Robert Graves and Archaeolmythology

[Robert Baird]

We have another gold mine of knowledge here. Link problems throughout! I figured out the first one, got the last one finally, the others are not so good..

http://www.24grammata.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Robert-Graves-The-Greek-Myths-24grammata.com_.pdf

"Robert Graves was born in 1895 at Wimbledon, son of Alfred Perceval Graves, the Irish writer, and Amalia von Ranke. He went from school to the First World War, where he became a captain in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. His principal calling is poetry, and his Selected Poems have been published in the Penguin Poets. Apart from a year as Professor of English Literature at Cairo University in 1926 he has since earned his living by writing, mostly historical novels which include: I, Claudius; Claudius the God; Sergeant Lamb of the Ninth; Count Belisarius; Wife to Mr Milton (all published as Penguins); Proceed, Sergeant Lamb; The Golden Fleece; They Hanged My Saintly Billy; and The Isles of Unwisdom. He wrote his autobiography, Goodbye to All That (a Penguin Modem Classic), in 1929. His two most discussed non-fiction books are The White Goddess, which presents a new view of the poetic impulse, and The Nazarene Gospel Restored (with Joshua Podro), a re-examination of primitive Christianity. He has translated Apuleius, Lucan, and Svetonius for the Penguin Classics. He was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1962"

Full text of "Greek Mythology 1 - Deities" - Internet Archive

This is not so well formatted for easy reading.

http://archive.org/stream/GreekMythology1-Deities/GreekMythology-1_djvu.txt

[PDF]ROBERT GRAVES THE WHITE GODDESS
This is the best book of his. http://72.52.202.216/~fenderse/The-White-Goddess.pdf

http://robertgraves.org/issues/18/2686_article_56.pdf

Items 558 - 566 - The Greek Myths (1955) as a translation of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, .... GRAVESIANA THE JOURNAL OF THE ROBERT GRAVES SOCIETY.


From The White Goddess we have him saying a load of truth and giving glimpses into code or wisdom (yes, the two connect). It is hard for me to over-emphasize the importance of his work.

"But even after Alexander the Great had cut the Gordian Knot—an act of far greater moral significance than is generally realized—the ancient language survived purely enough in the secret Mystery-cults of Eleusis, Corinth, Samothrace and elsewhere; and when these were suppressed by the early Christian Emperors it was still taught in the poetic colleges of Ireland and Wales, and in the witch-covens of Western Europe. As a popular religious tradition it all but flickered out at the close of the seventeenth century: and though poetry of a magical quality is still occasionally written, even in industrialized Europe, this always results from an inspired, almost pathological, reversion to the original language—a wild Pentecostal 'speaking with tongues'—rather than from a conscientious study of its grammar and vocabulary.

English poetic education should, really, begin not with the Canterbury Tales, not with the Odyssey, not even with Genesis, but with the Song of Amergin, (1) an ancient Celtic calendar-alphabet, {Ogham} found in several purposely garbled Irish and Welsh variants, which briefly summarizes the prime poetic myth. I have tentatively restored the text as follows:

(Notes: 1 As Shakespeare knew. See Macbeth, IV, i, 25. 12)

I am a stag: of seven tines,
I am a flood: across a plain,
I am a wind: on a deep lake,
I am a tean the Sun lets fall,
I am a hawk: above the cliff,
I am a thorn: beneath the nail,
I am a wonder: among flowers,
I am a wizard: who but I Sets the cool head aflame with smoke?
I am a spear: that roars for blood,
I am a salmon: in a pool,
I am a lure: from paradise,
I am a hill: where poets walk,
I am a boar: ruthless and red,
I am a breaker: threatening doom,
I am a tide: that drags to death,
I am an infant: who but I Peeps from the unhewn dolmen arch ?
I am the womb: of every holt,
I am the blaze: on every hill,
I am the queen: of every hire,
I am the shield: for every head,
I am the tomb: of every hope.

It is unfortunate that, despite the strong mythical element in Christianity, 'mythical' has come to mean 'fanciful, absurd, unhistorical'; for fancy played a negligible part in the development of the Greek, Latin and Palestinian myths, or of the Celtic myths until the Norman-French trovires worked them up into irresponsible romances of chivalry. They are all grave records of ancient religious customs or events, and reliable enough as history once their language is understood and allowance has been made for errors in transcription, misunderstandings of obsolete ritual, and deliberate changes introduced for moral or political reasons. Some myths of course have survived in a far purer form than others; for example, the Fables of Hyginus, the Library of Apollodorus and the earlier tales of the Welsh Mabinogion make easy reading compared with the deceptively simple chronicles of Genesis, Exodus, Judges and Samuel. Perhaps the greatest difficulty in solving complex mythological problems is that:

*
Conquering gods their titles take
From the foes they captive make,
and that to know the name of a deity at any given place or period, is far less important than to know the nature of the sacrifices that he or she was then offered. The powers of the gods were continuously being redefined. The Greek god Apollo, for instance, seems to have begun as the Demon of a Mouse-fraternity in pre-Aryan totemistic Europe: he gradually rose in divine rank by force of arms, blackmail and fraud until he became the patron of Music, Poetry and the Arts and finally, in some regions at least, ousted his 'father' Zeus from the Sovereignty of the Universe by identifying himself with Belinus the intellectual God of Light. Jehovah, the God of the Jews, has a still more complex history."

How can we teach the 'speaking in tongue' reversal to Ogham dialects if there is no etheric bank of knowledge called Ein Sof, the Akashic or other similar conceptualizations in language? Is it through that same ether or medium that we can attune to achieve bibliomancy, soul mates, decrees, action-at-a-distance and enhanced horizontal gene transfer now being proven?

For other ancient and pre-historic Keltic calendars see this thread.

http://forum.world-mysteries.com/threads/1144-Pre-Neolithic-Calendars

[araucaria]

I, and others, have mentioned Robert Graves quite a few times on this forum over the years, most recently here (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?88150-David-Talbott-The-Electric-Universe-The-Saturn-Sun-Swap-The-Reconstructing-Of-Mythology&p=1044930&viewfull=1#post1044930); just do a search for "Robert Graves".

[Robert Baird]

Sorry. I have far better info than Hancock the druggie and what is there. I will also give the actual process Graves recommended which they merely abuse.

[Robert Baird]

Why do I get such joy proving people like Robert Graves and Sir James Frazer to be correct? Does it have any merit to the present for people to learn how true it is that "history is prologue to the present"? Does it help religious scholars to learn where the myths of g-ds began or what a bard like Homer or Hesiod studied?

Archaeomythology might not be a 'see this is proof' kind of exploration but it leads places that people who need to see artifacts will miss.

"Mariolakos I.D.1 1 National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Faculty of Geology and Geoenvironment, Department of Dynamic, Tectonic & Applied Geology, Panepistimioupoli, Zografou, 157 84, Athens, Greece, mariolakos@geol.uoa.gr
Abstract

Many believe that the Greek Mythology is a figment of the vivid imagination of the ancient Greeks. Consequently, the Greek Myths are all fantastic stories. In my opinion, this view is erroneous, at least on the subject concerning the geographic and physical-oceanographic characteristics of the Atlantic Ocean, as these were described mainly by Homer, Hesiod, the Orphics and Plutarch. In the present paper (i) some of the references made by the above mentioned authors are selectively reported, and (ii) the physical and geological validation is given, based on the present-day scientific views and knowledge. Namely, the prehistoric Greeks knew about the Hyperboreans, the island of Ierne (Ireland), the British isle etc., by the Orphics. From the writings of Plutarch, they knew (i) the relative position of the present-day Iceland (Ogygia) and its distance from Britain, (ii) that to the west of Iceland, three other islands are located, where the sun sets for only an hour a day, (iii) that further to the west there is a “great continent”, which surrounds the Ocean and more. Homer and Hesiod wrote that (i) the Ocean is a “river” that flows continuously, (ii) that this river encircles the Earth and (iii) that its flow is turbulent not only on the surface, but in depth as well. Unfortunately, all this knowledge was gradually forgotten by all. This is the reason why Odyssey is considered just an entertaining poem and Ulysses’ nostos a fantastic story, with no trace of historic reality."

We will explore more of this proof that Homer's work on the Trojan War probably leads to saying there was a worldwide war in 19 separate theatres of operation. In knowing that you will just begin to grasp how much we have to uncover about our true past. Starting at page 91 we have the above abstract.

http://www.geology.upatras.gr/files/diavgeia/geology_congress/XLIII,%20Vol%201.pdf

[araucaria]

Sorry. I have far better info than Hancock the druggie and what is there. I will also give the actual process Graves recommended which they merely abuse.
You are mistaken: I never mention "Hancock the druggie". Take another look: my post is a sober examination of the sober work of David Talbott - not a mushroom in sight.

[Robert Baird]

Sorry. I have far better info than Hancock the druggie and what is there. I will also give the actual process Graves recommended which they merely abuse.
You are mistaken: I never mention "Hancock the druggie". Take another look: my post is a sober examination of the sober work of David Talbott - not a mushroom in sight.

I looked and saw Hancock in the thread. Your thread did not address Graves, it mentions him as you said. I will look again - by your command.

[Robert Baird]

I just went - and it is even worse than I thought.

Here is some of your initial post.


"sun vs Sun. David Talbott describes how in many cultures, Saturn is identified with the Sun; for example, in Greek, Cronos identified with Helios. This makes no sense if we see it as mistaking an outer planet for our star, Sol. It makes a great deal of sense, on the other hand, if we take ‘sun’ in the generic sense of as source of light and warmth from the standpoint of a satellite. This suggests that at one time Saturn was the Earth’s only such source, thereby placing the Saturn system outside the solar system.

Timelessness. Venus, Mars and Earth were then presumably locked together, rotating around Saturn with the same side facing the central ‘sun’, i.e. Saturn. We know this is possible because it is precisely how our own Moon behaves to this day (i.e. one lunar day equals one lunar year). This is possibly what is meant by the timeless era before time: with the spatial movements of each planet relative to the others being cancelled out, time was virtually measureless. The beginning of time is associated with Saturn, when Cronus (meaning Crow) became known as Chronos (time). (This by the way is not a mistake or a case of popular etymology but a pun, similar to Petrus the rock on which the Church was built.)"

[araucaria]

by your command.
Your tone is insufferable. I'm outta here.

You may have seen Hancock in the thread but not in my posts. It is not my thread.

Please don't quote people back at them without saying why you don't like about what they are saying.

[Robert Baird]

It is the post you referred me to - that makes it your post. In the actual post from the thread I just quoted you with a theory beyond the pall of any other than Flat earth fiction. Yes, I certainly would not want to post in such a thread - the work of a real scholar like Robert Graves.

The reason I would not post to such a thread is due to people like you who say my attitude is insufferable because I correct their nonsense and provide evidence to the contrary. Which is also why I will probably have little to say on most threads here.

