ACHARYAS DISMISSAL   
OF SITCHIN DISMISSED

ACHARYA S has a very interesting web site at:
<http://www.artnet.net/~acharya/truth/>
From this site she runs the "Sex to Superconsciousness" mailing list with some very interesting members [particularly Mark Thompson]
<http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/subscriber?
[It is probably easiest to access it through her web page: you have to join the list to receive it.  Or you can get ListBot mailing list info from Superconsciousness-help@listbot.com]

In spite of fabulous legs and other Sincere Personality Attributes, she has unlilaterally decided that Muhammed, Jesus, Paul, Buddha, Moses, Enki, Enlil, Ninhursag, Anu, and just about everybody else who figures prominently in any major religion is simply and purely 100% total made up depraved fraudulent hallucinatory bullshit "myth," based on some archetypal "sun god," and that anybody who gives any credibility to the thought that any of these people might actually have lived and breathed [no matter what lies and false legends might later have been associated with them] is stupid, obstinate, without redeeming social value, and a Damnable Heretic of the "Gospel According to Achyra S." 

Anyone who foolishly dares to refer to any of the considerable historical or archeological evidence that some of these people might just possibly have existed is severly castigated for daring to think that she might not be Infallible in her Papal Pronouncements of what has been conclusively proved Beyond Question.  By Divine Edict of Her Holiness, the only One Truth is that ALL Other Religions are comletely false and fraudulent.

Not being particularly impressed with any religion I didn't make up myself, [ I even ridicule some parts of Sitchin, who in my eyes is VASTLY more qualified to PRONOUNCE upon history and archeology than Ms. Acharya], so in my skeptical and heretical way I've ventured to express some small amount of reservation on issues which she has Preemptively Deemed Settled once and for all, and therefore closed for discussion.

This has led to some email list exchanges some of which I am posting here for general amusement.  You can probably find the entire set on the mailing list archives if interested.

THIS FIRST BATCH OF POSTS IS WITH ACHARYA:

Truth Be Known: Part One
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998

Dear Acharya:

Well, I was so enamored with my first visits to your web site that I have
taken some serious time to read every word you have posted there (including
the entire Gospel According to Acharya ["cannibalism" was the best!], and
all of your essays) and write this commentary. I also browsed a number of
links [many of which I already have bookmarked].

Very impressive! I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

We have VERY similar world view in MANY areas. I'm planning to build a web
site which will parallel yours in many important ways, and I sincerely
admire what an artful creation you have gifted us all with.

====

I GIVE YOU *BIG PLUSSES* ON:

The absurdity of the encrusted jewish/christian/islamic convoluted
self-contradictory slave-master doctrines and theocracies . . . your
biggest point, and driven home with a vengeance sufficient to kill the
nastiest priest-vampire.

The cosmic orgasm viewpoint of all life as holy and everyone as god. You
have clearly been there and done that!

Pointers to the truth about "AIDS." Sorely lacking in our "politically
correct" propaganda pseudo-world.

Pointers to data on UFO's and possible significance. Open minded without
frothingly selling some kookoo fantasy.

Tantra and the sex/consciousness link. Way cool! [Legs + Tantra = SERIOUS
fantasy material!]

Entheogens. (One and All!) ANY ticket to ride that delivers you to your
First Class destination!

And you've even read Sitchin! My, my, I AM impresssed!

====

I think you are a real world-class player and deserve to be taken
seriously. You have the zeal and the youthful fire to undertake great
works. [Hey, the Legs alone could launch a thousand ships. Throw in the
Face, the Presence, and the Mind . . . and you could do some REAL damage.]

In many ways, you remind me of myself 20 years ago. That may sound
condescending and patronizing, but it's not my intention. From My point of
view, that's an *extraordinary* compliment. I wish I had a few more
visionary people to slap my face with a wet fish and give me pointers along
the way.

In many ways, this is a love letter [I can't help myself, it's a character
flaw], but just because I'm in love doesn't mean I'm blinded by the light.
Even serious admiration doesn't force me to buy everything you're selling.
I think your arguments and world view have some serious shortcomings.
[Hey, shortcomings are much better than no comings at all :-]

In the spirit of Your Ruthless Honesty, I assume you can take just it as
well as you dish it out . . .

I think your enthusiasm has outstripped your scholarship, and you have
fallen into an number of "politically correct" traps. You unknowingly pimp
for some INcredible religious superstitions and lies you Believe you have
risen above . . .

====

GOD/god Duality and Mis-Inference:

I certainly agree you are 1,000% correct that the universe was not created
by some belligerent sadistic interplanetary "Ming the Overlord" slavemaster
using the jews and others as his local terrorist genocidal hit men and
mafioso extortionists to rule this planet with an angry murderous iron fist.

That fact has ABSOLUTELY NO bearing on whether such tyrant characters exist
or not. If such persons did exist, whose basic policies were genocidal
extermination of all non-tributary populations, and grinding
mental/physical enslavement and tribute for all survivors . . . do you
think it would bother their conscience to claim that they actually created
the universe itself, to properly hypnotize and motivate their degraded
peon-puppets? Would a person who gleefully authored routine genocide balk
at telling a little pep-talk fib to those he or she allowed to live? I
think not.

You continually remind me that the average earthman for the last few
thousand years was NOT some ignorant pelt-draped savage with a big club and
a bad attitude. Yet you completely dismiss the fact that our intelligent
literate cosmopolitan ancestors left us as their legacy thousands of years
of detailed history, recording the cummings and goings and other intimate
life details of a whole host of such interplanetary overlord rivals, who
have been directing our lives and authoring the very religions that you
despise so thoroughly, and rant against so convincingly.

You quite properly loathe and attack the "MY (local, over-)Lord created the
earth in seven days" scenario, and your emotional intensity convinces you
that therefore there can be NO local (over)Lord. This does NOT follow at
all. You fail to see this as a huge psychotic denial in your world view.
You admit the anomalous archeology, the existence of UFO's, and the
historical record . . . and then deny the obvious connections and reject
the historical record as "myth."

====

Continued in Truth Be Known: Part Two

Truth Be Known Part Two:
Continued from Part One

====

Man/Myth Inversion:

You read Bramley, and especially Sitchin (?perhaps not very closely?), yet
you fail to grasp the most fundamental inescapeable conclusions of their
works surveying the entire record of man. Ancient history all over the
planet for thousands of years has detailed the precise and specific events
involving a number of clearly identified interplanetary travelers
manipulating this planet, it's history, and the lives of our ancestors (and
their local business associates).

If you reject this conclusion, you must recast our ancesters into gullible
Bozo-Goofey-Flintstone characters who blindly and obediently believed
anything they were told or imagined, and bequeathed it to their children as
Gospel Truth [much like our current mass-market-man]. You very correctly
reject this fantasy for the ancients. You can't have it both ways.

If hundreds of people over thousands of years report that "'(over)Lord X
came to earth in a rocket ship/flying saucer, got out and talked to me, and
I do what I'm told" you either have to take that at face value, or dismiss
them as hallucinatory ding-a-lings, which you quite properly refuse to do.

Your hysterical assault on the "(my!)Lord (is bigger than Your God and)
created the universe" absurdity causes you [erroneously and WITHOUT
necessity] to also hysterically assault all of recorded history as "myth"
and fantasy. You have managed to convince yourself that the incredibly
detailed and extremely consistent records of the comings and goings of the
same people with the same names all over the planet for thousands of years
are evidence that . . . they never existed! This stands history and
reason on their heads and buries them in the sand in order to see farther.

It's just not very workable.

It causes you to vehemently assert as a closed, settled and unquestionable
"fact" that, Adam, Eve, Moses, Jesus, and a whole HOST of other historical
people COULD NOT POSSIBLY HAVE EXISTED, AND ARE PURE FICTIONS. Just
because you have read some possibly quite good (but also seriously flawed)
books with big axes to grind, stating that there is NO evidence for such a
person as Jesus [Moses, etc., take your pick] does not vaporize an ENORMOUS
amount of highly consistent and credible evidence that they DID in fact
live, breathe, and have lots of descendants.

Hey, neither of us was there for most of these events (as far as I can
recall) so we HAVE to work indirectly with historical documents,
archeological evidence, inference, deduction, etc.. Sure, the bible is a
big pack of lies in many ways. It's been edited, re-edited, translated,
mistranslated, and censored for thousands of years. That doesn't mean that
none of the events it reports and/or lies about never happened. Even with
it's known deliberate alterations, it's quite consistent on many things.
And it's based on much longer and richly more detailed sumerian [akkadian,
etc] records which are much more consistent, many of which are
archeologically confirmed in precise date, place, and detail.

The obvious bogus absurdity of the Warren Commission Report does NOT prove
that JFK never lived, and therefore could not possibly have been
assassinated, but all your arguments re "biblical" history would lead to
this conclusion.

Read Sitchin! Slowly and carefully! Deal with the latest molelcular
genetic research which scientifically demonstrates the existence of AN adam
and AN eve [from which YOU descended] in south africa 250,000 to 300,000
years ago . . . just as the texts report! READ some of the other sources
which YOU yourself refer to. Try Nexus magazine, which you highly
recommend [and I second] for Sir Laurence Gardner's painstakingly
methodical and minutely detailed analysis of the *historical record*
tracing the life and events of Jesus . . . his brothers . . . his wife . .
. AND THEIR DESCENDANTS!

With wonderful enthusiasm and good intentions, you have totally missed the
boat here. No matter how passionately or frantically you swim in the wrong
direction, you can't possibly catch up. It's not at all necessary. Please
give it up.

I'm not arguing that Jesus created the world and died for you sins and you
have to give your life to him to get into heaven and all the other vomit we
both despise. That's a load of vile mind destroying crap . . . and the
historical record shows that HIS church never said any such things. Just
because the roman church obliterated every historical trace of him they
could find and started with lies and fabrications hundreds of years after
his death [because he was a "feminist" and made his wife Mary Madgeline and
other women Elders in his church] doesn't mean he didn't exist. The
efforts of a man's enemies to eradicate his life and works are not proof
that he didn't exist. If anything, they are evidence he DID.

I'm NOT a Christian! OK? I am NOT "washed in the blood of the lamb." [I
don't see how you could possibly get clean that way. Not even BIZ will
take out blood stains.] I'm only interested here in "TRUTH BE KNOWN" (to
coin a phrase).

The idea that the bible and other historical documents are santa-clause
myths for foolish innocent children written by delusional idiots on bad
drugs was dealt a mortal blow by Heinrich Schlieman in the 1800's [even if
lies and fraud were his weapons]. Velikofsky pronounced the idea Dead On
Arrival over 50 years ago. Sitchin performed exhaustive Xrays, CAT scans
and MRI's on the body, dissected it minutely, documented thousands of
causes of death, embalmed it, and buried the damn thing in a ten ton
casket. The extensive literature of the dead sea scrolls, and many acres
of detailed and painstaking scholarship in the last few decades, has piled
enough headstones on the grave to build a pyramid.

Shrieking "none of these fictional and purely mythical people could
possibly ever have existed" just destroys your credibility and reflects
badly on YOU in other areas in which YOU TRULY *ARE* SO RIGHT!

====

Continued in Truth Be Known: Part Three

Truth Be Known Part Three:
Continued from Part Two

====

Another example where you embarrass yourself by pimping FOR a "politically
correct" debilitating religious fraudulent superstition is your
contemptuous dismissal of an (apparent) "holocaust" revisionist as a
"Neanderthal," without deigning to address ANY of his facts or contentions.
I guess you KNOW he was an idiot . . . because you heard it on CIA TV?

First of all, that's an extremely RACIST thing to say. I REMEMBER being a
Neanderthal, and they were much more spiritually advanced and aware than
"Modern" Politically Correct . . . TELEVISION MAN. Please abase yourself!

If you're going to shriek "those fictional people never existed" about
someone, you would be well advised to do it about the "six million jews
that were deliberately gassed to death" by the germans in WW2 or the "four
million jews gassed to death at Auchwitz." The ACTUAL ORIGINAL historical
minutely detailed records of the names, dates, and causes of death of ALL
the 74,000 jews who actually DID DIE at Auschwitz (none from gassing) ARE
AVAILABLE.

That's not a very NICE fact, but it IS a fact . . . just like another not
very nice fact . . . that it's a SMALL PERCENTAGE of the German prisoners
who were murdered by deliberate starvation in ALLIED Concentration/POW/DEF
Camps after the war. Oh, you didn't hear about that on your Politically
Correct CIA TV? Well, I guess that proves it never happened!

Rather than examine the historical/archeological EVIDENCE [as the
"revisionist" historians carefully and deliberately do] you endorse by your
unthinking knee-jerk reaction a purely fictional fraudulent Religious Myth
[comparable in absurdity to the "my local overlord created the heavens and
earth in seven days" bullshit], used to defraud, control, and enslave whole
classes of people . . . yourself included. [Please pray to the
nonexistent martyred jews for forgiveness.]

====

I could pick some more little bones with you:

I think you are economically naive and basically prattle new-age/socialist
economic mumbo-jumbo. So what?

You unfortunately recommend Irwin Shiff, who either doesn't know his law or
is a deliberate government agent-provocateur and shill . . . and puts lots
of people in prison. That does NOT mean income tax is legal or required.
[See Otto Skinner's books and web site for the real scoop . . . which
might also put you in jail.] I understand your intention and approve of it.

You have Jay Hansons "Brain Food" [www.dieoff.org] right up there at the
top where it belongs, but in Perfect Politically Correct Fashion you throw
out your own babies with your bathwater. Too bad. You have vastly more to
offer children as a mother than most of the industrial-human simulacrums
pumped out to the order of big business/church, etc, and merchandized in
the markets of human misery such as mexico city, calcutta, and lostangeles.
The solution to some ingnorant hopeless enslaved hypnotized peoness
dropping ten cunt-litter children she can't feed or educate is NOT for you
to pre-conceptually abort your own children. The globalization of this
strategy merely ensures that ALL children are born and raised in feral
faevellas, and nobody who COULD feed, care for, and educate children bears
any. That's another not very nice fact, but the situation itself is not
very nice. ALL the solutions are so ugly that very few people have the
stomach to face them. Those who enjoy the solutions are frightening to
contemplate. What a bitch!

And I don't even like Princess Di very much, though I wouldn't wish her
dead for fucking a sleazy hollywood film producer who screwed everybody he
knew. Well, nobody's perfect. (I must be the exception that proves the
rule :-)

====

This letter IS a labor of love, INSPIRED by you and your wonderful site.
I wouldn't waste my time if I didn't think you deserve the best I have to
offer.
I hope you take my praise as well deserved and my criticisms constructively.

====

best wishes,

O
   == )
|

Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1998 12:53:55 -0800 (PST)
From: Acharya S <acharya_s@yahoo.com>
Subject: Problems with Sitchin, Part I

Problems with Sitchin

Zecharia Sitchin has written several bestselling books based on the
"alien astronaut theory," which dictates that alien visitors have been
influencing human life for thousands if not millions of years, even to
the point of genetic manipulation. Sitchin is one of the few people
who can read the Sumerian language, and he has made a "pet theory"
from what he has interpreted from his readings.

While Sitchin is an excellent researcher and provides much interesting
knowledge concerning the lost global civilization that has left its
vast mark in both story and stone, there are several problems with his
pet theory. First of all, he is building on the work of von Daniken
and the German School without giving von Daniken much credit. von
Daniken, it should be recalled, was one of the first moderns to put
forth the ancient astronaut theory and was widely ridiculed and
vilified for his observations. He really deserves a great deal of
credit for his daring and for taking decades of abuse. von Daniken,
in fact, has been more cautious in his pronouncements than Sitchin,
who has now become world-famous for his theories, which seem very
enticing because he has scholastic skills. However, there are some
serious flaws in his suppositions, not the least of which that he
engages in much speculation not founded in fact.

