
 
this man needs to read "World's in Collision". alex, this man follows the truth down to the local 7/11 stops and has coffee.
 
this man needs to read "World's in Collision". alex, this man follows the truth down to the local 7/11 stops and has coffee.
haha... Dave is a great guy who's done an incredible job piecing this all together. I think he's used to talking about his research in one particular way. I think our conversation has more chapters to come.
 
There appears to be a sort of unity of foundation to the star myths around the world though be they all yet so ancient. Might it be safe to suggest they have their origin at a time when the land of the Earth consisted of one big continent? May we suppose then, as the land divided into the continents we know today, that each of them had aboard them some people. People who all held fast to the original same simple collection of star myths?
 
A few years ago, around 1998, I had moved to Port Arthur in Tasmania, onto a property surrounded by bush. One night I went to bed early and struggled to get off to sleep for maybe 5 hours. Around 2 am I was disturbed by the sound of a car approaching and sat up, and as I did I glanced out of the window at a clear cloudless and moonless sky - and I was staggered and overwhelmed by what I saw.

Now I am used to starry skies in the wilderness, but always with eyes conditioned by campfires or some other light, never with pristine eyes. What I saw was a not a dark sky, but one awash with light, and one that felt immediately close, not remote. Words fail me in my efforts to describe what I saw. I was simply overcome by the intensity and proximity of what was before me.

My point is that we do not see the night sky as our ancestors did. Not only that they did not have our notions of light years to create a mental and emotional distance between them and the stars. The heavens were 'just over there' - just out of physical reach - but close. The heavens were part of their reality and environment - as closely linked as the yin yang symbol - bright sky and dark earth.

Our ancestors told stories in the landscape, and the night sky was part of that landscape. If we cannot grasp the intimacy of heaven and earth we cannot grasp the ancient star lore.
 
Another aspect to this is astrology, which has abstracted so much into calculations and lore, rather than actual observation. The sky is an active landscape with cyclical [long and short] conduct that is predictable, and sudden and less predictable conduct that, as on earth, often foretells danger and doom. Our ancestors watched the sky as intently as they watched their world - because it was part of their world - and from it came great peril.

I like Graham Hancock's work on a global cataclysm about 12,000 years ago - multiple strikes by comet fragments that destroyed an advanced civilization. In the aftermath we can imagine survivors with PTSD hyper-vigilance watching the sky with care - more than before. I think star lore is older than this catastrophe. But defense is a key area any culture invests in - so sky watching would be a priority 'after the flood'. The myths suggest a shared belief that the catastrophe is the fruit of moral degradation - so maybe sky watching was a kind of measure of the moral health of a culture? You can see how that might evolve into finer estimates of the relationship between the conduct of the heavens and the conduct of human.

Myths tend to be moral in nature - using metaphor and symbolism to establish and convey enduring truths [moral and spiritual]. And the means of transmission is oral. Story telling retains the enduring moral character of a tale, but can encode other knowledge and cultural assets in the telling.

Star lore can serve double duty to alert to danger and to perpetuate moral conduct and associated knowledge that will keep a people safe
 
Who created the star myths?

The aliens... who are all us... who are one with the one who is one... connected to our creative subconscious... from a past life... lived simultaneously with this one... returning from the past's future in time travelling saucers... we are all "trapped in the amber of this moment." ...Amen.

I like this reading of Genesis replacing "God" with the more accurate translation of Elohim: "the gods".
Genesis 1:14-19
And the gods said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 The gods made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. The gods also made the stars. 17 The gods set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And the gods saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

After I watched this explanation of the Karate Kid, I can never see that movie the same way! :)
 
There appears to be a sort of unity of foundation to the star myths around the world though be they all yet so ancient. Might it be safe to suggest they have their origin at a time when the land of the Earth consisted of one big continent? May we suppose then, as the land divided into the continents we know today, that each of them had aboard them some people. People who all held fast to the original same simple collection of star myths?

The continents split apart way before mankind existed. The old theory was that man originated in Africa and went into Europe and Asia, and from
Asia through Siberia and into the Americas. Though newer data suggests that parts of this narrative may be on shaky ground, according to some in the field.

At any rate it would be just as easy to posit that groups of man took their common stories with them as they traveled to new lands as opposed sitting still and being taken in new directions by a shifting land mass. But I don’t know enough about this to say one way or the other.

On a different but similar note, Sheldrake has spoken about (regarding his theory of morphic resonance) how groups people, who are totally isolated from one another, have had a tendency to make (inexplicably) similar inventions at around the same time, supposedly without contact between each other.
 