[Bill Ryan]

Sorry. I have far better info than Hancock the druggie and what is there. I will also give the actual process Graves recommended which they merely abuse.
You are mistaken: I never mention "Hancock the druggie". Take another look: my post is a sober examination of the sober work of David Talbott - not a mushroom in sight.

I looked and saw Hancock in the thread. Your thread did not address Graves, it mentions him as you said. I will look again - by your command.

[mod hat on]

Clarifying here definitively, if I may. Rather puzzled by the exchange, I went to check myself.


The thread — called David Talbott | The Electric Universe, The Saturn/Sun Swap, & The Reconstructing Of Mythology (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?88150-David-Talbott-The-Electric-Universe-The-Saturn-Sun-Swap-The-Reconstructing-Of-Mythology) — was started by giovonni.
It was earthdreamer who mentioned Graham Hancock, in her one post here (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?88150-David-Talbott-The-Electric-Universe-The-Saturn-Sun-Swap-The-Reconstructing-Of-Mythology&p=1037352&viewfull=1#post1037352).
araucaria never mentioned Hancock at all.

All the above is pretty easy to see. Mistaken attributions are always likely to get people irritated and/or upset.

[Robert Baird]

Dear Bill

It was not the cause of the misinterpretation. =When I mentioned Graham it was just one cause of why I did not wish to post anything about Robert Graves to a thread which clearly has zero to do with him - even though some people will misinterpret and put words in his mouth about his methods on Symbolism and the use of science to verify the myths.

However, the point you make can be and usually is true. People run off making assumptions rather than doing research. That is not my thing!!!!!

Here we have something back on the point of this thread but also relating to what you say about misinterpretations.

A major part of our problem as a society and race, is the use of language designed for something we have addressed is not truthful, but is intended to manage people. That does not mean we could not come up with common agreement about words and have some words universally understood as indeterminate and requiring discourse before using them in a conversation. When I have tried to do this with the word spirituality I often get people responding as if I meant spiritism or religion but then the discussion ends up with some really foul outcomes in many cases.

It can be fun doing the pin the tail on the donkey routine with Scientologists and those who already KNOW the meaning and truth.

It is a horror show for all life on Earth because we have words that sound like one thing and mean the opposite to others. For example "Shalom" is thought to mean Peace and yet it actually means 'Peace through Victory'. Clearly victory and honor or other concepts have meanings different than Peace or understanding. Same thing with the Biblical phrase "The Meek shall inherit the Earth."

A person like Robert Graves will understand it, but how many will? "Mensch" is the original word used in the Bible text. It can appear to mean 'meek' at some level - but it means loyal and strong, a supporter of Right and honor (See the Pharisaic Golden Rule of Gamaliel). Yes, it is great when a Mensch is meek and confident in the faith they have in their self.

Here is what Wikipedia says about spirituality, they are right but wrong.

Spirituality may refer to almost any kind of meaningful activity,[1][note 1] personal growth, or blissful experience.[3]

Traditionally, spirituality refers to a process of re-formation of the personality[4] but there is no precise definition of spirituality.[5][6][note 2]

It might mean a re-forming of the self towards the SELF - is that what they mean? Personal growth is far too encompassing and in this society it is often associated with the exact opposite of spirituality. You might not know that if you go to Church and hear about Prayer leading to wealth and other things entirely selfish.

[ThePythonicCow]

The reason I would not post to such a thread is due to people like you who say my attitude is insufferable because I correct their nonsense and provide evidence to the contrary. Which is also why I will probably have little to say on most threads here.
So if the general attitude of various members and moderators of this forum is that the attitude you are displaying on this forum is insufferable, does this mean that you would not post on this forum? (Just checking ...) That could be arranged :).

[samildamach]

The victor writes the history .its as true now as its ever been.peoples have been handing down fables by word of mouth for generations cleverly disguising truths of the own history within.a lifetime of studying would only scratch the surface to this vast pool of knowledge.

[norman]

If you can find a remaining member of the Weedon family, you may get to find out a lot about what RG really thought. If I'm not mistaken, it's the same Robert Graves who ended his days on a Mediterranean Island with only his closest friends around him.

I've heard stories, from the Weedon family, about that man and his unpublished views. Not a too dissimilar tale from that of Eric Blair/Orwell.

From my own personal point of view, I think I'd have found the stuff he didn't ( dare?) write about more interesting than the stuff he did write about.

[araucaria]

It is the post you referred me to - that makes it your post. In the actual post from the thread I just quoted you with a theory beyond the pall of any other than Flat earth fiction. Yes, I certainly would not want to post in such a thread - the work of a real scholar like Robert Graves.

The reason I would not post to such a thread is due to people like you who say my attitude is insufferable because I correct their nonsense and provide evidence to the contrary. Which is also why I will probably have little to say on most threads here.
Let’s try and get something substantive out of this non-debate. The term nonsense, if itis to be applicable to anything, it might be to an opinion dismissing a forty-page essay outright without even reading it, and worse than that, hallucinating a non-existent reference to Graham Hancock. However, it is far too crude a tool for my liking. Your OP provides a link to an article which I have read, “Poetic Mythography” by Michael Pharand, which appears to be rather more nuanced. It contains enough negative criticism to sink a battleship, but it doesn’t sink Robert Graves and is actually published in Gravesiana, The Journal of the Robert Graves Society, in the “Critical Studies” section. In other words, Graves spouts a lot of “nonsense” that is not nonsense at all; it is something much more interesting than that, otherwise the sensible position would be to leave him alone altogether.

That is what you have done with my work, which is so “beyond the pall” (sic) that you didn’t read very far at all. Let me tell you why Robert Graves is interesting, but only as far as he goes. His reading of Greek myth explains it in terms of the workings and evolution of Greek society, which makes a great deal of sense. But it fails utterly to explain the celestial factor, the planetary connection: why the gods give their names to the planets, why the planets are in a real sense gods; and beyond that, why the heavens are the domain of the gods, all the way down to Heaven being the place where Christians meet their singular God. Why that should make sense to many still in the 21st century while being utter nonsense to many others is something worth trying to understand. David Talbott’s theory provides a framework for explaining all that in some detail, and a whole lot more besides. The planetary configuration he describes would inevitably be hardwired into the Earth and its inhabitants. A living creature such as a scallop has this amazing shell; whatever for? Now we have a highly plausible explanation. I even suggest why the continental landmasses are the shapes they are and why they are moving. The human mind in general and Greek society in particular are only a part of that, but they fit into this bigger picture as well. In other words, a balanced critical approach to Robert Graves gains hugely greater mileage from his material than an all-or-nothing stance whereby he is “correct” (you say, but haven’t actually shown anything yet), and others are wrong.

Another application of the nonsense notion might be to alienate as immediately and as dismissively as you are doing those very people who have actually studied a long and difficult book like The White Goddess. Why would you do that? It cannot be in the spirit of open-minded discussion and helpfully friendly exchange that is the Avalon trademark. If that is nonetheless your intention, then you’d better get your act together, or you might find yourself literally “beyond the pall”. An apology might be a good start, but I wouldn’t insist on it.

[Citizen No2]

How the hell are we ever going to advance with ego in the way?


Regards.

[Robert Baird]

Sorry

As Bill referenced the Hancock stuff is in the thread and I quoted your Talbott guy who is a flake and your forty pages are garbage. Talbott is a Velikovskian rip off from way back. You are not capable of insight or reason. You invade my thread and insist you have something valid to say - do it in your own thread.

Dear Citizen

Ego stops reason and the NEED to BELIEVE stops growth. There is no chance humanity will grow without the implant technology (wireless by 2020) it would appear. Such growth towards control has been the long term goal of religions and social engineers - Reading the confessions of same in The End of History and the Last Man should be required reading before leaving grade 8.

[Robert Baird]

If you can find a remaining member of the Weedon family, you may get to find out a lot about what RG really thought. If I'm not mistaken, it's the same Robert Graves who ended his days on a Mediterranean Island with only his closest friends around him.

I've heard stories, from the Weedon family, about that man and his unpublished views. Not a too dissimilar tale from that of Eric Blair/Orwell.

From my own personal point of view, I think I'd have found the stuff he didn't ( dare?) write about more interesting than the stuff he did write about.

I suspect you are correct - Orwell was a top level Mason and he actually THOUGHT - investigated and learned. A rare thing - but very much like Graves. Then there are those who hallucinate and see Gods rather than do the research to actually grasp what mind control they have been subjected to.

[Robert Baird]

The reason I would not post to such a thread is due to people like you who say my attitude is insufferable because I correct their nonsense and provide evidence to the contrary. Which is also why I will probably have little to say on most threads here.
So if the general attitude of various members and moderators of this forum is that the attitude you are displaying on this forum is insufferable, does this mean that you would not post on this forum? (Just checking ...) That could be arranged :).

Yes, indeed I have no reason to cast pearls or participate in promoting scams and mind control. I can develop the facts for all manner of things I see here which in fact are doing just that. So whenever the people who NEED myths decide to gather their collective ignorance I will be banned - I know.

[Robert Baird]

http://forum.world-mysteries.com/threads/1237-The-Origin-of-Christianity

Graves gives us a great deal to fully grasp when he asserts there were no Gods before Empire in Greece. Think long and hard as you read this. It also tells us how women became deprecated at the same time Ariadne was made the last Queen of the all-important Crete center of culture. You might ask (if you know Crete was gay or be-sexual) why this was taking place as Temples were built and captives or commoners were used as 'Devoted Ones'. Cahill's Gifts of the Jews tells us their 'devotion' included being harvested for ritualistic and divinatory purposes after they were used and abused by the Temple Priests. Because the Amazons are true history according to archaeology I say there was a major change which took place around the 13th Century BPE and sexuality of some southern people seems involved. I can think of many cultural initiative in Babylon and Egypt which accounts for these changes - including the cult of the dead enhanced by drugs we know came from Peru which were found in Mummies. The Amazons had to take their families and friends to escape these patristic theoganies or kingly quests, and move north to places like Scythia where we have kurgans showing men were subservient to them to at least some degree. Graves tells us about the acceptance of coitus as the cause of children - could this have been also part of the mix, and women were thus made into baby-factories in the Abrahamic era? Was the Trojan War shortly after this a part of the ethos?

"INTRODUCTION

THE mediaeval emissaries of the Catholic Church brought to Great Britain, in addition to the whole corpus of sacred history, a Continental university system based on the Greek and Latin Classics. Such native legends as those of King Arthur, Guy of Warwick, Robin Hood, the Blue Hag of Leicester, and King Lear were considered suitable enough for the masses, yet by early Tudor times the clergy and the educated classes were referring far more frequently to the myths in Ovid, Virgil, and the grammar school summaries of the Trojan War.

