While comet passes are difficult for humans to calculate,
in 1996, near misses of asteroids are impossible to predict; a significant impact by either would
prove catastrophic for many humans. Eclipses are much more significant for humans: they can be
timed; they are dramatic visually; unless understood, they inspire fear and terror; when
understood, they often inspire fascination; eclipses have often encouraged humans to expect
disaster and take actions which are presumed capable of preventing that disaster - sacrifices.
In addition, previously temperate or subtropical regions will adopt equatorial climates either by an immediate relocation of the equator to their region, or, because of a long-term influence of a
general cooling of the planet, by about 2.3 degrees centigrade, which influences their climate and
practical crop production. Areas which have been more temperate in humidity and temperature,
but are now gradually drying to become desert-like include North Africa and the Sahara, the
Middle East, Turkey, Peru, Bolivia and the central Yucatan.
There are four Vedas, all believed to have been inspired (by meditation or extraterrestrial source): Rig, Yajur, Sama, Atharva. The religion is monotheistic with a single "Universal Power" God. Since this one God is referred to in terms of at least 3 realities (Surya, Mitra, .. (the Sun); Soma (the Moon); Agni (Fire); Indra (the
firmament), there are frequent misunderstandings that each of the representational aspects of the
one God is a god itself. Another division, by name is Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. Brahma (the
"Son") signifies the aspect of fate, mastery of life and death (by pureness of choice, the "Way"),
and, is created by the Universal Power.
The Rg-veda is a collection of 1,028 hymns addressed to various gods and intended to be chanted
at sacrifices where a hallucinogenic beverage, soma, was made and drank. These hymns are
organized into ten sections, or books, called mandalas ("cycles" in Sanskrit) and many were
composed by a representative of different and individual families or clans. The most popular god
praised is Indra, the god of war and weather, who has about 250 hymns to his honour. The god
Agni, the fire god, follows in popularity with about 200 hymns credited to its worship. There is a
great degree of variety of style and content between and within the hymns with some for
marriages or funerals and others for philosophical, legendary storytelling, moral example, the
pride of a military victory, or, superstitious benefit.
Still, Indra is the god who ensures the victory of the Aryans over the natives of the Indus region.
He continues to be characterized as a heavy drinker
(addict), a young warlord, fierce, ruthless, determined, and loyal to those who acknowledge him -
compulsive. The ancient Mongolian culture shares a similar belief.
Storms at this time were unpredictable as to whether they would be beneficial or destructive.
The rains which came could encourage growth
and healthy plants, or, it could destroy and wash away the same precious crops. Winds could
even more easily cause widespread destruction as cool a stifling hot day. Since storms were all
encompassing of the neighbourhood, they did not only fall on individuals; hence, the righteous
might also be attacked.
In return for their risk-taking and special knowledge, the muni
were expected to be rewarded by the other gods, who feared Rudna, and respected those who
gained his confidence. Such herbalists were not originally part of the brahmanic scheme of
organization and much predated it. Yet because of their power to save lives, they would later be
loosely incorporated into the religion.
By sacrificing their freedom to roam, they gained much greater power over the material resources of survival and the added benefits of pride, sloth, greed, and gluttony. No longer did they have to callous their hands and feet herding domesticated and often ignorant and stubborn animals. Nor did they have to
travel incessantly in order to maintain adequate pastures for their stock nor to come into
increasing conflict with other humans who were nomadic hunters, herdsmen like themselves, or
settled agriculturally dependent societies.
By this time, they could reside in one location, provide an
element of organization and unification to an agricultural community, extract fees in produce or
exchange for administrative services, and, husband (govern) a much less stubborn and more
intelligent species - fellow humans of another race and culture. During the 400 years preceding
the beginning of the recording of the vedas, the Aryans had roamed into the Indus lands. Often in
conflict with the societies of the time, their militarily convertible skills of horseback riding, chariot
transportation, physical prowess and alertness, and ease of moving their home / camp quickly and
completely - enabled them to attain victory over tribes and coalitions much larger in number than
their own group. But then the problem arose of what to do with the defeated?
As elitist intellectuals, the Brahmans would come to be the learned ones of Indian society and the
ones who had the freedom, training, and luxury of time and resources to become priests,
theologians, teachers, philosophers, scientists, lawgivers, administrators, politicians, poets, artists,
and, professionals in general. As abuses did arise with such a position of power being held within
a human culture, concerned and well-intentioned Brahmans added to the original writings an ever
growing series of rituals, observances, and expectations for future members.
Brahmans, unlike any other
caste, would eventually exclude themselves from taxes, from punishment under the law,
and, eventually, from luxury. Reverential offerings made to selective named aspects of the
Universal Power eventually would also become converted, as is the human inclination, to
increasingly complex bribes made to idol-like gods. The highest good of the soul, and the final
striving of the Brahman, was union of identity and spirit with the Universal Power, or One Cause.
In a destructive manner, rational attempts to direct, codify and simply this process
led to the advocacy of health distressing asceticism, ego-abusive distancing from others, and a
searching for revelation. Spiritually, there is a fundamental difference between a person who
requests and invites the receipt of wisdom and one who demands wisdom, backed by the bribery
of self-sacrifice.
Adhering to the above expression of
vegetarianism and observing a low use of spices, a form of natural birth control and reduced
intensity of emotional expression often results in humans. Sexual desire declines as the
requirement for vitamin C (to reverse the destructive influences of toxins taken in and produced
by the body) declines and the sources of vitamin C increase (fresh fruits, vegetables and staples).
Urine therapy, in which one drinks part of one's urine output daily, also restores excess intakes of
hormones, vitamins, minerals, and sugars - which unused have been excreted.
The most recommended dosage for an adult undergoing auto-urine therapy combines one or more
glasses of fresh urine daily, regular body massages using stale urine at least 4 days old and a strict
diet barring alcohol, tobacco, tea, coffee and meat. Drugs and some spices are assumed to be
excluded together with over-refined and sugar loaded foods. As a health preservative, individuals
may follow a self-maintenance regime of simply drinking one or two glasses of fresh urine per
day. It must be remembered that for at least 70% of humanity in 1996, this therapy would be
inappropriate and prove toxic - because the regular diet of such persons is toxic in its influence.
Change the diet, clean the system, and, if you choose - or have to, follow auto-urine therapy.
When opportunities present themselves to the afflicted persons to not only satisfy one's physical needs but to become indulgent in such pleasures, many do so without consideration, reflection or meditation. The Hebrew Old Testament mentions many covenants having been made between the Israelites and their heavenly
God. A covenant is a contractual promise in which one party agrees to provide a benefit to the
other party on condition that the second party fulfils a promise satisfactory to the first party.
Should the second party fail to maintain the covenant and keep the conditions, the first party is
released from any promise originally proposed.
The original (spiritual) promise of the Israelites to their (spiritual) God is set out in their religious
script: Exodus 24: 7
Abuse towards employees, visitors, strangers or slaves was not allowed, or, God might return the same unto you. Children of servants and other poor persons who stayed with you, could be bought by you (adopted) if all parties
agreed. Also, those who did well and became rich could buy their freedom or that of a
relative by repaying the original capital advance. Values outstanding were "amortized"
according to the closeness of the Jubilee year, with the consideration being that in that year,
all "values" reverted to zero.
Plato's grandfather had been told by Solon, who himself had heard the stories from the Egyptian
priests, about an ancient community remembered as Atlantis ("catastrophe"). The people who
had lived there were very advanced in their knowledge, technology, and level of material lifestyle.
They created monuments of huge and magnificent proportions. They had water which had
miraculous healing qualities, such as that found in volcanic hot springs. They had bath plumbing
which provided hot and cold water, much as the volcanic hot springs in New Zealand and Iceland
do in modern times. They were ruled by 5 pairs of twins. Their city-state was described as
having 2 rings of land and 3 of water. They had people with very learned minds in the sciences
and technology with others very skilled in a variety of arts.
The inhabitants at this Atlantis, for there was a series of earlier ones at other locations, were tall,
fair-haired and blue-eyed. Most wore lightweight clothing. They bathed in hot springs and used
an oil that would lather. One of their drinks was made from fruit juice diluted with coconut milk
and water, mixed with limes and granadillas. It was opaque, green-yellow in colour. A liqueur to
assist digestion was dark green and flavoured with flowers and herbs. The larger part of their diet
consisted of fresh fruit, flat wheat wafers, buck loin, fish, chicken, wild birds, herbs. Meats were
usually roasted. Cereals, grown in abundance and variety were supplemented by vegetables
including radishes, carrots, turnips, lettuce, dwarf beans, peas, potatoes, broccoli, cabbage, and
artichokes. Staples resembling yellow corn and sweet potato, which are now extinct, were grown
then.
Health was maintained by participation in the self-sufficient activities required to produce
adequate food for all, and, a considerable use of herbs with a moderate diet. Arts were the past-time for any who wished to use they non-work efforts in such a manner: many did so. Much of
social activity surrounded the cross-instruction of each other in knowledge and skills. There were
no poor or destitute and the injured, elderly and children were communally served. Climate
afforded no extensive requirement for complex housing; stability of environment and of the
community's self-sufficiency required little trade with foreigners and no envy of them. Humility,
little contact with outsiders and a lack of material poverty or social ostracism - there was no
inclination of territorial expansion, looting, or waring.
In brief, after humanity being such a short time on the Earth, God was grieved for having created
such a wicked being and initially felt inclined to end the whole experiment of life on Earth. But
Noah was empathetic and compassionate and he made a covenant with God that if God would
save a few of each lifeform, he would abide by the Guidance of God (and, perhaps, history would
proceed better the next time around.) God agreed to give humanity another chance and asked
Noah (as we know later, through the Holy Spirit) to build a gigantic boat in the middle of an
expanse of herding lands. Noah obeyed.
When he finished, Noah received further Guidance to
take some of each form of terrestrial life, including birds, into the huge boat. He did. Noah also,
and only, took his immediate family into the ark before floods came and torrents of rain fell. In
the following deluge, all terrestrial life not in the ark drowns. When the waters subside, God
covenants never to destroy all of humanity and the animals again "while the Earth remaineth." A
rainbow after each storm will be God's sign and assurance of this covenant. Humanity's
responsibility to this covenant is that any person who takes the life of another must so forfeit his
or her own. Humanity has seldom kept its part of the covenant.
The following can be noted as part of the spiritual basis of this history:
a) The normal healthful longevity of humans is 120 years;
b) Neanderthals and humans were interbreeding in the Middle East;
c) The crossbreed offspring were proud of their physically powerfulness;
d) Pride = destructive emotions: envy, gluttony, greed, lust, hate, ...;
e) There was increasing frequency of earthquakes & pest-induced famines;
f) God wished to end all human and vegetative life on the Earth;
g) Noah appealed to the Compassion and Grace of God;
h) God instructed Noah on the design of a mercy ship, the ark;
i) Noah fulfilled his part of the pact and built the ark;
j) Only Noah and his family will survive as humans from the area;
k) Noah is given a 7-day notice to fill the ark;
l) The seas go down and torrential downpours begin;
m) The ark begins to float and the waters rise 22.5 feet;
n) The land remains flooded for 150 days (about 5 months);
o) During the 7th month, the ark came to rest in the Ararat mountains;
p) By the end of the 10th month, the lands began to emerge again;
q) After a further "long time" the lands all became dry again;
r) Noah left the ark and demonstrated Reverence for the Grace of God;
s) God promised > such would not happen again as long as the Earth was;
t) Giant floods would not occur again as long as the sky was unpolluted;
u) Noah domesticated herds & sowed and reaped crops for food & clothing;
v) Noah abused alcohol, became drunk, and shamed him/herself before his/her son;
w) One son mocked him/her while his/her other sons sought to hide his/her shame;
x) Noah recovered, learned of his son's mocking and became vengeful;
y) Noah cursed 1/3rd of humanity to become slaves of a separate 1/3rd;
Several aspects of faith are relevant for future human generations:
1. Noah exchanged promises with God - there was a responsibility due;
2. Noah followed the guidance of God in building the ark, even though -
A. Noah was not a professional shipbuilder;
B. Noah would have been ridiculed by relatives and the community;
C. The task for Noah would take years/generations to complete;
D. Noah never expressed complaint nor frustration with God's advice;
3. Effectively, humanity began again, as it had from Adam & Eve;
4. Noah's spiritual weakness initiated destructive emotion-driven acts;
5. Noah lost his reverence for God when he cursed his son;
6. The result of Noah's lack of spirituality resulted in much slavery.
7. God gave humanity a second chance and Noah both earned it and blew it.
In a modern (1996) context, Noah would be a man who sacrificed his business success and a
good material lifestyle for his family in order to carry out some constructive enterprise, self-funded, which he believed would "save" or substantially benefit humanity. His associates,
friends, and relatives would abandon him and ridicule him for his not fitting in with the status
quo. Some would call him insane; others would term him irresponsible; still others would
question the motive behind his actions.
IF Noah was direct and told them that he was following the Guidance of the Holy Spirit, that is, God's messenger - most would further term him to be insane while others would simply ignore him with passive scepticism. If he said that his building of the ark was a direction expressed to him as an answer to his prayers and
meditation - many would simply reply: "Why should we pay any head and make plans and
change our lifestyle as you suggest. Suppose you are wrong?"
Throughout history, humans have, and would continue to be sceptical of the truth and easily motivated by deceptions and lies. What humans could have done to "confirm" or deny constructively the direction taken
by Noah would have been to develop and use their own capabilities for prayer and meditation
to allow the Holy Spirit to relay the knowledge of God to them. Such would be the spiritual
manner for the differentiation between truth and deception.
Following the Flood, a number of individual NAMES "lived" supernormal long lives.
Considering that God had mentioned that the life span of humans was 120 years, living
multiples of that duration could raise scepticism of the accuracy of the history. One should
acknowledge that even in modern times (1996), the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the
Tibetan Buddhist followers, is still intended to be appointed to the position on the basis of
how well the infant or youngster resembles the last living leader.
Physical resemblance has a strong contribution although spiritual reincarnation is the belief.
By following such a tradition, the title or "name", Dalai Lama, has "lived" for several millennia.
Presumably, immediately after the Flood, the only humans (at least in a part of the Middle
East) were Noah and his close relatives. Some of these individuals, or their "names" lived for
many repetitions of the 120 year average maximum.
Shem (a son of Noah) 600 years old, dies in (2160+3100 BC) = 940 BC
Arpachshad (Arphaxad) 465 years old, dies in (2125+3100 BC) = 975 BC
Shelach (Salah) 433 years old, dies in (2128+3100 BC) = 972 BC
Aiver (Eber) 464 years old, dies in (2189+3100 BC) = 911 BC
It is quite likely, since no one else is recorded as living longer than 249 years, after the Flood,
that the Hebrew record shared the logic of the Tibetan one: spirits were reincarnated through
offspring in accord with appearance and heredity-linked behavioural characteristics and
aptitudes. With the small gene pool after the Flood, intermarriage between close relatives
would have been mandatory. Until there arose mutated genes, only strangers (?) not
regarded as humans (other races, invaders, ...) could have added marked differences in
physical characteristics to the Hebrew band/clan. If this were the reality, then the physical
similarities between the children and their parents or close relatives would have been quite
remarkable by modern (1996) expectations.
A small herding/agricultural band would also not be expected to have a vocabulary of more than 1,000 words.
The use of "meaningless" common and surnames is a modern naming convention.
Humans of this era were most often named for characteristics they displayed, had earned, or, were hoped they would be capable of. Meaningfulness, lack of population density and differentiation, a small vocabulary relative
to most modern literate cultures, and, a propensity for humans to confer names or titles on
through generations as an indicator of reincarnation provide a basis for a similar use by the
Hebrews in their early histories.
The Flood also increased sea levels in those lands near the Mediterranean.
Remains of sea life would be found in the desert at the foot of the Great Pyramid.
Investigators in the 1900s would detect evidence of a salt layer in the Queen's Chamber within the pyramid.
Herodotus would observe seashells in the Egyptian desert and a high concentration of salt in Egyptian
soil relative to the soil of more elevated Greece.