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The continents split apart way before mankind existed. The old theory was that man originated in Africa and went into Europe and Asia, and from
Asia through Siberia and into the Americas. Though newer data suggests that parts of this narrative may be on shaky ground, according to some in the field.

At any rate it would be just as easy to posit that groups of man took their common stories with them as they traveled to new lands as opposed sitting still and being taken in new directions by a shifting land mass. But I don’t know enough about this to say one way or the other.

On a different but similar note, Sheldrake has spoken about (regarding his theory of morphic resonance) how groups people, who are totally isolated from one another, have had a tendency to make (inexplicably) similar inventions at around the same time, supposedly without contact between each other.

There are types of lifeforms in the "New World" (the Americas) which are very different to those of the "Old World" which indicate they have lived apart for a very long time. Yet they have sufficient similarities to deduce that they all originated further back in time on the super-continent, before it separated. But these timescales are unimaginably vast, relative to even the longest human or human-precursors existence.

Of the options you posited, floating on the oceans on a piece of wood is overwhelmingly more plausible than floating on a piece of rock and waiting for the continents to drift.

Morphic resonance may or not be relevant. One might instead suggest that knowledge is transmitted from one locatrion to another via the process of reincarnation. There are people alive today who have vivid recall of a past life in a different part of the world, with different culture and ideas.
 
The continents split apart way before mankind existed. The old theory was that man originated in Africa and went into Europe and Asia, and from
Asia through Siberia and into the Americas. Though newer data suggests that parts of this narrative may be on shaky ground, according to some in the field.

At any rate it would be just as easy to posit that groups of man took their common stories with them as they traveled to new lands as opposed sitting still and being taken in new directions by a shifting land mass. But I don’t know enough about this to say one way or the other.

On a different but similar note, Sheldrake has spoken about (regarding his theory of morphic resonance) how groups people, who are totally isolated from one another, have had a tendency to make (inexplicably) similar inventions at around the same time, supposedly without contact between each other.

It is not possible for human beings to have originated in Africa.

Caucasians have Neanderthal DNA, whereas sub-Saharan Africans do not. Therefore, there were other races of humans (could interbreed) outside of Africa.

The out of Africa story was always politically motivated (like global warming) and was always easy to see through.
 
The out of Africa story was always politically motivated (like global warming) and was always easy to see through.
Yeah - it is worth reading some of the output from the Discovery Institute (Intelligent Design). Disregarding the Christian interpretation that some of them prefer, the point is that their whole story of life and its evolution is extraordinarily different from that supported by conventional science - and they increasingly have the scientific evidence to prove it.

They also poke a lot of fun at conventional science. For example:

Jonathon Wells published a book, "Icons of evolution", which exposed the incredible fact that a number of the examples of evolution commonly included in student texts had been exposed as frauds, and yet were still included in new publications:

https://www.discovery.org/a/3570
One of the most famous "icons" discussed is the famous drawings of vertebrate embryos, used in many textbooks to claim that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" (that is, the development of an embryo replays its evolutionary history). There's only one problem with these popular drawings: they were based upon faked data by the 19th century embryologist Ernst Haeckel. The drawings have been known to be faked for years, yet they persist in textbooks as a standard proof of evolution. Moreover, Wells explains that embryos of different classes of vertebrates begin development quite differently, belying the claim that common ancestry is revealed in these early developmental stages.

I seem to remember he also updated this about 10 years later with even more examples, and pointed out that these fraudulent examples were still being included in new textbooks!

So some of the biology textbooks given to students to help them believe in Evolution by Natural Selection, contain deliberate frauds!

If I read them right, not only did life begin with an intensional act, each of the steps in evolution - maybe each new species - originated in an intensional act.

David
 
"Who Created the Star Myths?"

Hey Alex, before I give my twos, I gotta say, I've been listening to you for a long time, and have much respect. I finally got registered just to say: holy crap this was a difficult episode to listen to. David clearly takes a little longer to get to the point than most. We saw that in his last interview with you, so dude, you gotta slow down and let him talk. Because what I think heard him getting to very cautiously was this:

The "Star People" are most likely an ancient people who practiced something akin to modern remnants of shamanism in order to engage with the spirit world. And like living indigenous people, they used features in the environment as a mnemonic to encode the knowledge they gained from the spirit world. In this case, they they mapped their knowledge onto the stars. Mnemonics are holographic. That is, they can be used to track an almost infinite number of dimensions of information, whether it is spiritual, naturalistic, or social, and on and on. The reason why the spiritual messages are esoteric are manifold and they're the same reasons all deep spirituality is esoteric. I don't have time to go into all of these reasons, and you've got a handle on the conspiracy side of things. But there's another simple one: You don't cast pearls before swine. The common person just can't go there. Look at history and what happens to people who DO go there. Moving on...

