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

Group,
honest question, has anyone here read "World's in Collision". I mean READ IT. Not a summary. Just wondering. This story goes back much much further than Jesus....
 
I've been doing a lot of interviews with mediums lately. message they're bringing back is the same message near death experiencers do... i.e. it's all about love, but we will package it in whatever form, and through whatever historical figure, you need.
Are these interviews we will be hearing soon - BTW how long does it take after an interview for a podcast to appear.

What I'd like to understand about the Love story (no pun intended) is what the rest of the story is - I.e. what are we here to do (other than love each other), and if we become good at whatever it is, do we get a chance to use it in a scenario that isn't just a trial?

Above all, what is human life with all its arbitrary unfairness actually for?

Do animals have a place in the scheme?

Is learning anything else - maths say - of any value at all?

Love is very, very hard to appreciate in a vacuum

David
 
Group,
honest question, has anyone here read "World's in Collision". I mean READ IT. Not a summary. Just wondering. This story goes back much much further than Jesus....
Since you obviously have read Velikovsky 's books, why not write a longish post (preferably in a new thread, so it will get discussed at greater length) about what you feel that picture is? Although I knew of the man, I haven't read his works, and one thing that somewhat puts me off, is that he seems to have written a whole set of books with somewhat Science Fantasy type titles - "Ages in Chaos", "Peoples of the Sea", "Stargazers and Gravediggers " etc.

David
 
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Since you obviously have read Velikovsky 's books, why not write a longish post (preferably in a new thread, so it will get discussed at greater length) about what you feel that picture is? Although I knew of the man, I haven't read his works, and one thing that somewhat puts me off, is that he seems to have written a whole set of books with somewhat Science Fantasy type titles - "Ages in Chaos", "Peoples of the Sea", "Stargazers and Gravediggers " etc.

David
Since you obviously have read Velikovsky 's books, why not write a longish post (preferably in a new thread, so it will get discussed at greater length) about what you feel that picture is? Although I knew of the man, I haven't read his works, and one thing that somewhat puts me off, is that he seems to have written a whole set of books with somewhat Science Fantasy type titles - "Ages in Chaos", "Peoples of the Sea", "Stargazers and Gravediggers " etc.

David
thank you for the honest and fair reply
 
I get your point that we shouldn't read the old testament literally but I hope you get my point we do have to read some of the new testament literally.

there's a lot to unravel.
Yes, Alex. Here is an example: John 15-18 KJV "If ye love me, keep my commandments. 16And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. 18I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. 19Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. 20At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. 21He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him."

This is how we may receive our Guardian Angel. Those who have followed Jesus'
instructions regarding peace, and love of others in the sense of compassion for the less fortunate may find themselves with an invisible but not totally undetectable protective companion. Awareness of this Angel will release from unfounded fear anyone who is making his or her way through this hard life on Earth.
 
Alex, you wrote:

I've done a bunch of interviews with joe atwill and he makes a pretty strong case connecting josephus ( who is probably a fictional character whose works were most likely historical accounts of a group of roman historians in the field) anyways these guys went to great lengths to document the roman victory over judea in the first century. we have archaeological evidence of this. so when"josephus" writes about the thickness of the walls surrounding jerusalem we have a way of verifying that.

I certainly agree that the Roman conquest of Judaea took place and can be verified. However, I do not agree that this leads to the conclusion that, as you say:

I get your point that we shouldn't read the old testament literally but I hope you get my point we do have to read some of the new testament literally.

Whether Josephus is a historical character or not (much in his histories can be shown to be celestial and metaphorical, as I explain here: https://mathisencorollary.blogspot.com/2016/12/evidence-of-ancient-conspiracy-in-works.html), the fact of Rome subduing Judaea does not substantiate existence of a (an) historical Jesus.

My analysis of the situation is that the patterns of stories found in the NT have clear and undeniable correlation to stories of the life of the Buddha (thought to have lived around 500 BC -- although once again I argue that the Buddha is celestial metaphor, and show that the details of his "biography" are celestial in nature -- here is a post with video discussing some of that: https://mathisencorollary.blogspot.com/2018/12/birth-of-buddha-birth-of-christ.html ) and undeniable correlation to the episodes in the Odyssey (which was possibly written down as early as 700 BC, and may well be based on myths that go back much further than that -- I discuss a few of the parallels here: https://mathisencorollary.blogspot.com/2018/03/parallels-between-odyssey-and-gospels.html ). Hence they are almost certainly not describing literal events. And of course, the parallels to the myth-cycle of Osiris-Isis-Horus of ancient Egypt are very strong and have been remarked upon by many researchers.

