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1.5.5
Ladies and gentlemen! This Wednesday night! A once-in-a-life-time appearance!
Put your hands together for……Zak and the Anunnaki !!!!
[cue some Moody Blues or other appropriate classic rock]
“Oooooooowwwwwwwwaaaaaa!!!!”
Yes, in someone’s delusional world-not mine-the countdown to tonight’s episode
of Coast ticks a bit like that. Shame, really.
Or, should I say in the case of Zechariah Sitchin, sham, really!
Originally, I wanted to spare my readers from any negative critique of
Sitchin. There’s some pretty interesting stuff outside of my views on Sitchin
and his work. Has it not crossed anyone else’s mind that this is, in fact and by
default, the BIGGEST interview on Coast to Coast for the year and the main
stalwart, our friend Noory, isn’t here poke and prod the man? True, the event
may be pre-taped, as I believe Noory announced was the intention, however, from
all clues on the website, Hilly “don’t call me Silly” Rose will be our Master of
Ceremonies throughout the night and including the interview with Sitchin. The
refrain for the past year and a half the audience has harassed Noory about
getting Sitchin on has been his poor health prevents such an appearance as is
the norm for Coast and a pre-taped segment would be necessary. This considered,
whether we hear Rose or Noory asking the questions, if the segment is pre-taped,
which all of our expectations have been that it would indeed be, I fully expect
the interview to be disappointing, simply for the fact we’ll be delivered a
fluff job.
Coast’s producers know Sitchin is big. In the esoteric field, you
scarcely get a name more common place, and, frankly, no-one alive in modern
esoterica has written anything as “mandatory reading”-whether you agree with it
or not-as the Twelfth Planet, save for maybe Von Danniken’s BUT….this isn’t why I’m writing. I am writing because I privately hope this is
Sitchin’s swan song and after tonight UFOlogy can begin wiping away the mud
accrued on its investigative lenses after 30 or so years of Sitchin work finding
its way into every mainline bookstore and influencing everything from abduction
accounts to allegations of government knowledge pertaining to why “they” are
coming here.
In the first place, Sitchin’s work is slapshod scholarship at best, trite at
worst. The mythology as constructed by Sitchin’s interpretation of the cuneiform
texts ignores, or Sitchin is simply ignorant of, every criteria an ancient or
biblical scholar (both of whom concentrate in the area of translating and
interpretation ancient texts) must submit to before his or her thesis is
considered palpable, let alone, attainable, provable, defendable, and, finally,
viable. We’re not saying providing a new interpretation of an ancient text is
verboten, we are however saying Sitchin followed none of the methodology or
criteria that leads one to a viable, or at least defendable thesis, hence,
Sitchin’s thesis is neither viable nor defendable by any respecting scholar or
individual familiar with the techniques and criteria of defendable scholarship.
Basic rules of logic, epistemology, cross cultural comparison and renouncement
were utterly ignored by Sitchin and in the process he falls into the most
dreaded of traps set in the jungle of historical, cultural and linguistic
research, that of avoiding anachronism, that is applying or assuming a later
development (be it an idea, assumption, event, etc.) into a period explicitly
before the origination of said development.
In our own age, we have a clear and concise, if not lacking, concept of space
travel and the surrounding universe; we don’t, as it were, look up towards the
night sky and in the face of innumerable stars, for those of us lucky enough to
live away from an east coast city, of which I have been a few times numerated,
though I am sadly not at the present time, and see a giant dome sitting upon the
earth as was the cosmology of the ancients, nor do we see a god “sleeping” upon
the terrestrial goddess, as was the concept of the Greeks and the Romans. No, we
see the beginning of an expanse of reality so vast we can only, with our eyes or
best instruments, catch a limited glimpse; we see an abyss so deep, we cannot
fathom what the final depths may indeed look like or who or what may lie in wait
for us when we get there. Yes, we have a concept of space travel because in our
own age humanity finally developed the concept of space, not the heavens, but
space; only Plato, Aristotle and Judaism (and by inheritance, Christianity)
pose as ancient witnesses who expounded upon the concept of Heaven to such a
degree so as to have affinity and continuity with our concept of space; the Old
Testament, to provide one example, may have began with a dome over the earth,
but by its conclusion, the heavens, beginning as the night sky, become the
tabernacle of eternity itself.
