S03E13 - David Mathisen // Star Myths of the Asias

Introduction to Stress

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0:55Enrollment requirements, monthly, and other limits in terms apply.

1:25Dynasty Spas, exit 49 in Athens. Online, DynastySpaStore.com.

New Science and Myth

1:55Ready for some new, awesome science and myth. And if you're not, guys, it's okay. We're here for you. We support you. We have your back. We want you guys to move forward at a pace with which you're comfortable. Just got to walk it off. Yeah, or you can listen to it four more times. This episode is still going to be here when you're done. It will be, yeah. And it's a little bit more gentle. There's some concepts we've covered in previous episodes. There's a few aspects of the conversation that, you know, are brush up or catch up for some people who haven't had this, you know, the opportunity to speak with David Matheson before.

2:27But there's also some awesome new stuff in here. Yeah, dude, straight up. We had the opportunity to talk to him about some different myths, theories, concepts, schools of thought, religious implications that I've wanted to ask him about since season one. We've just never had the time because there's so many other things to talk about when we're having these conversations, right? And, you know, he's very thorough in his answers and just the conversation in general. And so I'm really, really glad we finally had the opportunity to talk about Buddhism.

2:57Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, he spent not just specifically thinking about Siddhartha and sort of the awakening surrounding that mythos, but he also, you know, spent some time talking about the Eastern practices, the East Indian practices outside of Buddhism and some Hinduism. Yeah. Went into a little bit of Bhagavad Gita, Mahabharata, you know, and just specifically thinking about, like, how does our separation trauma manifest in our own building of our own myth? Kind of interesting.

3:28Yeah, super interesting. So I'm going to cue up the weird CPAC bumper that we're not going to explain. We're just going to keep. It's a thing. We're just going to use it and you guys are going to have to sit through it. It's definitely a thing. Yeah. So here you go. You're welcome. All right.

David Matheson Joins the Conversation

4:04David Matheson joining us in the flesh at CPAC. First time I've ever seen your face in real life. Much taller than I thought. Much taller than I understood. Yeah. It doesn't take much for you to surpass me in height, but I mean, holy hell, is it amazing to, like, finally meet you in person, man. Legend. Yeah. Welcome to Lost Origins for the third time. First guest to ever make that happen in the history of the world.

4:28Oh, also the first time you ever hamhorned in a conversation. Inside a conversation. David Matheson. Thank you very much, guys. It's actually, you know, David Matheson just sends me to these things so that he can remain totally hidden. I like that. So I just come in case there's, you know. That's really nice. Well, you're much more attractive and taller than the other David Matheson. And David, if you're out there listening, you know, we understand the security measures. Yeah, we get it, dude. You got to stand. Yeah, there's a lot of germs out there. That's the way he operates. That guy.

4:58Man. It's great to be here with you guys. No, same. I really appreciate it, Andrew and CK, for having me on for the third time. I feel like we could probably have you on at least once a season and still have a really full conversation. Every time, you know, I've listened to the conversations you guys had season one, I remember leaving our conversation last season and just thinking, I could just wrap with that guy for a long-ass time. So thank you again for making time. We know you are going, you are one of the featured speakers here at CPAC. Yeah. And I would be remiss if I didn't give a special shout out for the fact that we are only here.

5:33Lost Origins is only connected with CPAC this year because of the generosity of spirit that you had in connecting Walter Cretenden and us earlier this season. So thank you for that. Thank you. Appreciate that. I'm glad to do it. And I'm really glad that it worked out. And I'm very grateful to Walter for having me, you know, back to CPAC. This is my second time here. I was here in 2016. But it's a really amazing conference, as you guys have already seen. Yeah. It's like... The vibe here is really positive. And the people that you meet on the attendees are very...

6:05Open. Open and... Thoughtful. Thoughtful. I've thought a lot about these things. So I'm really enjoying it here. So shout out to CPAC. Yeah. For sure. And the mind-blowing presentations that we've already had. Yeah. And we don't want to take away from, you know, this will air after you've actually given the talk. So hopefully, you know, people won't take the ideas and then not tune into it. But for those who aren't here or those who aren't able to watch the live stream, can you give us just a little insight into some of the cool stuff that you're going to be covering during your talk?