1425 B.C.
The Palace of Knossos, Crete, is Destroyed by fire during an unsuccessful revolt of the Cretian population against their new masters from Mycenae, an ancient city in modern day
southern Greece. The Mycenaeans were established merchants who understood the use of
military force as a tool for the domination of foreigners into enslavement or subjugation from
which a colonial economy could be used to sustain a centralized materially privileged elite,
bureaucractic civil service, active merchant exchange and transfer of goods, and, a class of state-dependent artisans. The Cretian resistance and its opposition from the Mycenaean military
resulted in the loss of the compiled knowledge of the region.
The people at Knossos were proud of their heritage.
They also had developed a society which appreciated art.
Their wealth had been derived from an agricultural base that had been
strengthened by the political leaders being warehouse owners. Unfortified "palaces" were used to
store large supplies of grain, wine, and oil for use in times when a bad weather season or a
pestilence might otherwise have resulted in famine.
A degree of profit was retained by the king-entrepreneur for his storage and "banking" (credits) service.
With some of this profit and the profit of surplus available from many of the agricultural workers, artisans received payment for their works of glazed pottery. Barter trade with the Egyptians was active. Women were
regarded with high respect. The gods worshipped at Knossos included a Mother/Earth goddess,
as mistress of the animals (who were seen to live in a state of balance), the Serpent goddess
(death, life, spirit), and the goddess of the Shield (the protector). Knossos had been partially
destroyed by earthquakes during the previous century and rebuilt each time by the people.
1310 B.C.
Silbury Hill, a conical-shaped hill with a height of 135 feet and covering an area of 5.5 acres is constructed in the southern English highlands near Avebury. Composed of the
rough chalk stones of the region, its mass is equivalent to 50 million 30-pound baskets of chalk.
All subsequently found tools were of very simple material and design. Antler "picks" were used
to loosen the chalk and oxen shoulder blade shovels were used to rake up the material.
On rare occasions in human history, societies which are changing from hunting to herding, and,
have a preference for wishing to remain in one region rather than endlessly roam as nomads, will
seek to clear the land of glacial stone debris. This rough gravel and stone surface covering is
gathered up by hand and usually dispensed of onto refuse piles - which may become mounds. The
end result is that more of the soil is bared and a more continuous and thicker stand of grass grows
to benefit the herd. Less territory need be covered in order to sustain a particular size of herd, or
even an enlarged herd. Settlement becomes longer-term for the herders, and, some aspects of life
will become more relaxed and comfortable.
On more frequent occasions in human history, societies which are adopting agriculture in a region
in which the land surface cover is either strewn with glacial debris, or somewhat rock strewn or
rocky - may determine themselves to clear the land and place the refuse in mounds, or, later, in
property boundary lines or fence rows. Much effort may be expended so that crops may be more
thickly and easily sown and more easily harvested. With herding, every square yard of the surface
may be walked over in the yearly performance of one's livelihood; in agriculture, every square foot
of surface is likely to be walked on during the same comparable year of work.
Walking on an uneven surface with bare feet or hide-thick moccasins on a continual basis is neither safe nor
painless.
If the surface is of further aggravation because many of the obstructions are sharp-sided
pieces of shale or chalk rather than round pebbles and stones, the would-be farmer or herder is
highly motivated to either move to a new location, or, clear the land. The greater the number of
persons wishing to clear their land and the greater the organization of the community - the more
possible it is for all to take their refuse to one, or several common disposal dumps. Land clearing
provides a practical possibility for the existence of the mound.
As for the obsession with remaining in the highlands rather than travelling to the lowlands or
further south towards the equator and warmer climate, there are a number of possibilities. First,
high tides, floods, tidal waves and tsunamis seldom are encountered in highland regions.
Secondly, tectonic and volcanic land subsidence below sea level may be easily expected not to
occur with high elevation regions. Thirdly, an ocean and a sea divided Britain from larger land
masses and a land route towards a warmer climate; if you are not adept at boat-making, sailing,
and swimming - a water route may be a very desperate action.
In addition, humans have often relocated to more rugged lands and inhospitable climates under the influence of other humans mistreating them. Holding the high ground was always a military advantage until the age of airplanes and missiles. If any one or more of the above experiences had been part of the heritage
of the builders of the Avebury circles, mound, hill, or barrow - they would have possessed a
traumatic memory which would strongly favour their settlement in the highlands in spite of
difficulties.
1243 -1207 B.C.
Tukulti-Ninurta I continued and intensified the brutal warfare of his predecessors, including
Assuraballit I (1364-1328) - who had called himself the "Brother of the Pharoah" and advocated
war of conquest in the service of the god Assur. Mass deportations were used to disrupt the
former culture and destroy any sense of native history and brotherhood. Charioteers, infantry,
and special advance troops equipped with helmets, chain mail and shields were too much for
adversaries on foot with little shielding protection. The conquered became slaves to the now
land-owning conquerors - the king, the elite and the temple. Punishment was barbaric by some
modern standards: punctured eardrums; severed ... ears, lower lips, fingers, testicles; destruction of
faces by the use of boiling asphalt.
1230 B.C.
Rameses II of Egypt fixes the cardinal points of western astrology: Aries, Libra, Cancer, and Capricorn.
1200 B.C.
A large American City was built in northern Nebraska by an advanced agricultural civilization.
The city, not found until 1936, had been abandoned when a great drought had occurred in the area.
A similar drought led to the topsoil being blown away to reveal it much later.
Pottery, flints, dried beans and coloured beads were found together with piles of bison and
elk bones, arrow-heads and stone knives. The city was at least 3 miles long by 1/2 mile wide in
size and the inhabitants lived in mud-daubed buildings set halfway into the ground. They stored
their food in pits, similar to cold cellars, in earthenware pots of nearly bushel size. Corn and
beans were grown in the nearby fields which were irrigated by spring-fed ditches.
1200 B.C.
The Giant Stone Heads of the Olmechs were found in La Venta, Tres Zapotes, and other sites in Mexico.
Carved of black basalt, they are 1.5 to 3 meters in height and weigh from 5 to 40 tons.
They are placed on stone stands. The nearest basalt quarries are 50 to 100 kilometres away across swamps and through forest. Thousands were built. The carved heads have flat, somewhat infantile noses. The fact that one of the Olmec's most revered gods was their rain-god and that deformed infants were considered to be representative of the god appears to be significant. The heads appear to be wearing a snug woven cloth cap similar to the ones worn by the early cosmonauts.
Smaller sculptures of jadeite, some 8 inches high, depicted bald-headed priests and other subjects. Jade was prized by the Olmecs more than gold and stores of it were kept. Figurines, plates, bowls, cooking utensils, beads, ear plugs and axes were made of clay, jade, magnitite and
loadstone.
A tropical region located near a Mexican village named San Lorenzo, it receives 120 inches of rainfall per year.
An agricultural economy developed here with the elaborate use of water storage and transportation systems.
Agriculture is very dependent upon adequate rainfall at the optimum time of the growing season.
Too little will result in stunted crops and reduced food supplies.
Too much rain may encourage grains to rot or to attract moulds and bacterial enemies - which
also reduce useable supplies of grain. Too much rain early in the growing season can result in late
plantings, seedlings being washed away, in slow growth, or in a rotting of the seed in the
overdamp and cool soil: low volume production.
The more a society depends upon agriculture for its food supply, the more endangered it becomes when there are any changes in the climate away from the optimum for the crops selected. The use of irrigation, aquaducts, and reservoirs helped moderate these variations here. The Olmecs flourished here between 1200 B.C. and 800
B.C.
1122 B.C.
The earliest surviving record of Smallpox is a description from this time in China.
It would similarly be experienced and recorded in most highly populated and higher population density centres of Asia, Europe and North Africa. It would produce the longest duration of known epidemics of high human fatalities in the world and would become, in 1977, the only viral disease officially eliminated.
It would not be uncommon for 95 percent of the population in epidemic regions to become
infected; for 14%, on average, and up to 90% in areas of low immunity from previous contact, to
die; for 50% of the deaths to be those of children. Smallpox was an effective population control
agent. Death was horrible, as the pox literally rotted the body away. The smallpox virus
produces a rash on the body which develops into sores. These leave disfiguring scars all over the
body, especially noticeable on the face, and even to be found in the mouth.
Smallpox would travel with merchants and explorers, and, with colonizers and imperialist forces.
It would be a simple and direct mental association for survivors to remember and communicate through story and myth histories to their offspring that .. "strangers" as evil and devilish persons who bring disease and death. It is SAFEST to kill any "outsiders" as soon as they arrive. The influence of Smallpox on human history would be dramatic; recognition of that fact would be carefully hidden behind the
propaganda of proud political and military victors.
1100 B.C.
Later Vedic Texts were composed over a period ranging +/-200 years of this date.
As additions to the earlier Rg-veda, they were more expansive in application than the Rg which
tended to be a focus of the Panjab region. These later additions are popular in the Doab, the
region between the Yamuna and Ganga (Ganges) rivers which would become the heart of
brahmanic civilization and Hinduism. Much of the Ganges plain was then known and inhabited by
the Aryans. It is significant that the earlier Aryans were not vegetarians and that this practice
developed near this time.
Many of the additions to the older texts, are rationalized speculations of the origin and meaning of
the reality which is larger than that of the practical necessities of daily life or the periodic alarms
and frustrations of changing weather patterns. As an elitist and administrative hierarchy became
established and those of lower authority came to follow the order devised for them from before
their birth, a mass society with low levels of conflict evolved. With this, additional time free of
the demands of tasks grew larger for the brahman teachers and governing officers. If sloth and
vice were not to occupy these hours, then perhaps contemplation could. And so, more far
reaching intellectual considerations came to mind and for them a philosophy was devised to
explain away, justify or make excuses for such questions and anxieties.
Speculation and projection were often utilized to define the creation of the universe and the evolution of such a cosmos.
Melded with these rationalizations were mystical gleanings gained from meditation and
the development of highly spiritual skills. In these ways, in an illiterate, mainly agricultural
society, abstract perceptions were noted which are still worthy of consideration after almost 3,000
years. Yet without this perspective, it would seem difficult for the unchallenged person to
differentiate between mere superstition, spurious reasoning, fantasy and spiritually inspired truths.
As always, only the spiritual development and experience of the individual can enable clear
decisionmaking devoid of the hazards of contradictory statements assembled by human
authorities.
The creation or evolution of the cosmos takes place in the 10th book of the Rg-veda,
through entities or divinities devised to account for it. Out of a Golden Embryo (Hiranyagarbha)
the universe expands. A god called All-Maker (Visvakarman), a feminine entity called Voice or
Sound (Vac), and a god called Time (Kala) become added to a growing pantheon. The Golden
Embryo and the All-Maker become unified into a new god: the Lord of Progeny (Prajapati) who
conceives all of the remaining gods and all of everything else.
This consciousness anti-anxiety process betrays humanity's increasing materialism: the need to find a place for everything, absolute order. It is the anxiety of security which is the compulsion behind this material rationalization and from it develops possessiveness and a drive for the power necessary to command and coerce rational linear order and uniformity out of the dynamic of an independent identity at work in a constantly changing universe. That is, it no longer seems adequate for these elitist humans to simply live life. Rather,
there is a mandate to explain life - to justify their privilege in the order they impose.
The elements of legalism begins to develop within these intellectualizations.
For order to be absolute, there can be no room for the unpredictability of emotional persuasion - which may
introduce such spiritual considerations as empathy, compassion, humility, remorse. These
concepts are difficult to teach and regulate. They require experience, awareness, and the
independence of mind and action which is abhorrent to human-centred authority which supports
human elitism and is dependent upon the uniformity of the masses. Thus, Indian philosophy
develops along legalistic dualistic lines.
Examples include being (sat) and nonbeing (asat); real and unreal; truth and lie.
There are no gray variations within such a system, no interim levels of experience - no emotion.
Yet behind some of the esoteric passages lies the truth of mystical
experience which may sound dualistic yet is, in reality, without boundary. Within these
expressions of contradiction, such as the description of God as the union of all matter yet without
form, there is an attempt to define the undefinable - for words are only successful at defining
material reality. No human has yet described energy or force without reference and allusion to
characteristics which more define the influence of the reality rather than the reality itself.
Projections betray this human compulsion to find reasons where knowledge is missing.
Out of some primal mixture, the vedas describe how a desire, urge, purpose - kama, produced a
supernatural "heat" or spirit (tapas) from which the universe evolved. It is easy for humans to
associate cold with death and lifeless for there are so many examples present on the Earth which
allude to this principle. And in the most simplistic forms of awareness, life does appear to grow
out of nothing, out of the air, out of spirit.
Yet to consider life without a purpose is a true source of anxiety for the human who by virtue of existence finds himself or herself in a position of privilege relative to others, and, had the opportunity to reflect upon such the origin of such a relationship. Perhaps this "original" sin of elitism by virtue of coercion is the same which shames this same elite of "civilized" humanity to imprint their co-dependent followers with patterns of intellectualization and materialism in denial of spiritual independence and spiritual-directedness.
The "Hymn of the Primeval Man" (Purusasukta) appears near this time also.
It tells of a giant, larger than the universe, as humans know it, who was at first the only being in existence.
Feeling lonely, it decided to divide itself in two and in doing so created a feminine entity, Shining Forth
(Viraj). Later in the texts, the mating of Purusa (the must-be male) and Viraj (the woman)
produced a son. Now the intellectualizers faced a problem. How did the son mate without
participating in incest with the mother?
This was rationally resolved by introducing another fantasy - an illogical or non-human experience which is justified with the excuse that, after all, it is supernatural. Thus, the son is sacrificed for the creation of humanity and the material world in which it lives. That is, the son is slain and dismembered. The parts of his body become the components of the universe, including humanity. As is always possible by way of human rationalization, the threads which keep fraying and unravelling are all smoothed back into place to
justify the status quo.
It is primarily from this period that the caste system grew from social stratification to heredity
tasking. When they first immigrated into the region, the Aryans had been lighter in skin colour
than the natives. A tribal definition of leader-ruler and agrarian worker already existed.
Intermarriage, promotions and demotions in authority status continued between the Aryans and
those who humbled themselves to the domination of the Aryans. Those who resisted became
doomed to segregation and alienation. As the society became more ordered, the continued
resistance of what was becoming a darker skinned minority became irritating to the brahman-led
elite authorities.
At some point, it was decided that a rationalization of the social structure was an
obvious way to put an end to any further conflict and aggravation. Rather than be conciliatory
towards those who disliked the organizing principle of authority and enslavement which provided
the power to exact coercive induced order, those who failed to cooperate would be segregated for
all time. At intervening levels, those persons who had adopted tasks which supported the
authority structure - presumably because they liked or had talent or heritage which supported their
chosen "career" - would be provided with the security that their progeny would forever,
predictably and without confusion be mandated to follow in this "chosen" contribution to the
whole. So decided, the segregation of the society proceeded.
What would quickly become an increasingly strict partitioning of society by task and authority began.
All humanity was divided into 4 varnas, or classes.
The brahman, of course, were said to come from the head of the Purusa; thus, they were the functional intermediary between gods and humans. Thanks to their knowledge of the rituals of magic and incantations, they kept the world
going. That is, by a complex activity of reverence, deception and manipulation - the brahmans
were responsible for maintaining, by control of the gods, a high level of order, peace, security and
contentment in the society.
A second level in the hierarchy was that of the rajanya (later called the ksatriya) - the warrior and ruler.
Representing the dismembered arms of the giant god, they would in modern times by more recognized as the bureaucracy of clerks, officers, and the military who acted as mercenaries to carry out the bidding of the brahmans. The trunk of the god, and the mass of the caste society, became the vaisya, the peasant and craftsman. It would be from the surplus and profits of their labours that the brahmans and ksatriya would survive. And at the lowest level of authority were to be found the feet of the giant god, the sudra, the non-Aryan serf
who had gradually accepted the domination of the Aryans as the obvious option to extermination.
With segregation, social alienation became more highly defined between the levels.
For millennia, your caste would determine your opportunities, duties and task for life before you were born.
All those above the lowest class could pride themselves on not being at the bottom.
Those at the bottom lived in such degradation and hardship that day-to-day existence left no time for such
preoccupations as might lead to self-esteem or self-sufficiency and independence of choice. The
end structure was an achievement which would have made its GRAY-Insectoid mentors pleased:
it was human civilization formulated after the same principles as those orderly societies of ants,
bees, and termites. Ritual dominated existence, and, enabled it.
962 B.C.
Solomon becomes king over Judea.
