Forbidden History: Prehistoric Technologies, Extraterrestrial Intervention, and the Suppressed Origins of Civilization Read online

  To the growing number of scientists and scholars willing to risk their professional prestige, perks, and privileges for the sake of something as ephemeral as the truth.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Were it not for Atlantis Rising—a bimonthly magazine—and associated projects, this book would not have been possible. All of the resources that for the last ten years have gone into the making of that periodical have also served to create this book. The people who helped to actualize Atlantis Rising are the same ones who made Forbidden History a reality. And while it is true that this book represents only a small sampling of Atlantis Rising’s material it is nevertheless representative of the very best that the magazine has to offer. We are, of course, indebted, not only to the many thoughtful authors who contributed to the content of the current pages of the book, but to the magazine’s many other fine writers as well, who though they could not be included here, may yet find their efforts incorporated into future works.

  In thanking those who have made this collective endeavor possible (which includes this book, the magazine, the educational videos, and our Web site: AtlantisRising.com), I must first acknowledge my lovely wife, Patricia. Without her loyal support and selfless cooperation, I probably would have spent the last decade in much less productive pursuits. High on the list are also my parents—my late father, John B. Kenyon, D.D., whose own questioning of conventional wisdom catalyzed my thinking at a very early age, and my mother, Bessie, who always backed me in everything I did, in every way she could, with every resource at her command.

  Among the stalwart supporters who deserve special thanks are my original financial backers, John Fanuzzi, Gregory Mascari, and Michael Stern, as well as Bob and Judy Colee. A few years later Greg Hedgecock (since deceased), his wife, Dianne, and their son, Cooper, put their shoulders to the wheel and helped to stabilize what was then a somewhat shaky operation. Without the generous help of these extraordinary people, this book would certainly have never come about.

  Deserving of special credit here is my partner of many years, Tom Miller, whose brilliant artistic contributions to our early covers helped to set us apart from the competition. Without his participation in so much of the thinking that went into our projects, it is difficult to imagine how things could have unfolded as wonderfully as they did.

  Certainly no list of crucial helpers would be complete without Darsi Vanatta, whose diligent and tireless efforts in managing the Atlantis Rising office for some years now have kept everything working smoothly and growing at a very healthy pace.

  There are many others whom I could also thank, but space here is limited, so I will simply say: You know who you are and you know what your contributions have been. Rest assured that you are not forgotten, nor are your efforts unappreciated. You know how much they mean to me, and how much I thank you for them.

  J. DOUGLAS KENYON, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER

  ATLANTIS RISING MAGAZINE

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  PART ONE • The Old Models Don’t Work: Darwinism and Creationism under Fire

  1. Darwin’s Demise: On the Futile Search for Missing Links

  • Will Hart

  2. Evolution vs. Creation: Is the Debate for Real?

  • David Lewis

  WHAT ABOUT THE BIBLE AND CREATIONISM?

  NEW GROUND OR ANCIENT WISDOM?

  LOST CIVILIZATIONS, THE REAL MISSING LINK?

  WHY LIMIT THE DEBATE TO WESTERN MODELS?

  3. Exposing a Scientific Cover-Up: Forbidden Archeology Coauthor Michael Cremo Talks about the “Knowledge Filter” and Other Means for Cooking the Academic Books

  • J. Douglas Kenyon

  PART TWO • Making the Case for Catastrophism: Earth Changes, Sudden and Gradual

  4. In Defense of Catastrophes: Pioneering Geologist Robert Schoch Challenges the Conventional Wisdom on Natural History

  • William P. Eigles

  5. Cataclysm 9500 B.C.E.: Two New Works of Immense Scholarship Throw Orthodox Ice Age Theories into Question and, in the Process, Corroborate Plato and Many Other Ancient Sources

  • David Lewis

  ORTHODOX ASSUMPTIONS

  LETTING THE FACTS SPEAK

  CONTRIVED SCIENCE

  COSMIC EXPLOSIONS

  WHAT THE ANCIENTS KNEW

  6. The Case for the Flood: Exposing the Scientific Myth of the Ice Age

  • Peter Bros

  7. The Martyrdom of Immanuel Velikovsky: As Catastrophists Gain Ground, an Early Hero Gets Some Long Overdue Credit

  • John Kettler

  INTERNATIONALLY FAMOUS; SCIENTIFICALLY DAMNED

  VELIKOVSKY: INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENTIFIC HERETIC

  8. The Perils of Planetary Amnesia: As Evidence of Ancient Cataclysm Mounts, the Legacy of a Rejected Genius Is Reconsidered

  • Steve Parsons

  OPENING THE MIND TO THE ELECTRIC UNIVERSE

  UNLOCKING AMNESIA THROUGH MYTH

  9. Thunderbolts of the Gods: Does Growing Evidence of an Electric Universe Reveal Previously Hidden Meaning in Ancient Mythology?

