Secret_History

Chapter 3: In Quest Of the Past 117
secret, and given out to the world in measured doses from time to time via an elect
few who respond to the dedicated seeker of the solutions to the sufferings of
humanity.
Do we have any evidence that this Ancient Technology ever really existed? I
think we do. Not only that, I believe that we can track it and analyze it with the
tools of science and uncover the scientific concepts couched in religious doctrines
and myths. This knowledge may have been carried in different forms or contexts
or levels of proficiency by different social groups, which then applied it in various
ways. Some of these groups made progress; some did not. Some forgot everything
and just tell the stories. But the one thing they all seem to agree on is that Time is
not what we think it is.
The Terror of History
Time, of course, is what we talk about when we discuss history. The history of
mankind, when considered objectively, is a terrible thing. Many people defend
themselves from this terror by erecting elaborate defenses—“personal myths”, so
to speak—so that they can go on with the prosaic business of their lives without
being paralyzed by the burden of the “cold hard facts of life”. Time is a “haunted
forest” of thorns and wild beasts, and it is only after facing such a “test” of
strength and incorruptibility that one will be granted the gift of a glimpse of the
Grail.
Man, as a rule and in general, is powerless against Time and History, cosmic
catastrophes, military onslaughts, social injustice, personal and familial
misfortunes, and a host of assaults against his existence too numerous to list.
Death and destruction come to all, both rich and poor, free and slave, young and
old, good and evil, with an arbitrariness and insouciance that, when contemplated
even momentarily, can destroy the most carefully constructed “personal myth”.
This is a FACT, and, to quote Castaneda’s Don Juan, “a damn scary one”!
Over and over again, man has seen his fields and cattle laid waste by drought
and disease, his loved ones tormented and decimated by illness or human cruelty,
his life’s work reduced to nothing in an instant by events over which he has no
control at all. The study of history through its various disciplines offers a view of
mankind that is almost insupportable. The rapacious movements of hungry tribes,
invading and conquering and destroying in the darkness of prehistory; barbarian
invaders; the bloodbaths of the crusades of Catholic Europe against the “infidels”
of the Middle East; the stalking “noonday terror” of the Inquisition where martyrs
quenched the flames with their blood; the raging holocaust of modern genocide;
wars, famine, and pestilence. All produce an intolerable sense of indefensibility
against what the great historian of religion, Mircea Eliade, calls the Terror of
History.
There are those who will say that now this is all past; mankind has entered a new
phase; and science and technology have brought us to the brink of ending all this
suffering. Many people believe in the myth of Science, which postulates that man
is evolving, society is evolving, and that we now have control over the arbitrary
evil of our environment. That which does not support this idea is reinterpreted or
ignored.