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| Artwork by Octavio Ocampo |
Saturday, March 21, 2026
AN EXPLANATION OF SORTS
THE UNFINISHED BOOK OF JOHN began with an email from a total stranger named John Chin – a former Malaysian (and Christian fundamentalist) residing in Sydney. He was given my contact by a mutual friend who had lent him a copy of my book (ADOI!, published 1989 by Times Books International). John explained that he had written and self-published his first book, Confessions of a Christian Fundamentalist – but it hadn’t been well received by his friends and family. He admitted that he was really keen to get published, even if it meant publishing his own work. John said he was coming to Malaysia in a few weeks and would like very much to meet me. He wanted my postal address so he could send me a copy of Confessions.
When John Chin showed up at my doorstep sometime in 2004 I had already skimmed through his book. While his writing lacked finesse, I found the subject matter intriguing enough. Religious fundamentalism is among the most divisive problems confronting humanity. John had written a personal account of his own journey from belief to unbelief. He had evolved from an unquestioning acceptance of the basic tenets of his faith to a more open-minded quest for metaphysical and spiritual knowledge. I had myself spent decades deconstructing belief systems by researching the roots of religious indoctrination and had come to certain inevitable conclusions of my own.
Essentially, John felt he had been ripped off by a professional editor in Australia whom he had paid handsomely to polish up his syntax and he believed I could do a far better job. He named me a figure and it took me only a few minutes to accept his offer (I was pretty broke at the time). Within hours he had banked a cash advance into my account, assuring me that further payments would be prompt and that if the book sold well he would throw in a royalty on top of that.
When I began working in earnest on John Chin’s manuscript, it quickly dawned on me that this wasn’t going to be a straightforward editing project. A large proportion of the material was merely a summary of several historical treatises on the early Church – it was ponderous reading and, quite frankly, banal. I wrote to John, proposing a complete overhaul of his book rather than a cosmetic edit. He wanted to see a few chapters, so I worked on the opening and closing chapters of the book and emailed those to him. The response was immediate and enthusiastic. John gave me the green light to do whatever I saw fit with his manuscript.
"Don’t worry about a deadline," John generously quipped, "I know genius can’t be hurried!" I took him at his word and the project dragged on for more than a year, mainly because of various distractions (like the acquisition of a digital videocamera, editing software, and a new laptop). Finally, almost two years after John Chin’s first visit, I had nine chapters done. The book was now entirely different from the original manuscript, apart from a few bits of biographical information. Indeed, it was much more me than him – and I suggested he send me a little more material on his personal evolution as a spiritual pilgrim Down Under, so I could include more of the John Chin element in the final mix.
Months passed and I didn’t hear from John. Finally he wrote me a gloomy email cataloguing his recent trials and tribulations. His family had thrown him out; and soon after that he had been diagnosed with a heart condition which required bypass surgery. He was slowly recuperating but could no longer work as intensely as he used to, which meant his income was greatly reduced. After paying his medical bills and child support, John Chin no longer felt he could afford to play capitalist publisher – not even for his own books.
It was sad to see John in this sorry state. He had been a perfect gentleman in his dealings with me but I could understand why his wife and kids found him such a difficult housemate. I asked John if he would like to me to find a publisher for the revamped manuscript and he pessimistically said, "Go ahead and try but I doubt anyone will want to publish it." After sending the manuscript to a couple of local publishers and getting no response, I began to feel that John may have been correct about the unpublishability of our collaborative effort.
Meanwhile, an earlier manuscript of mine (Tanah Tujuh: Close Encounters with the Temuan Mythos) had just been published by Silverfish Books and I was getting invitations to read at literary gatherings. At one of these I read a chapter from The Unfinished Book of John and was happy to see it so warmly received. People approached me afterwards and asked when the book would be out. If only readers and publishers shared the same taste in books!
Antares
Magick River
21 June 2008
CONTENTS
CHAPTER TWO: AS JEHOVAH IS MY WITNESS
CHAPTER THREE: A BIT OF ALTERNATIVE HISTORY
CHAPTER FOUR: TRADITIONAL VIRTUES
CHAPTER FIVE: CREATIONISM REVISITED
CHAPTER SIX: EXPLORING INNER SPACE
CHAPTER SEVEN: MEANWHILE BACK IN OUTER SPACE
CHAPTER EIGHT: FROM ROME TO AMERICA
CHAPTER NINE: RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY, AND TRUTH
PREFACE
My first confession is that I’m not really a writer. I am, in fact, a successful chartered accountant and business analyst specializing in Information Technology. I have an entirely efficient and methodical mind and consider myself a pragmatist, with both feet firmly planted on solid, empirical ground. It just so happens that I have an obsession with getting to the bottom of things, with finding out the truth – no matter how painful the process, and regardless of the cost to my reputation.
When, at 28, I began my journey of self-questioning and exploration, soon after arriving in Australia as a migrant from Malaysia, I didn’t expect to find myself running afoul of my family’s religious fundamentalism. Indeed, I believed they would accept – if not applaud – my intellectual curiosity and desire to reassess and upgrade my own beliefs. And when I completed the first version of this book and had it published at my own expense, I thought my friends and family would be proud of me, at least for being such an ardent amateur scholar and spiritual seeker. Instead, they were shocked and upset by my loss of faith in the fundamentalist dogma to which they continued to cling. They began to pray for my soul, convinced that I had become a prime candidate for eternal perdition. God knows what they’ll be thinking when they realize that instead of feeling repentant and returning like a good sheep to the fundamentalist fold, I have decided to revise, revamp, and re-issue this book for a wider audience – on an even more controversial tack!
Here I’d like to acknowledge the enormous editorial and literary contribution of my sagacious friend, Antares, whom I met on a trip back to Malaysia in 2004; and who valiantly agreed to help rectify the weaknesses of the earlier edition and “sex” up the writing - but ended up doing “a complete overhaul.” As I said, I’m not really a writer – well, not yet - but I’d very much like to develop my own writing skills to the point where I can confidently produce meaningful and readable prose. In any case, I’m now a bona fide publisher with several other titles in the pipeline.
This book is not intended as an academic dissertation. It is the story of my own journey from belief to unbelief – and my quest for a paradigm of reality that includes, rather than excludes. A great deal of personal data is interwoven with the transpersonal discussion of religious dogma and alternative spirituality. Thanks to Antares’s encyclopedic input, I have accessed a great deal more fascinating and valuable data in the brief course of our collaboration than in several decades of personal research prior to our fortuitous meeting.
So have I jumped out of the Christian fundamentalist frying pan into the fire of newfangled “New Age” notions? Does meditation open one up to demonic possession? Is the practice of yoga the Hindus’ revenge on the western world? Are tai-chi and chi-qong subtle manifestations of the Yellow Peril? If the universe is holographic, how REAL are our lives?
In school I was a head prefect. At work I wasted no time getting to the top of the corporate food-chain, earning big bucks as a business software consultant. I have always been serious-minded and sober about attaining my goals – which, for a long time, were not so much my own as my parents’ – and their parents’ parents.
Persistence, in short, is no stranger to me. But I’m setting my own goals now. I intend to get to the bottom of why we believe the things we do – and how we can free ourselves of limited and limiting beliefs and behaviors. I warmly welcome you on this journey. Your presence greatly honors me.
