Tonight’s Read: The Vatican Heresy—Bernini and the Building of the Hermetic Temple of the Sun! (Introduction+Contents+Blurbs)

“Ninety percent, perhaps even more, of history is not documented. And as for the little that is documented or recorded, much of it may not be history at all but the warped perception, dissimulation, cover-ups, and bias of those documenting or recording it. The task of the true historian is to detect the history that is not told, much like a cosmologist detects the structure of the universe that is not seen. To read between the lines or see between the empty spaces, that is the exciting challenge . . .”

—The Authors

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Introduction

Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.”

—Theodore Roosevelt

This book was a very ambitious project, and I readily admit that researching and writing it was not only a thrilling experience but also a very daunting one, as well. The complexity of the topic and the sheer volume of research material made it feel like I was recklessly challenging a bookish Goliath with only a reed twig in my hand to bring him down! Yet the temptation to quest and sleuth a historical mystery of this scale was too tantalizing to pass over. There was, certainly, the initial apprehension that all authors have when taking on such a task. A long, dark tunnel must be crossed solo, and then at the other end await the inevitable lashes by experts whose feathers you are bound to have ruffled. But such qualms are then quickly dismissed by a weird—almost perverse—gladiatorial thrill of marching into the arena to do battle again with that old foe: academic consensus.

A decade ago I wrote with Graham Hancock Talisman: Sacred Cities, Secret Faith. In this book we explored the Hermetic tradition and tracked its journey out of Egypt and its influence on the design of major capital cities of the Western world. Academics, needless to say, ignored it. And the only academic who didn’t ignore it ended up repaying us by blatantly plagiarizing a discovery we made regarding the layout of ancient Alexandria. I bring this up because there was also a tiny—although immensely important—“city” that Graham and I barely touched in our book: the Vatican City in Rome. With hindsight I can say that we had thus overlooked the most important piece of that huge historical puzzle we had set about to solve. After much deliberation I finally decided to reopen the case for the Vatican City in late 2011. It was at this point that I invited the Italian author Chiara Hohenzollern and also Dr. Sandro Zicari to join me.

Let me quickly get to the point: it is often stated by historians of art and architecture that the Piazza St. Peter’s at the Vatican was designed to represent “the open arms of Mother Church.” This, in fact, is indeed claimed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini himself, the architect responsible for the design. We believe it to be a truth, but not the whole truth. Truth often comes in many layers. Revealing only one layer yet dissimulating another will make this partial truth seem to be something very different indeed. This is why today a person on the stand in a court of law will be sworn in to tell not only the truth, but rather the whole truth. We believe that there is another, far more important layer in which rests the whole truth behind Bernini’s grandiose design. This whole truth he, nonetheless, took to his grave, for it was such an unspeakable truth, such a taboo, such a forbidden fruit in his time that the mere mention of it might have brought down the whole edifice of Mother Church—that is to say, the Vatican itself. Yet the amazing daringness of Bernini’s ploy was to hide the truth in plain sight for all to see. Indeed, so well did he do this that everyone who looked—and there have been millions since—did not see it all. And when finally some did see it, so out rageous, so fantastic was its implication that they simply preferred to dismiss it as mere coincidence. Bernini clearly intended it to be a sort of intellectual time bomb meant to be detonated not in his time but when the time was right, when its revelation would not bring down the Vatican, but do, instead, the opposite. To fully appreciate the magnitude of this revelation, and to make our case worthy of the most serious consideration, we had to undertake a chase across nearly two millennia of history, from Greco-Roman Alexandria to Renaissance Rome, sometimes moving at breakneck speed, making Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons seem like a Sunday stroll in the park. It was a thrilling undertaking and, most of all, an amazing eye-opener. No matter what one may think of it, one thing is certain: Christianity and Western culture will never seem the same again.

But enough said. The die is cast. You have the evidence in your hands. No need to tarry.

We are ready to present our case . . .

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Table of Contents

Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: The True Religion of the World

• REBIRTH
• THE CITY OF MEMORY
• THE MAKING OF A GOD
• MAGIC IS NOT “RELIGION”
• A PLACE TO FLOURISH
• WHAT HAVE THE ROMANS DONE FOR US?
• AN APOSTLE IN ALEXANDRIA
• EXCURSION ONE, TO ROME, 45 CE
• “BY THIS SIGN YOU SHALL CONQUER”
• ROMAN CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY
• THOTH BECOMES HERMES TRISMEGISTUS, AND HIS SACRED BOOKS
• BECOME THE HERMETICA
• THE LAMENT

Chapter 2: The Hermetic Movement, Part I

Giant Skeletons & Burial Mounds: What Don’t They Want Us to Know?

“Has there been a giant cover-up? Why aren’t there public displays of gigantic Native American skeletons at natural history museums?” 

♢♢♢

That’s a good question. A VERY good question…

So, what is this whole cover-up about, really? Aren’t you being a bit of a conspiracy theorist?

