Our Cosmic Ancestors (19 page)

But 9,700 years ago these equinoxes occurred 135
^°
to the east, which means that spring arrived in the middle of the sign of Leo and autumn in the middle of Aquarius, due to the precession of the equinoxes. We have excellent reasons to assume that the signs of the zodiac were invented at that time in Mesopotamia by the old Sumerians, who probably were refugees from some cataclysmic event, though we do not know who they were, where they came from, or when exactly they came to the valley of the Euphrates.

Now let us for a moment put ourselves into the shoes of the Sumerians who lived in their great city of Ur 9,700 years ago. We know that they were great merchants, eager to sell their products to other people living in other highly developed centres of civilization like the valleys of the Nile or the Indus. Since the Sumerians counted by 12 and by 60, they probably divided the horizon around the city of Ur into twelve equal parts corresponding to the twelve regions of active commerce and exchange of materials that they wanted to cultivate with people living there.

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Present positions of the thirteen zodiac signs on the ecliptic and in the solar year

Each of them represents 28.09 days or 27.69 degrees. It also shows the relative positions of three major stars. Such a zodiac seems to have been used a long time ago by the Mayas who divided everything into thirteen and twenty.
Just as the Fuller Brush Man and the Avon Lady cover the whole United States door to door and carry along their sample cases, so did the old Sumerians send their travelling salesmen in all directions. If you want to start north of Ur and go clockwise, Caucasus was north, Azerbaijan north-northeast, Turkestan east-northeast, Persia east, India east-southeast, Yemen south-southeast, Hadramaut south, Ethiopia south-southwest, Nubia west-southwest, Egypt west, Palestine west-northwest, and Armenia north-northwest.

Now we have to remember that these travelling salesmen were most certainly illiterate. But they could count and were very good at memorizing their travel orders, which were given to them in the form of small tablets engraved with the signs of the zodiac. Gemini, the Twins, was the sign for Ethiopia; Virgo, the Virgin, for India; Pisces, the Fishes, for Palestine; Leo, the Lion, for Yemen; and so on. The stars of the constellations not only gave them the direction in which to lead their caravans of mules or camels, but also indicated the right time for arriving at their destinations. The best time to arrive for business was when the Sun rose in the morning within the given sign.

This system, however, had a flaw. The precession of the equinoxes changed the direction in which the salesmen were to travel. The spring equinox, which coincided with the sign of Cancer for Hadramaut 9,700 years ago was in the sign of Gemini for Ethiopia 7,500 years ago, and became the Taurus for Nubia 5,300 years ago. Either the signs or the destinations had to be changed to keep things in order; but we do not know whether one or the other correction was made.

This question has never been answered, but we do know that today's astrologers use signs that do not correspond to the actual positions of the constellations in the zodiac. They do coincide approximately with the positions the stars held 2,500 years ago when the Chaldean astrologers did their fine work in Babylon. On the contrary, our modern astronomers use a zodiac where the spring equinox is determined once and for all to fail on 21 March, when the sign of Pisces gives way to Aries, while the constellations where the Sun rises at this date have slowly changed their places and have nothing to do anymore with their positions of 9,700 years ago when the zodiac was probably invented.
This is the weakest of all points in our present-day astrology. It does not represent the actual astronomical positions of the stars today. It does not correspond to the signs when the zodiac was invented, but it approximately reflects the state of 2,500 years ago when the Jews were captives in Babylon. The zodiac of our present-day astrologers is the zodiac of the Bible, and this is why astrology is more religion than science. in a religion one is supposed to believe, not to ask questions or search for the truth; and modern astrology is not based, as it should be, on data derived from the stars or the planets, but on ingrained conventions that are interpreted differently by different astrologers at different moments.

The ancient Egyptians, who were great astronomers and in their day constructed the world's largest observatory, noticed that our Sun moves slowly but surely among the stars by one degree every seventy-two years. It therefore could not be trusted as a stable point of reference. This is why they chose the star Sirius instead and calculated their calendar year and all their astronomical or astrological cycles by the apparent motions of the Sun, Moon, and planets in relation to the fixed position of Sirius. This is the most efficient and logical system ever devised and superior to any system used today.

But these arguments alone do not prove that astrology is just a hoax, as the majority of the scientific world assumes. It is nevertheless most probable that modern astrology is based on false assumptions, even though it is true that the Sun, the Moon, and the planets do have a part in everything that happens on our planet. This has been proven in hundreds of scientific experiments. This reminds us once more that our ancestors, who grasped this tens of thousands of years ago, were not quite as dumb as is generally thought. Indeed this knowledge, too, was given to them long ago by the same astronauts who brought about the sudden leap forward in our evolution.

Since it is evident that stars influence mankind, it is not only quite possible but very probable that they also influence each individual. Astrology could be made into an
exact science
if all of the correlations of cause and effect could be determined scientifically, precisely, and correctly. Considering the fantastic possibilities that have been given us by the electronic brain and the magnetic memory, a rational reorganization of astrology would not require too much time. All of us have our good and bad periods. Sometimes we can work twelve hours a day and not feel tired while on other days we have no wish to work at all. Also, we all know how intelligent we can be when feeling good and what stupid mistakes we make when were not in our best form. There are periods when nothing works out no matter how hard we try. Most certainly this is so in my own life. The trouble is, I never know if at any given moment I am in a good or bad period.