John Chin
Sydney,
April 2006
INTRODUCTION
I was born and raised a strict Christian fundamentalist in Malaysia. It took sustained effort, along with mental anguish, to examine the basis of my childhood faith. The original purpose of my quest, undertaken soon after I arrived in Australia in 1981 as a migrant, was to seek corroboration of my fundamentalist beliefs. In the course of my research I stumbled upon many inconsistencies in the edifice of Judeo-Christian tradition. At first I found it hard to believe that religious doctrines held as fact by Western society for more than two thousand years could be founded on such tenuous and dubious ground.
Not only that, the deeper I delved the more obvious it became that there had been a systematic campaign of disinformation and distortion carried out over the centuries by generations of ecclesiastics and scribes entrusted with the spiritual well-being of the illiterate and unquestioning masses. But why? What – or whose – purpose would it serve to conceal or mislead the public on such essential issues? Is it possible that it all boiled down to a perverse desire to have power over others? Was religion – especially fundamentalism - just another virulent variety of energy vampirism? Was there even a kernel of truth to be found within the world’s “holy” scriptures?
I began to read widely and compare. First I explored scientific materialism and found it desperately lacking in soul, though it’s certainly useful to be acquainted with what has become, especially in the last couple of centuries, the dominant paradigm of any industrial society. Then I investigated other philosophical and spiritual traditions – Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Sufism, Taoism, and the so-called New Age teachings. I was fascinated by the convergence of science and spirituality I discovered in the writings of cutting-edge thinkers like Fritjof Capra (The Tao of Physics, The Turning Point) and Gary Zukav (The Dancing Wu-Li Masters, The Seat of the Soul). I soon overcame my unbeliever’s guilt and began to thoroughly relish my wide-ranging search for meaning and significance in the contemporary world.
There’s a charming Malay idiom we were taught in school – katak di bawah tempurung – which means, insular, like a frog under a coconut shell. As I shed my layers of Christian fundamentalist programming and threw myself wholeheartedly into my vision quest, I felt just like that frog, emerging from under its coconut shell and seeing the light of day for the very first time. The glorious feeling of liberation inspired me to document my journey of self-discovery, as an encouragement to others who may be ready to outgrow the constrictions of fundamentalist dogma, and also as a sort of legacy to my children’s children - who will, I hope, appreciate the fact that their grandfather wasn’t just a boring old accountant, but was indeed an intellectual and spiritual voyager, as well as an aspiring writer and publisher!
Throughout history, religious hierarchies have wielded enormous power and influence, and they still do. Religion continues to be regarded as a taboo subject for everyday conversation. If knowledge is power and ignorance bliss, it’s only to be expected that the power elites would want to maintain their monopoly on knowledge while keeping the general public ignorant. Very early in the game, a pact was made between the Bishop of Rome and Emperor Constantine: the Church would bless Constantine’s secular authority while the emperor recruited converts for the Church at sword-point. Since then it has been the policy of secular authorities never to interfere with or upset the religious establishment.
As a result of this artificial schism between the secular and the spiritual realms, it has become possible for a thug to attend religious services one particular day of the week – and then carry on being a thug the rest of the time. And when this Great Divide was applied to Science and Religion, it further reinforced the split between our left and right brains, between Matter and Spirit - and between our inner and outer selves.
It seems to me that we have been building more walls than bridges. Walls are a symbol of separation and isolation, bridges connect. I believe it’s imperative that we redirect our energies towards building more bridges and dismantling more walls. After all, if it’s privacy one needs, a graceful bamboo blind or elegant Japanese screen will do the trick nicely. High walls topped with broken glass and barbed wire do not a happy reality make – and God (or Goddess) knows there’s already more than enough unhappiness in our world.
Militant fundamentalists and violence-prone fanatics are an obstacle to a peaceful and harmonious world. This is the “Mr Hyde” side of religious indoctrination – whether Zionist, Christian, Muslim, or Hindu (Buddhists seem more inclined to do violence to themselves - through self-immolation, for instance – than to others!).
I was well and truly indoctrinated as a child and it took me a long time to even accept the possibility that my earlier views may have been limited or erroneous. I haven’t gone out of my way to create controversy, but the subject matter of this book is contentious by definition. There are no absolute answers to the issues discussed herein. During my learning process - which included lively debates with friends, colleagues and relatives - I was often told to ascertain the source of my information. I was also advised not to accept everything I read as the truth. This is always sensible advice and I suggest the reader approach this book with the same discernment and detachment.
At the same time an open mind - and an open heart - are prerequisites to receiving new inputs, leading to a new understanding. The fact that you’re holding these “confessions” of an erstwhile hardcore Christian fundamentalist in your hands is proof enough that it’s never too late for anyone to change their mind about anything.
And therein lies humanity’s only hope for a future full of beauty, joy, and love - not to mention truth.
CHAPTER ONE
THE GREAT VOID
Nothing much happened to me on May 12, 2003. I just reached the bottom of the barrel, the nadir of my entire existence. What triggered this sense of absolute futility was something quite banal and trivial: I had spent the better part of the morning looking at used cars so I could present my son with one. Finally I found a reasonably priced 1986 Volvo sedan in respectable condition, and test drove it to my satisfaction – only to be informed when I got home that my son had decided to borrow his mother’s car on days when he needed to drive.
Instead of feeling pleased at not having to spend money on another vehicle, I felt oddly deflated... empty. I felt my life had been a complete and utter waste of time, a total write-off. Does everybody feel this way when they turn fifty? Was I experiencing the much-touted mid-life crisis? Male menopause? Was it some deadly species of post-millennial ennui... or was I catching a glimpse of The Great Void that confronts agnostics and atheists at the end of the line?
On the surface everything appeared hunky-dory. I was married to an honest, infinitely patient woman who had borne me two wonderful kids, a girl and a boy. My job was challenging and well-paid. I had just been released from two weeks’ quarantine, upon returning to Sydney from Singapore, where the SARS scare was in full flap. Remember SARS? What a terribly tautological name for a disease: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. Not just severe but acute...
Anyway, I hadn’t died of SARS – even though at church I had conversed for twenty minutes at close quarters and shaken hands with Reverend Chua before the service, and he might well have visited Reverend Mok in hospital before the latter succumbed to SARS a couple of days later. Waiting out the two weeks, quarantined in my Sydney apartment, not allowed to see my family, I had plenty of time to think morbid thoughts.
I’ve had breathing problems since my late teens, so it wasn’t too difficult to imagine myself a goner each time I became aware of my lungs. I could picture my family sorting out my papers and belongings after the funeral: filing cabinets stuffed with manila folders full of bills and receipts, and reams of notes written in a neat hand on ruled paper, from years of quiet research on the nature of faith. Was that the only legacy I would leave? That of a meticulous chartered accountant and ardent amateur scholar? Another dutiful but obscure life bites the dust...
I decided to write my memoirs. But I’ve led a rather uneventful and sedentary life. Never survived a shark attack or rescued a baby from a burning shophouse. Not even runner-up in an international golf tournament. No string of Casanova conquests to confess. But I did have a grave confession to make: I had lost my faith in the religion of my birth, an evangelical variant of Anglicanism. Indeed, I had arrived at the conclusion that fundamentalist strains of religion are the primary obstacle to our attaining global peace and harmony.
My lonesome journey from believer to unbeliever was a story worth chronicling for posterity, I thought. But where does one begin? Maybe a brief outline of my family history would help define the cultural matrix into which I was born, and from which I emerged. Seems, at any rate, a sensible place to start.