If you knew me, you’d already know the answer to that. I don’t believe anything without proof. MY kind of proof, not what I am fed by another person, faction, or organization.

The proof is indisputable enough in too many of these incidents to be ignored. But, you want evidence…

The Evidence

“We seem to have been conditioned from childhood from texts such as the Koran and the Bible that we are limited as far as how long we have existed as a civilized people. But the oral traditions of many cultures state clearly that our humanity goes back farther in time than western science believes. Conventional science is almost like a closed system. They have a very structured belief system, and anything that doesn’t fit within their belief system is simply rejected, or hidden from us. This is what is called “forbidden archaeology.”

– Brien Foerester, Author, A Brief History of the Incas

You don’t believe it? Neither do I.

Of course we don’t. We have systematically been conditioned not to.

In fact,  we in civilized western society have all been conditioned not to believe anything outside of the boundaries of the closed religious and scientific systems that define, color, and propel the cultures in which we live our lives.

As much as we’d like to appear modern and brave, we humans really do not like change, do we? We do not seem to be wired to cope with it, at least not anymore.

It is, however, becoming increasingly difficult to deny the information that keeps surfacing, like the undead … pointing a mouldering finger at the truth…and, I don’t know about you…but, I don’t like being told what to do, or what to believe….or disbelieve.

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New York Times

Tuesday, September 2, 1914

‘Scientists are remaining stubbornly silent about a lost race of giants found in burial mounds near Lake Delavan, Wisconsin, in May 1912.

Article published in the NYT in December 1897, proves that when the 1912 article was published, these types of discoveries were not “news”. (Nine-Foot Skeleton Found in Maple Creek, Wisconsin.)

The dig site at Lake Delavan was overseen by Beloit College and it included more than 200 effigy mounds that proved to be classic examples of 8th-century woodland culture.

But the enormous size of the skeletons and elongated skulls found in May 1912 did not fit very neatly into anyone’s concept of a textbook standard. They are enormous.

These are not average human beings.

Strange Skulls Found

‘First reported in the 4 May 1912 issue of the New York Times, the 18 skeletons found by the Peterson brothers on Lake Lawn Farm in southwestern Wisconsin exhibited several strange and freakish features.

Their heights ranged between 7.6ft and 10 feet and their skulls…“presumably those of men, are much larger than the heads of any race which inhabit America to-day.” (NYT 5/4/12)

They tend to have a double row of teeth, six fingers, six toes and like humans came in differant races. The teeth in the front of the jaw are regular molars. Heads usually found are elongated believed due to longer than normal life span.

Are these the Giants the Bible spoke of—and that many other civilizations have in their history and painted on their walls?’

Over 200 digs have been explored over the years. Regardless of the evidence, giant skeletons have not made the local/national news since about the 1950s. Some believe this may have been due to the fear that people would question evolution. If anything believe in a “de-evolution”.

♢♢♢

Giant skulls and skeletons of a race of “Goliaths” have been found on a very regular basis throughout the Midwestern United States for over 100 years. These skeletons have been found in Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky and New York; and their burial sites are similar to the well-known mounds of what we now call the “mound builders.” (Who Were the “Mound Builders”?)

The spectrum of mound builder history spans a period of more than 5,000 years (from 3400 BCE to the 16th CE), a period greater than the history of Ancient Egypt and all of its dynasties.

There is a “prevailing scholarly consensus” that we have an adequate historical understanding of the peoples who lived in North America during this period.

Burial mounds in Wisconsin. Inset shows cross section of a similar mound with the position of the skeleton, mound height, etc. 

However, the long record of anomalous finds like those at Lake Delavan suggests otherwise.

The Mystery of the Wisconsin Skeletons

The Lake Delavan find of May 1912 was only one of dozens and dozens of similar finds that were reported in local newspapers from 1851 forward to the present day. It was not even the first set of giant skeletons found in Wisconsin.

On 10 August 1891, the New York Times reported that scientists from the Smithsonian Institution had discovered several large “pyramidal monuments” on Lake Mills, near Madison, Wisconsin.

“Madison was in ancient days the centre of a teeming population numbering not less than 200,000,” the Times said.

The excavators found an elaborate system of defensive works which they named Fort Aztalan (The Princess of Aztalan, Wisconsin Princess Mound).

“One of the biggest mysteries of Aztalan is what they did with their dead. No cemetery has been found as yet, and the burials found thus far are too few to accurately generalize as to their burial methods. The Princess was very carefully wrapped for burial. She was wrapped in three belts of decorated shell beads numbering over 3,000….the beads were carefully wrapped around the body: one about the shoulders, one around the waist and the third went twice around the lower part of the legs and ankles. Each belt was four feet long and six inches wide. A few of these shells came from as far away as the Gulf of Mexico. The condition of her spinal column indicates that she had been slightly deformed. Because of this abnormality, she may have been looked upon with reverence as has been the case with other tribes.”