Though official English literature of the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries cannot, therefore, be properly understood except in the light of Greek mythology, the Classics have lately lost so much ground in schools and universities that an educated person is now no longer expected to know (for instance) who Deucalion, Pelops, Daedalus, Oenone, Laocoön, or Antigone may have been. Current knowledge of these myths is mostly derived from such fairy-story versions as Kingsley’s Heroes and Hawthorne’s Tanglewood Tales; and at first sight this does not seem to matter much, because for the last two thousand years it has been the fashion to dismiss the myths as bizarre and chimerical fancies, a charming legacy from the childhood of the Greek intelligence, which the Church naturally depreciates in order to emphasize the greater spiritual importance of the Bible. Yet it is difficult to overestimate their value in the study of early European history, religion, and sociology.

‘Chimerical’ is an adjectival form of the noun chimaera, meaning ‘she-goat’. Four thousand years ago the Chimaera can have seemed no more bizarre than any religious, heraldic, or commercial emblem does today. She was a formal composite beast with (as Homer records) a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail. A Chimaera has been found carved on the walls of a Hittite temple at Carchemish and, like such other composite beasts as the Sphinx and the Unicorn, will originally have been a calendar symbol: each component represented a season of the Queen of Heaven’s sacred year—as, according to Diodorus Siculus, the three strings of her tortoise-shell lyre also did. This ancient three-season year is discussed by Nilsson in his Primitive Time Reckoning (1910). Only a small part, however, of the huge, disorganized corpus of Greek mythology, which contains importations from Crete, Egypt, Palestine, Phrygia, Babylonia, and elsewhere, can properly be classified with the Chimaera as true myth. True myth may be defined as the reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed on public festivals, and in many cases recorded pictorially on temple walls, vases, seals, bowls, mirrors, chests, shields, tapestries, and the like. The Chimaera and her fellow calendar-beasts must have figured prominently in these dramatic performances which, with their iconographic and oral records, became the prime authority, or charter, for the religious institutions of each tribe, clan, or city.

Their subjects were archaic magic-makings that promoted the fertility or stability of a sacred queendom, or kingdom—queendoms having, it seems, preceded kingdoms throughout the Greek-speaking area—and amendments to these, introduced as circumstances required. Lucian’s essay On the Dance lists an imposing number of ritual mimes still performed in the second century AD; and Pausanias’s description of the temple paintings at Delphi and the carvings on Cypselus’s Chest, suggests that an immense amount of miscellaneous mythological records, of which no trace now remains, survived into the same period. True myth must be distinguished from:

(1) Philosophical allegory, as in Hesiod’s cosmogony.
(2) ‘Aetiological’ explanation of myths no longer understood, as in Admetus’s yoking of a lion and a boar to his chariot.
(3) Satire or parody, as in Silenus’s account of Atlantis.
(4) Sentimental fable, as in the story of Narcissus and Echo.
(5) Embroidered history, as in Arion’s adventure with the dolphin.
(6) Minstrel romance, as in the story of Cephalus and Procris.
(7) Political propaganda, as in Theseus’s Federalization of Attica.
(8) Moral legend, as in the story of Eriphyle’s necklace.
(9) Humorous anecdote, as in the bedroom farce of Heracles, Omphale, and Pan.
(10) Theatrical melodrama, as in the story of Thestor and his daughters.
(11) Heroic saga, as in the main argument of the Iliad.
(12) Realistic fiction, as in Odysseus’s visit to the Phaeacians.

Yet genuine mythic elements may be found embedded in the least promising stories, and the fullest or most illuminating version of a given myth is seldom supplied by any one author; nor, when searching for its original form, should one assume that the more ancient the written source, the more authoritative it must be. Often, for instance, the playful Alexandrian Callimachus, or the frivolous Augustan Ovid, or the dry-as-dust late-Byzantine Tzetzes, gives an obviously earlier version of a myth than do Hesiod or the Greek tragedians; and the thirteenth-century Excidium Troiae is, in parts, mythically sounder than the Iliad. When making prose sense of a mythological or pseudomythological narrative, one should always pay careful attention to the names, tribal origin, and fates of the characters concerned; and then restore it to the form of dramatic ritual, whereupon its incidental elements will sometimes suggest an analogy with another myth which has been given a wholly different anecdotal twist, and shed light on both.


http://www.24grammata.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Robert-Graves-The-Greek-Myths-24grammata.com_.pdf

link active in above thread or posts herein.

[Ewan]

So whenever the people who NEED myths decide to gather their collective ignorance I will be banned - I know.

Robert, I am sure you have much of interest to share with us, I know I'm at least intrigued by many of the topics you raise. But surely your attitude is self-defeating. If you want to share, (cast pearls as you put it), then a more amicable stance would in turn produce keener listeners. Just a thought.

[Bill Ryan]

So whenever the people who NEED myths decide to gather their collective ignorance I will be banned - I know.

Well, let me see if I can inject a touch of diplomacy. It may be needed.

This is what I see, and/or may be able to contribute here:



You're very well-researched, and certainly have some interesting information to share with others. You've published 83 books. (We counted them.)



You appear to have very little patience with others. As someone who is intellectually honest to a fault, I'd expect you to be well aware of, and acknowledge, that.



And you may be aware of this, also: in the way you communicate, you do not always come over as a very likable person. (We can only know you from the posts you've written, as we've not met you personally.)



Avalon is not only a library, but it's also a university. There are many here who do not have your age (some members are teenagers, although they're very bright), depth of experience, or years spent in research. Some members have told us publicly that they've 'woken up' (a metaphor, but you'll understand it) just a very short while ago... in some cases, just a few months back. They're still trying to figure out what's really going on in the world. (And kudos to them: that has my greatest respect. Most people never bother.)



There's limited value in having a wealth of information to share and then being unable to (or unwilling to) handle questions, comments, misunderstandings, and feedback from your audience. This is not a stage that you're on: it's a Round Table. Some of the young(er) people here may be the alternative media heroes of the future. You may owe it to them (I'd suggest) to give them your best. Not your 'take-it-or-leave-it' worst.



When you start threads, you start conversations. Just as in a [virtual] room full of people. Those conversations are not your 'territory' (though you may feel that way) to keep people out of, or ask people to stay away from. You simply started the interesting discussion. If people weren't interested or didn't care, they'd not then join in. If you don't WANT a discussion, then either don't start one, or go elsewhere and write more books (and all books are essentially a monologue, involving no-one else).



I assume (but I may be wrong) that you came to Avalon not to proselytize, but to engage in discussion. Unlike some other forums you may have been on, there are an exceptional number of well-informed, intelligent, and also very nice people here (some of whom you've insulted already, despite only having been here a week). Remember — you may have things to learn, also: you don't know what you don't know. (None of us do.)



To risk a summary: you're an academic (essentially), and not a 'people person'. That's why you do what you do. It's your specialty and expertise. But to rephrase what I said above, you're really compromising your ability as a teacher if you're not willing to put time and effort into your personal communication. And many here who are teachers — real ones in classrooms and universities, both former and current (and I'm one of them) — will know that the ability to connect with people to effectively increase their knowledge is of paramount importance if one has valuable information to share.

[Citizen No2]

I feel I need to state this here, at this point.

It is obvious, to me at least, that Robert has some extremely well researched and varied information. I have spent a couple of hours over the last 24 reading many of the posts' on his forum. I can't help but think of Eric Dollard. I have watched and read many of his videos and findings, I have high respect for Eric Dollard. According to a few of those that have spent time with Eric his behaviour at times can be very challenging........... But this should in no part detract from the information, and Robert, should you happen to read this I in no way imply any disrespect, sometimes people who have the most amazing minds can lack slightly in other skills.

We talk a lot about tolerance here, maybe it is time to grow a little thicker skin and practice what is preached. It really would be a shame to cast out the baby with the bath water.


Regards.

[AriG]

Good Lord. Your posts are as dull as watching paint dry. Spin a yarn Mr. Baird. You have managed to take an interesting subject and present it in such a clinical manner, it is akin to reading a technical journal. And for the life of me, I cannot understand why Bill has not already unsubscribed you. He has unsubscribed many more for far less. I guess he thinks you bring something of value other than ego, blatant rudeness, arrogance and sociopathic behavior to his forum. Didn't your mother teach you any manners? I am embarrassed for you.

[ThePythonicCow]

the 13th Century BPE
As best as I can see in a quick search, "BPE" stands for "Before Present Era". So what time range to you mean by "13th Century BPE?"

Should I subtract 1200 to 1299 years (up to 1300 years ago, from "13th century") from the present time, getting something between 816 and 915 AD?
Or are you using "BPE" a synonym for "BCE", Before Common/Christian Era, meaning 1200 to 1299 BC?
Or did you mean what we would normally call the 13th century, without the "BPE" qualifier, meaning 1200 to 1299 AD ?

[seah]

So whenever the people who NEED myths decide to gather their collective ignorance I will be banned - I know.

Well, let me see if I can inject a touch of diplomacy. It may be needed.

[...]

To risk a summary: you're an academic (essentially), and not a 'people person'. That's why you do what you do. It's your specialty and expertise. But to rephrase what I said above, you're really compromising your ability as a teacher if you're not willing to put time and effort into your personal communication. And many here who are teachers — real ones in classrooms and universities, both former and current (and I'm one of them) — will know that the ability to connect with people to effectively increase their knowledge is of paramount importance if one has valuable information to share.
[/LIST]

in the interest of saving space I've condensed your words, Bill. I hope the formatting comes out right.

In my opinion, this is one of the most skillful examples of tactfulness and unbiased regrouping of a situation that could quickly get out of hand and I thank you for that because what Robert has to say is of interest to many, including me. Don't shut him down.
Our language does not make it easy to communicate the nuances of these sensitive subjects that by and large are new to most of us, then, there's our egos.

Robert, my friend, I'm opened to learn, in fact I crave it, but treading softly is a more appropriate approach here...everywhere there are rules, you know the drill.

[AriG]

So whenever the people who NEED myths decide to gather their collective ignorance I will be banned - I know.

Well, let me see if I can inject a touch of diplomacy. It may be needed.

[...]

To risk a summary: you're an academic (essentially), and not a 'people person'. That's why you do what you do. It's your specialty and expertise. But to rephrase what I said above, you're really compromising your ability as a teacher if you're not willing to put time and effort into your personal communication. And many here who are teachers — real ones in classrooms and universities, both former and current (and I'm one of them) — will know that the ability to connect with people to effectively increase their knowledge is of paramount importance if one has valuable information to share.
[/LIST]

in the interest of saving space I've condensed your words, Bill. I hope the formatting comes out right.

In my opinion, this is one of the most skillful examples of tactfulness and unbiased regrouping of a situation that could quickly get out of hand and I thank you for that because what Robert has to say is of interest to many, including me. Don't shut him down.
Our language does not make it easy to communicate the nuances of these sensitive subjects that by and large are new to most of us, then, there's our egos.

