Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge

Most history books still teach that about 5000 years ago mankind was a primitive hunter-gatherer incapable of complex thought. Under this paradigm megalithic structures found all over the world were built for sacrificial purposes, to deify a ruler, or to help a society ignorant of the seasons know when to plant its crops. Mankind was thought to be a brutish sort stuck in survival mode, incapable of little more than grunting and groaning. This myopic view is reinforced by misapplied evolutionary theory that requires that anything that came before us must be more primitive.

But the myth and folklore of ancestral people give us a far different story. They speak of a time when mankind walked with the gods and lived in harmony with nature on a pristine Earth. They whisper of a long lost Golden Age, and a celestial driven cycle where the rise and fall of the ages flows like seasons. Most of all, they speak with reverence about the stars and our connection with the heavens.

It has recently been discovered that most megalithic structures (cairns, tombs, henges, etc. around the globe) are astronomically aligned, or positioned to mark the solstices and cardinal points. Huge stones are one of the few things that still stand after several thousand years and these structures bespeak of a worldwide civilization attuned to the heavens – and more. One of our recent presenters at CPAK, scientist John Burke, author of Seed of Knowledge Stone of Plenty, has found that the magnetic polarity of the 66 remaining stones at Avebury are all positioned with their positive poles facing the next one in line – a discovery with huge implications! John took over a thousand readings with a flux magnetometer but how did the Ancients know about such subtle forces? And why did they align them in a pattern similar to a modern particle accelerator? Such discoveries suggest the megalithic builders understood certain electromagnetic properties and utilized them for purposes we have still not discovered.

One theme of CPAK is to look closely at the Great Year, and its mechanism that so fascinated the Ancients; the precession of the equinox. This task was begun by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Deschend, in their book Hamlet’s Mill. This epic work documents hundreds of bits of myth and folklore from over thirty separate ancient cultures that all seem to tie the rise and fall of man and history to the procession (or rather precession – backward movement) of the equinox through the constellations of the zodiac. While these brilliant scholars died before deciphering the reasons for all this interest in precession, they did think it odd that so many cultures would be consumed with a motion that is hardly noticeable in the average lifespan today. They wondered if it had a great purpose.

Modern science tells us precession is an obscure effect due to lunisolar forces acting upon the oblate Earth and has nothing to do with history or the ages of man. At least that is the present theory.

Giorgio commented:

It has lost relevance for our affairs, whereas once it was the only majestic secular motion that our ancestors could keep in mind when they looked for a great cycle, which could affect humanity as a whole. But then our ancestors were astronomers and astrologers. They believed that the sliding of the sun along the equinoctial point affected the frame of the cosmos and determined a succession of world ages under different zodiacal signs. They had found a large peg on which to hang their thoughts about cosmic time, which brought all things in fateful order. Today, that order has lapsed like the idea of the cosmos itself. There is only history, which has been felicitously defined as “one damn thing after another”.

Contrary to modern theories, some ancient myth and iconography, like that of the mysterious Mithraic culture, suggests that the observable of precession (stars moving across sky) is due to our Sun orbiting another star. In a process similar to the Earth orbiting the Sun (which produces seasons) –they see the Sun’s vastly greater orbit producing changing conditions on Earth and a rise and fall in consciousness on a grand scale. The 1960′s lyric “the dawning of the age of Aquarius” is a reference to this ancient belief that as the equinox precesses through the constellations of the zodiac to a certain point, it will once again usher in a higher age. Could there be any truth to this belief? Modern scientists scoff at the very question. Thus the ancient and modern worldviews of precession and its impact on history and consciousness couldn’t be more opposed.

At CPAK we look at this grand idea from every angle: Could precession have another cause and might our Sun have a companion star? If so, what are its mechanics and how might orbital changes in stellar electromagnetic fields affect the Earth’s ionosphere, magnetosphere and consciousness in a cyclical pattern? What does myth say about the higher ages and what evidence do we find to support them? How do we tell time on the Celestial Clock of the ages and where exactly are we now? Are we really at the dawning of greater awareness or a new time? How much did the Ancients really know?

In the standard paradigm of history anomalous artifacts like the Greek Antikythera device (a thousand years before the invention of complex precision gears) or the Baghdad batteries (two thousand years before Volta invented the battery) do not make sense. Likewise, ancient hints of subtle forces whether it is Qigong or Feng Shui in China, or the electromagnetic and electrostatic properties found at Mesoamerican mounds and pyramids, are baffling to the modern mindset. But the ancient idea of a Great Year provides a logical context in which to fit such knowledge and gives meaning to myth and folklore from around the world.

So far our collective efforts show that there appears to have been a relatively advanced civilization all over the globe at a time when our textbooks tell us we were simple hunter-gatherers. The people had in-depth knowledge of geometry, mathematics, celestial motions, efficient and sustainable agriculture, specialized soils still un-reproducible today, plant hybridization, animal husbandry, hydraulics, poetry, music and epic story telling, and of course the ability to build huge carefully engineered structures that aligned to mirror the heavens. More difficult to believe is further evidence that suggests they had fantastic memories and understood principles of subtle energies of which we are still unaware, and quite possibly, telepathy and clairvoyance, or other higher age sciences, we still cannot conceive.

Warning: This conference may address untraditional viewpoints subject to prosecution by the paradigm police. If you work in an untenured position in academia or other learning institution where unorthodox thinking is discouraged we advise you to avoid this event.