Ancient Truths? - Part 1 : The Opener

Dear Reader,

Preliminary

There are so many ancient mysteries, are there not? However, it is not too many people that decide to spend time exploring those mysteries - especially when it comes to doing original research - and I have to admit that I, also, have done nothing by way of fieldwork except by way of exploring and interacting with others and reading on the topic. But what has driven me to find out more on this topic resulted from questions that started to come into my head when I was as young as 10 or 11 years of age, about who we are, and why we are here. Not having obtained satisfactory answers on this matter from my parents, I had nagging questions in my head for a long time. 

As a consequence of my inner promptings and developing experience as I grew up, I became convinced that spiritual forces of some kind exist - that our lives were not (as we were then otherwise urged to believe by the mainstream - and at a time when the church was effectively under attack) just meant to merely strive for material gain, nor were we meant to obtain just physical and mental awareness, nor base our existence just on family life. 

When an inexplicable event took place in my life in the middle-1970s, at the age of 30, I felt obliged to seek out some answers. My consciousness significantly changed from 1974 and has expanded ever since (though I have stumbled down a blind alley from time to time). From that point, and always being interested in politics, I became far more aware of ecological and environmental concerns, psychology, and the philosophies of various Asian cultures. Coincidentally, I then suddenly met a range of interesting people with whom I had stimulating conversations, including (at different times and in different places) two former Roman Catholic priests who had abandoned their religion, and another Catholic who had insight into the Jesuits (shades of Dan Brown!). And many other discussions besides, over a 10-year period, with people from around the world.

And, furthermore, coming across people who sacrificed so much of their lives to help those worse off, they often going to extraordinary lengths to help.

The magnitude of the subject matter I was looking at - through copious reading as well - drove me almost into a mental overload situation, especially in trying to discriminate the likely from the unlikely. I had this problem especially when I came across the likes of Gurdjieff and Blavatsky; but at least they forced me into looking at Christianity more closely, and especially Christianity vis-a-vis other Faiths.

I then decided to 'drop out' from a materially and intellectually rewarding computer systems job in the manufacturing industry to try to make sense of my life. Yes, as you may have thought, some people at the time thought I needed psychiatric help for giving up what I did, which included a company car.

This series of articles about ancient history is not intended as a statement of total fact. Unless we were actually there and experienced various things in the dim and extremely distant past, we cannot say with concrete certainty that anything was quite as researches now seem to indicate, or anything else for that matter unless that knowledge was to come from a direct source. These days, having as I do a strong faith in an Almighty Power, I feel strongly that it is impossible for any being to know the absolute truth or come to concrete conclusions, especially mortals living in the relatively restricted dimension we live in.

All I am doing here is an attempt at stating a general history of man that seems (to me at least) to make sense, and particularly to make more sense of the creation stories of the Old Testament of the Bible and the Qur'an - the Semitic traditions that have particularly influenced Western thought in the last 2,000 years. I am doing this to try to promote (in a very small way) understanding of the West towards other cultures, and also understanding between cultures, and to promote the notion that there is a very real purpose in Life.

My sources for this small series of writings is varied - I have based part of my thinking on the works of historical researchers of course, but they tend not to dwell accurately on the overall picture of the purpose of life and therefore not all the psychological and evolutionary aspects within that framework. So I have deliberately viewed history from the eschatological angle as, for me, that is the appropriate way to try to understand what might have been going on. Conversely, however, spiritual teachers do not dwell much on historical events, being more concerned that what we do now is the relevant issue; that what is passed is passed and cannot be changed and not entirely relevant at this moment. 

It could be that you, dear reader, may want to challenge me or share something with me on some point or other, and I would be happy to receive your input, either by way of comments to this post (below), or to me personally.

I hope you find the following and ensuing material to be stimulating and of interest to you, but - as I said - please do not think that what I am trying to put forward is an absolute notion of the whole truth. Nor, indeed, do I expect you to accept what I state verbatim. It is simply my best shot - and what I feel to be the case. I am prepared to consider variations on this theme.