Upcoming Talk at CPAC

6:36Yeah, sure.

Upcoming Talk at CPAC

6:36So it's the conference on procession and ancient knowledge. And I will only have, you know... I mean, 40 minutes seems like a long time, but I've been practicing this for months and going, okay, now it's at 45. Okay, I've got to cut something else out and cut something else out. So, but I will be talking on the ancient myths. It's called Star's Myths and Your Essential Self or Recovering Yourself. It's actually called Star's Myths and Recovering Yourself.

7:08So really, in this talk, I'm focusing a little bit about the application of what all this means. And as I'm listening to these great presenters, I'm starting to, you know, have second thoughts, you know, like, wait, maybe I should be trying to lay out all that I've discovered and because people aren't familiar with it. But I'm going to just, I'm applying it to recovering yourself because actually the disconnection with yourself is such a huge problem.

7:39The original trauma. And the myths are actually all about it. They're talking about, I mean, they're all, they're about many, many deep subjects, but one of the central things that they are talking about is the fact that we've been disconnected from our essential self. Yeah. And they, I think, point a way back to recovering the essential self. And people who are listening might be going, essential self, what is that?

Essential Self

8:07Some kind of, you know, hazy, fruit loop concept. No, it's actually who you really are. Right. Your essence is who you are. And so people might say, okay, well, that's, you know, I do know that there's... I'm me. What are you talking about? You're me right now. Sure you are, buddy. Exactly. But how could we lose contact with who we really are? Well, it turns out we may have lost contact with who we really are and not even know it. So if you listen to people like Dr. Gabor Matei, who talks about trauma, and he's one of the

8:44most revered voices, he's a doctor, psychiatrist, actually, I think he's family practice, but he talks about the role of addiction and trauma and how trauma causes addiction and how often people think that trauma is only something that happened to you.

Trauma and Addiction

9:06They're like, oh, well, I never had any trauma because I didn't have any horrible thing happen to me as a child. Well, actually, trauma could also be something that didn't happen to you. You didn't get the necessary love and affection, not because your parents weren't trying, he talks about. But actually, in our society, we tell people, well, let your child just cry it out in the crib. That's how they have to learn to fall asleep. And if you go in there to them every time they cry, they're just training you to come in.

9:38Well, he says, you know, a orangutan would never leave their child crying. And actually, in indigenous societies, they don't either. They carry the child around. And so if your child's crying and you're not going into the child, then the child gets the idea. I mean, they can't do anything. Right. They get the idea that, well, I'm not important or something. And not because the parents don't love them. They think they're doing the right thing. But you can get this and you can actually disconnect from that part of yourself.

10:10You say, well, OK, and that's why we have a problem with anxiety in this society or ADHD. He talks about, you know, attention deficit is actually tuning out because something's so painful to you as a child. And if you don't get it resolved, then you tune out because you have nothing. You have no other defense when you're just an infant. Right. So you tune out and then your brain kind of gets wired to doing that. And it may have been an appropriate response to tune out when you're in a lot of pain.

10:45Right. But if you do that as an adult. So he talks about how all these patterns. Spring is here. And look at you. You're still stressed. Allow me to introduce the all new Acora Plunge Collection. Designed to combine performance, durability, and elegance and available in 15 or 19 feet. It's perfect for training, cooling off, or dramatically floating while rethinking your life choices. And remember, every spa comes loaded, covered, cover lifts, steps, chemical kit, and delivered right to your spot. You just sit. You just soak. And you forget everyone's name.

11:16Dynasty Spas. Exit 49 in Athens. Online. DynastySpasStore.com. I'm here on the job site with Dale, who's a framing contractor. Hey, good morning. Dale traded up to Geico Commercial Auto Insurance for all his business vehicles. We're here where he needs us most. Yep, they sure are. We make it easy for him to save on all his insurance needs, all in one place. With coverage that fits his business and bottom line. Oh, I shouldn't have looked down. It's all right. We're so far up here. Look at me. Take a deep breath. I'm good. So good. Get a commercial auto insurance quote today at Geico.com and see how much you could save.

11:49It feels good to Geico. That we have as an adult, them from trauma as a child.