Robert, my friend, I'm opened to learn, in fact I crave it, but treading softly is a more appropriate approach here...everywhere there are rules, you know the drill.

Between you and me (and about 20,000 other people who view this site) I suspect that Mr. Baird, through some convoluted logic, might be trying to poach members to his own forum. A forum that appears to be a majority of one. Why else would he sweep in as the ultimate authoritarian on just about every subject, insult this forum's founder, belittle the intelligence of members and very specifically violate Bill's "living room creed"? He is either launching a very odd recruitment drive or... he is psy-ops and his site is an information gathering tool. Or I could apply Occam's razor and suggest that he has some development issues. That said, there is plenty of information on the subjects he slaughters... why follow him? I do not mean to be cruel here. But sometimes fire to fire is the best approach and he has had no reservations about his approach. Don't you find it rather curious that he has not 'thanked' a single member? Even the ones who are lapping his Kool-Aid?

Whatever his motivations, he has sparked curiosity at the least. I looked. I searched. However, I can only find one of his books, for sale on Amazon of all places. Didn't Bill say he authored 28 books?

http://36.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdw9cgqgk41rj2hzgo1_500.jpg

Edit to add: ok, he has now thanked 10 members. As of yesterday, it appeared he had not. My apologies Mr. Baird.(<-- this is what we call humility here on Earth)

[PurpleLama]

There is a Robert D Baird, and a Robert M Baird, both of whom are authors.

[araucaria]

Whatever his motivations, he has sparked curiosity at the least. I looked. I searched. However, I can only find one of his books, for sale on Amazon of all places. Didn't Bill say he authored 28 books?
No, Bill said 83 books. And give the man his due, he has thanked 10 people, including, oddly enough myself*. 83 books is a lot of time spent on one’s own, way past the ‘maybe you need to get out a bit more’ mark. Joining Avalon is possibly Robert Baird’s way of getting out a bit more, and we should show a little patience. However I do find the ‘casting pearls’ rant beyond unacceptable, because if you complete the expression ‘casting pearls... before swine’, that makes pigs of the rest of us.

As to the quality of those pearls, that is for other people to decide. You cannot have exposure without exposing yourself and you cannot have readers without scrutiny and criticism. Otherwise, you’ve just found an even more antisocial way of being antisocial. As I was saying earlier, black-and-white value judgements are already an indicator of something not quite pearly. But then again, even the finest pearls, being themselves formed around a speck of dirt, just go to show that nothing is absolutely perfect.

* Just seen your edit.

[Sierra]

The reason I would not post to such a thread is due to people like you who say my attitude is insufferable because I correct their nonsense and provide evidence to the contrary. Which is also why I will probably have little to say on most threads here.
So if the general attitude of various members and moderators of this forum is that the attitude you are displaying on this forum is insufferable, does this mean that you would not post on this forum? (Just checking ...) That could be arranged :).

Yes, indeed I have no reason to cast pearls or participate in promoting scams and mind control. I can develop the facts for all manner of things I see here which in fact are doing just that. So whenever the people who NEED myths decide to gather their collective ignorance I will be banned - I know.

Oh dear, so far off the mark, so unwitting, so ignorant of your own part, and responsibility in the group dynamics of a forum. If you are banned, it will be because you are a rude son of a bitch, not because of the material you present.

We are really trying as a collective, to welcome you here, but attacking Araucaria because you couldn't be bothered to keep your facts straight as to who is quoting whom is not a good way to begin...

Quit jumping down people's throats, and oh lord, PLEASE quit dropping insults on the state of humanity as you go along. It is so unpleasant be jerked out of a train of thought to bite down on your sour grapes, and whining martyrdom while reading something interesting. So what if the rest of the world (in your opinion) is dumb as a sack of bricks, we don't need to hear it.

Welcome to Avalon, Baird. You're a tough old geezer, and it might do you well to treat us as potential friends rather than dim bulb yahoos. You might finally land on a forum that does not ban you. :)

Wouldn't that be nice?

Sierra

[AriG]

Whatever his motivations, he has sparked curiosity at the least. I looked. I searched. However, I can only find one of his books, for sale on Amazon of all places. Didn't Bill say he authored 28 books?
No, Bill said 83 books. And give the man his due, he has thanked 10 people, including, oddly enough myself*. 83 books is a lot of time spent on one’s own, way past the ‘maybe you need to get out a bit more’ mark. Joining Avalon is possibly Robert Baird’s way of getting out a bit more, and we should show a little patience. However I do find the ‘casting pearls’ rant beyond unacceptable, because if you complete the expression ‘casting pearls... before swine’, that makes pigs of the rest of us.

As to the quality of those pearls, that is for other people to decide. You cannot have exposure without exposing yourself and you cannot have readers without scrutiny and criticism. Otherwise, you’ve just found an even more antisocial way of being antisocial. As I was saying earlier, black-and-white value judgements are already an indicator of something not quite pearly. But then again, even the finest pearls, being themselves formed around a speck of dirt, just go to show that nothing is absolutely perfect.

* Just seen your edit.

Beautifully said and you are much kinder than I. "Casting Pearls before Swine" is a metaphor for not wasting your value on those undeserving. So although Mr. Baird may not be calling us pigs, he is certainly suggesting that he is wasting his valuable time with this forum. That we are not worthy of his self declared brilliance. Makes one wonder why he is here. Chris needs to give him some instruction on ego, or the taming there of ;)

There really isn't much more to say on the subject unless of course, he continues to drop bombs. That said, I won't be reading any more of his posts/threads. Personally, I find his writing style tedious and non-engaging.

[Sierra]

the 13th Century BPE
As best as I can see in a quick search, "BPE" stands for "Before Present Era". So what time range to you mean by "13th Century BPE?"

Should I subtract 1200 to 1299 years (up to 1300 years ago, from "13th century") from the present time, getting something between 816 and 915 AD?
Or are you using "BPE" a synonym for "BCE", Before Common/Christian Era, meaning 1200 to 1299 BC?
Or did you mean what we would normally call the 13th century, without the "BPE" qualifier, meaning 1200 to 1299 AD ?


Yeah. What date range does BPE, refer to?

[Robert Baird]

My understanding is that rather than the Christian dating BCE you use BPE.

[Nasu]

Whatever his motivations, he has sparked curiosity at the least. I looked. I searched. However, I can only find one of his books, for sale on Amazon of all places. Didn't Bill say he authored 28 books?
No, Bill said 83 books. And give the man his due, he has thanked 10 people, including, oddly enough myself*. 83 books is a lot of time spent on one’s own, way past the ‘maybe you need to get out a bit more’ mark. Joining Avalon is possibly Robert Baird’s way of getting out a bit more, and we should show a little patience. However I do find the ‘casting pearls’ rant beyond unacceptable, because if you complete the expression ‘casting pearls... before swine’, that makes pigs of the rest of us.

As to the quality of those pearls, that is for other people to decide. You cannot have exposure without exposing yourself and you cannot have readers without scrutiny and criticism. Otherwise, you’ve just found an even more antisocial way of being antisocial. As I was saying earlier, black-and-white value judgements are already an indicator of something not quite pearly. But then again, even the finest pearls, being themselves formed around a speck of dirt, just go to show that nothing is absolutely perfect.

* Just seen your edit.

Beautifully said and you are much kinder than I. "Casting Pearls before Swine" is a metaphor for not wasting your value on those undeserving. So although Mr. Baird may not be calling us pigs, he is certainly suggesting that he is wasting his valuable time with this forum. That we are not worthy of his self declared brilliance. Makes one wonder why he is here. Chris needs to give him some instruction on ego, or the taming there of ;)

There really isn't much more to say on the subject unless of course, he continues to drop bombs. That said, I won't be reading any more of his posts/threads. Personally, I find his writing style tedious and non-engaging.

Well said, both of you...

It's been a while since anyone wound me up like this, it reminds me that I still have much to work on within myself. If it were my party he'd be out on his ear, along with his great work. Ive been told that every party has a pooper...

However, lucky for Mr Baird, the party belongs to Bill and I would like to take a moment to publicly commend him on his diplomatic behaviour regarding our new member, clearly Bill's got the patience of Solomon and sees pearls where i can only see swine excrement.. I hope Mr Baird's membership and great work is of help to others. I hope Mr Baird has the humility to look himself in the mirror and is able to turn this membership around.

History teaches us nothing if we are unwilling to learn from it and change ourselves..... N

[Robert Baird]

Yes, it is a waste of time to converse with KNOW it all alien and religious types who do not THINK and attack people who do the work. I believe I have more than 83 books including those at Amazon and Invisible College. But I get no money from those sources and I do not seek "your" exposure.

You could say a lot about ego if you studied the mirror.

[Robert Baird]

Dear Nasu

The prior post was not for your response.

Your response suggests I am lucky to be here - why would that be? Would that mean you think you and your group of idiots including Bill who affronts reason in interviews with people talking about 2012 being some horrible thing, or the MMS guy who is a weak homeopath - etc. Are worth trying to educate? I have done this a long time - and there are very few people I feel lucky to be associated with. Those who actually study usually agree. Bill strikes me as a nice guy making money with this venture - Sol - o - moon he ain't. As I said - and look forward to - remove me as you wish.

[araucaria]

Dear Nasu

The prior post was not for your response.

Your response suggests I am lucky to be here - why would that be? Would that mean you think you and your group of idiots including Bill who affronts reason in interviews with people talking about 2012 being some horrible thing, or the MMS guy who is a weak homeopath - etc. Are worth trying to educate? I have done this a long time - and there are very few people I feel lucky to be associated with. Those who actually study usually agree. Bill strikes me as a nice guy making money with this venture - Sol - o - moon he ain't. As I said - and look forward to - remove me as you wish.
Before you go, please be so good as to tell us why you joined in the first place.

[PurpleLama]

Nevermind.

[Becky]

Yes, it is a waste of time to converse with KNOW it all alien and religious types who do not THINK and attack people who do the work. I believe I have more than 83 books including those at Amazon and Invisible College. But I get no money from those sources and I do not seek "your" exposure.

You could say a lot about ego if you studied the mirror.

Seriously Robert, what planet are you from?

You really have been very rude and arrogant. You may have done your research on other topics (of interest to many of us) but you have failed to do any research on this forum before you dropped in. It's like having a quiet civilized party in Bills house then having you slam the door open and shout 'Tada!! Here I am at LAST' and then have you preach at us as if you think we've been waiting for you all along (while we sit in stunned silence and think to ourselves 'What the ****?)

Please if you have any self respect or ability to self reflect, read what people have written and take it on board. And apologise to those you have been rude to. Then we could start again, and perhaps even have the most fascinating discussions on here. But i feel strongly this is not what you want. If you carry on like this then you shall be ignored as no-one can have a conversation with you. It's proved nigh on impossible so far.

[Becky]

Dear Nasu

The prior post was not for your response.

