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"Alien Sky" - Questioning the Myths in our Religions
by David Talbott
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December 17, 2009
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We had no doubt that the DVD "Symbols of an Alien Sky" would inspire
controversy, and it has. But it’s been gratifying to receive letters and personal
comments on religious or spiritual belief in relation to the message of the DVD. I
include two such letters below, along with my own responses.
Letter from Colleen Thomas:
LIKE AN EARTHQUAKE
I have to say that I had to watch the DVD several times and in the end take careful
notes because I could hardly believe that so many details were already familiar to
me. The mythic themes were all too familiar in fact. As a student of the Bible this
DVD was experienced like an earthquake of 10.0 on the Richter scale. That those
mythic themes lead us to details of the cosmology observed by early man rather
than fantastical miracles that only God could perform is rattling to ones
foundations, that is why it took so many viewings to absorb. In the final analysis
the information is gratifying intellectually.
Every person who is a student of the Bible needs to see this film! All of us deserve
to know what it was that inspired worldwide myths that give us themes like
Paradise, Dragon/Serpent/Devil, Jacobs ladder, David, Saturday/Sabbath, the
Saturnalia/Christmas and so on.
For those of us who have accepted seemingly impossible tales in the Bible, in order
to believe that every word in there was God's word, this film will cause a visceral
reaction. You will either arrive at peace having fought tooth and nail to resist the
implications, or you will have to bury this data in the deep recesses of your mind so
as to protect your long held beliefs. Either way this affects you; you deserve to see
the facts and allow yourself to react one way or the other. As for me, I allowed the
facts to rock my foundations. As a result I feel more spiritually mature and
connected to God than I ever have in the past.
As for the aesthetics and flow of the film, it was a delight to behold. I'm glad it was
presented by a voice that engenders trust with a peaceable tone and was
graphically represented in beautiful imagery. Had it been otherwise I may not have
watched it again and again to arrive where I am now.
May I suggest you buy more than one DVD. We all know many others who will want
to see it, but none of us will want to risk losing track of our own copy, it really is
that important.
- Colleen Thomas
BSN, RN DPCS, Executive Administrator
Colleen, thank you for these inspiring comments.
Your personal experience can be a lesson for others. The archetypal myths and
symbols arose long before the institutionalized religions active today. At their roots,
the myths are not spiritual truth. They are not the word of God. And they are not
fragments of nearly forgotten or unspeakable mystic wisdom, as so many have
supposed. They are the explosive outpouring of human imagination in response to
the most awe-inspiring and terrifying events in human history. Seen in this light,
they are the key to a new understanding of the past and to a freedom from
irrational beliefs. In the light of day, we can see that the ancient fears were
spawned by nothing more than human interpretations of misunderstood cosmic
events.
The deep mythic themes persisted across the millennia. Though the archetypal
source was morally and spiritually neutral, the manner in which human beings
interpreted and expressed the experiences, in fear and in collective violence,
produced unimaginable suffering. In later millennia, as if to answer this oppressive
force, visionaries arose to speak for something more, something deeper than
mythology, magic, and superstition. Even in their use of myth, the "teachings of
Buddha" transcended myth. The message of Jesus constituted a cultural shock, it
was so remarkably free of myth. Still unknown to many people in the west, the
teachings of the prophet Mohammed were guided by a spirit of wisdom, charity,
and forgiveness. These were not mythic concepts — and this is the truth that will
place myth in its proper perspective. Only a liberation of religious practices from
institutionalized mythology can reconnect humanity at the level of universal
spiritual awareness.
The greatest of the visionaries challenged codes and cultural conduct held in place
by irrational acts of repetition and by the fear of the gods. Through internal vision,
the wisest of men either set the myths aside or reinterpreted them to give them
spiritual content. In this they helped to clear a space within human consciousness,
giving room for the inner voice, for the sense of human equality and the kinship of
life. Simply recognize myth for what it is and what remains within the great
religions is the spark alive in every human being, the innate awareness that knows
empathy and compassion, forgiveness, charity, and every virtue toward which the
better portion of the religions always struggled, and from which the lesser sought to
hide.
Colleen, though I've generally asked people to follow their own path of discovery, I
do think your courage and insight should be acknowledged here.
David Talbott
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Letter from Reverend Nicholas Sykes:
IT’S GREAT, THOUGH NOT A THEORY OF EVERYTHING
Let me say, first off the bat, that I serve as Rector of the Church of England in the
Cayman Islands and am a Christian believer according to the Anglican manner of
receiving the Faith. And yes, it could be said that in a sense I hold to a special
"theory of everything"; but because of this I have a great latitude in examining the
positions of honest thinkers and investigators in all fields of human endeavour.