Trauma-Producing Society

11:55Well, it turns out the myths are talking about disconnection and trauma all the time. They don't use that word. Yeah. But there's all these myths with twins, for example, and it's not actually two different people. I think last time, did we talk about Gand off the gray? Yep. So tomorrow, I'll talk a little bit about Gollum. Yeah. Now, does Gollum have conversations with himself? Smeakar. Smeakar.

12:25Exactly. So at one point, he even says, go away and never come back. He's trying to get rid of, who's he talking to? He's talking to this Gollum persona that he's created. And what does the Gollum persona say to him? Do you remember? He goes, go away and never come back. And then- You're nothing without me. Yeah. Exactly right. At first, he goes, what did you say? Yeah. You can't talk to me like that. But then he goes, we survived because of us.

12:58Because of us. Yeah. I, I kept you alive. We survived because of me. That's what our, we've, and so how did this Gollum persona get created? By long years of trauma, basically. Right. And you talked before about how Tolkien is also mining Castor and Pollux, is mining some of the understanding of Romulus and Remus and these other ancient myths that preceded by thousands of you as well. Yeah. I don't know what, I don't know what he was mining, but he was obviously very deeply knowledgeable

13:33about myths. The duality of self, right. Yeah. So in Castor and Pollux, I would say it's not two people anymore. And we talked about this last time, so not to plow up new, uh, old ground that we've already gone over, but so we have this persona that's not really our, that's our mind is actually not our essential self. It's this defense mechanism. It's very useful. A projected veneer to keep ourselves safe. It's this mechanism. Yeah. Yeah. It's like this mechanism that we've built because we have to, to, to operate within

14:04society, we do have to have, um, a persona and we have to have, but it, it comes with, um, some problems, especially if it gets out of control, if it, because basically it wants to take over the reins, like, like Gollum in when, when Smeagol says, go away and never come back. Gollum says, wait a minute, I'm in charge and it doesn't want to let go. And you see this actually in the myths and I'll talk about it a little tomorrow. Awesome. But in the Doubting Thomas episode, when Thomas meets Jesus, I would argue that that is the

14:43egoic mind encountering the essential self. And when the disciples say, Hey, we've seen the Lord. What does Thomas say? Nonsense. Right. Nonsense. I would have to touch, uh, he has doubts. Well, we'll get into that a little bit in, in some of the things that we talk about, but doubts are actually can be useful. We need doubts. I always say, if I drive away from the house and I made scrambled eggs in my cast iron skillet, and as I'm driving down the road, I go, did I turn off the burner?

15:18And if I can't remember turning off the burner, it's probably a good thing to double check because you could burn down the house that way. So I go back and check out, I did turn it off, but it's good to have doubts once in a while. But if they run your life, then you're going to have a lot of problems in trying to succeed in whatever you're supposed to be doing and they can take over. So we see in the doubting Thomas episode, Thomas has to let go and let, and that's the proper

15:52relationship between the essential self. We have the egoic self. It's not going to ever go away. You can't just say, go away and never come back. That doesn't work. It didn't work for Smeagol. It's not going to work for us. But we see this pattern in the Bhagavad Gita. We might get into that a little bit today where the reins of the chariot in the Bhagavad Gita are held by Krishna, the divine charioteer, who's, that's the proper role. And Arjun lets Krishna hold the reins.

16:24Well, so that's what we should be striving towards is somehow reconnecting with our essential self so that our egoic mind is in the right relationship with our essential self. Because that's who should be. Wouldn't you want who you really are, your essence to be driving rather than this persona that you created? Can I be direct to shit with you real quick? Yeah. So you had mentioned doubting Thomas and that got my brain back to the beginning of this conversation where you had said, you know, watching these presenters over the last few

16:55days, you know, you're questioning whether or not you should really be focusing on the discoveries or be focusing on connecting with this authentic self.