Your response suggests I am lucky to be here - why would that be? Would that mean you think you and your group of idiots including Bill who affronts reason in interviews with people talking about 2012 being some horrible thing, or the MMS guy who is a weak homeopath - etc. Are worth trying to educate? I have done this a long time - and there are very few people I feel lucky to be associated with. Those who actually study usually agree. Bill strikes me as a nice guy making money with this venture - Sol - o - moon he ain't. As I said - and look forward to - remove me as you wish.

Oh...too late!

[Sierra]

Yes, it is a waste of time to converse with KNOW it all alien and religious types who do not THINK and attack people who do the work. I believe I have more than 83 books including those at Amazon and Invisible College. But I get no money from those sources and I do not seek "your" exposure.

You could say a lot about ego if you studied the mirror.

So far, I have seen no evidence of either a know-it-all OR alien and religious types on this thread. Who the hell are you talking to when you go off like that?

Your bee in the bonnet prevents you from seeing reality Mr. Baird.

[42]

you and your group of idiots including Bill .

Really....?

[Nasu]

Dear Nasu

The prior post was not for your response.

Your response suggests I am lucky to be here - why would that be? Would that mean you think you and your group of idiots including Bill who affronts reason in interviews with people talking about 2012 being some horrible thing, or the MMS guy who is a weak homeopath - etc. Are worth trying to educate? I have done this a long time - and there are very few people I feel lucky to be associated with. Those who actually study usually agree. Bill strikes me as a nice guy making money with this venture - Sol - o - moon he ain't. As I said - and look forward to - remove me as you wish.

Thank you for your insightful response Mr Baird. 

Luther composed 95 theses, however, all this time later we only remember one, the selling of indulgences. I wonder how your work will fare over time? Having not written any published books, I imagine you must be quite famous now, with such a library of 83 tomes under your belt, that's over double the amount that David Ike has published.. It's me who is lucky to have had the brief pleasure of YOUR company..

However, that does not detract from the fact that you are amazingly rude.. And extremely disrespectful to Bill's humane approach to your self evident and self produced suicide on this forum. For all your study you have not seemed to have grasped, never-mind mastered, even the most basic of human lessons. 

I wish you all the very best of luck in life and on your next few books...

Good-bye Mr Baird

[Bill Ryan]

Bill who affronts reason in interviews with people talking about 2012 being some horrible thing, or the MMS guy who is a weak homeopath. [ ... ] Bill strikes me as a nice guy making money with this venture.

Well, Robert, you're a poor researcher outside of your specialist fields. None of those assertions are true (except that I do think I'm a nice guy, most of the time. :bigsmile: ).

Footnotes here, as I'm aware I'm talking to an academic (who does — or should — pay attention to detail):


We did interview Patrick Geryl about 2012. We didn't believe a word he said (and we were right), and the interview was unique inasmuch as we published a disclaimer, the only time we ever did so. Go look it up. (http://www.projectcamelot.org/patrick_geryl.html)
Jim Humble ("the MMS guy") is not a homeopath.
I make almost no money at all from "this venture", and have never in my life sold a video or interview I've made. My work is for free. No-one owns this information we're sharing here, so it's not mine to sell. If anyone cares to donate anything, they can do so here (http://projectavalon.net/donation.html) — entirely of their own choosing.

[PurpleLama]

Bill who affronts reason in interviews with people talking about 2012 being some horrible thing, or the MMS guy who is a weak homeopath. [ ... ] Bill strikes me as a nice guy making money with this venture.

Well, Robert, you're a poor researcher outside of your specialist fields. None of those assertions are true (except that I do think I'm a nice guy, most of the time. :bigsmile: ).

Footnotes here, as I'm aware I'm talking to an academic (who does — or should — pay attention to detail):


We did interview Patrick Geryl about 2012. We didn't believe a word he said (and we were right), and the interview was unique inasmuch as we published a disclaimer, the only time we ever did so. Go look it up. (http://www.projectcamelot.org/patrick_geryl.html)
Jim Humble ("the MMS guy") is not a homeopath.
I make almost no money at all from "this venture", and have never in my life sold a video or interview I've made. My work is for free. No-one owns this information we're sharing here, so it's not mine to sell. If anyone cares to donate anything, they can do so here (http://projectavalon.net/donation.html) — entirely of their own choosing.


True, Bill, you're not running ads on your forum like he does on his. (http://forum.world-mysteries.com/forum.php)

[Sierra]

My understanding is that rather than the Christian dating BCE you use BPE.

So why not use BC if your endeavor is to "educate" an audience where BC is commonly used, not BPE?

Obfuscating your audience as an excuse to heap more rage on those you consider "stupids" does you no favors. :facepalm:


ob·fus·cate
ˈäbfəˌskāt/
verb
gerund or present participle: obfuscating
render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.
"the spelling changes will deform some familiar words and obfuscate their etymological origins"

synonyms: obscure, confuse, make unclear, blur, muddle, complicate, overcomplicate, muddy, cloud, befog

"mere rationalizations to obfuscate rather than clarify the real issue"

transitive verb. 1 a : darken b : to make obscure <obfuscate the issue>

"Some people are experts at obfuscating the truth by being evasive, unclear, or obscure in the telling of the facts."

Criminy. Do you have the emotional I.Q. of a misanthrope? Do you feel that put upon, you must constantly attack people?

Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/055338371X?keywords=Emotional%20IQ&qid=1457642357&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

ARE you here to actually educate or insult? Is this thread an opportunity to converse intelligibly upon a subject or get your daddy dearest rocks off?

You can't do both.

[AriG]

This is beginning to sound like a Republican debate. Bill, not trying to impose my will here, but how long are you going to sit by and let this troglodyte insult you and everyone else here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73tGe3JE5IU:popcorn:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73tGe3JE5IU

[Billy]

Oh dear, so far off the mark, so unwitting, so ignorant of your own part, and responsibility in the group dynamics of a forum. If you are banned, it will be because you are a rude son of a bitch, not because of the material you present.

We are really trying as a collective, to welcome you here, but attacking Araucaria because you couldn't be bothered to keep your facts straight as to who is quoting whom is not a good way to begin...

Quit jumping down people's throats, and oh lord, PLEASE quit dropping insults on the state of humanity as you go along. It is so unpleasant be jerked out of a train of thought to bite down on your sour grapes, and whining martyrdom while reading something interesting. So what if the rest of the world (in your opinion) is dumb as a sack of bricks, we don't need to hear it.

Welcome to Avalon, Baird. You're a tough old geezer, and it might do you well to treat us as potential friends rather than dim bulb yahoos. You might finally land on a forum that does not ban you. :)

Wouldn't that be nice?

Sierra

It could have been nice having a myth buster on board, could have been exciting. But i did not witness any myths being busted and It appears that Mr. Graves arrogance and disrespectful manner has way surpassed any twinkle of intelligence he may have within himself.


Oh dear, so far off the mark, so unwitting, so ignorant of your own part, and responsibility in the group dynamics of a forum. If you are banned, it will be because you are a rude son of a bitch, not because of the material you present.

Agreed Sierra.



Dear Citizen

There is no chance humanity will grow without the implant technology (wireless by 2020) it would appear. .

Heaven forbid :facepalm:

[Bill Ryan]

This is beginning to sound like a Republican debate.

Made me laugh. Or maybe Jerry Springer! :bigsmile:




Bill, not trying to impose my will here, but how long are you going to sit by and let this troglodyte insult you and everyone else here?



Actually, I'm not feeling insulted at all... I'm kind of enjoying the show (not a sarcastic remark, that's a genuine one). I find it all fascinating and extraordinary, and I'm now continually curious what Robert is going to say next.

Not only Robert, but also some other members, who are usually the model of politeness and courtesy. They (like you! :) ) are being driven to distraction. This has to change course somehow (self-evidently), but I'm interested to see how.

* If the members (or the mods! :bigsmile: ) take to the virtual streets in revolt, then of course we can ask Robert to leave. We have that option open to us at any time, and it takes about 20 seconds flat once the decision is made. I'm kind of hanging out for a change in Robert's belligerent, impatient, arrogant and critical attitude.

But maybe he's someone who doesn't like, or respect, many other human beings very much — in which case Avalon may not be the right place for him to call home. To a large degree, it's really his call.

[AriG]

only one thing left to say...

33010

[araucaria]

Here is a review of Robert Baird’s book Diverse Druids that ends like Bill does: “like a train wreck, Diverse Druids is also weirdly compelling -- if only to see what Baird is going to say next”. :)

Robert Baird has some ... interesting theories, which can probably be neatly summed up in this quote from pages 129-130 of Diverse Druids: "Yes, there are many Jews who are Keltic and directly connected to the builders of the Pyramid who colonized Egypt from many of the far flung colonies of this worldwide Phoenician Atlantean enterprise." Baird appears to believe that the entire ancient world, with the exception of Rome and Greece and their respective empires, was populated by either Atlanteans or Celts -- excuse me, "Kelts" -- or both. It is his contention, for instance, that the Great Pyramid was designed by druids.

The problem with Baird's theories is that they contradict established anthropology, archaeology and scholarship. He is an admitted conspiracy theorist and believes that the "Merovingians" (the first kings of what would eventually become France) conspired with the Catholic Church to suppress ancient knowledge and technologies -- but he offers no proof for his assertions. He quite often hints at various connections and conspiracies, but then neatly avoids providing any background material by saying that that is a discussion for another time, or that he has no room for that topic, or that it is outside the scope of the present work. At one point, he criticizes a certain Roman writer for using the phrase "it is said," and yet, on numerous occasions, he does the exact same thing, using phrases like "I believe."

Baird's writing style presents another difficulty. Childish and awkward, it is exceedingly difficult to follow. Although Diverse Druids is passed off as an academic treatise (though Baird gleefully acknowledges that he has no academic credentials), the author intrudes himself far too much into the work, and the result reads more like a blog full of personal rants. He will make a statement or present a theory, then shoot off on a tangent, then suddenly shoot off on a tangent to that tangent and so on, until by the end of the paragraph, he's miles -- if not continents -- away from where he started. Many of his statements simply make no sense, such as one in which he mentions a Russian archaeological site in which curved mammoth tusks were found straightened. No one could figure out how the tusks had been straightened and he concludes, "I guess they never cooked carp."

He also quotes other authors, sometimes at great length (one quote ran over two pages), without setting the quoted text off from the main text, so that the only way the reader can tell that he's quoting other material is that the quality of the writing improves dramatically. According to his author's bio, for the last three years, Baird has been writing a book about every six weeks, which is by all means impressive. However, he might have done better to slow down his schedule and gone back and edited his writing for grammar and clarity.

And yet ... like a train wreck, Diverse Druids is also weirdly compelling -- if only to see what Baird is going to say next, or how far we have to go before aliens enter into it.
http://www.rambles.net/baird_divdruids03.html

[42]

But maybe he's someone who doesn't like, or respect, many other human beings very much — in which case Avalon may not be the right place for him to call home. To a large degree, it's really his call.





