LECTURA 8 “POWERFUL RELICS AND SACRED TALISMANS”

“POWERFUL RELICS AND SACRED TALISMANS”

Kathleen McGowan
Extract from the book: "Ancient Aliens: The official companion book"

The power of bones

The idea of saint’s bodies and relics having power is one that goes back to the very early days of Christianity. In the book of Kings in the Old Testament, we have a story about the bones of the prophet Elijah, and the power of these bones. In this story, a group of Israelites are burying one of their brethren, and in the process of digging the grave for this man, a group of raiders comes by and the Israelites have to hide quickly. In order to hide, they have to throw the body into another grave. But they throw the body on top of the bones of Elijah. As soon as the body hits these bones, the body actually reanimates. The man comes to life and he jumps up. So it’s possible that this story from the book of Kings is where the idea of relics being powerful comer from.

By the medieval era, churches known for housing saints’ relics became centers of pilgrimage and attracted large donations. As a result, relics became a kind of marketing tool for medieval churches, which led to a lot of fake relics being out there. Because of this, relics are somewhat ridiculed by modern scholars. But when we look at European legends around saint’s bones, we find that among the nobility there was a strong belief that relics really did contain some kind of power.

The belief was that if you had in your possession a relic of one of the saints, you carried some of its magic with you. For example, parts of the body of Lazarus are scattered all over Europe because it was believed that if you had some relic from the body of Lazarus, you yourself would have the ability to overcome death, to overcome mortality. The same thing is true with the bones of Mary Magdalene. Wars were fought over the bones of Mary Magdalene because she is present in the most important resurrection stories. Mary Magdalene is there at the resurrection of her brother, Lazarus. Mary Magdalene is the first witness of Jesus’s resurrection, so it was believed that Mary Magdalene’s bones might possess the power of resurrection. As a result of an extraordinary devotion to Mary Magdalene, actual battles were fought for her bones. The dukes of Burgundy and Provence fought each other to possess the bones of Mary Magdalene.

The bones of the saints who were known to be prophets were the most coveted. Being in the presence of relics of a saint who was known to be a prophet, like John the Baptist, for example, could bring you powers of prophecy. John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher who became famous for baptizing people in the Jordan River. He is found in all of the canonical gospels. Legends of his ministry exist in the Koran and in the historical writings of Josephus. But in Christianity, John the Baptist is specifically important because he is known as “the forerunner” or “the precursor” -the person who is supposed to come before the Messiah. The Old Testament says that prior to the Messiah, a prophet will come and announce the arrival of the Messiah. Those are the shoes that John the Baptist fills.

It was believed that the bones of John the Baptist were brought to Europe during the Crusades. In 2010, a sarcophagus was discovered in the ruins of a church in Bulgaria, in a place known as the Island of John. This is a location that has held an annual celebration for John the Baptist for at least 1500 years. Within the ornate marble sarcophagus were 6 bones. An inscription on the sarcophagus refers to John the Baptist and his birthday of his feast day. Geneticists tested the bones and determined that they are indeed from the first century and come form a man of Middle Eastern origin. So it’s possible that these bones are those of John the Baptist.

THE PINEAL GLAND AND THE PINECONE 

The pineal gland, a tiny gland found in the center of our brain, resembles a pinecone. In fact, the word "pineal" actually comes from the word "pinecone" and as a result, the pinecone became a symbol of the pineal gland. The pineal gland secretes de hormone melatonin, but it has also been thought to be the phylogenic relic of a third eye. Based on this theory the pinecone became a symbol of enlightenment, of opening up to new understandings and perhaps even communicating with other realms or other dimensions.

What's interesting is that we see across many cultures and many traditions that the pinecone is a symbol used in art, in architecture, and in sacred texts. We see the pinecone sculpetd and drawn and painted on any number of pieces of art that are about spiritual enlightenment.

There are many depictions of gods holding pinecones. We see these depictions in Egypt, where the staff of Osiris has pinecones on top of it. We see them in the mayan culture, where we have statues of gods holding pinecones. But perhaps the most compelling and the most frequent of these depictions come from Assyrian artwork, where we see winged gods holding forth pinecones. In these Assyrian depictions, the gods appear to be shaking them. Now, this could be because the female pinecones generated seeds. And hundreds, even thousands, of seed could go forth from a pinecone. So thete could represent the Assyrian gods seeding our planet with wisdom or information. 

Certainly it's understandable how ancient astronaut theorists would come by this idea that these Assyrian gods were holding forth pinecones to remind us that we have a pineal gland, a gland that might help us contact other dimensions.

CYBELE 

The Romans spent 13 years building a temple to the goddess Cybele, the guardian of the gateways. The temple housed an ancient black stone, a meteorite, brought from Turkey to Rome, which was said to contain the actual essence of the goddess. When this meterorite was in the temple, Cybele was actually present. Cybele became incredibly important to the Romans. She is a mother goddess, but she's not simply an Earth goddess. She is the mother of the stars. Cybele is often shown standing in a gateway or with a gateway around her, and that is because she was known to be the guardian of time and space. In order to cross the veil and access other realms, you would have to petition Cybele. The fact that Cybele was known as the guardian of the gateway tells us that perhaps, the ancients were doing something really interesting and really important with time travel, portals, and stargates. And Cybele is essentially the great goddess of the stargate.

DROPA STONES

In 1938, a Chinese expedition in the region of Bayan-Kara-Ula discovered a very long cave that had murals painted on its walls. These cave paintings depicted the sun, moon, Earth, and stars, all connected by little dotted lines. As the archaeologists explored the cave further, they discovered tombs aligned in rows. These tombs were filled with very unusual skeletons. The skeletons were quite small and had strangely large and elongated skulls. But the most extraordinary discovery that the expedition made within the cave were 716 stone disks we now refer to as the Dropa stones.

The Dropa stones are about 15 inches in diameter, with a hole in the center, rather like an old long-playing record. They were elaborately carved with a type of hieroglyph that, when first discovered, no one was able to decipher. It was 24 years before a team of archaeologists was able to put together a translation of the Dropa stones. The information that was released from the translations was sensational. One of the stones said that a spacecraft had crashed 12000 years ago in that region, and another one of the stones referred to the Dropa people arriving in airplanes 12000 years earlier. Yet another stone explained that the Dropa people were peaceful and not warlike.

Two of the Dropa stones were sent to the Soviet Union for analysis, and the Soviet scientists discovered an entirely new aspect of these stones. The stones seemed to have been radiated in some way and charged with electrical energy. The scientists found that when they tried to play one as if it were a record, it emitted some kind of sound or vibration.

Although there have been efforts to discredit the Dropa stones and the entire story around the Dropa, there is certainly evidence indicating that there is truth to the stories, especially as relates to the Dropa people themselves. In 1933, there was a report of a culture of dwarflike beings coming into confrontation with the Chinese government, and there was a report of a little woman under 4 feet tall being escorted away by a Chinese soldier.

There were even reports that this dwarflike culture was being enslaved at the time. In 1995, the Associated Press reported on something that they called a village of dwarfs within a few hundred miles of the original Dropa site. What we know is that cultures of dwarflike beings have been accounted for in China for at least as early as 1933, and this culture seems to come from nowhere. These dwarflike beings aren’t related to any other culture in the region, but they must be descended from something, and it is entirely possible that these beings are the modern descendants of the Dropa. This region where the potential descendants of the Dropa exist is entirely off-limits to visitors. It is a forbidden zone.