I find the arguments of Gerald Massey to be persuasive, that the figure called "Saul / Paul" (both these names are related to the solar deity: Sol of course being the word for the sun, and "Pol" being related to Polydeuces or Pollux, who is the divine Twin in the Gemini pairing, as well as to the name of the sun deity Apollo, as pointed out by Robert Taylor in the early 1800s) may have been articulating deep and ancient esoteric secrets when expounding the gnostic doctrines of the Christ Within -- and for this revelation to a wider audience of what had been kept very secret, he made some powerful enemies (see discussion this blog post on "Paul the Gnostic opponent of Literalism" https://mathisencorollary.blogspot.com/2015/03/whether-in-body-or-out-of-body-i-cannot.html ).

Paul in his letters makes little or no mention of the "events" described in the gospel narratives (which came later) -- he was describing a Christ Within (later literalist authorities may well have added literalistic passages into his original letters, as suggested by Freke and Gandy, as well as entire epistles which supported literalist ideas and were not written by the gnostic figure who called himself "Saul / Paul"). At one point in Lost Light (on page 47), Alvin Boyd Kuhn asserts that "Christianity has largely nullified the force of St Paul's almost frantic cry to us: 'Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is within you?'" -- in other words, Literalist Christianity has obscured the original teaching of the gnostic we call Paul, who taught a Christ Within, not a literal Christ, and Paul was exasperated when those to whom he had imparted this teaching began to be seduced by literalists and/or literalism (the passage Kuhn is quoting here is 2 Cor 13: 5). Elsewhere, Paul berates the Galatians by asking, "Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" which can be interpreted as asking them why they are falling into the trap of trying to make literal (and fleshly) teachings which are spiritual metaphor having to do with an internal (not an external) reality. By the way, you can access all of Kuhn's Lost Light (1940) here: https://archive.org/details/lostlightaninter029017mbp/page/n6

Having continued to ponder the ET question, it occurs to me that you and others might be using that term to refer to spiritual entities, while when I hear someone say the word "ET" or "extraterrestrial" I categorize that as talking about a physical being who flies to earth in a technological craft. To avoid confusion I would use the word "spirit" or "god" or "supernatural being" or "entity" or "daemon" or "Kami" or any number of other terms rather than using "ET" to refer to both groups, but in considering some of the things you said during the interview, and some of the things that you and others have said here on the forum, it occurs to me that we may be talking past each other due to use of the term "ET" to refer to non-corporeal entities (or, for those who don't want to say "spiritual," I'm also comfortable saying "manifestations of the subconscious," because I believe that the subconscious seems to be connected to information beyond what can be explained through the five senses, and so if someone wants to say "the subconscious" rather than "the spiritual," I won't argue with them, as I discussed in this previous post: https://mathisencorollary.blogspot.com/2019/02/paul-selig-reveals-secret-menu-thats.html and also in this one: https://mathisencorollary.blogspot.com/2019/02/contemplating-aspects-of-terrible-crash.html

If by "ETs" you are talking about entities in the spirit realm (what I would rather call "gods" or "Kami" or something like that), or even in the subconscious realm, rather than literal, physical aliens from another star system who came here in physical craft, then I think that the myths are absolutely talking about that (in other words, I think they are absolutely talking about the spirit realm, to which we are connected in part through our subconscious, and to which I do not generally attach the label "ET"). I don't think the myths are talking about literal visits by aliens in physical craft. I'm actually not dogmatically opposed to the existence of aliens or physical craft, but I am pretty convinced that these ancient myths have nothing to do with that (and pretty convinced that many of the alien contact and abduction stories since the 1940s are very suspicious and may have connections to agencies or groups who do not always have democracy and the benefit of the public in mind, although it is also certainly possible that there are spiritual things going on in that field as well). Again, I will stress that my area of focus is on the myths and the evidence that they are based on celestial metaphor. I'm not an expert in modern ufology and I'm not taking steps to try to become one either.

If you or others are arguing that the ET / contact phenomenon is largely spiritual (or even "occult") then we are probably in much more agreement and it is probably because I tend to use the terms "ET" or "extraterrestrial" in a strictly material sense.

I definitely believe that the things that the myths are talking about involve the realm of consciousness and the subconscious and topics involving OBEs and NDEs and contact with the spirit realm or Invisible Realm or Other Realm or divine realm (whatever we want to term it). I suspect that when you say "ET" you are perhaps actually lumping some of those subjects under that heading. I myself don't do that -- which is perhaps where some major misunderstanding or miscommunication may have arisen!

I may be obtuse but I blame that on many years in the Infantry.