Authentic Self and Society

17:03Man, I'm so glad that you are going to present the authentic self though, because it's so needed. And don't get me wrong, like the few sessions that I've been able to attend when we're not in here doing the podcast stuff, there, there are things that are being discussed that blow the mind. I watched, uh, Robert, Robert Edward Grant, just like almost destroy the universe real quick with the math. It's fine. Right. Almost ripped a portal in space. Exactly. Still wait for that. Still wait for that. Um, but I think all of this stuff is mind bending and it's, it's so much fun to think about and see these connections starting to be made. But the, the, the, the subject matter that you're talking about is like actionable, but

17:38holy hell, is it important? I've never had a conversation with you. And I don't know if I'm, if I'm speaking for the both of us here, but every conversation we've ever had, both like on the podcast or, or just on the phone or whatever, you, you make me think about things differently. And you make me look at like, man, like this example you just gave with, with the kid in the crib, right? It's like, I look at things through a different lens than I normally do when we're talking about Gobekli Tepe, or we're talking about the nature of reality. And it's such a refreshing and needed perspective.

18:08And I'm not trying to comb the ego or anything. Like, I'm just really glad that this is like the focus of, of what you're going to be presenting this weekend, man. It's awesome. Thanks. Yeah. And, and, and, uh, the child in the crib, uh, example does come from Dr. Gobler Matej. Sure. So, but, but, but it's also indicative of just how we are as society. Our society is a trauma inducing society and the, the rate of, uh, anxiety and depression drug, you, you know, drug prescription in our society has grown dramatically in the last,

18:42just in the last 20 years. And thinking about how technology itself, you know, we've talked about this before, just that, uh, this is something that transcends generations, right? This is this, this idea. I mean, we can even go back to thinking about like myth of invariance and some of these other just separations from the great self, you know, as well. But I think something that we talked about maybe offline last time was just the idea that, you know, Instagram, Facebook, all of these other things, there's this other form of trauma that you are doing to yourself by virtue of this juxtaposition against this

19:17kind of figmented, curated veneer. Right. This Dave online, Facebook Dave. Yeah. You know, versus the person, you know, yourself to be and the person that you also have in your mind's eye as, as the person you'd like to be, you know, the person you'd like to become when you grow up. And I think to whatever extent we all deal with a lot of this self-loathing associated with the, the arrow of time. Right. And just then the fact that we don't have, nor would it be practical for us to use any sort

19:50of, uh, you know, wormhole or time travel in order to sort of undo the consequences of choices we've made. And I think as forward facing people all the time, we have such a difficulty. I think something that I'd like, Andrew, saying that I get from each conversation with you is this willingness to say, you know what, this moment that you can spend with yourself to try to facilitate the healing or facilitate the relationship between your egoic self and

20:20your real identity is worth spending now on. And it's not something you need to just put off and put off and put off. And it's also not easy. You know, this is something that, that most social structures condition us to see as a too difficult to potentially be a little bit woo or like mystic. And often it's like, well, you don't have time to think about that, bro. You need to go stack some money and go, you know, make your mark on the world. And meanwhile, forget about this other healing that may be the cornerstone or the keystone of

20:54some of what, you know, these, I think, powerful mythological archetypes have been trying to remind us of and tell us of. And part of what, you know, we discussed in the last couple of conversations with you is just how potent some of this messaging has been throughout time. And I think like, don't, I just agree with Andrew completely. Don't shy away from bringing that point home with this audience. Cause I think it may be one of the more actionable things that people get from the conference as a whole. You drop your wisdom and we'll be out there dropping hand horns left and right.

21:26It'll be good. Walter should be like, they're never coming back.

21:32But you can't say go away and never come back. That's true. That's true. I'll just keep coming back. Walter, listen though. But no, but I appreciate that. Spring is here and look at you. You're still stressed. Allow me to introduce the all new Acora Plunge Collection. Designed to combine performance, durability, and elegance and available in 15 or 19 feet. It's perfect for training, cooling off, or dramatically floating while rethinking your life choices. And remember, every spa comes loaded, covered, cover, lift, steps, chemical kit, and delivered right to your spot. You just sit, you just soak, and you forget everyone's name.

22:06Dynasty Spas, exit 49 in Athens. Online, DynastySpaStore.com. I'm here on the job site with Dale, who's a framing contractor. Hey, good morning. Dale traded up to Geico Commercial Auto Insurance for all his business vehicles. We're here where he needs us most. Yep, they sure are. We make it easy for him to save on all his insurance needs, all in one place, with coverage that fits his business and bottom line. Oh, I shouldn't have looked down. It's all right. We're so far up here. Look at me. Take a deep breath. No, I'm good. It's so good.

