Medusa, Atlantis, Lilith, New England & Totem Spirits
I saw an interesting episode of the History Channel's "Forged In Fire" last night. It was a re-run of Season 7, Episode 1's "The Sword of Perseus." The blacksmiths had to re-create the sword of Perseus, who was a Titan, one of the sons of Zeus. It is a leaf-shaped sword, the famous sword which decapitated the snake-witch gorgon Medusa. I realized I had seen this very same sword many times before. Ignatious Donnelly, who wrote 'Atlantis: the Antediluvian World" features variations of this sword in his classic book. There are two versions of this book, and I have copies of both versions. There is the modern revised (abridged) version which features additional commentary by Atlantis scholar Egerton Sykes. The version I am referring to is Donnelly's Classic Illustrated Edition of 1882, page 250, about the Bronze Age. There is an illustration showing variations of this bronze-age sword from Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, as well as a variation found in a mound in Tennessee, North America. This attests to widespread distribution of this sword in the ancient past as well as to trans-atlantic oceanic voyages.
Let us see what Steven Sora has to say about Medusa in his book "The Triumph of the Sea Gods, The War Against the Goddess Hidden in Homer's Tales." Pages 93-94 say; "The Land of Medusa: Homer's story was told as the religions of the world's cultures were changing from matriarchal to patriarchal. Although the story is told in myth, the myth is grounded in history.... the powerful serpent goddess gave way to Medusa, a demoness with serpents in her hair. medusa, born on an island in the Atlantic, was one of the Gorgons. The gorgons were children of Phorcys (the Old Man of the Sea) and the Nereid Ceto.... The story of Hercules and another tale of Perseus sent to kill Medusa both likely recall an ancient rivalry. Because of the strategic location, the rivalry may have been over trade, or... of patriarchal culture rebelling and challenging and older matriarchal culture..."
Note: It is my contention that vestiges of this older matriarchal culture was to be found in various Native societies of the New World. This should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about the matriarchal emphasis of many North American Indian groups.
Next, let us see what Robert Charroux has to say about Lilith in his book, "The Mysterious Past": "There are certain traditions, admittedly no more consistent than the Bible story, which claim that Eve was not the first woman to be created... the Serpent was in fact the Devil who brought knowledge to mankind.... according to the Talmud the principle female demon was Lilith, who was depicted with a mass of long hair.... whatever the case, according to the commentators, at the root of our genealogical tree we seem to have had an ancestor... who was a demon." Robert Charroux also emphasizes that both Adam and Lilith were made from the red clay of the Earth. It is important to note that red clay is equated with the first race of modern homo sapien sapiens, aka Atlanteans, or "the Red Atlanteans" as they have been referred to since antiquity. Eve came later, from Adam's rib. Ignatious Donnelly also points out in "Atlantis: The Antediluvian World" that "Among the Arabians the first inhabitants of that country are known as the Adites, from their progenitor, who is called Ad... these Adites were probably the people of Atlantis or Ad-lantis... the Adites are remembered by the Arabians as...men of gigantic stature...and they easily moved enormous blocks of stone. To this day the Arabs say 'as old as Ad.'"
To further emphasize this point, I refer to Nick Redfern's book "Nessie: Exploring the Supernatural Origins of the Loch Ness Monster." In the chapter "serpent cults, scorpion men & dr. dee", Redfern says of the sea-serpent of loch Morag: "The fact that Carmichael termed the Morag 'half human and half fish' while others have described it as definitly serpentine, is a good indicator that, like the kelpies of loch Ness, the Morags were shapeshifters."
I have cited known evidence for a serpent cult in the New England region in the deepest of antiquity in other posts of this blog. Of stone serpent artifacts there are two types: the regular snake, which was practical, used in the rights of the diseased (the snake hibernates, like the diseased, and sheds its skin, aka entrance into the other world of the after-life.) There is nothing wrong with this symbolism. It is the next category which concerns me: the supernatural "great horned serpent." As a nature element, it is neutral, for we need the active weather patterns and the cycles of nature to sustain us. However, it is the shapeshifting trickster element of the great horned serpent, found in Iroquois legend for instance, which is concerning. There are many parallels to these traditions and ancient Celtic traditions, but that is neither here nor there for the purposes of this essay. There may be shapeshifters (skinwalkers?) among us. They may be related to the Fallen Angels of Biblical lore. In the ancient North American Indian tradition (such as the Iroquoian legends I remember learning about when I was growing up), the great horned-serpents were shapeshifters and evil tricksters- they would show up as beautiful maidens, for instance, only to "steal" people and bring them into the realm of the "other world." This is the same supernatural powers that the sea serpents of the Celtic lands, such as the water kelpies of Loch Ness, are said to have. In the ancient North American tradition, such beasts or tricksters could only be defeated by a hero who obtained some special power, such as from a gemstone or crystal. In the Celtic lands, it was the early Christian church fathers such as St. Columba, abbot of Iona in the 6th century AD, and great grandson of the Celtic "Kahn" or "-Conn" (-Con being the proper Celtic title or surname for the succession of high kings- the ancient Celts travelled all over the world, the great Asiatic Genghis Kahn probably had a remote Celtic ancestor) known as Con-all Gulban who had the power to ward off the great sea serpent, such as the one inhabiting loch Ness. The first written record we have of the Loch Ness monster comes from St. Columba's banishing of the beast in the sixth century AD. Before the Christian era, what means did the ancient Celts employ to ward off such mystical serpents? The parallels between the ancient Celtic traditions and the North American counterpart would probably be striking.
