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 Ram and the Golden Fleece ― An Ancient Legend Explained ―
This video is an addendum to our Discourses on an Alien Sky.
As such, it requires some familiarity with the larger context
provided by previous episodes.
You've no doubt heard the mythic account even if it made no sense to you.
The story of Jason, the Argonauts and the quest for the golden fleece.
We'll recount the story here as a simple demonstration of our claim in this series
that every mythic archetype has an explanation in natural experience.
And every explanation opens doors to other ancient mysteries as well.
It does so by connecting us to the deep well of cross-cultural memories
in ancient times.
Jason's story takes place in the days of the great heroes of Greek legend.
When the Trojan War or the earth- threatening attack of Medusa,
or the onslaught of the Minotaur occurred.
In this case, the story is localized on the magical land of Colchis
on the margins of the Black Sea.
The object of the famous voyage of Jason and his crew.
The ship was the far-famed Argo which gave its name to the Argonauts.
The purpose of the voyage was to capture the mythic winged ram
venerated for its golden fleece,
add the complication of Jason's liaison with the Colchis' princess Medea,
daughter of king Aeetes,
and throw in several challenges along the way,
all typical of the archetypal Warrior's quest.
In the course of a plot too complicated for our purposes here,
the ram was indeed captured by Jason
and some said, by its own request was sacrificed to the god Poseidon,
its golden fleece to be hung in the grove of the great warrior Ares,
an archetypal counterpart to Jason himself.
Here, the fleece would be guarded by fire-breathing bulls.
But the popular story of Jason and the golden fleece
tells us almost nothing about the broader role of the mythic ram in ancient times.
What natural condition inspired the Greeks to depict their sovereign deity Zeus
wearing the horns of a ram?
In Egypt, we see numerous images of the horned Zeus
appearing as the sovereign power Ammon
identified either by his display of horns or simply appearing as a ram.
For the Greeks this was Zeus Ammon, for the Romans Jupiter Ammon.
In later times it is known that Zeus Ammon
was the tutelary deity of Alexander the Great and even after his death
we see Alexander posthumously adorned with the ram horns of Ammon.
Is it conceivable that such obscure symbols and story elements
could find a persuasive explanation
in something that even the best scholars have overlooked?
By what reasoning did Greek chroniclers, enchanted by the power of Egyptian religion,
recognized their own god Zeus, the greatest of all Greek gods,
in the ram-headed deity Banebdjedet of Mendes.
Or also see Zeus in the ram- headed god Khnum of Elephantine,
the ancient city situated in the midst of the Nile.
It was said that Zeus had once exhibited himself to Hercules
clad in the fleece and wearing the head of a ram.
This Egyptian mummy of a ram, highlights the revered place of the creature
in Egyptian symbolism.
For context, here we must remind viewers that the act of will, voice or forceful presence
of the sovereign power was typically seen in the god's warrior aspect.
Zeus was a Greek name for the planet Jupiter
but the god's warrior aspect can be reliably identified
as the archetypal warrior hero
whose story repeatedly places him in the service of the sovereign power.
In the course of these presentations, this relationship of servant or warrior
to the sovereign god, will become clear.
In all cases, the mythic content of our story here remains unexplained
for the simple reason that no natural origin of our theme
has ever been plausibly named.
Well, preposterous or not, the theme is pervasive
and we still see the archaic idea in the constellational symbolism of the zodiac
as the Latin Aries, the ram.
Now surely, the literary and symbolic connection to the Greek warrior god Ares,
bearing the Greek name of the planet Mars, is no coincidence.
Over time, of course, which means in the absence of the original provocation,
the symbolism of the ram's horn grew obscure
as in the ancient use of the Hebrew Shofar
to announce a holy day and drive away evil spirits.
The original mythology attached to the instrument is not entirely lost, however.
It was said that Hermes Kriophoros averted a plague at Tanagra in Boeotia
by carrying a ram around the city wall.
References to the kindred of the ram or the ram as leader of the flock
still find no justification in common knowledge today.
We might note as well, the horns that Michelangelo placed on the head of Moses.
It's been suggested that these are indeed the horns of Jupiter Ammon
conveying the same meaning as the horns on the corners of the Hebrew altar.
Following the ground rules of our investigation, the horns of the mythic ram,
by their natural configuration, become a logical pointer back
to the very symbolism we observed in our previous episode
where twin arms visually enclose a toroidal form in the sky.
As we've seen so often,
two mythical interpretations inspired by just one underlying form.
For us, that convergence becomes reliable evidence,
a key to the unified substructure of cultural archetypes the world over.
The myths and symbols of the ram did not arise by accident.
They have a logical place alongside numerous complementary symbols
when every human community on earth lived beneath an alien sky.
And so, we learned sometime ago to place our highest emphasis on predictive ability.
Predictive ability is the one and only reason to believe a theory on any subject.
Does the theory predict and explain the body of questions previously left unanswered?
Could any alternative explanation achieve that objective?
In particular, does the explanatory power grow
rather than diminish as more facts become clear?
In the final analysis, we must always ask whether the critical facts
could even exist in the absence of the explanation offered.
Why would a mythic god or a legendary warrior be so absurdly identified as a ram?
In mysteries of this sort, the effective answer comes from extraordinary ancient patterns
and always opens doors to further investigation.
What should one expect to find if the claimed events occurred?
The patterns themselves, the archetypes have never let us down.
No room for baseless abstractions
and no room for mere guesses based on theoretical or emotional preferences.
The impact of celestial events will always show up in large-scale patterns
and these can be objectively named.
But the patterns will mean nothing
until they are seen in the light of extraordinary events.
Events that are not occurring today.