Extract of a Lecture for the Turn of the Millennium by Filip Coppins
Scientists learn that the Dogon do not possess secret knowledge about the star Sirius and its companions.
What some consider to be the best evidence for extraterrestrial beings coming from Sirius is therefore dealt a devastating blow.
EXTRATERRESTRIALS: WHO ARE THEY? – Library of Rickandria
In 1976, two major books on extraterrestrial visitation were published:
Zecharia Sitchin’s The Twelfth Planet and Robert Temple’s The Sirius Mystery.
Of the two, the latter became by far more famous and even attained the status of a semi-scientific work, as many were impressed with the scientific-looking train of logic of the book.
Temple stated that the Dogon, a tribe in Africa, possessed extraordinary knowledge on the star system Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, the star which became the marker of an important ancient Egyptian calendar, the star which according to some is at the center of beliefs held by the Freemasons, the star which according to some is where the forefathers of the human race might have come from.
Temple claimed that the Dogon possessed knowledge on Sirius B and Sirius C, companion stars to Sirius that are, however, invisible to the naked eye.
How did the Dogon know about their existence?
Temple referred to legends of a mythical creature Oannes, who might have been an extraterrestrial being descending on Earth from the stars, to bring wisdom to our forefathers.
EXTRATERRESTRIALS: The Nommo – The Amphibian Race from Sirius – Library of Rickandria
In 1998, Temple republished the book with the subtitle:
“new scientific evidence of alien contact 5,000 years ago.”
The books glory came crashing down earlier this summer, when Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince published The Stargate Conspiracy.
That book stated that Temple had been highly influenced in his thinking by his mentor, Arthur M. Young.
Arthur Middleton Young (November 3, 1905 – May 30, 1995) was an American inventor, helicopter pioneer, philosopher, astrologer, and author. Young was the designer of Bell Helicopter’s first helicopter, the Model 30, and inventor of the stabilizer bar used on many of Bell’s early helicopter designs. He founded the “Institute for the Study of Consciousness” in Berkeley in 1972. Young advocated process philosophy, an attempt to integrate the realm of human thought and experience with the realm of science so that the concept of universe is not limited to that which can be physically measured. Young’s theory embraces evolution and the concept of the great chain of being. He has influenced such thinkers as Stanislav Grof and Laban Coblentz.
Young was a fervent believer in “the Council of Nine”, a group of channeled entities that claim they are the nine creator gods of ancient Egypt.
“The Nine” are part of the UFO and New Age and many claim to be in contact with them.
“The Nine” also claim to be extraterrestrial beings, from the star Sirius.
Andrija Puharich (February 19, 1918 – January 3, 1995) — born Henry Karel Puharić — was a medical and parapsychological researcher, medical inventor, physician and author, known as the person who brought Israeli Uri Geller (born 1946) and Dutch-born Peter Hurkos (1911–1988) to the United States for scientific investigation.
In 1952, Young was one of the nine people present during the “first contact” with the Council, where contact was initiated by Andrija Puharich, the man who brought the Israeli spoon bender and presumed psychic Uri Geller to America.
Uri Geller (/ˈʊəri ˈɡɛlər/ OOR-ee GHEL-ər; Hebrew: אורי גלר; born 20 December 1946) is an Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic. He is known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other illusions. Geller uses conjuring tricks to simulate the effects of psychokinesis and telepathy. Geller’s career as an entertainer has spanned more than four decades, with television shows and appearances in many countries. Magicians have called Geller a fraud because of his claims of possessing psychic powers.
It was Young who gave Temple in 1965 a French article on the secret star lore of the Dogon, an article written by Griaule and Dieterlen.
In 1966, Temple, at the impressionable age of 21, became Secretary of Young’s Foundation for the Study of Consciousness.
In 1967, Temple began work on what would eventually become The Sirius Mystery.
As Picknett and Prince have been able to show, Temple’s arguments are often based on erroneous readings of encyclopedic entries and misrepresentations of ancient Egyptian mythology.
They conclude that Temple very much wanted to please his mentor.
It is, however, a fact that the end result is indeed a book that would have pleased Young and his beliefs in extraterrestrial beings from Sirius very much, whether or not this was the intention of Temple.
Though Temple’s work is now therefore definitely challenged, the core of the mystery remained intact.
Marcel Griaule (16 May 1898 – 23 February 1956) was a French author and anthropologist known for his studies of the Dogon people of West Africa, and for pioneering ethnographic field studies in France. He worked together with Germaine Dieterlen and Jean Rouch on African subjects. His publications number over 170 books and articles for scholarly journals.
At the center of this enigma is the work of Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen, two French anthropologists, who wrote down the secret knowledge on “Sirius B” and “Sirius C” in their book The Pale Fox.
Germaine Dieterlen (15 May 1903 in Valleraugue – 13 November 1999 in Paris) was a French anthropologist. She was a student of Marcel Mauss, worked with noted French anthropologists Marcel Griaule (1898-1956) and Jean Rouch, wrote on a large range of ethnographic topics and made pioneering contributions to the study of myths, initiations, techniques (particularly “descriptive ethnography”), graphic systems, objects, classifications, ritual and social structure. She is most noted for her work among the Dogon and the Bambara of Mali, having lived with them for over twenty years, often in collaboration with Marcel Griaule, with whom she wrote the book The Pale Fox (1965).