Sitchin starts out on the right foot when he looks to the heavens to
determine what the myths of the ancients really mean. He is right on
the money when he sees celestial bodies in some of the characters in
these myths. However, he seriously blunders when he attempts to make
them into human beings or aliens. For example, his entire thesis is
built upon the speculation that there is a "12th planet" from which a
group of extraterrestrials called the Anunnaki descend upon earth
every 3,500 years or so. First of all, Sitchin is trying too hard, as
the Sumero-Babylonians themselves said that the gods were the planets,
not people, and, as the Egyptian historian Manetho stated, no god had
ever become a person. It is alleged that by "dismissing" the myths of
the ancients as myths, we are somehow robbing them of their "history."
This claim is ludicrous, as it is those who insist that there are NO
myths who are actually defaming the ancients.

The ancients were not the dark and dumb rabble commonly portrayed.
They were, in fact, highly advanced, which Sitchin's work does indeed
reveal. As such, they developed over a period of many thousands of
years a highly complex astronomical/astrological system that
incorporated the movements and qualities of numerous celestial bodies.
I call this the "celestial mythos." The celestial mythos is found
around the globe in astonishing uniformity. In fact, it served as the
manner by which life on Earth was ordered, as it contained information
crucial to life, such as the movements and interrelationship of the
sun and moon. Without the mythos, no people would have been able to
become sea-faring, and planting and harvesting would have been
difficult. And the mythos needed no alien intervention to be
developed by humans.
The Anunnaki play a part in the mythos, but they are not "people,"
whether human or otherwise. In making them people, Sitchin, in fact,
is ignoring the ancient mythos and what the ancients themselves said,
even though he professes to be reading their very words. The
Anunnaki, in fact, represent the seven "gates" or hours/months in
which the "sun of God" is in the netherworld or darkness. So,
immediately we encounter a problem that reveals that what Sitchin is
putting forth is not what the ancients themselves said of the
traditions they themselves developed. Again, to misinterpret their
traditions against what they themselves claimed is to rob them of
their own intelligence. The ancients were not so dumb that they
mistook planets for people, even though they personified those planets
and, where the gnosis of the mythos was lost, hoped for "the
incarnation," the carnalization or appearance of a "god."

Sitchin also wants to make the main character of the celestial mythos,
the sun, into a person. Actually, he wants to make it into several
extraterrestrials. This conclusion is incorrect. These various
"gods" found around the globe, such as Osiris, Horus, Krishna,
Hercules, Jesus and Quetzalcoatl, are not people or aliens but
personifications of the solar hero, as was stated by the peoples who
created them. There really is no need to recreate the wheel here but
speculating upon what the ancients "really" meant. They are explicit
in their explanation of the celestial mythos. In fact, to ignore the
ancients' own accounts in order to shore up one's pet theory is just a
tad egotistical. It is also to reduce their intelligence to that of a
potato, as if they didn't know what they were talking about and we
moderns need to come along to correct them.

I am reminded of an incident during my archaeological sojourn on the
island of Crete. As we stood inside the covered remains the ancient
town near the sacred site of Mallia, dating to around 2500 BCE, our
attention was directed to the stone bowls that appeared outside of the
doors of virtually every house in this fascinating village, and we
were asked to speculate upon what those bowls could be used for. Now,
it should be noted that I had a pet peeve with archaeologists, because
they blast into other people's countries, with no direct experience of
the culture, and attempt to interpret how those people lived. They
barely even pay attention to the traditions of the people, especially
those who are still living in the area and often in the manner of the
ancients. Some of these archaeologists do not even learn the language
of the country they are in, such that they cannot communicate with the
natives, whose insights would no doubt help them in their quest and
reduce the need for endless and groundless speculation. My professor
at the time of this bowl incident was not one of these archaeologists,
as he was married to a Greek woman and spoke the language extremely
well. He thus had respect for the indigenous people and did not
discount their opinions.

When the professor asked the students, the vast majority of whom
either held PhDs or were PhD candidates from respected colleges and
universities, to put forth their interpretations of these bowls, a
number of them fell into the typical archaeological trap by making
grandiose pronouncements that these bowls were for some religious
ritual such as the "offering of the first fruits to the gods." The
professor then turned to the old Greek man who had been the caretaker
at this site for decades and asked him what the bowls were for. As he
had lived in the area all his life, it made sense that he would no
what these accoutrements were for and, indeed, his answer nearly made
me laugh out loud because it showed how silly were the archaeologists
in their grandiose explanations. The other archaeologists, not
knowing Greek, were not privy to the joke until the caretaker's words
were translated by the professor. "Well," said the old man in regard
to the ubiquitous bowls, "they are for the dogs, for water."

As I say, this is a typical habit with archaeologists. What they
cannot explain, they attribute to some bizarre religious madness.


[END PART I]

From: Acharya
Problems with Sitchin, Part II

I am also reminded of another incident that actually made me
appreciate at least some of Sitchin's work. There was a PBS special
some years ago about the mysterious Bolivian site of Tiahuanaco, in
which an archaeologist, encountering the fabulous building with water
sluices pronounced it a "temple to the water god." Sitchin, of
course, sees a much more practical silver-working operation, an
opinion with which I can concur, as I do indeed also profess that
there have been at least two global civilizations of high degree tens
of thousands of years ago, upon which I elucidate in the last chapter
of my book on the Christ conspiracy. I am also not adverse to the
notion of "alien" visitation, especially because of the legends of the
ancients who claimed that their ancestors came from the Pleiades or
Orion or Sirius. I am also not closed to the idea of genetic
manipulation eons ago, particularly because the origins of the races
is still not satisfactorily explained, nor is the evolutionary theory,
nor are the bizarre anomalies found around the world, including the
skulls and skeletons of weird humanoids, giants, elves, etc.

However, the ancients also had myths that had nothing to do with
extraterrestrials but which revolved around what was known, i.e., what
they could see and detect around them. Nothing was quite as awesome
to the ancients as the earth, sky, planetary bodies and natural
forces. No alien could have compared to the power contained on earth
and in the heavens. In fact, if anything, the ancients used the
priestcraft developed around the reverence for natural forces to fend
off "aliens." The ancients, then, did not mistake the sun and is
varied personifications for the sun, except where the gnosis was lost
and the civilization had degraded, or where it was deliberately
obfuscated in order to defraud, which is the case with Christianity.
Also, to suggest that all these solar heroes, with their identical
"lives" were aliens is just a bit absurd, since it supposes that they
all were born of virgins, had tyrants trying to kill them at their
birth, were presented with the same gifts, did and said the same
things and then were all crucified. In shoring up such a ridiculous
premise, we are asked to believe that "superior" aliens kept "coming
down" and kindly obliging the barbaric humans, who kept insisting upon
crucifying them (between two thieves, no less). Quite a
bizzaro-world, that.

In any serious investigation of this subject, we must be able to
discern between the "gods" and the "sky people" mentioned by the
ancients. As noted, the enlightened ancients knew the "gods" were the
planets. The sky people were a different matter altogether. Some of
them may have been "aliens" in the offworld sense, but other legends
hold that at least some of these sky people were the remnants of one
of the advanced global civilizations that were destroyed by cataclysm.
These legends also state that some of them were coming from inside
the earth. The legends further say that such advanced people appeared
around the world to reestablish civilization after the various
cataclysms. In doing so, they are also reintroduced the mythos, which
was subsequently developed by the "natives" to produce their own
"flavor." When these advanced teachers appeared and began to speak of
the gods in the mythos, they were often called priests of those gods,
i.e., "priest of Apollo." These titles were at times reduced, first
to "priest Apollo," and then just "Apollo." As time went on, the
teachers became associated with the god, such that the mythos became
entwined with the "history" of the teacher. In other words, although
a legend may hold that the god Apollo appeared in the flesh to teach
the natives, it was in fact merely a representative of the god.

One such "modern" case of this mistaken identity has occurred in
Japan, in the village of Shingo, where the villagers insist that
"Jesus" and his brother's remains are buried. The story holds that
Jesus's "brother" was crucified in his place and that Jesus and his
followers fled with the brother's remains to Shingo, where he lived to
be 100 years old and to father children with a Japanese woman. The
legend also holds that Jesus had been educated by Buddhist masters
during his "lost years." Unfortunately for all this mythmaking, the
alleged graves of Jesus and his brother actually belong to two
Christian missionaries who arrived in the 16th century.

Thus, we can see that things are just a little more complicated than
they appear and that discernment of the highest order is required to
determine what has actually happened on this planet. Pet theories
that ignore evidence in favor of making a name for someone are simply
egotistical.

In the case of Sitchin, I am told by one of his promoters that he has
now determined that Yahweh, that monstrous jealous/zealous god of the
Old Testament, was a real "person" who is indeed the god of the
cosmos, a perfectly preposterous notion that apparently emanates from
Sitchin's Jewish heritage. While I do not wish to disparage Sitchin
because I have respect for his hard work, such a conclusion smacks of
cultural bias, particularly when one considers that the Nazis, whose
work he is also building upon, themselves attempted to claim supremacy
based on Sumeria. What I see here is the same old battle between the
"chose people" and the "superior race" that has evidently been going
on for thousands of years, i.e., the battle between the "Semites" and
the "Japhethites."

In a serious scientific search, one needs to be more cautious in
jumping to conclusions based on speculation. What I am with due
diligence attempting to produce in my book is a recital of facts, with
as little speculation as possible. These facts come from "the horse's
mouth," i.e., the archaeological and historical/legendary records of
the ancients themselves, without embellishment or interpretation.


==
Acharya S
Archaeologist, Historian, Mythologist, Linguist, Minister
Member, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece

Date: Sat, 28 Nov 1998 03:40:52 -0800 (PST)
From: Bob Zilla <bobzilla@netbox.com>
THIS LIST SERVER SUCKS! <10K IS USELESS!
I PUT ACHARYA'S TWO PARTS INTO ONE, AND CUT IT BACK INTO THREE.
THE REPLY SECTIONS DO NOT CONFORM TO THE ORIGINAL.

Re: Problems with Sitchin, Part I
Acharya S <acharya_s@yahoo.com> WROTE:

>Problems with Sitchin
>
>Zecharia Sitchin has written several bestselling books based on the
>"alien astronaut theory," which dictates that alien visitors have been
>influencing human life for thousands if not millions of years, even to
>the point of genetic manipulation. Sitchin is one of the few people
>who can read the Sumerian language, and he has made a "pet theory"
>from what he has interpreted from his readings.
>
>While Sitchin is an excellent researcher and provides much interesting
>knowledge concerning the lost global civilization that has left its
>vast mark in both story and stone, there are several problems with his
>pet theory. First of all, he is building on the work of von Daniken
>and the German School without giving von Daniken much credit. von
>Daniken, it should be recalled, was one of the first moderns to put
>forth the ancient astronaut theory and was widely ridiculed and
>vilified for his observations. He really deserves a great deal of
>credit for his daring and for taking decades of abuse. von Daniken,
>in fact, has been more cautious in his pronouncements than Sitchin,
>who has now become world-famous for his theories, which seem very
>enticing because he has scholastic skills. However, there are some
>serious flaws in his suppositions, not the least of which that he
>engages in much speculation not founded in fact.

Yes, Von Daniken did preceed Sitchin in his ancient astronaut theories.
Thank you for pointing this out. It's been so long since I read him, I had
forgotten he beat Sitchen to the punch. I see he has a lot of books out I
didn't know about.

However, I don't think Sitchen builds on Von Daniken as much as parallels
him. I don't think Erich's evidence is taken from the Sumerian records,
where most of Sitchen's arguments start. I think they both arrived at
similar conclusions from different but overlapping evidence sets. That's a
startling corroboration of Sitchin I hadn't thought of!

Both are obviously still currently ridiculed and vilified.

>Sitchin starts out on the right foot when he looks to the heavens to
>determine what the myths of the ancients really mean. He is right on
>the money when he sees celestial bodies in some of the characters in
>these myths. However, he seriously blunders when he attempts to make
>them into human beings or aliens.

My understanding is that HE isn't making them into anything, he is merely
reporting what the Sumerians and their successors observed and reported.

>For example, his entire thesis is
>built upon the speculation that there is a "12th planet" from which a
>group of extraterrestrials called the Anunnaki descend upon earth
>every 3,500 years or so.

Again, he doesn't report that as HIS speculation, but as translation from
clay tablets and other ancient writings.

He points out that another wide orbit planet was discovered in 1983/4?,
publicly announced, and then quietly forgotten.

My ex-JPL source says that YES, they DID find another planet, but that's
"classified" info. I don't expect you to believe that because I say it,
but I pass it along as "colorful rumor." I say anybody who believes they
put a billion dollar hubble satellite in orbit with a VITAL CRITICAL part
manufactured without supervision by an assistant lab tech and never tested.
. . . . REALLY doesn't have a clue. So what WERE they looking for or at
with that thing for the first year they put it up?

And Sitchins general theme would work pretty good in most ways if the
Annunakki came from, say, Mars. That wouldn't explain the 3600 years
between visits, but could handle most of the other events reported by the
sumerians. But then, why discount the reports of what the
astronaut/gods/overlords TOLD the ancients about where they came from?

>First of all, Sitchin is trying too hard, as
>the Sumero-Babylonians themselves said that the gods were the planets,
>not people, and, as the Egyptian historian Manetho stated, no god had
>ever become a person. It is alleged that by "dismissing" the myths of
>the ancients as myths, we are somehow robbing them of their "history."
> This claim is ludicrous, as it is those who insist that there are NO
>myths who are actually defaming the ancients.

My reading of Sitchen is that the ancients themselves named many historical
people who mated with and bore the children of the
gods/astronauts/whatever. It's hard to imagine them thinking that planets
and myths could do this.

>The ancients were not the dark and dumb rabble commonly portrayed.
>They were, in fact, highly advanced, which Sitchin's work does indeed
>reveal.

Exactly! They knew the difference between planets and people and myths, as
Sitchen asserts over and over.

>As such, they developed over a period of many thousands of
>years a highly complex astronomical/astrological system that
>incorporated the movements and qualities of numerous celestial bodies.

Sitchin exhaustively demonstrates that man's astronomical knowledge sprang
into "instant" existence at its highest and most complex level of
sophisticaion, and gradually declined over long periods of time into
simpler and more erroneous approximations ending in the flat earth theory.
Astronomical sophistication was NOT gradually built up over time but
descended full blown "from heaven".

> I call this the "celestial mythos." The celestial mythos is found
>around the globe in astonishing uniformity.

. . . and we know for certain that the "astonishing uniformity" of these
"myths" could NOT be attributable to people all over the world observing
the same people and events and independently recording them. This is in
fact proof that there was a Central Bureau of Myths that all ancient people
subscribed to.

If 150 EYE WITNESSES [including pilots who have seen many missles] saw a
bright white light rising UP from the ocean surface and hitting the
airplane, which THEN exploded in a large yellow cloud, we KNOW that a spark
in the fuel tank blew it up, and THERE WAS NO MISSLE. The missle could
never have existed, and therefore could not have exploded the airplane.
These facts we know, for the FIB told us so!

>In fact, it served as the
>manner by which life on Earth was ordered, as it contained information
>crucial to life, such as the movements and interrelationship of the
>sun and moon. Without the mythos, no people would have been able to
>become sea-faring, and planting and harvesting would have been
>difficult. And the mythos needed no alien intervention to be
>developed by humans.

