I wondered if they might get new books on Amazon and checked the status for the Zarathustra book. Looks like still 1 left and 11 used are available.
The New History of Mankind: Who Are we? What are we? How did we get here?
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I wondered if they might get new books on Amazon and checked the status for the Zarathustra book. Looks like still 1 left and 11 used are available.
I just found a site where they sell the book, "When Zarathustra spoke" new for $35 and ordered a copy. Postage was normal, nothing exorbitant. The site here:
Mazda Publishers - Search: 'settegast'
After reading Plato Prehistorian and making my way through Settegast's Zarathustra book, I wanted to know more about the topic. From the options, "In Search of Zarathustra" grabbed my attention as a good introductory book and it proved to be one of those books you can't put down.
Paul Kriwaczek's way of writing is intensely fascinating, like watching a very good documentary only that better, because you can imagine yourself traveling back where all the events took place. I found his insights and dot connecting invaluable. I realized that even though I heard the names and places and events described, I didn't have a clue about what could lie behind them. If you're very ignorant about history in general as I was, "In Search of Zarathustra" is a good place to start. Then the academic books are easier to understand and/or put in context.
"Following Zarathustra's elusive trail back through time and across the Islamic, Christian, and Jewish worlds, Paul Kriwaczek uncovers his legacy at a wedding ceremony in present-day Central Asia, in the Cathar heresy of medieval France, and among the mystery cults of the Roman empire. He explores pre-Muslim Iran and Central Asia, ultimately bringing us face to face with the prophet himself, a teacher whose radical humility shocked and challenged his age, and whose teachings have had an enduring effect on Western thought. The result is a tour de force of travel and historical inquiry by an adventurer in the classic tradition."
Fascinating tour de force of travel!
Quite an interesting statement by Gurdjieff. He might be onto something.
The upper Paleolithic Age (c. 35-12 kA BP) is the age of chipped stone, carved pieces on bone, ivory and antler, Venus figurine and, of course, cave paintings.
The Paleolithic age precedes the Younger Dryas (c. 13-12 kA BP) and the 10 kA BP date given by Solon for the fall of Atlantis.
So, the paleolithic artifacts should be contemporary with Atlantis although Atlantis was probably at this point a highly developed civilization about 70 kA old at the onset of the Younger Dryas and having experienced its latest (partial) destruction tens of thousands of years before the YD (cf. transcripts).
What I'm trying to do here, is to reconcile the idea of a highly advanced civilization (with bases on the Moon and Mars, etc. according to the transcripts) with the upper Paleolithic toolkit that doesn't seem to be the creation of a highly advanced civilization.
Now there are several ways to reconcile an advanced civilization with contemporary 'primitive' toolkit:
- Today, tribes (New Guinea for example) are living a kind of stone age life while most of the world is covered by the 'advanced' Western civilization. Were the paleolithic guys, the New Guinea tribesmen of the times?
- If this is the case, why only the paleolithic artifacts survived and the artifacts of the 'advanced' Atlanteans are so elusive (apart some pyramids and other 'odd' monuments)?
- Maybe the paleolithic toolkit is not made of tools but of cultic objects. From this perspective, the paleolithic artifacts, which seem primitive from a functional standpoint, might be evolved from a symbolic standpoint.
- Now, we're 12kA away from the Younger Dryas that was marked by massive cometary bombardments and a destructive Martian encounter. Maybe, most of the Atlantean artifacts could not resist the assault of time and the above mentioned catastrophes, hence their rarity. Surely, most metals, wood, paper, polymers would not survive such challenges.
Of course, if Gurdjieff statement is right, the problem is solved. The paleolithic toolkit is primitive because it dates to the post Younger Dryas time, after the fall of Atlantis, and it was made by Atlantean survivors that had lost most of their know-how, machinery and resources.
But, if Gurdjief is right, how can we explain the hundreds of dating that ascribe the numerous paleolithic artifacts to the pre-Younger Dryas times?
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This is very similar to what Graham Hancock proposes in his latest book Before America. He argues that a hypothetical advanced civilization during the ice age might have used a high technology vastly different from our current one - perhaps utilizing psi - and that the hunter-gatherers all over the mainlands of the planet were equivalent to the h-g tribes currently still active on earth (like New Guinea or the Andamanese) - relatively isolated and 'primitive'. As for artifacts, if the Atlantean outposts around the world were primarily on the coasts, they are now all under water. And if America was the central hub, like Hancock thinks, any traces of that civilization could have been literally wiped off the face of the continent during the Y-D bombardments.
That's essentially what Laura already proposed in Secret History:
Your third point is really fascinating in light of that second bit quoted above: "Maybe the paleolithic toolkit is not made of tools but of cultic objects. From this perspective, the paleolithic artifacts, which seem primitive from a functional standpoint, might be evolved from a symbolic standpoint." Reminds me of Settegast's observation of the 'ritual' pottery items in Iran/Iraq that started showing up around 6500 BC, which weren't used for any 'practical' purpose.
So it could be that the hunter-gatherers were the 'primitives' in comparison to an Atlantean civilization that was wiped out. But those hunter-gatherers could have been pretty advanced, themselves, but with a different sort of 'technology'. And from the genetic evidence that's available, if there was a civilization with global reach, they didn't mix their genes with the 'natives' over large distances, since each region is pretty genetically isolated from others. (Except for that strange Australian/Papuan signal in the Amazon tribes.)
Faulty dating perhaps.
This is very plausible. The usual image of "cavemen" is bizarre because, how many caves are out there for humans to inhabit for hundreds of thousands of years? Even today's primitive tribes do not live in caves. However, there are indications that caves served for ceremonial/symbolic purposes like the very late mithraeums in the first centuries AD.
