Origins

 

EARTHQUEST NEWS

The Andrew Collins Newsletter

Vol. 11 No.1 (Summer 2008)



Andrew recently in Nazlet el-Samman, the village next to the Sphinx

Hi, to everyone. It has been nine months since I last wrote, and as always much has happened since that time. First and foremost, I have been to Egypt twice, where I have been engaged in some exciting new discoveries which are set to create the greatest furore in Pyramids research for a long time. Can't say too much at the moment, but needless to say the whole thing is being recorded for a book to be called BENEATH THE PYRAMIDS, which should be available early next year.


Giza's Mound of First Creation

As the title suggests it is about what is 'beneath' the veneer of current Egyptological opinions on the nature of the pyramids - why they are there, and what exactly they represent, both in the ancient Egyptian mindset and to the modern world. One place that I can reveal features heavily within its pages is an enigmatic rocky mount some 400 metres due south of the Sphinx monument known as Gebel Gibli, which means the 'southern hill'. It rises to 60 metres above the plateau, and on its north side overlooks two adjoining cemeteries, one Coptic and the other Moslem. It was on Gebel Gibli that American Egyptologist Mark Lehner, of Chicago University's Oriental Institute and the Ancient Egypt Research Association (AERA), began surveys for the Giza Plateau Mapping Project back in 1984.

The book will explain certain facts regarding the pyramid field's most basic trigonometry, including the fact that Gebel Gibli was its primary survey point. All the plateau's key monuments reflect a rigid geometry that begins at an exact spot on this rocky eminence, giving the site a status as important as any built structure in the pyramid field. Moreover, I will show how the hill possesses alternative names in Arabic that reveal its importance in ancient tradition. It is known as el-Hadbah, meaning the 'high place', a name which has religious connotations in Semitic myth and religion. For instance, the sacred mountain that overlooks the rock city of Petra in Jordan, which I name as the original site of Mount Sinai in THE TUTANKHAMUN CONSPIRACY (co-authored with Chris Ogilvie Herald), is called Jebel al-Madbah, from the same name. Moreover, Gebel Gibli is called also Sinnut el-Agoz, which means the Tooth of the Old Man (or Old Woman), most obviously due to the jagged nature of its rocky summit. However, some scholars have seen in the root sin, 'tooth', the origin of the Old Testament's Mount Sinai. Most significant of all, and the key to Gebel Gibli's greater importance, is the fact that another little-known name for the hill means in Arabic the 'first place', or the 'place of the beginning'. Thus it is very likely that Gebel Gibli was once seen as a symbolic primeval mound, like the one that in ancient Egyptian creation myths emerged from the primeval chaos, or watery abyss, known as the nun, at the moment of first creation.

Gebel Gibli as viewed from Giza's Western Cemetery, with the Valley Temple of Khafre and Sphinx monument in view. Pic taken in April 2008.

Certain ancient Egyptian texts say that within one such primeval mound in the Giza area was the entrance via a well to an underground domain known as the Underworld of the Soul, a mythical realm where beings known as the Primeval Ones would repair to effect creation in the outside world. Just such a well lies at the base of Gebel Gibli, and I have discovered that a local tradition speaks of it being the entrance to tunnels that lead to what American psychic Edgar Cayce referred to as the Hall of Records. This is a secret chamber, or depository, containing the wisdom of an ancient race that predates the dynastic Egyptians.

It is with such information that BENEATH THE PYRAMIDS starts, and its dramatic conclusions will, I promise, shock a lot of people.


Milan Conference

Beyond all this BENEATH THE PYRAMIDS picks up on the Cygnus-Giza correlation, explored in THE CYGNUS MYSTERY. Indeed, I will be able to show that in the Pyramid Age the three 'wing' stars of Cygnus were seen to set down into the three Giza pyramids as viewed from the direction of Gebel Gibli. I will demonstrate also that a person lying down in the sarcophagus found in the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid could 'watch' as Deneb, the brightest star in Cygnus, aligned perfectly with the monument's capstone.

