ET Influence on History

[Approaching Infinity]

I just finished reading a book by historian Philip R. Davies, called Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History--Ancient and Modern. It's something of a "how to" guide for the study of history related to the Bible. There's an interesting passage on page 141 where he writes:

If historians allow each other to claim that such-and-such an event was caused by divine (or extraterrestrial) intervention, we are allowing a cause that cannot be verified not just empirically but metaphysically, and, more importantly, cannot be controlled. What if all history is really dictated by supernatural beings? That was a widespread belief in ancient societies, including, probably, ancient Israel and Judah. If that is the case, then history is a waste of time: we can neither understand nor explain it. Human motivation is irrelevant, since it is all in principle due to supernatural direction. In my view, modern history writing, by its very nature, cannot include miraculous explanation, even if the historian as an individual may believe in such things. It can be regarded, after all, as a subspecies of improbable event of the kind that the historian is not allowed to propose. Whether miracles happen, like whether earth has been invaded in the past by extraterrestrials, is something that lies outside the competence of history to explain.

This is a common view in history writing. But is Davies really correct? Is it so simple? Or is there a middle ground. That is, is it possible 1) that human motivation is directed by supernatural beings and 2) that history is intelligible as such? Yes, if we accept "divine cause" for history, we can't verify. Just look at all the Christians and Jews who use the "fact" that "God said so" as justification for their political maneuverings. But on the subject of supernatural events and influence, historians can't verify improbable events. Sure, they may have happened, but the equally well may not have happened. And if they did happen, all the can be verified is that much, not the interpretation of the event. Take the Fatima "miracles". Looks pretty likely they happened, but was it the "Blessed Virgin Mary" or something else?

I have some more thoughts on the subject, but I want some feedback first to help formulate them. What do you all think?

 

[Green_Manalishi]

At first i would say that the author opinion is correct , historians should study the actions of Man, and perhaps leave the supernatural to theologians (albeit a theologian that would not use its position to enslave another human in any way, like that would happen :/).
But if human motivation is directed by supernatural beings, what the historian would study would be the personal interpretation of specific parts of Mankind of the said supernatural beings.

Also what would be the definition of "human motivation/human reality directed by supernatural beings"? Something in the fashion of what the C's state: our 4th dimension overlords can go forward and back in time to change everything and we have no real control over it (in this case there doesn't seem to be much room for interpretation, in the sense that interpretation of a given fact would allow us to make a decision to change something).
Or are we talking about an interpretation of divine laws, mystical experiences, divine contacts that some being/entity would transmit to human beings?

In my mind the first question we should answer is, what is the nature of these "divine (or extraterrestrial) intervention", STO or STS, because from there we can understand if this contacts are made to leave us with a chance of interpretation and to learn with it, or are they made to effect total control?

 

[Tigersoap]

As far as I can tell, you should consider the "supernatural" parts as well because, if they are included in the story, they have some signification in the whole of the picture, even if these events are fabrications, they must serve a purpose.
I don't know but considering the STS intervention on the course of the world's events, that's not the kind of thing you should leave out of the picture. That's only valid if you accept the multidimensional reality of course.

I understand his point of view though but isn't it weird to just stick to facts when the bible is not built upon historical facts ?

Well, that's how it sounds in my limited view on this subject and the works of Mr Davies.

 

[ScioAgapeOmnis]

Well history is filled with religion and "religious experiences". The big dictators in history often use dreams and other similar things that could be called "religious experience" to decide what to do, including consulting "mystics" etc. It makes no sense to assume its all just physiological and delusional nonsense until proven otherwise. But what kind of evidence would there be of such a thing? If we are indeed manipulated by something else then we already know it isn't obvious or self-evident, but just because something isn't obvious and doesn't jump out at you doesn't mean it's not there. So one would have to carefully consider what kinds of things might possibly reveal this kind of influence, perhaps an overall greater pattern or direction to history, or something else that wouldn't be discernable by someone who isn't making a concerted effort to look for exactly that kind of thing. Perhaps you are looking for simultaneous yet totally separate developments in different parts of the world - developments that might either be amazing coincidences or more. And perhaps other things as well of that nature, which when considered all together would show that something weird IS going on. But if you start off with an assumption that a historian should leave all the mystical mumbo jumbo to theologians, you're not putting in the concerted effort to look for this kind of evidence, and you're rationalizing the evidence away making yourself blind to it. I think a critical and dedicated historian is exactly the best person for looking for this kind of "supernatural" evidence because he is most informed about historical documents and their contexts and is able to make these kidns of connections. A theologian may not be so versed in history and so is probably unable to make these kinds of connections anyway.

Also, what do we know about our world? We're newbies on the block. The human race came out of basically nowhere and in this vast universe that has no indication of being limited in any way we find ourselves alone. Isn't that at least a little bit suspicious? Why is it that in a universe that had no beginning and therefore logically all infinity of possibilities must've already had time to manifest, are we so alone? Where is everybody? It makes no sense that being in the "middle" of this infinity that we are in any way alone or hidden from others. So it seems like it shouldn't even be a question of us being alone, but a question of - why are they hiding? Who are we? Where are we? What's going on? It's unbelievable how many arrogant assumptions humans made about the nature of their reality in the short time we have been here. It's like a fish waking up in a bowl deciding it must be the first fish ever, in the only bowl that exists, and there's no one and nothing out there and it shouldn't busy itself with looking for evidence of such sillyness, just focus on eating the randomly appearing food (the only food in existence too) and doing its fish thing and just making fish babies. And the fish would study its history just like our "historians" do: In fish year 2001, 180 food things dropped from the sky. In fish year 2002, 200 food things dropped from the sky. In fish year... and so on. Just the facts, don't try to look for connections or meaning or patterns or use them as clues for something beyond the seemingly random and meaningless chain of "events".