We cannot, then, take this concept which properly exists in our own time but has a gradual development in Western culture, and
apply it to another time and to a culture (the Sumerians) entirely immune to the
intellectual, cultural and spiritual tradition and development that gradually
formulated, and hence has continuity and affinity with, our present concept of
space and space travel. The Sumerians’ own tradition expired, and the Sumerian
region never produced any intellectual fruits until Islam became the chief
cultural force in the region in 600AD. And, it must be noted, the reinvigoration
of the region only occurred geographically; as pertains the Sumerian mythology,
Islam wanted nor needed none of it. The Sumerians, as opposed to the development
of the Greeks, Romans and the Jews, never developed their concept of heaven so
as to have affinity and continuity with our own concept of space today.
So, first, as displayed above, we have a contextual problem with Sitchin’s
research. Sitchin applies our modern Western concept of space and space travel,
developed in context of Western culture and history, to the context of the
Sumerian culture which hadn’t produced a concept of heaven anything near our
own, let alone comparable to our own concept of space. The next problem is
textual. Sitchin, to his shame, is reading into the text items and phenomenon
only proper to our age.
Let’s use a hypothetical example, but before we do this,
let us also make a most important note to ourselves before proceeding with this
exercise and, for that matter, ever reading Sitchin’s work again. Sitchin’s
method of translating is quite suspect, so, where the text literally says, as an
example, “a snake on fire,” which might be commonly translated into “a fiery
serpent,” Sitchin might see that in, for example, some examples of ancient art,
the snake could fly, so, obviously, the text is referring to a long round narrow
vessel, slightly pointed at the ends, out of which fire comes as a propulsion
source. Only Will Henry provides larger, more astounding logic and linguistic
gaps. These texts are literal. A fiery serpent would mean….a “fiery serpent” and
more often than not the puzzling creature or reference in the text refers to
some cultic practice or theology, which will often be explained in the whole
context from which the word or phrase is lifted. The minute we begin reading
beyond the text, reading into descriptions more than the author provides, we
create fiction, if we’re not already reading it.
That Sitchin’s work affected and infected Ufology at all is by and large
accidental and, unquestionably, an accident of quite messy proportions. Most any
new ufologist, that is, one of the last 15 or 20 years and present, invariably
takes off on the “UFOs seeded humanity” theory. Whether it be Linda Moulton Howe
citing an alleged government source who informed her that periodically aliens
have interfered with our genetic process, as was cited in the book Case MJ 12,
or whether it be new books such as The Genesis Race (with a big bust of a “grey”
next to a spiraling strand of human DNA) or The Gods of Eden, which copiously
references Sitchin throughout, the currently propagated theory in Ufology
stating aliens have seeded and manipulated the primal human species and the
continuous homo sapien DNA begins with Sitchin. It has no precedence before
Sitchin’s books and after Sitchin’s books it becomes the preeminent theory as to
who “they” are and why “they’re” here. Most incredulous of Ufology, and most
damaging to it if there is any truth to the Ufo phenomenon at all, is the almost
uniform acceptance and adoption of Sitchin’s theory in absence of an authentic
document backing up alleged claims made by Linda Moulton Howe or any other
personality on the investigative side of Ufology charging the government with
knowing and withholding knowledge of the “alien origin of the human race” and in
the face of the complete manifestation of evidence showing Sitchin to be the
originator of this theory, and doing it with dubious standards and little if any
evidence. This is, again, the most incredulous aspect to modern day Ufology and
I am pressed to ask: how could this have started?