By way of observation, I have found out that these changing periods are cyclic and regular but I have not yet found the governing pattern. It is very likely that these fluctuations follow some astronomical cycle like the conjunction of planets. Besides, we have already proven scientifically the influence that planets, like Jupiter and Saturn, have on space communications. This is why I would not dare to say that astrology is all one big hoax. Maybe all it needs is a new reconstruction of its basic concepts.

I sincerely believe that stars can influence my life, even though I still do not understand the mysterious rules that govern these influences. That, however, does not mean that I can believe in astrology as it is practiced today.

Recently published books about astrology have brought to my attention many interesting astronomical cycles. The works of Louis MacNeice and Serge Hutin contain numbers that correspond to calculations I have made with the Nineveh constant, and the results are precise to the fourth decimal point. In my opinion, there is also a correlation that could be explained by influence of the stars between the Russian and American space programs. Both started suddenly, at the same time, when the world was flooded with books and publications all pointing in the same directions, namely that we are not the first astronauts and that there have been visitors from space long before we first heard of Sputnik or Apollo.

One could believe that our fathers in heaven knew long ago that this day of liberation from the Earth's gravity would come, and that our exploration of space would start. If, as this Arab adage says, all is written down that has to come, it is not surprising that we are now offered the insight to understand
our true nature as the sons and daughters of our ancestors who came from outer space.

THE POLAR MYSTERIES

The units our ancestors used for measurements never had any particular fascination for me, but I have always been attracted by ancient coins the pieces of gold, silver, and electrum that were in circulation thousands of years ago. However, since all coins are also units of weight, and weight is derived from units of volume, which in turn is derived from units of length, I got curious enough one day to find out why some particular coins were made of a certain weight of gold while others represented a different weight in silver. While working on these problems, I did not realize what I was actually trying to discover, but I continued on.

To do my work right, I had first to make a list of all the coins that had been in circulation since the time of King Croesus, who is considered to be the inventor of metallic coins. He ruled in Lydia, an ancient Aegean country of Asia Minor, from 560 to 546 BC and was defeated and killed by the Persians under Cyrus who wanted his riches. Croesus minted the first coins from nuggets of electrum, natural alloy of gold and silver that could be found in the Pactolus River flowing by Sardis, the capital city of Lydia. These electrum coins are now almost 2,600 years old.

There might have been some more ancient coins, but so far none have been found. Legends tell us that 12,000 years ago in Atlantis coins were made of orichalcum, a metal lighter in colour and weight than gold, probably some alloy of copper and aluminum like the aluminumbronze coins of small denominations that are used in France today. These aluminum-bronze coins oxidize easily, and this is probably why none of the Atlantis lightweight money has ever been found. It must have disintegrated long ago without leaving a trace. However, we still have a few electrum coins from King Croesus.

After I had compiled my list of most ancient coins known to numismatists and archaeologists, I had to make up another one for all measurement units of antiquity, translating these various units into feet and cubic feet. It took some time to get all this done, but it was time well spent. Then I started to compare the two lists and try to
find the feet whose cubes represented the weight of a round number of coins.

In most cases, quite naturally, the weight of the coin divided neatly into the local unit of weight for the corresponding country and the time in history when this money was in use; but there were quite a few surprising exceptions. In some instances, relationships showed up between vastly separated geographical locations and even greater differences in time.
Coins of exactly the same weight had been found in geographical locations thousands of miles apart and in different cultures separated by thousands of years.

This is where my interest became really aroused and my work became exciting. Once more I was certain i had struck upon a mystery of the past worthy of exploration. But to make this clearer, let me first explain how our ancestors arrived at their basic units of measurement, now known as the inch, the hand, the foot, the cubit, and the yard.

All units of measure in the distant past of our civilization had the same basic system in their foundations
all were determined from the exact dimensions of our planet Earth.
Incredible as this may sound to the uninitiated, our ancestors derived their feet and inches from the length of one degree of latitude or longitude. Quite naturally they used the longitude and latitude at which they lived and that explains why there were so many different feet and other units of measurement derived from the local degrees.

The length of 1
⁰
of latitude varies from 110,567 m at the equator to 111,700 m at the pole, while one degree of longitude varies from zero at the pole to 111,321 m at the equator. These two basic units of longitude or latitude were divided by an appropriate round number to obtain a measurement of length that approximated the average natural dimension of a human foot, finger, hand, or forearm. The Semites expressed their units in their usual system of counting by 10, while the Sumerians registered theirs by counting by 12 or by 60, and the Olmecs and the Mayas by counting by 20. But the basis for all these different calculations was the same - the true dimensions of Earth.

The recognition of this fact does not, however, explain where our remote ancestors obtained such advanced scientific knowledge. Even the Greeks did not have it. Eratosthenes of Alexandria, the philosopher and mathematician, calculated the circumference of the Earth 2,200 years ago and obtained a very passable value for it; but we know now that this happened by sheer luck. He made wrong calculations with wrong data, but these mistakes were opposite in values and compensated each other. Even Pierre Mechain and Jean Delambre, the careful French surveyors who from 1792 to 1799 measured the distance from Barcelona in Spain to Dunkerque in France to obtain the base for the French metric system erred by a full 5 km over the length of 40,000 km of the meridian.