22:36Get a commercial auto insurance quote today at Geico.com and see how much you could save. It feels good to Geico. Actually, it's interesting because I would say that we are in a trauma-producing society

Ancient Wisdom and Myths

22:48and the fact that now something like 2 in 10 adults are on psychotropic-type medication, mostly for anti-anxiety and depression. The fact that that's increasing at quite a rapid rate, like something like 63% increase from 1999 or 2000, which is pretty startling, shows that we're in a trauma. And when you say, well, you've got to get out there and stack some money, because we're living, that's anxiety-producing. Like, am I going to be able to raise a kid? Will I have enough tomorrow?

23:18Well, it's like what Robert Grant said. It's like the mentality of scarcity, right? Like it's- Yeah, the absolute mentality of scarcity. And the myths actually tell us that we have access to what we need. But what's interesting is, so we live in a trauma-producing society. Could we make our society less trauma-producing? Absolutely. And I think the society we live in is actually a result of the stamping out of the ancient wisdom of the myths, you know, centuries down the line now. But the fact that all the myths talk about it, including the Gilgamesh epic, which is

23:55basically the first long-written story that we have to look at, the fact that the Gilgamesh epic is talking about trauma, which I can show you that it is, and there's twins in there too, by the way, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, shows that this is not a, you know, 21st century problem. This is a problem of basically the human condition involves the separation or the lost connection,

24:30the dying god, Osiris, that has to be searched for. And then we have Persephone has to be searched for. Balder goes down to the underworld, and then all of the whole realm mourns for Balder. And we see this over and over, this, the lost divinity. I'm not saying necessarily that Osiris is your higher self, but I will say that I think your higher self or your essential self, that's what connects you.

25:03When we reconnect with ourselves, with our higher self, that's, that's the voice that gives you this inspiration or where I, I, the, the way I feel it most is when I wake up in the morning and have an answer to something that I was wondering about the night before. This has happened more than one time where I'm working on a myth. And I'm like, hmm, I can tell this is based on the stars, but I don't really have it figured out. And this, this, and I'm thinking about it, thinking about it.

25:34And I go to bed in the next morning, not necessarily when I wake up. And it's not like I have a dream of an angel that tells me the answer, but I'll be in the shower or something just, you know, 20 minutes after waking up and I'll go, oh, that's what it is. And, and obviously my mind was working on it or not necessarily my conscious mind, obviously because at night you're conscious is asleep. Well, we get messages like that and that's not so hard to explain. That doesn't involve woo, but people get messages that can't be explained even by the five senses

26:07where they get a message or a feeling about a friend who's in another state and they call them up and they go, oh, I'm so glad you called because this or whatever. That can't really be explained, but I would, uh, within our current paradigm, but I would suggest that that voice, that when we connect with our essential self, that's how we start to connect with others. And then even with the divine realm or the realm of the gods. Yeah. And that's in these myths, you know, Odysseus gets help from Athena or from Hermes and it,

26:42and we see over and over again, he would have basically failed if Athena hadn't shown up at this point, right before he goes into meet Circe or it's Hermes in that case. Same thing with Perseus when he's going to slay, he's got to go slay Medusa. Right. He would have totally failed that mission if Hermes and Athena hadn't shown up, but they don't go slay Medusa for him. Just like in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna is specifically a non-combatant.

27:13He says, I will drive the chariot, but I will not fight for you. And so the gods, as they're described in the myths, you have to be in touch with that realm to get that message. Yeah. And they will give you what you need. They will equip you with what you need, but you still have to go out and do it. Right. So. And these common myths coming up all over the globe, and these are like the ecotypes, I believe is what you. Yeah. So ecotypes. Ecotypes. Yeah. Well, that's how I pronounce it. I may be wrong. I may be totally wrong, but that's right.

27:45But, um, so an oikotype, this is a super interesting vein to go into. Do it.