Certainly some very interesting points being brought up by everyone here -- I can't address them all in my replies -- thanks again for interacting with my work and material. If you go visit my blog at http://mathisencorollary.blogspot.com you will find that it is fully searchable (as is my website at https://www.starmythworld.com ) and I think that those who flip through some of the topics that I have written about over the years will discover that I am actually in agreement with much of what Alex and others here are talking about.

I am just deeply suspicious of what I would call "modern ufology" -- and at the same time I'm constantly pulling against the powerful magnetic tug of literalism that makes people want to tell me that "certainly you cannot be saying that none of it is literal, right?" when that is actually exactly what I am saying.
 
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I am just deeply suspicious of what I would call "modern ufology" -- and at the same time I'm constantly pulling against the powerful magnetic tug of literalism that makes people want to tell me that "certainly you cannot be saying that none of it is literal, right?" when that is actually exactly what I am saying.

This is such a powerful problem. Take the claim that Christ Jesus is a literal historic character. That actually weakens his spiritual impact. He is far more potent as a myth. Yo make him a historic figure only if you are going to stake out and defend temporal territory that can have only one defender at any time - you can corporatise a history event, not a mythic one.

The 'literal' is always the metaphor employed to deliver an enduring moral/spiritual theme in a way that can be understood. The paradox is that Christianity, esp the NT, is now woefully out of date if taken literally because the imagery does not bite any more - say if a parable was told in a contemporary setting it would have a deeper connection with what is meaningful to us. The widow's mite would become the widow's dime.

Sitchin insisted that we take the Sumerian myths literally - and he had a point - not about literalism so much as the wilful obfuscation imposed by the mindset that insists that because something cannot be A it must be B. He would served us better if he said we should take meaning plainly and not elaborate it. I think he confused ritual for history, because he didn't understand how to interpret in the first place.

The essence of a spiritual or occult truth cannot exist in our physical consciousness without form - so we clothe it in the mythic cloth of analogy - and hence render it as tales that are mundane or fantastic - which we must represent as 'literally true' to some degree. I mean we don't settle down to a marvel movie and insist all the time that it is just a fantasy. Hollywood taps into this by making movies with morals that are 'based on a true story". In the same way that literally true real life stories don't make good movies, real life stories of actual spiritual heroes do not make good religions.

Our culture is awash with the fantastic represented as 'true life' -and it is really only the innocent or the vulnerable who believe it is so. There is a fundamental difference between believing a thing to be 'true' and thinking it is 'literally true'. Its a rare truth that is enhanced by literalism - that usually disappoints and diminishes.
 
I believe you're conflating Jesus with official Christianity that came later.
ok, but what do you make of that joe alwill's claim that christianity is a roman creation? what do you make of his claim that many of the prophecies of can be shown to be direct reworkings of josephus?


Few credible historians dispute that Jesus was a real person. If you believe in life after death which I assume you do, Jesus is alive. He's still a teacher....there are other spiritual guides. But Jesus still has a lot to offer.
where does jesus rank among spirit guides? is he on top? is he the son of God in a unique special way?
 
Alex, you wrote:

I've done a bunch of interviews with joe atwill and he makes a pretty strong case connecting josephus ( who is probably a fictional character whose works were most likely historical accounts of a group of roman historians in the field) anyways these guys went to great lengths to document the roman victory over judea in the first century. we have archaeological evidence of this. so when"josephus" writes about the thickness of the walls surrounding jerusalem we have a way of verifying that.

I certainly agree that the Roman conquest of Judaea took place and can be verified. However, I do not agree that this leads to the conclusion that, as you say:

I get your point that we shouldn't read the old testament literally but I hope you get my point we do have to read some of the new testament literally.

Whether Josephus is a historical character or not (much in his histories can be shown to be celestial and metaphorical, as I explain here: https://mathisencorollary.blogspot.com/2016/12/evidence-of-ancient-conspiracy-in-works.html), the fact of Rome subduing Judaea does not substantiate existence of a (an) historical Jesus.

My analysis of the situation is that the patterns of stories found in the NT have clear and undeniable correlation to stories of the life of the Buddha (thought to have lived around 500 BC -- although once again I argue that the Buddha is celestial metaphor, and show that the details of his "biography" are celestial in nature -- here is a post with video discussing some of that: https://mathisencorollary.blogspot.com/2018/12/birth-of-buddha-birth-of-christ.html ) and undeniable correlation to the episodes in the Odyssey (which was possibly written down as early as 700 BC, and may well be based on myths that go back much further than that -- I discuss a few of the parallels here: https://mathisencorollary.blogspot.com/2018/03/parallels-between-odyssey-and-gospels.html ). Hence they are almost certainly not describing literal events. And of course, the parallels to the myth-cycle of Osiris-Isis-Horus of ancient Egypt are very strong and have been remarked upon by many researchers.