So back to the Star People... Isn't it possible these are the people who revere and use the stars to record their knowledge but also use them to navigate the world by land or sea? This is the original and cutting edge star tech. It moves beyond bush knowledge and it's friggin awe inspiring. It allows you to store vast amounts of information, predict the future, and--importantly--navigate the globe BLOWING PEOPLES' MINDS. Thus, it necessarily leads to a rapid cultural diffusion of certain aspects of this special way of looking at and using the sky. Imagine a group of people showing up and when you ask where they came from, they point to the night sky and a cluster of stars, "over there." As someone receiving this for the first time, how do you even process that?

The best way you can.

This diffusionist hypothesis (still out of fashion) explains many of the consistencies between the myths. Another go to I like is the Jungian archetypal one. Which makes the information structural to both the human being and the universe in it's entirety. It's the story of everything. It just emerges and we project. Then of course, there is the alien/god/spirit hypothesis. All of these are very compatible, and really, the Jungian perspective incorporates it all very nicely.

Okay, tapping out.

J
 
Welcome Ionas, I hope you enjoy Skeptiko and that 'tapping out' doesn't mean you aren't going to post further!

Hey Alex, before I give my twos, I gotta say, I've been listening to you for a long time, and have much respect. I finally got registered just to say: holy crap this was a difficult episode to listen to. David clearly takes a little longer to get to the point than most. We saw that in his last interview with you, so dude, you gotta slow down and let him talk. Because what I think heard him getting to very cautiously was this:

I do with Alex would organise the material he and his guest intend to cover ahead of time. This one veered from one topic to another over nearly two hours!

So back to the Star People... Isn't it possible these are the people who revere and use the stars to record their knowledge but also use them to navigate the world by land or sea? This is the original and cutting edge star tech. It moves beyond bush knowledge and it's friggin awe inspiring.

I like that suggestion - the knowledge in the stars was essentially navigational, but encoded in stories.

David
 
"Who Created the Star Myths?"



This diffusionist hypothesis (still out of fashion) explains many of the consistencies between the myths. Another go to I like is the Jungian archetypal one. Which makes the information structural to both the human being and the universe in it's entirety. It's the story of everything. It just emerges and we project. Then of course, there is the alien/god/spirit hypothesis. All of these are very compatible, and really, the Jungian perspective incorporates it all very nicely.

Okay, tapping out.

J
"This diffusionist hypothesis (still out of fashion) explains many of the consistencies between the myths. Another go to I like is the Jungian archetypal one. Which makes the information structural to both the human being and the universe in it's entirety. It's the story of everything. It just emerges and we project. Then of course, there is the alien/god/spirit hypothesis. All of these are very compatible, and really, the Jungian perspective incorporates it all very nicely."

Thanks for your post
I agree regarding the Jungian perspective although I think the diffusionist hypothesis is still the de facto perspective in academia.
 
haha... Dave is a great guy who's done an incredible job piecing this all together. I think he's used to talking about his research in one particular way. I think our conversation has more chapters to come.
Alex, you have laid down the gauntlet! It is the credo of your show to go where the knowledge sends you. This topic is far too deep to be treated as milk toast as the author does. Please bring on David Talbot, Laird Scranton, Robert Bauvall.

This author is a great guy who is afraid of his shadow in his writings.

Everyone is afraid to mention on simple word, ATLANTIS. Even if you take the Atlantis story as representing a great antideluvian culture the evidence is overwhelming that we were once tied together is a great and unknown way.
 
Im going to throw in my 20 cents worth without reading the other posts so I apologize in advance if Im repeating things or breaking the thread.
I have listened to David quite a lot so I could quite understand Alex's frustration as the karate kid story just seems so wide
off the mark, then near the end they started fleshing things out but never quite go there.
These star stories are universal, mans quest for alternate states are universal, dragons and mystical lands and creatures are universal,
mans need to join together in groups and form religious groups seem universal etc.
Could it be that this place that we are looking for is very real and very close, just a thought away in fact and the star myths are part of
a universal method to get us there.... just an eye blink away, a place that already has knowledge of the future and the past,contains in
form all thoughts and ideas past and to come.
Its a simple idea but it ties together so much, certainly it is born out by my experiences.
 