27:54So you were almost saying like archetype too. So like people like Jung have talked about archetypes, but an oikotype is an even more specific word. And it actually comes from the study of botany. And I don't know if we got into this when we were talking about oikotypes before, but the first person to apply oikotypes to localized flowers or. Well, no, he was, it was already used in like botany. Yeah. So variants, like a variant of one plant in, maybe in France, it looks slightly different

28:30than it would in England because of the climate. But we know this is the same. I'm not a botanist. So botanists who are listening will say he totally butchered that. But those are ecotypes of a particular plant localized. An oikotype.

Buddhism and Taoism

28:42Yeah.

Buddhism and Taoism

28:42It's like a, um, an environmental slight difference, uh, within the same general pattern. Okay. Okay. So there was a folklorist, a Swedish folklorist named Carl Wilhelm von Sydow. Did I mention Carl Wilhelm von Sydow? Okay. So Carl Wilhelm von Sydow was a Swedish folklorist. And, um, when you guys asked me about it, like, so first I wrote about oikotypes. I've written about them all the way back in my book, Astro Theology for Life, which was

29:13a couple of years ago. And I mentioned Carl von Sydow is the one who came up with this. And I mentioned it in my most recent book. And then I said, you know, von Sydow is kind of a distinctive last name. It's spelled S-Y-D-O-W. Have you guys ever heard of an actor whose last name is von Sydow? You guys ever see Flash Gordon? Flash Gordon? Like OG Flash Gordon? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, I'm talking about Flash Gordon. That was like 1980. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, who plays Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon?

29:44I don't remember. All right. You guys never heard of this thing called Game of Thrones, have you? I think it's called Game of Big Chairs, David, but it's fine. It's fine. Tomato, tomato. I think they switched the actor who plays the Three-Eyed Raven about halfway through it. Okay. You know who plays the Three-Eyed Raven? Uh-uh. Oh, come on. Do you guys ever see Minority Report? Yeah, yeah. You know the bad guy who's setting up Tom Cruise? Sure, the old guy. That's Max von Sydow. Von Sydow. That's the son of Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, and I never even knew that.

30:19I'm writing about, well, this folklorist from Sweden came up with this term, oikotypes for myth patterns, and then after I've written it in a couple of books, I said, yeah, I wonder if that's related to Max von Sydow in some way. Maybe they're cousins or something. Oh, it's his dad. So- Interesting. Max von Sydow was born in 1929, the actor, and his father- Carl Wilhelm von Sydow applied this term, oikotypes, to patterns in folklore, mostly in folklore.

30:50Okay. And apparently, I was doing a little bit more research on it. I should have done this before I mentioned it in a book, but apparently he had a student. So he was a professor, and one of his students, Sven S. Liljablad, who lived from 1899 to 2000, while Carl von Sydow was teaching about, there was one theory for how these patterns came up, and then Sven S. Liljablad said, I think it's a different theory, and together they kind of came up with the idea of oikotypes, I guess, according to the article I was reading today,

31:24which is really interesting. Yeah. But these patterns are found in myths. They're found in fairy tales. Like another myth that I'll talk about tomorrow is the myth of Eros and Psyche, or Cupid and Psyche. And in that story, you'll recognize this pattern. The girl is so beautiful. She's so beautiful that everyone compares her beauty to the beauty of the gods or Aphrodite and says, oh, she's even more beautiful than the goddess. Well, that's a big no-no in myth, right?

31:56Never, ever say that the gift that comes from the divine realm, from the gift of the gods, is above the source itself. Somebody's going to die or get scarred. Yeah. When you play the game of big chairs, you either win or you die. T minus three pages until you get bathed in acid. So let me just ask you real quick, because my brain's going all over the place. Like, is it also connected to Joseph Campbell's, like, hero journey? Is it similarities there? No? Well, so I think they're trying to, I think they're all trying to explain the same phenomenon

32:26that we find around the world, very similar patterns. Yeah. Spring is here, and look at you. You're still stressed. Allow me to introduce the all-new Acora Plunge Collection, designed to combine performance, durability, and elegance, and available in 15 or 19 feet. It's perfect for training, cooling off, or dramatically floating while rethinking your life choices. And remember, every spa comes loaded, covered, cover lifts, steps, chemical kit, and delivered right to your spot. You just sit, you just soak, and you forget everyone's name.