My paternal great-grandfather, from whom we inherited the surname Chin, migrated from South China to Singapore in 1863, four years before it became a British Crown Colony. When the Malay States accepted British rule, he moved to the new capital, Kuala Lumpur. My grandfather was sent to English-medium schools run by Anglicans because his father couldn’t afford to pay the fees at the private Chinese-medium schools. As a result, grandfather converted early to Christianity and became an active evangelist, visiting a leprosarium once a week to rescue souls from disintegrating bodies. Most of his eight children consider themselves Christian, even if a few seem to have fallen by the wayside.
My father was the middle son in a family of three sons and five daughters. Both my parents are staunch Christian fundamentalists, though mother only converted after she married my father. So you can imagine the religious climate in which I was brought up, especially since my parents took their evangelism very seriously.
Now, there are many positive aspects of being grounded in a well-established belief system. For one thing, there’s much to be said about the sense of well-being that comes with toeing the line and feeling that Somebody Up There loves you and knows you to be a good sheep, a true believer. The very real sense of fellowship and belonging is perhaps the greatest appeal of being a member of any religious group, fundamentalist or otherwise. The acceptance of God as final arbiter in all our decisions, our protector and provider, leads to an absence of extreme stress in our everyday existence. The highway to fundamentalist heaven is well-paved and well-marked with clear and legible signs: Straight Ahead. Temporary Detour. No Entry. No U-Turn. No Speeding. No Parking. Toll Ahead. Next Exit 500 Meters.
All the answers to life’s questions are readily found in the Holy Scriptures. I can probably still quote you chapter and verse on any specific subject. And, certainly, I appreciate the deeply ingrained sense of moderation and modesty that came with my fundamentalist indoctrination; and the moral sensibility, in effect, basic human decency, that continues to govern my interactions with others.
In my late teens, while I was fervently evangelizing in the public domain, the Holy Bible was the primary tool of my trade. It was God’s Word to any person who would listen. My statements would typically begin with: “It is written in the Holy Scriptures that...” There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Christian Bible was inerrant and indisputably true. There was a passage in the Bible specifying that one would be subjected to God’s curses if anything was added, deleted or altered in any way. Another passage said God directly inspired the Scriptures. And since God is perfect, the logical conclusion was that the Bible must be perfectly applicable to all peoples, times, and circumstances.
From the perspective of Christian fundamentalism, understanding and tolerance of other cultures is extremely difficult, if at all possible. We were taught that only Christians would be granted salvation and eternal life. All others would suffer the everlasting fires of damnation in Hell. We believed that our neighbors, being pagans and heathens, were already doomed to this dreadful fate. In a Christian fundamentalist environment, young people are warned against reading “unauthorized” books. Any book that contradicts the teachings of the Christian Bible is proscribed. The banned book list would include even scientific literature – indeed, anything that touches on topics like the theory of evolution, genetics, archeology and paleontology. These types of books are assumed to be a major part of the Devil’s strategy to lure stray sheep into his lair.
In my youth I came upon hardly anything by way of reading material - and very few people - who might have guided me away from these fundamentalist attitudes of intolerance, judgmentalism, self-righteousness - and the misunderstanding and, therefore, rejection of other cultures and beliefs. Each religious group is, of necessity, committed to its own dogma and prescribed lifestyle. It’s perhaps understandable that parents would want to protect their young from the “contamination” of unfamiliar cultures, practices, and beliefs. But Christian fundamentalists, I can attest, are protective of their children’s “programming” to a reactionary extreme.
How I acquired an insatiable appetite for an ever increasing range of knowledge may be traced to an acutely embarrassing experience I had shortly after completing high school. I responded to an ad to become a commercial pilot by joining an airline as a rookie, earning a token allowance while getting the necessary flight training. At the interview I was asked to explain how aeroplanes stay airborne. I was stumped. What folly came out of my mouth to cover up my complete ignorance is best forgotten. The interview fiasco was acutely mortifying to my adolescent ego. I slunk out of the room dejected - but determined to never again be caught with my pants down in the “general knowledge” department. I became a voracious reader and tireless questioner. I wanted to find out everything about EVERYTHING. And to do that, I had to break a few taboos, especially about the sort of books I was going to stick my inquisitive nose into.
I was only five years old in August, 1957, when the British granted Malaya her independence. Six years later, Malaya merged with Singapore, Sarawak, and Sabah (formerly British North Borneo) to form the Federation of Malaysia. However, this arrangement lasted but two years before the usual politics of race and religion led to Singapore pulling out and becoming an independent island republic.
Father, being a Christian and an Anglophile, sent all his five sons to English-language schools in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, known as KL to the locals. While we speak Hakka (a Chinese dialect) at home and Cantonese within the KL region, my brothers and I are only literate in English. Despite my lifelong exposure to spoken Chinese, I opted for fluency in English and familiarity with the culture of the English-speaking world – just as much of Europe during the days of the Roman Empire adopted Latin as the language of the ruling elite, and the Roman worldview as their own.
My family is part of a relatively small English-educated community compared to the Chinese- and Malay-speaking groups in Malaysia. There’s also a vociferous minority that speak Tamil (a southern Indian language). Kuala Lumpur boasts two of the nation’s most prominent English-medium schools: the protestant Victoria Institution and St. John’s Catholic Boys’ School. My father attended the Victoria Institution. My mother once remarked that my father couldn’t even write his own name in Chinese. He was utterly and thoroughly westernized in language and outlook. In fact, he was what some folks would call a cultural banana: yellow on the outside, white inside.
CHAPTER TWO
AS JEHOVAH IS MY WITNESS
People migrate in search of a better life. Our life had been pretty good in Malaysia. However, a decade after the New Economic Policy was introduced in the wake of the May 1969 riots, with special privileges for the Malays constitutionally entrenched, it was clear that, as English-educated non-Malays, my family had effectively become second-class citizens. Malaysia had ceased being a British colony in 1957. Yet there were many - like myself - who felt a rose-tinted nostalgia for the days when we were part of the mighty British Empire, where the sun never used to set. And so in 1981 we migrated to Australia, from one former British colony to another.
Migrants are the most dynamic people in any community. It takes stupendous effort to uproot oneself from an established environment and relocate to a new country and culture. Everything is new. The people, the flora and fauna, even the air smells different. My wife still insists, for instance, that pork bought from a Caucasian butcher smells and tastes different from pork sold by the Chinese butchers back in Malaysia. I couldn’t tell the difference. To me food is food, but it’s a very important ingredient in our lives. Most of us spend up to thirty percent of our lives buying, preparing, and consuming the food we need for our nourishment. Having access to familiar food goes a long way towards making a migrant feel at home in a new location. Migrants bring culinary and cultural diversity to their host country. Without us, the food Down Under would be deathly dull.
A few months after we settled into our new home in Melbourne, we had a couple of unexpected visitors. They were Jehovah’s Witnesses. I showed them a bit of Malaysian hospitality by offering them tea and - over the next five years – they returned every Wednesday to discuss the scriptures with me. These weekly Bible study sessions would last on the average an hour and a half. We had ample time to explore the finer points of our doctrinal differences. I discovered that my Jehovah’s Witness friends had an entirely different take on the Gospels. Christians regard Jesus Christ as their personal savior and God. The traditional Christian Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a doctrine they accept without question. I was stunned to discover that Jehovah’s Witnesses have no use for the Trinity. They regard Jehovah (known as Yahweh to the Jews) as the Heavenly Father, the only God we should worship. Jesus is the Son of God – the Logos (or Word) made flesh - and the Universe was created through him, but he isn’t one and the same as God.