The construction of the Jewish Temple begins in the 4th year of his reign, 958 B.C..
The Temple would be destroyed in the year 587/586 B.C., 372 years later.
Yet Hebrew references note what appears to be a duration of 430 years, 58 years difference.
The recording of long-term chronologies was still very irregular at this time.
Histories were still often compiled long after the events had taken place and at a time when their significance was founded - which often meant, for political purposes. Some explanations for this variance include
the assumption of a linear end-of-the-last to the beginning-of-the-next event style of recording.
While such clear cut changes of political power are expected within the well-defined histories of
modern states, this was not the case until after 100 A.D.
The historians of the day, in earlier periods, and particularly with the Jewish record, associated
events according to the reign of whichever king or queen seemed most well-known or feared or
powerful. The geographic region inhabited by the Hebrews spanned through the territories of
several kingdoms. Highly defined "state" boundaries would not begin to evolve until 300 B.C.
So for now, one important event to be recorded, might be remembered in relation to a king
(Israelite) and his reign which were dominant in the perception of the historian writing at the time.
The following significant event might be recorded relative to the reign of another king who was a
Judean. Both would have been recorded accurately, yet the reigns of the two kings may have
overlapped - either as two separate reigns in two separate territories, or during a time when both
kings had formed a co-regency or period of peaceful co-existence and joint rulership. In addition,
script transcribing errors were possible. Until almost 400 B.C., most Hebrew historical records
were written on hides and buried. Longevity wasn't good according to modern standards.
The "ink" used to transcribe the histories, both on to the hides and later onto paper, had a
tendency to become brittle with age and flake away. A slight modification of this nature could
have far reaching influence, both as to content and as to notations of time. A Jewish professor
and biblical scholar, David Bakan, has suggested that the story of Noah may have sustained such a
change. The Hebrew word which suggests that Noah was a man may have originally have recorded Noah as a woman.
Matriarchial tribes of the day were not uncommon.
A rereading of the texts concerning Noah, with this consideration, actually makes some of the later parts of the
history seem more relevant. If such a minor accident could result in such a large change in
meaning, so also could the record of certain dates and periods of time be altered. The individual
wishing to learn from such semi-historical records must concentrate on the "spirit" of the content,
rather than on either the literal wording or the apparent literal dating.
914 B.C.
Opium use in China by humans has begun.
In an organized, densely populated, agricultural society, humans easily can become depressed if
their lifestyle is one of constant struggle and routine. Overtaxation, excessive restrictions on one's
freedom, long periods of hard and routine work, constant physical distress from strain or chronic
illness, and, an inability to be able to definitively plan for regular or extended periods of relaxation
or to have access to wilderness areas and their wonderment - often leads to chronic depression.
Exposure to sudden calamities without adequate coping abilities will often result in trauma to the
human and the creation of an energy block which forms the foundation for addictive behaviours.
Loss of spouse, children, relatives, friends, or, even the sight or knowledge of the loss of large
numbers of strangers is always more likely in a dense population than in a thinly dispersed one.
Earthquakes, floods, avalanches, tornados, forest fires, tidal waves, and, fatal contagious diseases
were both infrequent enough and devastating enough to provide such a shock for many. Still
others, egotistically driven to challenges, excitement, novelty, or by peer recognition or social
elitism - were likely to try dangerous experiences in an effort to attain a valued and pleasant
identity. To each of these ends, opium offered a temporary solution.
Opiates include most substances which have been found to be habit forming - addictive: opium,
morphine, heroin, codeine, and similar drugs or herbs. Other drugs or herbs can become addictive
because the are used for the same purposes as opiates and are equally ineffective on a long-term
basis. Alcohol, sedatives, psychedelics, phencyclidine (PCP), marihuana, and stimulants such as
amphetamines, cocaine and caffeine - all encourage addiction when more positive coping skills are
neither sought nor developed. About 6000 species of plants have psychoactive (mood changing)
properties. Ancient herbalists and nutritionists believed that all foods and herbs induced changes
of mood - from the minute to the dramatic.
Opiates, as a group, share what they are made of and how they influence biological entities.
Opium acts as a pain reliever (sensation anaesthetizer) in the spinal region of the body by a desensitizing of the nerves; as a sedative which relaxes the muscles and reduces conscious awareness; as a cardiac stimulant which increases heart rate leading to a sense of excitement or expectation; as a hallucinogenic which by reducing the
calcium balance in the nerve pathways enables sensory and command signals to be merged and
disorganized resulting in feelings of disorientation - lightness and visual and other sensory twisting
of reality; as a cough depressant by inhibiting the response of the nerves involved; as a respiratory
inhibitor which reduces the person's breathing rate and encourages carbon dioxide toxicity
encouraging feelings of lightness and delight; as a gastric motility and peristalsis inhibiter resulting
in delayed digestion and encouraging constipation and blood toxicity; as a bladder smooth muscle
constrictor resulting in urine retention.
Constriction of the iris tends to present a darkened image of ones surroundings which may encourage associated feelings of sleep or sexual intimacy. Obviously, for a person who feels chronically depressed from reasons of trauma-induced energy blocks, and/or is suffering from chronic pain as a result of physical strains or injuries, and/or feels a sense of hopelessness due to excessive bureaucracy and a perceived lack of choice - this locally available, often easy to acquire, and often widely used medication provides an easy remedy.
Such a passive, denial type of coping carries with it dangers.
No constructive actions are taken to eliminate the problems or to find solutions to them or even to define and understand them. Note this. A human-based authority system will always be reinforced by encouraging, or allowing, the dependants/subjects to use opiates: they effectively diffuse opposition, reactivity, and, rebellion. They maintain ORDER by turning anger and frustration away from action and violence and into Passivity and Agreement. The latter are often self sabotaging to the individual for difficulties denied and ignored frequently grow larger and encourage greater (more intense and more frequent) experiences of anxiety, frustration, and emotional pain.
Acting as destructive illusory coping agents, opiates produce aftereffects which encourage their
habitual use while debilitating the body and spirit. Nausea and gastro-intestinal difficulties - which
can result in increased sources of pain and discomfort, prostatic enlargement - which can result in
painful urination and sexual performance difficulties, liver congestion - which often results in
headaches, tiredness, and irritability, acute diarrhea - which can lead to dehydration and is
accompanied by groin pains, weakness and depression -- all encourage the passive coping skills
person to reuse. Frequent and continued use can lead to liver or other organ failure, aggravation
of diseases and injuries which could be treated, interpersonal relationship difficulties, stillborns
and miscarriages, drug-abused infants, robotic work habits and undependable labouring. As an
alkaloid, opiates are categorically poisons for human biology.
Opiates are "effective" because they mimic the positive symptoms of hormones in the body called
endorphins.
The body-produced endorphins provide the individual with a feeling of well-being,
happiness, relaxation, contentment, muscle relaxation, increased abilities to target or project one's
thinking, and, an increased threshold for pain. These are most commonly produced during
positive durations of exercise including activities as diverse as running, sensual massage, sexual
intercourse. They can also be psychologically "released" through biofeedback, relaxation,
hypnotic, prayer, and, meditative techniques - by concentrating one's conscious energies on the
experiencing of reverence. Many pre-historic humans enjoyed all of these endorphin-releasing
modalities whenever they were in abundant environments and lived in negative stress-free small
bands.
When survival demands longer durations of work-oriented activity, it becomes more challenging to retain each of the natural and positive endorphin producing options mentioned above. It may even become impossible, if, the culture you are part of discourages you - by peer pressure, lack of example, ridicule, ostracism - from "wasting" your "time" participating in them, while encouraging you to participate in negative stress endorphin reducing options. Some of these include the expression of anxiety, frustration, anger, hatred and intolerance, egotism, lust, pride and greed. Related activities frequently assume a competitive stance in which the individual
is encouraged, and often rewarded materially and/or socially - to work harder, to be more
ruthless, to be more dependable (predictable, habit-confined), to accept and promote human-based authority structures including the status quo, and, to materially win or succeed at any cost.
ALL of these anti-endorphin releasing influences have a high potential to become addictive as
habits and to invite the use of quick acting false endorphin-like acting substance addiction in an
attempt to find "happiness."
Accepting the destructive reality of the anti-endorphin activities encourages one to try an find a sensory balance by the adopting of pseudo-endorphins which carry with them destructive influences on both physical and spiritual health. An addict is a slave; totally dependent persons have no control over the direction of their lives; beings which lose their sense of self, their ability to make independent choices, their confidence to accept or reject options based on their own knowledge, and their ability to be self-sustaining - have lost their spirit. Truth and choices can become confused and inverted when the prospect of power is present.
Healthy endorphin producing activities can become addictive when they are substituted in situations requiring coping skill involvement. Sexual intercourse, masturbation, intellectualization, fantasy, and meditation can each become addictive IF they are used as fixalls to frustration, anxiety, conflict, confusion, pain, and hardship. In those situations, improved communication and action are frequently the constructive directions required.
Addictions provide false hope.
They are emotionally infantile in the accompanying expectation that everything will work out magically.
In other words, the expectation is that one need not make any changes oneself.
The expectation is that others will correct the imbalances, that denial will allow acceptance, or, that a God or gods will make everything right. Coincidence does sometimes provide a spurious result. Procrastination does sometimes provide resolution through loss, implied guilt, or dependency. Sex after an argument in which nothing has been acknowledged and nothing has been committed to with openness and honesty is little more than encouragement for the next conflict to arise.
POWER is most personal in one's ability to direct and control one's actions and their result.
Even now, humans have increasingly identified sexual expression with personal performance in
opposition to sharing. Population and culture factors have aggravated this concern. Partly
because of its symptoms, opium has been noted as an aphrodisiac, although humans have usually
abused the reference. Opiates are said to have a strychnine-like action on the spinal cord -
desensitizing the nerves which radiate from it - including all of those travelling to the human trunk
and groin. For a person who is easily sexually excited, such a reaction slows one's response and
can make an otherwise seconds of duration coitus extend into minutes.
Individuals who are initially healthy, may find themselves in near celibacy conditions from the restrictions of the society can develop premature ejaculation difficulties which not only shorten the pleasure of
coitus but eliminate any possibility for a partner to orgasm by such methods. This environment
can be found anywhere humans are congregated in higher densities, have a cultural mandate of
orderliness, have minimal knowledge of or availability of effective birth control options, have
cultural restrictions on abortions and infanticide, and, are encouraged not to have children until
after age 30 on the rationale that material prosperity can only be possible by such a sacrifice. Anti-masturbation policies are a largely modern, North American generated distortion of sexuality.
The use of opiates as aphrodisiacs is dangerous.
Moderate doses induce penile erection on any suggestion of erotic excitement - encouraging intercourse to be self-serving and technical. Despite this, the penile nerves, especially those of the glans - usually the most sensitive - become anaesthetized (numb). This effectively retards orgasm and emission. A similar influence occurs in the female with the vulval, vaginal, and rectal nerves being numbed. The rectal and vaginal
constrictor muscles become relaxed. Essentially, it becomes possible to have longer sexual
activity which is less satisfying than it otherwise could become, and, a sense of performance and
domination are likely to replace the capabilities of shared mutual enjoyment. Stronger doses can
lead to impotence. Here, power is with the materially possessed.
If the environment is substantially devoid of the wonders which encourage states of reverence and
facilitate meditation - such as areas of wild growth, availability of privacy, periods of relaxation,
spiritual instruction, and the mentoring of constructive coping skills - feelings of hopelessness and
depression become almost inevitable for humans. Choices are there IF one has the awareness,
self-directness, and, persistency to effect preferred options rather than to simply accept given
states. With humans, the difficulty, even at this point in recorded history - is that with increased
size and density of population, the success of individual choices becomes an extension of the
collective actions of the majority: politics. A challenge will be whether humans can assertively
work together, politically, or, whether they will continue to work according to self-serving
motivations and accept, or appoint/elect others to accept a title of responsibility over them.
900 B.C.
The Sutras, brief texts on ritual, ethics, and law would be written and added to the selection of Hindu sacred writings, over the next 400 years. They would provide highly ordered, rationalized specifics for conduct in all areas of one's life. It was believed by the intellectual writers that if all life could be structured according to patterns and structures of behaviour found effective in the past, the individual would find contentment in the present and the future. Some sutras are classified as if they were dictated by a sage source; others are written with the indication that they represent counsel which has been remembered though is obviously
subject to some interpretation or error because of its non-direct transcription.
There is great detail in the directions given in the Sutras for the attainment of particular
objectives. The Kama Sutra, a technical manual on love and sexual fulfillment, as an example,
provides recipes, tools, aids, and procedures by which any two dissimilar or like lovers are
expected to reach physical orgasm and contentment.
Authoritative and instructive, such
intellectualizations remain in total denial of the spiritual and emotional compnents of human
love and sex; they provide excellent examples of a sociaty based upon materialism. Spiritually,
such sutras have the capacity to be spiritually destructive - not by what they provide, but by how
it is provided.
Materialistically-based human relationships are, by definition, manipulative,
deceptive, and, encourage jealousy, envy, possessiveness, self-obsession, and many other
destructive feelings, expectations and behaviours. A concentration on the physical, without
mention of the other contributing elements - encourages the human to avoid the sacrifice of time
and experience required to gain an awareness of those elements which contribute to constructive
change and permanency in human relationships.
900 B.C.
The Jew, Joseph, advises the Pharaoh of Egypt to let him appoint officers responsible for the collection and storage of 20% of the agricultural produce during the 7 plenteous years expected. The corn is to be stored in the cities for use in the expected 7 years of famine which had customarily followed the abundant crop years. Joseph received the authority and during the famine years the grain was sold back to the people for gold rings, cattle and land. The system eventually resulted in state ownership of all the land. This eventually led some people to rebel against the political administration while other simply left the territory, and still others fell
into lawless activities.
Other measures would have been more constructive for the culture.
Some of these are as follows:
- population control by immigration limits and education;
- improvements in the irrigation and water storage practices;
- a storage of 40% of the crop yield in plentiful times;
- a allocation of food during famines according to need;
- availability of reserve food to be made relative to amount deposited.
"Spiritual" planning with an emphasis on responsibility, empathy, sharing, physical well-being and humility - is Not considered here. The resulting intellectualization indicates the choice of human authority to attempt to cope with growing population density and political structures (centralization and dependency).
883-859 B.C.
The Cruellest of the Assyrian Kings, Assurnasirapli II, used cavalry (horse mounted soldiers) in annual campaigns of terror against the neighbouring tribes. The use of impaling, scourging, and mass executions were intended to break any resistance to his demands. Revolts would arise, without success. This is one of the earliest records of the use of cavalry.
853 B.C.
The word "Arab" appears in an Assyrian inscription to refer to people who were beginning to learn to live nomadically, migrating continuously over arid territories, following
seasonal availability of water for their camels and sheep on which they depended for survival.
The harsh environment encouraged the development of such virtues as generosity, hospitality,
solidarity, courage and honour. The civilization would learn from other cultures: astronomy from
the Babylonians; a powerful military society from the Assyrians; the art of trading and the
alphabet from the Phoenicians.
772 B.C.
The Mahabharata, an ancient Indian historical epic, became more formalized.
The narrative had been passed down through generations by memory and voice and it related a dramatic story of family rivalry and war. Some versions would later range up to nearly 100,000 verses, mostly of 32 syllables each. At least 30 to 50% of the poem would be added between now and 450 B.C. during which time it would fall into favour with the dominant religious
leaders.
The story centres around a conflict between two sets of cousins: the Pandavas, or the 5 sons of Pandu (Yudhisthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva), and, the Kauravas (descendants of Kuru), the 100 sons of the blind Dhrtarastra, the eldest of whom was Duryodhana. Both sets of cousins claim the throne of the Kuru land, with its capital at Hastinapura, about 55 miles (90 km) north of modern Delhi. At first it was agreed to divide the kingdom, and the Pandevas made their capital at Indraprastha, near modern Delhi, though they had the legal right to the whole kingdom.
In a great gambling contest between the two sets of cousins, the eldest of the Pandavas,
Yudhisthira, foolishly staked and lost his whole property, including Draupadi, the common wife of the 5 brothers. (Apparently, polyandry was acceptable at the time.) The old king Dhrtarastra forced his sons to return Draupadi, but the brothers were driven into exile for 13 years. After that time, they returned. They found numerous allies, as indeed the Kauravas did, and both sides
prepared for battle. The Pandavas were advised by Krsna - king of Mathura and son of Vasudeva
and Devaki - who became their mentor and served as charioteer to Arjuna in the battle.