No other star was in a position to carry out this symbolic occultation which occurred once every day. I presented some of these ideas at a conference in Milan recently, organised by HERA magazine and its publisher Acacia Edizioni. Other speakers included Graham Hancock, John Anthony West, Robert Schoch and my old friend Robert Bauval. Robert and I have a running debate over whether Orion or Cygnus dominated the star-religion at Giza. He sat in the front row as I acknowledged the incredible role that Orion played in ancient Egypt's funerary religion, but then offered an 'alternative view', featuring the constellation Cygnus. I don't think I persuaded Robert to change his opinions regarding Cygnus, but we do share much in common regarding the origins of Egypt's stellar based sky-religion.


The Demise of the Questing Conference

I am not doing a Questing Conference this year, and have no plans to do any in the future. Why, you might ask. Well, the honest answer is that there are now too many conferences, symposiums and festivals booking key speakers from the ancient mysteries community. Moreover, there is a trend not to pay the speaker any more than nominal expenses, since the event can be seen as a promotional platform for whatever new book they might be pushing. Although I understand this line of thinking, which has been the policy of documentary makers for some time, it means that your favourite author-speakers now crop up in conference line-ups several or more times a year, generally doing the same lecture.

The knock on effect of this policy is that a person looks at the bill of a conference and says 'well, I've already seen them do that twice this year', or 'I saw them do that at such and such a conference, and so what is the point of going to another one?' There might only be a couple of speakers they want to see at an upcoming event, and so enticing them to come to your conference is getting harder and harder. This means more advertising and promotion, cheaper tickets, and more time spent on making the conference a success. Even though the 2007 Questing Conference was a complete sell-out it took so much work that a quarter of my year went missing. What is more, we have always had a policy of paying all speakers good money for their time and effort, and so it is also becoming unprofitable to put on such events.


Psychic Questing Weekender

So I have changed everything. I am cutting down on the presentations I give in the UK, and saving up what I have to say for the Psychic Questing Weekender, which this year will take place in Avebury over the weekend of Saturday, 20th September and Sunday, 21st September. This will consist of me revealing all aspects of psychic questing, from its philosophy, achievements and history to its language and future. In addition to this, I shall reveal more of what is happening out in Egypt, how some of these new ideas came about, and also give a few classes on creative visualisation techniques.

What is more, we shall take the time to go out in the landscape, weather permitting, and conduct some shamanic based meditations, and also go on a long walk to see Silbury Hill and the West Kennet long barrow.

I want you to see the whole event not so much as a conference, but as a social gathering, an opportunity to recharge the psychic batteries, and get away for a bit. There are several bed and breakfast places around, as well as The Red Lion pub, which is 5 minutes walk from the venue - the Village Hall - which is opposite the parish church of St James in the High Street. See it also as a bit of a party, as we shall arrange for a few recreational pursuits in The Red Lion on the Saturday evening.
Tickets are £20 for the weekend, with no concessions. However, I advise getting yours soon as seating is, quite obviously, limited. I know this is not the Questing Conference, which over the years has seen up to 950 people in attendance, but in my world this is much better karma, for me and everyone else involved. Oh, and by the way, various old faces from the questing community will be on hand to help out with the proceedings.

For tickets, click here and use the secure online server for credit card bookings. Alternatively, simply write to me, Andrew Collins, at PO Box 3242, Marlborough, SN8 1RE, including an SAE and a cheque payable to 'Questing Conference'.