I find the arguments of Gerald Massey to be persuasive, that the figure called "Saul / Paul" (both these names are related to the solar deity: Sol of course being the word for the sun, and "Pol" being related to Polydeuces or Pollux, who is the divine Twin in the Gemini pairing, as well as to the name of the sun deity Apollo, as pointed out by Robert Taylor in the early 1800s) may have been articulating deep and ancient esoteric secrets when expounding the gnostic doctrines of the Christ Within -- and for this revelation to a wider audience of what had been kept very secret, he made some powerful enemies (see discussion this blog post on "Paul the Gnostic opponent of Literalism" https://mathisencorollary.blogspot.com/2015/03/whether-in-body-or-out-of-body-i-cannot.html ).

Paul in his letters makes little or no mention of the "events" described in the gospel narratives (which came later) -- he was describing a Christ Within (later literalist authorities may well have added literalistic passages into his original letters, as suggested by Freke and Gandy, as well as entire epistles which supported literalist ideas and were not written by the gnostic figure who called himself "Saul / Paul"). At one point in Lost Light (on page 47), Alvin Boyd Kuhn asserts that "Christianity has largely nullified the force of St Paul's almost frantic cry to us: 'Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is within you?'" -- in other words, Literalist Christianity has obscured the original teaching of the gnostic we call Paul, who taught a Christ Within, not a literal Christ, and Paul was exasperated when those to whom he had imparted this teaching began to be seduced by literalists and/or literalism (the passage Kuhn is quoting here is 2 Cor 13: 5). Elsewhere, Paul berates the Galatians by asking, "Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" which can be interpreted as asking them why they are falling into the trap of trying to make literal (and fleshly) teachings which are spiritual metaphor having to do with an internal (not an external) reality. By the way, you can access all of Kuhn's Lost Light (1940) here: https://archive.org/details/lostlightaninter029017mbp/page/n6
I feel like we're doing doing a rerun of the interview :) yr points are fine, but non-responsive to my point. I'm not hung up on the idea of jesus being historical figure. allow me to refine:

- I assume you believe the bible's description of the sacking of jerusalem is a historical account? here's an arc they built to celebrate it:
1568641156859.png

- this historical event is recorded in the bible as a "prophecy." this is a huge problem for biblical literalists.

- but is it also a problem for your star myth theory?

- I mean, it's a problem for christians because they now have to explain how did the records of these roman historians wind up in the bible as coming out of the mouth of jesus as prophecy?

- and if some boots on the ground social engineering control meisters did this, then what's to say they didn't rework some old star myths into the story for similar purposes? and if you're ok with that idea then you have to start telling us where and when the original star myths came into being and which ones are a hollywood/roman reboots.
 
Having continued to ponder the ET question, it occurs to me that you and others might be using that term to refer to spiritual entities, while when I hear someone say the word "ET" or "extraterrestrial" I categorize that as talking about a physical being who flies to earth in a technological craft.
sure, let's stick with physical being who flies to earth in a technological craft.. as opposed to nazis and monkeys (
Roswell And The Reich: The Nazi Connection by Joseph P ...

).

1568641960049.png


If by "ETs" you are talking about entities in the spirit realm

- all indications are that we are in the spiritual realm as well as being in the physical. we are outside of time space and inside of time space. we are spirit beings having a physical experience. this seems like more that a trite new age saying. we can't really process the near-death experience data or the reincarnation data and come to a different conclusion.

-- do you agree, or do you believe you are purely physical and have no access to the spiritual realms while you're in your physical body? do you believe you are incapable of having spiritual dreams? do you believe you are incapable of having spiritual journeys thru entheogens? believe you are incapable of spirit communication through a medium?

(and pretty convinced that many of the alien contact and abduction stories since the 1940s are very suspicious and may have connections to agencies or groups who do not always have democracy and the benefit of the public in mind, although it is also certainly possible that there are spiritual things going on in that field as well). Again, I will stress that my area of focus is on the myths and the evidence that they are based on celestial metaphor. I'm not an expert in modern ufology and I'm not taking steps to try to become one either.
- it seems to me like you're sidestepping lot of the data.

- I previously referenced mary rodwells work and you didn't respond. she's done hypnotic regression with three thousand people that claim alien contact. these contact experiences are relevant to your star myth theory so I think it behooves you to deal with that data.

- Similarly I referenced the beyond UFO book by rey hernandez. this book contains an extensive academic survey of contact experiences. again the conclusions stand in contrast to what you've written above.