"you and your group of idiots including Bill"


Bill
with respect, Robert referred to us and you as a group of idiots. In light of that is it really still "his call?"

[Bill Ryan]

But maybe he's someone who doesn't like, or respect, many other human beings very much — in which case Avalon may not be the right place for him to call home. To a large degree, it's really his call.




"you and your group of idiots including Bill"

Bill
with respect, Robert referred to us and you as a group of idiots. In light of that is it really still "his call?"

By that, I'd meant that it was up to Robert to show whether he could integrate well here, showing respect, being accurate in his statements, and generally being willing to engage in an interesting conversation rather than holding forth and insulting everyone in the room. :)


only one thing left to say...

http://projectavalon.net/Occupy_Avalon_2016.jpg


Well, I'm now being occupied by several of the mods team, as well. :bigsmile:

I'm currently reading through every one of Robert's posts since he joined. My real concern is that he's been offending and upsetting good people who don't deserve it, at least to some considerable extent because he doesn't understand either what's being said, or how the forum works.

That's a dilemma, because based on his extensive and impressive research, he should be smarter than that. But he's made some rather dumb mistakes here both connected with structure, and with all reasonable protocol.

Paul has now done quite a lot of reading into Robert's works, and has even bought one of his online books. He has documented a real change in Robert's demeanor in recent years. It was so marked that the mods even wondered if this was actually the same person, registering here.

I don't feel it would be kind or proper to speculate on that, nor might that be the kind of thing to try to make a joke about. But whatever may have caused someone to experience a change in personality (assuming that this is not an impostor, which is unlikely but theoretically possible), I do think we have to talk pragmatism here, for the sake of the community. Let me report back within an hour or so.

[Bill Ryan]

.
After extensive discussion, we've made the decision to close Robert's account. We explored various creative options to try to rescue the situation (which we fully recognized was a little unusual), but eventually all agreed that this was just not going to work.

His very interesting threads will of course stay open. Over the next few days, I'll try to mend all the broken links in his articles... I think I can do that. It's worth it.

When we close someone's account, we enter a 'reason' into the admin web page that the unsubscribed person then sees when they next go to log in, and realize their account has been closed. Sometimes, when it's totally obvious, or has already been stated, we leave it blank. More often, we briefly state the reason in a few words, as accurately and fairly as possible.

On this occasion, I wrote:




"Robert, this is Bill. I'll be sending you an e-mail soon. I intend you no disrespect, or ill-will."

[JChombre]

What would this world be if we all looked, behaved and thought alike? I would not want to live in a world where everyone is a carbon copy of someone else.

While we can say that Robert has used poor, inadequate language and at time has exercised poor judgement; the same is true for a few of his vitriolic detractors.

The fact is that some of us came to this world with a lot of deficiencies, so we need a lot of room and a lot of chances to learn what we are supposed to learn...

Personally, I enjoy the opportunity that is presented to me every morning to wake up and breathe fresh air because I know this day could be the last one for me. So, I laugh and really don't get offended if someone call me an idiot...

Dear friends, let's enjoy life and not get bogged down in the little tricks of our egos :waving:.

Many blessings to all.

JC

[Nasu]

What would this world be if we all looked, behaved and thought alike? I would not want to live in a world where everyone is a carbon copy of someone else.

While we can say that Robert has used poor, inadequate language and at time has exercised poor judgement; the same is true for a few of his vitriolic detractors.

The fact is that some of us came to this world with a lot of deficiencies, so we need a lot of room and a lot of chances to learn what we are supposed to learn...

Personally, I enjoy the opportunity that is presented to me every morning to wake up and breathe fresh air because I know this day could be the last one for me. So, I laugh and really don't get offended if someone call me an idiot...

Dear friends, let's enjoy life and not get bogged down in the little tricks of our egos :waving:.

Many blessings to all.

JC

So so true. I bow to the master of masters, the capo di capi....x... Shame about Mr Baird... He had it coming though, disrespect is a dish served or karma'd from hot to cold, depending on the situation. However, in the trade, so called it's called a "confirmation" as his body ( in a virtual sense here ) is found, the alternative being a communion where they are lost, never to be found, think Hoffa...

We all have our own temper limit, that point where we will do whatever it takes to end the situation, as ugly as that might look to onlookers. He sucked on the barrel. I think he has far deeper issues than getting to the bottom of ancient history. I think personally, that he enjoys defeat, he engages so that he can rationize defeat.

I've seen it soo many times in gamblers, they crave to lose, deep down, it defines them, how much they lost on such and such an occasion defines them... But they beleave they are all about winning, they don't see their pyrrhic victories, they just can't take the distant mountain view, it's a lesson to us all....

He's craved the barrel for so long that he needs it to rationalise his failure. It's a sad thing when a man forgaves the truth for his own imaginings, we all need to stare at this story and think to our own relationships, that's the problem with ego, the lesson too...

It's been a long long long time since someone made me want to kill them..( metaphorically of course ). My base reptilian genes still define me, unfortunately, even for the higher sake of defending the wider community.. It's best that he's gone. Bad Ju Ju.. A shut in perhaps. We should pity or empathise perhaps.. I admire Bill's ghandi like approach, it's not my own, that's why I admire it.... I love you guys, warts and all, one way or another, you all help me grow....x.... Thank you... N

[Shannon]

Holy crap...this guy is how old? Jeez. He should be embarrassed for the way he acted. I don't get it, I really don't. How does someone who is supposedly so intellectual, an author with a 8 some odd books that socially retarded and nasty?

Did he expect us to all hush up while he schooled us, then say thank you for the abuse? Puh-leeze.

[Shannon]

Here is a review of Robert Baird’s book Diverse Druids that ends like Bill does: “like a train wreck, Diverse Druids is also weirdly compelling -- if only to see what Baird is going to say next”. :)

Robert Baird has some ... interesting theories, which can probably be neatly summed up in this quote from pages 129-130 of Diverse Druids: "Yes, there are many Jews who are Keltic and directly connected to the builders of the Pyramid who colonized Egypt from many of the far flung colonies of this worldwide Phoenician Atlantean enterprise." Baird appears to believe that the entire ancient world, with the exception of Rome and Greece and their respective empires, was populated by either Atlanteans or Celts -- excuse me, "Kelts" -- or both. It is his contention, for instance, that the Great Pyramid was designed by druids.

The problem with Baird's theories is that they contradict established anthropology, archaeology and scholarship. He is an admitted conspiracy theorist and believes that the "Merovingians" (the first kings of what would eventually become France) conspired with the Catholic Church to suppress ancient knowledge and technologies -- but he offers no proof for his assertions. He quite often hints at various connections and conspiracies, but then neatly avoids providing any background material by saying that that is a discussion for another time, or that he has no room for that topic, or that it is outside the scope of the present work. At one point, he criticizes a certain Roman writer for using the phrase "it is said," and yet, on numerous occasions, he does the exact same thing, using phrases like "I believe."

Baird's writing style presents another difficulty. Childish and awkward, it is exceedingly difficult to follow. Although Diverse Druids is passed off as an academic treatise (though Baird gleefully acknowledges that he has no academic credentials), the author intrudes himself far too much into the work, and the result reads more like a blog full of personal rants. He will make a statement or present a theory, then shoot off on a tangent, then suddenly shoot off on a tangent to that tangent and so on, until by the end of the paragraph, he's miles -- if not continents -- away from where he started. Many of his statements simply make no sense, such as one in which he mentions a Russian archaeological site in which curved mammoth tusks were found straightened. No one could figure out how the tusks had been straightened and he concludes, "I guess they never cooked carp."

He also quotes other authors, sometimes at great length (one quote ran over two pages), without setting the quoted text off from the main text, so that the only way the reader can tell that he's quoting other material is that the quality of the writing improves dramatically. According to his author's bio, for the last three years, Baird has been writing a book about every six weeks, which is by all means impressive. However, he might have done better to slow down his schedule and gone back and edited his writing for grammar and clarity.

And yet ... like a train wreck, Diverse Druids is also weirdly compelling -- if only to see what Baird is going to say next, or how far we have to go before aliens enter into it.
http://www.rambles.net/baird_divdruids03.html

Lmfao! Thank you! That review was hilariously needed :D

[Feritciva]

Very disappointed with RB.. I cannot stand narcissistic people - be it open narcissist or covered/stealth narcissist.

Here are some important clues to spot one acording to Psychology Today;

- Hypergenerosity in public to demonstrate that one has power, but coldness once the "camera is off".

- Hypersensitive and insecure. This includes imagining criticism where it doesn't exist and getting depressed by perceived criticism."Vulnerable" narcissists are self-centered and overly defensive.

- Prone to a vast array of negative emotions including depression, anxiety, self-consciousness, and shame owing to not being given their "due." Such feelings can be an indication of egocentricity and self-absorption.

- Repeatedly puts down other people, especially inferiors and strangers. Loves to talk about him or herself and mentions others mainly to name-drop.


Anyway, good to see another narcissist göne.

[araucaria]

Paul has now done quite a lot of reading into Robert's works, and has even bought one of his online books. He has documented a real change in Robert's demeanor in recent years. It was so marked that the mods even wondered if this was actually the same person, registering here.
Well, Bill, the book review I posted about a book published in c.2003 identified already back then many of the problems we have encountered here, so I think we got a representative sample of what is on offer. Robert seems to have a fairly stable, albeit Protean personality, more on the side of being set in his ways than radically changing, if that is possible for a Protean personality. :) He would seem to have at least a 10-year+ track record of alienating readers, which is painfully problematic for a prolific (compulsive?) writer, and I do feel for anyone with such an issue.

This may also appear paradoxical, but I think the core problem for anyone facing this type of situation is a misunderstanding of both the reading and writing processes, or rather the single read/write process, for they are one. You cannot write readably if your reading skills allow you to persist in hallucinating things that are not there, even when told about them (e.g. the name Hancock in a post of mine). Legal experts will tussle over the presence or absence of a comma, and the verdict will depend upon the actual presence or absence of that comma. You cannot write readably in such conditions because you will also be seeing things in your own writing that are not there either. I have seen Robert writing ‘I can prove’ a few times; and I have read that he writes ‘I believe’ more than a few times. The chances are that some of those proofs are in some of those passages expressing his beliefs. Any proof worthy of the name needs to be provided on the spot.