Per Sitchins exacting history and painstaking analysis of ancient religious
architecture, we were taught this knowledge in its most exact form, and
gradually forgot our lessons. If the MOST expert astronomers of the
ancient world report their knowledge was obtained from space-men, how can
we say they developed it over thousands of years and lied about it?

>The Anunnaki play a part in the mythos, but they are not "people,"
>whether human or otherwise. In making them people, Sitchin, in fact,
>is ignoring the ancient mythos and what the ancients themselves said,
>even though he professes to be reading their very words.

That's a very daring flat contradiction of Sitchen's english works. Unless
you have the linguistic authority to dispute his sumerian translations, I
have to go with the guy who knows their language to tell me what the
ancients actually said.

>The Anunnaki, in fact, represent the seven "gates" or hours/months in
>which the "sun of God" is in the netherworld or darkness.

They DO? What is this startling assertion based on?

>So, immediately we encounter a problem that reveals that what Sitchin is
>putting forth is not what the ancients themselves said of the
>traditions they themselves developed.

Again, you're simply asserting that Sitchen doesn't understand sumerian.
How do we know "what the ancients themselves said" except by their
writings? Unfortunately, they didn't write in english. I'd be very
interested in YOUR translations of the sumerian epics, showing Sitchen to
be an idiot without a clue. I've gone as far as reviewing "Treasures of
Darkness" by Thorkild Jacobsen on the "Enuma Elish" to see what another
sumerian scholar does with the same material. On cursory inspection, it
seems like at least one other reknown sumerian scholar agrees mighty
closely with Sitchen on how to translate this stuff. Sitchen certainly
includes expansive speculation in his books, but I find that he clearly
labels it speculation. His translations he labels as translations. Where
he differs in his translation of a word from other sumerian scholars, he
often provides the alternate meanings and his reasons for his choice.

Re: Problems with Sitchin, Part II

Acharya S <acharya_s@yahoo.com> WROTE:

>Again, to misinterpret their
>traditions against what they themselves claimed is to rob them of
>their own intelligence.

Exactly! So why to you keep asserting that they didn't know what they were
writing?

>The ancients were not so dumb that they
>mistook planets for people, even though they personified those planets
>and, where the gnosis of the mythos was lost, hoped for "the
>incarnation," the carnalization or appearance of a "god."

Exactly! And therefore they claimed that "planets" and "myths" fought
battles, did bioengineering to clone men, built cities, flew around in
flying saucers/rockets, and mated with people who bore their children?


>Sitchin also wants to make the main character of the celestial mythos,
>the sun, into a person. Actually, he wants to make it into several
>extraterrestrials. This conclusion is incorrect. These various
>"gods" found around the globe, such as Osiris, Horus, Krishna,
>Hercules, Jesus and Quetzalcoatl, are not people or aliens but
>personifications of the solar hero, as was stated by the peoples who
>created them.

Again, you simply assert that Sitchen and others consistently mistranslate
everything.
And you appear to me to be grossly misrepresenting what Sitchen says.
We would have to talk specifics.

>There really is no need to recreate the wheel here but
>speculating upon what the ancients "really" meant.

Exactly Sitchen's message in book after book.

>They are explicit
>in their explanation of the celestial mythos. In fact, to ignore the
>ancients' own accounts in order to shore up one's pet theory is just a
>tad egotistical. It is also to reduce their intelligence to that of a
>potato, as if they didn't know what they were talking about and we
>moderns need to come along to correct them.

Exactly Sitchen's argument. Unless you radically dispute Sitchens
translations, you appear to be putting words and meaning in the mouths of
the ancients to correct their obvious errors.

>I am reminded of an incident during my archaeological sojourn on the
>island of Crete. As we stood inside the covered remains the ancient
>town near the sacred site of Mallia, dating to around 2500 BCE, our
>attention was directed to the stone bowls that appeared outside of the
>doors of virtually every house in this fascinating village, and we
>were asked to speculate upon what those bowls could be used for. Now,
>it should be noted that I had a pet peeve with archaeologists, because
>they blast into other people's countries, with no direct experience of
>the culture, and attempt to interpret how those people lived. They
>barely even pay attention to the traditions of the people, especially
>those who are still living in the area and often in the manner of the
>ancients. Some of these archaeologists do not even learn the language
>of the country they are in, such that they cannot communicate with the
>natives, whose insights would no doubt help them in their quest and
>reduce the need for endless and groundless speculation. My professor
>at the time of this bowl incident was not one of these archaeologists,
>as he was married to a Greek woman and spoke the language extremely
>well. He thus had respect for the indigenous people and did not
>discount their opinions.
>
>When the professor asked the students, the vast majority of whom
>either held PhDs or were PhD candidates from respected colleges and
>universities, to put forth their interpretations of these bowls, a
>number of them fell into the typical archaeological trap by making
>grandiose pronouncements that these bowls were for some religious
>ritual such as the "offering of the first fruits to the gods." The
>professor then turned to the old Greek man who had been the caretaker
>at this site for decades and asked him what the bowls were for. As he
>had lived in the area all his life, it made sense that he would no
>what these accoutrements were for and, indeed, his answer nearly made
>me laugh out loud because it showed how silly were the archaeologists
>in their grandiose explanations. The other archaeologists, not
>knowing Greek, were not privy to the joke until the caretaker's words
>were translated by the professor. "Well," said the old man in regard
>to the ubiquitous bowls, "they are for the dogs, for water."

I agree with your assessment of most "experts" [and their dogmythologies],
including archaeologists AND historians.

However, unless those houses all had running water and indoor plumbing, my
guess is that CHAMBER POTS are much more likely than dog watering bowls,
and the best place to store them would be OUTSIDE. Dogs usually drink at
the local stream in village life. ["pooping preempts pets' potables" =
Bob's Law :-]

>As I say, this is a typical habit with archaeologists. What they
>cannot explain, they attribute to some bizarre religious madness.

Yes!
And if the ancients clearly explain something that is obviously wrong, they
are really talking in myths and parables. We know what they saw and
meant, even if they didn't have the proper words to express it.

>I am also reminded of another incident that actually made me
>appreciate at least some of Sitchin's work. There was a PBS special
>some years ago about the mysterious Bolivian site of Tiahuanaco, in
>which an archaeologist, encountering the fabulous building with water
>sluices pronounced it a "temple to the water god." Sitchin, of
>course, sees a much more practical silver-working operation, an
>opinion with which I can concur, as I do indeed also profess that
>there have been at least two global civilizations of high degree tens
>of thousands of years ago, upon which I elucidate in the last chapter
>of my book on the Christ conspiracy. I am also not adverse to the
>notion of "alien" visitation, especially because of the legends of the
>ancients who claimed that their ancestors came from the Pleiades or
>Orion or Sirius. I am also not closed to the idea of genetic
>manipulation eons ago, particularly because the origins of the races
>is still not satisfactorily explained, nor is the evolutionary theory,
>nor are the bizarre anomalies found around the world, including the
>skulls and skeletons of weird humanoids, giants, elves, etc.

Way cool!

>However, the ancients also had myths that had nothing to do with
>extraterrestrials but which revolved around what was known, i.e., what
>they could see and detect around them.

Makes sense.

>Nothing was quite as awesome
>to the ancients as the earth, sky, planetary bodies and natural
>forces. No alien could have compared to the power contained on earth
>and in the heavens.

Well, if I was out on the battlefield with my tribe and a big fiery rocket
ship zoomed overhead with a noise bigger than thunder and killed 186,000 of
my comrades in arms, I think I'd be pretty impressed. Hell, I might even
CONVERT!

>In fact, if anything, the ancients used the
>priestcraft developed around the reverence for natural forces to fend
>off "aliens."

Why did these non-existent "aliens" need "fending off?"

>The ancients, then, did not mistake the sun and is
>varied personifications for the sun, except where the gnosis was lost
>and the civilization had degraded, or where it was deliberately
>obfuscated in order to defraud, which is the case with Christianity.

I think you made a typo of some sort which garbles this paragraph.

>Also, to suggest that all these solar heroes, with their identical
>"lives" were aliens is just a bit absurd, since it supposes that they
>all were born of virgins, had tyrants trying to kill them at their
>birth, were presented with the same gifts, did and said the same
>things and then were all crucified.

And, of course, we couldn't ascribe the same story to different people. We
couldn't tell the same lies over and over about different people. If we
slap a pre-existing legend on the life of a real person, that proves he
doesn't exist.

JFK and Abraham Lincoln could not possibly have both been assassinated
shortly after they issued United States notes, and been followed in office
by vice presidents named Johnson. They are obviously "mythical" creatures
like the absurd "George Washington," who "could not tell a lie!"

>In shoring up such a ridiculous
>premise, we are asked to believe that "superior" aliens kept "coming
>down" and kindly obliging the barbaric humans, who kept insisting upon
>crucifying them (between two thieves, no less). Quite a
>bizzaro-world, that.

And we would have to believe that Satan kept sending witches to be burnt at
the stake. Very Bizzaro!

>[END PART II]

Re: Problems with Sitchin, Part III

Acharya S <acharya_s@yahoo.com> WROTE:

>Problems with Sitchin, Part III

>In any serious investigation of this subject, we must be able to
>discern between the "gods" and the "sky people" mentioned by the
>ancients.

Yes, there IS quite a bit of confusion.

>As noted, the enlightened ancients knew the "gods" were the
>planets.

So when "god" came down from heaven in a fiery chariot, landed on top of
the mountain, and got out and talked to moses in front of 600,000
israelites camped on the plain, he was either a myth or a planet. Ooops, I
forgot, he didn't exist, the whole story is just fiction, a kind of
"wuthering heights" for israelites. I think we need a psychoanalyst to
tell us why those ancients had such a desperate need to write such absurd
fiction and then pretend that they believed it.

>The sky people were a different matter altogether.

I should hope so! I'd hate to think they were really planets.

>Some of
>them may have been "aliens" in the offworld sense, but other legends
>hold that at least some of these sky people were the remnants of one
>of the advanced global civilizations that were destroyed by cataclysm.

Could be. And that advanced civilization could have been created by
ancient astronauts. The ideas are not incompatible at all.

>These legends also state that some of them were coming from inside
>the earth.

Maybe they went underground to escape the cataclysm. Maybe they are still
there and the "UFO's" are domestic.

>The legends further say that such advanced people appeared
>around the world to reestablish civilization after the various
>cataclysms. In doing so, they are also reintroduced the mythos, which
>was subsequently developed by the "natives" to produce their own
>"flavor." When these advanced teachers appeared and began to speak of
>the gods in the mythos, they were often called priests of those gods,
>i.e., "priest of Apollo." These titles were at times reduced, first
>to "priest Apollo," and then just "Apollo." As time went on, the
>teachers became associated with the god, such that the mythos became
>entwined with the "history" of the teacher. In other words, although
>a legend may hold that the god Apollo appeared in the flesh to teach
>the natives, it was in fact merely a representative of the god.

I don't doubt that this kind of stuff happened. On the other hand, coming
down from heaven in a rocket ship is a pretty good act for a local witch
doctor.

>One such "modern" case of this mistaken identity has occurred in
>Japan, in the village of Shingo, where the villagers insist that
>"Jesus" and his brother's remains are buried. The story holds that
>Jesus's "brother" was crucified in his place and that Jesus and his
>followers fled with the brother's remains to Shingo, where he lived to
>be 100 years old and to father children with a Japanese woman. The
>legend also holds that Jesus had been educated by Buddhist masters
>during his "lost years." Unfortunately for all this mythmaking, the
>alleged graves of Jesus and his brother actually belong to two
>Christian missionaries who arrived in the 16th century.

Sure, and all over Ethiopia the locals will tell you TODAY that THEY have
the REAL ark of the covenant in THEIR village. This obsessive and
pathological preoccupation with a nonexistent artifact of the legendary
(only) moses after thousands of years PROVES there was NO original upon
which all the counterfeit non-copies were based. Makes sense to me!

>Thus, we can see that things are just a little more complicated than
>they appear and that discernment of the highest order is required to
>determine what has actually happened on this planet.

Yes. I agree absolutely.

>Pet theories
>that ignore evidence in favor of making a name for someone are simply
>egotistical.

Well now! That's just about the most surprising thing I have seen you
write, BUT THERE YOU HAVE IT!

>In the case of Sitchin, I am told by one of his promoters that he has
>now determined that Yahweh, that monstrous jealous/zealous god of the
>Old Testament, was a real "person" who is indeed the god of the
>cosmos, a perfectly preposterous notion that apparently emanates from
>Sitchin's Jewish heritage.

Actually, I think you are more or less right about this. My gist of it
[from my reading ALL of sitchen except the book published this month, which
I have only started] is that, after 6 books minutely dissecting which
god/overlord/colonial governor/alien/astronaut fornicated, fathered and
fought with which of his friends, family and foes, [WHILE CLAIMING TO BE
THE AUTHOR OF THE UNIVERSE] Sitchin reveals in "Divine Encouters" that the
actual creator of the entire physical universe, the "entity" worshipped as
"G-O-D" [absolute creative principle] by the Annunaki on their home planet
Nibiru . . . just happened to be inhabiting a physical form hanging around
in this solar system and was vitally interested in the fate of a small
tribe of nomads called the israelites and took them on as a personal pet
project.

Even when in love, I'm not totally blinded by the light. While VERY
impressed by Sitchen, even I have some doubts about what I can only
describe as a very novel theory. Wait, cancel that, that's the Orthodox
Theory, isn't it?

On the other hand, it's not unreasonable to assume that, if there IS a
local overlord who HAS been PROCLAIMING that HE DID, IN FACT, CREATE THE
ENTIRE UNIVERSE, while pursuing a relentless policy of enslavement,
torture, murder and genocide against all detractors, [as Sitchen has
extensively documented] he MIGHT just want Sitchen to sing his praises loud
and clear. I personally suspect that perhaps Sitchen's arm was twisted,
[just a little bit] by the Powers That Be. If true, it's not the kind of
thing Sitchin could or would talk about, so you can't exactly ask him and
get a reliable answer. I believe Galileo recanted a little bit for
breathing purposes, but I don't throw out his earlier work because of it.

AS YOU VERY CORRECTLY STATE:
">Thus, we can see that things are just a little more complicated than"
">they appear and that discernment of the highest order is required to"
">determine what has actually happened on this planet. "

>While I do not wish to disparage Sitchin
>because I have respect for his hard work, such a conclusion smacks of
>cultural bias, particularly when one considers that the Nazis, whose
>work he is also building upon, themselves attempted to claim supremacy
>based on Sumeria.

I'm a little fuzzy on how Sitchen was building on their work. As the GODS
of the jews and the egyptians were apparently sometimes reported to have
blond hair and blue eyes, maybe their idea was that the gods were the
original arayans. But of course, that would require those mythical gods to
be the ancestors of the blond and blue nazis, and we know they didn't
exist, so that couldn't be true. There do seem to be some bizarre
connections here, but I don't know enough about them to even make a good
guess about the truth.

>What I see here is the same old battle between the
>"chose people" and the "superior race" that has evidently been going
>on for thousands of years, i.e., the battle between the "Semites" and
>the "Japhethites."

Same old same old!
Enlil vs. Enki?

>In a serious scientific search, one needs to be more cautious in
>jumping to conclusions based on speculation. What I am with due
>diligence attempting to produce in my book is a recital of facts, with
>as little speculation as possible. These facts come from "the horse's
>mouth," i.e., the archaeological and historical/legendary records of
>the ancients themselves, without embellishment or interpretation.

Exactly Sitchin's point!

