{"id":46710,"date":"2020-10-20T09:04:57","date_gmt":"2020-10-20T08:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/?p=46710"},"modified":"2020-10-20T09:05:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-20T08:05:00","slug":"archive-4055","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/archive-4055\/","title":{"rendered":"Archive 4055"},"content":{"rendered":"\n


Dogon Shame<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Filip Coppens, Fortean Times, November 2000<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

original source<\/a> |  fair use notice<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Summary:<\/strong> Did ancient gods from the Sirius star system visit an African tribe 5,000 years ago? FILIP COPPENS reviews new evidence that deals a devastating blow to what was considered to be the best case for extraterrestrial visitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The story that the Dogon, a tribe in Mali, West Africa, had possessed in their antiquity extraordinary knowledge of the star system Sirius achieved worldwide publicity in 1976 through Robert Temple\u2019s extraordinary book The Sirius Mystery. It was compellingly argued and became one of the most influential books of the 1970s \u2018ancient astronauts\u2019 genre.

Sirius is the brightest star in the sky, a star that became the marker of an important ancient Egyptian calendar, and a star that is said to be at the centre of beliefs held by the Freemasons. According to some cultures, Sirius is where the forefathers of the human race might have originated.

Temple claimed that the Dogon knew about two smaller stars that are closely related to Sirius \u2013 Sirius B and Sirius C. The mystery was how they had obtained this knowledge, as these companion stars cannot be seen by the unaided eye. Temple\u2019s solution referred to legends of a mythical creature, the god Oannes, who might have been an extraterrestrial, described as descending to Earth from the stars to bring civilising wisdom to the Dogon forefathers.

In 1998, Temple republished the book with the subtitle \u201cnew scientific
evidence of alien contact 5,000 years ago.\u201d The book\u2019s reputation was first dented in 1999, when Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince published The Stargate Conspiracy, in which they allege that Temple\u2019s thinking had been heavily influenced by his mentor, Arthur M. Young. Young was a fervent believer in \u201cthe Council of Nine,\u201d a mysterious group of channelled entities that claim to be the nine creator gods of ancient Egypt. \u2018The Nine\u2019 became part of the UFO and New Age mythology and many claim to be in contact with them. \u2018The Nine\u2019 also claim to be extraterrestrial beings from the star Sirius [see FT126:34-38]. In 1952, Young was one of nine people present during the \u201cfirst contact\u201d with the \u2018Council\u2019, an event initiated by Andrija Puharich, the man who brought Israeli spoonbender Uri Geller to America.

In 1965, Arthur Young gave Robert Temple a French article on the secret star lore of the Dogon, an article written by two French anthropologists Marcel Griaule (left) and Germaine Dieterlen. In 1966, Temple \u2013 then aged 21 \u2013 became Secretary of Young\u2019s Foundation for the Study of Consciousness. In 1967, Temple began work on the thesis that became The Sirius Mystery. As Picknett and Prince have been able to show, Temple\u2019s arguments are often based on erroneous readings of encyclop\u00e6dia entries and misrepresentations of ancient Egyptian mythology. They conclude that Temple was very keen to please his mentor, who believed in extraterrestrial beings from Sirius.

Though Temple\u2019s work was challenged, at its core lay the original anthropological study of the Dogon by Griaule and Dieterlen, who describe the secret knowledge of Sirius B and Sirius C in their own book The Pale Fox. But now, in another recent publication \u2013 Ancient Mysteries by Peter James and Nick Thorpe \u2013 this \u201cmystery\u201d is also uncloaked as a hoax or a lie perpetrated by Griaule.

To recapitulate: Griaule claimed to have been initiated into the secret mysteries of the male Dogon, during which they allegedly told him of Sirius (sigu tolo in their language) and its two invisible companions. In the 1930s, when their research was carried out, Sirius B was known to have existed, even though it was only photographed in 1970. It was very unlikely that the Dogon had learned of this star\u2019s existence from Westerners prior to the visit by Griaule and Dieterlen.