Hey Alex, before I give my twos, I gotta say, I've been listening to you for a long time, and have much respect. I finally got registered just to say: holy crap this was a difficult episode to listen to. David clearly takes a little longer to get to the point than most. We saw that in his last interview with you, so dude, you gotta slow down and let him talk. Because what I think heard him getting to very cautiously was this:

Amen.

Part of the problem may be the "jeopardy" thing. It tends to lead to disorganised discussion. Also, Alex frequently interrupted so it was difficult to appreciate Mathisen's thesis and to follow the thread. Plus, the inside baseball left me bewildered; plainly, they both seemed to know what was going on, but personally, I had little clue. I appreciate it's Alex's show, but if he doesn't engage his listeners, plan things out, and above all let the interviewee make his case with the odd clarifying question on his part, he'll lose them. IMO, his own personal differences of opinion need to be put at the end of interviewee's expositions, when they can be discussed before moving on to the next topic.
 
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Imagine a group of people showing up and when you ask where they came from, they point to the night sky and a cluster of stars, "over there." As someone receiving this for the first time, how do you even process that?

Indeed, as a celestial navigator I can appreciate this insight Ionas - and as well would apply it as a means of skepticism with respect to peoples' legends of 'coming from the stars, or a star'. Ancient travelers over land and over sea, used 'patron stars' to navigate by. Twilight (just after sunset) is when you take your star shots in navigation traditionally. There are two ways to mark your geographic location using a star reference:

1. Use a sextant to shoot the altitude of 3 or more stars at around 25 - 60 degrees in altitude over the horizon and then triangulate them by means of sight reduction tables and a sight reduction grid, plotting the sight lines on a map and finding where they triangulate, OR​
2. Observe the star which is directly overhead at twilight, on the Vernal Equinox (the start of journey season).​

(note: the second technique solves the 'problem of longitude' by means of a simple trick, one does not need a chronometer to do longitudinal navigation, and can use the North Star for latitude navigation)​

The second technique is more straightforward for those without sight reduction tables, chronometers, sextants nor octants - and provided your city passes this star name on to traders and migrants, then they can navigate their way to your city (and make it rich in trade, materials and labor as well), by knowing its patron star overhead right at twilight on March 20th - and by daily updating their journey heading towards that star (updating it each night at sunset).

I believe this is where we get the original version of the idiom 'Hitch your wagon to a star'​
So ancient journey over land as well as sea, would have a departure patron star or cluster, and a destination patron star or cluster. And if your tribe founders had migrated from a different place with a different patron star or cluster - such legend could have easily been converted over the ages, into having come from that star or cluster literally - when in fact, this was nothing but an old legend regarding an extinct navigation technique.
 
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There are types of lifeforms in the "New World" (the Americas) which are very different to those of the "Old World" which indicate they have lived apart for a very long time. Yet they have sufficient similarities to deduce that they all originated further back in time on the super-continent, before it separated. But these timescales are unimaginably vast, relative to even the longest human or human-precursors existence.

Of the options you posited, floating on the oceans on a piece of wood is overwhelmingly more plausible than floating on a piece of rock and waiting for the continents to drift.

Morphic resonance may or not be relevant. One might instead suggest that knowledge is transmitted from one locatrion to another via the process of reincarnation. There are people alive today who have vivid recall of a past life in a different part of the world, with different culture and ideas.
pls allow me to re-post from YT:
@Carl Olsen sure... and as I said over and over I'm very appreciative to david for bringing us to the point of asking these questions about a worldwide system of ancient myths, but I do feel a need to nudge him further. these myths as they've been passed on seem to be a unique transmission of perennial wisdom. why was it done this way? what capabilities/technologies would they have to have to spread these stories? what does this say about the nature of perennial wisdom... e.g. maybe it's not just in the extended consciousness realms? and for starters who do the ancients say did this? I could go on and on but you get the point... all the questions I'm interested in begin where david ends.
 
So ancient journey over land as well as sea, would have a departure patron star or cluster, and a destination patron star or cluster. And if your tribe founders had migrated from a different place with a different patron star or cluster - such legend could have easily be converted over the ages, into having come from that star or cluster literally - when in fact, this was nothing but an old legend regarding an extinct navigation technique.
if you have a chance to take a deep dive into david's work you'll see that the myths go way way beyond navigation stuff. we're really talking about a system of perennial wisdom. bible stories in the sky. homer's iliad in the sky.

moreover, I would suggest that this doesn't look like anything that would accidentally/organically/independently emerge into myth:
1568247236699.png

I don't know about you but I see a lot of different ways to connect these dots :)
 
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