JASON COLAVITO
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Books
    • Legends of the Pyramids
    • The Mound Builder Myth
    • Jason and the Argonauts
    • Cult of Alien Gods >
      • Contents
      • Excerpt
      • Image Gallery
    • Foundations of Atlantis
    • Knowing Fear >
      • Contents
      • Excerpt
      • Image Gallery
    • Hideous Bit of Morbidity >
      • Contents
      • Excerpt
      • Image Gallery
    • Cthulhu in World Mythology >
      • Excerpt
      • Image Gallery
      • Necronomicon Fragments
      • Oral Histories
    • Fiction >
      • Short Stories
      • Free Fiction
    • JasonColavito.com Books >
      • Faking History
      • Unearthing the Truth
      • Critical Companion to Ancient Aliens
      • Studies in Ancient Astronautics (Series) >
        • Theosophy on Ancient Astronauts
        • Pyramidiots!
        • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • Fiction Anthologies >
        • Unseen Horror >
          • Contents
          • Excerpt
        • Moon Men! >
          • Contents
      • The Orphic Argonautica >
        • Contents
        • Excerpt
      • The Faust Book >
        • Contents
        • Excerpt
      • Classic Reprints
      • eBook Minis
    • Free eBooks >
      • Origin of the Space Gods
      • Ancient Atom Bombs
      • Golden Fleeced
      • Ancient America
      • Horror & Science
  • Articles
    • Skeptical Xenoarchaeologist Newsletter >
      • Volumes 1-10 Archive >
        • Volume 1 Archive
        • Volume 2 Archive
        • Volume 3 Archive
        • Volume 4 Archive
        • Volume 5 Archive
        • Volume 6 Archive
        • Volume 7 Archive
        • Volume 8 Archive
        • Volume 9 Archive
        • Volume 10 Archive
      • Volumes 11-20 Archive >
        • Volume 11 Archive
        • Volume 12 Archive
        • Volume 13 Archive
        • Volume 14 Archive
        • Volume 15 Archive
        • Volume 16 Archive
        • Volume 17 Archive
        • Volume 18 Archive
        • Volume 19 Archive
        • Volume 20 Archive
      • Volumes 21-30 Archive >
        • Volume 21 Archive
        • Volume 22 Archive
    • Television Reviews >
      • Ancient Aliens Reviews
      • In Search of Aliens Reviews
      • America Unearthed
      • Pirate Treasure of the Knights Templar
      • Search for the Lost Giants
      • Forbidden History Reviews
      • Expedition Unknown Reviews
      • Legends of the Lost
      • Unexplained + Unexplored
      • Rob Riggle: Global Investigator
    • Book Reviews
    • Galleries >
      • Bad Archaeology
      • Ancient Civilizations >
        • Ancient Egypt
        • Ancient Greece
        • Ancient Near East
        • Ancient Americas
      • Supernatural History
      • Book Image Galleries
    • Videos
    • Collection: Ancient Alien Fraud >
      • Chariots of the Gods at 50
      • Secret History of Ancient Astronauts
      • Of Atlantis and Aliens
      • Aliens and Ancient Texts
      • Profiles in Ancient Astronautics >
        • Erich von Däniken
        • Robert Temple
        • Giorgio Tsoukalos
        • David Childress
      • Blunders in the Sky
      • The Case of the False Quotes
      • Alternative Authors' Quote Fraud
      • David Childress & the Aliens
      • Faking Ancient Art in Uzbekistan
      • Intimations of Persecution
      • Zecharia Sitchin's World
      • Jesus' Alien Ancestors?
      • Extraterrestrial Evolution?
    • Collection: Skeptic Magazine >
      • America Before Review
      • Native American Discovery of Europe
      • Interview: Scott Sigler
      • Golden Fleeced
      • Oh the Horror
      • Discovery of America
      • Supernatural Television
      • Review of Civilization One
      • Who Lost the Middle Ages
      • Charioteer of the Gods
    • Collection: Ancient History >
      • Prehistoric Nuclear War
      • The China Syndrome
      • Atlantis, Mu, and the Maya
      • Easter Island Exposed
      • Who Built the Sphinx?
      • Who Built the Great Pyramid?
      • Archaeological Cover Up?
    • Collection: The Lovecraft Legacy >
      • Pauwels, Bergier, and Lovecraft
      • Lovecraft in Bergier
      • Lovecraft and Scientology
    • Collection: UFOs >
      • Alien Abduction at the Outer Limits
      • Aliens and Anal Probes
      • Ultra-Terrestrials and UFOs
      • Rebels, Queers, and Aliens
    • Scholomance: The Devil's School
    • Prehistory of Chupacabra
    • The Templars, the Holy Grail, & Henry Sinclair
    • Magicians of the Gods Review
    • The Curse of the Pharaohs
    • The Antediluvian Pyramid Myth
    • Whitewashing American Prehistory
    • James Dean's Cursed Porsche
  • The Library
    • Ancient Mysteries >
      • Ancient Texts >
        • Mesopotamian Texts >
          • Atrahasis Epic
          • Epic of Gilgamesh
          • Kutha Creation Legend
          • Babylonian Creation Myth
          • Descent of Ishtar
          • Berossus
          • Comparison of Antediluvian Histories
        • Egyptian Texts >
          • The Shipwrecked Sailor
          • Dream Stela of Thutmose IV
          • The Papyrus of Ani
          • Classical Accounts of the Pyramids
          • Inventory Stela
          • Manetho
          • Eratosthenes' King List
          • The Story of Setna
          • Leon of Pella
          • Diodorus on Egyptian History
          • On Isis and Osiris
          • Famine Stela
          • Old Egyptian Chronicle
          • The Book of Sothis
          • Horapollo
          • Al-Maqrizi's King List
        • Teshub and the Dragon
        • Hermetica >
          • The Three Hermeses
          • Kore Kosmou
          • Corpus Hermeticum
          • The Asclepius
          • The Emerald Tablet
          • Hermetic Fragments
          • Prologue to the Kyranides
          • The Secret of Creation
          • Ancient Alphabets Explained
          • Prologue to Ibn Umayl's Silvery Water
          • Book of the 24 Philosophers
          • Aurora of the Philosophers
        • Hesiod's Theogony
        • Periplus of Hanno
        • Ctesias' Indica
        • Sanchuniathon
        • Sima Qian
        • Syncellus's Enoch Fragments
        • The Book of Enoch
        • Slavonic Enoch
        • Sepher Yetzirah
        • Tacitus' Germania
        • De Dea Syria
        • Aelian's Various Histories
        • Julius Africanus' Chronography
        • Eusebius' Chronicle
        • Chinese Accounts of Rome
        • Ancient Chinese Automaton
        • The Orphic Argonautica
        • Fragments of Panodorus
        • Annianus on the Watchers
        • The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
      • Medieval Texts >
        • Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
          • Medieval Pyramid Lore
          • John Malalas on Ancient Egypt
          • Fragments of Abenephius
          • Akhbar al-zaman
          • Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah
          • Murtada ibn al-‘Afif
          • Al-Maqrizi on the Pyramids
          • Al-Suyuti on the Pyramids
        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
        • Isidore of Seville
        • Book of Liang: Fusang
        • Agobard on Magonia
        • Book of Thousands
        • Voyage of Saint Brendan
        • Power of Art and of Nature
        • Travels of Sir John Mandeville
        • Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
      • James Dean's Scrapbook
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
  • About Jason
    • Biography
    • Jason in the Media
    • Contact Jason
    • About JasonColavito.com
    • Terms and Conditions
  • Search

