David Mathisen, Do Ancient Star Myths Tell the Same Story? |426|

David Mathisen has compelling evidence of a worldwide system of ancient knowledge in the stars.

photo by: Skeptiko

Alex Tsakiris: [00:00:06] Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers and of course their critics. One thing that especially fascinates me is things hidden in plain sight, things that are not obvious until someone points it out and then once they do, you’re like, “Yeah, I kind of knew that.” It’s hard for me to imagine a better example than the stars in the sky in the universal stories that are told about those. I mean, why all of the epic myths? Why all of the heroic warrior God adventures? And why the heck are all civilizations, from all different parts of the world, telling the same story? Think about that last one for me.

So there’s this ancient guy in Polynesia sitting on a surfboard looking up at some random blob of stars, because that’s what they look like to most of us, and he’s telling the same sacred story as some Viking in Iceland who’s buried up to his waist in snow, and the same story that some African tribesmen hold sacred as something that’s been passed on forever.

That’s not supposed to happen. That’s not explainable by our current understanding of how anthropology works. We don’t have any archaeological evidence to support why all of these civilizations would be connected in that way.

Well today’s returning guest, David Mathisen, has almost single-handedly change the way we think about stars, and the star myths associated with them, and this hidden in plain sight kind of thing that I just talked about. His books, Star Myths of the World, Volume One, Two, Three. I think you’re up to Volume Four now, aren’t you David?

David Mathisen: [00:02:07] Yeah, Volume Four is Norse Myths and it was published in 2018 Alex.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:02:12] There you go see, I’m one volume behind. Hard to keep up with this guy, and he’s got a bunch of other books that will introduce you to excellent books, overwhelmingly clear convincing, I would say at this point undeniable evidence for the universal star myth hypothesis.

But what’s really cool, and I know I’m going on here for a while, but I wanted to get it up to this point because what’s really cool about today’s interview and what we’re going to get into, is the messages behind those myths. So if we can get to the point of saying, “Yeah, that seems pretty undeniable,” then we ought to take the next step and say, “What might be the message behind it?” I mean, if there was some great teacher, and just put a pin in that for a second, who took the trouble to spread this perennial wisdom throughout our world, throughout ancient civilizations, throughout our planet, then maybe we want to figure out what they were trying to tell us.

So that’s what we’re going to do today with my fantastic guest, star myth master, David Mathisen, who I have total respect for as a fellow seeker on the path, I [unclear 0:03:24] to you, even though in typical Skeptiko fashion of inquiry to perpetuate doubt, I’m probably going to have some contentious points with you on a couple of these issues. But that’s the kind of stuff I like to do, the level three discussion beyond the kind of usual stuff.

It’s so great to have you back David. I’m so glad you initiated this because this whole conversation is taken on a life of its own that I am really, really excited to get in the middle of. So, let me step back and say, welcome and thank you for joining me.

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