  • Mel and Amy Acheson

  COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY

  THE WEAPON OF THE GODS

  ELECTRICITY AND ASTRONOMY

  PLANETARY PLASMA EFFECTS

  THE LIGHTNING-SCARRED GOD

  THE LIGHTNING-SCARRED PLANET

  PART THREE • Exploring the Greater Antiquity of Civilization

  10. The Enigma of India’s Origins: The Dating of New Discoveries in the Gulf of Cambay Upsets the Orthodox Scenario for the Dawn of Civilization

  • David Lewis

  11. Pushing Back the Portals of Civilization: For John Anthony West, the Quest for Evidence of Advanced Prehistoric Civilization Is Bearing New Fruit

  • J. Douglas Kenyon

  THE LEGACY OF SCHWALLER DE LUBICZ

  SECRETS OF THE RED PYRAMID

  TOWARD A PROPER EGYPTOLOGY

  12. New Studies Confirm Very Old Sphinx: Orthodox Protests Notwithstanding, Evidence for the Schoch/West Thesis Is Growing

  • Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D.

  PHOTO INSERT

  13. R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz’s Magnum Opus: The Keys to Understanding the Wisdom of the Ancients Have Been Preserved

  • Joseph Ray, Ph.D.

  14. Fingerprinting the Gods: A Bestselling Author Is Making a Convincing Case for a Great but Officially Forgotten Civilization

  • J. Douglas Kenyon

  15. The Central American Mystery: What Could Explain the Failure of Mainstream Science to Unravel the Origins of Mesoamerica’s Advanced Ancient Cultures?

  • Will Hart

  16. Destination Galactic Center: John Major Jenkins Thinks Today’s World Has Much to Learn from the Ancient Maya

  • Moira Timms

  A VISION QUEST

  THINKING AND KNOWING

  THE BEGINNING IS NEAR, THE BEGINNING IS NEAR!

  PART FOUR • Searching for the Fountainhead

  17. Megalithic England: The Atlantean Dimensions, a Conversation with John Michell

  • J. Douglas Kenyon

  18. Plato, the Truth: How Does the Credibility of the Best-Known Chronicler of Atlantis Stand Up?

  • Frank Joseph

  19. The Aegean Atlantis Deception: Was Plato’s Grand Tale Nothing More Than the Saga of an Insignificant Greek Island?

  • Frank Joseph

  A CASE OF
MISTAKEN IDENTITY

  AN OCEAN OF SUNKEN ISLANDS

  A LABYRINTH OF MISINFORMATION

  A CONFUSION OF DATES

  20. Atlantology: Psychotic or Inspired? Media Stereotypes Aside, What Kind of Person Pursues Knowledge of a Forgotten Civilization?

  • Frank Joseph

  21. Atlantis in Antarctica: Forget About the North Atlantic and the Aegean, Says Author Rand Flem-Ath

  • J. Douglas Kenyon

  22. Blueprint from Atlantis: Doments of Ancient Monuments Have Something to Tell Us about the History of Earth’s Shifting Crust?

  • Rand Flem-Ath

  23. Japan’s Underwater Ruins: Have Remains of Ancient Lemuria Been Found?

  • Frank Joseph

  24. West, Schoch, and Hancock Dive into Lemurian Waters

  • J. Douglas Kenyon

  25. India 30,000 B.C.E.: Do the Roots of Indian Culture Lie Drowned beneath the Indian Ocean?

  • David Lewis

  MOTHER OF ALL MOTHERLANDS

  THE KNOWLEDGE FILTER

  WHERE HAVE ALL THE MAMMALS GONE?

  DISTANT LEGACIES?

  PART FIVE • Ancient High Tech

  26. A Conversation with Peter Tompkins: Secrets of Forgotten Worlds

  • J. Douglas Kenyon

  27. Ancient Agriculture, in Search of the Missing Links: Is the Inescapable Evidence of a Lost Fountainhead of Civilization to Be Found Growing in Our Fields?

  • Will Hart

  28. Atlantean Technology: How Advanced? What Does the Evidence Really Show?

  • Frank Joseph

  29. Archeology and the Law of Gravity: Orthodox Theory of Ancient Capability Tends to Cave In under Its Own Weight

  • Will Hart

  WHAT MORE PROOF IS NEEDED?

  30. An Engineer in Egypt: Did the Ancient Egyptians Possess Toolmaking Skills Comparable to Those of the Space Age?

  • Christopher Dunn

  31. The Giza Power Plant, Technologies of Ancient Egypt: A New Book Challenges Conventional Wisdom on the Intended Purpose of the Great Pyramid

  • Christopher Dunn

  THE GIZA POWER PLANT

  32. Return to the Giza Power Plant: Technologist Chris Dunn Finds New Fuel for His Thesis

  • Christopher Dunn

  THE GIZA POWER PLANT: THE PROOF

  33. Petrie on Trial: Have Arguments for Advanced Ancient Machining Made by the Great Nineteenth-Century Egyptologist Sir William Flinders Petrie Been Disproved? Christopher Dunn Takes On the Debunkers

  • Christopher Dunn

  34. How Did the Pyramid Builders Spell Relief? Do We Really Know Why the Ancients Used Such Giant Stones in the Pyramid’s So-Called Relieving Chambers?