My Jehovah’s Witness friends were patient and persevering with me. They plied me with supplementary reading material explaining their specific version of Christianity, and our weekly discussions stimulated my desire to learn as much as I possibly could about the origins of my own faith. Mainstream Christians view Jehovah’s Witnesses as a dangerous cult. Various well-meaning friends had warned me that Jehovah’s Witnesses brainwash their members, so they turn into mindless zombies serving their organization’s goals and purposes. Jehovah’s Witnesses constitute only a tiny fraction of the world’s total Christian population. From my personal contact with them, despite their rigid dogmatism, I found the Jehovah’s Witnesses pretty harmless. Perhaps my logical accountant’s brain grounded me in common sense and reason, and kept me from getting overly swayed by their indoctrination; or maybe it was my increasingly eclectic approach to truth.
I proceeded to investigate the Baha'i faith, the Church of Christ, Christian Science, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, even the Church of Scientology – indeed, almost every permutation of Judeo-Christianity I could find. My intellectual curiosity prompted me to look into Islam in an attempt to understand the basis of the centuries-old conflict between the Christian and Muslim worlds. Since Christianity and Islam both have ideological roots in Judaism and all three scriptures have a common origin in the Middle East, I was convinced that some crucial key could be found that would reconcile and harmonize these Abrahamic belief systems. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are linked by a pronounced patriarchal bias that perceives the Supreme Being as a MALE authority figure. All three are essentially Book Religions in that they are founded on laws purportedly promulgated by God through the written word - Torah and Talmud, Old and New Testaments, Quran and Hadith.
Nevertheless, throughout that period, I continued to cling stoically to a Christian fundamentalist mindset. In December 1983, on a group tour with a number of Australians to communist China, we were taken to an excavation site just outside Peking (now Beijing). The tour guide told us the original inhabitants lived in a walled city and they buried their dead in shallow graves. She mentioned that the skeletal remains, which had Asian features, were at least 5,000 years old. I had serious problems with that. Since the biblical first couple, Adam and Eve, were created only about 6,000 years ago (according to the fundamentalist interpretation of Genesis), the dating of the Chinese excavation site was obviously incorrect. Beijing is more than 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) from the Middle East where Adam and Eve lived. It would have been difficult, if not impossible, for early humans to migrate that far in a mere thousand years, even if they had somehow managed to travel in a straight line. Besides, I reasoned, it would have taken considerable time for a Semitic tribe to mutate into Asiatics in a mere millennium. I concluded that the excavation site was most likely no more than two or three thousand years old.
In September 1986, I relocated to Sydney with my wife and our two children, and was put in touch with a local chapter of Jehovah’s Witnesses whose members continued my slow and steady induction into their sect. By then I had begun reading in earnest, beyond the confines of religion, any book that might clue me in on the mysteries of existence. I delved into physics, cosmology, astronomy, biology, archeology, paleontology; boned up on evolution and genetics. The possibility that humanoid races may have existed on this planet a great deal longer than six thousand years began to force its way into my consideration. I devoured Stephen Hawking, Paul Davies, Fritjof Capra, Richard Dawkins, Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, Kahlil Gibran. I dug into the early history of the Church and discovered more than a few ill-concealed skeletons in its closet.
The spectrum of possible perspectives was absolutely fascinating to me. I appreciated the empirical approach of scientific enquiry, and at the same time was greatly intrigued and excited by accounts of the mystical. It’s a wonder I was able to maintain some sort of balance between open-minded curiosity and my deeply embedded faith in Christianity and the Bible. All this while my study sessions continued with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. In fact, all in all my contact with them lasted ten years - until 1991 – when they decided I was ready to be baptized as a bona fide Jehovah’s Witness. I told them I had already been baptized in Malaysia at the age of fifteen. They said I must accept a new baptism into their faith. First I had to agree to certain obligations and answer a few questions:
“Do you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior?” they asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Do you believe that the Bible is the Word of God?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe that the Bible is true literally for all eternity?”
“No,” I replied emphatically.
“What do you mean – no?” one of them asked.
“The Christian Bible may be the Word of God but it was formalized more than 1,600 years ago. It can’t be relevant to modern life in all aspects. Science has progressed and we can’t expect human knowledge to stand still,” I explained in a reasonable tone of voice.
“Give us an example of what you mean,” said a very concerned looking Jehovah’s Witness.
“Well, take for example the creation story in the Book of Genesis. It was just symbolic. It was based on the knowledge of the day when the Book of Genesis was first compiled over 2,500 years ago. It’s pretty impressive as a metaphor: the sequence of creation events recorded in the Bible comes remarkably close to recent scientific findings and doesn’t really contradict evolutionary theory. Modern science places the formation of our solar system at just over 4,500 million years ago. Life apparently started about 3,700 million years ago and gradually evolved into the amazing varieties of lifeforms we see today.
Geneticists have proved that all life on Earth is related through our DNA and our genes. But we still don’t know exactly how life came about yet. Life evolved over time, it took millions and millions of years.” I replied, feeling like a latter-day Giordano Bruno before the Inquisition.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses were shocked to hear such heresy from my lips. They must have been wondering how I had managed to conceal my blasphemous thoughts from them for so many years. Finally, after an uncomfortable silence, one of the Witnesses declared: “Since you do not accept the literal creation sequence in the Bible, we cannot accept you as a member of our organization. If you happen to change your mind in the future, let us know.” He uttered a sharp “goodbye” and they all walked briskly out of the house.
It was a sad moment for me to see them go. After all, the Jehovah’s Witnesses had been among the first friends I had made in the new country, and they had shown exemplary patience and kindness with me. Without their encouragement and moral support – for which I shall always be grateful - I would not have embarked so enthusiastically on a deep scrutiny of the Bible and, subsequently, more secular and speculative works. As it so happened, I had arrived at my own unexpected conclusions, based on startling revelations gleaned from new data.
CHAPTER THREE
A BIT OF ALTERNATIVE HISTORY
“Establishment history is largely based on recorded propaganda,” wrote the celebrated constitutional historian and genealogist, Sir Laurence Gardner. This certainly applies when one considers the complex cross-currents that have influenced the rise and growth of the Church.
Around 597 BCE, the Kingdom of Judah fell to Nebuchadnezzer II of Babylon who captured and destroyed Jerusalem, and deported the Hebrews to Babylon, where they remained in captivity for nearly fifty years. What we now know as the Old Testament was first written down by Hebrew scribes during their protracted sojourn in Babylon. This would account for the strong influence of Mesopotamian lore in Hebraic culture. Indeed, the Book of Genesis in its entirety is merely a brief summary of the Sumerian creation story recorded thousands of years earlier on cuneiform clay tablets. A modern translation and interpretation of these long neglected Mesopotamian artefacts by Zecharia Sitchin, the controversial Russian-Jewish historian, has been published in seven volumes as The Earth Chronicles.
Sitchin sheds an astonishingly heterodox light on all creation stories by introducing the taboo topic of extraterrestrial intervention – but we shall take a closer look at this hairy issue a little later.
The Hebrews had for generations been a colonized people. Around 300 BCE Palestine had become part of the Alexandrian Empire. Then, in 63 BCE, the Roman general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) marched into Judaea and seized Jerusalem, and Palestine became an annex of Rome. Hebrew resentment of Roman rule existed long before Jesus arrived on the scene. By the time he was born the priestly Pharisees and the mercantile Sadducees had comfortably adjusted to the political status quo, and were not in favor of rocking the boat of business-as-usual.