[END PART III]

>==
>Acharya S
>Archaeologist, Historian, Mythologist, Linguist, Minister
>Member, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece
>http://www.artnet.net/~acharya/truth

Bob Zilla
Just Another Brain-Dead Bozo

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THEN I HAD A MINI FLAME-WAR WITH MARK THOMPSON, WHO IS AN EXTRAORDINARY MIND, BUT HASN'T BOTHERED TO READ SITCHIN.  I REALLY WISH HE WOULD MAKE THE EFFORT.  HE IS A BRILLIANT MAN AND I THINK HE WOULD BE VERY IMPRESSED IF HE ACTUALLY CONFRONTED THE EVIDENCE.  I WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE TO SEE HIS TRULY INFORMED COMMENTS ON THESE ISSUES.  OTHER POSTERS GOT INTO THE ACT, BUT MOST OF THEM I DON'T FIND VERY CREDIBLE.  SEE THE LIST ARCHIVES FOR MORE DETAIL IF YOU ARE INTERESTED

From: "mark thompson" <carpo4@hotmail.com>
Subject: Are the Anunaki retarded?
Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 03:00:17 PST

Y'know, I can't help but wonder about a supposed civilization capable of
interplanetary travel who can't improve their technology over a
historical period of 3,500 years to the point that they could visit
anytime they wanted to and not have to wait for a conjunction or
perihelion to scoot across.

I mean, in the years since the first space launches by humans in 1958,
humans now have the ability to send space probes out to where the 12th
planet supposedly makes it's orbit. It appears that the incredibly
advanced Anunaki can't do in millennia what humans have done in a few
decades.

Doesn't it also seem odd that a civilization capable of space flight and
genetic engineering emits no television, radio or other electromagnetic
communication signals?

Sitchin seems to be so busy reading clay tablets that he has completely
overlooked the degree of cultural stagnation and technological
incompetance of the hypothetical Anunaki culture implied by his claims.

heh heh...

-Mark

At 03:00 AM 29-11-98 PST:
"mark thompson" <carpo4@hotmail.com>WROTE:

>Y'know, I can't help but wonder about a supposed civilization capable of
>interplanetary travel who can't improve their technology over a
>historical period of 3,500 years to the point that they could visit
>anytime they wanted to and not have to wait for a conjunction or
>perihelion to scoot across.

I can't help wondering about a guy who can't figure out simple high school science:
velocity x time = distance
to go twice as fast by rocket power requires MUCH more than twice as much fuel.

To visit "at will", they would have to be capable of accelerating their spacecraft to MANY TIMES the speed of a comet. Aside from the fact that the acceleration to do this would leave them nothing but thin red paint on the floor, the rocket ship required to carry the fuel would be planetary sized, and need a refuel at each end of the trip. Does he think ARCO will fill them up?

Of course, "flying saucers" are reported to go without rocket exhaust, and make instant right angle turns. Maybe they can go much faster than rockets with little or no fuel. I don't know if this is true or not, but WE don't appear to have that ability. Maybe we do and are pretending not to. If so, maybe we got that technology from them. Maybe it's THEM, and they DO visit in between Nibiru's appearances.

>I mean, in the years since the first space launches by humans in 1958,
>humans now have the ability to send space probes out to where the 12th
>planet supposedly makes it's orbit. It appears that the incredibly
>advanced Anunaki can't do in millennia what humans have done in a few
>decades.

NASA now has the ability to send a probe TO the orbit of Pluto . . . in about 10 or 12 years for the one way trip. That is A TINY FRACTION of the outer orbit of a 3,600 year period comet. When you see NASA putting up a space probe that accompanies a 3600 year comet on its way out of the solar system, and returns with it 3600 years later, THEN we will have ability which you claim for us now. That's a LONG way away from out current abilities.

Mark's argument also leaves out the thought that perhaps our technology is in fact derived from them, and we have NOT "done it in a few decades." I know a WW2 submarine captain who was in navy intelligence who says ALL our micro electronics, printed circuits, etc., came off a 1947 crashed UFO. Maybe he's lying. Of course . . . he might not be.

I also know a singer who was performing on the base in Roswell THAT night, who says every man in the club suddenly and mysteriously stood up and rushed out at the same time in the middle of a set, leaving the club totally empty long before closing time, and every street was blocked off and guarded that night. [I think she also said something about moving something HUGE under tarps, but I'm not certain if I'm misremembering her story with someone else's.] In any case, something clearly happened they aren't telling us.

>Doesn't it also seem odd that a civilization capable of space flight and
>genetic engineering emits no television, radio or other electromagnetic
>communication signals?

Doesn't it seem odd that you assume they can only broadcast on the frequency your TV picks up, and/or that OUR government would of course tell us of they were picking up signals? After all, the government has never lied to us about anything else now, have they?

>Sitchin seems to be so busy reading clay tablets that he has completely
>overlooked the degree of cultural stagnation and technological
>incompetance of the hypothetical Anunaki culture implied by his claims.
>
>heh heh...
>
>-Mark

Mark seems to be so busy spouting infantile pronouncements that he has completely overlooked READING the person he is contemptuously dismissing as an idiot, researching any of his own wildly untrue claims about our current abilities, or thinking about the implications of his statements, but then nothing fosters arrogance like ignorance.

Bob

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From: "mark thompson" <carpo4@hotmail.com>
Subject: Zecharia Sitchin's character revealed: web interview
Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 04:38:06 PST

Sitchin interview at:
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/5467/make_your_page.htm

This interview pretty much makes it clear that Sitchin is grasping at
straws and is in the business of fitting the interpretation of evidence
to his pre-existing assumptions, which he asserts explain just about
everything having to do with the origin and early history of the human
species and civilization.

Apparently he thinks the Noah's Ark myth is literally true. (Sheesh,
talk about a genetic bottleneck!)

He also seems to assert that the Anunaki had the technology to wipe out
the human species, but the attempt by one Anunaki faction to do so was
easily thwarted by having a guy build a wooden boat.

He frequently uses phrases like "why not?" and other hand-waving when
arguing his case.

He also explicity hints at his habit of fitting whatever new discoveries
appear in the popular press into his theoretical framework as
explanatory principles: Genetic engineering? Wow! that's just what the
Sumerians must have been talking about!

It's my hypothesis that Sitchin is an obsessive archeology and
linguistics hobbyist that has painted himself into a corner pursuing the
consequents of his childhood biblical "insights" and now makes a living
off his science fiction books by peddling them as non-fiction. Faced
with the pathetic reality that should his hypothesis be false he has
wasted his life (or even worse, wasted the attention of his followers),
he now refuses to look toward anything that might shed light on his
subject other than the archaeological record and archaic religious
texts. He also implies that he believes the failure of orthodox science
to confirm his hypotheses regarding the 12th planet is part of a massive
coverup.

He also makes the peculiar assertion that the Sumerians knew that
"neptune is a watery planet". This is a pretty peculiar way to describe
nitrogen and methane at cryogenic temperatures. Note also that the
Anunaki home planet's orbital period is supposedly about 3600 years,
putting the planet so far from the sun that it's average temperature
would be significantly less than that of Neptune - yet the Anunaki are
biochemically identical to humans, a fact which allows them to walk
around in earth's atmosphere and surface temperatures.

As original as he is, there's something about his carreer that reminds
me vaguely of L. Ron Hubbard or Carlos Casteneda.

Ok Ok.. so I'm being a little mean here...

-Mark

At 04:38 AM 29-11-98 PST
"mark thompson" <carpo4@hotmail.com>WROTE:

>Sitchin interview at:
>http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/5467/make_your_page.htm
>
>This interview pretty much makes it clear that Sitchin is grasping at
>straws and is in the business of fitting the interpretation of evidence
>to his pre-existing assumptions, which he asserts explain just about
>everything having to do with the origin and early history of the human
>species and civilization.

Mark's comments pretty much make it clear that he is grasping at straws to support his preconceptions, is in the business of fitting the interpretation of evidence to his pre-existing assumptions, and is unable to make ANY intelligent comment on or argument about Sitchen's statements.

>Apparently he thinks the Noah's Ark myth is literally true. (Sheesh,
>talk about a genetic bottleneck!)

Sitchen actually says Noah apparently built a boat and saved a FEW PEOPLE.

[Sheesh . . . go ahead . . . make my day . . . READ the interview!]

>He also seems to assert that the Anunaki had the technology to wipe out
>the human species, but the attempt by one Anunaki faction to do so was
>easily thwarted by having a guy build a wooden boat.

No. You clearly haven't read Sitchen, didn't read the interview very closely, and are satisfied with with ridiculing him based upon what you THINK his position MIGHT be. Sitchen says that the Annunaki FAILED TO WARN US about the impending global flood caused by the dislocation of the Antartic ice sheet, but that Enki warned Noah in spite of his promise not to.

>He frequently uses phrases like "why not?" and other hand-waving when
>arguing his case.

He does? Please quote such statements from the interview and analyse them.

>He also explicity hints at his habit of fitting whatever new discoveries
>appear in the popular press into his theoretical framework as
>explanatory principles:

He does?

I think what you mean is that a large number of the latest scientific discoveries DO confirm the ancient records.
Is that what you you were trying to say?

>Genetic engineering? Wow! that's just what the
>Sumerians must have been talking about!

That's EXACTLY what the sumerians were talking about 6,000 years ago on their stupid old myth-filled clay tablets. And now we are finally catching up with them. Doesn't that make you feel really advanced and superior?

>It's my hypothesis that Sitchin is an obsessive archeology and
>linguistics hobbyist that has painted himself into a corner pursuing the
>consequents of his childhood biblical "insights" and now makes a living
>off his science fiction books by peddling them as non-fiction. Faced
>with the pathetic reality that should his hypothesis be false he has
>wasted his life (or even worse, wasted the attention of his followers),
>he now refuses to look toward anything that might shed light on his
>subject other than the archaeological record and archaic religious
>texts.

My hypothesis is that you are unable to think for yourself, and are clinging desperately to your anti-biblical dogma to keep your ego afloat in a sea of uncertainty.

What exactly would you have him "look toward" BUT "the archaeological record and archaic religious
texts". Is there something ELSE that is relevant here? Maybe I'm really just totally clueless, because that's ALL I can think of. But then, what would I know, I'm just another brain-dead bozo?

Do you have some SECRET KNOWLEDGE you are not sharing?

?? Perhaps it's your dogmatic a priori RELIGIOUSLY HELD BELIEF that the ancient texts are "just myth" ??
Well . . . that proves your case, doesn't it!

>He also implies that he believes the failure of orthodox science
>to confirm his hypotheses regarding the 12th planet is part of a massive
>coverup.

He does?
Why would he do that when in fact modern science HAS CONFIRMED the existence of a "12th" planet, aka Planet X.

>He also makes the peculiar assertion that the Sumerians knew that
>"neptune is a watery planet". This is a pretty peculiar way to describe
>nitrogen and methane at cryogenic temperatures.

It would certainly clearly distinguish a blue/green liquid planet from a red-dry planet such as mars. Since the sumerians knew about this planet this 6,000 years ago, and WE only discovered it this century, and NASA just found out it has a liquid surface in the last ten years, it's rather startling evidence that perhaps the ancient knowledge of astronomy WAS recieved from the Annunaki . . . just as the ancient texts WHICH DESCRIBE THE PLANET assert.

>Note also that the
>Anunaki home planet's orbital period is supposedly about 3600 years,
>putting the planet so far from the sun that it's average temperature
>would be significantly less than that of Neptune - yet the Anunaki are
>biochemically identical to humans, a fact which allows them to walk
>around in earth's atmosphere and surface temperatures.

If you had bothered to READ sitchen, you would know that he says the annunaki came here to mine gold to help reflect heat back onto their cooling off planet. It was such a big problem they launched an interplanetary expedition to solve it.

>As original as he is, there's something about his carreer that reminds
>me vaguely of L. Ron Hubbard or Carlos Casteneda.
>
>Ok Ok.. so I'm being a little mean here...
>
>-Mark

Please engage mind before putting mouth in gear.

bob

O
   == )
|

From: "Robert P. Beveridge" <xanathar@stratos.net>
Subject: Re: Mark Thompson's character revealed
Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 16:51:14 -0500

>>Apparently he thinks the Noah's Ark myth is literally true. (Sheesh,
>>talk about a genetic bottleneck!)
>
>Sitchen actually says Noah apparently built a boat and saved a FEW PEOPLE.
>
>[Sheesh . . . go ahead . . . make my day . . . READ the interview!]


So basically, Bob, what you're saying is...

"Apparently he thinks the Noah's Ark myth is literally true."

If he built the boat, then there's truth to the myth, eh...?

Dear Bob:

From my reading of Sitchen, I think he would say:
1] Noah was a real person, known also by other names.
2] The real person/god/astronaut Enki, also known by other names, warned him about a coming flood.
3] Noah built some kind of a boat and saved some people.

I find that quite a bit different from the "Noah's Ark Myth" I was taught in sunday school, with all the animals in the world marching up the gang plank two by two. That seriously strained my credibility even then. There are a LOT of animals, and many of them are VERY large, and eat a LOT. Even if you could round them all up, you'd need an ark preposterously large to carry them all, and a large army of vets and zoo workers to care for them. Not credible!

So I would say NO, Sitichen does not "literally" believe "THE" "Noah's Ark Myth."

However, based on ancient texts, not a thoroughly bastardized bible, he DOES assert Noah was a real person who actually DID do SOME of the things attributed to him in the later myths.

So YES, there IS *SOME* TRUTH in the "myth."

Happy now, or shall we split some more hairs?

bob

O
   == )
|

=======================================

At 04:51 PM 29-11-98 -0500:
"Robert P. Beveridge" <xanathar@stratos.net>
WROTE:

>>>Apparently he thinks the Noah's Ark myth is literally true. (Sheesh,
>>>talk about a genetic bottleneck!)
>>
>>Sitchen actually says Noah apparently built a boat and saved a FEW PEOPLE.
>>
>>[Sheesh . . . go ahead . . . make my day . . . READ the interview!]
>
>
>So basically, Bob, what you're saying is...
>
>"Apparently he thinks the Noah's Ark myth is literally true."
>
>If he built the boat, then there's truth to the myth, eh...?

From: Daren1828@aol.com
Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 19:13:58 EST
Subject: sitchin

I've been reading all the posts about this Sitchin guy. I don't pretend to
understand or know everything (I know I dont) but I do have a question I wish
somebody would answer.

How do we know that the ancient Sumerian records are actually facts?
Couldn't they just as easily be works of fiction? Maybe I don't know what I'm
talking about but I fail to see how Sitchin can say a certain set of writing
is fact when he has no hard evidence to corroborate his theory. If Sitchin
believes myths are actually fact then shouldnt he also believe in Santa Claus,
the boogieman, and the tooth fairy. He seems to be basing all his work and
theories on the premise of just because something is written down it is true.
Arent certain writings considered myths for a reason?

I am open to the possibility that earth has been visited by beings from other
worlds. but to say that the they came from a mysterious 12th planet in the
solar system is a bit extreme. As far as we know, a 12th planet does not
exsist. Sitchin's view is that even though there is no physical evidence, the
12th planet must exsist cause the Sumerians said so. In all likelyhood the
aliens could have come from a variety of places other than the 12th planet.
Maybe someday we will discover that a 12th planet does exsist but even then
that does not guarantee that it holds life or that its inhabitants visited
earth thousands of years ago.


I also find it kind of pointless for bobzilla and mark to be hypothosizing
about the abilities of alien civilizations.(This is not intended as a personal
attack on either of you) If extraterestrial life does exsist who knows how
similar or different they are compared to us. We always assume life on other
planets is going to be in a form that we can recognize. Also we don't know
what is possible and what is impossible when it comes to space exploration and
propulsion systems. We don't know what other types of communication
technology alien cultures could be using in an attempt to contact us. Hell
maybe we arent even worth communicating with.