I definitely believe that the things that the myths are talking about involve the realm of consciousness and the subconscious and topics involving OBEs and NDEs and contact with the spirit realm or Invisible Realm or Other Realm or divine realm (whatever we want to term it). I suspect that when you say "ET" you are perhaps actually lumping some of those subjects under that heading. I myself don't do that -- which is perhaps where some major misunderstanding or miscommunication may have arisen!

- I suspect that the well documented cases of ancient people (as well as more modern native people) encountering "star people" are probably huges clues to what's going on. I'm not saying it's 100% solves the star my questions, I'm just saying it's the obvious answer and we have to deal with it before we move on to anything else.

1568642973140.png

and I guess I'm saying that I don't think you've adequately addressed it.

what seems to stand in the way is yr non belief in modern ET contact experiences and that's why I keep jamming that data in your face.
 
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Are these interviews we will be hearing soon - BTW how long does it take after an interview for a podcast to appear.

What I'd like to understand about the Love story (no pun intended) is what the rest of the story is - I.e. what are we here to do (other than love each other), and if we become good at whatever it is, do we get a chance to use it in a scenario that isn't just a trial?

Above all, what is human life with all its arbitrary unfairness actually for?

Do animals have a place in the scheme?

Is learning anything else - maths say - of any value at all?

Love is very, very hard to appreciate in a vacuum

David
yeah, a lot of those questions are on my list too :)

as far an lag time.. it varies... about 3 weeks presently.
 
[FAO David Mathisen]

David, Let's suppose you're right. Myths worldwide have a similar underlying structure and we don't know exactly why that is -- could be some kind of connection that disparate populations have with the collective unconscious, and that connection could be flavoured by local cultural factors. Let's take seriously the contention that you have uncovered this similarity and are claiming that the myths are trying to tell us something important about how to make spiritual progress in our lives.

If there can be superficial differences providing glosses on an underlying commonality between the myths of Ancient Greece, Egypt, the Norsemen, societies in Middle and South America, etc. then it seems not unreasonable to suppose that the myths might be equally capable of evolving as human societies evolve.

agreed and made more complicated by the different ways that they could be evolving.
1. hollywood reboot... will make a new movie based on the old movie
2. updated spiritual journey... hey my spirit guides told me something different than what they told my ancestors
3. new channeled information... new downloads are happening all the time
4. contact with star people that fly around in spaceships


There is some evidence that the ET/UFO mythology is an updating of the mythology of the past. Read, for example, the book Meaning In Absurdity by Bernardo Kastrup. In the first chapter, he gives a few examples of strange events, one of which is the following:

Springtime in North America, in the 1960s. A man steps out of his house and comes face to face with a saucer-shaped object hovering above his yard. A hatch opens and the man sees three entities inside the craft. The supposed aliens are small and dark-skinned, like certain types of fairies. One of the entities holds up a jug to the man, a gesture the man interprets as a request for some water. Space aliens, able to fly undetected across solar systems, needing to stop by and reveal themselves to a man in order to fill up a jug of water? What is the logic of that? Nonetheless, the man obliges, filling the jug with water from inside his house. When he returns, he sees one of the entities inside the craft frying what appears to be food on a kind of grill. Upon taking note of the man’s interest in their food, one of the entities hands the man three pancakes. Thereafter, the entities close the hatch, take off, and disappear. Naturally, it would be easy to dismiss such story as the delusions of a pathological mind, especially given the fact that no physical evidence could be found upon further investigation; that is, except for the pancakes, which were sent by the United States Air Force for analysis at the Food and Drug Laboratory of the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
I'm glad you brought up the pancake story I think it needs to be revisited based on what we've learned in recent years. ET is now undeniable. we have the videos from the government. we have stories on the front page of the new york times. we're in a different place regarding disclosure. so we still have to deal with the pancake story but we now have to fit inside of a different frame.​
I've looked through the Beyond UFO book where they interviewed thousands of people with contact experiences and I don't see any other pancake stories. . That doesn't mean that the pancake story isn't true but it doesn't mean that it is true. or something in between true and not true.​
 