Nevertheless, a certain Protean quality is not only desirable, it is necessary. When you change formats, e.g. by bringing your previous material to an Internet forum, you need to be able to unwrap your stuff and repackage it to suit your audience, to fit new circumstances and possibly a totally different discussion. This is how one’s ideas are refined, to survive the test of successive reformulations. You know you are onto something when this process starts to flow freely. If you cannot get past your original formulation carved in stone, then you are basically selling your bible or gospel as so many others have done before. That is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Our writings are not carved in stone, but they do have sufficient permanence to stand as objective evidence of what we wrote. When there is so little proof positive of so much in the world, we have to cling to what little we have. If a simple computer search comes up with no ‘Hancock’ string in my post, then you have a tiny piece of hard evidence, negative but repeatable evidence; if you dispute that hard evidence, you would need to quote the sentence where our computers were bugging and explain the outbreak of computer glitches as well (some conspiracy perhaps?). If I spoke about Hancock, then what did I say? That is the road from small beginnings to huge consequences that Robert Baird was taking us down; so forgive me if I showed some ungentlemanly irritation in opting out of that. Part of the Avalon experience is this (creative) writing class. It is therefore broadly speaking a sandbox environment with occasional experimental forays into the serious and the possibly true. We need the humility to know that anything we say may end up as garbage and equally that anything we say may end up as pearls without swine – ‘end up’ being the operative phrase, because, like life itself, reading/writing is a productive process.

[Ewan]

I feel sorry for the guy tbh, I'd tentatively suggest there is more askew than just ego unfettered. Much like a lack of empathy can be categorised in several ways depending on degree, there seems to be a distinct lack of social awareness to the point that perhaps it never formed in the first place.

I can be like a bull in a china shop sometimes in my directness, it was kind of refreshing to see a whole herd of bison obliterate the premises. :D

[ulli]

I feel sorry for the guy tbh, I'd tentatively suggest there is more askew than just ego unfettered. Much like a lack of empathy can be categorised in several ways depending on degree, there seems to be a distinct lack of social awareness to the point that perhaps it never formed in the first place.

I can be like a bull in a china shop sometimes in my directness, it was kind of refreshing to see a whole herd of bison obliterate the premises. :D

I feel sorry for him too.
And I know people who have Sagittarius sun, ( I'm doing it my way, my sloppy way, and if you don't let me I'll be out of here)
Aries Moon (if you don't let me be number one there will be a temper tantrum),
Capricorn Mercury, (long cynical and negative strings of thought, where "logic" insists that all other type of thought is irrational)
Capricorn Venus (nobody loves me)
Aquarius Mars (tactless, arrogant genius)
And so without knowing his birth time or birthplace, and whether that data would modify or enhance the planetary influences above, I can still see that he has painted himself into a corner of a castle dungeon.

He mentioned Gurdjieff in one of his posts, and since Gurdjieff would regularly toast the "idiots" he was surrounded by, as a challenge to their egos, and to test reactions, I had a hunch that he saw himself obliged to play a similar role.
Needless to say, his error was in the fact that this gathering here was not assembled in order to pay him nor his field of study homage.
Also, the fact that he is researching the outer periphery of human history, without doing any inner work to accompany this, he is missing out on the power and relevance which can be found in the here and now.

[AriG]

edit to add (in response to JChombre's post - coffee.. need coffee)

I do not disagree with the spirit of your post. I agree. Two (or more) parties in constant affirmation render one party redundant. No question. But there is a universally accepted way to disagree between gentle people. Blatant insults debase the spirit of debate (corny I know). That being said, Bill has made it abundantly clear that there are certain protocols to be followed on this forum. He was much more patient with Baird than he has been with others who have said and done far less. Based upon Bill's comments above, I am guessing that he believed that Baird had more to bring to table than the typical detractor. We could debate the fairness in that approach as well, but should not. This inconsistency seems to be a one off and Bill has much more information about the situation that we.

I am a little surprised and somewhat disappointed in my primal reaction to this scenario. Normally, I don't involve myself in petty squabbles. But in this case, I can only liken it to observing someone physically attacking another person. You wouldn't just turn a blind eye and allow that to happen, would you? Attacking another's spirit is perhaps even more harmful than attacking their body.

I also wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that Baird is incarcerated in a mental health facility somewhere. I feel sorry for him.

Just realized that every paragraph in this post begins with "I". Me should change that, but will not. It stands as evidence that ego is a contagion. LOL. Off to bathe in the cleansing waters of humility now. Thank you to Bill and the Mods for doing the difficult work.

[ulli]

Just realized that every paragraph in this post begins with "I". Me should change that, but will not.

Nothing wrong with I. It means that you are sharing your point of view.
What can be more honest than that?

Imagine starting every sentence with "you", which could mean either confrontation or stroking.

Or "he/she", which could be interpreted as criticism, identification, or gossip.
(I know I'm guilty right there, looking again at my post above.)

[Bill Ryan]

His very interesting threads will of course stay open. Over the next few days, I'll try to mend all the broken links in his articles... I think I can do that. It's worth it.



I think (but wouldn't yet bet my life on it! :) ) that all the links in Robert's posts now work. About to double check... if anyone finds a link that's broken, please PM me and I'd be confident I can find the proper full link and fix it.

:thumbsup:

[Shannon]

His very interesting threads will of course stay open. Over the next few days, I'll try to mend all the broken links in his articles... I think I can do that. It's worth it.




I think (but wouldn't yet bet my life on it! :) ) that all the links in Robert's posts now work. About to double check... if anyone finds a link that's broken, please PM me and I'd be confident I can find the proper full link and fix it.

:thumbsup:


Since Mr. Personality is no longer here to say thank you, ( I doubt he would have the manners to do so anyway), I will say it for him, and for me ( us )....

Thank you, Bill .... You have the patience of a saint....A real one, not some druggie imposter.

*giggle
;P

[Citizen No2]

You know what,

I just have this feeling that we've failed somehow, that in some way we've played into his hands....

I've just read the whole thread and pretty much to a man & woman, we've behaved exactly as Robert states groups such as this do. I did not find him offensive as such, as Bill said, it was kinda enjoyable and I looked forward to what he would contribute next, but then again I wasn't on the end of some of the more barbed of Robert's comments.

I'll tell you what I did laugh out loud about.............. Some members' calling him rude, and then being equally as rude back. I don't mind rude people who have the intelligence and knowledge to back it up, even if I'm the one being insulted, I always have done. It's people who are rude for the sake of being rude that I find offensive..... but that's just me and I'm not judging anyone here.

Regardless, for those that can leave ego to one side for a little time, some of the information he imparted is very interesting.


He certainly made an impression here.



Regards.

[Sierra]

You know what,

I just have this feeling that we've failed somehow, that in some way we've played into his hands....

I've just read the whole thread and pretty much to a man & woman, we've behaved exactly as Robert states groups such as this do. I did not find him offensive as such, as Bill said, it was kinda enjoyable and I looked forward to what he would contribute next, but then again I wasn't on the end of some of the more barbed of Robert's comments.

I'll tell you what I did laugh out loud about.............. Some members' calling him rude, and then being equally as rude back. I don't mind rude people who have the intelligence and knowledge to back it up, even if I'm the one being insulted, I always have done. It's people who are rude for the sake of being rude that I find offensive..... but that's just me and I'm not judging anyone here.


I read some of the other forums that banned Baird, and we were actually pretty honest, direct, and helpful in our comments in comparison. For awhile anyway, lol.

If Baird is getting kicked off where ever he goes, well, I can see why. He really does have a problem with forums. He did well as a lone blogger where virtually no one else posted, maybe one other poster I heard, but I didn't see anyone else but Baird. We're talking a lot of material, which is available for those who want to read more of his writings.

Baird may blame us, but if every forum reacted in a similar fashion, I tend to think it is Baird who has the problem. He could accurately predict he would be banned, but he could not alter the behaviors that led him to being banned.

The mod team researched/discussed Baird in depth, but it became clear we could not (as a team) bear the weight of Baird on the forum, the work needed would have been beyond our capacity. I (personally) also think we would have gotten nowhere, and people were getting genuinely upset, so there was a time frame issue as well.

I had another problem with Baird though. I did not trust his scholarship, and given the lack of sources, was never going to be able to confirm the rightness or wrongness of his statements. If there is anything the alternative community does not need, it's more disinfo, whether by design or sloppy scholarship or a desire to be the eminent guru (trust me completely, accept all I say) of history.

[avid]

Sorry, haven't followed every post for the last few hours, but as a person who had to live with an aspergers genius, and some of these folk are so focussed to the detriment of themselves in society, this is atypical. If I am wrong, I apologise, but in the last load of threads I immediately recognised traits. However, the research is fascinating, if disjointed, and I am very grateful for the insight.
Some of these talented individuals have no educational veracity, in fact, they can run rings around those from the mainstream educational system. The everyday discussion in a home with a person so 'driven' is totally immersed in data, nothing mundane, and usually OCD behaviour in routines. No patience for the weaknesses of others, and little empathy in a crisis, (until our cat died - that broke the hard front and there were genuine emotions). Thank goodness for cats....
I wish the best for Robert, and his amazingly proliferate researches.

[Citizen No2]

Sierra wrote:


I read some of the other forums that banned Baird, and we were actually pretty honest, direct, and helpful in our comments in comparison. For awhile anyway, lol.

If Baird is getting kicked off where ever he goes, well, I can see why. He really does have a problem with forums. He did well as a lone blogger where virtually no one else posted, maybe one other poster I heard, but I didn't see anyone else but Baird. We're talking a lot of material, which is available for those who want to read more of his writings.

Baird may blame us, but if every forum reacted in a similar fashion, I tend to think it is Baird who has the problem. He could accurately predict he would be banned, but he could not alter the behaviors that led him to being banned.

The mod team researched/discussed Baird in depth, but it became clear we could not (as a team) bear the weight of Baird on the forum, the work needed would have been beyond our capacity. I (personally) also think we would have gotten nowhere, and people were getting genuinely upset, so there was a time frame issue as well.

I had another problem with Baird though. I did not trust his scholarship, and given the lack of sources, was never going to be able to confirm the rightness or wrongness of his statements. If there is anything the alternative community does not need, it's more disinfo, whether by design or sloppy scholarship or a desire to be the eminent guru (trust me completely, accept all I say) of history.

Absolutely fair point, I can agree with most of what you wrote...... I can understand other's points of view. I did read a couple of other forums where exactly the same outcome was achieved........ That's a wee bit of maybe why I feel the way I do about all this. We reacted just as every other alt media forum did.

Regards.

[Sierra]

Sierra wrote:


I read some of the other forums that banned Baird, and we were actually pretty honest, direct, and helpful in our comments in comparison. For awhile anyway, lol.

If Baird is getting kicked off where ever he goes, well, I can see why. He really does have a problem with forums. He did well as a lone blogger where virtually no one else posted, maybe one other poster I heard, but I didn't see anyone else but Baird. We're talking a lot of material, which is available for those who want to read more of his writings.

Baird may blame us, but if every forum reacted in a similar fashion, I tend to think it is Baird who has the problem. He could accurately predict he would be banned, but he could not alter the behaviors that led him to being banned.