  • Christopher Dunn

  35. Precision: Did the Ancients Have It? And If They Did, Should It Matter to Us?

  • Christopher Dunn

  THE SERAPEUM

  36. The Obelisk Quarry Mystery: Do Egyptologists Really Know How These Monuments Were Created?

  • Christopher Dunn

  37. Behind the Pyramid’s Secret Doors: What Does Astonishing New Evidence Reveal about the Great Pyramid’s True Purpose?

  • Chistopher Dunn

  38. The Case for Advanced Technology in the Great Pyramid: What Does the Evidence Really Show about the Advancement of Its Builders?

  • Marshall Payn

  PART SIX • New Models to Ponder

  39. Visitors from Beyond: Our Civilization Is a Legacy from Space Travelers, Says Zecharia Sitchin, and His New Book Offers to Unveil New Secrets of Divine Encounters

  • J. Douglas Kenyon

  40. Artifacts in Space: For Author Richard Hoagland, the Trail of Ancient ETs Is Getting Much Warmer

  • J. Douglas Kenyon

  41. The Pulsar Mystery: Could the Enigmatic Phenomenon Be the Work of an Ancient ET Civilization? A New Scientific Study Makes the Astonishing Case

  • Len Kasten

  GALACTIC EXPLOSIONS

  CONTINUOUS CREATION VS. BIG BANG

  FIRE AND FLOOD

  LITTLE GREEN MEN

  SIGNAL COMPLEXITY

  MARKER BEACONS

  42. The Physicist as Mystic

  • David Lewis

  A MORE PROFOUND UNDERSTANDING

  HALLOWED SPACE

  ANCIENT WISDOM AND MODERN SCIENCE

  BEYOND THE VEIL

  Recommended Reading: Selected Bibliography

  Contributors

  About the Author

  About Inner Traditions • Bear & Company

  Books of Related Interest

  Copyright & Permissions

  Introduction

  J. Douglas Kenyon

  Just a few centuries after what the experts say was the first great laborsaving invention of the ancient world—the wheel—society crossed a major threshold and headed irreversibly toward the modern world. More than anything else, it was the wheel, we are told, that revolutionized primitive society and set the stage for the great achievements that were to follow. The prevailing assumption is that the rise of highly organized society was unprecedented; such is the conventional scenario for the dawn of civilization on Earth.

  After all, it is argued, if there had been an earlier, advanced civilization we would have discovered unmistakable evidence of its existence. Presumably, we would have seen the remains of its highways, and bridges, and electrical wiring. We would have found its plastic bottles, its city dumps, and its CD-ROMs. Those are, after all, the things we will leave behind for future archeologists to puzzle over.

  But could an ancient civilization have risen to heights similar to our own, yet have traveled a different road? What would we understand of a world that might have employed fundamentally different—though no less effective—techniques to harness the forces of nature? Would we, or could we, comprehend a world capable of, for example, creating and transmitting energy by means other than a power grid, traveling great distances without internal combustion engines, or making highly complex calculations involving earth science and astronomy without electronic computers?

  Do we have the grace to recognize and respect achievements other than our own, or must we take the easy way out and resort to crude stereotyping of our mysterious primitive ancestors, dismissing out of hand anything we don’t immediately understand? Indeed there are some, including many contributors to this book, who would argue that the evidence of a great but forgotten fountainhead of civilization is overwhelming and needs, at last, to be given its proper due.

  Forbidden History, a compilation of essays gathered over time from the magazine Atlantis Rising, aims to put forward such evidence, and to propose ideas and theories with regard to the origins of life and the human race itself that may very well be more in accordance with reality than currently prevailing orthodoxy. In proposing these ideas, we hope to pose some interesting and provocative questions.

  For example, could today’s reigning conception of the limits of prehistoric society be but another in the long line of self-serving conceits to which our ruling elite, if not our flesh, is heir? Take, for instance, the Darwinian/Uniformitarian view of history, which argues that our world is a very slowly changing place; wherein everything has developed spontaneously, albeit quite gradually, over millions of years, without the help of any external forces—no, God forbid, God!—to interfere in the process. According to this predominant school of thought, the way the world works now is the way it has always worked.

  On the other side, some have tried to argue (without the benefit of much public exposure) that our world today is the product of a series of catastrophes. These “catastrophists” tell us that the story of mankind is one of a never-ending cycle of ascents followed by cataclysmic falls. For more than a century, the uniformitarians have dominated the debate, but this is a circumstance that may be changing.

  Probably no one in the past half-century is more directly linked, in the public mind, with the concept of catastrophism than the late Russian-American scientist Immanuel Vel
ikovsky. When Velikovsky’s book Worlds in Collision was published in 1950, it caused a sensation. His subsequent works, Earth in Upheaval and Ages in Chaos, further elaborated his theories and expanded the ongoing controversy. Here was a scientist of considerable authority suggesting, among other things, that Earth and Venus might once have collided, leaving behind a vast and puzzling chaotic aftermath that, if we could just decipher its resultant clues correctly, could do much to explain our peculiar history.

  For such arguments, Velikovsky was roundly and routinely ridiculed. Nonetheless, many of his predictions have now been verified, and many who initially disagreed with him on many subjects, including the late Carl Sagan, have been forced to concede that, after all and in some ways, Velikovsky may have been on to something.