Josiah Priest vs. Constantine Rafinesque: An Early Fringe History vs. Science Feud

3/30/2018

35 Comments

 
​Last week, Garry Nolan, the team geneticist for Tom DeLonge’s To the Stars Academy of Science, published results of a DNA test conducted on the so-called “Atacama Humanoid,” a mummified twentieth century stillbirth from the Atacama region of Chile. Ufologists like Steven Greer had promoted the tiny corpse as a potential extraterrestrial for the past fifteen years, but the new study found that the body was fully human, though suffering from genetic diseases. Now the New York Times reports that the Chilean government has condemned Nolan’s study as unethical and is investigating whether the body was illegally exhumed and exported in violation of grave robbing and heritage laws. Nolan denied knowing that the body had been stolen, though it’s sort of hard to imagine how else a human corpse of recent vintage ends up on the UFO sideshow circuit. Few people will their bodies—much less their kids’ bodies—to ufology. That said, the Chilean government only started to care about the corpse when it was proved human; for the fifteen years UFO believer declared it alien, the government took no action. The lesson is pretty clear: Pretend bodies belong to space aliens, and you can do what you want with them. There might just be a market for black market “alien” kidneys, too…
​Last weekend I share with you an excerpt from the book I am working on about the mound builder myth. After reading some of the feedback on the chapter, I decided to see if I could start working on the book again. I sent off some additional queries to literary agents, which resulted in some quick rejections. One even responded on Sunday afternoon to ensure that I need not wait more than 24 hours for said rejection. In the meantime, I tried to pick up where I left off, and that’s when I remembered why I had stopped writing. I had hit a brick wall.
 