The mod team researched/discussed Baird in depth, but it became clear we could not (as a team) bear the weight of Baird on the forum, the work needed would have been beyond our capacity. I (personally) also think we would have gotten nowhere, and people were getting genuinely upset, so there was a time frame issue as well.

I had another problem with Baird though. I did not trust his scholarship, and given the lack of sources, was never going to be able to confirm the rightness or wrongness of his statements. If there is anything the alternative community does not need, it's more disinfo, whether by design or sloppy scholarship or a desire to be the eminent guru (trust me completely, accept all I say) of history.

Absolutely fair point, I can agree with most of what you wrote...... I can understand other's points of view. I did read a couple of other forums where exactly the same outcome was achieved........ That's a wee bit of maybe why I feel the way I do about all this. We reacted just as every other alt media forum did.

Regards.

Yes. We did. :)

Could you see a way out of this cattle chute? I couldn't. The only thing I could think of, was to put Baird in his own lane, similar to the solution we worked out for Jimini, who was upsetting people with somewhat sloppy COS material.

But then, Baird's area would have become a duplicate of his forum, and what would be the point of that?

[araucaria]

I had another problem with Baird though. I did not trust his scholarship, and given the lack of sources, was never going to be able to confirm the rightness or wrongness of his statements. If there is anything the alternative community does not need, it's more disinfo, whether by design or sloppy scholarship or a desire to be the eminent guru (trust me completely, accept all I say) of history.

Thank you Sierra: that is precisely what I was trying to say. And since disinfo and gurus are a persistent threat, I want to take this discussion a little further, and illustrate it with a very ‘concrete’ example :)

The notion of misreading in my previous post (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?89292-Robert-Graves-and-Archaeolmythology&p=1052553&viewfull=1#post1052553) applied both to other people’s writing and one’s own has been conceptualized by Jean Ricardou (in ‘Ecrire en classe’, Metz, journal ‘Pratiques’ n° 20, 1978, pp. 23-70.), where he calls it ‘retrouvaille’. The word means rediscovery, but is rarely used except as the plural form meaning meeting up again with someone after losing touch. It is cognate with ‘retrieval’, the translation I would probably use. The idea is of this circular process of coming back to something familiar to oneself which has nothing to do with the subject at hand; it is your own mind loop that seems to you more real than what is actually going on. We all know how often such a ‘blast from the past’ simply will not fit in with the current context. Former friends are now strangers, alien just like other people’s conversation and writing – but our own is no different, and no time lapse is needed. The solution is therefore to learn the distancing mechanism of reading your own writing as if it was someone else’s – this is the meaning of Arthur Rimbaud’s famous quote, ‘Je est un autre’ (I is an other; I is someone else; I is not a monolith; I am not what I write (say); this is not about me). So yes, we are talking about an ego issue.

This is something we are doing all the time in massive ways. To take a really huge example, we can all talk endlessly of a God in church services, political rallies etc., and it’s all lovey-dovey until we realize that other people’s retrieval mechanism is operating with a very different notion of God than we are, and instead of exchanging views, we go to war over it.

It gets even more complicated when the principle is applied to such things as theories as the building blocks of one’s thinking. It is like building on sand instead of rock. This is an appropriate analogy in the following instance taken from another Baird thread. He has apparently ‘proved’ that the pyramids were made with a kind of mortar cast on the spot. This may or may not be the case, I have no idea either way, I would need to think about it; but that is not my point. This is how he responds to Greybeard’s objection that at Baalbek some large unused stones lie cut in a quarry:


Yes, they did "one of"s by quarrying such things as porticos and obelisks, The chipped rock and malachite plus Natron made the geopolymerized pyramid rock. Then they also had laser light measurement (see Archimedes) and possibly ultrasound per Chris Dunn.

All explainable with common sense - no need for BS.

The Ba'albek huge rocks left in quarries or the ones on mountains in the Andes and how they made them earthquake proof require more techniques and methods which also are explainable.

When you have your theory carved in stone and you treat an exception as an also explainable one-off, you are entering ‘forbidden archaeology’ territory, i.e. simply brushing stuff under the carpet when it doesn’t fit your paradigm (if ‘common sense’ can be called a paradigm). But there is no point explaining the pyramids with ‘common sense’ when the issue comes back to bite you in the rear at Baalbek. Normally speaking the mortar solution calls for sand quarries. We have clear evidence at Baalbek that stone quarries were used, and indeed Baird talks of blocks made from ‘chipped rock’. The problem is that the larger the blocks you make, the fewer the chippings: where would you get 6 million tons of them for just one pyramid? At stone quarries, the method always used in human memory has been to carve out manageable chunks and cart them as so many building blocks off to your site. The mystery of how huge stones were moved (the pyramids being just one example of a wider phenomenon) is as deep as ever, and the answers more inadequate than before; this is because Baird’s common sense is saying that not only was someone doing seemingly impossible things, but they had several ways of achieving them. Maybe they did, but what I see is that Baird has an answer for everything. But we need more links, preferably working links, explaining the ‘explainable’. Symptomatically however, weak links are Baird’s... weak link.

Meanwhile, the evidence of our eyes suggests that someone may well have had a very different notion of ‘manageable’ to our own. We know of one recent (late 19th century) example of someone who had just that, one Zana: ‘She could recognize her own name though, and would do simple chores…like carrying with one hand heavy 110 pound sacks of ground corn flour that she had ground from the water-mill by the river’ – see Bill’s thread: http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?89321-The-story-of-Zana-Zanya-Zena-a-female-Alma--wild-man--captured-in-1850-in-Georgia&p=1052096&viewfull=1#post1052096

We also have recent experience of changing levels of manageability. Thirty years ago, a bag of cement weighed 50 kgs. Nowadays cement comes in 35 kg bags: not because we can no longer carry 50 kgs, but because we prefer not to. We have a health regulation to cover our backs, and it may indeed happen that we get so out of practice with the bigger-sized bags that they will eventually become too heavy for us, even though we know we can do it. Although I am no Zana :) – small and not very strong – I myself have shifted quite a few in my time. Hence bigger is not always better, and manageability is tempered by convenience. Hence when we have a choice, such as in choosing a size for fired bricks, since Roman times if not earlier, we have opted for tiny hand-held bricks, on the basis that a skilled bricklayer, working at high revs in low gear, is competitive with a stone mason in terms of output, and without breaking his back.

Applying this hard evidence of recent experience to the pyramids, we reach some conclusions inconsistent with Baird’s theory. There is no ‘conveniently manageable’ constraint on pouring concrete in situ. On the contrary, the pyramid builders could have cast blocks even bigger than those at Baalbek; they could have cast blocks all the way from one corner to the next. The question then becomes: why did they use this relatively small breeze-block-type technology for in situ work? It makes no sense. Well actually it does make sense, but only if we imagine for example a civilization of giants building pyramids like we would build a wall with convenient bricks or breeze-blocks, and also capable of building Baalbek in manageable chunks of stone. They may have decided for instance that at Giza, tectonic movement would have snapped larger blocks and that built-in gaps would be more resistant than unscheduled ones. But all these things are the subject of open discussion, which is only possible if I can step back and see that I am not what I say, I am not a monolith. Things can be broken down into manageable and smaller parts, provided we have a full set of gears. Even so, it would appear from the above that the stones in the pyramids while seemingly huge to us, appeared much smaller to the builders for reasons of relative size rather than technology; so we are almost back we started.

The above analysis itself only looks at a tiny chip off Baird’s huge monolith of work, but I suspect a glutton for punishment would be in for more of the same. My issue here is with a lack of structured thinking, also suggested by the overly impressive number of books, and the missing links; no amount of one-off explanations will have the efficiency of a truly theoretical basis. Newton’s single theory of gravity works for everything from apples and smaller to galaxies and larger, as well as explaining why garbage goes into landfill – unless of course it is produced by NASA :) Similarly, Talbott’s theory of a Saturn-Venus-Mars-Earth system explains a whole range of seemingly unconnected phenomena, including, but not limited to, exploding planets, the shape of scallop shells, sacred and upside-down satanic symbols, celestial nomenclature, ancient cave glyphs, kingship and religion, the worship of bulls, and the workings of the human mind based on fear of catastrophe. And it also explains the likely origins of giants capable of building Baalbek and the pyramids...

I suspect therefore that Robert Baird’s disagreement with myself, had he taken the trouble to examine it – which you have to do in order to avoid being simply dismissive – lies in his inductive approach, often adopted by mainstream science, and my deductive approach, often adopted by alternative science. See this section of the below-referenced post:

Van Flandern’s methodology is deductive, going from cause to effect, rather than inductive reasoning, proceeding from effect to cause. In this way, he can start out with a one-particle universe and work his way up. You can dismiss him as a theorist, but does not the scientific method involve forming theories and testing them? That is what he does. The process is one of building upon solid ground, whereas scientists often fail to see the falsity of their basic assumptions (such as redshift being exclusively a velocity effect, which it is not). http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?71360-What-is-REAL-SCIENCE&p=833516&viewfull=1#post833516 (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?71360-What-is-REAL-SCIENCE&p=833516&viewfull=1#post833516)
When you start out from causes, you are comfortable with noting a wide range of effects such as the list I started above. When you are starting from effects, you are quickly overwhelmed as you trace them back to too many causes. 83 books, I suggest, rather than any deep understanding is a sign of being overwhelmed. Calling the multifarious effects of a single cause ‘garbage’ or ‘nonsense’ is equivalent to talking about ‘junk DNA’: hence when Robert Baird talks among other things of ‘so-called junk DNA’ here (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?89325-A-million-Years-BEFORE-Atlantis&p=1052117&viewfull=1#post1052117), I reckon we are dealing with writing more akin to brain-storming or speculation than to serious research; for he is salvaging junk while producing more junk: not a very coherent approach. It lacks the grounding of pragmatism, in other words it is an abstraction that cannot be made to do any useful work, whereas pragmatism (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?87260-Excellent--encompassing--recent-presentation-by-Greer&p=1027519&viewfull=1#post1027519)is a process leading to positive results. Unsurprisingly, then, Baird’s work has difficulty gaining any traction in terms of (critically alert) readers: it has no place for them.

Hence it has no place for us. We and other forums have done our best and have no reason to feel guilty because of this seemingly incoherent desire to join others and keep to oneself; but the guilty feeling is understandable because we all experience a similar process to a smaller degree. The perennity of a forum relies on the same criteria as a pyramid: its elements may be deceptively large and actually quite small; the key is how they hold together, strong links between one another; how the space between them gets smaller rather than bigger. In other words, the cement holding the structure together is paradoxically not in all that stone, but in the almost non-existent empty space between the blocks. The ultimate example of ‘je est un autre’: the mystery of the pyramids is in the cement: there is none. L’autre est moi. The forum experience, when it works, lies in the oxymoronic process of being oneself by joining others. While welding welds, cement actually holds apart. But cementless cement does both.