Outside of the New Testament there are hardly any records extant of the man called “Jesus of Nazareth.” Scholarly research has unearthed the fact that the town called Nazareth may not have even existed during the lifetime of Jesus. However, there was a Nazarite sect to which Jesus probably belonged, and early followers of his teachings were sometimes known as Nazarenes. Translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls (found in 1947 near Qumrān and dated between 200 BCE and 68 CE) reveal that a Master referred to in the documents as “the Teacher of Righteousness” was a high initiate of the Essene brotherhood.
Apocryphal scriptures locked from view in the Vatican Library may shed an entirely different light on the Palestinian passion play staged more than 2,000 years ago. The Gnostic gospels of Thomas and Mary, for instance, were deliberately excluded from the New Testament – even though they were allegedly written by two individuals dearest and closest to the Master Jesus. The apostle Thomas was, in fact, his brother; and Mary, his beloved companion and wife. But why would the Roman Church conceal this important information from its followers? Why, indeed, would the early clerics (specifically, Pope Gregory I in 591 CE) endeavor to portray Mary Magdalene as a prostitute when it can be established with a little independent research that she was in truth of noble descent, a fitting consort for a king?
In the old Hebrew tradition, a man was not considered a man – what more a Master or Rabbi – till he was married. Celibacy was considered neither a requirement nor a virtue in Judaism, except among certain ascetic sects like the Nazarites wherein sexual intercourse was sanctioned only at specific periods and essentially for procreative purposes.
Students of the Qabbala will inform you that the Anglicized form of the name “Jesus” robs it of numerological and mystical significance. The Aramaic form “Yeshua” or Hebraic “Yeheshuah” both yield rich qabbalistic meaning when rendered in Hebrew letters as YHShWH. The letter ש (Shin) represents “a triune essence” – the principle of 3 (the Paraclete or Holy Spirit); whilst YHWH is also known as Tetragrammaton, the principle of 4 (Physical Matter or Form).
Thus we have in YH+Sh+WH an alphabetic expression of the fusion of Spirit and Matter: The Word Made Flesh. Note, too, that 3 + 4 = 7 (the universal number of Mystery); while 3 X 4 = 12 (base number of the duodecimal system of reckoning underpinning Western civilization). When Jesus or Yeheshuah declares, “My Father and I are One,” he is simply stating that he embodies the divine in human form. In other words, he has successfully aligned and integrated his human ego-personality with his individual soul, as well as his cosmic oversoul. Or, in psychological parlance: his id, ego, and superego are in harmonious balance, qualifying him as a Self-Realized Master or Godman.
As for the appellation “Christ,” our etymological options begin with the Greek christos – usually defined as “anointed” (it was ancient practice to massage sacrificial victims or candidates for divine kingship with fragrant oils or unguents). Interestingly, the Greek word khrisma means unguent – and it is indeed tempting to associate it with another Greek word, kharisma, which suggests a favor, grace, or talent divinely conferred. Jesus the Christ was indisputably a charismatic personality.
In Latin the word crista - from which the English term “crest” derives – denotes a plume or tuft affixed on a helmet. Crest also means the top of a ridge or the highest point of a wave, and is used in heraldry to denote the family coat of arms or corporate emblem. In effect, the word “Christ” is not so much a name as a title – as in Anointed Chief or Divine King. The Hebrew word for messiah is masiah, derived from messeh, the fat of sacred crocodiles used in Egyptian anointment rites. This would explain why Gnostic texts refer to Yeheshuah in English as “Jesus the Christ” - and not “Jesus Christ” – to emphasize the distinction between the man and his status as the anointed king of a specific bloodline – the bloodline of the Holy Grail.
The publication, in 1982, of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (authored by three BBC documentary producers - Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln) caused a ripple of controversy within the ranks of Christian orthodoxy. Messrs Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln had started out researching the history of the Knights Templar for a documentary on medieval Europe. What they unearthed was a mother lode of esoteric lore leading all the way back to Palestine, Egypt, and beyond – and it all concerned a life-and-death struggle over the future of humanity.
The secret brotherhoods that have proliferated throughout history – indeed, that have subtly influenced the course of history itself – have their origins in the mythical mists of antiquity. Some fraternities, like the Ancient and Mystical Order of the Rosy Cross (AMORC) aka the Rosicrucians, claim the enigmatic pharaoh Akhnaton as their founder. Others hint that their initiatory roots reach even farther back to the legendary lost continent of Atlantis.
In any case, the Knights Templar originated in the 11th Century after a small group of French nobles recaptured Jerusalem from the Saracens and established a base close by the ruins of Solomon’s Temple. The possibility that they may have found a hoard of buried treasure and sacred relics - including the famous Ark of the Covenant dating from the time of Moses – makes for a truly fascinating study.
From humble beginnings as a military religious order, the Knights Templar rapidly grew in economic and political influence until they were perceived as a direct threat to the Roman Catholic Church, and brutally destroyed. On Friday, October 13, 1307, hundreds of Templars were imprisoned by order of the French King Philip IV, with the blessing of Pope Clement V, and tortured till they confessed to sexual deviancy and blasphemy – and then mercilessly burnt at the stake. The superstitious who fear ill fortune every Friday the Thirteenth may be surprised to learn the historical origins of this particular phobia.
This was indeed a bloodstained period (which, shockingly, lasted from 1231 to 1834) in the annals of the Church - when millions of “heretics” were persecuted and cruelly executed by the barbaric Inquisition, instigated by a succession of popes and monarchs, to forcefully suppress all threats to the earthly power structure and protect the vested interests of the ruling elite.
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail has as its central theme the long-suppressed genealogy of the Christic bloodline carried into the modern epoch by Miriam of Mygdala, better known as Mary Magdalene. A convincing case is made on behalf of a dynastic succession generated by the royal union of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Obviously, this would negate Rome’s claims to any moral or spiritual authority over Christendom – and furthermore serve to anchor the life of Jesus the Christ in a radically (and intriguingly) different sociopolitical context.
The early 1980s witnessed a feminist revolution of sorts among biblical scholars. Elaine Pagels published The Gnostic Gospels, an interpretation of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts which postulates the equal status between Father and Mother aspects of the Godhead. Other women academics like Karen King and Janet Schaberg popularized a fresh perspective of Mary Magdalene as a personage of considerable stature, power and authority in the early church. Margaret Starbird - an independent scholar and theologian with a Roman Catholic background - emerged as the bestknown voice of the feminist restoration, with three impactful and impeccably referenced books: The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, The Goddess in the Gospels, and Magdalene’s Lost Legacy: Symbolic Number and Sacred Union in Christianity.
More recently, Dan Brown’s phenomenal best-seller – The Da Vinci Code – reiterates the Magdalenian theme in a modern Grail quest presented as a thrill-a-minute whodunit. The esoteric motifs of Brown’s murder-mystery masterpiece will be familiar to millions around the world by the time the movie version completes its circuit of the cinemas and gets recirculated on television. It is too early yet to gauge what effect this information, so brilliantly researched and packaged, will have on Christianity’s pet beliefs. Is the global popularity of The Da Vinci Code (more than 60 million copies sold at this writing) an indication that humanity has finally outgrown its fear of examining skeletons long concealed in the closets of establishment history?
In the original Hebrew version of Genesis, the name of God always appears in its plural form as Elohim. When God is quoted as saying, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” it implies that a group of creator gods is being addressed. Jehovah is a relatively recent Anglicization of Yahweh, the monotheistic Adonai (Lord) of the Hebrews, who alternately appears as YHWH - or Yaldabaoth the Demiurge, a false god, in the Gnostic narrative.
