Religious Myths - Why Do They Exist?

Lately certain things have brought the story of my reincarnation into focus. 'Out of body' experiences have gained wide publicity in the media along with spiritual healing. Instead of returning to my last body after leaving it I went on into a new one and a new life. It is as simple as that and it is the visions given to me between dying and coming back that shaped my life

We have all heard about it, some with closed ears, others with amazement and some with satisfaction that at last this is being aired. There can be no doubt that we usually take on board only what we want to know, see and hear but when confronted with tales of the other side it would probably be around 99% who will prick up their ears and open their eyes a bit further than normal.

This is a most fascinating subject for humans in general and even the skeptics want to know more. But what proof is there that there is life after death? What can we use to measure the fate of anyone who passes over? This is what confronted me when beginning my research into the way we are and the things we believe.

Religion is not a new phenomena and my research took me back to the stone age to work out the value of circles but uncovered much more. My excitement grew uncontrollably as visions came to me of things that otherwise would not be known. The most poignant was of a group of people, a crowd gathered on a hillside facing a holed stone held on a prop. They were overawed when the sun passing behind formed the circle and right angled cross in perpetually moving convolutions of rainbow colored light.

My overawed state was enhanced when a holed pieced of cardboard held towards the rising sun made the same image. My mouth automatically and uncontrollably uttered the sound 'Ohhh'. From then on visions came thick and fast and before many months had passed the clues I needed to know where the alphabet and every sound we utter in language has come from were there before me.

Day and night for months it came forth as the past led me to uncover its locked secrets and to hear the ancient voices which spoke. Mysteries we have never understood were resolved as every word we utter turned out to be a record of ancient beliefs and rituals. By this time ancient sites could be read like books.

Then it was time to go further.

Enrolled at the Australian National University for a double degree in archeology and anthropology with linguistics and philosophy as separate units was a challenge that had to be faced. It was one thing to know it but it had to be tested academically Historical linguistics was a breeze to understand as I had been playing around with it for months.

One day my lecturer called me to his office to glean how my knowledge had come about. For an hour or so he listened to the sounds of early speech and the changes that happened over time. His jaw was almost on the floor. "Norma, where did you get all this"? He asked in sheer amazement.but, of course, the visions were not mentioned. At that time I was a first year student in only the second semester.

"You should write a book" he said.

"I have" I answered "would you like to read it?"

He said he would and I asked him, the acting head of linguistics, how far back his knowledge of language goes. It was my turn to be shocked. "Only to the Latin and Greek eras" was his response. Wow, mine stretched to the beginning of stone tools some 2.5 to 3 million years ago (mya) and to the ancestral species Homo Erectus.

My archaeology professors were equally as stunned with my knowledge. My honors thesis, Death and Resurrection, went to Britain for marking as no one in Australia could do the job. It was literally above their heads!

The two professors from Cambridge (pictured) and Dublin universities awarded it the highest possible mark. Their comments state that it equates with a PhD, which also stunned them as it was only an honors thesis. They note: "This is frightening stuff but you cannot ignore the evidence."

What shocked them most is that Christianity has its roots in the Paleolithic and the many 'Saviors" who were crucified to supposedly save humanity is the basis of it. My task was to prove it and to show who had the power and strength to work a new religion from the old beliefs The answers will shock you as they did me. But it is detailed in full in the book 'How 666 Stole Jesus' and is well worth a read for anyone so interested.

The evidence proves irrefutably that the after-life was the prime concern of all religions and cultures. That religion stems from a single point in time ensuring that the same customs, rituals, perceptions, hierarchy and bluff passed down from generation to generation and changed very little.

It also establishes that men could become gods by dying for their people. Worshiped in life as high priests, chiefs or kings their blood sacrifice was part of the transformation to 'father gods' while their eldest sons became heirs of their kingdoms.

From England to Mexico from Egypt to Australia and from New Zealand to the Indians of the Americas they worshiped the same ideology and had the same expectations of the after-life. How could this be unless there was a common foundation?

The common thread throughout all of man's behavior is the search for answers. What happens after death? Why do we think and reason things out? What happens to that mental energy after death? What is the soul? What is the point of life?

The faculty head was a strict Roman Catholic, as were many of the lecturers. So my battle was with the beliefs they harbored rather than the common sense they should have exercised. But what I laid bare was to challenge them in a way that they could not respond to.

It shook me to the core that irrefutable evidence is available and now in the open to prove that the myths people believe in are so ancient as to have been around during the beginning of the Ice Age and earlier. The symbols present in the Paleolithic shows that humans inherited the religious myths of their primordial ancestors. According to common belief they were supposedly incapable of constructive thought.