But now, in another recent publication, Ancient Mysteries, by Peter James and Nick Thorpe, this “mystery” is also uncloaked, as a hoax or a lie, perpetrated by Griaule.
To recapitulate, Griaule was initiated in the secret mysteries of the male Dogon, who allegedly told him the secrets of Sirius invisible companions.
Sirius (sigu tolo in their language) had two-star companions.
This was revealed in an article that was published by Griaule and Dieterlen in the French language in 1950.
In the 1930s, when their research occurred, Sirius B was known to have existed, even though it was only photographed in 1970.
There was little if no possibility that the Dogon had learned this knowledge from Westerners that had visited them prior to Griaule and Dieterlen.
Griaule and Dieterlen published their findings on the Sirius companions without any reference or comment on how extra-ordinary the Dogon knowledge was.
It would be others, particularly Temple in the sixties and seventies, who would zoom in on that aspect.
To quote Ancient Mysteries:
“While Temple, following Griaule, assumes that to polo is the invisible star Sirius B, the Dogon themselves, as reported by Griaule, say something quite different.”
To quote the Dogon:
“When Digitaria (to polo) is close to Sirius, the latter becomes brighter; when it is at its most distant from Sirius, Digitaria gives off a twinkling effect, suggesting several stars to the observer.”
James and Thorpe wonder as anyone reading this should do whether to polo is therefore an ordinary star near Sirius, not an invisible companion, as Griaule and Temple suggest.
The biggest challenge to Griaule, however, came from anthropologist Walter Van Beek.
Walter Van Beek – Search – Anna’s Archive
He points out that Griaule and Dieterlen stand alone in the world in their claims on the secrets of the Dogon.
No other anthropologist supports their opinion or claims.
In 1991, Van Beek led a team of anthropologists who declared that they could find absolutely no trace of the detailed Sirius lore reported by the French anthropologists.
James and Thorpe understate the problem when they say that:
“this is very worrying.”
Griaule had stated that about fifteen percent of the Dogon tribe knew about this secret knowledge, but Van Beek could, in a decade of research with the Dogon, find not a single trace of this knowledge.
Van Beek was initially keen to find evidence for Griaules claims, but had to admit that there may have been a major problem with Griaules claims.
Even more worrying is Griaules background.
Though an anthropologist, Griaule was interested in astronomy, which he had studied in Paris.
As James and Thorpe point out, he took star maps along with him on his field trips as a way of prompting his informants to divulge their knowledge of the stars.
Griaule himself was aware of the discovery of Sirius B, and it is quite likely that he over interpreted the Dogon responses to his questions.
In the 1920s, before Griaule went to the Dogon, there were also unconfirmed sightings of Sirius C.
Was Griaule told by his informants what he wanted to believe?
It seems, alas, that the truth is even worse, at least for Griaules reputation.
Van Beek actually spoke to the original informants of Griaule, who stated:
“though they do speak about sigu tolo [interpreted by Griaule as their name for Sirius], they disagree completely with each other as to which star is meant; for some, it is an invisible star that should rise to announce the sigu [festival], for another it is Venus that through a different position appears as sigu tolo.
All agree, however, that they learned about the star from Griaule.”
So whatever knowledge they possessed, it was knowledge coming from Griaule, not knowledge native to the Dogon tribe.
Van Beek also discovered that the Dogon are of course aware of the brightest star in the sky, which they do not, however, call sigu tolo, as Griaule claimed, but dana tolo.
To quote James and Thorpe:
“As for Sirius B, only Griaules informants had ever heard of it.”
With this, the Dogon mystery comes to a crashing halt.
The Sirius Mystery influenced more than twenty years of thinking about our possible ancestry from “forefathers” who have come from the stars.
In 1996, Temple was quick to point out the new speculation in scientific circles on the possible existence of Sirius C, which made the claims by Griaule even more spectacular and accurate.
But Temple was apparently not aware of Van Beeks recent research.
With this new research of both Van Beek and the authors of Ancient Mysteries, we uncover how Griaule himself was responsible for the creation of a modern myth, which, in retrospect, has created such an industry and almost religious belief that the scope and intensity can hardly be fathomed.
Nigel Appleby, in his withdrawn publication Hall of the Gods, which was, according to Appleby himself, tremendously influenced by Temple’s book, Appleby spoke about how Temple believed that present-day authorities were apparently unwilling to set aside the blinkers of orthodoxy or were unable to admit the validity of anything that lies outside their field or offers a challenge to its status quo.
Hall of the Gods – Anna’s Archive
He further wondered whether there was also a modern arrogance that could not countenance the possible scientific superiority of earlier civilizations.
It seems, alas, that Griaule, a scientist, wanted to give earlier civilizations more knowledge than they actually possessed.
And various popular authors and readers have since been led into a modern mythology, the:
“Age of the Dark Sirius Companion.”