I think Sitchin's theory that aliens visited us in the past is a possiblity
but beyond that I don't agreee with him at all. I fail to see how someone can
say a myth is true without any outside proof to back up the myth.

Anyway I'm sure bobzilla will disagree with me and write me a nasty letter
back saying im a close minded idiot because I don't share the same beliefs as
him..I am just a little more careful of accepting everything i read as fact.

Dear Daren:

It's nice to see someone trying to understand things and asking useful questions.

At 07:13 PM 29-11-98 EST:
Daren1828@aol.com WROTE:

>I've been reading all the posts about this Sitchin guy. I don't pretend to
>understand or know everything (I know I dont) but I do have a question I wish
>somebody would answer.
>
> How do we know that the ancient Sumerian records are actually facts?

It is a fact that there are Sumerian records. There are piles of them in musuems all over the planet. That doesn't mean they are accurate, of course, but it does at least suggest the possibility.

>Couldn't they just as easily be works of fiction?

Sitchen presents the following kinds of evidence:
1] There is an enormous weath of data that is remarkably consistent.
2] Many such records are confirmed by archeological evidence.
3] Many scientific statements in the records have been confirmed by modern science.
4] Many of the events recorded in the records, such as genetic engineering, have now been replicated by science.
5] No other credible explanation has ever been put forth for many historically recorded events or facts.

If they are fictions, they are so astonishingly complex and exact that they replace many scientific theories and facts. This would be comparable to a gothic romance in which the periodic table, the heliocentric solar system, E=MC^2, and PV=NRT were all first proposed by the stable boy who rapes the heroine. It's not very likely given the facts explicated.

>Maybe I don't know what I'm
>talking about but I fail to see how Sitchin can say a certain set of writing
>is fact when he has no hard evidence to corroborate his theory.

He lays out many books of hard evidence to corroborate the historical record of the sumerians.
His "theory" is that documents which purport to be historical records just might be historical records, not psychotic ramblings or allegorical fairy tales, and he puts his theory to the test of everything we know about the physical world.

It stands up pretty well as far as I can see.

>If Sitchin believes myths are actually fact then shouldnt he also believe in Santa Claus,
>the boogieman, and the tooth fairy.

If lots of people all over the world saw santa claus come down in his sled and reported it, And he told the same story whereever he went, And the sketches were very similar, And there were extant presents that could not have been made on earth with our current toy technology, And santa claus had lots of descendants who shared similar genetic makeup, And the navy went to the north pole and found Mrs. Santa and the elves working hard making presents . . . then . . Sitchin might give him sume credibility.

Sitchen does not "believe in myths".

Sitchen has translated 5,000 year old historical records and presented the story told therein. Then he has exhaustively examined the story in the light of ALL archeological and scientific evidence we have available to see if it might be true.
He finds it very credible. In fact, he DELIGHTS in pointing out numerous examples where the historical record perfectly explains what we know, where no one else has a clue or any story that makes any sense at all.

>He seems to be basing all his work and
>theories on the premise of just because something is written down it is true.

No.
He starts with the assumption that the 5,000 year old historical record MIGHT be true, and then examines evidence.

>Arent certain writings considered myths for a reason?

Yes. In fact, he examines a number of areas where earlier historical records were purposefully altered for political purposes, creating deliberately false myths. The prior documents and the fact of the later alterations are all part of the historical record. The mutilation of the bible to create absurd myths is a matter of historical record, and there are earlier similar instances of altered records which he documents.

>I am open to the possibility that earth has been visited by beings from other
>worlds. but to say that the they came from a mysterious 12th planet in the
>solar system is a bit extreme. As far as we know, a 12th planet does not
>exsist.

No. We have known for many years that there is some gravitational influence out beyond Pluto which minutely affects the orbits of the outer planets. Sitchen points out that NASA publicly announced they had found another planet in the early 1980s. You can look it up. Read his book and check the references. The commonest name for it is "Planet X." WHY they don't talk about it any more . . . we don't talk about THAT either. Make up your own explanation for it . . .

>Sitchin's view is that even though there is no physical evidence, the
>12th planet must exsist cause the Sumerians said so.

As I noted above, there is quite a bit of physical evidence for it, in addition to the historical record that the gods/astronauts SAID that's where they came from. And apparently everybody on earth sees it every 3,600 years or so when it is plainly visible in the sky. If somebody tells you there is NO physical evidence, ask him if people living in argentina would fall off the world becuase they are on the bottom.

>In all likelyhood the
>aliens could have come from a variety of places other than the 12th planet.

Yes, I guess they could have, but why would they lie about it?

>Maybe someday we will discover that a 12th planet does exsist but even then
>that does not guarantee that it holds life or that its inhabitants visited
>earth thousands of years ago.

The existence of a planet does not mean it has people who came here, no, of course not. But the historical record is full of tales of people who came here from SOMEWHERE else, and SAID it was from the 12th planet. If there is a better explanation, I haven't heard it.

>I also find it kind of pointless for bobzilla and mark to be hypothosizing
>about the abilities of alien civilizations.(This is not intended as a personal
>attack on either of you) If extraterestrial life does exsist who knows how
>similar or different they are compared to us.

I haven't talked to any aliens that I know of . . . though I have met some really WIERD people.

According to the historical record . . . we look like them because they made us "in their image." That's not my hypothesis, that's what Sicthen AND OTHER sumerian scholars translate the records to say. Maybe they are making it all up and the clay tablets are just shopping lists or mathematical tables. I'm taking his/their word for it.

>We always assume life on other
>planets is going to be in a form that we can recognize. Also we don't know
>what is possible and what is impossible when it comes to space exploration and
>propulsion systems. We don't know what other types of communication
>technology alien cultures could be using in an attempt to contact us. Hell
>maybe we arent even worth communicating with.

Actually, that sounds like a pretty reasonable theory to me: aliens came here searching for intelligent life . . . and left disappointed. On their chart they marked "republicans and democrats . . . keep out!"

>I think Sitchin's theory that aliens visited us in the past is a possiblity
>but beyond that I don't agreee with him at all. I fail to see how someone can
>say a myth is true without any outside proof to back up the myth.

That's his whole point: 6 or 8 books examining the records in light of the evidence.

>Anyway I'm sure bobzilla will disagree with me and write me a nasty letter
>back saying im a close minded idiot because I don't share the same beliefs as
>him..I am just a little more careful of accepting everything i read as fact.

Well, I did write back, but that wasn't too nasty, was it?

I don't think you are a closed minded idiot. You seem to be genuinely trying to understand. At least you're asking sensible questions, not making pontifical pronouncements based on proudly proclaimed prejudice and deliberate ignorance. Many of your questions are based on what someone else has said about Sitchen . . . which grossly misrepresents his position. Read Sitchen and I think many or all of your questions will go away. You'll have a whole NEW set of questions, but that's a different story.

Hey, Read Von Daniken too! I see he's now written more books than Sitchen has. I've only read one or two of them, and that was over 25 years ago. I'd love an analysis from somebody on how their theories and evidence jive (or don't).

best,

O
   == )
|

From: "mark thompson" <carpo4@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Mark Thompson's character revealed, I guess...
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 03:20:06 PST


>Do you have some SECRET KNOWLEDGE you are not sharing?
...
>Why would he [Sitchen] do that when in fact modern science HAS
>CONFIRMED the existence of a "12th" planet, aka Planet X.

It's no secret, actually. If you want to see the list of several dozen
known planets beyond the orbit of neptune, none of which confirm
Sitchen's literalist presumptions, check out:

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/Ephemerides/Distant/index.html

specifically nice is the list of transneptunian object, complete with
orbital elements:
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/TNOs.html

and a nice map of the outer solar system at:
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/OuterPlot.html

You should write a few books explaining how this stuff confirms
Sitchen's cosmology. Work the new-age bookstore circuit. Do the Art Bell
show...

I'm just as suspcious of standard-issue reality as you are. I'm not
defending scientific orthodoxy, I'm laughing at what I've heard of
Sitchen so far, some of it in his own words. The guy gets some regard
for being original, but that's about it. If he published an interlinear
translation of Gilgamesh, with translated pages facing photos of the
original clay tablets, I'd buy it.

-Mark

From: "mark thompson" <carpo4@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Planet 10 vs 12
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 05:40:24 PST

Well, the Sumerians counted the planets differently than modern
astronomers do, and if Sitchin's idea that the highly elliptical orbit
of this 3600-year period planet has it's closest approach to the sun
somewhere between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter is true, then you'd
probably be able to see it during it's closest approach.

If it were large and massive enough to do the tidal things Sitchin
attributes to its gravitation we should be able to see it now
(especially with tools like the Hubble Telescope), since it's only 14
years away from it's perihelion in the year 2013.

But of course we don't see it. So it's probably not real.

Either that or it's all part of an incredibly complex and efficient
global UFO cover-up in which all astronomers and governments have been
complicit for decades.

Note also that oxygen is a solid mineral at the surface temperatures on
any planet beyond the orbit of Pluto. The Anunaki probably shovel it
into their lungs like breakfast cereal.

The problem with Sitchin theory isn't so much that it's bad science,
it's that it isn't even credible as science fiction.


>hey,
> man I've posted a lot recently on this subject... anyhow... I really
do
>not think the 12th planet referred to a planet for the following
reasons...
>
>It took a great deal of research to discover the very very small
pluto...
>it was very difficult and could not be accomplished with the naked
eye...
>so if the sumerians were truely speaking about planets then 1) they
must
>have had serious telescopes, 2) the information was passed down to them
>from either a previous civilization or 3) our space friends told
them...
>being that this knowledge must have come from a civilization with
fairly
>advanced visualization that could see beyond pluto, or by people from
>beyond plutoo, then why would they add in the moon and the sun? Who
would
>add the sun and the moon? Why not add the two moons on Mars? the
multiple
>moons of Jupiter (are we on something like 13 moons now) if we're going
to
>add our moon to the heavenly bodies? If you can see pluto, you can see
>mars' two moons... so why add the sun and moon, which are clearly not
>planets, and leave out all the other moons which are more visible than
>pluto? so I really don't think the 12th planet is an actual location,
but
>an allegory for something I have not researched into...

From: "mark thompson" <carpo4@hotmail.com>
Subject: Planets Beyond Pluto
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 06:53:51 PST

Check out this planet:

1996-TL66 ... it has a 1000-year elliptical orbit and a diameter of 500
kilometers. It's closest approach to the sun is outside the orbit of
pluto.

Info:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/4341/1996tl66.html

Map:
(light blue circles represent the orbits of jupiter, saturn, uranus and
neptune, all others are newly discovered minor planets, large brown
ellipse is the orbit of 1996-TL66)

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/4341/j96t66l.gif

From: "mark thompson" <carpo4@hotmail.com>
Subject: Orbit Results for Nibiru, Sumerian 12th Planet
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 14:04:10 PST

Ok.

I wrote an orbit simulator and ran it for the parameters given for
Nibiru: closest approach to Sun (perihelion) midway between the orbits
of Mars and Jupiter with an orbital period of around 3600 earth years.

Nibiru's aphelion (farthest distance from the sun) given these
parameters is about 445 astronomical units. An astronomical unit is
about 93,000,000 miles.

For reference, Neptune's orbit is 30.6 astronomical units from the Sun
and Jupiter's orbit is about 5.6 au's from the sun.

The Earth is located 1 astronomical unit from the Sun.

Most of Nibiru's 3600 year orbit would be spent farther away than the
orbit of Neptune, so it's reasonable to guess that such a planet would
be substantially colder than Neptune or Pluto most of the time. The sun
would look like just another bright star to an observer on Nibiru during
most of its year.

You can get a graphic plot of Nibiru's orbit from my web site at:

http://www.lycaeum.org/~martins/nibiru.gif

-Mark

Mark:

This is way cool! s

You know of course, that some brain dead bozo is now going to post that Nibiru MUST be real because he saw an actual diagram of the orbit on the web! :-)

I believe Sitchin's brother is an astro-physicist, so I've assumed he had easy access to the latest scientific poop, and I've been taking his data at face value so far. Now that I have someone who is clearly not prejudiced in his favor <grin>, I'd love to get some cross checks.

I've been looking for my Sitchin books and I can't find them, so they must be in storage. I believe his reference to the early 1980's discovery of a Nibiru-candidate planet (not just a big rock) is in Genesis Revisited, latter part. Anybody got a copy? I think he cites some magazine articles.

P.S. I just finished reading Morpheus' fascinating 3-part posting on Planet X. Now I'm more confused. He says there is no planet X, but up to 1987 they were still seriously looking for it. I read somewhere else that the Voyagers are slowing down more than expected, which would be "for"?. What's the real scoop, aside from any secret paranoia hubble data?

I'm still looking for the source of Sitchins 2012 or 2013 Nibiru return prediction. All the quotes I've seen from him are "figure it out for yourself." I wrote to him, but he didn't respond to my questions on that topic. Apparently, he has now broken his silence on that? How does he accord that with the 3760 B.C. flyby, and a roughly 3,600 year orbit?

I liked your mean Noah's Ark Philosophical Essay.

O
   == )
|

From: "mark thompson" <carpo4@hotmail.com>
To: superconsciousness@listbot.com
Subject: Re: Noah's Ark Myth - more mean stuff.
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 04:29:24 PST


BobZ...

have you read "The Earth Chronicles"? much of what I'm taking issue with
is supposedly extracted from that book.

If I get much deeper into what might be characterized as "our little
flamewar here", I'm either going to have to read Sitchen's stuff (which
I'm not interested in doing at all) or your criticism that I'm using
neither primary or secondary sources (Sitchen or Sumerian texts) is
going to take on some pretty serious weight.

Were I to do that, I'm fairly certain that Sitchen would fall apart
completely, simply on the basis that the skeleton of his hypothesis is
unsupportable without multiplying supportive axioms beyond a reasonable
scope. He doesn't seem, from what I have available, to have subjected
his conclusions to any sort of realistic astrophysical models, something
that appears at first glance to pretty much devastate the implications
of his underlying assumptions. The more of his conclusions that one has
available, the more points of potential falsification there are.

If you really give a damn whether Sitchin is credible or not, go ahead
and do it yourself. I don't think it's worth the effort.

I've dropped some of my own really neat-o theories when they don't stand
up to corroboration by information from other fields. For example, I was
looking into the possibility that the Flood Myth was the memory of a
rise in sea level at the end of one of the more recent ice ages, periods
that correspond with an increase in human cranial capacity and the
disappearance of the Neanderthals. Such a rise in sea level could also
account for the submergence of "Atlantis" or whatever else someone wants
to prove. At one time I also looked into the idea that the Nephilim were
Neanderthals who interbred with humans and were then exterminated in
some sort of genocidal backlash. Neanderthals had larger brains than
humans, were stronger etc. and might fit the description of
intellectually superior giants. Another hypothesis was that the
linguistically unique Basque language is a descendant of the language of
the Neanderthals, that many place names in Basque country and the
Pyrenees are linguistic fossils of a Neanderthal bear cult civilization
(which may have also been the source of the European Arthurian
legends... the name Arthur is derived from a more primitive word that is
the root of the words for both bear (Ursa) and Earth) etc etc.

I don't think those ideas happen to be the case, but they were
interesting for a while. I'm sure that if I began collecting supporting
factoids and ignored or hedged contradictory evidence I could write
quite a convincing piece of pseudohistory about the Neaderthals,
Atlantis, The Flood and the Origin of Modern Humans, complete with moral
perscriptions for the social, spiritual and personal reforms neccessary
to avoid some impending millennial disaster.

Another example: presume that the Sumerians really knew all about
Neptune in detail, and that the Dogon know about Sirius-B in detail, and
that the Mayan's knew that the center of the galaxy is located in
Centaurus.