When the battle was over, none of the combatants remained alive but the 5 Pandavas.
Yudhisthira became king of the Kuru realm and, aided by his brothers, ruled wisely and justly for
many years. The last two books show a more advanced ethic and style and were added later
when the ethic was added to for the purpose of making it more an extension of the moral status
quo. The last 2 books describe Yudhisthira's abdication and the journey of the 5 brothers and
Draupadi to the Himalayas to find heaven.
Krsna Dvaipayana Vyasa, generally believed to have been the traditional author of the Mahabharata, according to the introduction to the epic taught his poem to his pupil Vaisampayana. The latter in turn recited the complete work in public for the first time at the great snake sacrifice of King Janamejaya, the great-grandson of Arjuna, a hero of the epic. From that point, it was transmitted orally for all subsequent generations to be aware of.
To place the original epic in modern relevance, it must be remembered that the population was illiterate and there were no forms of mass media or mass technology: no electric light or heat, telephones, newspapers, books, magazines, movies, television, radio, vehicles. As was true in many other early mass cultures,
professional storytellers would travel from village to village and provide the "mass" media of the
day. They would bring with them the news of current events and they would act as the travelling
oral encyclopedia of the day. Those who were found to be the most engaging - by virtue of the
theatrics and realism with which they captivated their audiences - became the celebrities of the
day. With all of these influences, the Mahabharata became the favorite of the audiences.
Based on fragments of history, which may have spanned many thousands of years, the threads were
woven into a single epic centred historically about one generation, and, about one tribal clan-like
feud - which in reality provided enough historical parallels to justify the additional threads.
Virtually every modern human culture shares similar examples in their histories: the Iliad, the Nibelungenlied, the Hebrew Old Testament book of Job, the Christian Gospel of Matthew, and thousands of legends.
The Hindu Vedic horse sacrifice was a ritual of lengthy duration.
To maintain the interest and attentiveness of the public, the Brahman teacher-priests would recite popular stories, especially those which brought pleasure, respect, and authority to the king who was sponsoring the sacrifice. Within tribal societies, legends of war victories are often treated as actual history and are
instrumental in indoctrinating the subjects into a belief in the supremacy of leadership, the pride of
victory and regional genetic superiority, and the confidence to devote one's reverence and self-direction to the fulfillment of that powerful, gracious, ruthless, paternal human god.
It is virtually impossible for humans to unite in awareness and focus their energies towards a successful
conclusion (constructive or destructive) without the motivation and confidence provided by a
human leader (or human-led institution) who (or which) appears to have been and to be
indestructible. Thus, the Mahabharata became increasingly popular with both the ruling classes
and the masses. The brahmans increasingly took over the authority of transmitting the epic from
the professional lay entertainers. As they did so, they chose to incorporate many doctrinal,
mythological, and theological "threads" into the epic, some in what would later be recognized as a
rather crude manner - to form an encyclopedia of early Hinduism.
According to the tradition, the great battle took place about 3,000 B.C., when agriculture had
barely begun in India and foreign tribes from central Asia were beginning to invade. The central
figures mentionned in the story and the core of the history which is known only date back to 650
B.C. and 1000 B.C. at most. Thus it is entirely possible that some of the other historical
fragments came from a much earlier era and represented mini-epics or startling experiences and
observations which were impressed on the human mind.
753 B.C.
Rome is begun on April 21 by a band of Latins.
They grew to a band structure of elected leader and then to that of a leader elected by the heads of the clans (families). Increasing internal and external populations led to increasing disputes over land use, hunting ranges, and travelling rights between the Romans and the surrounding tribes.
735 B.C.
The Book of Isaiah, writings of the Hebrew Old Testament, begin at this time.
It would be the earliest recorded Hebrew prophetic work and would be composed by a father and
son having the name Isaiah ("Salvation of Jehovah": Yeshayahu (Heb.). The warnings would
begin in the reign of Uzziah and end with the beginning of Manasseh's reign, a king of Judah who
came to the throne in 697 B.C. Manasseh was an open idolater who was captured and taken to
Babylon as a prisoner. He ultimately repented and was restored to his kingdom in Judah.
The first half of the writings consist mainly of declarations of the sins of the Hebrew Israelites and
cautions which pronounce the judgements which such sins are expected to bring. The last 27
chapters, in particular, provide hope that a glorious future will come to Israel following a period
of judgement and spiritual cleansing.
721 B.C.
Israelite pride and selfishness results in their ignoring the Guidance offered by their God following the death of King Solomon, are conquered by the king of Assyria when he captures Samaria (Jewish Old Testament, 2 Kings, 17: 6). With the destruction of Samaria, the kingdom of Israel ends.
700 B.C.
Reversal of the Earth's Magnetic Field is believed to have occurred near this time.
Such reversals, depending on the duration required to make the change may arise from one or several influences and can result in catastrophic weather and climate changes. additionally, changes in the admission of dangerous radiations from space into the Earth's lower atmosphere may also result in fatal though short duration events.
695 B.C.
The Greek Tradition of Law was first converted from the earlier oral tradition to a written one.
This contributed to the development of legal institutions (bureaucracies) and
concepts which challenged the authority of the king-judge and the priest-judge. With the
formalization and common awareness of the law, it would be more difficult for judges to provide
idiosyncratic judgements according to their moods, prejudices, or vices. In the future, political
tyranny would prevail some of the time and civil rights would prevail at others.
662 B.C.
Assurbanapal, King of Assyria, conquers Egypt, making it a province of Assyria.
Provincial princes ruled as governors. His empire spanned a wide area which included Sumeria, Babylon, Nineveh, Kanesh, Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, Memphis. It is possible that secret
scientific knowledge was transferred between the highest authorities of each province.
Assurbanapal encouraged and guided the studies of his learned men.
He is reported to have said in pointing to the desert one day:
"Powerful cities stood there in very ancient times.
Their walls have disappeared, but we have tablets on which the language of their inhabitants is engraved."
Thousands of tablets were taken from the ruins of Nineveh (it contained over 22,000 tablets), and
20,000 are said to have been retrieved from the Sumerian-Babylonia area. Subjects included:
poetry, history, philosophy, medicine, astronomy, and business. Supported by all of Assyria's
enemies, his brother Shamashishumukin rose against him making it impossible for him to retain
Egypt.
625-500 B.C.
"The Origin of Life", according to the Hindu Brhadaranyaka Upanishad answers the speculations of the intellectuals of the time regarding the origin and creation of the cosmos. Many inconsistent theories are presented without exclusivity.
In the beginning nothing existed but Death, identified with Hunger, in one instance, the student is told. After producing the elements and space, Death "longed for a second self" and produced
the Year. The first inclination of Death and hunger was to eat up his firstborn son, but he decided
against it, thinking "If I should eat him I should make my food less!" So Death created the whole
world and all that it contains, including humans, as food for himself.
This rationalization identifies hunger as one of humanity's dominant concerns from the beginning
of organized and mass cultures with their development of technology and reliance on human-based authority. The expectation that death will be a state devoid of life (in any form able to be
understood at this time) yet imbued somehow with the anxiety and motivation of Hunger,
expresses the concept of an pre-cosmic Will. The patterns of life and material reality, expressed
over time (Year), not time itself, are rationally produced after the creation of the Matter, Energy,
and Space. It should be noted that this is entirely logical from a materialistic viewpoint.
That an "intelligent Will" planned the cosmos (as a System), is one of several other viewpoints that could be considered as the opposite: First, in accord with the patterns and natural laws by which it
would function, and then, adding the components of Matter, Energy and Space to the System
according to the requirements necessary for the system to Activate. Within this story, the
components are created and then a system "evolves" from a longing for companionship, self-acknowledgement, and/or the opportunity for sharing. It is further acknowledged that death and
hunger are perceived to be states of desperation, urgency, impatience - intensity. It is
acknowledged that the Creator, Death, has resisted the inclinations of Hunger and has afforded
grace to his creation such that it will supply food from its surplus production. Perceptions tend to
develop from one's experiences and from the environment that structures those experiences.
The concern, some would justify it as an interest, with the creation is really a discomfort about the
justice of life. Spiritually, there is no concern with an origin, an ownership, a rational purpose - to justify life. Spiritually, life is an opportunity to live. To the extent that an individual does so constructively, a great amount of personal satisfaction can be experienced. The failure to effect contentment with relative ease induces a conflict between attitudes, motives, feelings, and actions
which shortcut the processes of life so that material benefits can be received more immediately -
some would say without fairly earning them, and, those spiritual and constructive attributes which
provide for "earned" benefits which extend far beyond the material and may or may not include
the material, in the shorter term. What can force challenge, materially, is hunger.
Hunger is either unknown to or is coped with by hunting and gathering bands.
Even herding nomads are reasonably proficient in avoiding hunger.
Agarian societies, especially if they have exploding populations, extensive government bureaucracies for military and public services, and, use irrigation, inevitably fall victim to famine, materially stratified societies, and, the threat or the reality of short-term or chronic hunger. Thus, the Indian agrarian mass society presupposes
hunger. The prospect of hunger, irrespective of one's heritage or morality, encourages a
preoccupation with the purpose of one's life. One can no longer take life for granted and simply
enjoy it. Yet within a highly structured mass society, real options are few. The question of
despair becomes: "If I must be here in misery, why was I created?" The question arises because
the spiritual connection which the individual can have with the cosmos and God has been broken.
The element of implied surplus is the final key of connectiveness to an agrarian society of this perception. A gatherer would find this concept a waste of time and an aggravation to the soul. Death, the Creator, does not kill and eat his son out of the realization that his son will produce more "material", part of which will be sufficient to feed the Father. This passive co-dependency would be unthinkable in the personal self-sufficiency of the hunting and gathering bands and would be considered within nomadic herding societies only to the extent that domination of another tribe and the theft of part of its produce could be materially
advantageous.
Within an large agrarian society, this "system" becomes elementary.
Without authority there is no order. Without order and relative homogeneity of tasks, there is no
production. Yet if there is a benefit to production from order, then the authority which provides
the structure for that order must be sustained. Services cannot be supplied without payment,
sacrifice, a share of profits, or, the service provider starves to death and the service ends. So
addictive is the co-dependency of an agarian structure of hierarchical authority that once
imprinted the individual is incapable, without great difficulty, of survival without the system.
Any consideration of removal of the human-based authority becomes unconsciously equal to self-annihilation.
Remove the structure, and the individual no longer has a social identity -
without which there is no order and no co-dependent sufficiency. This rationalization of
creation both promotes the basic political concepts of the mass agarian society, and, justifies
them. Industrialization, commercialization, and info-techno-service are logic structural extensions of agrarian materialism with its authoritarianism and pseudo-science.
In a society so ordered and structured that parents abandon their children for materialistic social expectation, often overwork and debt, paranoid schizophrenic oriented children are spawned. These are susceptible to the infantile yearning expressed in the movie, The Matrix, in which a "savior" is necessary to enable a choice to be available to individual humans that allows the "freedom" from all authority, structure, responsibility, commitment, sharing. The vision is of the fantasy reality of the idealist in opposition to the hypersensitive paranoia of the emotionally damaged. Life is viewed as an exclusion from what one has been excluded from: the ultimate adult temper tantrum. A balance does not exist in either extreme.
612 B.C.
The Assyrian city of Nineveh is sacked together with the cities of Ashur and Charron by the Babylonian, Nabopolassar and the Median, Cyaxares. Ninua (as noted in the
writings on the city walls, was burned and buried and not rediscovered until 1841 A.D. In the
sacred book of Jonah, it is spoken of as "a great city." It is also noted in Genesis, chapter 10. An
ancient capital of Assyria, it extended for 2-1/2 miles along the Tigris River, in one of what had
been one of the world's most productive agricultural regions. It had elaborate moats and
defenses.
A large library of 22,000 clay tablets containing records of poetry, history, philosophy, medicine,
astronomy, and business was destroyed. The population was entirely wiped out: murdered or
enslaved. The land was "laid waste" - indicating that the irrigation works were destroyed and
crops burned. Several centuries earlier, the Assyrians had become renown for their cruel
suppression of those they conquered.
606 B.C.
Jerusalem ("The Holy") is conquered by the Babylonian Empire and Israel ("he that strives with God") became subjugated. God had placed Israel in a position of privilege relative to other nations: it had been "assisted" a number of times in its striving for independence and autonomy. The Israelites had continued to disobey the "Word" of God which had been given to them, so God allowed the Babylonian Empire to conquer Jerusalem and for Gentile nations to rule over it for the period of their "opportunity".
During the reign of Zedikiah, king of Judah, God instructed the prophet Jeremiah to put an animal
harness or yoke on his neck and go before the ambassadors of all of the nations gathered in
Jerusalem and tell them that their countries would come under the Gentile world order of
Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, having conquered Jerusalem, returned home with a group of
captive Jewish leaders. They were to be trained in the wisdom of the Babylonians and were to
serve as advisors regarding the administration of their peoples. It was a custom of the times to
show respect and honour to those who had captured your territory yet spared your life. First, it
was an acknowledgement that their means and skills, and thus their culture, was superior to your
own - for you had lost the battle. Secondly, it was an acknowledgement that the victors had
chosen to spare your life rather than executing you as an enemy; they "owned" your life. Thirdly,
political leaders who were successful usually recognized that racial and cultural groups follow the
leadership of their own representatives in a more peaceful manner than the autocracy of a foreign
culture and leader. Fourthly, it was expected by the gracious and proud victorious nation that the
conquered would want to become citizens of the victorious nation and learn from the successes of
that nation.
In summary, the greatest conquest which a victor could make was the persuasion of
the spirit of the conquered to accept the authority of the victor, voluntarily contribute to the
power of the victor, and, support the beliefs and practices of the victor. Whenever this could be
accomplished, the enlarged state would benefit from orderliness, cooperativeness, material
prosperity, and, the taxes would be paid which determined the degree of lifestyle to which the
administrative hierarchy would live. A Jew by the name of Daniel was one of these captives. He
distinguished himself within the Babylonian culture as a professional and a manager according to
his advice and achievements.
Jeremiah, the Jewish prophet, continued to prophesy to the Jews now living under the authority
of the occupational army and administration of Babylonia in Jerusalem. He declared that "this
whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of
Babylon 70 years."
596 B.C.
Daniel, a Jewish Prophet, while in Babylon, is called to interpret a dream which King Nebuchadnezzar has had.
The proud king's dream is interpreted as his having a
period of insanity for a period of 2520 days, that is, 7 biblical years of 360 days each. The king
did become violently mad for such a period, at the end of which, restored, he became humble
before God as he recognized that God alone truly reigns.
The dream and the incident have been further interpreted by scholars as a microcosm of future
human history with the "days" being equal to "biblical years of 360 days." The simple, and
erroneous addition of 2520 Earth years to 606 B.C. equals the date 1914 A.D., the beginning of
WWI. However, the mentioned 2520 days were "biblical" days such that 2520 years of 360 days
would yield 907,200 days; that is, 2483.8 Earth years according to the modern calendar. This
gave a prophetic date of 606 B.C. plus 2483.8 arriving at A.D. 1878.
Grant R. Jeffery would point out in 1988, Peter likened the delay in the commencement of
the prophesy to the postponement of the worldwide flood in Noah's era, when God waited 120
years because "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is
long-suffering towards us (provides grace and mercy), not willing that any should perish, but that
all should come to repentance." [2 Peter 3: 9] Jesus followed this up with "But as the days of
Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." [Matthew 24: 37]. Again, correcting
for the Biblical reference of 120 years of 360 days, the modern Earth year equivalent becomes
118.3 years. Now, if we add the corrected "years" of 2483.8 plus 118.3 to the starting date of
606 B.C. we arrive at 1996 A.D. or 1997 A.D. A further prophesied judgement of 3-1/2 years of
Great Tribulation would take the date of return to almost the year 2000 A.D.
595 B.C.
75% of the Earth's Forests are still intact at this point.
At least 80% of North and South America would be covered with deciduous, coniferous, or jungle forms of
forest. 80% of Africa was also forested with the Sahara Desert being much smaller than in 1996
and with the Kalahari desert non-existent. 80% of Europe and what would later be politically
termed the Soviet Union were also forested. Southeast Asia and Japan were totally forested.
