Subj:
"crap"
Date: 7/30/00 3:44:08 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: cleland@nwlink.com (James Cleland)
To: Bardsquill@AOL.com
7/30/00
I've been procrastinating lately, avoiding my work, and even on this beautiful
Sunday I should be doing something productive. So I think I should respond
to the nice person who wrote and said that all this stuff is "crap".
First of all, let me say that I know how this person feels. In these times
it is easy for anyone who is involved in the effort to disseminate information
to start thinking that they are unwittingly involved in "crying wolf". As
a doomsayer myself, it is not a pleasant feeling when the impending doom
turns out not to be very impending.
But first, let's dissect the concept of impending doom. The starting point
is quite simple, either doom is impending, or it's not. If it's not, there
is no harm in spending a few minutes a day checking things out on the net,
as long as it doesn't become obsessive. Personally, I find the process highly
entertaining and educational, and I have learned a lot of neat things about
the world in which we live, and especially about human nature. It also allows
me to connect with a lot of good and interesting people (even at NASA!) So,
if this is all crap, properly kept under control, it is fun and harmless
crap.
Now, if doom is, indeed, impending.it is probably good to know what the doom
will be, and when. I don't know about you, but I am always uncomfortable
when I fly. Statisticians will tell you that you have a greater chance of
dying from a gigantic meteorite collision, galactic cosmic ray shower,
catastrophic climate change, or earthquake, than you have of dying from an
airplane crash. Unlike an airplane crash, however, an individual stands a
chance of doing something about the other stuff.
One of the tough things about running a site like Orbit is that you are dealing
with two disparate fields of human activity...science and intuition. As to
intuition, one either accepts its validity or one does not. A recent Discovery
Channel show which dealt with the recently discovered 5,000-year-old "ice-man",
attributed his correctly-placed acupuncture tattoos to an "intuition" on
the part of Neolithic man. Think about it. How in the hell does Bronze Age
man come up with the idea of sticking pins in his skin to relieve arthritis
pain? Prior to 3,000 BC, how long did it take to figure it out by trial and
error? 10,000 years? 20,000? A similar question is raised regarding the use
of curare by Amazon natives. How do a people who have only been in the area
for 10,000 years or so come up with the idea to mix-up such a sophisticated
substance. Although the site trashes one of my favorite people, Schwaller
de Lubicz, there is an article well worth reading , at
http://www.templarlodge.com/stargate.html (a site I found on Orbit).
This seems to be a good way of looking at intuition:
[regarding] the well-known mysteries of the ancient Egyptians' advanced technical
skills - we naturally came to consider the question of where they had acquired
such knowledge. Where, or from whom, had they learned such things?
But we also asked another question. These mysteries concern things that happened
in the ancient past, and the obvious problem is that we cannot study the
past directly. We cannot go back in time and see what happened for ourselves.
Therefore we are left with the interpretation of archaeological and textual
evidence, which inevitably leads to some degree of speculation. The question
we asked was: is there any parallel for the acquisition of inexplicably advanced
knowledge that we can study directly - in other words, that is happening
in the world today,
We believe that there is.
But first, it is worth considering how we tend to think people learn new
skills. We normally think that there are only two ways - whether we're talking
about an individual or a civilisation. Either we work it our for ourselves
by experimentation or trial and error, or somebody else (who has already
worked it out) teaches us.
This is, in a nutshell, the problem of the anomalous sophistication of ancient
Egypt (and many other ancient civilisations). There is no archeaological
evidence of a process of gradual development of these skills. So logically
we have to invoke the second method, and assume that they were taught these
things, either by a lost civilisation or by ancient astronauts.
But what if there is a third way to acquire knowledge? On an individual level,
we know that there is: inspiration. But can this work for an entire culture,
and if so what would be the mechanism behind it? Is there any evidence for
such a thing?
There is. And it is something that is happening today.
During our research we came across the ground-breaking work of a Swiss
anthroplogist named Jeremy Narby, who in 1995 wrote a book called, in English,
The Cosmic Serpent, DNA and the Origins of Knowledge.
About fifteen years ago, Narby was studying the indigenous people of the
Peruvian Amazon, and became fascinated by their astounding botanical knwowledge,
specifically their use of plants for medical and other purposes. What intrigued
him most was how these supposedly primitive people had acquired this knowledge.
Since they have no science in the sense that we understand it, they must
have learned how to make their medicines by trial and error. But there are
some 80,000 species of plants growing in the Amazon rain forest, so to discover
an effective remedy using just two of them would theoretically require the
testing of every possible combination - just under four billion. But many
of their medicines involve not just two plants, but several. If they had
found their recipes by experimentation, it would have taken millions of years
to find just a few, and yet they have a vast range of medicines and other
useful substances. Added to this, preparation of many of them involve long
and complex processes with many stages.
The classic example is curare. This is a powerful poison whose ingredients
come from several different plants, and which, Narby points out, fits a very
precise set of requirements. The hunters needed something that, when smeared
on the tips of blow-pipe darts, would not only kill an animal but also ensure
that it does not tighten its death-grip on a branch and die out of reach
(as often happens with animals killed by arrows). And the meat would have
to be safe to eat. It seems like a very tall order - but curare fits all
these requirements perfectly. It is a muscle relaxant, which kills by arresting
the respiratory muscles. It is only effective when injected directly into
the bloodstream, hence its delivery by blowpipe, and has no effect when taken
by mouth.