– Ritzenthaler, Prehistoric Indians of Wisconsin

“The celebrated mounds of Ohio and Indiana can bear no comparison, either in size, design or the skill displayed in their construction with these gigantic and mysterious monuments of earth—erected we know not by whom, and for what purpose we can only conjecture,” said the Times.

On 20 December 1897, the Times followed up with a report on three large burial mounds that had been discovered in Maple Creek, Wisconsin. One had recently been opened (see news clipping at the beginning of this post):

“In it was found the skeleton of a man of gigantic size. The bones measured from head to foot over nine feet and were in a fair state of preservation. The skull was as large as a half bushel measure. Some finely tempered rods of copper and other relics were lying near the bones.” (NYT 12/20/1897)

The Smithsonian Cover-up

Has there been a giant cover-up? Why aren’t there public displays of gigantic Native American skeletons at natural history museums?

The skeletons of some Mound Builders are certainly on display. There is a wonderful exhibit, for example, at the Aztalan State Park where one may see the skeleton of a “Princess of Aztalan” in the museum (photo above).

But the skeletons placed on display are normal-sized, and according to some sources, the skeletons of giants have been covered up.

Facsimile of October 6, 1895 edition of The World, with an article about “Nine Foot Giant Indian Found in California”.

Specifically, the Smithsonian Institution has been accused of making a deliberate effort to hide the “telling of the bones” and to keep the giant skeletons locked away.

In the words of Vine Deloria, a Native American author and professor of law:

“Modern day archaeology and anthropology have nearly sealed the door on our imaginations, broadly interpreting the North American past as devoid of anything unusual in the way of great cultures characterized by a people of unusual demeanor…

The great interloper of ancient burial grounds, the nineteenth century Smithsonian Institution, created a one-way portal, through which uncounted bones have been spirited…

This door and the contents of its vault are virtually sealed off to anyone, but government officials. Among these bones may lay answers not even sought by these officials concerning the deep past.”

Are You Convinced Yet?

I leave you with a few more reports of “forbidden archaeology” finds…

Two Giant Skeletons Near Potosi, WI

The January 13th, 1870 edition of the Wisconsin Decatur Republican reported that two giant, well-preserved skeletons of an unknown race were discovered near Potosi, WI by workers digging the foundation of a saw mill near the bank of the Mississippi river.

One skeleton measured seven-and-a-half feet, the other eight feet. The skulls of each had prominent cheek bones and double rows of teeth. A large collection of arrowheads and “strange toys” were found buried with the remains.

Fourteen Nine-Foot-Long Skeletons Found in Santa Monica, CA

“William Derbyshire and Jack Stoneberger of Chicago, and Robert Derbyshire of Santa Monica, contractors, have unearthed the skeleton of a giant prehistoric man at Santa Monica beach. The skeleton was over nine feet in height. Hard work uncovered thirteen more similar skeletons.

Three perfect specimens were brought to Santa Monica for exhibitions and scientists who have examined them say they are undoubtedly hundreds of years old.

The skulls have the formation of an Indian head. with high cheek bones, and other pronounced characteristics. In every case the teeth are practically intact.”

(The Washington times. Washington D.C. July 13, 1908, Last Edition, Page 12 Research done by Rephaim 23)

Giant Skeleton Discovered in Maple Creek, WI

On December 20th, 1897 the New York Times reported that three large burial mounds had been discovered near Maple Creek, WI. Upon excavation, a skeleton measuring over nine feet from head to toe was discovered with finely tempered copper rods and other relics.

Giant Skeleton in West Bend, WI

A giant skeleton was unearthed outside of West Bend near Lizard Mound County Park and assembled by local farmers to a height of eight feet. More about this can be found in Washington County Paranormal: A Wisconsin Legend Trip by local author and investigator J. Nathan Couch.

While a normal-sized skeleton of a supposed mound builder (the “Princess of Aztalan”) is on display at the site of several large pyramidal monuments near Madison called Aztalan State Park, the goliath remains of Wisconsin’s giants have vanished along with the hundreds of others discovered throughout the midwest.

Many people suggest the Smithsonian Institution has covered up these discoveries, locking the giant skeletons away and depriving the public of these incredible findings.

I want to believe them. ♢

 

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Further Reading…

The Pyramid in Rock Lake…

Forbidden Archaeology with A. T. Ott, Ph. D

Genes, Giants, Monsters, and Men…

14 Giant Skeletons Found in California…

[Unless otherwise noted above, all images, quotations, and related content were found at one or more of the following locations: Wikipedia, beforeitsnews.net, theburlingtonnews.net, Pinterest, greaterancestors.com, atrueott.wordpress.com/forbidden-archeology/, southmilwaukeenow.com, & The Rundown Live (Milwaukee’s Alternative Free Press)]