With considerable use of agriculture in China and India, forest coverage had already been reduced
by 50%. Deforestation would continue relative to population growth. By 1996, forests which
had once covered 44% of the Earth's land area had been reduced to a coverage of only 8.5%.
In particular, deciduous forests would be cleared to permit an expansion of agriculture.
Even to 1996, other types of forest would be cleared for this intent even though it was well known by then
that coniferous forest soils were poor for agriculture and highly subject to erosion when cleared,
and that jungle soils were too thin and porous for agriculture and that they became sterile and
subject to erosion within several years of clearing. While the intent of agricultural use was to
provide an increase in available food per settler and use the excess for emergencies and to
promote governing structures as well as an increased material satisfaction - the effective result
would be to enable a continual population explosion of humans. The benefits of forests would be
reduced; the hardships of humans would increase.
Some benefits of forest preservation are these:
a) More even heating of land masses due to continuous land cover;
b) Even dispersion of winds near the ground reduces storm effects;
c) Dispersion and collection of rain by vegetation limits flooding;
d) Diffusion of sun reduces the dry parching of the ground/soil;
e) Optimum environment for promoting a variety of lifeform species;
f) Renewable energy and food sources which are always available;
g) Large quantities of oxygen and carbon dioxide are produced;
h) More frequent short electrical storms increase ozone buildup;
i) Less advantageous for political and military activities;
j) Conducive to self-sufficient lifestyles;
k) ... add more of your own.
Some of the results from a reduction of these features include:
A) More hot/cold wet/dry fluctuation of temperate climates;
B) More violent wind and storm influences at ground level;
C) Increased soil erosion, soil sterilization and salination;
D) Creation of and spread of low rainfall and desert regions;
E) Extinction of plant, animal, insect, and reptile species;
F) Dependency on industrial sources of supply increases;
G) Atmospheric oxygen and ozone levels are subtly reduced;
H) Larger, longer, fewer, more violent electrical storms;
I) Easier to organize large numbers of people;
J) Easier to spread contagious fatal diseases;
K) Less likely to be able to maintain self-sufficient lifestyles.
592 B.C.
Ezekial, a Jewish prophet, considered reliable and respectable, looked up and saw bright lights zig-zagging across the sky. As he watched, the lights turned into wheels and
wings that emitted shinning sparks. They soared to frightening heights; while ascending and
descending, their flashes illuminating the sky. The wheels and wings made strange noises as they
moved erratically through the air. Finally, a strange object evolved and as it landed, four
creatures, half human and half animal, descended from the craft and approached the lone observer.
They instructed him as to his people, the counsel he should offer them, and of the future events
which would occur if the people did not change their ways.
Ezekial 1: a whirling came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire unfolding itself, and a
brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of
the fire. Also ... came the likeness of four living creatures ... they had the likeness of man ... had
four faces ... four wings ... their feet were straight ... and like the sole of a calf's foot: they
sparkled like the colour of burnished brass ... they turned not when they went ... their appearance
was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the
living creatures; and the fire was bright ... as for their rings, they were so high that they were
dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them ... for the spirit of the living creature
was in the wheels ... And the spirit entered into me when he spake unto me ....
And when the living creatures ... were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up ....
And when they went, I heard the noise of wings, like the noise of great waters ...."
The sound of an American Saturn V rocket taking off has been likened to the thunderous roar
sound of Niagara Falls. There are few technologies of which humans are aware sounds like that.
The sighting occurred at a time of great catastrophe for the Jews.
The people of Israel had been defeated militarily, and they were spiritually and politically weakened.
Jerusalem had fallen to the Babylonians, and the Israelites were taken captive.
The people looked to the prophet for direction.
The prophet chastised them for their unspiritual ways and suggested that redemption
might come following an honest group pledge to abandon their unspiritual ways.
At the time of the occurrence, the Jewish race was in danger of extinction through coercive absorption.
King Nebuchadnezzar had besieged Jerusalem three times, taking 10,000 craftsmen,
artisans, warriors and princes to Babylon along with all the golden and other religious vessels
from King Solomon's Temple. Without leaders, the poor who were left in Palestine were
intermarrying and forsaking their religious belief in one God and spiritual strength. Ezekial had
been a captive in Babylon for over 30 years when the UFOs appeared.
587 B.C.
Nebuchadnezzar II, during his period of insanity, destroys Solomon's Temple, said to contain thousands of tablets of wisdom. The Hebrew prophets learned advanced science in the temple; wild animals were raised in underground chambers, to be used in initiation trials. When Daniel was cast into a den of lions during the Babylonian captivity, he was easily able to control them (The Egyptian priests had the same skill). Nebuchadnezzar II built the terraced tower, the House of the Creation of Heaven and Earth, the legendary Tower of Babel - total height 90 meters. In 598, he occupied Jerusalem; in 587, he destroyed it. The priests helped
Nabonidus, "the archaeologist on the throne", to become king in 555. Unwise measures against
the priests forced the king to leave Babylon.
580 B.C.
Pythagoras teaches students at his school in Crotona that the Earth is spherical in form.
In another 2000 years, Copernicus would be ridiculed and have his life threatened by the Roman Catholic Church for writing the same conclusion.
567 B.C.
Sun Ssemiao, near this time, an early Chinese medical authority, specified a difference between food and true medicine.
The conventional Chinese view had been that
whatever was good for the human body was medicine and at the same time food. One's individual
selection of diet was the foundation on which healthfulness rested. Ssemiao said that when food
failed to keep a person healthy, then, a medical practitioner would prescribe true medicine.
A varied and nutritious diet was recognized as conducive to longevity of life and of sexual vigour;
worry, emotional disturbance, sorrow, and excessive eating and alcoholic use would undermine
not only health but also social and intimate relationships. Within such a diet, they expected to find
asparagus, spinach, lettuce, chicken, fried chicken liver, fried chicken gizzard, carp, tripe, noodles,
celery, dried shrimps, mushrooms, bamboo-shoots, melons and melon soup, scallops, and crab.
Spinach was often fried on a hot pan with oil and salt until it was crisp - with care being taken not
to overcook it. Bamboo shoots were usually eaten with pork; dates were popular in a casserole
with ham; lobster was often served with pickled bean-curd sauce; spiced shark-fin and bird's nest
soup were also favourites.
560 B.C.
The Library of Pisistratus in Athens is largely destroyed.
The poems of Homer represent some of the few surviving remains.
The papyri of the library of the Temple of Ptah, in Memphis, are totally destroyed.
Athens had been founded 1550 B.C. by Cercrops and was called Cercopia until Erechtheus changed the name to Athens in honour of the god Athene.
551-479 B.C.
Confucius, during the Chinese Chou dynasty, taught that confidence was the most essential ingredient of good government.
When asked by Tuan-mu Tz'u about the essentials of good government, Confucius replied:
"They are these: sufficient food, sufficient armament, and the confidence of the people."
When pressed further with the question "Suppose a necessity arose and, despite oneself, it
was impossible to have all three. Which should be dispensed with first?", Confucius replied:
"Armament." Tz'u continued: "And if one of the remaining two had to be dispensed with?"
The answer given was: "Food. Everyone has always been subject to death, but without the
confidence of the people there would be no government.
Human history would be aggravated by governments who built confidence by granting rights to
some at the expense of others; who built confidence by terror, torture and imprisonment; who
built confidence by deception: All of these would fail. Building confidence by honestly
determining what the needs of the people were and then trying to provide those requirements
would seldom by the true experience of many governments.
550 B.C.
The Priests of Sais, in Egypt confide to Solon, whose story would later be told by Plato in his Critias, that 9,000 years before their time, Greece had been covered with fertile
soil. "In comparison to what was then, there remain in small islets only the bones of the wasted
body, as they may be called, all the richer and softer parts of the soil having fallen away." The
Egyptian and Greek numbering systems differed from one another much as the modern British and
American systems differ in that some specific magnitudes carry the same name with
different meanings. Just as a British billion may be an American trillion, an ancient Greek 9000
years could be an Egyptian 900 years.
Thousands of years later, it would be confirmed by scientists that the soil of Greece had been rich
in the distant past and that the Sahara was a steppe where abundant vegetation grew. The climate
of the Mediterranean basin had substantially changed in the interim. Yet, the priests of Sais had
kept accurate records of such a time for perhaps 10,000 years.
538 B.C.
Daniel, a Jewish administrator and professional with the Babylonian government becomes concerned about the future of the Jews as the period of 70 years of foreign rule over the Jews is due to end in 536 B.C. He prays to God for the forgiveness of the Jews which have
(Daniel, chapter 9) sinned ... done wickedly ... have rebelled ... departing from thy precepts ...
have (ignored) thy servants the prophets ... made we not our prayer before the Lord our God
(worshipped idols and material wealth and did not express reverence). Daniel humbly and
sincerely begs for the Lord's forgiveness and another opportunity for the Jews. God sends his
"angel", the man Gabriel, from the sky to give him "skill and understanding." A "vision" is
produced for Daniel as follows:
Jewish Old Testament, Daniel, 9: 24-27
"Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people (the Jews) and thy holy city
(Jerusalem), to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make
reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the
vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Holy.
Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment (a
royal decree to be given in the future) to restore and build Jerusalem unto the Messiah
the Prince shall be 7 weeks (according to the Jewish prophetic Rule of 7's: 7 times 7
days where a prophetic "day" is equal to a biblical year - 49 years), and threescore and
2 weeks (62 times 7 "days" = 434 years); the street shall be built again, and the wall,
even in troublous times.
And after (the) threescore and 2 weeks (that is, a total of 49 + 434 biblical years of
360 days each of the lunar calendar) shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself (to
give the Israelites - "those who strive with God" - a decision to accept the Messiah or
not): and the people of the prince (the Emperor) that shall come shall destroy the city
and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood (of warriors), and unto the
end of the war desolations are determined.
And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week (7 times 7 "days", that is
49 "prophetic" years): and in the midst of the week (at 3-1/2 days : 24.5 years) he
shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of
abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that
determined shall be poured upon the desolate."
NOTE:
The prophesy was not for the near future and depended upon the decree of a foreign king to
rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
536 B.C.
At the end of the Second Captivity in Babylonia the Jews return to Jerusalem.
It has lasted for 70 years, from 606 B.C. This period of captivity had been prophesied by the Jewish prophet, Jeremiah:
"And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these
nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years (Jeremiah, 25: 11).
King Cyrus of Persia would overthrow the Babylonian empire in 536 B.C. and release the Jews from slavery.
Sixteen years later, in 520, the people would receive the Word from the Lord to prepare to rebuild the
Temple.
530 B.C.
Pythagoras taught his students that the Earth was spherical and that there were "10 fiery circles" in the heavens. Much of Europe would believe the Earth was flat until the 1500s AD. Most of the planets in the Earth's solar system would not be "discovered" until the 1800s
and 1900s.
528 B.C. - On May 24,
Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha (Enlightened One) sat down under a great bo tree (banyan) at a place called Buddha Gaya, in India, and determined not to move until
he achieved the enlightenment he sought. He thought for hours during which Mara, the evil one,
appeared and tempted him to give up his search. Gautama ignored him and the defeated Mara
departed. On the next morning, May 25, when Gautama had turned 35 years of age, he had
attained the Awakening. He realized the Truth which "is deep, difficult to see, difficult to
understand ... Men who are overcome by passion and surrounded by a mass of darkness cannot
see this Truth which is against the current, which is lofty, deep, subtle, and hard to comprehend."
The essence of the Buddha's teachings was that humanity should seek a middle path between self-indulgence and self-mortification, which he outlined as an Eightfold Path, consisting of right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right mode of living, right endeavour, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
The Great Truth actually consisted of Four Noble Truths.
The First Truth is that a human's existence is full of conflict, sorrow, and suffering.
The Second Truth was that all of the pain and suffering noted in the First Truth was the result of selfish desire expressed by humans. The Third Truth states that emancipation and freedom - Nirvana, could be found.
The Fourth Truth held that the way or key to such liberation was by the adherence to the
Eightfold Path.
Buddhism as such worshipped no material gods, provided an ethical foundation for harmonious living, held
that all persons are of equal destiny, opposed the caste concept. It would be 300 years after the
death of the Buddha that his ethical principles would impact Indian politics. Siddhartha Gautama
had been born to a noble family in northern India. He had married and lived in luxury, yet when
he was 29 year old he became depressed that the fate of all men was to simply grow old, sick and
die. At that point he had left his wife and infant son to wander the Magadha kingdom, hoping to
find teachers who could give him answers to his questions about the meaning of suffering. With
the teachers he found, he learned to reach a state of mystical contemplation, as was traditional in
the Indian religion of the time.
He was not satisfied with a simple contemplation of existence and
following the advice of others to undertake an ascetic lifestyle, he did so for months. This gave
him a further awareness of suffering but not of the truths he sought. It was at that point that he
sat under the tree and focused his life-system on receiving the awareness necessary to provide him
with the answers he sought. His preparation had led him to the recognition that for spiritual
awareness the human must open his or her mind to receive the "intelligence" which it seeks from
the universe itself.
Buddhism represents the human "intuitive" approach to religion.
Without guidance from more spiritually advanced spacepersons, most humans are incapable of accessing a spiritual plane of awareness. While the spiritual plane is sought in most forms of human religion, the filter of
emotional physical needs, together with dependencies on intellectualization or intuition, usually
at the direction of cultural authorities, make this achievement nearly impossible. Tradition and
institutionalization are also favourite dependencies of mass human cultures and each tends to
restrict spiritual awareness in order to consolidate and extend political power.
Zen Buddhism follows a set of traditions which function to destroy the adherent's dependency on rational or
intuitive thought in the hope of releasing the spiritual. Buddhism is much more positive and
constructive than intellectualized forms of idealism, such as Nazism: it expresses many spiritual
maxims. It does, nevertheless, seek to limit or destroy certain aspects of human character, not
by a recognition of what they are, but by an obsession on what they are not. The concepts of
"right" and "wrong", at a spiritual level do not possess a definition capable of
institutionalization.
On the spiritual level, right and wrong are personal aspects of a Divine Guidance towards a
particular goal intended for that person in contributing to the balance of all life activities and
daily contentment and eventual happiness. What such an adherent is guided to do today may not
be "right" for someone else, or, even for this particular adherent at some or any future time.
For example, due to accidental ingestion of a poisonous plant, it may be right for me to further
ingest a second poisonous plant, today, to counteract the poison of the first and preserve my life.
Ingestion of the second poisonous plant at any other time by myself, or, by other humans may
lead to a fatal conclusion, and, therefore, is "wrong". This example can be repeated with infinite
variation and demonstrates the supremacy of spiritual direction and the potential weakness of
tradition, intellectualization and intuition as decision-making choices.
527 B.C.
The Roman Emperor Justinian completed his huge compilation and consolidation of then recent and classical Roman law to form the Justinian Code. It was toward the end of the
Roman Empire that it appeared, while Rome had its highest degree of political power,
bureaucratization and economic wealth. Like many other ancient Codes, it had evolved slowly,
largely from one privileged part of the population: the populus. It held all of the political power
and was bound together by religious ties. Members were essentially the original inhabitants of
Rome, whereas the powerless group subject to the law, the plebs, were inhabitants of conquered
town, brought to Rome, together with voluntary settlers and freed slaves. The law had two
primary divisions: civil and criminal.
A shared area of law for both groups of inhabitants was that of real estate ownership.
By Roman times, all sales were understood to be an exchange of goods for cash. Regulations for
contracts and more complex trading activities could now contribute to economic power. Priests
governed issues of wills, adoptions, burials, witchcraft and incest. If a woman lived for a time in a
man's house, they legally became married, although it was more a case of ownership.
Contracts were well set out in Roman law.
The law considered an obligation as existing until the
tie of the law was loosened by the thing being given, furnished , or done, or by a new tie being
formed in place of the old; this loosening of the tie was termed the solutio.
If the contract was carried out, this at once put an end to the contract.
But it might happen that the parties wished to put an end to the contract before it was carried out.
Each mode of forming a contract by the civil law was accompanied by a corresponding mode of dissolving it.
In whatever way the contract might originally have been entered into, its terms could be repeated in the form of a stipulation, and then this stipulation could be dissolved by a verbal solutio. The stipulation extinguished the
original contract, as did payments, or any new contract.