Telepathy or remote viewing would explain these things much more
parsimoniously than the incredibly contorted scenarios Sitchen has come
up with, especially in light of the plethora of people, including
Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson and others, no less credible than
Zechariah Sitchen or Roswell witnesses, claiming to have received
psychic broadcasts from places like Sirius, the Pleides and Orion.

The problem with an unorthodox axiom that seems to explain everything is
that these usually require either simplifying one's model of reality to
fit the axiom, or making a lot of secondary adjustments to account for
contradictory evidence - the model then becomes an unneccessarily
complex tangle of exceptions and special cases.

New models that actually do explain large chunks of observable reality
usually explain previous models as sub-instances derivable from the
general model while simultaneously reducing the number of (or
eliminating entirely) rule exceptions neccessary to fit contradictory
observations into the previous models.

Sitchen's work, and some of your arguments in defense of it, appear
to exhibit progressive negative parsimony, which is one of the
statistical hallmarks of sincere theoretical error.

-Mark

From: "mark thompson" <carpo4@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Orbit Results for Nibiru
Date: Tue, 01 Dec 1998 12:46:04 PST

Real-To: "mark thompson" <carpo4@hotmail.com>

>From Sex to Superconsciousness - http://www.artnet.net/~acharya/truth


>I'm still looking for the source of Sitchins 2012 or 2013 Nibiru return
>prediction. All the quotes I've seen from him are "figure it out for
>yourself." I wrote to him, but he didn't respond to my questions on
that
>topic. Apparently, he has now broken his silence on that? How does he
>accord that with the 3760 B.C. flyby, and a roughly 3,600 year orbit?

If Sitchin actually made reference to 2012/2013 it's probably in the
book about the Mayans - "Lost Realms" I think is the title.

The only reference I can find to 2012/2013 on the web is a site where
the guy interdigitates Sitchin quotes with what may be his own
assertions.

That's what I get for using the web as a source... maybe Sitchen never
said that. I guess there's a temptation to make the apocalyptic arrival
of mysterious planets coincide with all the other mythico-religious
doomsdays near the Millennium.

Attributing a 2012 date to Sitchin may be a web rumor I picked up
somewhere.

(I probably said 2013 because the Gregorian date for the end of the
Mayan Calendar is December 21, 2012 AD, which is practially new years
2013. There was also a prediction made in the 1960's by some
international organization that the "population explosion" would reach
crisis proportions in 2013 ... diagrams were published in major
magazines of the population growth curve becoming vertical in 2013.)

This place is as close to such that I can find:
http://www.techline.com/~palfac/MobiusInsight_html/Mobius.html
It makes mention of 3600 year orbits and 2013 in adjacent paragraphs and
uses references to Sitchin to spice things up.

-Mark

From: "mark thompson" <carpo4@hotmail.com>
Subjet: Re: Orbit Results for Nibiru
Date: Tue, 01 Dec 1998 12:46:04 PST


>I'm still looking for the source of Sitchins 2012 or 2013 Nibiru return
>prediction. All the quotes I've seen from him are "figure it out for
>yourself." I wrote to him, but he didn't respond to my questions on
that
>topic. Apparently, he has now broken his silence on that? How does he
>accord that with the 3760 B.C. flyby, and a roughly 3,600 year orbit?

If Sitchin actually made reference to 2012/2013 it's probably in the
book about the Mayans - "Lost Realms" I think is the title.

The only reference I can find to 2012/2013 on the web is a site where
the guy interdigitates Sitchin quotes with what may be his own
assertions.

That's what I get for using the web as a source... maybe Sitchen never
said that. I guess there's a temptation to make the apocalyptic arrival
of mysterious planets coincide with all the other mythico-religious
doomsdays near the Millennium.

Attributing a 2012 date to Sitchin may be a web rumor I picked up
somewhere.

(I probably said 2013 because the Gregorian date for the end of the
Mayan Calendar is December 21, 2012 AD, which is practially new years
2013. There was also a prediction made in the 1960's by some
international organization that the "population explosion" would reach
crisis proportions in 2013 ... diagrams were published in major
magazines of the population growth curve becoming vertical in 2013.)

This place is as close to such that I can find:
http://www.techline.com/~palfac/MobiusInsight_html/Mobius.html
It makes mention of 3600 year orbits and 2013 in adjacent paragraphs and
uses references to Sitchin to spice things up.

-Mark

From: Bob Zilla
Re: More Sitchin References

Well, I've been snooping around the web digging up stuff.
Here are some interesting links relating to current discussion.

===========

Alan Alford, author of "Gods of the New Millenium" and "Phoenix Solution" corrects and expands Sitchin's work. Mostly favorable comments on Sitchin by another mythology researcher who's not afraid to say Sitchin is WRONG in a few areas. I'm impressed, of couse, because he questions the same things about Sitchen that I do. Very interesting web site, explore it all. Read the tables of contents of his two books.
    http://www2.eridu.co.uk/

Here's his short analysis of Sitchin's work, good and bad.
    http://www2.eridu.co.uk/eridu/minisites/sitchin.html

===========

Here's Tom Van Flandern's home page: a professional astronomer writing on the apparently continuing search for planet X.
    http://www.planetarymysteries.com/vanflandern.html

And here's his challenge to orthodox astronomy, we'll know in two months if he's right or wrong: he's certainly not afraid to stick his neck out with an unequivocal prediction! [The test of the Exploding Planet Hypothesis, which I haven't found.]
    http://www.metaresearch.org/announce/near-challenge.htm#introduction

And here he is trashing Sitchin's "Akkadian Seal" as a depiction of our solar system, and saying Nibiru doesn't make sense astronomically, but that he DOES think there is a missing Planet K. He's clearly not a scientific lightweight.
    http://www.lauralee.com/vanflan.htm

==========

Also, you wondered why we don't pick up signals from "beyond", well, ?here they are? [Danger! Art Bell is apparently talking about this, so we know it couldn't be true.]
    http://www.planetarymysteries.com/probe.html

===================

Here's one by a present day machining expert that CLEARLY proves the ancient egyptians [or whoever] used lathes, precision grinders, and ULTRASONIC DRILLS to work granite! No joke. He thinks the great pyramid is a power station. Check out the microwave generator diagrams! This guy is a kick!
    http://www.lauralee.com/chrisdunn/article.htm

===============

What to make of all this?

Sitchin seems to have the ancient texts down pretty good.
Other mythologists agree with his translations of the ancient record.
I.E. the records DO say the Annunaki came here from somewhere else, etc.

Sitchin may be seriously misinterpreting some of the diagrams and the science?

Planet K may well be out there
Planet K may be Nibiru?

????

Enough for one day!


O
   == )
\

OK, Here we go with another round of Sitchin Bitchin.

Somebody reviewed John Rappoport's book on Secret Societies [I lost the post].

Mark Thompson analyzes it in his typically brilliant fashion, but neglects to read the book his is analyzing.

From: "mark thompson" <carpo4@hotmail.com>
To: superconsciousness@listbot.com
Subject: A General Theory of Conspiracy: Symbol Infested Apes
Date: Sat, 06 Feb 1999 10:10:35 PST


Mason's marks, secret societies, brainwashing.

Y'know, I think people are projecting a more complex model onto these
things than is neccessary.

Yes, there are 'secret societies' and almost every form of human
organization shares their characteristics.

I don't think this is a manifestation of some grand history-spanning
clique that surpasses your wildest imaginings.

I think it's an intrinsic property of the self-organization of
symbol-infested monkeys with neurologically-wired social dominance
behaviors and a mammalian reproductive and offspring weaning pattern.

Rappoport's "secret society" conundrum may be as much an artifact of the
techniques of investigative journalism as it is a reflection of some
underlying pattern in human behavior.

Extensions of Mae Brussel's techniques of soliciting newspaper clippings
and correlating the gleanings can yield any result one desires, a notion
expressed by Robert Anton Wilson as "Given enough time and information
you can prove anything." (This technique also involves second-order
journalism: it's investigative journalism using the reports of
investigative journalism as raw material. There's a certain
informational drift to it, like a game of 'telephone' in which people
standing in a line relay a message by whispering it in each other's
ears. Error tends to accumulate. This process of mutation and selection
might evolve anything. And it might evolve incredibly diverse results
each time it's undertaken.)

Investigative journalists are certainly part of the political immune
system and the sensory fabric of humanity. But, like all sensory organs,
the signals passed to consciousness are subject to perceptual and
cognitive illusions.

Please note that after every publicized major crime, particularly
unsolved murders or serial killings, dozens of people in every major
city call the police department to confess to the crime. Is this
evidence of a global homicide ring that is responsible for every murder
that has ever occurred? I don't think so. Some people are compulsive
confessors. Various sociology and psychology experiments (sorry, no refs
right now) have shown that eyewitness accounts are astonishingly
inaccurate, often to the extent of contradicting central features of
the actual event used as a stimulus.

So, there are the distortions intrinsic to eyewitness accounts
(especially those collected in response to news stories) as well as the
distortions of the investigative and interpretive processes of
journalism and archeology.

One of the functions of the mind is the detection of pattern. Like any
sort of compulsive behavior, pattern addiction does occur.

I've already demonstrated that projecting all meaning onto a small
symbol set inevitably results in the generation of spurious inferences
of equivalence. The smaller the symbol set, the less likely is any
particular inference to correspond to anything with an actual referent.

Another illusion, which is apparent in the conclusions that have been
made about mitochondrial DNA evidence (ie. that there must be ONE woman
that is the ancestress of the human species) is the illusion that
back-traced inertia of a diffuse process implies a single unifying point
of origin.

In it's most abstract form, any collection of particles has a center of
gravity: the average of the position of all the particles. It is not
safe to presume that center of gravity as the origin of the collection.

Symbol systems or any set of measured features, historical or
contemporaneous, are no different. One can always apply a technique that
will yield a centroid.

But the centroid is a statistical construct, not a historical feature of
the set.

---

The perception of the socialization rituals and consensus realities of
other cultures are often perceived as "brainwashing", but these same
features of the culture in which one has been embedded is rarely
perceived that way. Part of this is due to the level of detail with
which one experieces one's native culture. The rationale for the
delusions of one's own culture are known. Yet even though those
distortions make no more 'absolute sense' than any other cultures, other
cultures are perceived as bizarre.

Socialization rites basically consist of bullying "wild humans" into
submission to some set of utilitarian behavior patterns. All techniques
of domestication, from compusory public education, to television, to the
wack of a Zen master's stick, are in some sense simply cheap bullying in
the service of perpetuating The Big Lie.

For mammalian cultures, this seems to be the current state-of-the art of
epigenetic reproduction. This is how civilzation and cultures reproduce.

People who discover this often attempt to make the best of a horrifying
situation by seeking out others who know. For some it may seem like a
predicament of "domesticate or be domesticated" and cliques, cults,
ruling elites and secret societies may form, which in turn develop their
own forms of cultural reproduction.

When one "wakes up" to this, it may look like some grand
history-spanning conspiracy, or as though one had been abducted,
implanted and brainwashed. And it is. But not in the reflexively
paranoid way many people seem to think.

This process of waking up to the nature of civilized domestication can
be traumatic. A sort of epigenetic puberty for which there are few
meaningful roadmaps and which, like George Orwell's notion of "Newspeak"
implies, is unmodellable in the symbol systems used to implant the
culture. Symbolic languages offer no grasping surface, since symbolic
languages are the means by which culture is implanted and enforced.

And in the same way that many cultures supress or are embarassed by the
details of their biological and sexual nature, cultures also repress in
embarassment knowledge of the ways in which the culture itself
reproduces by implanting symbols in human meat.

Waking up to this might be accomplished via an unusual exercize, an
exercise that carries the risk of paranoia upon first beholding a grand
conspiracy.

The exercize: Assume that everyone is lying about everything all the
time whether they know it or not.

Another way to wake someone may be to simply evoke in them a certain
purity of laughter.

-Mark

Bob Zilla Responds to Mark Thompson's analysis of John Rappoport's unread book.
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 16:14:28 -0800 (PST)

ReRe: A General Theory of Conspiracy:

The original inception and structure of our civilization was not secret at
all for many thousands of years. We worshipped our creators and obeyed
them as we were instructed. Sitchin lays it all out in great detail, based
on Sumerian and other historical records: when, who, what, why, how.

With the power struggles between different colonial factions, Yahweh's
apparent ascendency to power [perhaps still opposed?], the loss of general
knowledge of world history, and the rise of global control through secret
societies, that formerly public knowledge has been restricted to a few
people.

If you are unwilling to read Sitchin to get the long version of the big
picture, Bramley's completely independent "Gods of Eden" does quite a good
job of tracing a short account of the long term power struggles between the
gods into a partially detailed overall history of the [somewhat] "secret"
societies and their manipulation of history . . . all in one fat highly
readable volume.

Of course, there always have been, [and always will be], local secret
societies devoted to local interests, scaling from high school cliques to
illegal transnational trading syndicates. That hardly can be contrued to
mean that long term global secret societies doing the work of planetary
colonial rulers can't or don't exist. To make that argument is entirely
specious and I really expect better from Mark.

In addition to constructing erroneous theories from badly sampled biased
data, you can also construct erroneous theories from badly sampled biased
data: simply reject critical data because "it's ridiculous" . . . and then
prove your point by ridiculing it.

Refusal to read Sitchin and confront his evidence MIGHT be construed as a
biased data sample, leading to oversimplified theories reflecting
"research" techniques, rather than actual factors determining human history.

O
== )
\

=========================================================

At 10:10 AM 06-02-99 PST "mark thompson" <carpo4@hotmail.com>WROTE:
>Mason's marks, secret societies, brainwashing.
>
>Y'know, I think people are projecting a more complex model onto these
>things than is neccessary.
>
>Yes, there are 'secret societies' and almost every form of human
>organization shares their characteristics.
>
>I don't think this is a manifestation of some grand history-spanning
>clique that surpasses your wildest imaginings.
>
>I think it's an intrinsic property of the self-organization of
>symbol-infested monkeys with neurologically-wired social dominance
>behaviors and a mammalian reproductive and offspring weaning pattern.
>
>Rappoport's "secret society" conundrum may be as much an artifact of the
>techniques of investigative journalism as it is a reflection of some
>underlying pattern in human behavior.

        SNIP

mark thompson's final "why" here

Gary Sharp replies to Bob Z's post, and includes a fascinating "refreshing.mpg" file

Date: Sat, 06 Feb 1999 16:21:48 -0800
From: "Gary D. Sharp" <gsharp@montereybay.com>
Reply-To: gsharp@montereybay.com
Organization: Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC)
X-Accept-Language: en
To: bobzilla@netbox.com
Subject: Re: ReRe: A General Theory of Conspiracy

BobZ!

Yep, Life is Great, said the folks from Ye Olde navel observatory...

The only general conspiracy that really comes to mind is that which portends
that whomever survives this silly-assed darwinian experiment will find someone
to blame for the results... Usually, somewhat focused, meaner, and more
hyperactive predators, that can survive on the slower, more passive and
productive fodder...

Then there are the really weird:
See Attachment
--
Gary D. Sharp
Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study
PO Box 2223, Monterey, CA 93940
<http://www.monterey.edu/faculty/SharpGary/world>
831-449-9212
gsharp@montereybay.com

"The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses
to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism
is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin."
Thomas H. Huxley
Attachment Converted: "C:\MY PROGRAMS\EUDORA 3.05\Attach\REFRESHING.mpg"

refreshing reply goes here

Acharya responds to Bob Z's post.

Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 17:29:44 -0800 (PST)
From: Acharya S <acharya_s@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: ReRe: A General Theory of Conspiracy
To: superconsciousness@listbot.com


Well, not all of us worshipped and obeyed "our creators." bobzilla,
Sitchin is not the end-all. He is good at chronicling the anomalies,
but his speculation as to what they mean is inaccurate. He needn't
have speculated at all, as we ALREADY knew who these "creator gods"
were, although the information has been suppressed. And yes, there
have been secret societies all along. The Hawaiian legends say that
the megaliths on their islands were built by a red-haired group of
master masons who left the island when the Polynesians arrived so that
they could keep their race pure. The builders of these particular
monuments were obviously a clique and cult. Oh, and they weren't
aliens, nor were the Anunnaki, who were known entities long before
Sitchin came along and made up his comic book stories about them.
Sumeria and its language were also known because they were passed down
as Assyro-Babylonian. They were not a lost civilization, except that
their older remains such as at Ur had not been preserved. Their
mythology and culture were fairly well preserved in the succeeding
civilizations. Years before Sitchin, John Allegro studied intimately
Sumerian and came to very different conclusions, to wit that many of
the words revolved around sex and drugs.

Yahweh is NOT a person, alien or otherwise. In fact, "he" is a solar
myth. Below is an excerpt from my book:

Yahweh

As stated, prior to being labeled Yahweh, the Israelite god was called
"Baal," signifying the sun in the Age of Taurus. When the sun passed
into Aries, "the Lord's" name was changed to the Egyptian Iao, which
became YHWH, IEUE, Yahweh, Jahweh, Jehovah and Jah. This ancient name
"IAO/Iao" represents the totality of "God," as the "I" symbolizes
unity, the "a" is the "alpha" or beginning, while the "o" is the
"omega" or end.

In fact, the name Yahweh, Iao, or any number of variants thereof can
be found in several cultures:

"In Phoenicia the Sun was known as Adonis . . . identical with Iao,
or, according to the Chinese faith, Yao (Jehovah), the Sun, who makes
his appearance in the world 'at midnight of the twenty-fourth day of
the twelfth month.'"

YHWH/IEUE was additionally the Egyptian sun god Ra:

"Ra was the father in heaven, who has the title of 'Huhi' the
eternal, from which the Hebrews derived the name 'Ihuh.'"

Thus, the tetragrammaton or sacred name of God IAO/IEUE/YHWH is very
old, pre-Israelite, and can be etymologically linked to numerous gods,
even to "Jesus," or "Yahushua," whose name means "salvation" or
"Iao/YHWH saves." As Higgins says:

"The pious Dr. Parkhurst . . . proves, from the authority of Diodorus
Siculus, Varro, St. Augustin, etc., that the Iao, Jehovah, or ieue, or
ie of the Jews, was the Jove of the Latins and Etruscans. . . . he
allows that this ie was the name of Apollo . . . He then admits that
this ieue Jehovah is Jesus Christ in the following sentences: 'It
would be almost endless to quote all the passages of scripture wherein
the name . . . (ieue) is applied to Christ . . . they cannot miss of a
scriptural demonstration that Jesus is Jehovah.' But we have seen it
is admitted that Jehovah is Jove, Apollo, Sol, whence it follows that
Jesus is Jove, etc."

Yahweh had yet another aspect to "his" persona, as at some early stage
the "sacred tetragrammaton" of "God" was bi-gendered. As Walker states:

"Jewish mystical tradition viewed the original Jehovah as an
androgyne, his/her name compounded as Jah (jod) and the pre-Hebraic
name of Eve, Havah or Hawah, rendered he-vau-he- in Hebrew letters.
The four letters together made the sacred tetragrammaton, YHWH, the
secret name of God. . . . The Bible contains many plagiarized
excerpts from earlier hymns and prayers to Ishtar and other Goddess
figures, with the name of Yahweh substituted for that of the female
deity."

Thus, even Yahweh was at one time plural, but "he" eventually became
an all-male, sky god. This singular Yahweh was a warrior god,
representing the sun in Aries, which is ruled by the warlike Mars and
symbolized by the Ram - the same symbolic ram "caught in a thicket"
near Abraham and used by him as a replacement sacrifice for his son
Isaac. This warrior god Yahweh was not only Jealous but Zealous, as
his name is rendered in Young's Literal Translation:

" . . . for ye do not bow yourselves to another god -- for Jehovah,
whose name [is] Zealous, is a zealous God." (Exodus 34:14)
In fact, the same word in Hebrew, À__, is used for both jealous and
zealous, although is transliterated differently, "qanna" being jealous
and "qana," zealous.

As El Elyon was but one of the Canaanite Elohim, the Most High God, so
was "Yahweh," as "El Qanna," the Jealous/Zealous God, which is why in
the Old Testament he keeps sticking his nose in and shouting at
everyone. The title "Jealous/Zealous" is also appropriate for a god
represented by a volcano, as was Yahweh by the smoky and fiery Mt.
Sinai. Hence, Yahweh's followers themselves were intolerant and
hot-headed zealots.

[END EXCERPT]

You can see that there was never any need for absurd scifi
explanation. Nor was there a need to take the Bible as a historical
document. The behind-the-scenes elite have known the allegorical,
mythical and astrological nature of the Bible and its characters from
the beginning.

I repeat, bobzilla, I have read most of Sitchin's books, which should
be obvious from the manner in which I write about the subject. Get
the wax out of your ears and the cobwebs out of your brain! We also
already dealt with his flaws quite explicitly, prompted by your
earlier messages. You aren't paying attention.

As far as Bramley goes, he is a Scientologist, so one must read his
work with an eye to that color. He also engages in needless
speculation as to the nature of many of these mythical characters.
His modus vivendi is very Scientological, as Jim Keith pointed out in
a Steamshovel Press issue. Some of the information he provides is
good and unique, but his conclusions are sometimes loopy. As with
Sitchin, I read Bramley's book years ago when it came out, bz.


bobzilla@netbox.com wrote:
>
> From Sex to Superconsciousness - http://www.artnet.net/~acharya/truth
>
> ReRe: A General Theory of Conspiracy:
>
> The original inception and structure of our civilization was not
secret at
> all for many thousands of years. We worshipped our creators and
obeyed
> them as we were instructed. Sitchin lays it all out in great
detail, based
> on Sumerian and other historical records: when, who, what, why, how.
>

==
Acharya S
Archaeologist, Historian, Mythologist, Linguist, Humanist Minister
Member, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece
Associate Director, Institute for Historical Accuracy
http://www.artnet.net/~acharya/truth

bob z replies to acharya here

RECEIVED PUBLICLY
RESPONDED PRIVATELY [OFF PUBLIC LIST]
POSTED TO NET-PROPHET.NET

At 05:29 PM 06-02-99 -0800, you wrote:
>>From Sex to Superconsciousness - http://www.artnet.net/~acharya/truth
>
>Well, not all of us worshipped and obeyed "our creators." bobzilla,

Agreed. There was apparently always "the outback" lurking in the background.

>Sitchin is not the end-all.

Agreed. At least one major flaw, and numerous unanswered questions.
He's just the most comprehensive and consistent I have seen, by a wide margin.

>He is good at chronicling the anomalies,
>but his speculation as to what they mean is inaccurate.

I haven't seen a better theory. No one else I've read can explain ANY of it. His hypothesis encompasses almost all of it.

>He needn't
>have speculated at all, as we ALREADY knew who these "creator gods"
>were, although the information has been suppressed.

Most of what he does is NOT SPECULATION. It is translation and REPORTING of the sumerian and other ancient historical accounts. You confuse the message with the messenger. Other translators bring essentially the SAME message, though they don't assemble all the messages into the grand historical panorama that Sitchin does.

>And yes, there
>have been secret societies all along. The Hawaiian legends say that
>the megaliths on their islands were built by a red-haired group of
>master masons who left the island when the Polynesians arrived so that
>they could keep their race pure. The builders of these particular
>monuments were obviously a clique and cult.

Cool. Live and learn.

>Oh, and they weren't
>aliens, nor were the Anunnaki, who were known entities long before
>Sitchin came along and made up his comic book stories about them.

It's the Sumerians who wrote the comic books. Sitchen translates. You keep accusing the messenger of bringing a foolish 5,000 year old message. Blame the Sumerians who wrote it 5,000 years ago.

>Sumeria and its language were also known because they were passed down
>as Assyro-Babylonian. They were not a lost civilization, except that
>their older remains such as at Ur had not been preserved. Their
>mythology and culture were fairly well preserved in the succeeding
>civilizations. Years before Sitchin, John Allegro studied intimately
>Sumerian and came to very different conclusions, to wit that many of
>the words revolved around sex and drugs.

Is that different? A great deal of what Sitchin discusses revolves around sex. And drugs would be an essential part of the extensive medical, genetic and life extension technology he elaborates upon.

>Yahweh is NOT a person, alien or otherwise. In fact, "he" is a solar
>myth. Below is an excerpt from my book:

I know that is your belief. The fact that solar myths/epics/metaphors have probably existed as long as culture has NO bearing WHATSOEVER on whether there was such a space-dude overlord as Yahweh, Jehovah, or "Yes! Bwana!".

>Yahweh
>
>As stated, prior to being labeled Yahweh, the Israelite god was called
>"Baal," signifying the sun in the Age of Taurus. When the sun passed
>into Aries, "the Lord's" name was changed to the Egyptian Iao, which
>became YHWH, IEUE, Yahweh, Jahweh, Jehovah and Jah. This ancient name
>"IAO/Iao" represents the totality of "God," as the "I" symbolizes
>unity, the "a" is the "alpha" or beginning, while the "o" is the
>"omega" or end.
>
>In fact, the name Yahweh, Iao, or any number of variants thereof can
>be found in several cultures:
>
>"In Phoenicia the Sun was known as Adonis . . . identical with Iao,
>or, according to the Chinese faith, Yao (Jehovah), the Sun, who makes
>his appearance in the world 'at midnight of the twenty-fourth day of
>the twelfth month.'"
>
>YHWH/IEUE was additionally the Egyptian sun god Ra:
>
> "Ra was the father in heaven, who has the title of 'Huhi' the
>eternal, from which the Hebrews derived the name 'Ihuh.'"
>
>Thus, the tetragrammaton or sacred name of God IAO/IEUE/YHWH is very
>old, pre-Israelite, and can be etymologically linked to numerous gods,
>even to "Jesus," or "Yahushua," whose name means "salvation" or
>"Iao/YHWH saves." As Higgins says:
>
>"The pious Dr. Parkhurst . . . proves, from the authority of Diodorus
>Siculus, Varro, St. Augustin, etc., that the Iao, Jehovah, or ieue, or
>ie of the Jews, was the Jove of the Latins and Etruscans. . . . he
>allows that this ie was the name of Apollo . . . He then admits that
>this ieue Jehovah is Jesus Christ in the following sentences: 'It
>would be almost endless to quote all the passages of scripture wherein
>the name . . . (ieue) is applied to Christ . . . they cannot miss of a
>scriptural demonstration that Jesus is Jehovah.' But we have seen it
>is admitted that Jehovah is Jove, Apollo, Sol, whence it follows that
>Jesus is Jove, etc."
>
>Yahweh had yet another aspect to "his" persona, as at some early stage
>the "sacred tetragrammaton" of "God" was bi-gendered. As Walker states:
>
>"Jewish mystical tradition viewed the original Jehovah as an
>androgyne, his/her name compounded as Jah (jod) and the pre-Hebraic
>name of Eve, Havah or Hawah, rendered he-vau-he- in Hebrew letters.
>The four letters together made the sacred tetragrammaton, YHWH, the
>secret name of God. . . . The Bible contains many plagiarized
>excerpts from earlier hymns and prayers to Ishtar and other Goddess
>figures, with the name of Yahweh substituted for that of the female
>deity."
>
>Thus, even Yahweh was at one time plural, but "he" eventually became
>an all-male, sky god. This singular Yahweh was a warrior god,
>representing the sun in Aries, which is ruled by the warlike Mars and
>symbolized by the Ram - the same symbolic ram "caught in a thicket"
>near Abraham and used by him as a replacement sacrifice for his son
>Isaac. This warrior god Yahweh was not only Jealous but Zealous, as
>his name is rendered in Young's Literal Translation:
>
>" . . . for ye do not bow yourselves to another god -- for Jehovah,
>whose name [is] Zealous, is a zealous God." (Exodus 34:14)
> In fact, the same word in Hebrew, À__, is used for both jealous and
>zealous, although is transliterated differently, "qanna" being jealous
>and "qana," zealous.
>
>As El Elyon was but one of the Canaanite Elohim, the Most High God, so
>was "Yahweh," as "El Qanna," the Jealous/Zealous God, which is why in
>the Old Testament he keeps sticking his nose in and shouting at
>everyone. The title "Jealous/Zealous" is also appropriate for a god
>represented by a volcano, as was Yahweh by the smoky and fiery Mt.
>Sinai. Hence, Yahweh's followers themselves were intolerant and
>hot-headed zealots.
>
>[END EXCERPT]

You can play around with names and derivations and similarities forever and it doesn't demonstrate anything about whether or not a person existed who was known by those names. Many successive different people are all known as "Mr. President." It doesn't mean they are all the same person . . . OR that there never was any such person and they are ALL "MYTH." My grandfather, my father, and I all have the same name. So that proves we are all the same person, or never existed at all? Not hardly. Sitchin himself tracks many of the same changes you cite from Barbara Walker.

>You can see that there was never any need for absurd scifi explanation.

Well then WHY did those sumerians and others all independently come up with it? WHAT POSSESSED THEM?
Those idiot sumerians! They were all brain dead and bass-ackwards! Blame the sumerians, not Sitchin. Or blame their uniform mass "hallucinactions" like "Bicameral Mind" does. But don't try to pin it on Sitchin.

>Nor was there a need to take the Bible as a historical document.

Now THAT is a MOST astonishing statement for an archeologist!

What about all the archeologists who read the bible and then go and dig up the sites described . . . and find the ruins that are supposed to be there? I'm sure this is going to come as quite a SHOCK to them.

They just recently dug up the foundations of one of the old temples in Jerusalem, right where the "mythical" bible says it should be. Of course, those great big HUGE stones must be "mythical," because the mythical temple [that didn't exist] was build to house the mythical ark [that didn't exist] that moses [who didn't exist] made per the instructions from the mythical god [that didn't exist]. Those "mythical" archeologists probably don't exist, and the temple site itself is probably just a "myth" that Israel is promoting for it's 50 year celebration. Maybe they actually just discovered a left-over set from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Actually, it's probably just an ancient basketball court, and everybody was too embarrassed to admit that they spent all saturday shooting hoops, so they made up this wild "myth" story about having an ark and needing a temple to put it in.

>The behind-the-scenes elite have known the allegorical,
>mythical and astrological nature of the Bible and its characters from
>the beginning.

And did they ALSO know the historical, geographical, genealogical and archeological nature from the beginning?

>I repeat, bobzilla, I have read most of Sitchin's books, which should
>be obvious from the manner in which I write about the subject.

I'm sorry, but from your comments it appears to me that you may have skimmed a few of them briefly, but don't have any serious grasp of his arguments at all. You misrepresent him so consistently I am forced to this conclusion.

>Get the wax out of your ears and the cobwebs out of your brain!

I'm sorry, but hearing is not believing. Your thought and assertion does not command my belief.

>We also
>already dealt with his flaws quite explicitly, prompted by your
>earlier messages. You aren't paying attention.

I'm sorry, but my impression is that you contemptously dismiss him, without responding to or refuting him at all.

>As far as Bramley goes, he is a Scientologist, so one must read his
>work with an eye to that color.

