Discussion Thread for Gordon White's Star.Ships

S

Sciborg_S_Patel

Going to open with this review from Gods & Radicals:

.... We have dating of some of the oldest architectural structures in the ruin to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period of around eleven thousand years ago. If you just contemplate that sentence for a moment you can get a sense of what is striking about Gobekli Tepe. Before we were supposedly able to, or interested in, making pots we were making stone temples. During the period when a museum would generally depict humanity as unsophisticated hunter gathers, closer to animals than to modern society, we were crafting a complex temple. The temple, in short, predates the house or the city. It also likely involves, Gordon demonstrates, complex star-lore.

This fairly simple fact, the significance of which is so easy to miss, offers a rather striking blow to many standard theories of the development of religion. The general materialist understanding of the rise of religion is that it is the outgrowth of the surplus time and resources that go along with the development of agriculture and the rise of the city...

...The proposal here is fascinating and brilliant. Gordon White is suggesting that we can’t understand history, not consistently or adequately, without understanding the role played by non-human communication. History has discontinuities because of intrusions from, as it were, 'outside'.
Click to expand...
 
Still in the early part of the book...no strong thoughts at the moment.

Interestingly enough even the 2008 Smithsonian article on Gobekli Tepe kind of gets into the mystical

...archaeologists have their theories—evidence, perhaps, of the irresistible human urge to explain the unexplainable. The surprising lack of evidence that people lived right there, researchers say, argues against its use as a settlement or even a place where, for instance, clan leaders gathered. Hodder is fascinated that Gobekli Tepe's pillar carvings are dominated not by edible prey like deer and cattle but by menacing creatures such as lions, spiders, snakes and scorpions. "It's a scary, fantastic world of nasty-looking beasts," he muses. While later cultures were more concerned with farming and fertility, he suggests, perhaps these hunters were trying to master their fears by building this complex, which is a good distance from where they lived.

Danielle Stordeur, an archaeologist at the National Center for Scientific Research in France, emphasizes the significance of the vulture carvings. Some cultures have long believed the high-flying carrion birds transported the flesh of the dead up to the heavens. Stordeur has found similar symbols at sites from the same era as Gobekli Tepe just 50 miles away in Syria. "You can really see it's the same culture," she says. "All the most important symbols are the same."

For his part, Schmidt is certain the secret is right beneath his feet. Over the years, his team has found fragments of human bone in the layers of dirt that filled the complex. Deep test pits have shown that the floors of the rings are made of hardened limestone. Schmidt is betting that beneath the floors he'll find the structures' true purpose: a final resting place for a society of hunters.

Perhaps, Schmidt says, the site was a burial ground or the center of a death cult, the dead laid out on the hillside among the stylized gods and spirits of the afterlife. If so, Gobekli Tepe's location was no accident. "From here the dead are looking out at the ideal view," Schmidt says as the sun casts long shadows over the half-buried pillars. "They're looking out over a hunter's dream."
Click to expand...
 
Some of White's post publication commentary on the book:

“O Circle of Stars Whereof Our Father is but the Younger Brother”

Let’s pull all these points together then.

  • Mythology, which is ‘Big Storytelling’, is a vector for extradimensional manipulation.
  • Storytelling, art and magic are probably all parts of the same First Thing humans ever did. Hence Chris’s recent observations aboutmagic and art versus occultism. (If occultism is dying just as Santa Muerte expands her influence to the entire planet then it is doing. It. Wrong.But that would be ‘magic’, not occultism, innit? Perhaps a people should know when they are conquered?)
  • Belief (in certain stories) can act as ‘psychic portals’ through which the extradimensional -which regularly presents a physical component- can achieve egress into our world.
Back to reading Jacques’s diary like a creep, then. February 5th, 1978...
Click to expand...

In a post-podcast chat with the lovely Alex Tsakiris, I expressed some mild alarm at a few of his throwaway comments about the last couple of chapters of Star.Ships, which appeared to have given him the impression that I consider these phenomena to be ‘just’ consciousness stuff. I pointed out that the book is filled with examples of physicality, including radiation effects, levitation and so on.