According to Laurence Gardner, YHWH originally represented the four members of the heavenly family: Father, Mother, Son, and Daughter. The Mother Aspect or Sacred Feminine was revered as Shekinah, sister and spouse to the Father Aspect of the Godhead. Somewhere down the line, a creeping misogyny infected the male priesthood and effectively supplanted the nurturing Goddess (Mother Nature, Gaia-Terra, or Sophia) with a punitive, patriarchal, militantly vengeful monotheism.
The Book Religions (particularly Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) which emphasized the “infallible” authority of their official scriptures, turned their adherents into ideologues, disconnected from the natural flow and ecstatic dance of Life itself. Instead of revering the miraculous physical reality of their own bodies – and, by extension, that of the natural environment and, ultimately, the entire living cosmos – believers were required to hold as sacred an ecclesiastically sanctioned set of written rules and regulations - purportedly channeled from on high, but expediently inscribed, modified, misinterpreted and perverted by those intent on institutionalizing belief systems as an effective means of social engineering.
It doesn’t take long for a handful of professional scribes and clerics, operating within a largely illiterate populace, to degenerate into a secretive cabal of power brokers, manipulating public opinion and behavior to its own diabolical ends. Therein lies the fundamental flaw of fundamentalism.
CHAPTER FOUR
TRADITIONAL VIRTUES
My father and mother instilled in me the ideals of honesty, gratitude, loyalty, forgiveness, doing no conscious harm to others, aspiring to improve oneself, being content with one’s lot, respect for others, and accountability for all our actions. The fact that my parents were devout Christians was perhaps merely incidental. I’m sure they would have upheld the same ethical notions had they been, say, Buddhists, Hindus, or agnostics.
Father insisted that, as Christians, we should set ourselves very high standards in our interactions with society. We must be completely honest and sincere in all our dealings. We must not cheat, tell lies, or knowingly harm others. He told us being honest was the most efficient way to conduct our lives. Being honest was ultimately profitable, he reasoned. Being arrested, fined or imprisoned for dishonest practices was not only ruinous in financial terms, it would also destroy our reputations, discredit our family name, and jeopardize our careers. Father was a fine example of a pragmatic idealist.
A quiet, shy, and extremely private person, my father seldom, if ever, said grace at meal-times or prayed aloud - whether at home or in public. “Grant unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar” was one of my father's favorite quotes from the New Testament. He was certainly no tax dodger, and believed it was important to pay our taxes in full if we wanted to live in a compassionate and just society. In hindsight, my parents’ robust moral standards went a long way towards redeeming the less noble facets of Christian fundamentalism.
“We must always be thankful to God, and to our fellow men, for all we have received, because life can be precarious,” my father would repeatedly remind us. He had lived through the Japanese occupation of Malaya from December 1941 to August 1945, and had vivid memories of hunger and deprivation. “Be grateful for the smallest morsel we receive,” he said.
Gratitude is ingrained in me. When I finished high school in Malaysia in 1971, my parents didn’t have enough funds to finance me through college. I managed to borrow M$200 (US$80) from my mother's younger sister for the initial payment to study accountancy at a private college. There were ten more monthly payments of M$75 to complete the first of the three-year accountancy course. My father, a government clerk, had little by way of savings.
My mother, then 42, had never worked, but she rolled up her sleeves and secured a job as a cook in a ceramic factory about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from home. Her monthly pay was M$80 (US$35) during her first year, and when she became chief cook, her pay increased to M$100, a whopping twenty-five percent increase. Despite the long hours and the exhausting work, she viewed it as a rewarding experience. Going out to work opened up a whole new world for my mother. Her evangelical zeal thrived in the new environment. The factory staff really loved her cooking, and she soon became their spiritual counselor as well. Quite a few souls in that ceramic factory were saved from hell and damnation during my mother’s tenure as chief cook.
Six days a week she worked at the factory while attending to her usual chores at home. She started work at 7:00 a.m. and finished at 6:00 p.m. She had to leave home by 6:30 - but before that she would do the washing and hang out the clothes. After serving breakfast she would prepare lunch, leaving the food for my father and my brothers on the dining table, covered with a fly screen. Upon returning home at 6:30 in the evening (after a 2-kilometer uphill trek), my mother would cook the evening meal. As we ate, she would bring in the laundry and begin ironing clothes. Then she would feed herself and wash the dishes. None of the menfolk ever offered to help. In a traditional Asian home men are not expected to do housework. Few Chinese girls today would put up with such male chauvinism, especially those who have studied abroad.
As a student in England, and subsequently as a migrant in Australia, I quickly realized the disadvantage of not having had any training in basic household chores like cooking, dishwashing, laundry and ironing. I had to learn the hard way, through trial and error, but now I appreciate even more acutely the sacrifices my mother made for her family.
At the end of every month for two whole years, my mother handed her hard-earned pay to me in an envelope. This motivated me to finish my accountancy course in the shortest time possible. I began giving private tuition to high school and junior accountancy students to supplement my mother’s subsidy. And so I completed the British accountancy course in two years instead of the usual three years. With a recommendation from my senior lecturer at college, I immediately accepted a position as a senior lecturer in accountancy at the MARA Institute of Technology in Shah Alam. My starting salary as a senior lecturer was more than double my father's clerical wage.
Within a few months, I was able to repay my loan to my mother's younger sister (bless her memory) and I endeavored to repay her kindness by showering gifts on her family. I was relieved my mother was able to quit her job when I became a lecturer.
My father was a kind person. He loved feeding stray dogs and cats. Despite his modest means, he always had some spare change in his pockets to give to those in need. He detested office politics and assiduously avoided it, often to the detriment of his own career. He believed that only God was qualified to judge.
On the last day of my father's life, he was in a state of contentment, at peace with himself. He summoned my mother to his bedside for a quiet chat. She told us later he was unusually happy and jovial. He seemed to know his time on Earth was at an end. He shut his eyes and rested his right hand on his forehead, mumbling something as he dozed off. My mother left his side briefly to attend to some household task. A few minutes later she returned and discovered he had stopped breathing. He was 69 years old.
When I was a lad in high school, I told myself I’d be the happiest man in the world if I could obtain a college education. This would mean a good, steady career, a family home, and a reliable car. A Volvo sedan would be perfect, I thought. Ten years later, after I had attained all these goals, I wanted more. Now if I could migrate to a “developed” country like Britain or Australia, my life would be complete. Another five years down the line, that was achieved. My ambitions mounted. I set my sights on a top-paying position in the IT industry. That took another five years to materialize. Was I satisfied?
Next I desired to own more city investment apartments, and to enjoy more vacations abroad. Where and when would my ambitions end? In my zealous quest for wealth and success, I lost touch with my heart. I realized, almost too late, that my family was barely tolerating me. Outright rebellion erupted in 1999 and I didn’t know how to handle it. That was an excruciatingly difficult time for me. My anxiety levels rose rapidly. I feared I would lose what I truly cherished and loved.
Until my daughter turned sixteen, I never attended any of my children's school activities. I felt a deep sense of shame and remorse when my wife pointed this out to me. Where had I been all those years when my two children were growing up? When I moved into Information Technology in 1984, my work took me away from home for weeks at a stretch. Living out of the proverbial suitcase, I spent less than half my time as a father and husband. During my annual leave, I would opt to visit my parents in Malaysia for a week or two – usually without my wife and kids. I was in acute danger of losing touch completely with my own family.
Like most Asian fathers, I assumed that since I was providing the financial needs of my immediate family, they would be grateful and satisfied. I bought my wife a car and paid all the household bills. I didn’t think they would need much else. I was utterly unaware that there was a problem. Looking back, I wonder how I could possibly have been so insensitive and self-centered.