Ahhh -- ummm -- did nobody hear what I was explaining in this interview or in the videos that I embedded in my earlier post here? The figures and episodes described in the "Old Testament" (so called) are CONSTELLATIONS. So is the figure of Jesus in the gospels who is "referencing" the scriptures of the Old Testament and the figures and events described in those scriptures. The events described in the Old Testament are not literal, they are not terrestrial, and they are not historical. When Moses is placed in "an ark daubed with slime and with pitch" and placed in the water, this did not happen on this earth in literal history. Nearly identical stories fitting into this same pattern can be found around the globe, in the scriptures of ancient Mesopotamia, and of ancient India, and of ancient Japan (in the Kojiki), and in the Maui cycle of myths given to the cultures of the vast Pacific Ocean. These stories are based on a specific region of the heavens, a very important region of the heavens, containing the constellation Ophiuchus and the dazzling heavenly "river" of the Milky Way (which sometimes plays the role of the sea-shore and sea-foam, rather than a river, as in the story of baby Maui cast into the sea-foam). They are not about literal events -- and neither, I would argue, are all the other (supposedly) "really nasty stuff" described in the ancient myths, including the events in the Old Testament (so called). And I say "so called" because the stories described in the New Testament are equally ancient, and the patterns of events found in those texts can also be seen in the myths of other cultures around the world, including of course in the myths of ancient Egypt, and also in the Greek myths (particularly the Odyssey, which has numerous parallel episodes to those in the so-called New Testament), and the Norse myths of far northern Europe, and of ancient India, and sacred stories in the Americas. If I convey nothing else in this interview, I would hope at least that I convey my considered opinion, based on overwhelming evidence, that these stories are NOT LITERAL and are not intended to be taken literally -- and that when we do take them literally we often miss their message and even invert their message.

David do you think there is any real difference between Literal and Myth?
I was so hoping that you were coming out of the Academic Closet and it started to sound like it near the end of the interview.
I think there is something brewing in your psyche that might surprise you in the future.
 
[FAO David Mathisen]

David, Let's suppose you're right. Myths worldwide have a similar underlying structure and we don't know exactly why that is -- could be some kind of connection that disparate populations have with the collective unconscious, and that connection could be flavoured by local cultural factors. Let's take seriously the contention that you have uncovered this similarity and are claiming that the myths are trying to tell us something important about how to make spiritual progress in our lives.

If there can be superficial differences providing glosses on an underlying commonality between the myths of Ancient Greece, Egypt, the Norsemen, societies in Middle and South America, etc. then it seems not unreasonable to suppose that the myths might be equally capable of evolving as human societies evolve. Who knows, the latest version of the myths may be cast in the mould of ETs and UFOs. If that's the case, then maybe that's telling us that the older versions aren't currently apposite to our situation (though one can see the value in documenting them and trying to find parallels with newer myths).

There is some evidence that the ET/UFO mythology is an updating of the mythology of the past. Read, for example, the book Meaning In Absurdity by Bernardo Kastrup. In the first chapter, he gives a few examples of strange events, one of which is the following:

Springtime in North America, in the 1960s. A man steps out of his house and comes face to face with a saucer-shaped object hovering above his yard. A hatch opens and the man sees three entities inside the craft. The supposed aliens are small and dark-skinned, like certain types of fairies. One of the entities holds up a jug to the man, a gesture the man interprets as a request for some water. Space aliens, able to fly undetected across solar systems, needing to stop by and reveal themselves to a man in order to fill up a jug of water? What is the logic of that? Nonetheless, the man obliges, filling the jug with water from inside his house. When he returns, he sees one of the entities inside the craft frying what appears to be food on a kind of grill. Upon taking note of the man’s interest in their food, one of the entities hands the man three pancakes. Thereafter, the entities close the hatch, take off, and disappear. Naturally, it would be easy to dismiss such story as the delusions of a pathological mind, especially given the fact that no physical evidence could be found upon further investigation; that is, except for the pancakes, which were sent by the United States Air Force for analysis at the Food and Drug Laboratory of the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
Kastrup explains that the man was Joe Simonton, whose

case was analyzed and reported by respected French UFO investigator Dr. Jacques Vallée in 1970. As it turns out, the pancakes that the ‘aliens’ supposedly gave Joe were made of perfectly regular earthly ingredients. Puzzlingly, however, they did not contain any salt. As Vallée stresses, Joe Simonton was considered a very reliable, sincere, and trust-worthy man, this being the reason why even the Air Force took his original claims so seriously. Vallée then goes on to compare Joe’s experience with old fairy stories from Celtic folklore. As it turns out, there is a wealth of folk stories where the fairies either offer or ask for food. Interestingly, fairies never eat salt. Vallée makes an elaborate and convincing case for the relationship between modern encounters with ‘aliens’ and old fairy lore. He suggests persuasively that ‘aliens’ and ‘spaceships’ may be simply the modern ego’s interpretation of the same primary stimulus that inspired the original folk stories about fairies and elves.