And as we know, the East Coast of the North American seaboard, very much including the New England region, is full of sea-serpent lore- the Gloucester Sea-serpent, the Mann Hill beach serpent, Champie of Lake Champlain, as well as reports from lakes in New Hampshire, etc. are all full of such lore. I heard once from an older Milford man that the lake in Sutton, MA., is also reported to have a sea serpent (I intend on following up on this lead- however it is on the backburner.)
We are dealing here with the realm of the supernatural. Taking a cue from the book "Passport To Magonia: from Folklore to Flying Saucers" by renowned ufologist Dr. Jacques Vallee, "the behavior of nonhuman visitors to our planet, or the behavior of a superior race co-exisiting with us on this planet, would not necessarily appear purposeful to a human observer." He also stated: "Observation and deduction agree, in fact, that the organized action of a superior race must appear absurd to the inferior one. That this does not preclude contact and even cohabitation is an obvious fact of daily life on our planet, where humans, animals, and insects have interwoven activities in spite of their different levels of nervous system organization." Dr. Vallee also says, "When the underlying archetypes are extracted...the [saucer]* myth is seen to coincide to a remarkable degree with the fairy-faith of Celtic countries, the observations of the scholars of past ages," and that, "the entities human witnesses report to have seen, heard, and touched fall into various biological types. Among them are beings of giant stature, men indistinguishable from us, winged creatures, and various types of monsters...."
As author Nick Redfern points out in his book "Nessie- Exploring the Supernatural Origins of the Loch Ness Monster", one of the marks that distinguishes the water kelpie, or sea serpent, from a normal snake or beast, is the distinguishable humps of this supernatural serpent on the back of the neck. Regular serpents do not have these humps. Disturbingly, I have come across a stone idol bust of a snake with protruding humps on the back of the neck- a sign of it's supernatural or paranormal origin. Again, this idol should be distinguished from a regular snake idol, as I tried to cogently outline in one of the above paragraphs. I would not classify this artifact as belonging to any regularly known group of ancient people. Perhaps there have always been certain bloodlines of "snake-people" (think Thulsa Doom of Conan the Barbarian/ Kull the Conqueror fable) that have intermingled with ordinary bloodlines of people, this being a world-wide phenomenon. And it may not be relegated to the ancient past alone- maybe it is still going on, now, albeit more pacified/ subtle. This brings to mind St. Patrick driving all the serpents out of Ireland. My recommendation is, if you come across such a relic, I do not advocate destroying it, as that may be illegal. However, you should cover it over with something and place a cross in the area, one can do this even with sticks. And make sure to invoke the name of our Lord Jesus Christ for protection/ help. (Yes... Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan/ Kull, also had another character Solomon Kane, a puritan demon-slayer/ witch hunter.)
Did an ancient band of warriors make it their mission to hunt down and eradicate these snake-people? The distribution of bronze-age swords, the leaf-shaped sword of Perseus mentioned at the beginning of this article, which was said to have been used to slay the Medusa may attest to this. These swords have been found in such far away places as Switzerland and North America. If this was the case, and perhaps the progenitor of their race was Lilith, my guess would be that these "snake-people" were never fully eradicated- they have probably interbred with us, modern homo sapien sapiens, to some degree.