The most banal explanation is that Ufology, for better or worse, cannot claim
some of the world’s most brilliant following. For every intelligent and
critical man or woman investigating and qualifying the evidence, attempting to
puzzle this often opaque picture into something more crystalline, you have
seemingly a hundred others who qualify nothing, for whom only the most
outlandish theory will suffice. The reason as to why is most complicated and
will largely be addressed in another writing. I will say however, there are
profound sociological and psychological factors for this overwhelming majority
to prefer the extremist theory of Ufology, mostly pertaining to the state of
society and the state of themselves as well (or not so well) existentially
accomplished humans. In second thought, perhaps this explanation is not so banal
after all, but it was the main drive behind Sitchin’s work because they invested
so much money into his books; again, for those who don’t know, Sitchin is BIG,
so far as concerns sales numbers. Furthermore, they’ve created a market. The
most successful authors are the ones proposing the most outlandish theories; if
you want to make a career in Ufology as defined by book royalties, then you’ve
got to hop on Sitchin’s theory and keep going with it, take it to even further
conclusions, leaving us with a precious few crop of researchers who are focusing
on the fact that a phenomenon is occurring here and now, and focusing on the
here and now, whether it be contemporary encounters or in the name of
disclosure.
However Marxist that may sound, I don’t believe das Kapital was and is the
deciding factor as to how and why Sitchin attained such a foothold in Ufology (I
personally do not think Sitchin was intending for that to happen). Sitchin was
the first “researcher” to provide, however loosely, a theological and
philosophical dimension to Ufology and UFOs. This is intimately related to the
first reason in that the apparent failure of the world’s religions in the lives
of men and women, the apparent failure of God, makes the prospect that we are
not God’s but someone else’s lucrative, not to mention a bit of solace.
Primarily, however, it is because Sitchin opened a theological and philosophical
door for UFOs and Ufology, the sociological dimension of that in the minds of
many of his own readers is a moot point. Our concern is how it affected the
phenomenon of UFOs and the discipline (however un-disciplined it is executed) of
Ufology. The basic reality and reason is that something is going on. I
personally would not be involved in the discipline I am (theology) and carry out
the additional research I do (Ufology) were I not convinced something is going
on. The evidence, in my estimation, makes this conclusion unavoidable. Notice, I
do not say the evidence leads to the conclusion that they’re here, they’re doing
this, this, and this, etc. I only say that the evidence is so broad, so
expansive, and so recurring that despite the often cloudy and ambiguous parts of
it, which are just as expansive and just a recurring as the more solid aspects,
we can reach no other conclusion other than that a certain phenomenon is
occurring and occurring unabatedly. Fair enough, it may be all circumstantial
evidence, yet, when circumstantial evidence keeps occurring and recurred
un-relenting, we can safely say, while not saying explicitly the what, who, how,
or why of the matter, that a phenomenon is happening and the phenomenon, based
upon a continuous supply of this evidence, is not readily explainable or
dismissible in natural terms and, indeed, the hint, however vague, is that this
phenomenon is intelligent. Hence the reason for a theological or philosophical
dimension. Ufology at the time was in dire need of something along theological
or philosophical lines, and by and large theology and philosophy wanted nothing
to do with it. Something was and is decidedly going on. Investigation, good as
it maybe, can only get you so far.
You might be able to report on the facts of an incident, whether a contemporary
abduction case or a crash of an unknown object in the New Mexico desert,
however, you can only report so much. Profound questions, questions the
investigator may have brooded over in his own brain a few times, linger, and
ominously so. We may know from investigative evidence “they” are not from here
and “they” don’t look like us, who or what, then, are “they”? Why are “they”
here? Is it merely for research? And, if “they” are actually abducting humans,
why? What do “they” want? Where are “they” from? Should we be afraid? And, after
thousands of years when our only contact with non-human life of a higher design
has been angels, demons, and spirits, not to mention God, what do we make of
this? What does the existence of “them” mean for us? Sitchin provided some
answers, however embryonic and incorrect they are.
Humanity has always asked these questions in some form or type. The most
dynamic trait of the human mind is its ability to conceive of itself in an
existential sense and then further ask how it as an individual mind relates to
other people, society at large, the universe it dwells in and, if it believes,
the God who created it. Thus, when the human mind is confronted with evidence
that something intelligent and living is out there, in essence, something quite
mirroring humanity is out there, it will leave the contemplation of the abstract
to contemplating something much more concrete, though still cloaked in shadow.