The main body of the book begins in the 1700s with colonial encounters with Native American mounds, a story I framed around Thomas Jefferson, the first to excavate a mound, and Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur, Jefferson’s friend and the French consul, who also happened to be a notorious fantasist. Subsequent to that, I proceed forward in time, framing each new period around some key figures to help keep a very complicated story relatively straightforward. For example, a subsequent section frames the debate over the origin of the mounds around the rivalry between Caleb Atwater and Constantine Rafinesque, who fought viciously and publicly over whether the mounds were the work of Hindus (Atwater) or Native Americans (Rafinesque), and another contrasts Joseph Smith’s use of the mound builder myth in Mormonism with Andrew Jackson’s use of it to support Indian Removal.
 
But having gotten all the way to 1833 using this method, I hit a wall. You see, at that time the most important work on the mounds was American Antiquities, a 400-page doorstop of a book by Albany resident Josiah Priest in which the unscrupulous author attempted to demonstrate that the mounds were not the work on Native Americans but rather of a lost white race whom the Natives had exterminated in their violent reign of evil. Oh, and that America was also where Noah lived after the Ark landed here, and the Vikings fought a war against Native Americans in the Finger Lakes, specifically near Auburn, my hometown. Don’t laugh—in the sequel he argued that Blacks were genetically inferior and condemned by God to be slaves in America because God had cursed Noah’s Black son Ham here in the U.S. of A. Priest’s American Antiquities is a monument to pseudohistory, and it is the template and model for all that would come after, instantly familiar to anyone who has read Fingerprints of the Gods or any of the 1960s mystery-mongering books.
 
Here is where the problem occurs. There is almost nothing one can say about Josiah Priest. You’d have thought that I’d have an easier time of it. I live in Albany, less than two miles from Priest’s old house, and the New York State Library has the largest collection of his works still extant. But Priest left virtually nothing in terms of letters, journals, memoranda, testimonials, etc. His friends and family said almost nothing about him that anyone thought fit to record. For a man who was so influential in shaping (wrong) beliefs about the prehistory of America, he is himself almost a void. It’s very difficult to frame a chapter around someone whose entire life story, in the most elaborate telling I could find, warranted a paragraph or two. Specifically, he is the subject of two academic articles. The first, by Winthrop Duncan, was published the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society in 1935. It is primarily a bibliography of Priest’s books, with a couple of paragraphs about his life attached. The second, by De Villo Sloan, was published in the Journal of Popular Culture in 2003 and makes no bones about the fact that all of the biographical details are drawn from Duncan’s article.
 
So, what was I to do? I couldn’t find an entry point that could fold Priest into my narrative with the same level of detail and incident as other important figures who left much more of a paper trail. The chapter sat there unwritten for a long time.
 
When I tried again this week, I finally found a piece of information that would let me frame the story the right way. It turns out that Priest got into a scuffle with Constantine Rafinesque, who had developed his own bizarre mound theory in the meantime, when Rafinesque had come here to Albany to give a lecture right at the same time that the second edition of American Antiquities came off the printing press. Rafinesque was horrified to discover that Priest had pirated a number of his articles and stuck them in his book without permission—and more importantly, without compensation—and Priest had painted Rafinesque in a poor light, all but accusing him of being a Satanist who was trying to “overturn the Scriptures.” This gave me the entry point I needed. I decided to frame the story around Rafinesque’s anger. Earlier in the book I describe his rivalry with Caleb Atwater, which degenerated into vicious accusations and the ruination of Rafinesque’s career. Here, in miniature, he made the same mistakes again.
 