I also wanted to say a word about spirit totems. There can be many good spirit totems, but bad ones exist as well. Remember, it is important to keep your house/ property/ surroundings clean and free of clutter. A malevolent spirit totem could reside in a dead tree, for instance. In the early 2000's in the state of Arkansas or Georgia (or thereabouts) the mummified remains of a dog was found in a tree stump by loggers. To this day the tree stump and the mummified dog are displayed in a museum (I want to say this is Georgia but I am not 100% certain.) Now, the spirit world exists. Don't believe me? I recommend reading a copy of "The Phantom World" by Augustin Calmet, first published in 1746. My point is this- if the "spirit" of a dead dog can inhabit a dead tree, what else can inhabit a dead tree? I would guess all kinds of things- dead giants, ancient sorcerers, nature elementals, etc. So watch out! The thing about lingering spirits is, you do not want them to haunt an area. We, the flesh and blood people who rightfully live in this realm of existence, should not have to put up with lingering spirits. They need to move on. If they are stuck here, good or bad, then they are probably stuck here for all the wrong reasons. Again, my tip for this is to make sure your surroundings are clean, free of clutter, and that the energy is good. My view is, certain poles/dead trees are conduits for certain energies, energies being spirits in this case. For example, if I look out my back woods and think I see someone standing there staring at me, and then I realize its just a "trick of the eye", an upright log/dead tree pole, I am TOTALLY walking out into the backwoods and cutting/knocking the dead tree down and dismantling it into small pieces to be hauled off to the town dump. If there is a spirit at all, and it is lingering around, even if it is a gentle spirit, it needs to MOVE ON. I would encourage anybody reading this to think the same way. The problem is, the local town forests are full of such things, because unless if its on a trail, nobody bothers to clean it up and the mess just stays there, which is a conduit for attracting these energies. So, just a little disclaimer and some food for thought. Also, if you (the reader) think there are lingering energies/ spirits around your place, but are not sure, I recommend getting in touch with a psychic medium who would be sensitive to such things. The gist of it is, make sure you keep a clean house.
Now, not all totems are bad. But usually, the expression of a GOOD totem is expressed in a totem pole or wood carving/ statue, made by a living, creative artist who does such a thing for the benefit of the community, or respectfully maintained by the living descendants of such artist(s). The totems I described in the above paragraph bear an earie resemblance to certain supernatural intelligences some people have reported contacting during say, an Ayahuasca trip (of which I have no first hand experience, but reading such accounts is a fascinating psychological study in and of itself.) Again, this opens up many new lines of inquiry such as metaphysics, the space/time continuum, quantum mechanics, etc. How much do we not know? And should we?
These are just some observations, make of it what you will. But it needs to be said.
Stay tuned for upcoming posts. I will set out to definitively prove that the stone pile on the Holliston golf course is not an early 20th century folly, but is in fact, as well as other mounds like it (such as in Boxborough, MA., & East Thompson CT., etc.) an ancient Celtic burial (hint: the stone wall surrounding the field was built in the early 20th century; like a game of telephone, people have mistakenly thought this great endevor was related to the stone mound). I will also get into the etymology of some of the local ancient place names in my local area, showing the Celtic root of the "Indian" names.
*Note: Although Dr. Jacques Vallee was/is a prominent UFO researcher, a lot of what he says, especially when comparing UFO occupant encounters to the "fairy faith" tradition of the ancient Celts, is relevant to the wider complex of paranormal phenomenon in general.
**Also note: I just saw the newer version of the movie "Clash of the Titans" earlier today (2/19/21)- Perseus being the main hero. Some additional points to quickly address: Although the stories setting, for the Hollywood movie, and in the minds of many of the viewers, is simply Greece and the surrounding environs, this is traditionally not true- the hero's journey is always an epic odyssey. I already quoted above from Steven Sora's "Triumph of the Sea Gods" where he reveals that the island of the Medusa was out in the mid-Atlantic ocean-- very far away from Greece and it's environs. Unfortunetly this is not portrayed in the movie and even in some of the printed mythology itself. It may very well be that the Celtic concept of Tir Nan Og, the land of the "other world" beyond the ocean waters (North America, as the stone chambers and monuments attest) is related to the "other world" of the hero's journey in classical Greek myth. I think some of the old-time anthropologists who are no longer with us, like the T.C. Lethbridge types, would agree. Also concerning the Medusa: she was but one of many gorgons, not THE gorgon. According to Algonquian legend, in ancient times, there were powerful "witches" or medicine people, in this case referred to as the "bad people" (black magicians, in other words) who had the power to turn people, animals, and objects into stone. I do believe that there is a common thread here, between traditions of the Medusa, or the gorgons (who were widely distributed throughout the ancient world), the tradition of Lilith, the supernatural elements and shape-shifting related to lake monsters and water kelpies such as Loch Ness and Lake Champlain, and black magic. Come to think of it, the stone head I blogged about some posts back I had previously categorized as the Mud Fossil of a living giant (living organism inundated in a flood, crystalizing into stone, which is a true phenomenon.) This could still be the case. However, the stone idol of the snake with the humps on the back of the neck (normal snakes do not have these humps- these humps are only associated with the supernatural sea serpents, etc.), was in fact found in relative proximity to where the stone head is to be found (they are still there in place, I am certainly not taking such objects home with me, nor am I spilling the beans of their location on a public format). It is possible that the stone head could be the petrified head of a Native or Celtic warrior, victim to the Medusa (or gorgon, or black magician if you will). And the stone serpent idol could have been an idol belonging to the demoness herself. See my previous posts for more detail on the stone head.
Again, stay tuned for the next post. The theme will be a happier one. Hopefully there are no more Medusa's walking in our midst. Next post I will examine a specific type of stone mound found in the local area, and I will show how these are not stand-alone monuments, there are other stone relics associated with them (such as Celtic stone thrones, etc.) Stay tuned!