Griaule and Dieterlen (right) first described their findings in an articlepublished in French in 1950, but they included no comment about how extraordinary the Dogon knowledge of the \u2018invisible companions\u2019 was. This step was taken by others, particularly Temple, in the Sixties and Seventies. To quote Ancient Mysteries: \u201cWhile Temple, following Griaule, assumes that to polo is the invisible star Sirius B, the Dogon themselves, as reported by Griaule, say something quite different.\u201d To quote the Dogon: \u201cWhen Digitaria (to polo) is close to Sirius, the latter becomes brighter; when it is at its most distant from Sirius, Digitaria gives off a twinkling effect, suggesting several stars to the observer.\u201d This description of a very visible effect causes James and Thorpe to wonder \u2013 as anyone reading this should do \u2013 whether to polo is therefore an ordinary star near Sirius, not an invisible companion, as Griaule and Temple suggest.

The biggest challenge to Griaule, however, came from anthropologist Walter Van Beek. He points out that Griaule and Dieterlen stand alone in their claims about the Dogon secret knowledge. No other anthropologist supports their opinions. In 1991, Van Beek led a team of anthropologists to Mali and declared that they found absolutely no trace of the detailed Sirius lore reported by the French anthropologists. James and Thorpe understate the problem when they say \u201cthis is very worrying.\u201d Griaule claimed that about 15 per cent of the Dogon tribe possessed this secret
knowledge, but Van Beek could find no trace of it in the decade he spent with the Dogon. Van Beek actually spoke to some of Griaule\u2019s original informants; he noted that \u201cthough they do speak about sigu tolo [interpreted by Griaule as their name for Sirius itself], they disagree completely with each other as to which star is meant; for some, it is an invisible star that should rise to announce the sigu [festival], for another it is Venus that, through a different position, appears as sigu tolo. All agree, however, that they learned about the star from Griaule.\u201d
Van Beek states that this creates a major problem for Griaule\u2019s claims.

Although he was an anthropologist, Griaule was keenly interested in astronomy and had studied it in Paris. As James and Thorpe point out, he took star maps along with him on his field trips as a way of prompting his informants to divulge their knowledge of the stars. Griaule himself was aware of the discovery of Sirius B and in the 1920s \u2013 before he visited the Dogon \u2013 there were also unconfirmed sightings of Sirius C.

The Dogon were well aware of the brightest star in the sky but, as Van Beek learned, they do not call it sigu tolo, as Griaule claimed, but dana tolo. To quote James and Thorpe: \u201cAs for Sirius B, only Griaule\u2019s informants had ever heard of it.\u201d Was Griaule told by his informants what he wanted to believe; did he misinterpret the Dogon responses to his questions? Either way, the original purity of the Dogon-Sirius story is itself a myth as it is highly likely that Griaule contaminated their knowledge with his own.

With this, the Dogon mystery comes crashing down. For more then 20 years, The Sirius Mystery has influenced speculation about the possibility that our \u2018forefathers\u2019 came from the stars. In his 1998 revised edition, Temple was quick to point out the new discussions in scientific circles about the possible existence of Sirius C, which seemed to make Griaule\u2019s claims even more spectacular and accurate. But it is apparent that Temple was not aware of Van Beek\u2019s devastating research.

From the findings of Van Beek and the authors of Ancient Mysteries, it is clear that Griaule himself was responsible for the creation of a modern myth; one which, in retrospect, has created such an industry and near-religious belief that the scope and intensity of it can hardly be fathomed. Nigel Appleby \u2013 whose book Hall of the Gods was withdrawn from publication \u2013 has admitted to being tremendously influenced by Temple\u2019s Sirius Mystery. He has written of Temple\u2019s belief that present-day authorities are unwilling to set aside the blinkers of orthodoxy, unable to admit the validity of anything that lies outside their field or that offers a challenge to the status quo. Appleby also believes there existes a modern arrogance that cannot countenance the idea that ancient civilisations might have been scientifically superior.

But it seems that Griaule, a scientist, wanted to attribute to earlier civilisations more knowledge than they actually possessed. Credulous scholars, like Young and Temple, were taken in and, through them a whole generation has swallowed the false mythology of aliens from \u201cthe Dark Sirius Companion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dogon Shame Filip Coppens, Fortean Times, November 2000 original source |  fair use notice Summary: Did ancient gods from the Sirius star system visit an African tribe 5,000 years ago? FILIP COPPENS reviews new evidence that deals a devastating blow to what was considered to be the best case for extraterrestrial visitation. The story that the Dogon, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5322],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46711,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46710\/revisions\/46711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}