He agreed and then we got onto bitching about Ufology -which was the actual target of his comments. Because the new ‘it bag’ in Ufology is to say ‘it’s all consciousness stuff’ and piss from a great height on those ‘nuts and bolts types’. (Sidebar: I’ve never met a nuts and bolts type. Seriously. They must be like those ‘fluffy bunny Wiccans’ I keep hearing about and never meet.) The trouble with the new ‘it bag’ position is that most Ufologists are really just hiding in the bag like fruity, terrified poodles… presumably in no small part because they are ashamed at having been previously suckered in by some CIA/Cold War nonsense designed to conceal the testing of new aircraft or whatever.

Thing of it is… when Isay consciousness, that word doesn’t mean what they think it means. Ufologists can bleat the word ‘consciousness’ all they want on some of the most boring podcasts you’d ever wish to hear, they’re still stuck having to explain

  • Abductions lasting days/weeks/months.
  • Implantssuch as the one Paul Laffoley received.
  • Actual rapeas was the case with Whitley Strieber.
  • Veridical descriptions of the future or future technology… and so on.
What this all suggests is that they can’t hide behind ‘it’s a consciousness phenomenon’ for very long before the physical components of all this stuff make them squirm out of their seats. And -let me be clear- just as I said to Greg in an upcoming THC… a successful act of practical enchantment isa physical component of consciousness phenomena. What else could it be?

‘Right thinking’ Ufologists, just like ‘right thinking’ consciousness researchers end up in a magical worldview or they are lying to themselves. That statement should come as no surprise to regular readers. We are here because we think magic best describes reality. Otherwise… well, there’s plenty of porn you could be watching.
Click to expand...
 
Well. I'm still reading the pdf version, since my paperback hasn't arrived yet. I'm 25% of the way through according to the kindle and to be honest I'm finding the book to be rather a hard slog. If I hadn't listened to Gordon talk about the book on a few different podcasts, I'm not even sure I would know what he is writing about. I think he is an excellent speaker, and his presentation of various ideas when I've listened to him speak has been excellent. But the book seems rudderless.

Anyone?
 
Grimerica Talks Mythology, Spirituality & Much More with Gordon White

Gordon White is in Grimerica for a fascinating chat about his new book ‘star.ships – the prehistory of spirits’, and how we underestimate mythology and esoteric tradition. We chat about early humanity’s migration, alternative history, ancient mysteries, cultural complexity in the past, magic, corporate tech advancement, OOPA’s and much more.

Gordon seems to go deeper into topics like Egypt, Sundaland, consciousness, evolution, spirits and mythology.

Big shout out to Greg at The Higherside Chats for helping us contact Gordon.
Click to expand...
 
Where Did the Road Go? Gordon White on Star Ships: Part 1 - July 24, 2016

Gordon White is the host of an excellent podcast called Rune Soup, and that is where you can find links to all that he does. He has also written a few books. In this show, we talk to him about his book, Star Ships. It attempts to find our lost history by tracing our myths and esoteric teachings. We talk lost civilations and atlantis, magick, mythology, the failings of science, and much more... Joshua Cutchin also joins me on this show. This is part 1 of 2, with an addition 20 minutes or so for Patreons.
Click to expand...
 
  • Like
Reactions: K9!
I have to say, I thought this book was the best book I've ever read on ancient civilastions, the possible roots of our spiritual & mystical narratives & practices and how they may have been spread geographically & across time.

Reading this book has brought exponentional clarity to my mind when it comes to these subjects. Having read numerous other books (such as Mark Booth's 2 books for eg., a bit of Blavatsky, some Steiner, countless articles & podcasts over the years etc etc), I've always been curious but not overly fascinated enough to try and clarify the vague & ambiguous "history" of human civilisation they state.

Starships has quite radically changed that and I now feel, for the first time in my life, I have somewhat of a handle on what may have been our history and how it relates to all these history-models of Blavatsky, Mark Booth etc.

It is highly recommended in that regard.