If there have been many destructions before the YD event (Sweatman postulates one occuring 15ky BC for instance), then the pre-YD artefacts could maybe be the toolkits from those earlier catastrophes' survivors.
Also, another thing that might play into the mystery that presents itself, is what the C's have said about the level of "advancement" of the Atlantic civilization in comparison to ours. Basically comparing us to Neanderthals. So, from that perspective, it might be even harder for us at our level of "advancement" to grasp anything that was left by that civilization. One can hardly imagine what difficulties a Neanderthal might have in trying to make sense of what we do and are in our own civilization today. For all we know, we could find and see traces of Atlantis everywhere all the time, but because of our limited perspective we simply can't grasp nor understand much if any of it. Just think of a middle age person being transferred into our time and this person trying to make sense of anything "magical" that is going on today. What would this person be able to see and understand? Probably close to Zero. And now compare this to what a Neanderthal might be able to "grasp"...
Another thing that might play into it is the history of forbidden archaeology and all the things that might have been discovered and never really publicized. Also, the mainstream Darwinian view in itself could have a lot to do with what archeologists and similar scientists are even able to find and conceive of when they work in the field. Graham's idea that at a civilization might have existed at some point in time that was based on completely different ways of approaching things (namely psychically instead of mechanically, in that case) could also very well have been the case at one point, which makes it even harder to conceive of and grasp any of it.
Another thing that might play into it is the history of forbidden archaeology and all the things that might have been discovered and never really publicized. Also, the mainstream Darwinian view in itself could have a lot to do with what archeologists and similar scientists are even able to find and conceive of when they work in the field. Graham's idea that at a civilization might have existed at some point in time that was based on completely different ways of approaching things (namely psychically instead of mechanically, in that case) could also very well have been the case at one point, which makes it even harder to conceive of and grasp any of it.
I've heard the theory somewhere (maybe from Hancock? Not sure) that the "primitive" tribes were much more resilient than the advanced civilization, similar to how the world looks today: if a catastrophe happened, our advanced civilization would be wiped out quickly, while hunter-gatherers might survive much better. According to the theory, pockets of survivors of the advanced civilization then were kind of assimilated into the hunter-gatherer tribes, where some of their knowledge survived, although dimly, and without the advanced technology etc. Not sure this is a convincing theory, fwiw.
I wonder if we necessarily should date the cave paintings with the stone artifacts? How about uncoupling them? And then, we have to consider than any dating of stone artifacts is based on context and provenance, and I don't know if there have been any advancements, but as far as I can see, there is no secure dating method that can't be upset by a little cometary bombardment.
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That has come to my mind too. What if really it was the series of big catastrophic events, not one, that have a place in the range of time, however quite close.
As far as I understand, dating methods are based on the context of today's conditions and are "thrown" linearly into the past. Linear attitude and understanding only today environment may be far away from being able to give the correct measure of time. They can be correct only with the assumptions that environmental's condition is generally immutable.
Yep. As far as I can tell, these methods can be quite accurate for relatively young artifacts, but the further back in time you go, the less accurate they get. Dendrochronology, for instance, has been used to help calibrate radiocarbon dates, but the tree record only goes back so far (to around the time of the YD), and only in certain places. Still, there are assumptions that the calibrations will apply to all geographical regions - maybe there are pockets of anomalies leading to bad datings? And without a means to independently test and calibrate Paleolithic dates, we don't know what we don't know, i.e. if there are additional factors messing with the dating other than the ones currently acknowledged.
Aside from the question of unknown regional anomalies in the past 13000 years, however, it seems like radiocarbon dating is at least pretty accurate for that time period. The Younger-Dryas stuff, for instance, is supported by radiocarbon dating, archeological stratigraphy, ice and lake sediment layers (Bayesian chronological analyses consistent with synchronous age of 12,835–12,735 Cal B.P. for Younger Dryas boundary on four continents). But then again, all of these could also be fudged to one degree or another, in which case, we're completely in the dark!
Caves would also be the obvious choice for leaving messages by those in the know about cataclysmic events. I mean, if you're aware of the level of destruction caused, where else would you be able to leave messages and have some chance of them avoiding being obliterated.
Right. And it's possible that the numerous artificial underground cave 'cities' that have been found, particularly around Turkey, were created exactly because people realised that, as a last resort, they would be the safest:
Mysterious flooding leads to discovery of 5,000-year-old underground city in Turkey's Cappadocia
Initial examinations revealed that the underground city had three floors and comprised of homes, tunnels and places of worship stretching for five kilometers, in addition to a small human figurine believed to be an icon.
Also:
Massive underground city discovered in Turkey: Was it a shelter during various calamities? -- Sott.net
In 2013, workers in Turkey looking to demolish low-income housing near a Byzantine-era hilltop castle stumbled upon something extraordinary: an expansive underground city that may have housed 20,000 people or more. We think they actually found a...www.sott.net
In 2013, workers in Turkey looking to demolish low-income housing near a Byzantine-era hilltop castle stumbled upon something extraordinary: an expansive underground city that may have housed 20,000 people or more.
In 2014, those documents led researchers to a multi-level underground village of living areas, wineries, chapels, and bezirhane-linseed presses for generating lamp oil. The research team was able to find numerous small artifacts, including stone crosses and ceramics. The artifacts reveal that the settlement was used from the Byzantine era all the way up to the Ottoman conquest, researchers said.
Further: Underground city of Ani, discovered by Gurdjieff, reveals hidden secrets from below
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