My wife and kids, bless their hearts, decided to give me another chance. Unfortunately, by the time I realized the folly of my self-obsession, both my children had reached their teens - and teenagers tend to prefer the company of their peers rather than “hang out” with their “uncool” parents.
Despite my fervent Christian fundamentalism as a teenager in Malaysia, I went through a rebellious phase: against the wishes of my parents, I kept my hair long and wore tight pants (would you believe I was a Beatles fan?). However, as a compromise, I did keep myself and my long hair clean - and my clothes were always freshly laundered, thanks to my hardworking mother, who passed away peacefully after a long illness towards the end of 2004. Sadly, she died convinced that I had disqualified myself from joining her in Heaven – simply because I no longer worshiped Jesus Christ as God, nor did I accept the Holy Bible’s absolute inerrancy.
CHAPTER FIVE
CREATIONISM REVISITED
When Erich von Däniken published his controversial Chariots of the Gods? in the early 1970s, many dismissed him as a sensationalist crank. Von Däniken’s chief contention was that the Earth had been visited and colonized by extraterrestrial races who had long mastered interstellar travel. Unfortunately, von Däniken’s fondness for exclamation points and his literary inelegance detracted from his otherwise well-documented theses.
He had poured a large part of his personal fortune, and many years of field research, into his obsession with mysterious and colossal artefacts that abound all over the planet - from the Pyramids of Giza and Central America to the gigantic geoglyphs of Nazca, and the megalithic monuments of Rapa Nui.
Von Däniken may have achieved instant international notoriety with his hard-hitting best-sellers, but he was certainly not the first to delve into this taboo area of paleoanthropological and exobiological conjecture. Indeed, as early as 1953, Desmond Leslie had co-authored a book with George Adamski who claimed to have had personal contact with space visitors. Their book, Flying Saucers Have Landed, was reissued as a paperback in 1970 and became a cult classic among ufologists, along with the writings of George Hunt Williamson (Secret Places of the Lion, Road in the Sky) who forged a potent link between ETs and esoteric lore. Another important early work on the subject was The Sky People by Brinsley Le Poer Trench (published by Neville Spearman in 1963).
Worldwide interest in UFO phenomena spread at lightspeed. The noted psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung commented on the archetypal significance of UFOs in his journals. Award-winning novelist Doris Lessing incorporated the ET question into her Canopus in Argos trilogy in the late 1970s, written from the perspective of a Sirian colonial agent.
Along came Uri Geller, the Israeli spoon-bender, whose collaboration with Dr Andrija Puharich resulted in a series of astonishing books revealing the presence of interstellar entities proactively involved with earthly affairs. Despite the best efforts of academic status quoists and business-as-usual lobbyists, the Little Green Men From Mars refused to leave the limelight. In 1994, respected Harvard psychiatrist John E. Mack published his findings in a level-headed book called Abduction: Human Encounters With Aliens – investigations into some 200 cases of alien abduction. Mack was prepared to stake his professional reputation on his personal conclusion - the abductees were reporting true experiences; and there is a great deal more to mundane reality than meets the eye.
What evidence, if any, can we find that might ground these notions in the realm of common sense and reason? How about written records, engraved on clay tablets in cuneiform script, some 6,000 years old? Zecharia Sitchin spent more than three decades studying the Sumerian clay tablets and soaking up Mesopotamian lore. Sitchin has the unique advantage of being a multilinguist with a handful of dead languages at his command. His laborious Mesopotamian research was published in a series called The Earth Chronicles, beginning with The Twelfth Planet in 1976.
Sitchin’s interpretation of the Sumerian records boldly crosses the boundary between history and science fiction. The stories engraved in ancient clay spoke of Sky Gods who established a colony on Earth to prospect for precious metals, particularly gold. Described as “the ones that descended from heaven” (Anunnaki in Sumerian and Nefilim in Hebrew), these creator gods claimed to be sons and daughters of ANU, the King of Heaven.
According to the Sumerian chronicles, the Sky Gods’ first terrestrial encampment was called E.RIDU – meaning “cultivated place away from home” – and the word subsequently went through various permutations as Aratha or Ereds in Aramaic, Eretz in Hebrew, Erde in German (Erda in Old High German), Jördh in Icelandic, Jord in Danish, Airtha in Gothic, Erthe in Middle English, and Earth in modern English.
The first wave of Anunnaki settlers were under the command of ANU’s firstborn, the Lord E.A (whose mother was of a serpent race that had earlier arrived on the planet and had now gone subterranean). Soon E.A, Lord of the Waters, became known as EN.KI – Lord of the Firm Lands – and he was an avid engineer and scientist who embarked on a thorough study of terrestrial flora and fauna. The earliest gold mines were located in AB.ZU (southeastern Africa) and as work progressed, more workers arrived to tunnel and dig.
ANU then sent his second son, EN.LIL, Lord of the Winds and Regent of Heaven, to govern the growing Earth colony. After 40 Anunnaki Years (about 144,000 terrestrial years), the goldminers began to chafe at the harsh conditions on Earth and there was mutiny in the air. The incipient sibling rivalry between EN.KI and EN.LIL flared up in their differing perspectives on the problem of striking workers. EN.LIL wanted to punish the workers for insubordination, while EN.KI (who had been among them from the outset) was sympathetic to their plight and argued on their behalf.
Finally EN.KI proposed a scientific solution to this archetypal rift between labor and management: he would enlist the aid of his half-sister NIN.TI - a brilliant geneticist whose name means Lady of Life (or Lady of the Rib, because the word TI also denotes the rib) - and attempt to create a semi-intelligent slave race to perform all the menial tasks. After much trial and error, EN.KI and NIN.TI succeeded in manufacturing and cloning a modified primate which they dubbed the A.DAMA (“created from red clay”). It was smart enough to be taught the use simple tools, but not sufficiently intelligent to notice what a raw deal it was getting. The experiment succeeded to the extent that the Anunnaki workers were relieved from the arduous hazards of digging and tunneling. However, cloning these A.DAMA was a time-consuming procedure.
Consequently, EN.KI and NIN.TI decided to contribute their own genetic material and create a self-replicating new breed of A.DAMA in uterus, thereby facilitating sexual reproduction. This led to a dilution of the Anunnaki bloodlines over time, as many of the Earth-based Sky Gods became enamored of their pet slaves, which they affectionately called the LU.LU. The Book of Genesis (chapter 6, verses 1 and 2) coyly skims over this era of genetic confusion: “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.”
Sitchin gives a detailed account of the Great Deluge as recorded in the Sumerian epic called Enuma Elish (literally, “When the gods walked among us”). EN.LIL was worried about the rapidly reproducing Adamic-Anunnaki strain of human and wished to obliterate this genetic aberration before it got out of control. When the I.GI.GI (“Watchers in the Sky”) stationed in the orbiting mother ship reported to Ground Command that a major wobble in the planetary axis was expected in a matter of months, EN.LIL summoned all ranking officers to an emergency council and made them swear an oath of silence about the impending catastrophe. The Anunnaki would prepare to evacuate Earth just before the axial wobble, leaving the A.DAMA and all genetic monstrosities to perish. There could be no extermination program more elegant and efficient – as well as convenient, that is, morally acceptable to Sky Gods who preferred to keep their hands clean and their conscience clear.