The Main Propositions Implicit In This Series

1. That life was created by an Intelligent Source or Creator, and that at our level we cannot hope to know that Source other than by following a True Path and thus hopefully receiving the Grace of 'God', the Almighty.
2. That the scale of history must be equated to Time in the form of great passages of time called Yugas, as described in the Vedas of India. We are currently living in the Kali Yuga, the least spiritual of the four-Yuga cycle.
3. That 'the Creator' works through various levels of created beings in varying dimensions, which, at one level, came to be referred to as 'gods' by humans. However, all Creation is One and with One Pure Purpose, despite certain influences that are negative.
4. That though evolution, as proposed by Darwin, has its place, the greater evolution is spiritual and we should be open to the idea that, at times, physical evolution has been artificially 'moved on' by 'the gods' (probably as instruments of the Almighty).
5. That the only physical history that we can genuinely identify is that that has taken place in the last 12,000 years (since the end of the last Ice Age), but that should not preclude an earlier human history that includes civilisations of an advanced form.
6. That many cultures formed across the world in the past 12,000 years can be said to have a common source. That stone circles have been commonly found to have an astronomical significance involving mathematical principles, thereby indicating great learning amidst apparently uneducated peoples. That the Druids of Britain and Ireland appear to have shared a common knowledge with Greeks and Asian wisdom and that they were seekers of knowledge from wherever it could be found.
7. That the Indian Vedas (written down around 7,000 years ago) indicates considerable knowledge of mathematics, medical (including advanced surgery) and other sciences at a level not reached again until modern times. Those accomplishments include aircraft (vimanas), powered by a natural energy named vril. In addition, all the mathematical knowledge attributed to Pythagoras is present in the Vedas!
8. That mankind appears to have received considerable help from the 'gods' (and their visitation) from around 9,000BC to about 3,000BC. That is not to say that such help did not exist before 10,000BC or occasionally (hidden perhaps) in the last 5,000 years.
9. That the creation of Adam and Eve statements in the Old Testament book of Genesis are a (intentional?) mistranslation of earlier texts. One conclusion as a result of that can be that the creation of Adam and Eve in Genesis may well only relate to the creation of the Semitic race - and within the last 12,000 years ('Semitic' here essentially relates to a family that ultimately includes the Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic speaking peoples. The Arabs are reputed to have been born out of Ishmael, the first son of Abraham by Hagar). 
10. That all the religions that have existed in the last 12,000 years have been formed by kings (and their equivalent) and/or priests. Each such religion has been imperfectly derived from the teachings of an avatar, prophet or great seer of a particular region. Each such master taught according to time and place - i.e. according to the particular circumstances of the locality at that time. No religion can be truly successful unless it develops according to 'time and place' - according to changing circumstances.
11. That, sadly, as the understanding of ordinary man (which usually derives from cultural influence and deductive thinking) has not matched the understanding of the founding teacher, the purity of the original teaching was partly or wholly lost as time went by. That is, apart from certain people of purity and inner understanding. Such people often separate themselves (but not always) from ordinary religion. Others come to be regarded as saints (or equivalent term in different societies), though not all saints have achieved the understanding talked of here.
12. It would appear that Jesus ('the Nazarene', not 'of Nazareth' please note) and John the Baptist had links with the Essenes, a Jewish mystical and Messianic order, which in turn appears to have been connected with the Druids. Joseph (so-called 'of Aramathea') appears to have visited Britain on at least one occasion, possibly two occasions. The first 'Christian' church in Europe seems to have been established at Glastonbury, UK, in 37AD, but based on the teachings of the Jerusalem Church (destroyed by Rome in 70AD) and affinity with the Druids. The 'British Church' survived another 600 years before being forcefully merged with the Catholic Church (effectively formed as late as 325AD, when the Canon was agreed).
13. The recognition that there is an 'inner' (evolutionary) spiritual teaching was the apparent cause of the creation of the Knights Templar, from whom masonic orders and the Rosicrucian movement are at least partly derived, and also the building of the great cathedrals (utilising sacred geometry design principles) across northern France in the 12th c.
14. That the Knights Templar visited America seems to be proved by artefacts found in North America and carvings of American plants in the Roslyn Chapel in Scotland, built before the official discovery of America.
15. That the teachings of Jesus have been better understood as a result of the finding of the Nag Hammadi library and other codices, including the Askew and Bruce Codexes.
16. That the separation of material science from spiritual philosophy that began to take place some 400 years ago must result in their re-fusion. Their union (as composite 'knowledge') was how it was in ancient times and as can be clearly observed in the Vedas and in the immensely successful early Islamic period at Baghdad. All knowledge - outer and inner - provides Truth, not the kind of duality that now pervades thinking.  It is noteworthy that Albert Einstein had sympathy for this proposition.
17. That man has come to have too much regard for his mental faculties and that history shows that our world problems stem from that situation, which is based on an over-regard for ego and its largely unfettered self-expression. 
18. That man will only come closer to achieving harmony when he comes to realise that the consequences of his actions is dependent on what he absorbs through all his senses and also as a result of former actions (karma). 
19. That the path of history can easily be changed depending on the quality of the action. And that change is necessary to enable a continuation of upward evolution.

