You've just entered the theater of an alien sky.
If the words and images seem strange to you, there's a reason for this.
Our world was once a vastly different place.
To experience this won't hurt you and there is nothing to fear.
The Labyrinth Dancing ground of the goddess and warrior
In taking up the myths and symbols of the labyrinth we face a mystery that has
enchanted investigators for thousands of years.
And yet despite an impressive library of evidence, even the best
experts struggle to find a plausible explanation of this mythic archetype.
In these Discourses, we've introduced a radical perspective on the ancient
cultures and we've offered a comprehensive interpretation of archaic
myths and symbols based on an unusual and at times catastrophic solar system history.
Our subject is an ancient gathering of planets extremely close to
Earth and remembered around the world.
We've proposed that with this referent in front of us, hundreds of ancient ideas
including all of the mythic archetypes become predictable in terms that would
not be possible, not even conceivable in the absence of the natural provocation
we've outlined.
The first mythical character we meet in investigating the labyrinth is the
legendary warrior and hero Theseus who earned his reputation by doing what all
of the great mythic heroes did-- vanquishing chaos monsters and unifying
a legendary homeland.
In the case of Theseus, the story was localized on the
peninsula of Attica said to have been the site of a vast fortress--
The Labyrinth constructed by the legendary king Daedalus.
Within the towering walls of the labyrinth, locked away in its central
precinct, lived a devouring Minotaur, part man and part bull, usually sewn as a
bull's head on a mostly human body.
From this starting point, we can ask whether a persuasive explanation of labyrinth
mythology could now be possible.
The answer to that question will require us to follow several converging threads in
the labyrinth story.
For many years, in our discussion of Venus mythology, we've emphasized the
planet's centrality and its repeated connection to intense electric discharge
giving rise to its mythical identity as the animating female heart of heaven
displaying explosive radiance and anciently described as the radiant eye
of heaven and the glory of the sky.
In the course of these explorations, we've also observed that electrical formations
linked to Venus acquired varying numbers and varying configurations of discharge
streamers, all associated with the axial center of the sky.
So the first place to look for clues is the center of the
labyrinth itself from which the explosive discharge or celestial glory
radiated outward to become the winding paths of the labyrinth itself.
An overriding archetype to be explored in connection with the labyrinth is the
prototypical conjunction of the mother goddess and the ancestral warrior, the
two most dominant archetypal figures in world mythology.
Most significant was the emergence of a whirling aspect from the
three-legged Triskelion to the swastika along with more complex variations of
the symbolic whorl, so it's not surprising to find these varied forms
repeatedly connected to the central source of the labyrinth's entwining paths.
From these symbolic connections, we would naturally look for an explicit
identification of the chaos goddess with the centerpiece of the labyrinth and
that is precisely what we find in the example scene here, where the head of the
terrifying Medusa with her snaky locks is indeed the heart of the labyrinth but
also directly linked to the whirling triskelion formed from the goddess's
disordered hair, as we should expect.
We can also understand the mythic interpretation that saw the winding
paths of the labyrinth as a dark cavern entered by the warrior who then appears
to be trapped within the so called 'intestines' of the labyrinth or otherwise
engulfed by entangling serpents, marking out the same complex pathways.
A closely related theme involves the intricate windings of the rope or thread or an
elaborate knot.
In the following analysis, we intend to show that the mystery of
the labyrinth can be fully explained by concrete, highly electrified plasma
formations in the ancient sky.
To simplify a complex story, three well-documented phases of this activity
can be analyzed.
One is radial discharge, the first witness to the evolving plasma formations.
The events include changes in both the number and the morphologies of
discharged streamers, which plasma science explains in a direct
relationship to the energies driving the activity.
The emerging symbolism of a four-fold discharge included a diversity
of mythical interpretations as four etheric spokes of the so-called ‘Sun
wheel,’ four rivers of paradise, four directional winds and four pillars of the
sky, all discussed at length in my book 'The Saturn Myth.'
With that global language in front of us, there is no
stretch needed to connect the center of the labyrinths to the electric discharge
activity that gave rise to the labyrinth itself.
Second, the whirling aspect first arising from primeval chaos in the form of a
three-legged triskelion.
The discharge configuration eventually displayed a more complex whirling form, sometimes
interpreted as a world-threatening whirlwind or whirlpool.
Its most familiar form was the swastika, anciently occurring thousands of years before any
of the familiar 20th century adaptations of the symbol.
Additional, more complex forms can also be named and the connection of such symbols to the
dynamic center of the labyrinth will be crucial to our understanding of the
labyrinth's historical origin.
As in virtually all stories of the warrior hero, there is a chaos monster close by.
The builder of the labyrinth of Knossos, Daedalus was said to have constructed
the palace-like fortress to imprison and protect the Minotaur.
The Minotaur was half-man, half-bull and was kept in the labyrinth by Minos, ruler of Crete.
In mythic terms, the monster can be compared to the bull of heaven slain by the hero
Perseus, the legendary founder of Mycenae, or similarly the bull of heaven slain by
the Sumerian warrior hero Gilgamesh.
By placing the emphasis on the celestial context where they belong, such story
elements become valuable complements to the Theseus legend.
It was also said that the king's daughter Ariadne fell passionately in love with the hero,
a theme placing the story squarely within the archetypal tradition, hero consorting
with the daughter of a famous king.
It was also said that before Theseus entered the labyrinth
to fight the Minotaur, Ariadne gave him a ball of thread which
he unwound as he entered the labyrinth
enabling him to find his way back by
following the thread.
This juxtaposition of themes makes it relatively easy to see the unwinding of a coiled thread in
its proper relationship to the events by which the labyrinth itself acquired its unique form.
Our explanation begins with planets close to Earth and aligned in
the ancient polar configuration along a single axis, when four symmetrical
discharge streamers radiated explosively from the planet Venus.
In this phase of instability the discharge took on a whirling appearance, a form that numerous
ancient cultures recorded alternately as a swastika, then a more elaborate whorl.
Eventually, the displacement of the aligned planets produced an irregular
more complex streamer pattern as Venus and Mars visually
danced around the polar center in unstable motions.
In that dance, the labyrinthine windings of
the discharge streamers acquired the appearance of a towering Citadel in the
heavens recorded mythically as the labyrinth.
This will explain why the towering structure was celebrated as the
dancing ground of Theseus and Ariadne, literary echoes of the prototypical
warrior hero and mother goddess, Mars and Venus.
In archetypal terms, the labyrinth signified a fortress which the hero, be it
Gilgamesh, Heracles, or Theseus, was required to enter to complete a specific
task, test, or labor.
The investigative value of the labyrinth in this Discourse and in the episode to follow, is that it
offers an uncompromising test of predictive ability,
while inviting the goddess and the warrior to open additional doorways to
broader archetypal symbolism yet to be explored.