Now That's Weird Conference

One conference I am doing in the UK this year is the 'Now THAT's Weird' event in Glastonbury on Saturday, 21st June. It is a two-day event organised by Ross Hemsworth, the proprietor of the highly successful Glastonbury Radio and presenter of the weekly 'Now THAT's Weird' radio programme which goes out on a Friday night. He has invited speakers, mostly on UFOs and conspiracy theories, from all over the world to attend this event, and I have agreed to give a brand new presentation entitled 'Life in Plasma and the Fifth Dimension - the Key to Alien Abductions'. This really is a case of me pulling a title out of thin air and making life hard for myself, as I now have to demonstrate in a power-point presentation that the alien abduction experience is likely created through an interaction with multi-dimensional forces working outside the confines of the space-time continuum. Moreover, that the alien intelligences involved exist and move within a plasma environment that induces mind-altering experiences within the percipient and at the same time removes them (and their car) temporarily from the space-time continuum for the duration of the abduction. Easy!

For more information on the event, which also features Nick Pope, Adrian Gilbert, Ralph Ellis, and JJ Hurtak, author of 'The Keys of Enoch', and is held in Glastonbury's Assembly Rooms, in the High Street, click here.

Tickets are available at a special price of £135 (instead of the £150 marked price) if you apply quoting the fact that you are on the Andrew Collins mailing list. Cheques should be made payable to 'Now THAT's Weird' and sent to: 'Now THAT'S Weird, c/o Glastonbury Radio, Unit 16, The Gauntlet, Glastonbury, Somerset, BA6 9DP.


Goddess Day 2008

One other conference I have agreed to talk at is 'A Celebration of the Goddess', which will concentrate on the Celtic mysteries. Speakers include Caitlin Matthews, Caroline Wise, Olivia Robertson, Lynn Picknett and others and the event takes place in London on Saturday 5th July, Goddess Day. For further information click here


The Nature of the Crop Circles - A Quantum Conundrum

 

A bestseller from 1992.

My old book THE CIRCLEMAKERS is being republished in the USA by The ARE Press, the publisher behind The Edgar Cayce Foundation. They are re-vamping it into a non-personal style, and I am writing a new introduction and afterward, plus it will be full of beautiful photographs supplied by crop circle photographers Steve Alexander and Karen Douglas of temporarytemples.co.uk.

Since the book was written originally in 1991, much has happened in the crop circle world, so where does one start to do the subject justice in a simple introduction? At the end of the day, there is only one pressing question that really matters, and this is the debate over whether crop circles are 'real' or not.I shall open the debate by demonstrating that folklore from around the world speaks of swirled circles in wild and cultivated flora being caused by supernatural means.

For instance, I recently found an extraordinary story of how an otherworldly 'car' would come down from the sky laden with beautiful maidens and make swirled circles in a grassy meadow. This account comes not from Britain but from a Native American legend, and convinces me once again that the crop circle phenomenon has always existed in one form or another. I show in my book ALIEN ENERGY that in Britain these circles were known in the past under various names, such as 'devil's circles' and the more obvious 'fairy rings'.

This said, there is overwhelming evidence to show that a greater percentage of everything created in the fields of southern Britain today is of human manufacture. Indeed, I would say that the more complex the formation, the more likely it is to have been done by human hands. Now, I know this will not sit well with crop circle enthusiasts worldwide, especially those in other countries who treat the subject virtually as a religion. They say that the complexity of the formations, the strange phenomena associated with them, and the odd properties they display, all 'prove' that they are the product of supernatural intervention and/or alien intelligences.

Triple Julia set crop formation, Windmill Hill, Avebury, July 1996 (pic: temporarytemples.co.uk)

The enthusiasts also insist that those who claim to make the formations, who term themselves 'circlemakers' (a name adopted after the publication of my book of the same name in 1992), are liars, and could not possibly have made them. The 'circlemakers', of course, insist that they do make them, and I am inclined to believe them, even though I have no proof that they are being truthful!

In the end it comes down to what you want to believe, for in reality no one can 'prove' one way or another who was responsible for ALL the circles or formations. In many ways, this is the nature of the beast.