However, as that subject has never really been of urgency or importance to me personally, I wouldn't say this book was totally amazing or mind-blowing or whatever.....but then, you'd be lucky to read 5 books in a decade which fit that description! Still a great book imo.

Couple of things of note (been a few months since I read this, so off the top of my head, sure I've forgotten things worthy of a mention):

1) Gordon implies with a throw-away sentence that he does not believe Jesus Christ the person actually existed. I would suspect that is highly debatable at the very least! Yet Gordon, like so many other things I've noticed he speaks about, states this as if it is obvious & only the foolish would think otherwise. In other words, though I love Gordon (brought all 3 of his books, heard all his podcasts etc), I think on occassion a smidgen more humility and circumspection would not go amiss. Still, love my fellow Londoner!

2) Truly fascinating & personally important thing I learnt was again based on a throw away comment. Gordon mentioned that the San Bushmen have a belief in energy rising up the spine, it's centre being in the stomach and that the symbol of the serpent represents this. As the San come from what is considered to the (or A) cradle of humanity tens of thousands of years ago and that they travelled east along the coast until they got to the south east asia and then (possibly) back into mainland Asia to India......this is the furthest back in time "roots" I have ever uncovered for the whole eastern "kundalini" & "tantra" practices. I have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours over years trying to find the roots of these practices (studying greek, accadia, gnostic roots & similarities etc), but I never came close to finding the "root" to these, even though they were clearly all related by some unknown link. I think Gordon's comment here has shed more light on this than my years of research! I reasearched further into the San's belief, I strongly believe this is the best hypothesis for the origin of eastern "mystical technologies".

This fact alone was worth the value of the book 10 times over imo.

3) On a personal level, I note these attempts to link our beliefs and practices to ancient peoples (a la Gordon White here, Blavatsky, Steiner, Manly Hall etc) are meant to empower and strengthen our "belief" in the validity & veracity of our practices today. I assume most people concur.

However, on a personal level, if anything, I feel DIS-empowered by it. Only vaguely and faintly so, and I'm not sure why yet......perhaps I expected a supramundane origin for our beliefs & practices, not ultra-mundane!
 
manjit said:
1) Gordon implies with a throw-away sentence that he does not believe Jesus Christ the person actually existed. I would suspect that is highly debatable at the very least! Yet Gordon, like so many other things I've noticed he speaks about, states this as if it is obvious & only the foolish would think otherwise. In other words, though I love Gordon (brought all 3 of his books, heard all his podcasts etc), I think on occassion a smidgen more humility and circumspection would not go amiss.
Click to expand...
I have been enjoying reading Gordon's blog. I appreciate his diverse interests and writing style. But yes, he is sometimes firmly convinced of things that are wrong.

manjit said:
Gordon mentioned that the San Bushmen have a belief in energy rising up the spine, it's centre being in the stomach and that the symbol of the serpent represents this. As the San come from what is considered to the (or A) cradle of humanity tens of thousands of years ago and that they travelled east along the coast until they got to the south east asia and then (possibly) back into mainland Asia to India......this is the furthest back in time "roots" I have ever uncovered for the whole eastern "kundalini" & "tantra" practices. I have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours over years trying to find the roots of these practices (studying greek, accadia, gnostic roots & similarities etc), but I never came close to finding the "root" to these, even though they were clearly all related by some unknown link. I think Gordon's comment here has shed more light on this than my years of research! I reasearched further into the San's belief, I strongly believe this is the best hypothesis for the origin of eastern "mystical technologies".
Click to expand...
So this surprised me, but maybe I am not following you correctly. Do you believe that Kundalini was uniquely discovered in one culture and then physically transmitted to others (similar to transmission of knowledge of gun powder)? As opposed to religious and spiritual claims that there are objective non-physical realms with beings who sometimes provide teachings to humans?
 
north said:
Do you believe that Kundalini was uniquely discovered in one culture and then physically transmitted to others (similar to transmission of knowledge of gun powder)? As opposed to religious and spiritual claims that there are objective non-physical realms with beings who sometimes provide teachings to humans?
Click to expand...