Later, Kastrup says:

To Harpur, the calls of the absurd are protrusions into our consensus reality of phenomena anchored in the daimonic realm: a realm that is both material and immaterial; both fact and fiction. Thus, ‘daimonic reality’ is a kind of intermediate realm between the physical and the spiritual, between reality and imagination, embodying characteristics of both. Harpur identifies this realm with what Jung called the ‘collective unconscious,’ although Harpur – more explicitly than Jung – does not restrict the daimonic to the inside of our heads alone. In the realm of the daimonic, the imagination operates in its most natural form: through analogical – not literal – thinking; through metaphor, not causally closed modeling. Indeed, Jung has suggested that parables and similes are an older, more archaic mode of thought than linear logic and rationality. This archaic mode of thinking currently survives mostly in dreams.

Maybe it's not so much that the myths are trying to tell us something, as that human beings sometimes (perhaps more pervasively in the past than the present) have access to a "daimonic realm". It may or may not be actively trying to tell us something, but the point is, regardless, we may infer something about the nature of reality -- that it might be neither wholly logical/physical nor wholly "spiritual".

The "daimonic realm" may be one which has its own characteristics that we may sometimes be able to perceive, and we might ask ourselves whether, most of the time, we aren't experiencing a "reality" that isn't complete, but rather one that is prevalent in our culture. Ask ourselves if we're like someone walking around with a patch over one eye, seeing the world only from the physicalist viewpoint. Maybe others wear a patch over the other eye and interpret everything in spiritual terms. Maybe those most attuned to reality don't wear a patch at all and see the world "binocularly", so to speak.

We are creative beings; we may participate in, be co-creators of, the "reality" we perceive. For many in the West, that reality is physicalist and devoid of meaning. Others may be appalled by the nihilism and be seeking a world filled with meaning; one might say they're on a spiritual path. But both may be missing a possible truth: that either view on its own is deficient. With both eyes open, we may have a pathway to observing reality differently, and the potential to interact with it in ways most of us can't comprehend.

Right, but to see and partake in the "other side" we need to suspend logic for a moment to enter.
Logic has no place there, that is why we have story after story showing us this.
Aliens, star myths, faeries,dragons etc, its pretty clear really its all the same, we know this but
are trying to think things through logically which takes us further away.
 
Right, but to see and partake in the "other side" we need to suspend logic for a moment to enter.
Logic has no place there, that is why we have story after story showing us this.
Aliens, star myths, faeries,dragons etc, its pretty clear really its all the same, we know this but
are trying to think things through logically which takes us further away.
I hear you I'm up but I'm going keep pretending it's otherwise by asking some simple-minded questions in hopes that David will reply:

===
- what might have been the purpose for spreading this kind of perennial wisdom? spiritual? social control? one world government?

- what kind of technology would be necessary spread this wisdom?

- is there evidence that it was taught in a particular way?

- were instructions given regarding how and how not to spread it and pass it on? are there similarities / differences regarding this point across cultures?

- in what ways are the origin stories re the star myths similar/different than stories of the star people?

- if you had to pin down a date range for the origin of the star myths what would it be? how much does it vary from culture to culture?

===

I'd encourage David to check out:
Dr. Gregory Shushan, Making the Case For Cross-Cultural NDEs |422|

he's dealing with similar problems/questions.
 
agreed and made more complicated by the different ways that they could be evolving.
1. hollywood reboot... will make a new movie based on the old movie
2. updated spiritual journey... hey my spirit guides told me something different than what they told my ancestors
3. new channeled information... new downloads are happening all the time
4. contact with star people that fly around in spaceships

I think that one thing Bernardo is indicating is that none of us perceive actual reality. When we speak of the real world, we really mean the consensually-agreed reality, the one which seems to have the greatest consistency, enabling us to engage with it in predictable ways. Human beings like this; it's all part of the innate drive for causal closure, to exist within a system that lacks arbitrariness and has certainties that can be relied on.

It seems to us that most of what is certain and predictable must exist independently of us, if only because each of us seems to know we didn't create it. If we didn't create it, then someone or something else must have created it: both non-materialists and materialists usually agree on that, differing only in the choice of which one it is (the blind laws of nature, or, a purposeful creator). Both, in a sense, are alternate versions of God, and rely on belief rather than certainty.

Is there no such a thing as certainty? Maybe all each of us has is whatever consensual "reality"we feel most comfortable with, the one that seems to offer the best closure. For some, that implies a someone, and for others, a something. Since there are large segments of the population who think one way and large segments who think the other, any sense of closure is constantly under threat and there is constant bickering between the two factions. Heck, even within factions, there is constant bickering: between different religions/spiritual views, between proponents of different physicalist theories -- or between you and David Mathisen for that matter.

