Temple, Robert *

Published January 25, 2011

Robert K. G. Temple (1945- ) is the American bestselling author of The Sirius Mystery ^[⁷³⁵^]⁺. In it he supports the idea of extraterrestrial influence on human cultural development, citing as evidence, the ‘knowledge’ of the Dogon people regarding the Sirius star system before verification by modern astronomy.

Temple’s claims were, in the main, based on the work of Marcel Griaule (1898-1956) and Germaine Dieterlen (1903-1999), published in The Pale Fox ^[¹⁶⁹⁸^].

In Gods of the New Millennium ^[006.109], Alan Alford described Temple’s evidence as ‘incontrovertible’!

Temple published a response to some of his critics, particularly Carl Sagan, with an open letter in 1997^(l).

However, Temple’s ideas ha now come under further attack with the claim that Sirius C does not even exist^(c). The controversy is still raging as the Bad Archaeology website demonstrates^(d)as well as an article from the Armagh Planetarium website^(e). The refutation of the Sirius ‘mystery’ was achieved through the fieldwork of anthropologist, Walter E. A. van Beek, among the Dogon, which produced no evidence to support Temple’s claims^(h). He published his findings in a 1991 paper ^[¹⁶⁸⁵^] and it is worth noting that van Beek’s criticisms were aimed at fellow anthropologist, Griaule, rather than Temple.

The late Philip Coppens wrote two highly critical articles⁽ⁱ⁾^(j) denouncing the Dogon story as ‘false mythology’. He cites the work of Van Beek and The Stargate Conspiracy ^[705] by Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince, which he felt completely demolished Temple’s claims. Over twenty years later the book has again been reviewed in an audio format^(k).

Temple contends that this interaction took place between 5000 and 3000 BC and refers to that era as the ‘Contact Period’. He goes further and claims that these ‘visitors’ were responsible for the building of the Sphinx and the pyramids and that later efforts by the Egyptians to build other pyramids on the same scale failed. However, some of the Mayan pyramids are equally impressive although built later than the magnificent Giza monuments, Temple does not explain the source of the Mesoamerican structures.

In 2000, Temple published The Crystal Sun^[⁹²⁸^] in which he outlined the evidence for early optical science, including its possible use in the lighthouse at Pharos^(f). The matter of ancient lenses is discussed online^(g). 2013 saw the publication of Ancient Glass^[¹⁰⁰²^] by Prof. Julian Henderson in which he pushes back the earliest production of crude glass to the middle of the third millennium BC. Temple has a degree in Oriental Studies and Sanskrit from the University of Pennsylvania. He has written a number of sometimes controversial books on various historical subjects^(a). Jason Colavito has cast doubt on Temple’s academic credentials in a September 2012 blog^(b). However, it was not until his 2010 book, Egyptian Dawn^[⁷³⁶^], that he touched on the subject of Atlantis. In it, he declared that the “true ‘Atlantis’ was the Atlantic Coastal civilisation of the megalith builders.” He further proposes that the story of Atlantis was concocted by those megalith builders “for consumption by the people of the Mediterranean, as a kind of disinformation campaign.” Temple has hinted that he may devote an entire book to the subject of Atlantis sometime in the future!

Temple’s next offering came in 2022 in the form of A New Science of Heaven ^[1959]. The promotional blurb claims the book is “a new, explosive study of plasma and its revolutionary implications for how we understand the universe and our place in it.” Some of us probably find the subject of plasma rather arcane, nevertheless, there is one suggestion in this book that might have relevance for all of us. Plasma pervades the universe and Temple puts forward the idea that it may be sentient, which sounds like an updated form of pantheism!

^[⁷³⁵^]+Available online: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242865509_The_Sirius_Mystery

^(a) Professor Robert Temple (archive.org) *

^(b) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2012/09/is-sirius-mystery-author-robert-temple-really-a-professor.html

^(c) Kein dritter Stern im Sirius-System: Astronomen finden keinen Beleg für Dogon-Mythologie | Mysteria3000 (Prä Astronautik, PaläoSETI, Atlantis-Forschung) (archive.org)

^(d) Did the Dogon of Mali know about Sirius B? (archive.org)

^(e) https://web.archive.org/web/20190212112317/https://www.armaghplanet.com/blog/the-sirius-mystery.html/

^(f) https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/lost-technology-of-the-ancients-the-crystal-sun

^(g)https://web.archive.org/web/20200212044246/http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/optics.htm

^(h) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/germaine-dieterlen-the-sirius-mystery-and-the-quest-for-truth

⁽ⁱ⁾ https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-4055/

^(j)https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-4056/

^(k) The Stargate Conspiracy – The Saucer Life