Hi North, it's a very, very complex & nuanced subject that would take volumes to give it full justice & alas I don't have half that time available!

To strip it down to it's bare essentials (which won't do the subtleties & nuances justice), I think we can distinguish between the very real phenomena experienced by human body-mind organisms, perhaps experienced for hundreds of thousands of years in all our various evolutionary garbs, which is labelled by many (though not all) as "kundalini"......... and the proliferation & evolution of various conceptual models, practices, teachings & terminologies etc, mainly found in the east, which has culminated in the terminology and conceptuality surrounding the word "kundalini" today.

I do not, personally, think that there necessarily has to be a connection between the two, in that one can have a complete & full "kundalini awakening" (whatever the hell that is!) without personally framing the experience in the language & framework of traditional eastern tantric & kundalini models. And that one can engage with those models for decades without actually having any experience of the real "kundalini".

In regards practices, symbology, myths, linguistics, theology etc, one can trace a very real, material world, thread going back from today's modern schools, right back to 2-3 thousand years ago. One finds connections between the origins of todays practices (in India, which includes kriya yoga, shabd yoga, kundalini yoga etc) right back to Oddiyana (also origin of much of Tibetan Buddhism's secret tantras as you probably know), Kashmir etc. One finds links between those & Greek, Gnostic, Egyptian, Chaldean etc myths & beliefs too.

The San Bushmen use a model & symbology strongly reminiscent of that used in India, Tibet, China etc

These are worldly traces of the kundalini experience, imo, and not the thing itself, which is without form, concept, limit etc. But have you ever tried to package & sell the formless, conceptless, limitless? It's darn hard to wrap! ;)

Not sure if I'm making any sense here, but in way of an example. The symbol of the snake or serpent is THE symbol of the kundalini power/archetype, from time immemorial & across many, many cultures (greek, gnostic, indian, chinese etc) as far as I can tell (also the San bushmen). Now I feel I've had my own experiences with "kundalini" (spontaneously & outside of any structured framework), and I had many, many "symptoms" and experiences that are found in both traditional literature and many others who've experienced it spontaneously (which in itself is proof enough something strange is going on here our current biological science has no understanding of). One of these experiences was the repeated vision of a vast open plain in nature slowly being flooded, and the flooded waters containing lots of snakes. Now, to me, this was just a random and meaningless vision that kept occurring during that period, it had no significance or meaning beyond that, and I would have probably forgotten about it by now (15 years later) if........I hadn't realised it's significance in the literature. However, does that symbol really matter in reality? It certainly isn't necessary to know about it before hand!

Anyway, rambling now. But I just have to add, most people hear this term "kundalinI", go and google it, and then think "kundalini" is almost exclusively related to the 3HO "kundalini yoga" group (cult?) created by Yogi Bhajan. In my humble opinion, this is akin to thinking Donald Trump is the be all and end all of the entire history of political ideology. Imo, one would not be making a terrible mistake to just assume what's he's teaching is to kundalini what a grain of sand is to the Sahara desert, and just ignoring it entirely!......;)
 
manjit said:
Hi North, it's a very, very complex & nuanced subject that would take volumes to give it full justice & alas I don't have half that time available!
Click to expand...

I understand that complex issues are difficult to respond to on internet discussion boards while dealing with rest of human life. I tend to short replies myself and ignore many topics from lack of time.

manjit said:
I do not, personally, think that there necessarily has to be a connection between the two, in that one can have a complete & full "kundalini awakening" (whatever the hell that is!) without personally framing the experience in the language & framework of traditional eastern tantric & kundalini models. And that one can engage with those models for decades without actually having any experience of the real "kundalini".
Click to expand...
I agree. Finding those who have some informed conceptual knowledge and significant personal experience can be challenging (but very worthwhile).

manjit said:
in regards practices, symbology, myths, linguistics, theology etc, one can trace a very real, material world, thread going back from today's modern schools, right back to 2-3 thousand years ago. One finds connections between the origins of todays practices (in India, which includes kriya yoga, shabd yoga, kundalini yoga etc) right back to Oddiyana (also origin of much of Tibetan Buddhism's secret tantras as you probably know), Kashmir etc. One finds links between those & Greek, Gnostic, Egyptian, Chaldean etc myths & beliefs too. The San Bushmen use a model & symbology strongly reminiscent of that used in India, Tibet, China etc
Click to expand...

