David Mathisen has discovered an ancient, language told through the constellations of the night’s sky.

photo by: Skeptiko

Alex Tsakiris: Today we welcome David Mathisen to Skeptiko. David is the author of Star Myths of the World, Volume One, Two and Three, along with several other books we might talk about. But those Star Myths books I was just alluding to are quite amazing. I mean, here’s a collection of over 2,000 pages of diagrams, illustrations and analysis of the stars, the constellations and the myths surrounding them…

Alex Tsakiris: …we all know about these constellations. And we a lot of these myths. But explanation you get in Astronomy 101 is very different from what you’re saying. If someone’s going to school right now, what are they learning about the constellations and these myths?

David Mathisen: …if a connection between the myths and the constellation is alleged or acknowledged, it is commonly explained away as primitive early humans looking at the world around them, awesome forces, thunderstorms, earthquakes, volcanoes, had to explain it. They didn’t have science, so they said well, there’s a God in the volcano and he or she is mad right now. 

And so it’s like these primitive gropings became more and more sophisticated as we moved along… Finally, we had time to look at the stars and do science and primitive science and then it got it better and better, and at the same time, the myths are getting a little bit smoother and smoother…

What I was trying to kind of say at the beginning is these myths are evidence of incredible spiritual sophistication because I believe—I’ve got a lot of reasons for believing this—that they are being used as an incredible spiritual metaphor.

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Alex Tsakiris: Today we welcome David Mathisen to Skeptiko. David is the author of Star Myths of the World, Volume One, Two and Three, along with several other books we might talk about. But those Star Myths books I was just alluding to are quite amazing. I mean, here’s a collection of over 2,000 pages of diagrams, illustrations and analysis of the stars, the constellations and the myths surrounding those constellations, and also, just our enduring fascination with the night sky.

David is a graduate of West Point. He also has a Master’s Degree in Literature from Texas A&M and it’s really quite wonderful to have him on. I’m looking forward to this conversation.

David, welcome to Skeptiko.

David Mathisen: Thanks so much, Alex. I’m really looking forward to the conversation as well, and hope that listeners enjoy it.

Alex Tsakiris: So, let me interrupt again, because this is one of those things—so, the logic flow for you, and I think this would be for kind of a lot of people, is Samson is in the Bible, so this is scriptural, it’s wisdom passed down from God.

David Mathisen: And he was a real character.

Alex Tsakiris: He’s a real character, all this stuff, and then you go over and say, “Wait, a minute. Samson is also portrayed in the stars and the constellations.” Moreover, I can go cross-culturally and read about all these people who hav...