My Primary Sources

• James Churchward, a former British military man and, indeed, once a well-known metallurgist, who published some remarkable books about the Pacific area in the early 1930s, based on his explorations and findings. Not many years ago I put together a fairly short article about mysteries and his work. That article can be seen on my website.
• Christian O'Brien and his book 'The Shining Ones' (1988) - a much-extended version of his earlier book, 'The Genius Of The Few'. The Golden Age Project was set up more than a decade ago - after O'Brien's death - to perpetuate and develop O'Brien's findings - and also those of similar researchers working on related themes. You might be interested in their site here. 
• Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas and their book 'Uriel's Machine' (1999), stemming from their original book, 'The Hiram Key'.

All the above authors have developed a view of history from my favoured angle: a Creationist view of the origin of humanity - but from a much broader view than just following the tale as told in scripture. Their approach was based on considerable scientific research.

The modern researchers and writers John Michel, Gordon Strachan, Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval should also be specifically mentioned as important sources in my study. A list of sources should include other very influential non-academic writers, but there would be too many to include here.

The following three sources I initially regarded with suspicion and, though I find their material quite compelling from both an evolutionary and an ancient history perspective, and contain material that links to the researches of others, I remain a little sceptical - mainly because their works are mainly unverifiable by conventional means:

• Helena Blavatsky, co-founder of the Theosophical Society, and her remarkable and insightful tomes "The Secret Doctrine" and "Isis Unveiled". 
• Rudolph Steiner, whose "Cosmic Memory" supports the works of Blavatsky and describes how the power of thought evolved. Steiner was initially a disciple in the Theosophical Society movement but went on to form his own group.
• William Scott-Elliot, another Theosophist, and his "The Story of Atlantis and The Lost Lemuria".

I must also give entire credit to Sri Sathya Sai Baba for his guidance on spiritual elements of my understanding, and also classical Sufi writers of the order of Jalaladin Rumi, ibn al-Arabi and al Ghazzali, as well as the Nag Hammadi Library. In addition, I also owe George Gurdjieff a great credit in providing (through one of his disciples, John Bennett) one of my first insights into esotericism several decades ago, to Idris Shah for my better understanding of the Sufis, and also to my direct and documented Shia Isma'ili and Hindu sources for a further understanding of esotericism and the different ways to God. Also to the Dalai Lama, the psychologists Carl Jung and Abraham Maslow, and the psychic Edgar Caycey, for providing more marvellous insights into what is.

Thank you for visiting. Part 2 of this series will be about history pre-10,000BC.