32:56Dynasty Spas, exit 49 in Athens. Online, DynastySpaStore.com. One hundred and two miles ago, the oil light came on. One hundred miles ago, you noticed. Now, it's time to head to Take Five. This oil change, fall in love with your car all over again. In just ten minutes, your dream technician will check your tire pressure, top off fluids, change your oil, and verify with Carfax exactly what your car really needs. All while keeping you in the driver's seat. Repeat with great similarity in different cultures

33:37that aren't supposed to be in connection with one another. So, are they variants of some original pattern? And how did they, how do they, and actually what, when this theory came up, it was replacing an earlier theory of, well, how do all these patterns? I think the answer is, there was probably an advanced ancient culture that all these myths are descended from, or variants of. So, that's usually where my brain goes,

34:07but because of the weekend that we've had talking to all of these people, I'm almost wondering, like, okay, is it diffusionism? Yeah, it could be. Is it ancient civilization with, you know, high understanding of just all the things? Yeah, it could be. Is it like a higher state of consciousness, though, that like, like you said, when you find the authentic self, that's like your connection to the universe? Like, I mean, there's another rabbit hole. It could be. Or when people, you know, I have not used ayahuasca, but when people use ayahuasca, they report remarkably similar type beings that they encounter.

34:38So, maybe, you know, when you learn things from the spirit realm, they explain it in this kind of way. So, maybe people are using, and don't get me wrong, I don't think you need substances to get in touch, or to have an ecstatic experience. Ecstatic, meaning out of stasis, out of the static body. Ecstasy can be induced by, or can be attained by meditation, can be attained by drumming.

35:08Because think about it, if it was only attained by a certain plant, then if you happen to live in a climate without that plant, it's like, well, your culture's out of luck. Back to Instagram, slave.

35:21But this system is worldwide. So, everyone, it's like every single culture has their original instructions. And I think I've mentioned, I borrow that term from the great Peter Kingsley, who has written some amazing books. And he says, every culture has their original instructions. It just seems like some of those original instructions got stamped out or taken out. Right. Particularly in Western, what we call Western culture, actually had all this back in ancient Greece, ancient Egypt.

35:53But those cultures were in touch with the ancient, original instructions, and then something happened to them. But, yeah, everyone seems to have it around the world. So, people often ask me, well, where did it come from? Or, couldn't it have been aliens? Right. And I say, look, all I can really show, what I've discovered is tremendous amounts of evidence that the myths of the world are based on celestial metaphor. Right. And I can prove, I would say I can prove that

36:26with compelling amounts of evidence. Yeah. What does it mean? You know, now I'm basically going into speculation or opinion or my informed analysis about it, but you can disagree with me. But I believe it has to do with recovering that connection with the self and many other important things. But you could argue with me and say, well, that's not what it's really about. And then where it came from, again, I've got some opinions about that, but I can't prove.

36:57What are your opinions about that, if you don't mind me putting you on the spot? Yeah, I think it really is pretty clear that this system was already in effect. Like I said, the Gilgamesh tablets are extremely ancient, like 3,000 B.C. We have texts in the, not the Giza pyramids, but some other pyramids from like 4th Dynasty or 4th Dynasty, if you're British, I guess, Dynasty. I say Dynasty from California.

37:27But those pyramid texts are very ancient also, like 2,500 B.C. Pretty much the earliest texts that we have that have survived. The reason they survived, clay tablets baked, happened to last very, very long. Carving it into the walls, on the interior walls of pyramids, lasts very, very long. And we've already got the system in place at that time. It's already operating in the Gilgamesh story. It's completely based on celestial metaphor.

37:58Inside the pyramid texts, we see references to Osiris and Horus and that whole myth. Not even fully explained. It's like, obviously, they were writing to an audience where they assume that you already know the Osiris myth. They're not laying it all out for you. They're just mentioning it as if you already know it. Yeah, it's not the one-on-one. So it's already in existence

Celestial Metaphor

38:22at the earliest civilizations that we conventionally know of. And now, you know, today, we just heard a great lecture from Professor Robert Schock talking about Gilbeckli Tepe was completely deliberately buried by 8,000 B.C. And look, they appear to be using writing. And they are clearly using advanced stone, monumental construction. Yeah, relief carving. The high relief, low relief carving. Yeah, wasn't that amazing? So there's evidence