I may not know enough to meaningful comment here. My focus has been to find living traditions that could inform me. I accept Jung's accounts that religious symbols appear in the dreams of those without waking knowledge of the source of the symbol. I accept mystical claims that teachings may be conferred telepathically across the world. I accept claims by Tilopa and Mohammed that they received teachings from more advanced beings rather than from human teachers.

manjit said:
Anyway, rambling now. But I just have to add, most people hear this term "kundalinI", go and google it, and then think "kundalini" is almost exclusively related to the 3HO "kundalini yoga" group (cult?) created by Yogi Bhajan.
Click to expand...
From time to time I used to google "kundalini" and often found many interesting sites and stories. At some early time I read about 3HO being a cult and accepted that as a reasonable claim. Some years passed and I met some people who had been involved with 3HO and they seemed nice enough people. Some more years passed and I went to a studio run by 3HO, but rented out to a different organization to do some Hatha. Later a good friend became involved with 3HO and I researched it more. 3HO seems to growing steadily, with lots of teachers without experience. They do seem to get lots of hits on google now. Probably time for me to change my search engine.
 
north said:
I agree. Finding those who have some informed conceptual knowledge and significant personal experience can be challenging (but very worthwhile).
Click to expand...

Ahh, I was utterly obsessed by it when I was going through my own experiences...I spent hours and hours online looking for these people! They are out there! As I'm not on my home PC and have time constraints, it's difficult for me to think of links & people which I can link up here, let me know if you're interested & I'll have a think & search when I get some time? I do know, recently, a few people have been very high in praise for this guy. I did watch this interview (3 parts?) a while ago now, but at a point where my own interest in such "teachers" or "gurus" had dwindled significantly (I am my own authority nowadays haha!):


I recall this site also, from a long time ago!:

http://biologyofkundalini.com/

north said:
I may not know enough to meaningful comment here. My focus has been to find living traditions that could inform me. I accept Jung's accounts that religious symbols appear in the dreams of those without waking knowledge of the source of the symbol. I accept mystical claims that teachings may be conferred telepathically across the world. I accept claims by Tilopa and Mohammed that they received teachings from more advanced beings rather than from human teachers.
Click to expand...

I quite agree! :)

What an "advanced being" is, in the ultimate nature of things, though, I think may be up for debate?

north said:
From time to time I used to google "kundalini" and often found many interesting sites and stories. At some early time I read about 3HO being a cult and accepted that as a reasonable claim. Some years passed and I met some people who had been involved with 3HO and they seemed nice enough people. Some more years passed and I went to a studio run by 3HO, but rented out to a different organization to do some Hatha. Later a good friend became involved with 3HO and I researched it more. 3HO seems to growing steadily, with lots of teachers without experience. They do seem to get lots of hits on google now. Probably time for me to change my search engine.
Click to expand...

Ah! Honestly, I personally do not even consider what Yogi Bhajan teaches as to be anything at all, really, to do with "kundalini", but that is just my personal understanding. I find all their exercises, practices & beliefs to be quite mundane & superficial.

But, without doubt, there are many wonderful people who follow Yogi Bhajan and 3HO, and just because it can be labelled a "cult", doesn't necessarily mean it is Jonestown territory!

To study kundalini theology academically, one should start with Kashmiri Shaivism, the various indian tantra texts (going back thousands of years!), medieval texts such as hathayogapradipika, gheranda samhita, siva samhita etc etc (all available online free, I believe), as these are, actually the CORE of ALL of today's so called "kundalini" and tantric practices such as shabd yoga, kriya yoga,3HO etc

There's tons more that can be said, but who has the time! :)

If I may ask, North, what is your current beliefs, practices etc, or is it not really structured/defined?

Cheers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top