If you received monies that were not due to you, by mistake, you were legally obligated to return
them. There were specified differences between the rights of someone who was given an item to
keep and someone who was leased or rented an item. In the former, the person could do
whatever was desired with the item; in the latter, the item was to be returned in the same
condition as it had been received. Also the person responsible for the return of an article was not
judged guilty of fraud if, through carelessness or negligence, the item was lost or stolen. There,
the owner of the property who had committed it to the care of a careless or negligent person had
to assume responsibility for his or her poor judge of character or carelessness in selection.
Contracts of pledge ranged from absolute sale to transfer of possession without transfer of
ownership, to a transfer of both possession and ownership to the debtor. It was only by
agreement that a creditor, who had taken back possession of an article through non-payment of
principal or interest, could make use of or benefit from the item.
Creditor and debtor are terms used more widely in Roman law than in our own.
Every one who possessed a personal right against another was termed a creditor, and every one who owed the satisfaction of a claim, or was the subject of a personal right, was a debtor.
A stipulation was a form of contract made by the speaking of a solemn form of words, whereby the maker of a
promise was the only bound party. Other promises bound the wife and her ascendants to the
husband. A promise accompanied by an oath could bind the freedman to render services to his
patron.
Lapse of time was not, in the Roman law, a mode by which debt could be extinguished.
Consequently, if it were owed, it was owed forever. If a gift was given by legacy, the right to
receive could be extinguished by death. The average debtor who died before the obligation was
repaid passed no equity on to his heirs. If a promise to pay rested on the fulfillment of a condition
which the debtor sought to prevent, the obligation could then be taken as a promise to pay on
demand and became due at once.
Laws applied to slaves.
While a Roman slave had no capacity of acquiring civil or political rights, the Canadian worker does.
A Roman slave could hire others for the benefit of the master but
could not themselves make any promises or take any obligations on behalf of the master.
The Justinian definition of theft is:
"Theft is the fraudulent dealing with a moveable thing,
including things moved from the soil, or with its use or its possession ...
By fraudulent is meant 'with the intention of Committing a theft'",
... and was held to be applicable to a person "old
enough to have such an intention." Instances are set out such that if the intent was to do what
was believed was what the owner would do, the action is not a theft. Tempting a slave to commit
a theft resulted in both a crime of theft and of corrupting a slave; however, counselling someone
in the commission of a theft did not make one guilty of the threat. Again, assisting in the
commission of a theft made you guilty of the theft.
The three tribes of Rome were divided into 10 local tribes each.
Common names and sacred rites were held in common.
The heads of the families met in a council.
Another body, of 300, the Senate, put forward questions of concern to the council and nominated the king who became head of the religious body. Laws, excepting emergencies, were first proposed, drafts written, debated
by the Senate - under the guidance of its leader, the king, and then submitted to the council for
approval. The king was the supreme judge in all cases, although if the accused was from the
populus, she/he could appeal to the council. Plebs initially had no right of appeal.
As Roman law aged in the centuries after Justinian, commentaries and conflicting interpretations
as well as covert adaptation to changing social values and requirements became the trend. In
Rome, collections of the opinions of the judges were used much as English law uses decided cases
- as the basis for comparison in disputes to help solve the latter, and as the basis on which
teachers and writers constructed abstractly stated systems of general rules or principles. Thus,
while Roman, British and Canadian law is, in its basic origins, a creation of legislators and judges,
lawyers have been the moulders of the law through their pleading of cases, setting of precedents,
and, use of precedents in the persuasion of authorities.
A similarity between the Roman approach and the Canadian is that the Roman judges were practical men looking for a solution to specific problems, worked out in relation to the demands of the litigants whom they saw and heard, while being conscious to the changing social demands. A major difference is that Roman judges did not
work full-time at the law but at some other occupation, while Canadian judges and lawyers work
full-time at the law.
In Law in Society, Geoffrey Sawer suggests that this difference allowed the Romans a better opportunity for "sufficient aloofness and objectivity to achieve a fair degree of
abstract and generalized thought". By the time of Justinian, it had come to be regarded as usual
and proper that a legal profession should exist, capable of advising people of their rights,
preparing documents and representing them in the conduct of litigation, though with restrictions
on the basis and amount of payment for services.
527 B.C.
C. G. Jung, Austrian psychologist, wrote in a paper published in 1928:
"Every Roman was surrounded by slaves.
The slave and his psychology flooded ancient Italy, and every Roman became inwardly, and of course unwittingly, a slave. Because living constantly in the atmosphere of slaves, he became infected through the
unconscious with their psychology."
Every large, politically organized human culture would have slaves - persons who by lack of
or loss of material worth, and, by adoption of a co-dependency on the institutionalized
economy of the state, accepted or were forced to accept the domination of others over their
rights and freedoms. Often, the individual was conditioned to believe by education and
social ethic, that for a contribution to the greater society through work, material subsistence
and growth could be expected. For those who desired material excess founded on despair,
traumatic insufficiency, or greed - the social ethic would offer examples of those who by
accepting high risk earned high profit.
The reality of major failures in both ethics was
hidden by the pride of those who failed and the denial of those who ruled. Most who took
high risks failed. Many who depended upon the success of specialized work depended upon
the desires and capabilities of others; those were unstable, and many ended in poverty.
520 B.C.
The Cheyenne, a hunting and gathering band in North America, are visited by a female spaceperson from the Pleiades. She instructed a representative of the band in a
variety of spiritual principles which could provide them with a contented lifestyle despite their
human genetic weaknesses. A man, Sweet Medicine, had journeyed with his wife to the Sacred
Mountain by the Black Hills (North Dakota), where, in a large cave, he had met with his
Pleiadian mentor, Maiyun (the personified great spirit).
Several ceremonies were prescribed for the Cheyenne by Maiyun to provide experiences,
education and a sense of reverence about one's responsibilities and life on earth. As the band
adopted more of a tribal structure and their environment became more harsh, the ceremonies
became more extensive and incorporated new aspects intended to build group harmony and peace.
These ceremonies included the Renewal of the Arrows and The Massaum (Contrary) or Animal
Dance.
Maiyun gave Sweet Medicine four symbolic arrows: two to protect the Cheyenne from human foes; two to assist them in their hunting. These were not super-advanced technology-driven
weapons left by spacepersons who were themselves technologically advanced. They were
spiritually focusing everyday tools left by a spiritually advanced spaceperson. As sacred objects
they were used in a hypnotic fashion to focus the attention of the people on the challenge at hand
and encourage them to use spiritual skills in resolving those concerns. Maiyun sympathized with
the challenges of the Cheyenne and knew that persistence, self-confidence and self-esteem
together with the natural humility of this close-to-nature band society would provide the simplest,
safest and most effective antidote to challenge and thus assist in enabling happiness and success.
The two buffalo arrows, when ritually pointed at the buffalo, were to make the buffalo confused
and helpless; easily surrounded and killed: the band would not die of starvation. The two man
arrows, pointed ritually at an enemy before the attack, were to blind and befuddle the foe. The
Arrows were proof against ultimate disaster, an assurance that in spite of challenges all would
prosper.
The Arrow Renewal Rite was pledged by every individual who wished to do a great thing. It was a commitment to the supernatural, undertaken under great stress or anxiety. The whole band
would contribute or loan whatever they could to the preparations for the 4 day long ceremony.
Symbolically, willow tally sticks were prepared for every Cheyenne family, smoked in incense,
exposed to the sun. After this, the sacred arrows were attached to a pole, laid on an animal skin,
and offerings were placed alongside the pole by the priests and by boys. Then, with all of the
females hidden in tipis (teepees), every Cheyenne male passed before the arrows to receive their
beneficial influence.
The ceremony emphasized the dependence of humans upon the beneficial help of the supernatural world; that humility and reverence are stronger than pride and disrespect
- for they encourage awareness rather than intolerance. It restates the norms of the society such
that right conduct in individual and group life, as defined by Sweet Medicine when he returned
from meeting with Maiyun, will lead to prosperity.
Among the behaviourial requirements stipulated by Maiyun, were those attached to sexuality.
Pleiadians are not perfect, but they do have the capacity for mental telepathy which, in reverse,
becomes mindreading. Having the ability to perform time travel as well, they have some
understanding of the biological "mutation" in humans which increases the sex drive of the species
relative to other hominids, and, the trauma induction of energy blocks --- which can lead to an
expression of obsessiveness with sexual satisfaction. They also know that, uncontrolled or
mediated, these characteristics will lead to the misery and eventual extermination of humanity.
To counter human sexual excess, Maiyun advised that all males should wear a Breechcloth: a square of animal skin worn in front of the genitals, on a cord suspended around the waist. An implanted suggestion was
that the males virility was limited; the more sex-to-ejaculation he experienced, the earlier he
would lose his virility. Abstinence was thus to be encouraged with the expected advantage being
long-term virility and greater energy. Such abstinence on the part of both genders, minimized the
amount of hostility and jealousy which often arises between human males. Sexual intercourse was
largely reserved for procreation purposes, and, with such infrequency of activity, the degree of
shared sexual awareness and enjoyment would have been minimal and less likely to develop into
an addictive behaviour.
Spiritual benefits of the ceremony include: motivation and perceived reward for doing one's
best; sharing for the benefit of all; acceptance of all individuals as valuable to the survival and
happiness of the whole (with the exception of murderers who were banished and not included in
the ceremony); humility in the awareness of one's ignorance about the workings of the world;
reverence for those beings which are more aware of the operation of the universe than ourselves;
rehabilitation of delinquents and criminals after punishment is extremely important; prayer and
well-intended behaviour win the approval of the superhuman spirits.
In the "Massaum (meaning "crazy"), Contrary or Animal Dance", all members of the tribe
prepare for a great collective hunt. Persons dress up and impersonate some animal acting in a
peculiar way as well as the movements and characters of normal animals such as wolves, buffalo,
elk, deer, foxes, mountain lions, horses, bears, antelope, coyotes, cranes and blackbirds. Those
who are costumed are hunted by members of the Bowstring Society, also called Contrary
Warriors. These bravest of brave hunters clown around by doing things backwards. Meanwhile,
the women build a symbolic antelope or buffalo corral with 2 divergent arms opening toward the
opening of the camp circle.
The intent of all the mimicry and clowning is to confuse the wild animals of the hunt by making hunting moves which are the opposite of what the animals would react to with defense and evade capture. At various points in the ceremony, the "animals" enter the corral, of their own will, which is what the Cheyenne want to happen in the real hunt. With the celebration over, the whole tribe moves out on the great buffalo hunt, with joyful confident attitudes and a desire to work together for success. Their prayers, they believe, will result in the
Earth being replenished in their favour and that their mastery over the conditions and the animals
of the hunt will be positive.
The spiritual aspects of the "Animal Dance" include these: the generation of a happy and positive
attitude among the participants; involvement by all of the tribe in roles which have an equal
importance to the success of the ceremony; an acknowledgement of and respect for each of the
wild animals which will be sought (you cannot mimic successfully something in which you have
no interest); actions are what decides your degree of participation (intellectualizing, bragging,
promising and intending are of no practical benefit to survival by hunting); planning and
strategy are important to the success of great actions; a flexibility of thinking styles will better
allow the hunter to outwit the quarry; prayers will calm the emotional and intellectualizing part
of the human mind and permit the intuitive and spiritual decision-making elements to dominate
and so provide much more constructive and fruitful decisions than are usually developed by
conscious rationalization and discussion.
The political structure of the band society would evolve to that of a tribe wherein 10 bands joined
together under the direction of one chief guided by the advice of a council of forty-four. This
council is totally composed of peace-chiefs, all of which are proven warriors, but who must resign
their military affiliation to be a peace chief. They are chosen for a 10-year term of office during
which time they will act as a protector of the people and a father to every member of the tribe.
Alternatively, the qualities expected of the tribal chief are these: even-tempered good nature;
energy; wisdom; kindliness; concern for the well-being of others; courage; generosity; and
altruism. Tribal chiefs give constantly to the poor.
From the earliest age, females were taught sexual chastity by threat of shame within the community.
Courtship is a bashful affair often running for 4 years or more, after which the
question must be presented by an old female or other relatives to the girl's parents. Marriage is
regarded as very much of a commitment which should be given the best of consideration. The
would-be husband would express his intent to his relatives. If they did not agree that the match
was a good one they would not support his endeavour and he would likely fail. If they supported
him, they would contribute gifts of household articles which would be offered to the relatives of
the brides-to-be, and which they would keep if the match was agreed to.
The parents of the brides-to-be would then gather her relatives and they would discuss the merits and make a
decision. If agreed, the brides family will then respond with gifts of equivalent value to be given
to the couple as marriage gifts. The parents of each family work together to provide the
necessities of home for the new couple.
Sweet Medicine prophesies that strangers will come from the East and destroy the buffalo.
With its destruction, the lifestyle of the Cheyenne will be destroyed and they will lose their freedom,
dignity and land. Remember this prophesy, most of the Cheyenne did not.
520 B.C.
The Second Temple of the Jews is begun on the 24th day of the ninth month (Chisleu - modern day December).
509 B.C.
Tarquinius Superbus became the last Roman king when the tribe rebelled against his autocratic governing and the 5-fold segregation of landholders, according to size of holdings, which provided more authority and privelege to some members than to others. Thereafter, a leader was elected on an annual basis and given the title, "dictator."
To provide assistance, officials were also elected for 1 year terms to look after the specialties of the justice and the defence. The population continued to grow, more officials were required and more land was
desired. As was becoming true increasingly of the Mediterranean countries, acquiring more land
usually meant taking land from someone else and reducing the freedoms of others.
500 B.C.
Rapid Materialization of Culture in the Ganges valley, India takes place during this century.
Small cities, a fine, new type of pottery with a lustrous black polish, coined money, and probably writing grew in popularity. The kings of Magadha were enterprising. Their kingdom would grow over the centuries to become the most powerful of the recorded history of ancient India.
500 B.C.
"The Art of War", a 13-chapter book on the efficient use of military force, was written by a man named Wu, who would become known as Sun Tzu. Within the short chapters, Sun Tzu set out strict guidelines for preparing for and conducting war.
In the first chapter, "Laying Plans", war was defined as "a road to safety or to ruin" for any state. The "moral law", that is, the social norm, was significant in that it "causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger." Discipline was to be strict and absolute such that everyone would fear to disobey by their certainty of penalty: "When you lay down the law, see that it is not disobeyed; if it is disobeyed, the offender must be put to death." The stronger army was the one trained with
greater consistency of practice, ruthlessly disciplined, and properly rewarded. The winning
general was a strategist, not simply a strong and active fighter.
"All warfare is based on deception.
Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away ... Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign
disorder, and crush him. If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in
superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate
him. Pretend to grow weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give
him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. Attack him where he is
unprepared, appear where you are not expected."
In the second chapter, "On Waging War", the importance of quick victories, stealing the enemy's provisions, anticipating your enemy's actions and rewarding the troops by allowing
them to keep the spoils of the conquest were stated.
The third chapter, "The Sheathed Sword", outwitting the enemy so as to win without violence is defined as a characteristic of a skilful leader. Supreme excellence in war is "breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." The capture of a health country and people is consider far better than to capture a destroyed country and a defiant people. Again, discipline of one's troops is paramount. "Opportunism and flexibility ... are military rather than civic virtues."
Further clarified is the mandate that if the military leader has been charged with obtaining a
victory, his methods are not to be interfered with by the political, social or religious leaders.
Once sent to battle, the general becomes the supreme authority for the duration of the
campaign.
Tzu addresses "Tactics" in the fourth chapter.
A clever fighter "is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.
Yet he does not receive a reputation for wisdom because the public does not know the strategy which the clever man has fit to the circumstances. "True excellence is to plan secretly, to move surreptitiously, to foil the enemy's intentions and balk his schemes, so that at last the day may be won without shedding a drop of blood." If tactics
are appropriate, there is no risk - and the general has won the battle before it begins.
"Energy" is the subject of the fifth chapter.
The fighter who becomes exhausted first loses the fight.
For efficient use of energy, Tzu states that indirect methods (deception) be used.
Simulated disorder, fear, weakness, cowardice and retreat - can all be used to raise the
confidence of one's troops while encouraging the error of one's enemy. Bait and ambush are
more powerful than a straightforward attack for surprise and confidence are with the army
which can manipulate the enemy. The general also concerns himself with the use of the best
of each man's capabilities rather than attempting to mold all of his troops to a singular skill
and a predictable response.