Schrödinger's imaginary Cat

It is like the famous thought experiment known as Schrödinger's Cat, a quantum conundrum created in 1935 by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger based on the concept of superimposition - the idea of charting every possible position of sub-atomic particles at any moment in time. The suggestion is to put a live cat in a hermetically sealed box in which is placed a radioactive poison, which will obviously kill it. Yet the question is when is the cat dead, and when is it alive? Does it even exist once it has been placed in the box? It is a conundrum that creates fierce debate for which there is no single answer.

In my mind the subject of crop circles is just such a conundrum, for no one can rightly be said to possess the whole answer, and perhaps this is the way we are meant to perceive them. If so, then it really doesn't matter who, or what, made them - they are here to serve the same purpose, whatever that is.

So how do we treat them? Firstly, we see them as exquisite works of art created perfectly in the small hours of the night, often in a very short space of time. Secondly, we have to look at their symbolism and ask whether it does indeed work subliminally on the mind and have some inner meaning. The circlemakers (or 'hoaxers' as they are called by the crop circle enthusiasts) would say: no, they simply made it up to 'trick' or 'fool' the 'believers', while the enthusiasts would say that the complex nature and hidden depths of the symbolism goes far beyond anything that might have been understood by simple 'hoaxers'. In response, the circlemakers will laugh, saying that they planned the hidden symbolism before they created the formation, but did they? That is the question. Personally, I don't think they do plan it half the time, leaving them to conclude that the 'believers' are reading much more into the circlemakers's creations than was intended in the first place. So once again we have a conundrum, solvable only through percentages of belief and not tangible fact.

Adding immensely to the mystery is that many of the hoaxers, or circlemakers, believe in aliens and UFOs, and feel they are being inspired to create the crop formations they do. Occasionally, they will have dreams telling them where to put the formation, what design to do, and when to do it. On top of this, they are known to be spooked by odd occurrences as they make them. They see strange, unaccountable lights. They feel presences close by, and experience a heightened sense of euphoria and elation as they do what they do. Now, some of this can be put down to the chemicals that the farmers put on the crop (no, I'm serious), but beyond this is a certain sense of inspired creation, almost as if the crop-circle creators are fulfilling some kind of higher purpose. One circlemaker when asked: why do you create them year after year replied: 'What would happen if I didn't make them?' On the surface this answer might be put down to an inner fear that their handiwork would no longer grace the pages of books, magazines, or online sites, or that Wiltshire would no longer attract tourists from all around the world, but I'd like to see more in it than simply that.

The fields full of wheat, barley or rapeseed are like virgin parchment, just waiting to be defaced by the hands of groups and individuals who might like to be compared to the surrealist artists of the 1940s and 1950s, who learnt to create automatic writing and drawings as part of their genre. Some of these artists, such as the genius-like Austin Osman Spare, were quite obviously inspired to create what they did, either by their higher mind, or by unseen forces. The same might be said for the human circlemakers, the hoaxers, the creators of a greater percentage of the crop formations appearing in our fields each year.

Should such a surmise by correct - and this is my personal belief - then the hidden meaning of the crop formations should be examined in greater depth, for maybe they really are signs of transformation, there to be observed and understood, and not dissected and torn apart during fierce and ugly debates over whether or not they are created by alien intelligences or human hands. For in the end both answers are likely to be correct in some strange way. See them for what they really are, creations of beauty and purpose, and as temporary temples there to be experienced and interacted with on a personal basis.


The Black Alchemist

The text for the remastered edition of THE BLACK ALCHEMIST is finished awaiting production. Unfortunately, however, we have had some technical difficulties regarding other areas of the creative process, and this has dragged on to such a degree that I have now had to abandon its publication until after I have completed the new Egypt book BENEATH THE PYRAMIDS. Due also to the rising cost of paper, I am having to redesign its format and appearance in order to make it cost effective. Naturally, this will mean a delay in publication of several months at least, but be assured it will come out, eventually.

Until next time, thanks for your time and happy questing. Take care, Andrew Collins.

Origins