Now, EN.KI had also sworn complicity to EN.LIL’s plan to cleanse the planet of genetic mutations – but he was deeply attached to the semi-sapient creature he and NIN.TI had spawned in their laboratory. Indeed, EN.KI had been secretly enhancing the A.DAMA strain to produce a small number of A.DAPA – an adaptable new breed with enough brain capacity to learn astronomy, physics, and mathematics, thereby trainable as an elite priesthood to the Sky Gods. Perhaps the term “Adept” as it occurs in magical traditions etymologically derives from “Adapa.”
Among the A.DAPA, EN.KI had a particular favorite named Ziusudra whom he summoned to his abode near the source of the Nile. Ziusudra entered the Temple of EN.KI, only to find himself alone... except for a pre-recorded message from his Lord advising him to construct a seaworthy vessel according to a specific design, gather his extended family about him, along with a digitized and compressed genetic database covering a wide spectrum of terrestrial flora and fauna (encoded and recorded in what might today be described as blueray DVD discs, but which in Sumerian were called MEs.)
The Voice of The Lord commanded that when the sky was seen to glow, it would be Ziusudra’s cue to enter the craft and batten down the hatches securely. Accompanying Ziusudra and his family would be experienced navigators with instructions to steer the craft towards Mount Ararat, where they would drop anchor and wait for the turbulent seas to subside.
The same legend is found in Babylonian mythology - specifically in the Epic of Gilgamesh - though Ziusudra’s name appears therein as Utnapishtim, from whom Gilgamesh claimed direct descent. Many millennia down the line, Hebrew scribes transformed his name to Noah, in what is now known as the Old Testament.
As the Sky Gods lifted off from Earth en masse, the heavens glowed with the radiance of their spaceships. Ziusudra knew it was time to board the vessel, fully provisioned with supplies for several weeks, and await the tidal waves that would soon sweep all traces of civilization from the face of the Earth. For forty days and forty nights, as the tale has passed down from generation to generation, there was no dry land in sight. Terrestrial flora and fauna were wiped out instantly, along with the Adamic populations – except, of course, for Ziusudra and crew, who eventually alighted from their vessel atop Al Judi peak in the vicinity of Ararat, and surveyed the horrific desolation around them.
Meanwhile, safe in their orbiting spacecraft high above the earth, the Sky Gods felt the pangs of remorse and profound sorrow at the sight of the wholesale devastation below. They had seen the terrified faces of the LU.LUs as the raging waters engulfed their homes, and heard the piercing screams of women and children as they drowned by the thousands, by the millions. They saw priests and priestesses stoically seated in prayer and meditation, calmly awaiting oblivion. But to whom were they praying; on what were they meditating?
Their Makers were high and dry above them, documenting their demise for their own scientific archives, seemingly indifferent – or powerless to save them. Even so, devotion and faith registered on the serene faces of the supplicants as they clung to the disintegrating pillars of their temples, and then vanished abruptly into the murderous maw of the murky maelstrom. The disturbing memory of this cataclysm was forever etched in the minds of the observing Sky Gods.
Even EN.LIL, aloof in his divine splendor, was beginning to regret his decision to exterminate the hominid slave species. And so, when the Sky Gods returned to Earth after her magnetic field had been reinstated, and a measure of stability had been restored to the planet’s orbit, they were overjoyed and relieved to discover that a tiny remnant of humanity had actually survived. No questions were asked, although it was fairly obvious that an early warning had been leaked to Ziusudra. The sibling Lords EN.KI and EN.LIL agreed to cooperate in the task of rehabilitating earthly civilization and, in record time, cities populated by the illegitimate descendants of the Sky Gods sprang up seemingly overnight like mushrooms, and human civilizations once again began to proliferate across the continents.
The Great Deluge is a recurring theme in all mythologies. In the Malayan Peninsula, aboriginal tribes speak of how the land was repopulated after a massive flood which destroyed everyone except their divine ancestors. Similar accounts can be found in folkloric traditions from almost every indigenous culture around the globe.
Paleoanthropologists speculate that this period of regeneration probably dates from around 10,800 BCE – coinciding with the end of the last glacial era, which reshaped land masses and radically altered climatic zones.
And what became of the Sky Gods – the Anunnaki or Nefilim who colonized the planet approximately 430,000 years ago? The Enuma Elish speaks of divine kings and queens whose reigns apparently endured over thousands of terrestrial years – and how their human progeny eventually were granted rulership of the lands, while the gods themselves retired into obscurity (lurking in the astral?), or perhaps they were repatriated to their home planet.
Nevertheless, the Sky Gods seem to have left us a genetic legacy of sibling rivalry, warlordism, and destructive technology – a lethal combination indeed. They also implanted religious belief systems designed to remotely control us through superstitious terror – exposing our ancestors to extreme degrees of shock and awe, while flaunting deadly weapons in perpetual cycles of warfare, using their slightly retarded progeny as cannon fodder. Thus was the absurd notion of righteous war (call it a crusade or jihad) seeded in the human psyche – along with the insane belief that anyone dying in such a noble cause automatically attained martyrdom, and was thereby assured a place in heaven.
The best puppeteers are the ones whose hands are never seen. Some say the extraterrestrial influence on earthly affairs remains undiminished, although it has become well-nigh invisible. While mainstream academics and politicians persist in ridiculing all talk of ETs and UFOs, relegating discussion of such topics to the lunatic fringe, dedicated researchers continue to investigate the phenomena, often at high cost to their own careers and reputations.
What would inspire a medical doctor like Steven M. Greer to devote more than ten years of his life, ultimately abandoning a lucrative practice, to lobby for classified data on ET activities to be made public? Among ufologists and exobiologists, there is a widespread belief that an elite cabal exists – nicknamed the Shadow Government - comprising influential individuals from the military, industrial, financial and corporate sectors, which has collaborated for decades with several ET contingents, unbeknownst to the public at large.
Indeed, the late U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was allegedly introduced in 1954 to representatives of the Zeta-Drako Alliance (generically called the Greys in exopolitical circles; for more data visit Dr Michael Salla’s excellent site at www.exopolitics.org) who offered to share some of their advanced technology in exchange for the right to conduct genetic research on a random sampling of human beings and domestic animals.
It appears that Eisenhower was of two minds about the wisdom of doing shady deals with these DNA-sampling ETs. However, he was to discover that being the President in no way meant he had the final word on top secret decisions. In his January 1961 retirement speech, Eisenhower made some pointed remarks which have been widely quoted in recent years:
"In the councils of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together."
Forty years later, on May 9, 2001, Dr Steven Greer and his associates hosted a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., wherein the Disclosure Project was officially launched. More than twenty retired airforce and naval officers risked prosecution by revealing that they possessed concrete evidence of the Shadow Government’s covert agenda with ET races. They sought a congressional rescindment of their security oaths, so that they could make public whatever they knew without being arrested and imprisoned. The press conference was reported in the mainstream press, but with a tongue-in-cheek spin to ensure that the public would receive this earthshaking news with a pinch of salt... and turn immediately to the sports section or the business pages.
As to be expected, nothing of consequence – at least, not on the visible level - followed from Steven Greer’s historic press conference. However, those interested may pursue their own research at www.disclosureproject.org and perhaps purchase a CD containing the full 500-page briefing plus seventy pages of witness testimonies. A shadowy consortium of potentates and warlords (who inherited or usurped the divine right of rulership from the ancient Sky Gods) pull the economic, political, military, and religious strings on this planet – and they are extremely reluctant to relinquish control of our evolutionary programs. After all, knowing full well that the truth will emerge and set humanity free, they are in a very tight spot indeed. As Winston Churchill once remarked, quoting a Hindustani proverb: “Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers from which they dare not dismount.”
CHAPTER SIX: EXPLORING INNER SPACE
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