In chapter six, "Weak Points & Strong", the art of subtlety and secrecy are stressed in that a general should not make obvious his intended battle location nor the presence of his army, yet he should spy on his enemy, seek to appear unpredictable and continually be ready to re-evaluate the conditions and his knowledge and modify his tactics if so indicated.
Chapter seven in devoted to "Maneuvering".
Harmony is the key point here.
A soldier acting out of initiative rather than by direct order is executed for his actions, while brave and
successful, may endanger thousands of his comrades by revealing their presence. Likewise, in
considering an alliance, the successful general is instructed to conceal his own desires and
intentions until he knows those of the other party. Avoiding confrontations when the
opposition is strongest in spirit is also advantageous: in the morning, when tempers are keen,
when returning home, when the enemy is motivated by the desperation of despair or the
confidence of a strong location.
A danger of the pride of commitment to a decision is discussed in the eighth chapter, "Variation of Tactics". Being found isolated or taking actions which are isolated and not part of a wider strategy leaves the power of maneuverability with the enemy. Risks should be lessened by
introducing weakness into the armies of the enemy and rooting the same from one's own.
Introducing traitors, intrigue, dissension, corruption, lust, gluttony, pride and other
distractions into the army of the enemy increases their lack of readiness and their lack of
harmony. Five dangerous faults which cause a general to react rather than to weigh the risks
are noted as: recklessness; cowardice; fear of shame; a hasty temper; idealism.
In "The Army On The March" emphasis is placed on which topography to avoid and where best to place your forces on others such that they neither be weakened to the advances of the
enemy nor surprised by them. The finer movements of trees, dust, and troops often suggest a
valuable meaning. And again, discipline must be ruthless though only introduced after the
troops have an awareness of their leader. The most effective troops are those which are
submissive and responsive to commands.
In Chapter ten, "Terrain", Tzu warns of the dangers of indefensible geography and careless planning. A narrow pass may be dangerous to go through; a disorganized army is easily
confused. This discussion is continued in chapter eleven, "The Nine Situations", where different natures of terrain are defined as well as the best general tactic to use on each. Even so, "Rapidity is the essence of war. Take advantage of the enemy's unreadiness, make your
way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots." Anticipation is again preferred - to
judge how prepared your own troops are and to judge what the enemy's purpose is.
The power of fire is discussed in "Attack By Fire", chapter twelve.
Five methods of attacking with fire are considered:
- to burn soldiers in their camp;
- to burn supplies;
- to burn baggage (relief) trains;
- to burn arsenals and magazines;
- to hurl dropping fire among the enemy.
Considerations as to the proper season, available means, the influence of winds, and
the time of day. The spirit of "enterprise" is also focused upon : insufficient rewards for the
troops will find them weakened in faith, harmony and readiness - and they will be useless.
"The Use of Spies" is the title of the 13th chapter.
Spies can increase one's confidence of victory by revealing the strengths and weaknesses of an enemy.
It is acknowledged that other aspects of reality can be determined by spiritual (divination), rational (reasoning), and natural pattern (calculation) - but the disposition, Tzu believes, can only be determined by the use of spies. He defines and describes 5 classes of spies:
- local (befriended);
- internal (degraded officials);
- converted (bribed);
- doomed (counter-spies); and
- surviving (professional) spies.
The latter are to have a special blend of integrity, experience, skill, intellect, strong
will, strength and humility. Knowledge of the enemy is the key purpose in the use of spies.
As the value and technique of spying became acknowledged by greater numbers of human
political leaders, military leaders would receive the support to employ it. The expansion of
human population would increase conflict over the use of and ownership of territory as well
as resources. The poor, greedy and confused would find military service "enterprising" - a
form of thievery and murder acceptable in the god-like human leadership of chiefs, kings,
and generals.
What the human leaders chose to promote was the degradation of the human
spirit of self-esteem, tolerance, intuition, compassion, forgiveness, sharing, self-direction,
and justice in their people in return for fear, obedience, judgement, ruthlessness,
ritualization, dependency, competition, and possessiveness: exchange responsiveness of
spirit for obsessiveness of attitude and reaction. What CHOICES would be made?
500 - 410 B.C. - During this period,
"The Doctrine of Transmigration of the Soul" began to be introduced into the Hindu religion.
While it may have originated with the experience and awareness of the
meditating ascetics, it may also have been adopted or persevered from prehistoric animistic times.
Prehistoric hunting and gathering tribes had much stronger and well used spiritual skills, on
average, than modern humanity. It was common for them to believe that all life in the universe
contained a spirit, a non-material identity or energy, which entered the body at birth and left it at
death.
Some bands extended this belief to plants; others, particularly in the earlier stages of
rational consciousness, superstitiously extended the concept to dynamic features of the weather
and to stable impressive inanimate forms. It was this "spiritual kinship" which encouraged the
hunter to empathize with and visualize and project one's thoughts about the prey being pursued.
While "thinking like" the prey would enable the hunter to more closely predict the habitual and
instinctive behaviours of the prey, there was more. The hunter could also develop a skill of
"sensing" where the prey was without any form of visual or auditory contact. This special sensing
capacity resides in all humans although few develop it into a skill.
A hunter-gatherer understanding of this dynamic was sometimes considered the ability for
spiritually talented persons to be able to "communicate" spirit-to-spirit. Such persons became the
first "priests" and shamans of humanity. Some bands became so reverent and respectful of the life
which surrounded them that they held wonder for almost all forms of life. As an extension to this
wonderment and respect, some bands believed that at death one's spirit (lifeforce) passed into the
expansiveness of the universe and into a new lifeform born soon afterwards. This "next life" was
seldom regarded as human because of the difficulty of rationalizing such a dynamic.
If a person died and was reborn as another infant, should not the infant take on the personality, skills and knowledge of the deceased person? Since this did not seem to occur, the new life had to usually
be non-human. Whatever the source at this point, the concept began to find acceptance in the
Hindu world of order. In some hindu upanisads, the concept originates with a wise brahman
(Citra Gangyayani); in others, it is derived from a wise warlord (Jaivali); others give the credit to
the god of death (Yama).
The response of Yama, is one of the later and more popular.
With many analogies and figures of speech, Yama declares the secret of life after death.
The very kernel of the human being is the self or the soul (atman).
This self is the owner of, and passenger in, the chariot of the body.
Its charioteer is buddhi, spiritual awareness.
Manas, the sixth sense, or mind, co-ordinates the other senses and forms the reins, while the senses are the horses. To achieve the highest spiritual state, the buddhi, through the mind, must control the self-serving senses, and
"He who always lacks discrimination, unmindful, impure,
does not reach that (highest state) and goes (back) into the cycle (samsara).
But he who is always discriminating, mindful and pure,
he reaches that state from which he will not be born again."
Within this context of choice and motivation, it is assumed that a return to the Earth,
irrespective of form or level of authority and privilege - is not a treasured alternative. There
is an assumption that all choice is offered through the dynamic of challenge and that all
challenge is difficult and torturous. While the ideal hunter and gatherer never lived
extravagantly, life was pleasant, the surroundings were beautiful, family life was close and
intimate, and the work of self-sufficiency was intermittently steady though usually interesting
and enjoyable and not often difficult.
Now, as a member of the mass agricultural society, some would live extravagantly, many would live frugally; life was sometimes pleasant; the surroundings were structured to be repetitious, harmonious, uniform; family life was more structured around tasks and duties - more demanding; and, the work of surplus and profit
meant long hours of steady, boring, repetitious, back-breakingly difficult effort. Within such
an order, the majority had no wish for a return engagement - at any level.
Almost every Indian who has not been converted to Islam or Christianity, and whether a
Hindu believer or not, believes the doctrines of samsara and karman (later known as karma).
As a basic principle of soul transmigration, the soul of a dying person passes to a new body
to give life and on the subsequent death of that body the process repeats. Most forms of life,
in the reality and awareness of the believer, are linked to this cycle and include gods,
demigods, humans, animals, insects, worms, demons, and, souls in torment. It is the constant
passage of the soul from one body to another which is referred to as samsara, that is, reality
or the world-as-it-is.
The nature of new life came to be related, particularly in the rationalized beliefs of the Hindu
brahmans, to one's karman, that is, action, work, deed. Predictability was believed to be the basis for order, which itself was assumed to provide peace and contentment. A lack of
choice or participation in this process and a lack of righteous justice would undermine social
order. With mass societies the potential for conflict increases with population size and
density. Motivation beyond force, but not the free-ranging character of spiritual guidance, is
desired. Thus, it came to seem obvious, in this linear, predictable rational context that good
should be rewarded with good and bad with bad. Soon, the concept that privilege and
punishment attended one's moral and immoral activities became accepted as the obvious
answer to end this anxiety.
Projection, spurious and superstitious reasoning extended this belief materially such that a
person born with a deformed arm would be expected to have committed some crime with
that arm in a former life. The luck of the rich and successful were considered the result of
former life benevolent acts. Insatiable gluttons might be reborn as pigs; men of violence
might arise as tigers and leopards. There were terrible purgatories below the Earth. On the
other hand, the virtuous might have recourse to a holiday of bliss in the heavens before
returning in the next life. Thus in the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, the great sage Yajnavalkya
answers the question of Life after death?
"By good works a man becomes good (punya), by evil works evil (papa)."
Initially, this belief was only shared by an ascetic elite in Hinduism.
Like a religious heresy, it seemed to suggest that the order of the universe as set out by the brahmans and the
restrictiveness and uniformity of the caste system could be and would be defeated in the
afterlife. Rationally, this must have caused some concern. If you were a brahman of
gluttonous privilege, or inclination, the knowledge that you would return as a pig could
encourage you to "pig out" all the more.
Much of the time, those of the brahman caste had the resources and the opportunity to easily render benevolent acts to others. This could lead to outrageous acts of waste of resources as one purchased his salvations after intentionally perpetrating immorality. The dynamic of the vice-ridden feast allowed the provider to
participate in all manner of lust with the expectation that such material excesses would be
"balanced" by the goodness of the act of having invited so many others and offering them
one's benevolence.
But for those of lower castes, the resources and opportunities which they had were
progressively less as one descended the scale of authority and power. Rationally, from the
brahman's position of privilege, if the lower caste members knew the concept they could
overthrow the spirits of the brahman, theoretically, and occupy all the "good" lifeforms: order
could become reversed. Yet as time continued and the despair of the lower castes and the
abuses of the privileged castes grew, it became intellectually accepted that the knowledge of
this secret doctrine could restore the order originally sought.
At that point, the concept was released to all the castes and its popularity grew.
Now, if you had been gifted to be born into a brahman family, it would be your duty to your family and to
your soul, to maintain the integrity of that position by the performance of good deeds: shame
is much more effective as a human motivator than guilt. And for those masses who
languished with increasing unhappiness in menial positions of servitude - they now had the
hope of a vision of material and emotional satisfaction in reward for their acting as if their
current subjugation was irrelevant beyond its opportunity to allow them to serve others with
greater enthusiasm.
Now, those in the lowest ranking caste could dream lifelong of being
reborn into almost any lifeform which would be less severely challenged than their present
one. While passively supporting the status quo and the human-based authority system, their
joyful sacrifice would earn them a ticket to some greater freedom and dignity. Even cattle
were treated better. The resurgence of duty and responsibility at all levels of the society
would make turning back an act of insanity.
The pseudo-spirituality which persuaded the acceptance by many of this concept replaced
self-responsibility with social duty; it replaced reverence with a form of materialism -
"payment" for sins; it excused the provision of dignity to those of one's lower cast in return
for respect given to non-human lifeforms; it excused assertion for passivity; it excused self-esteem for shame; it replaced self-awareness with self-obsession; it created pride in self-serving sacrifice rather than promoting humility through service according to the needs of
others.
The intent was rationalized as spiritual; the means were material transactions; the
result was mental and physical enslavement. Its greatest failure was the imprinting of
millions with the expectations, attitudes and behaviours which would reduce their individual
abilities for spiritual awareness and guidance - not facilitate them.
Spiritually, it is the HOW and WHEN that is important in the performance or non-performance of an act, attitude, or thought. To carry out a deed WHEN it is constructively
appropriate is far more important than to have carried it out before it was relevant (and may
have never become relevant), or after it was relevant (when it was no longer either needed
nor necessary nor constructive). In addition, an act performed with confidence, hope, good
will, empathy, compassion, forgiveness, and/or humility is spiritually superior to one that is
enacted out of shame, fear, insensitivity, self-concern, pride, humiliation, or expectation.
This is the HOW of one's participation.
The HOW and WHEN of one's interaction is never truly knowable by anyone other than the one concerned unless the other entity is of spiritual form - such as the Holy Spirit, the communicator of God. Other persons who have
developed their spiritual sensitivity may have the ability to sense the true motivation and
degree of spirituality behind your participation in or avoidance of an activity, but there are
relatively few of such persons. This circumstance is largely the result of the modeling and
imprinting of mass societies which promote materialism (for political and economic reasons)
and human-centred authority (for political reasons).
What can more easily be judged by humans is the outward appearance of an activity, task, deed, attitude.
That is, its WHAT, WHERE, and WHY. Everyone can see or be told about
what someone else has done, or failed to do. In addition, humans are trained by their
experiences in mass societies to "believe what you see and not what you hear." This arises
because many times a person may intend to do something, or, may wish to influence others
by conveying such an intention. Often, before the deed is begun, carried out or completed,
the time restraints, distractions or obligations of the mass community complicate, interfere
with, and deny the resolution of the deed. Thus, the WHAT very easily becomes
authoritative in influence within an authoritarian mass society. It joins such other images of
authority as plaques for achievements, trophies, and other forms of social recognition.
Social recognition is focused and acknowledged most easily in a mass society by the largely
superstitious use of the WHERE of an activity or deed. Locations are designated as sacred
or socially important so as to encourage idolatrous reverence of them as reinforced by the
emotional connection which becomes associated with them through the repetitive expectation
of a special experience or the repetitive consciousness distracting rituals associated with
them. Whether the location is a stadium, church, special grotto, or place made significant by
its circumstantial connection with a worshipped human, one's presence at the altar is
witnessed by others and one is accepted and adopted by the others as a member, adherent,
fan, or follower.
In a few instances, the release of toxic volcanic gases which disorient the
attendee, the provision of special lighting and sound effects which astonish and captive, or,
the presence of special mineral waters, geothermal hot springs, or local magnetic anomalies -
lend reality to the experience of fantasy encouraged by rationalized expectation. Spiritually,
any location which affords an element of privacy and calm and relative comfort is ideal for
prayer, meditation, or some other form of experience of spiritual contact. It is the separation
of the idolatrous location from these characteristics which reveals its true purpose:
indoctrination and the reinforcement of ego-centred traits.
The WHY afforded to one's actions of grace and benevolence is also revealing in regard to
the true value of one's acts of worship. The WHY suggests that a reason or excuse or
justification has been devised or found to lend importance to one's degree of participation and
sacrifice. From a spiritual perspective, truly honest deeds of grace and benevolence are those
carried out when there is no likelihood of social acknowledgement and recognition. That is,
they are acts of the heart, given spontaneously, or acted upon after requesting and receiving
spiritual guidance. Alternatively, the materialistic human-centred authority social structure
commands the individual to perform such acts publicly where points, rewards, or degrees of
acceptance will be returned in appreciation for one's obedience to the status quo of the group.
That is, these are acts of the mind - carried out with the knowledge and expectation that
social acceptance, not rejection, will follow. Even greater is the shame of non-participation
which motivates the individual and is relative to the size and power of the group as well as
the perceived importance of such co-identity which the individual feels. The WHY of the
materialistic idolatrous act can often be presumed by its presence in locations and the
popularity of the act to social acceptance. Yet it is subtly less accurately an indicator than the
other factors for it must still be presumed by the spectator; its significance resides within the
spirit of the individual and available only to highly spiritual entities.
Thus the introduction of the mass acceptance of and devotion to a principle of spiritual reward for material effort is counterproductive in its intention to evolve a more spiritual humanity - to the extent that its
followers focus on, and are encouraged to focus on - the WHAT, WHERE and WHY.
498-400 B.C.