38:53of a predecessor culture or of civilization going on long before. Even today, he said, this is still controversial. And I have faced a withering amount of criticism from my academic colleagues for going where the evidence shows. But when he was first talking about that, along with the late, great John Anthony West, in the 90s, Gilbeckli Tepe hadn't even been, you know, it had been known about, but it hadn't been excavated. So they would say,

39:25well, where's your evidence of a predecessor culture, right? Right. And now we have Gilbeckli Tepe, which throws a hole. It's right there. Yeah, exactly. So I would say, probably, you don't need aliens. Can I rule that out as where it came from? No, maybe it came from aliens. I mean, I get asked that sometimes. Why don't you just go with aliens? Well, I have no idea. Nobody can tell you. That's just it. Nobody can tell you this. If somebody says, well, I know it was aliens from Arcturus,

39:56it's like, well, okay. I don't think you can know it. This removed, because this is preceding ancient Egypt, preceding ancient Mesopotamia. It's so far back. But I think it was some kind of very culturally advanced, sophisticated,

40:15spiritually advanced culture. You had to know what you were trying to say before you could even put it into these metaphors. Right. And you had to know it like a master to come up with those metaphors. I often used the great karate kid from 1984. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But did Mr. Miyagi have to know karate really well before he could say, hmm, what do I have around here? Oh, wax a car, paint the fence. He already knew the higher realm, in his case, karate.

40:45So whoever put this in, I mean, the myths themselves are amazing level of metaphor. Yeah. So this culture had to be very, very advanced. So I think it was some, personally, I think it was some human culture. Now, maybe they got it from the gods from the other realm. So you know I'm going to have to ask, where did that culture come from? Right. Right? I don't know. I often find, and part of the reason that I go into this line of questioning is that I often find that so many of these discussions rely on a,

41:16and it's really kind of the basis of the show, you know, is thinking about what are the origins of humanity itself. And oftentimes I'm driven by this idea of some collective non-corporeal conscious entity that we refer to in very human terms as, you know, as consciousness or as, you know, your thought or yourself or your soul or one of those things. And just to go out on a limb, because I'm a total weirdo, I often find myself

41:47contemplating the idea of, and this is talked about a little bit in Myth of Invariance and this is talked about a lot and as people discuss harmonic dualities and things about, you know, each energy needing a counter energy in order to find its union, that we ourselves need myth to give us some sort of touchstone or basis for what is otherwise a timeless story and that we are driven by event-driven

42:19physical narratives, physical journeys because we are temporal, carporeal creatures. We are a conscious, you can call yourself a self or a soul, whatever you'd like to say, a conscious entity trapped in a sack of rotting meat that lives in a very linear, carporeal manner and the only language we know is linear. The only sensibility we have about

42:50becoming, about being involves the linearity of the arrow of time and so without story there's this vacuum of lack of sensibility about progress, right, about the progression towards something, some future state of things whereas I think a lot of the things that, and we touched on this briefly when we talked about Rig Veda and Bhagavad Gita in one of our last conversations is this really fascinating myth that Hindu people,

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43:52Kind of a core element that there is this one, you know, just the idea of the duality of prana and akasha that it's only itself waking up in these illusory other forms and it's almost like cosmic masturbation and I'm not even being gross when I say that, truly just playing with yourself as the universe and it's creating these sort of cyclical, carporeal, linear experiences in order to have

44:22that kind of experience because if you're a timeless, formless, omniscient, omnipresent entity like akasha, can't you only really have fun if you trap yourself in a sack of meat? I don't know. That's very interesting. That's a very interesting but what's interesting is actually you may know that there's an Egyptian creation myth that literally does involve masturbation which is like you know we don't typically talk about that on podcasts

44:52but it's we have a few times it's fine it is in my most recent book where I talk about Egyptian myth but the other thing I was going to say is I think we have a you talk about we have this kind of tendency to I think we get tangled up in the physical I just did a recent video about the Perseus and Medusa story well what is the most memorable

45:22aspect of Medusa and the Gorgons hair yeah hair of serpents and what's their most memorable power turning to stone well what is that turning to stone it's like objectifying becoming an object and I think that's kind that myth may be explaining this is a