 

[Green_Manalishi]

I think a critical and dedicated historian is exactly the best person for looking for this kind of "supernatural" evidence because he is most informed about historical documents and their contexts and is able to make these kinds of connections. A theologian may not be so versed in history and so is probably unable to make these kinds of connections anyway.

I agree with you, when i said in my post that at first i would agree with the author, what i meant by that was the first thought that came to my mind without even thinking (the program just ran, it was just another glimpse of my programs running automatically), but after thinking a bit, yes a real historian should study reality, and reality would be everything we perceive be it natural or supernatural (i know, i didn't clarify that opinion). We have a good example of this in Laura's work.

It's like we start with the illusion/physical reality (natural, mundane events) and studying its relations with the called supernatural events we can perceive and start to try to understand an altogether higher reality/the truth. Those two aspects should always go hand in hand, we could go even further by saying that, as i remember correctly, Charles H. Fort said, there isn't a distinction from natural and supernatural events because if they happen and we can see them and experience them, albeit not understanding them correctly (the "supernatural" ones) they are all natural, they are there, they manifest in from of our eyes.

As a side note, while reading your (SAO) metaphor of the fish in the bowl, i could just imagine the fish seeing a distorted image of a person through the glass before the food from the sky appeared and labelling it as supernatural because the image was so distorted and far way of anything he knew.

 

[Ryan]

To me, it seems that Davies displays a black-or-white, "either/or" approach to the question of "supernatural" intervention in history, ie: 1) Humanity acts as a completely free agent in the creation of history, or 2) Humanity is controlled completely by supernatural causative agents. He could reconcile the two with an approach that admits to some supernatural intervention, and some free action on the part of humanity. Either the idea never occurred to him, or he subconsciously or consciously dismissed it - perhaps due to feeling a "burden of proof" that he lacked adequate resources to address.

Given the level of superstitious and religious thinking around the subject of biblical history, Davies' approach makes a certain amount of sense yet, if an improbable event did occur as the result of supernatural intervention, that in itself is a historical fact - leaving Davies' approach unable to correctly describe the reality.

To some degree, technology has enabled us to move certain causative agents from the realm of the "supernatural" to the "natural" - for instance, in the case of germs as seen through a microscope. Before this, the causative factors of disease often were attributed to "demons" or "foul humors" or suchlike. With such precedents, a wise approach to any historical interpretation should include the consideration that future technology may validate or invalidate it. ET/Supernatural manipulators of history seem much less improbable in that context, osit.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

Given the level of superstitious and religious thinking around the subject of biblical history, Davies' approach makes a certain amount of sense yet, if an improbable event did occur as the result of supernatural intervention, that in itself is a historical fact - leaving Davies' approach unable to correctly describe the reality.

I think Davies would argue that it is not necessarily possible for the historian to "correctly describe the reality". Davies is regarded as a "minimalist" in biblical studies, like Thompson, Lemche, Whitelam, Garbini, etc. As historians they do not deny that improbable events happen, just that they cannot have a place in an objective, critical history. If there is only one account of an improbable event, there's no way to prove that it happened, and chances are that it didn't happen. E.g., it's possible "Jesus" was crucified, but does that make it so? In the case of alien interactions, for example, they may have happened in the past, but the historian cannot say that they DID happen. A drawing of Gods coming to Earth may just as well be a symbolic representation of cometary interactions, for example.

So personally, I don't think historians (as a discipline) should necessarily include hyperdimensional factors in their analyses, but they should at least be aware of them and present them as possible interpretations. For example, let's say an 4D entity programs an OP to do something to further its aim, i.e. it manipulates its reactive, STS nature, to respond in a certain way in a certain situation. There is no way of knowing if this was caused by HD influence, or simply the OP's own STS nature. The visible action is the same and there's no way of knowing the exact cause. The historian can speculate and say perhaps, but that's about it.

On the other hand, densities are interpenetrating, so dynamics in one correlates to dynamics in another. STS behavior in 3D correlates with higher STS centers. So, kind of like in evolutionary theory, you could say there are "proximate" and "ultimate" causes of STS behavior. The proximate is the immediate, selfish nature of most human beings (i.e. their behavior is in the service of self-preservation), and the ultimate is the STS thought center with which they are aligned.

As for direct interactions with HD beings, that's another story, and the range of evidence (e.g. in the Fatima case) can show with greater probability that the interaction did take place, and that it was HD in nature.

So I think Davies is right to leave out ETs as a cause in behavior, because it cannot be tested, but wrong to leave out direct interactions, e.g. if aliens have "invaded" in the past. And historians should definitely be aware of HD influence as a possible causal factor for certain historical events.

 

[sankara]

Approaching infinity
Approaching infinity
You said:
"In the case of alien interactions, for example, they may have happened in the past, but the historian cannot say that they DID happen. A drawing of Gods coming to Earth may just as well be a symbolic representation of cometary interactions, for example."

Fortunately the historians have this approach.

But I am wondering about one fact. The historians rarely, barely describe the importance of secret societies, (individuals with strange powers) in the destiny of mankind, whereas this is rational and documentable. These secret societies are and have been for most of them involved in dealing with a wider understanding of the world we are living in and fashionned the mindset of the so-called earth rulers. This is obviously a case where 'supernatural' is involved in history and influence the destiny of mankind, and furthermore it is documentable according to the academic standard. I mean it because anybody can then understand that this so-called supernatural is important to the rulers who always have wanted to question the "augures", and whatever entities to know how to rule the destiny of nations or organised groups.