The most common type of curare requires a complicated method of preparation
in which the extracts of several plants are boiled together for three days,
during which lethal fumes are given off. And the final result needs a specific
piece of technology - the blow-pipe - to deliver it. How was all this discovered?
The problem becomes even more baffling, because no fewer than forty different
types of curare are used in the Amazon rain forest. All do the same job but
use slightly different ingredients, because the same plants do not grow in
every region. Therefore, in effect, curare was invented forty times.
After puzzling about such questions for a long time, Narby realised that
the best way to find an answer was to ask the Amazonians themselves. So how
do they claim to have discovered curare - and all the other plants-derived
substances that they use? In fact, they take no credit for them. They claim
that all were given to them by the spirits through their shamans.
Shamans have existed throughout the world, especially in tribal societies.
They are what used to be called witch doctors, especially talented and highly
trained trance psychics, who use their gifts to heal, locate the best hunting
and find water in times of drought. In short, they help to solve the problems
of the tribe, and help it survive.
The shaman does this by going into trance, which can be induced in a variety
of ways, from whirling, drumming and dancing, to taking psychoactive drugs
derived from plants or mushrooms. Those studied by Narby in Peru achieve
their trance by ingesting a plant mixture called ayahuasca, which mimics
a substance found naturally in the human brain and which, in large doses,
is a powerful hallucinogen.
When in trance, the shaman's spirit goes on a journey to another realm, in
which he faces horrible dangers. But once he has overcome his adversaries
he communicates with superior intelligences, who often appear in the form
of animals, who answer his questions.
As in fairy tales, the spirits only answer the questions they are asked -
they seldom, if ever, volunteer extra information. So, if the shaman asks
them how to cure a little village girl's meningitis, they will give him that
information - but they will not also tell him how to cure her mother's cancer
unless he specifically asks. And that may involve another trip.
This is what the Amazonians told Jeremy Narby about how they know the properties
of plants and how to combine them. But they also claim that this is how they
learned of specific techniques, such as woodworking and weaving - in fact,
all the arts and crafts necessary for survival.
We must stress that the Amazonians' knowledge of pharmacology (plant-derived
drugs and their potential and actual uses) is not just surprising for what
are considered primitive peoples, but actually exceeds that of modern Western
science. Many modern medicines were taken from those used in the Amazon -
curare, for example, is used in heart surgery. Even the giant drug companies
do not have the ability to develop products to meet specific requirements
as quickly, easily - and naturally - as the Amazonian shamans can.
This is, in fact, an exact analogy for the problem posed by the ancient
Egyptians' anomalous knowledge of, for example, highly sophisticated constructon
techniques. Although they are two very different fields of knowledge, the
basic problem in accounting for the knowledge is exactly the same.
Could it be that the ancient Egyptians acquired the knowledge of how to build
pyramids the shaman's way - by asking the great spirits directly?
It might be thought that it is just too big a step from brewing up potions
to designing and building one of the world's largest and most enduring buildings,
but Jeremy Narby pointed out to us that in some ancient American civilisations
both skills existed side by side. The Aztecs, Incas and Maya constructed
comparable temples to those of Egypt, and attributed their knowledge of how
to build them to their gods. But they also maintained that the gods had also
taught them other arts, such as the use of plants for healing, and astronomy.
So there is a direct analogue for the mysterious knowledge of, and evidence
of advanced technology in, ancient Egypt - in something that is happening
today.
So could the Heliopolitan religion have been based on a form of shamanism?
It is instructive to look at the experiences of anthropologist Michael Harner
among the Conibo Indians of the Peruvian Amazon in the 1960s. He took the
shamans' hallucinogenic drink and later wrote:
'For several hours after drinking the brew I found myself, though awake,
in a world literally beyond my wildest dreams. I met bird-headed people,
as well as dragon-like creatures who explained that they were the gods of
this world.'
Bird-headed people. Doesn't this remind us of the ibis-headed god Thoth and
the hawk-headed Horus? The Egyptians had many animal-headed gods, including
the fearsome lioness-headed Sekhmet and the jackal-headed Anubis. Do they
all live through the stargate of shamanic vision?
In the Pyramid Texts there are many passages that are an exact parallel for
the shamanic experience.
In the Pyramid Texts we read how the King, who is identified with Osiris,
must face terrifying ordeals, similar to the myth of the god himself, in
which he was cut into pieces by the evil god Set, later to be reassembled
and brought back to life by his sister-wife Isis. This is virtually identical
to the classic shamanic experience in which the shaman is hacked to pieces
and magically reassembled before ascending into the spirit world.
Jeremy Narby made a study of shamanism all over the world, and found many
common themes in shamanic visions. A major example is that of snakes or serpents
being bringers of wisdom. This is found even in cultures living in regions
where there are no snakes.