Their behavior included burial of the dead and grave goods, practices not known in any other creature. Some cave body placements were in conjunction with animal and human sacrifice. Flowers were also placed on some graves. This speaks of an expectation of an after-life. It also means that these primordial creatures were capable of philosophy, that is constructive thought and a vehicle to transport it from individual to individual and generation to generation.

A skeleton of a thirteen year old boy dated to 300,000 ya had evidence of a voice box. So speech was already a factor at that time. But my work shows it was much earlier because skeletons are not the only means to determine this capability. Also sounds with meaning are possible without one.

The symbol of the circle with the right angle cross from Tata, Italy, dates to c450,000ya. this sign is common to all religions and cultures. It is also the sign for woman and is used by organizations, such as the red cross, involved in healing. Pictured is the Cyan Cross. Both my books which examine in depth the facts under discussion are available here

You can also read more on the way this symbol has been used by religions to defraud and deceive their followers. This is my web site on the issue

Those who believe in a fairyland place in the sky where they will live forever in some kind of paradise are in for a shock. In my experience there is no place 'up there', but you can see that for yourself. Just look up and what do you see? Why, you see stars, which we now know are planets and suns. We also know the extensive size of the universe and that no astronaut or space camera has photographed heaven or hell anywhere.

In every culture there is a belief that some mystical magical place exists beyond earth and that only the 'good' will be allowed to go there. The problem is how do we know who is good. Is it the over zealous religious fundamentalists who happily go about killing others because they think they are anti-god?

Or is it the men who force women into slavery and think of them as the lowest of creatures? Is it the wailers who cry at sacred shrines or the poor souls who have not enough food to eat? Is it the one who over populates the earth in the belief that this is God's will?

Some preach that only they know the way to heaven and that anyone who opposes them will fry forever in 'hell'. Well where is that place? Look around and see if yu can see a big oven somewhere? For the many generations of 'sinners' it would have to be very big to accommodate them. the only 'oven' out there is the sun, but that was worshiped as a god.

These myths were created to promote power and instill fear in opposing forces. The first indicators of the myths turn up in the Paleolithic when rocks were holed to allow the sun's image and cause the rainbow circles of perpetual movement.

The ancient Maya, Aztecs and Incas, whose codices were destroyed by religious zealots, were considered devil worshipers by Catholic invaders who saw the Mother god and son images in their temples and the hundreds of crosses in every city, offensive. They found the same beliefs, the same symbols, the same hierarchical societies as in the modern day western and eastern cultures and yet this was a prehistoric culture without known western contact.

The ball with which the Maya played an interesting game is decorated with crosses. The aim was to get it through the circle using parts of the body. In other words it was man against their god. The winner would be sacrificed as 'her' partner having proved himself equal to her, that is to the sun.

The conquistadors retaliated by burning the cities, melting down the gold icons, stealing their wealth and burning their books. Whole tribes were emblazoned within cities from which there was no escape. These terrorist acts would put modern terrorists to shame and yet it was done to appease the Christian god and their own faith. But it was really about power and control.

Only 3 of the Mayan codices remain and they reveal much about their religious beliefs based on sun worship and the Mother god. Her 'sun' or 'son' was the reigning king who could induce men to battle through the promises of a great eternal life under his heavenly rule. Men willingly sacrificed their lives for the pleasures of the after-life and this is driving modern day terrorism, so nothing much has changed.

It is uncanny how the same names of the gods exist in ancient and modern creeds but it is no coincidence. There is a common thread linking us in language and religion to the earliest thought and times.

Magic has always been at the heart of ritual. If you can't see it then you can believe it. Its called 'faith' and I define that as 'belief in the ridiculous without evidence'. In other words people can be 'educated' into believing that what is told to them is reality.

But religious organizations have gone further. They all have books in which the claims are supposedly supported. They passed laws that state that no one can dispute the written word. Such books had the authority of kings who relied on the 'faith' of the people to rule them. Likewise to extract money, go to war, take lives and generally to live like a god on earth.

Magic has its symbols as well. These are largely derived from the sun or from nature and ritual involves symbolism in all aspects. Timing, words, smoke, sounds, instruments, furniture, decorations, clothing, calendar and, of course, reproduction are all included. One of the greatest symbols for a god was a 'virgin birth'. But in the days when this was considered the technicality of reproduction was unknown. Thus people like Pythagoras, Krishna and Christ were all related to such magic

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