No news. I saw that when I read him. But what relevance is that? Do you doubt all the eyewitness-account historical documents which he liberally quotes from. Do you accuse him of baldly inventing precisely the same kind of "comic book" "science fiction" that Sitchin does? Why would they BOTH make up the same kind of nonsense? Why is there a consistent pattern here? WHAT could explain this striking curiosity?

>He also engages in needless
>speculation as to the nature of many of these mythical characters.

. . . in addition to reporting detailed, consistent, contemporaneous descriptions of the "mythical" characters by unassociated people who observed them at different parts of the planet and reported the same things! I guess that makes them "mythical" . . . because you say so!

>His modus vivendi is very Scientological, as Jim Keith pointed out in
>a Steamshovel Press issue.

WHAT? His "way of living" is Scientological? This is way to deep for me. I just can't keep up.

I didn't have to read Steamshovel to find out he was a Scientologist, it's right in the book. Maybe you didn't read it all that closely. But I don't understand the relevance of that to the documents he sites which predate L Ron Hubbard by thousands of years. I suspect you might be a democrat . . . does that bear on your archeological expertise? But of course you might be a socialist, or libertarian, or anarchist . . . is that relevant?

>Some of the information he provides is
>good and unique, but his conclusions are sometimes loopy. As with
>Sitchin, I read Bramley's book years ago when it came out, bz.
>
>
>bobzilla@netbox.com wrote:
>>
>> From Sex to Superconsciousness - http://www.artnet.net/~acharya/truth
>>
>> ReRe: A General Theory of Conspiracy:
>>
>> The original inception and structure of our civilization was not
>secret at
>> all for many thousands of years. We worshipped our creators and
>obeyed
>> them as we were instructed. Sitchin lays it all out in great
>detail, based
>> on Sumerian and other historical records: when, who, what, why, how.
>>
>
>==
>Acharya S
>Archaeologist, Historian, Mythologist, Linguist, Humanist Minister
>Member, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece
>Associate Director, Institute for Historical Accuracy
>http://www.artnet.net/~acharya/truth

ACHARYA HAVING BUMPED ME OFF HER EMAIL LIST, DISMISSES DIALOG

Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 22:28:44 -0800 (PST)
From: Acharya S <acharya_s@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: ReRe: A General Theory of Conspiracy
To: bobzilla@netbox.com

Real-To: Acharya S <acharya_s@yahoo.com>

Sorry, dude, but you're hopeless.

ACHARYA HAVING BUMPED ME OFF HER EMAIL LIST, DISMISSES DIALOG

Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 22:31:45 -0800 (PST)
From: Acharya S <acharya_s@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Reply to: Re: Fwd: Re: Steven Rado Wins Nobul Prize
To: bobzilla@netbox.com


Goddess, you really sound like an idiot. This is my last message to
you. Take a gander at my new page "Emails I Have Love" at
http://www.artnet.net/~acharya/truth/emails.htm

Mark Thompson makes another reply to BobZ

From: "mark thompson" <carpo4@hotmail.com>
To: superconsciousness@listbot.com
Subject: Re: ReRe: A General Theory of Conspiracy
Date: Sat, 06 Feb 1999 19:09:55 PST


Bobz -

I'm unwilling to read any more Sitchin because his theories lack utility
for me, and he's relying on the expansion of an extremely unlikely axiom
around which his entire universe seems to rotate: that Sumerian and any
other astrological-mythological systems that can be made to support his
hypothesis are literally true.

I don't see much difference between claiming that the Anunaki are real
because the Sumerians seem to say so and claiming that Jesus must be God
because it's in the Bible.

I don't read Sitchin for the same reason I don't attend Bible study
groups, obsess over the Urantia Book or hang out in Marxist study
groups. It's a waste of attention: "It all makes sense and all
contradictions are resolved if you'd only GRASP THIS ONE TRUTH...
History is the result of the Dialectics of Class Struggle, Jesus is Lord
and The Anunaki are space aliens!"

You seem to have a need to believe in Theories of Everything that
overturn the standard model. This sort of iconoclasm regarding the
nature of standard-issue realities seems pretty healthy to me. The need
for overarchingly grandiose materialist explanatory principles to
replace the standard models does not.

One element common to both the aether-physics and Sitchin is that they
are materialist interpretations that reject metaphor and abstraction in
favor of what to me seems a rather dreary and unimaginative fetish for
'common sense'. There's a certain fetish for determinism as well.

It's possible to construct a closed system of inferences and assertions
that is seamlessly consistent, matches the evidence and is totally
wrong.

This is what Sitchin has done, I've looked into it already much more
than it merits, and I'm not interested reading in his books.

Acharya's model of Sumerian texts as astronomical-metaphorical fits in
much better with what humans actually do and are capable of. The
personification of natural forces in stories is present in all cultures.
I don't see Sitchin claiming that North American Trickster myths are
literally true, and that Trickster must have had a detachable penis
capable of swimming after bathing maidens, or that animals must have
been able to talk with humans because all the old stories say so. But
what he is saying makes about as much sense.

The Sumerian civilization and it's urban artifacts are no more amazing
or impressive than the Iriquois confederacy or Amazonian Shamanism.

The common elements of Mayan, Egyptian and Sumerian architecture and
astronomy are due to basic limitations on how one goes about piling up
stones to make large structures, the neccessities of occupational
specialization and bureaucracy to the maintenance of a stratified
society, and that anyone who looks at the sky and keeps a record of
their observations will discover the same thing.

I don't need space aliens to show me how to pile rocks, create symbolic
languages or look at the sky, and neither did the Sumerians.

I also don't need a universe that behaves deterministically to feel
comfortable, a consistent closed model of reality to resolve existential
insecurity, or a doomsday scenario to give myself a sense of
teleological purpose.

I also don't rely on Authorities, Experts or Credentials. Everyone has
something to say from their own experience. Sometimes it's interesting
and useful, sometimes it's not. Some sources of info require heavy
filtering and analysis, others can be provisionally presumed to be
reasonably honest and accurate and made with reasonable diligence.

Why are you interested in this stuff?

-Mark

RECEIVED PUBLICLY
RESPONDED PRIVATELY
[ACHARYA BUMPED ME OFF THE LIST FOR POLITICALLY INCORRECTNESS]
POSTED TO NET-PROPHET.NET

At 07:09 PM 06-02-99 PST, "mark thompson" <carpo4@hotmail.com> WROTE:
>>From Sex to Superconsciousness - http://www.artnet.net/~acharya/truth

>Bobz -
>
>I'm unwilling to read any more Sitchin because his theories lack utility
>for me, and he's relying on the expansion of an extremely unlikely axiom
>around which his entire universe seems to rotate: that Sumerian and any
>other astrological-mythological systems that can be made to support his
>hypothesis are literally true.

Ok. I'll stop trying to interest you in it. Obviously, I have a much different opinion.

>I don't see much difference between claiming that the Anunaki are real
>because the Sumerians seem to say so and claiming that Jesus must be God
>because it's in the Bible.

I see a huge difference. Just to skim the surface:
Jesus didn't litter the world with artifacts that we can't explain and can't duplicate with "modern" technology.
Jesus didn't litter the world with a highly developed civilization "instantly" possessing extremely sophisticated science.

>I don't read Sitchin for the same reason I don't attend Bible study
>groups, obsess over the Urantia Book or hang out in Marxist study
>groups. It's a waste of attention: "It all makes sense and all
>contradictions are resolved if you'd only GRASP THIS ONE TRUTH...
>History is the result of the Dialectics of Class Struggle, Jesus is Lord
>and The Anunaki are space aliens!"

It doesn't explain everything, but it explains an enormous amount that has NO OTHER sensible explanation I have seen.

>You seem to have a need to believe in Theories of Everything that
>overturn the standard model.

When the standard model is patently absurd and OBVIOUSLY SUCKS, I am indeed looking for something better.

>This sort of iconoclasm regarding the
>nature of standard-issue realities seems pretty healthy to me. The need
>for overarchingly grandiose materialist explanatory principles to
>replace the standard models does not.

How about the need for simple unifying understanding?

>One element common to both the aether-physics and Sitchin is that they
>are materialist interpretations that reject metaphor and abstraction in
>favor of what to me seems a rather dreary and unimaginative fetish for
>'common sense'. There's a certain fetish for determinism as well.

I vastly prefer common sense to incomprehensable mysterioso mumbo-jumbo.

Metaphors and abstraction are incredibly valuable when you know what they are based on and they can be kept sensible and understandable.

>It's possible to construct a closed system of inferences and assertions
>that is seamlessly consistent, matches the evidence and is totally
>wrong.

If you select your evidence carefully or narrowly enough, yes.

>This is what Sitchin has done, I've looked into it already much more
>than it merits, and I'm not interested reading in his books.

I disagree with your conclusion about Sitchin, but I can't argue with the fact that you're not interested. That's fine.

>Acharya's model of Sumerian texts as astronomical-metaphorical fits in
>much better with what humans actually do and are capable of. The
>personification of natural forces in stories is present in all cultures.

I disagree. If you posit that, then you have no explanation whatsoever for the highly developed civilizations that suddenly sprang into highly developed existence . . . and said they got all their knowledge from the Annunaki. You then have to explain both where the sudden knowledge came from, and why the possessors lied about their sources.

>I don't see Sitchin claiming that North American Trickster myths are
>literally true, and that Trickster must have had a detachable penis
>capable of swimming after bathing maidens, or that animals must have
>been able to talk with humans because all the old stories say so. But
>what he is saying makes about as much sense.

Major disagreement. Tricksters didn't leave behind unexplained technology and civilization.

>The Sumerian civilization and it's urban artifacts are no more amazing
>or impressive than the Iriquois confederacy or Amazonian Shamanism.

In some ways not. But the others can be explained without annunaki. No one has advanced a non-annunki explaination for Sumerian civilization that I have seen, including the Sumerians. The amazonians don't claim that ayuhasca was brought from another planet in a space ship, do they? And they aren't aware of very subtle astronomical precessions that take many thousands of years to observe, when they have only been watching the sky for a few years.

>The common elements of Mayan, Egyptian and Sumerian architecture and
>astronomy are due to basic limitations on how one goes about piling up
>stones to make large structures,

NOT! There are several very different styles of building, which we are unable to duplicate now with current technology. Very sopshisticated machine tools were used in egypt. This argument just won't fly.

>the neccessities of occupational
>specialization and bureaucracy to the maintenance of a stratified
>society, and that anyone who looks at the sky and keeps a record of
>their observations will discover the same thing.

No. Sitchin extensively traces the DECLINE of astronomical understanding, from it's high point when it was first introduced, as the knowledge was slowly LOST by the very people watching the stars.

>I don't need space aliens to show me how to pile rocks, create symbolic
>languages or look at the sky, and neither did the Sumerians.

They why did they SAY that's where they got it all from?

>I also don't need a universe that behaves deterministically to feel
>comfortable, a consistent closed model of reality to resolve existential
>insecurity, or a doomsday scenario to give myself a sense of
>teleological purpose.

Cool.

>I also don't rely on Authorities, Experts or Credentials.

Good!

>Everyone has
>something to say from their own experience. Sometimes it's interesting
>and useful, sometimes it's not. Some sources of info require heavy
>filtering and analysis, others can be provisionally presumed to be
>reasonably honest and accurate and made with reasonable diligence.

I agree.

>Why are you interested in this stuff?

I like to understand things.

[I think you do too. You certainly spend a lot of time researching and integrating.]

Sitchin makes much more sense on history and religion than anyone else I have read.

I wasn't raised in the "Church of Sitchin," so I'm not knee-jerking on faith, he got my attention for ideas which I would have originally thought absurdly unlikely, by demonstrated competence, the unmistakeable mental presence of a master, and explaining tons of things no one else could even guess about.

I'm so impressed by your breadth of knowledge and the facility of your mind I keep thinking you would love the guy too.

Obviously, I'm not infallible.

It's been fun,

best,

O
   == )
\


>-Mark

Mark Thompson replies to Bob Z

From: "mark thompson" <carpo4@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: ReRe: A General Theory of Conspiracy
Date: Sun, 07 Feb 1999 22:46:33 PST

Hello.

Thanks for the responses.

Have you seen the material by the archaeologist who was able to
duplicate the Incan's ultra-accurate stonefitting skills fairly rapidly
simply by pounding clumsily roughhewn stone chunks with a round rock?
This solved a long-standing mystery about how the Incans could possibly
have accomplished their amazing wallbuilding feats at Macchu Picchu.

Various Amazonian villages claim that they're from the Milky Way and
that the Milky Way is a giant river in the sky, much like their Amazon
River.

It's standard operating procedure for the leading clique of an empire to
claim divine authority. It's sort of an extrapolation of tribal
shamanism onto the power contours of urban bureaucracy. The invention is
a fairly obvious formula which combines military and religious
intimidation.

I still consider the notion that the Sumerian civilzation sprang
suddenly from nowhere fairly absurd. The boundary between urbanization
and writing, and a pre-literate nomadic oral tradition based on
perishable wood and plant materials would seem quite abrupt, since
spoken words and wood decay and stone monuments and clay tablets don't.

There are prehistoric artifacts made of carved and notched antlers that
show that very ancient people had fairly sophisticated knowledge of
astonomical cycles, such as a solar-lunar calendar. These kinds of
observations have probably been going on at least since the time that
cave painting was invented. That's a potential observational baseline of
about 30,000 years.

Stonehenge seems to have at first been built entirely of earth mounds
and wooden poles. The post holes of an analogous astronomical device
have been found in the Great Plains in North America. It's sort of like
the elementary school science fair project of building a sundial or
marking the position of the shadow of a flagpole every day at sunrise.
Things get discovered, and ancient people had a lot of time on their
hands. If one lives in a valley for a year or two, the periodic change
in the sun's rising and setting locations and it's highest point in the
sky relative to nearby landmarks is obvious without any sort of devices
or arithmetic, as are seasonal variations in the star patterns present
in the night sky.

As far as thier knowledge of the period of Sirius B goes, that's very
interesting. What I would need to know is: how many other cultures (or
even the Sumerians) made proclamations about natural phenomena that were
completely wrong. Is the proportion of wrong guesses to right guesses
more than would be expected by chance? I think the saying is that "even
a broken clock is right twice a day".

It's also possible, though I don't really know how (or even if) this can
be tested, that the luminance or orbital planes of the stars Sirius A
and/or Sirius B were substantially different several thousand years ago
than they are now. If the plane of Sirius B is or was edge-on to earth,
the period of the eclipsing binary system would have been observable
over a single generation.

It's also possible to observe stars during the day from the bottom of
wells, and it was possible to make much clearer and more subtle
naked-eye observations before urban light and atmospheric pollution
began more than a thousand years ago.

I think certain Amazonians say that the constellation Centaurus is the
center of the universe. It turns out that Centaurus is the location of
the center of the Milky Way galaxy as observed from Earth. I've heard
that fact is neither observable nor deducible by the naked eye - unless
one can see in the infrared, which some reptiles can do. But since I've
never been in the Southern Hemisphere away from a city, I don't know
whether that's true or not. The centrality or some other feature of
Centaurus that would inspire such a story may be quite obvious from
there. Terence McKenna has suggested that these things are observable
while using psychoactive mushrooms.

Another interesting idea is that Idiot Savants are capable of
astonishing mental and computational feats. Such a savant, and they
occur in every generation with sufficient freqency, might be able to
precess the equinoxes in his head, especially if a savant's talents were
recognized early by an astronomer-priest.

Ulimately, it's no more surprising that Sumerians would say astonishing
and impressive things about their origins and their "Gods". I've never
heard of a government that didn't lie about almost everything of
consequence.

You've provoked some interesting talk.

Be seeing you around the web.
-Mark