David Talbott and Wal Thornhill, to speak of two out of many, seem to me to be the
quintessential honest investigators, who will "open the horse's mouth and count the
teeth", rather than be content only to cite science’s lauded and funded authorities
on the matter. In "Symbols of an Alien Sky", a catastrophist understanding of our
common past not only becomes illuminated by the mythical narratives of our
ancestors from so many parts of the world, but suggests a specific planetary
scenario that can be justified on electrical grounds – grounds that have already in
many instances been verified by small-scale experiments in the physics or
engineering laboratory.
"Symbols of an Alien Sky" is a divider, separating scientific persons that are
committed to the true scientific spirit of "opening the horse’s mouth" from scientific
persons that are committed to the consensus of the lauded and the funded.
"Symbols of an Alien Sky" is a divider, separating theologically learned individuals
that are committed to honing and perfecting their belief-structure from theologically
learned individuals that are unwilling to adapt their systems to the reality and the
implications of this illumination of our mythical narratives.
"Symbols of an Alien Sky", however, is a uniter, because (whatever the thoughts
may be of the current investigators) it provides the possibility of a better synthesis
of theological and natural philosophy than has been achieved in the last 1000
years.
So "Symbols of an Alien Sky", the electric universe theory, planetary catastrophism
and the illumination of mythical narratives make a great and exciting and essential
contribution to human knowledge, culture, language, and religious structure. But, I
will insist, if we make it a "Theory of Everything", it will not satisfy our ultimate
quest.
- Reverend Nicholas J G Sykes
That last sentence in Reverend Sykes observation above is the heart of a message I
hope all viewers will consider, both before and after watching the DVD. Neither the
Electric Universe nor Symbols of an Alien Sky is a theory of everything. Neither
offers a full and sufficient world view; neither informs us as to what it means to be
human.
The historical reconstruction WILL explain the archetypal myths and symbols that
defined the early cultures. But it cannot explain the innumerable local
transformations of myth over time. It will not explain the diverse expressions of
technical and literary skill, philosophical insight, and spiritual vision that transmuted
the myths into a thousand analogies, both rational and irrational, constructive and
destructive, guiding the evolution of local communities and cultures.
Consider as an example the emergence of the great religions. The awe-inspiring
and terrifying events described in Alien Sky provoked a flowering of the archaic
civilizations, including an explosion of monumental construction. On any reasonable
chronology this occurred long before the appearance of any of today's major
religions. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism are
separated from the prehistoric events by AT LEAST a thousand years. In every
instance the new religions reveal something more than the pure mythology that
defined civilization in its infancy. And just as one can reconstruct things seen in the
sky by working with the points of cross-cultural agreement, one can find in the
shared spiritual content of the great religions the universal principles of a new
vision. In their own terms, the two layers of human experience have almost nothing
in common.
Not long ago, I remember a friend declaring, in effect (if not in these very words),
“all religion is just a reification of the Saturn myth.” Perhaps the best antidote to
this misperception is a very simple book by Jeffrey Moses, titled ONENESS. In it the
author chronicles, in the words of the major religious scriptures, over 60 points of
broad agreement — from the Golden Rule, to "judge not" and "give without thought
of reward."
What stands out is a radical contrast to the content of the myth-making epoch. Of
course overlap and confusion occurred! That's because every religion emerged
within cultures wholly immersed in myth. From the mythic "age of the gods"
onward, the stories that passed from generation to generation meant the "truth."
Indeed, the momentum of myth within the religions held much of humanity captive
for millennia, despite the fact that the myths themselves could never touch the
deeper insights and principles shared by all of the religions.
In this sense, one might envision an alliance of sorts between proponents of the
historical reconstruction and all who consciously honor the underlying spirit of a
devotional practice, either within or outside a particular institution. The
reconstruction enables us to say once and for all that the myths were not the word
of God. The image of God as an angry man in the sky was a human projection in
response to cosmic catastrophe. Acknowledge the obvious here, and a radically new
vantage point emerges. To see myth as myth is to liberate oneself from the inertia
of irrational, age-old beliefs that far outlasted any conscious memories of the
celestial provocation itself.
What will remain, then, are the universal principles that require no myths for their
validity, leaving sufficient internal space for human discernment and for deeper
reconciliation. That potential is excluded when human beings cling desperately to
the myths as if the meaning of life depends on them. In the same way we exclude
that potential when we translate a hypothesis about the physical world or about
human history into an all-encompassing "theory of everything."
David Talbott
For information on Symbols of an Alien Sky please visit
http://www.thunderbolts.info/resources.htm#Symbols
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