Greece goes through an empire building and maintaining phase in which the Athenians, collect taxes from the less powerful city-states to finance, increases in the Athenian
standard of living. Architecture for the glory and pride of the state and its gods, theatre,
protected commerce, no taxes for Athenians, and an expanding military were bought with monies
supplied by taxes paid by citizens of other cities which wanted order and peace. The Greeks
aligned their temples with the rising and setting of the Pleiades group of stars.
480 B.C.
Athens was destroyed by the Persians.
Themistocles took the opportunity to have the city rebuilt in a more rationalized practical manner and built a 7.5 mile (12 km) long fortress wall around it. Succeeding rulers would erect their own preference of structure on or near the Acropolis, a level topped 500 foot high rock elevation: temples, halls, theatres ....
461 B.C.
Athens begins to discontinue the alliance it has with Sparta in order to conclude a treaty with the Argos, the arch enemy of Sparta. Immediately, fortress walls were built to protect
Athens, after which Athenian and Spartan forces threatened each other and each won battles over
the next 16 years. Commercial competition was eliminated through alliances.
Commercial considerations prompted Athens to support uprisings against the Persians (including Egypt) at a time when Egypt, Sicily and Ukraine were the richest granaries of the world. In the process, the
Athenian fleet was destroyed. Warring against the Persians and the Spartans depleted the
Athenian treasury, resulting in a peace between Persia and Athens with non-intervention with the
city-states pledged by both. Gradually, Athenian coins, weights and measures were introduced
during which time tribute continued to be collected. In 445 Athens concluded a peace with
Sparta.
476 B.C.
A stone the size of a Chariot is recorded by the ancient Greeks as seen to fall from the sky.
462 B.C.
Bureaucracy began in Athens to replace democracy, on the initiative of Pericles and Eephialtes.
Previously, in the city states of Greece, communal politics meant that
eaach resident had a voice in decisions made on behalf of the whole. With increasing population
in Athens and a desire to be more entrepreneurial, state matters and business activities became
more formal and demanded more time. Increasingly, individuals lost concern for politics in favour
of business - sometimes out of need and sometimes out of desire. In an attempt to maintain a
degree of representation and responsibility, all political decisions and rights became the
responsibility of the Council (Boule), the law courts (heliaea) and the Popular Assembly
(Ecclesia).
Per diem capital allowances were introduced for members of the Council and the courts and were
paid by taxes collected from member city states of the federation, the Delian League. Now there
were salaried government civil servants to act on behalf of the majority. Increasingly, civil
servants of high authority became more influential than the aristocracy by way of their political
lobbying, negotiations and coalitions.
Elitism grew further on clan relationships, with the introduction of the concept of political citizenship.
Citizenship became restricted to persons born from parents which were both born in Athens.
The number of persons who qualified for political positions and who held
decisionmaking roles continued to decline relative to the number of persons represented. Soon
professional (full-time) classes of civil servants, military personnel, artisans, and merchants began
to emerge. Pride, greed, envy, and vengeance developed between city states and in 461, Athens
quit its alliance with Sparta and concluded a treaty with Argos, a long-term enemy of Sparta.
460 B.C.
Dogs, by this time, become increasingly domesticated by humans.
While they had originated in Eurasia as early as 10,000 B.C., increasing population concentrations of
humans had led to the formation of stable villages and towns with their attendant food garbage
dumps. These attracted dogs which increasingly came to depend on such scraps and were
befriended by the humans nearby. Humans quickly learned that dogs could be "educated" and
dominated by human masters and selectively bred to enhance utilitarian functions for humans.
Increasing human dependency on agriculture and animal husbandry, in opposition to hunting and
gathering and herding - resulted in increasing jeopardy to crops and herds from natural predators
and wild ranging animals. Crops could be trampled, fouled or eaten by wild animals. Enclosed
and restrained cattle were easy targets for wild predators. Dogs had superior smell and hearing to
humans and easily would make a lot of noise to alert the concerned human of possible
approaching or present danger as well as to pursue, drive away, and, sometimes, kill the offending
intruder. A well-trained dog, one that did not duplicate the destructive activities of the "wild"
animals - would increase and insure crop yield and herd numbers.
Dogs, like humans, have specific ages of development during which they are highly susceptible to
imprinting. When a being automatically copies the activities and behaviours of a significant other
being, such as a parent or a respected being, it is said to have been imprinted with those
behaviours. These are of a stronger nature than habits and form compulsions over which either
so-called rational or self-willed behaviours have no influence for modification. The most common
form of imprinting if that formed when a young animal adopt the larger, more powerful, more
self-assured being near it - as its parent and mentor. This capacity ranges from weak to strong in
different species and the most receptive age of imprinting also differs between different species.
Dogs are most easily imprinted between the age of 6 and 8 weeks.
Either by persistence or by a recognition of this significance, humans found that they could transfer a pup's social allegiance from its own species (dogs) to humans at the imprinting age. Puppies that interact only with other dogs through this period of development never become fully adapted to humans: they never
perceive that they are humans and should learn to "fit in" to human society. For those which do
acquire this perception, there follows a lifelong struggle to try and gain the acceptance of the
human "parent". If consistency of reward and request pattern is present, such an imprinted dog
will learn the commands of the significant human to the best of its capabilities.
As in humans, and other animals, the capacity for specific skill development occurs at specific ages in dogs and complex skill training is rarely successful before the age of 6 months. Imprinting was the major
influence which could separate the normal inclination of the dog to attack fowl and cattle and
change its behaviour into one of "managing" and protecting such resources for humans. With
increasing population density and the conflict between hunters-gatherer, roving herdsman, and,
agricultural farmer - protection of property rose in importance. The dog could fulfill that
requirement in return for its shelter and food. By deception and manipulation, humans could
enslave dogs to gratefully abide by the wishes of humans. With increasing political and social
anarchy, humans came to utilize dogs as sentries and defenders.
Through selective breeding and mutations, dogs acquired a wide range of modified characteristics: an upcurved tail; size variation by breed; leg length variations by breed; coat
colour and texture variations by breed; selectivity of hunting and husbandry skills; selectivity of
features found sensually or visually attractive to humans. Even as dogs could be imprinted with
behaviours which mirrored human attitudes, humans could be motivated to develop specific
attitudes and tendencies from a reverence for the characteristics which dogs tended to possess
which humans normally did not. A number of human cultures would develop from this dog
worship and individual humans which revered such characteristics would also become self-obsessed in the demonstration of these.
While not uniform in expression between all breeds of dogs, the major breeds of domesticated
dogs display the following characteristics:
1. co-dependency;
2. obedience and loyalty;
3. compulsive ritualization;
4. group, crowd, pack-like uniformity.
With humans, the adoption of these characteristics provides a basis for centralization of
authority and power and efficient use of that power for whatever intent is desired by the
leadership. Beginning with the Greeks and "frontier" Chinese, the Spartans, Romans,
Mongols - and numerous other empire-building human political groups - would adopt,
imprint and mentor these characteristics to members of their population which would be
considered to be the elite.
With co-dependency, lazy and weak spirited humans would gladly surrender the free choice
of self-directedness, self-responsibility, and free association for direction by human authority,
mercenary service in return for a supplied level of material lifestyle, and, the imposed
segregation of the status quo. Within this "dog" system, individuals lost the motivation,
skills, and appreciation for self-sufficiency and became dependent upon the collective skills of
a group.
The choice to "team" as an option became a perceived mandate for survival.
Obedience and loyalty, unqualified by spiritual legitimacy, risk to oneself or others, and
awareness of the relevancy of the actions proposed - enabled human societies to be
increasingly deceived, manipulated and sacrificed by leaders more often motivated by greed,
lust, vengeance, envy, pride, gluttony and power than by empathy, compassion, forgiveness,
love, charity, or faith (reverence). Co-dependency and obedience opened great possibilities
for the use of aggregated power.
A society which is driven by technology has been likened to an organization which
increasingly becomes dependent upon the foundation which supports the technology. If that
foundation ever cracks or breaks, the organization will also splinter and disintegrate.
Fundamentally, the use of technology by humans has often been according to specialization
and the extension of general ignorance.
Dogs, for many centuries, would be trained by humans to perform certain "technical" functions which held meaning for their masters and provided the benefits of acceptance to the dogs. The security of cattle, crops, or the person of a belligerent human was of no personal benefit to the dog; it was to the human "owner."
The benefit to the dog was that it could be lazy: develop only one skill, follow orders, and be
given shelter and food.
If the owner died, the dog lacked the skills to survive by itself without exceeding hardship, if at all.
The exception was if it could find a new master which required the same service for the same reward.
Inevitably, in such a "dog" system, the "authority" determines, advertises, promotes, encourages, rewards - whatever service or technology will protect, extend, and increase its authority and power - and the benefits it
derives from them.
Humans in a "dog" characteristic society are patterned to develop compulsive rituals.
Modern equivalents of these are behaviourial and chemical and attitude-based addictions (obsessions).
Patterns of expectation, intolerance, passivity, aggressiveness, distrust, paranoia, and "this society owes me a living" all develop within such a society - while patterns of awareness, respect, assertion, trust, honesty, reverence, and spiritual
direction - are not rewarded.
Projected over a culture, a pack mentality forms in which the
leader can direct the uniform response of the masses according to the use of "command"
words and images. This presents a very powerful culture which is increasingly brittle.
Spiritual contentment and pleasure is increasingly sacrificed for material wealth and pleasure
until the balance becomes so adverse that the scale collapses. Animal worship is one of the
earliest idols which humanity has used to modify its history by.
460 B.C.
Anaxagoras writes of "other earths" in the universe.
Herodotus, in listing the possible intellectualized causes of the flooding of the Nile River, writes that the "most plausible opinion" is that "the water of the Nile comes from melting snow,"
- a theory he considered impossible. Centuries later, it would be confirmed correct.
Diogenes of Apollonia would affirm that meteors "move in space and frequently fall to the earth."
As late as the 1700's, Lavoisier, in Europe, would state that
"It is impossible for stones to fall from the sky because there are no stones in the sky."
Democritus states that the Milky Way galaxy "consists of very small stars, huddled together."
It was not until the invention of the telescope was made that the possibility of larger stars existing in
a much larger universe could be considered.
460 B.C.
Walls for military defence were built around Athens over the next 3 years.
It becomes known as the greatest fortress of Greece.
Armed confrontations continued between the states.
Aegina was forced to join the federation with the result that commercial competition was eliminated and
Piraeus became the most important trading port of Greece.
Organized mass trade continued to grow and a capital-based economy became prevalent.
Commercial considerations (greed, control of trade routes, taxation) prompted Athens to send
agent-spies to Persia to incite civil unrest. In an Egyptian uprising against the Persians in 456, the
Athenian fleet was destroyed and as a consequence, the treasury of the Delian federation was
moved to Athens, for protection. In 448, peace between Persia and Athens was made.
With the treasury, a decisionmaking elite in power, and the political and administrative centre of the
federation all in Athens - the Delian League became the Athenian Empire. With trade providing a
basis for a capital-based society and with a growing civil service requiring a salary, the symbolic
use of currency as a medium of exchange and value became required and encouraged the
introduction of a centralized and uniform system of measures, weights, and coins.
The political value of having a civil service, taxation, artisans and trade - power and authority -
prompted Pericles to organize a general Greek peace conference in 447 in an attempt to end
regional wars and animosity.
420 B.C.
Alcmaeon of Croton discovered passages from the eyes to the brain in human physiology and concluded that the brain received perceptions of vision, audition and olfaction and was the seat of thought. The brain, being the central organ of intellectual activity, he called it the
soul.
The soul was regarded as the source of consciousness and life, among the Greeks of his time.
Fainting was understood to be a temporary withdrawal of the soul and death as the permanent
withdrawal of the soul. One aspect of the soul, termed the thymos was believed involved in
thought and emotion and perished with the body. The Greeks had associated thoughts with
words, words with breath, and hence, for them, the organs of the mind were the lungs. To
Alcmaeon, health was a natter of a balanced equilibrium; disease was a rupture of that balance.
By the standards of most visiting spacebeings, human intelligence was little more sophisticated
than that of any other Earth animal; indeed, there were times when it was questioned whether
humans were at a survival disadvantage because of the negative elements and lack of self-awareness generally exhibited by the average human.
445 B.C. - On March 14,
The rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem is decreed by the Persian King Artaxerxes Longimanus
"in the month of Nisan, in the 20th year" of his reign (Nehemiah 2: 1).
This begins the timetable for the prophesy revealed to Daniel in 538 B.C.:
445 B.C. - Decree to rebuild the walls, plus
476 - 483 (49 + 434) biblical years of 360 days each, =
32 A.D. - Palm Sunday challenge to the "Israelites", plus 49
70 A.D. - destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, plus 24.5
95 A.D. - end of the period of sacrifice
443 B.C.
Bureaucracy and Capitalism continue to grow in Greece under the direction of Pericles who is now elected as "demagogue" (popular leader) annually. Pericles gave the (elite)
citizens what they wanted (salaried jobs, materialism, wealth, routine, dependency, peace) and
they became his loyal technicians and clerks (slaves). Taxes collected from the provinces were
used to construct symbols of wealth and power (ie. the Acropolis) in Athens. Beyond the
provinces, colonies were taken control of by military force and supplies were confiscated as
tribute to support the lifestyle of the Athenians.
By 425, the federation consisted of 400 city-states.
The Athenians are increasingly becoming dependent upon state expenditures for civil
service employment and income (builders and artisans required for road and port development and
maintenance, improvement and maintenance of the military, and, expansion and intellectualized
complexity of the administration). Government expenditures began to exceed income.
Populations in the city-states and the colonies began to object to the hypocracy of a democratic
government which collected tribute and taxes from all but only benefited the few.
From 432, rebellions began to develop.
During the age of Pericles (443-429), Pericles was annually re-elected as a "popular leader" after
the elimination of his opposition. Pericles promoted commerce, technology and power. Colonies
were set up to maintain secure supplies for the Athenian population who were largely employed in
professional artisan or military careers. This resulted in a transition from a entrepreneur self-sustaining, producing society to a dependent bureaucratic society in which many citizens worked
for the state with considerable economic privilege. Eventually, the subordinated allies and city-states resisted the inequality and wars broke out in 431.
429 B.C.
Plague broke out in Athens and resulted in the death of 30% of the population within 4 years.
After the death of Pericles, Cleon, an ardent peace activist before, was elected
leader, and, became an ardent proponent of war.
413 B.C.
Destruction of the Athenian Military occurs when in its continuing efforts to expand its political control and abuse, Athens attacks Syracuse (Sicily). The fleet is destroyed in the harbour and the army is destroyed also. Nicea, the Greek leader is executed and the Greek prisoners are forced to work in stone quarries.
404 B.C.
The Athenian (Greek) Empire dies with the success of its long-time adversary and city-state, Sparta.
The Delian League federation splits up, the Athenian civil service elite are drafted into military service, the city walls of Athens are torn down. Regional wars continue.
400 B.C.
The Maya moved or expanded their presence into the former land of the Olmecs, Tamoanchan, in southern Mexico.
The Olmec civilization had been declining in stability and power from 800 B.C. and the Maya found them either gone from the region now, or of little importance. The Maya would dominate these lands now until about 1250 A.D.
400-140 B.C.
The Celts entered the Po Valley about 400 B.C.; met the Romans first in 390 and sacked Rome in 387.
Receiving a ransom, the Celts withdrew from Rome with much booty.
The Celts (Galatians) invaded Greece from 280 B.C., following the death of Alexander the Great in 323.
This happened at the same time as 3 huge monarchies (Macedonia, Asia Minor and Egypt)
established a regional peace. The Roman forces gradually improved and enlarged and they drove
the Celts west into Spain. About 140 B.C. the Celts moved north into France.
The Celts gradually migrated from their homes on the upper Rhine (Switzerland-Italy-Austria-Germany) and the Upper Danube, to France, Spain, the British Isles and Ukraine. Iron weapons
secured a position of supremacy for them. The tribes were led by warlike aristocracies. Only
priests (Druids) could offer sacrifices and decide legal questions providing them with great
influence.
Note: see also
2600 B.C. and 100 A.D.,
525 A.D., 1115-1200 A.D.,
1550-1750.
400 B.C.
Alexander the Great encounters Smallpox in India.
It is almost a miracle that his return to Europe and north Africa did not spread the illness there.
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