Blog Archives

Longing for the Apocalypse

10/16/2013

Yesterday I wrote about the apparent glee with which ancient astronaut theorist, sexual fetishist, and murder victim Erik Poltorak seemed to long for the coming Day of Judgment when the aliens would punish humanity for its sins. This of course is not unique to Poltorak and has been a part and parcel of Western civilization since the apocalyptic cults of Judaism started prophesying the End Times. Nevertheless, we seem to be in another period of apocalyptic fantasizing, and once again this fills the hearts of believers with glee. Here is U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann telling an evangelical minister recently how she longs for the cleansing fires to burn across the earth:

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Review of Ancient Aliens S06E03: "The Anunnaki Connection"

10/15/2013

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How many times has Ancient Aliens plumbed the Anunnaki well? I’ve lost count, and I can’t imagine there is anything really new to say about a story concocted from Zecharia Sitchin’s fever dreams. All you really need to know about the Anunnaki is that they are vaguely-defined Mesopotamian deities who live both in heaven and under the earth and otherwise are most prominent in the Enuma Elish, where they build a still-extant Mesopotamian temple, the Esagila of Babylon, out of mud bricks and then complain to Marduk that it’s too much word making mud bricks—such great alien technology!

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Templars, Black Madonnas, and Global Cult Conspiracies

10/14/2013

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The premiere for American Templars, the movie based on the claim that Henry Sinclair reached America in 1398, occurred under the auspices of the Westford Historical Society the other day, and Newport Tower Museum curator Jim Egan was there, dressed like John Dee, to “raise awareness” of his belief that Gov. Benedict Arnold’s windmill was built not by Templar knights under Sinclair leadership but rather by John Dee. You really must click this link to see him in costume.

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Review of Atlantis S01E03 "The Boy Must Die"

10/13/2013

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Since I reviewed the first two episodes of the BBC’s Atlantis, I figured I should give a brief notice to the third. British critics seem to agree that this episode was an improvement over the previous two, but I’m not convinced. In this outing, Jason and his friends get in more trouble with King Minos (who surely should be on better terms with them by now) and end up condemned to the bull ring where they must learn to leap over an angry bull or die trying. In the real world, there is no evidence that bull leaping—found widely in the Bronze Age Mediterranean world, but best known from Minoan Crete—was used as a punishment.

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Was Hitler in on the Mary Magdalene Cult Conspiracy?

10/13/2013

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Scott Wolter made a big deal out of an alleged hand gesture he believes symbolizes membership in the cult of Mary Magdalene and the “monotheistic dualism” that celebrates the sacred feminine and venerates the genetic descendants of Jesus. This hand gesture, which is really nothing more than the natural position of a relaxed and extended hand, forms what Wolter sees as an “M” as seen in this painting of Christopher Columbus, a leading conspirator:

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A Few Odds and Ends about Publishing

10/12/2013

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My brain is a little tired after going through the ridiculous claims in Scott Wolter’s new book. I’ll be honest: If Scott Wolter were not the host of a high-rated cable television show, his book would have ended up on my slush pile of delusional ravings that are simply too ridiculous and too free of evidence to warrant lengthy consideration. And yet, because he is on TV, many readers will take him seriously, Oreo cookie conspiracy and all. However, I today I’d like to talk about a few issues that came up in the course of reviewing it, most of which are not directly related to its claims.

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Review of Scott Wolter's Akhenaten to the Founding Fathers (Final Part)

10/11/2013

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• Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 •

Even though Scott Wolter’s Akhenaten to the Founding Fathers: Mysteries of the Hooked X® is a scant 298 pages—including index, notes, etc.—it has more than enough evidence-free claims to fill a book three times its size. It’s fortunate then that Wolter simply assumes we believe his assertions and does not attempt to explain his claims or weave them into a story. Had he done so, we might be looking at a book on the order of the Mahabharata in size.

But what you really want to know about is the Oreo cookie conspiracy. You have to wait a bit. He makes it the nearly final revelation of his book.

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Review of Scott Wolter's Akhenaten to the Founding Fathers (Part 3)

10/10/2013

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• Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 •

Do you remember the old Tootsie Roll jingle? Whatever it is I think I see / Becomes a Tootsie Roll to me. It seems that Scott Wolter has revised this somewhat: Whatever it is I think I see / Becomes a Templar conspiracy. At least that’s the lesson I’m taking away from Akhenaten to the Founding Fathers: Mysteries of the Hooked X®. The only other lesson I’ve gleaned so far comes from Wolter’s discussion of stone clitorises, buildings which symbolically orgasm, sunlight as divine penis, speculation on the Virgin Mary’s sex life, contemplation of trans-Atlantic couplings, and of course the “Hooked X®” as depicting the actual act of impregnation of Mary Magdalene. The man has sex on the brain and seems to have invented an entire Gnostic-Dualist sacred feminine ancient cult to justify his ideas about sexual liberation.

As we enter the third part of this review, we turn to Native Americans, who, for the first time, come in for the full Wolter treatment. Because this chapter has the greatest concentration of new material, I will devote today’s entire review to it.

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Review of Scott Wolter's Akhenaten to the Founding Fathers (Part 2)

10/9/2013

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• Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 •

I was struck by the comments one reviewer of Malcolm Gladwell’s new book received blasting him for identifying problems with Gladwell’s glib rewriting of scientific fact. They are the same three criticisms I receive almost daily for critiquing Scott Wolter: (a) you are jealous of his success, (b) you are not qualified to judge his work, and (c) his work is meant as entertainment, so don’t take it seriously. Christopher Chabris makes a great point about Gladwell that equally applies to Wolter:

He is saying that if you understand his topics well enough to see what is erroneous or missing, then you are not the reader he wants. At a stroke he has said that anyone equipped to critically review his work should not be reading it.

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Brief Notice: Gavin Menzies's New Claim of a Pre-Columbian Chinese Map of America

10/9/2013

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I’ve received a few emails about Gavin Menzies’s new book, Who Discovered America? (William Morrow, 2013), which claims new evidence that the Chinese discovered America in 40,000 BCE and again in 1417. (This revises down the date from Menzies’s 2002 bestseller 1421: The Year China Discovered America). I have not read the book and therefore can’t comment on all of Menzies’s claims. However, as reported in The Daily Mail, the primary evidence he offers is the following map, which he claims is an eighteenth century copy of a 1417 original, based on a scholar’s assertion that the language used dates from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

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