Here’s a very rough draft of how I am approaching the incident:
Rafinesque, however, was not done with Priest. After a roundabout tour of upstate New York and ten days in New York City, he returned to Philadelphia in September 1833. Rafinesque’s rage had grown, and it apparently remained with him for a long time after. On January 5, 1835, Rafinesque composed a lengthy letter to Priest, which began with a facetious thanks to the author: “I have lately read the Second Edition of your Work on American Antiquities. I ought to be very grateful to you for the handsome manner in which you have mentioned and made use of some of my labors on American history; although I perceive that you have distorted a few of my remarks, to suit your own views.” He spoke of Priest’s arguments as “learned dreams” and pretended to omit the “ridicule and blame” he might heap upon the work.
 
But the heart of the letter was a challenge that Rafinesque offered, doubtless to secure a measure of publicity for himself on the back of the more successful work that built on his own: “Therefore I offer you a fair chance by wishing to debate with you the matter either privately or in print, or in public, as you may deem best. If you are not afraid to sustain in public the popular theory which you adopt or modify, I tender you my assistance by offering to debate in public with you, any matter relating to American History & Antiquities, &c, before any public audience in Albany, Troy, or Lansingburgh, at any place you may select or procure, and at any time during next summer.”
 
To “help” Priest to prepare for the debate, he offered a list of forty errors in American Antiquities, ranging from (1) the true location of the Garden of Eden to (9) whether the wooly mammoth boarded Noah’s Ark to (23) whether all Black people descended from Ham and (31) whether the Egyptians taught mummification to the ancient Andean peoples. Rafinesque likely thought these errors to be matters of science, but far too many—at least 24 of the forty—revolved around the interpretation of the Bible, and the question of whether the Mosaic account of history might correctly be located in the continental United States. Rafinesque denied this last point, but, like Priest, accepted that the words of Moses, “provided we translate them word for word correctly,” are inerrant. He also, in an effort to humiliate Priest, whom he knew to be uneducated, demanded that their discourse on Biblical truths refer only to the Hebrew text, “because Moses did not speak English to the Jews.”
 
Evidently satisfied that he had created a spectacle that would lay Priest low, he mailed the letter to the Daily Whig of Troy, N.Y., only a few miles from Priest’s home in Albany. The publisher, James M. Stevenson, received the letter that week and rushed it into print, placing it in the paper’s January 13 edition. That day, Amos Eaton sent a letter of support that appeared in the next day’s paper, reminding Troy residents of the “amusing eccentricity” of Rafinesque’s 1833 lecture and promising education and amusement should the lecture occur.
 
Priest read Rafinesque’s letter eleven days after it was published, when the Troy newspaper had made its way down the Hudson to Albany. The letter did not move Priest into an unwinnable debate, citing a scheduling conflict that rendered the entire summer of 1836 “not compatible with my engagements,” but it did prompt Priest to compose an immediate response to what he apparently saw as an affront to both his faith and his honor. But Priest did not let his annoyance show, and instead he attempted to take the high road, claiming it a great “honor” that no less an authority that Rafinesque had confirmed that at least fifteen facts in his book were true, “a compliment unlooked for,” and which he judged an aid to the 17,000 in sales he had already made. But the complimentary air was only bait to lead the reader to the more biting lines. Priest demanded to know by what right Rafinesque declared him uneducated, “for how do you know what I have or have not read?” And he fell back on the essential unknowability of history, claiming every man had the right to his own opinion about the past, adding that Rafinesque was wrong to take his book as a factual history, for his aim was not factual accuracy but “to arouse the public attention to the fascinating subject of American Antiquities,” an aim justified entirely by the number of sales such an effort might produce. “I have been compelled to wander widely in the field of conjecture,” he admitted, but he noted that Rafinesque was himself guilty of wild conjecture on all things Biblical. He issued a challenge to Rafinesque: If he knows for certain all the supposed errors in the English edition of the Bible, he should make them public and “acquire to himself the title of benefactor of mankind.” Homing in on Rafinesque’s key error of predicating his criticisms on the Mosaic creation, Priest cleverly concluded his letter by alleging that the whole of American Antiquities was an explication of the Mosaic account of creation and therefore the only point of true debate is whether Rafinesque would oppose the Word of God. He turned the argument back on Rafinesque: “But in my present state of feeling and condition of information, I cannot subscribe to opinions which go to unhinge, and overturn all the foundations to which the morality of the christian world is at present moored, and consent to float up with you into the interminable ocean of, I know not what; based on your better knowledge of the Hebrew which to me appears quite incredible, unless we are to suppose that all ages have agreed to keep up the delusion of the Bible errors, as it now reads, and that you are the only man who is honest and courageous enough to face the immense billows of the popular belief, and also to pour contempt on the talent, the research and the honesty of all other men who have not made these discoveries in the Hebrew Bible with yourself.”
 
