Geoffrey Ashe writes in The Ancient Wisdom:
QuoteFrom Greece to the Indus Valley, we find people holding Ursa Major in reverence almost as far back as we can document... In various ways they introduce the Bear into beliefs that connect the centers Above and Below. [...] We have enough to reconstruct a common myth that might underlie all primary versions of the seven-mystique [...] from which the rest follow.
In the far north there is a high and paradisal place, peopled by an assembly of beings of superhuman longevity and wisdom. They have associates and contacts at lower levels. [...]
Biblical editing never quite censored out the northern mountain and Zion's mystical identity with it. [...] The prophet's imagery is baffling, and rabbis in later ages claimed that it concealed a great secret, an occult wisdom. Only the wisest and holiest could expound the Work of the Chariot. Robert Graves has maintained that the God of the Chariot actually is Apollo.[...]
Is there reason to believe that the northern Something was literally there [...] that a cosmic system was actually taught by the Rishis on a real Meru, and carried south and west along several routes? [...] The inquiry has [...] led to what no one ever identified before - an arguable locale, to which the search can be narrowed down.
[W]e are justified in reverting to Guthrie's theory of Apollo. If this god was brought to Asia Minor and thence to Greece from a Siberian birthplace, a real Land of the Hyperboreans, then he implies a northern Something which actually was there: a center of an influential species of shamanism, with Hyperborean Apollo as one of its gods. [...] If Apollo did make this journey from Siberia, the bear-goddess Artemis was probably paired with him at an early stage.
The story of Apollo and his twin sister Artemis is interesting and connects us back to Orion. Some sources say that Artemis fell in love with Orion and was going to give up her avowed virginity to marry him. Apollo, her brother, did not approve and tricked Artemis into shooting Orion who was swimming in the sea. In her grief, Artemis placed Orion in the sky to honor him.Other sources say that Orion had raped one of Artemis' female followers, and so Artemis killed him as punishment. She sent a scorpion after him, which stung him and poisoned him. When Orion and the scorpion were placed among the stars, they were given places opposite each other, so that Orion would be out of danger. When Scorpius is just rising, chasing after Orion, the hunter is just starting to disappear behind the western horizon. The veneration of the bear is so ancient that we even find it in the French cave remains of almost unspeakable antiquity. The symbolism is deep here. A bear is supposedly born as a tiny shapeless lump and "licked into shape". His winter sleep symbolizes death-and-rebirth - or, more significantly, "survival in an Ark". The bear stands on his legs and is an omnivore, like humans.The point is that the bear, Arca, Arthur, takes us back to his origins in Northern and Western Europe and Siberia. The Siberian shamans tell that in former ages all men had access to the gods, whereas now, only shamans have it and that Shamanism itself has been degraded. Shamanism presents itself as the remnant of an Ancient Wisdom teaching which once flourished across the Northern Hemisphere. The main feature of the Shaman's universe is the cosmic center, an axis connecting earth with both heaven and hell. It is often represented as a tree, a ladder, or a pole. The shaman can utilize this tree to travel upward to commune with the gods, or downward to battle demons. Numbers are important: there are a fixed number of steps, or celestial stages. The cosmic tree can also be represented as a mountain with seven stories. The mountain is made of gold and the name "Altai" itself actually means "gold." We note that the Scythians were famous goldsmiths. What is more, even the most untrained eye can see that the art of the Scythians is identical to the art of the French caves and the art of the Celts of Europe.It is clear that shamanism, as it is known, has declined from its original unified and coherent system. One reason for thinking so is that, while there are many local terms for a male shaman, there is only one for a female shaman. Shamanism, it seems, was formerly a woman's activity. In one Tartar dialect, utygan, the word for a woman-shaman, also means "bear."
There is a place called Mal'ta, fifty-five miles north-west of Irkutsk, in country where the remnants of Altaic shamanism are still active. Carvings have been discovered there which include an oblong panel of mammoth ivory with designs on it. The dominant design is a spiral of dots which goes around seven times, and winds into or out of a central hole - a spiral maze. This is the oldest known heptad in the world - almost 30,000 years old.