Religions and spiritual beliefs are undoubtedly based on much mythology, which may have been in large part appropriated from prior cultures, and in one way or another been given a new gloss -- iow they may have evolved in any one of a thousand ways, be it serendipitously or by conscious manipulation. But that doesn't say much about there being underlying truths in myth, or where archetypal themes, on which myths are themselves based, originate.

Science declares it has dispensed with myth and superstition because it believes in something rather than someone: "it's not my fault, gov, that's just the way it is, like it or lump it". Science is totally blind to the idea of consensus possibly being able to influence what we think of as reality; totally blind to the simple truth that it's actually based on belief in something rather than someone.

But is science right? For it, reality is based on the literal existence of things; but realism has received a great jolt using its own methodologies. Bernardo covers Bell's theorem, and how testing it has challenged it and repeatedly failed to overthrow it. Some scientists may be willing to consider ditching locality, but they're still fighting tooth and nail over realism.

The propensity is for any consensus to contain the seeds of its own overthrow. Bernardo reckons that sooner rather than later a scientific revolution (a la Thomas Kuhn) will occur, and the current consensus will be replaced by something based on idealism rather than physicalism. We'll look back and shake our heads about how recalcitrant we were.

The next step involves acknowledging that we create our own realities, and they all fail to some degree or other to provide certainty or closure, whether or not there's widespread consensus about them. They all have their quirks and paradoxes. In one area, faeries/ET's leave unsalted pancakes, whilst in another experiments demonstrate the demise of locality and reality.
I'm glad you brought up the pancake story I think it needs to be revisited based on what we've learned in recent years. ET is now undeniable. we have the videos from the government. we have stories on the front page of the new york times. we're in a different place regarding disclosure. so we still have to deal with the pancake story but we now have to fit inside of a different frame.
I've looked through the Beyond UFO book where they interviewed thousands of people with contact experiences and I don't see any other pancake stories. . That doesn't mean that the pancake story isn't true but it doesn't mean that it is true. or something in between true and not true.​
Well, you have your own preferred reality. One in which you want to revisit the pancake affair because for you it doesn't fit in, isn't categorisable under a set of views you formerly held. There may not be plenty of other closely similar reports, but there are plenty of reports of artifacts of other sorts, even of actual aliens.

You're possibly right when you say the pancake story may be true or false or not exactly either, but to me the same applies to many other stories, including the currently dominant story about scientific materialism, David Mathisen's story about star myths, yours (to be frank, I'm not exactly sure what that is and what the beef is between you), and even Bernardo's about meaning in absurdity.

In the end, to me it shows that nothing we think we know may actually be the case. I feel completely adrift; have given up the notion that any story is definitely true. I have my preferred stories, but they are not wholly consistent and offer me no certainty, no closure. I know I don't know, and, apart from the existence of consciousness, that's all I know. Bivalence (a particular view has to be either true or false) and the correspondence theory (every truth corresponds to one or more facts) seem to me to be elusive concepts upon which it is unsafe to base one's philosophy of life.
 
- and if some boots on the ground social engineering control meisters did this, then what's to say they didn't rework some old star myths into the story for similar purposes? and if you're ok with that idea then you have to start telling us where and when the original star myths came into being and which ones are a hollywood/roman reboots.

For me the NT is a fusion of myth and propaganda, so this is a fair question. But at the same time myth is rendered in distorted ways at times - to present it as original 'Christian' content.
 
ok, but what do you make of that joe alwill's claim that christianity is a roman creation? what do you make of his claim that many of the prophecies of can be shown to be direct reworkings of josephus?



where does jesus rank among spirit guides? is he on top? is he the son of God in a unique special way?
The only exposure I've had to Joe Atwill's theory is on your podcast so I don't have a great deal of knowledge on it. My impression of it at the time was that it was weak and didn't merit further consideration. Were aspects of official Christianity a Roman creation? Without doubt especially after Coinstantine. Are the gospels embellished? Surely. Were the temple prophecies written after the fact? Quite likely. Does this prove Jesus didn't exist? No.

I do believe the Christ transcends the person of Jesus. It is a higher consciousness. Jesus was able to become an open door for the Christ mind to flow through him and thus was aptly named Jesus Christ. Anyone who can let the Christ light shine through them also could rightly be called the Christ. Thus we could understand that the Christ not Jesus the person is the "only begotten son of God".

Jesus isn't the son of God in a unique way. As far as ranking of who is on top of spirit teachers, I have no idea. But considering the vast amount of time humans have been on Earth and Jesus only getting out of the cycle of rebirth a couple thousand years ago, probably not.
 
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