He finished by attacking Rafinesque’s considerable ego, promising that he had no problem with Rafinesque’s attempt to ascertain the truth, but took exception to his implication that a mere writer like Priest ought not dare to question his betters, “as if your sentiments are not to be molested.” He declared such thoughts to be unpatriotic—“such illiberality is not the manner of writers in free America, nor of its free press”—alluding in a subtle way to Rafinesque’s European origins, an air of hated foreignness that had followed him for decades.
 
Rafinesque, who sought to argue facts, once again found himself bested by emotion, rhetoric, and an unscrupulous self-promoter’s facile appeals to nationalism and to faith.
​There was a little good news for Rafinesque, however. Priest realized he could be sued, so he dropped Rafinesque’s articles from subsequent editions of American Antiquities, and he got out of the ancient mysteries business. He turned his literary talents to new subjects. Thereafter, he would write about why Blacks were racially inferior and why Native Americans were evil, bloodthirsty monsters. I need not point out that these propositions were hardly disconnected from his belief in a lost white race of mound builders.
 
This brings me to my final subject: American Antiquities is one of the most important fringe history books ever written, and I’d love to add it to my Library. However, I haven’t the time or the patience to transcribe (or proofread the OCR for) the text. I see that someone has transcribed about one-third of the book on the Oliver Cowdery website, but that still leaves 100,000 words to go. If anyone has good ideas for how we might get the book transcribed to make the text available online, I’d be interested to hear.
35 Comments
Gunn
3/30/2018 09:32:37 am

Hi Jason, I was doing some researching at the site, etimage.com, and ended up at the site given below, which offers the notion that some of those mentioned in the Norse Sagas may have built mounds at Sop's Arm. Anyway, make of it what you will...I just thought you might like to know about this, since it reflects the possibility of white mound builders in North America, something you seem to be keen about researching and reporting on.

http://etimage.com/sopsarm/Vikings%20in%20Sops%20Arm,udg.2.pdf

Reply
Jim
3/30/2018 10:20:12 am

I couldn't get past the part where they say that they knew which direction south was, but needed a rock to figure out the other directions without breaking out in fits of laughter.

Reply
E.P. Grondine
3/30/2018 10:34:02 am

Hi Jason -

For an OCR, you need to start with copies from the microfilm, then enlarge those before scanning for OCR.

Reply
Mary Baker
3/30/2018 11:53:40 am

Submit to scans to Project Gutenberg, then request Distributed Proofreaders to OCR and proofread. The whole process might take quite a while.

Reply
Americanegro
3/30/2018 12:33:14 pm

You'll also want to outfit yourself with a pair of eyeballs (used is okay) in good working order. And if you don't continue breathing through the whole process that will create problems.

Reply
Americanegro
3/30/2018 12:38:55 pm

Or you could find a local newspaper writer whose work you admire and ask him to lead you to:

https://archive.org/details/americanantiqui05priegoog

No need to reinvent the wheel.

Americanegro
3/31/2018 03:34:33 pm

Jason, it might be helpful if you could be more specific about what you want. Is it that you're looking for the book in a Word document and a searchable PDF isn't good enough for what you have in mind?

Greg
3/30/2018 11:44:09 am

https://archive.org/details/americanantiqu00prie

Reply
AN
3/30/2018 03:29:43 pm

For some reason I didn't see this. You got it first. Well done!

Reply
Dunior
3/30/2018 12:04:16 pm

What a biblical debate. In alternate history studies many people point to Mormon's having faked things like the decolog stone and other sites that may prove their doctrine of ancient Jews in North America. Via an examination of some later obviously false stories like the Legend of J.C. Brown it became obvious that some of this may have been done to mislead the Mormon's and was not done by them. There is some potent evidence that the Mormon's had some very powerful enemies that did in fact attempt to eliminate them. Even Joaquin Miller's "First Families of the Sierras" paints them as having a secret society of assassins that were hunting down the assassins of J. Smith. So there was quite a spiritual war going on in that era of American history. Wasn't upstate and central New York once referred to as the "Burnt Over Area" because of all of the alternate belief systems that surfaced there in the nineteenth century?