Another common theme is that of the divine twins, also as bringers of wisdom.
Narby points out that the Aztec word 'coatl', as in the name Quetzalcoatl,
means both 'snake' and 'twin'. This reminds us of the two sets of twins in
the Heliopolitan pantheon - Isis and Osiris, and Nephtys and Set.
I believe that our interest in the information published on Orbit is based
on this kind of intuition. I also believe that our commonly-shared intuition
points toward some kind of valuable goal, like curare or acupuncture. I don't
know if the key to the goal is crop-circles, UFO's, comets, or solar activity,
but I do know that sites like Orbit allow anyone who shares the intuition
to sift through all available information, perhaps to discover their "curare"
or "acupuncture". Mine, of course, is rapid global climate change, but it
could just as easily be asteroids or military conspiracies.
As to Nostradamus, he intentionally formulated his predictions so as to make
them difficult, if not impossible to pin down in advance. Anyone who attempts
to do so is involved in a perilous activity indeed. But anyone who doubts
that there is a good chance that he was a genuine seer needs to buy a copy
of Al Stewart's album "Past, Present, and Future". In Stewart's song
"Nostradamus", Nostradamus (through Stewart) predicts the fall of the Berlin
Wall shortly after the death of Pope Paul, "six leagues from the gates of
Rome". At the time the song was written, there hadn't been a Pope Paul for
several hundred years, and the Pope indeed died at the summer palace at Gandalfi,
six leagues from the southern gate of Rome. The Berlin Wall fell, unexpectedly,
shortly thereafter.
A good scientific review of the process involved in Nostradamus' psyche can
be found in Carl Jung's great book "Aion". Although not easily susceptible
to scientific study, the activity of the unconscious was well-examined by
Jung. Not to put too fine a point on it, if I was living in downtown London
in the sixteenth century, I would have liked to have been an assiduous student
of Nostradamus, and subscriber to Orbit.
This brings me, finally, and perhaps mercifully, to the science. If there
is one thing of importance that I've noticed in my cyberspace wanderings,
it is that science is failing the effort when it keeps to its Hermetic tower.
To be blunt with scientists everywhere, any scientist who is doing "important"
work, especially with my tax dollars, should be forced to regularly share
that work with you and me, IN LAYMAN'S TERMS. I was forty-five years old
when I learned that science still doesn't even know what causes rain.it only
has a tentative hypothesis. Funny.it rarely has the courage to admit its
own ignorance. For instance, looking at all the learned papers on the net,
and all the math, you would think that science really understands
electromagnatism. You have to search far and wide to finally determine that
science really doesn't have the foggiest idea of what electromagnetism is,
only how it behaves. Yet the scientists who hide behind all the jargon are
probably the ones who laugh the loudest at us, and the layman who developed
the theory of plate tectonics some several decades before them. Frankly,
to paraphrase Jim Morrison."We want the knowledge, and we want it NOW". I
want NASA to release its preliminary SAGE III findings NOW. They read "The
Coming Global Superstorm" too, and they know that the results are of great
importance to you and me. Even if there is only a 1% chance that Bell's
conjecture is accurate, that's a 1% chance that this one taxpayer can get
out of Dodge. I want NASA to write me back and let me know the final results
of their study of the "weird one" GIF, and the ten or so inexplicable solar
anomalies. They well know of the interest of your thousands of readers, who
are all (I trust) taxpayers. Like you, I want to know why, after it took
decades of delay to get one or two decent weather satellites up there to
give us a reliable forecast, we have a new geophysical satellite being launched
about every 15 minutes or so. Why is all the money being spent now? Until
scientists, who have a strong duty to share, in language I can understand,
research that I am paying for, decide to fill me in, I must rely on you,
and your readers, for the answers.
Kent, if you need to know the value of your work, you need look no further
than the first time SOHO registered the kind of proton hit that we saw on
July 14. It was several years ago, and, if I remember correctly, NASA stated
that it was only a coincidence that there was a proton "shower" shortly after
a CME, and that it wasn't possible for those pesky particles to fly from
the sun to earth at near-light-speed. Now we know better, and, thanks to
you, keep prodding science to let us in on the game. Again, there is a decent
chance that, in the great scheme of things, this is all relatively unimportant,
and we are just having some fun.
On the other hand, it is in the realm of possibility that the sky is, indeed,
falling. My intuition, and what Jung called "sychronicity", tells me that
it is. My intuition hints at regular and cyclical changes in the earth's
climate, connected somehow to the sun and electromagnatism. Orbit guides
me to other sources of information, regarding other people's intuition (which
may be more accurate than mine), and to science (sometimes good, sometimes
poor). Even those assiduous readers and contributors who ascribe the impending
doom to a wrathful Christian God (at the expense of Jahweh, Allah, and the
pantheon of Hindu, Shinto, Animist, and Buddhist deities), probably share
this intuition, and are contributing some important symbolic and philosophical
texture to the effort. The bottom line is that, I want to be the little pig
with the brick house (as do, deep down in their survivalist hearts, all
SUV-owning American men).
Kent, I believe that, through Orbit, you are letting all the other little
pigs in.
Keep the faith.
Jim