Reply
E.P. Grondine
3/30/2018 03:41:05 pm

Dunior, while I have enjoyed sodas with Mormons, what you are looking for is "The History of Washington County", which covers Smith's activities in detail, and is available online.

Smith was influenced by a fictional work of Solomon Spaulding of Conneaut, Ohio, but that took place well after the period Jason is working with.

Reply
T. Franke link
3/30/2018 03:13:27 pm

Well, Rafinesque-Schmaltz himself, too, offered not quite convincing solutions for the problem of the native Americans. Once again Atlantis was the answer: The native Americans as descendants of Atlanteans, as well as Europeans and Egyptians. And therefore they stay on equal foot, so the argument.

Rafineseque seems to be just another example for defending native Americans with the help of the Atlantis argument, so weird it is in modern eyes.

Source: Rafinesque-Schmaltz, The American Nations, 1836.
About Atlantis are the following passages: Vol. II Chap. XIII p. 193, Chap. XIV pp. 224-266.

(I took this information from my book "Geschichte der Hypothesen und Meinung zu Platons Atlantis, 2016, in German only)

Reply
Huh? What?
3/30/2018 03:34:23 pm

Who had 3:13 pm in the "When will T. Franke show up babbling about Atlantis and flogging his own writings" in the pool?

He CITES Rafinesque-Schmaltz, The American Nations but says he got the information from his own book.

Reply
T. Franke link
3/30/2018 07:14:49 pm

As a special service, here is a Web link to Rafinesque's book, opened at the crucial chapter about Atlantis:

https://books.google.com.mt/books?id=8GMFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA224

The exact opinion about Atlantis on page 232.

This is not from my book. My book does only show the biographical data, plus page numbers, but no Web links. It is in footnote 739 on page 357. My book is in academic style and expensive. So, please do not buy it. It requires some patience to read it. Here is the Web link to my book's page:

https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis-geschichte-hypothesen.htm

With an English video and summary, but the book is in German. So do not buy it, if you cannot read German.

Thank you, Huh?What?, for giving me another opportunity to tell you something!

Huh? What?
3/30/2018 09:32:43 pm

"I took this information from my book "Geschichte der Hypothesen und Meinung zu Platons Atlantis, 2016"

T. Franke link
3/30/2018 11:20:48 pm

Of course I did. Do you think, once you have written a book about a complex topic, you never look up in your own book?! It is really strange that you have a problem with this.

David Bradbury
3/30/2018 03:44:58 pm

Subscription publishing's definitely the way to go:
"AGENTS WANTED.- Immediate employment for 4, 8 or 12 months can be given to as many persons as shall apply, who are qualified to solicit subscribers for a certain work to be published in the city of Albany, state of New-York.
The qualifications necessary are merely a common amount of general information; an acquaintance in some degree with the manners of men; capable of complacent and dignified behaviour in all companies, and able to give good personal security for all books wanted to supply subscribers with, or for their return if not disposed of.
... Josiah Priest, city of Albany ..."
[from the Poughkeepsie Independence, July 31, 1833]

Reply
David Bradbury
3/30/2018 03:52:24 pm

He also used the subscription system for his works about the Fallen Angels (in 1839) and about:
"Slavery, as it relates to the negro of African race, examined in the light of circumstances, history and the Holy Scriptures ...
Agents thus to be employed, are to be remunerated by a commission which will give from $50 to $80 a month, with but ordinary success in obtaining names. We do not wish to employ any man who is tinctured with abolitionism to act as a agent in this work. ..."
[New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette, May 11, 1843]

Reply
Jason Colavito link
3/30/2018 04:21:13 pm

Where did you find that advertisement? Obviously the paper, but is there a database that has the Poughkeepsie Independence?

Reply
David Bradbury
3/31/2018 03:18:57 am

Its in Early American Newspapers, Series I, from Readex.
That's the only one of the E.A.N. series I can access from home here in England (as a registered reader at the British Library), but Series 2 to 14 would be available via subscribing academic institutions.

E.P. Grondine
3/30/2018 03:49:23 pm

for
"had rage grown,"
read
"rage had grown"

Reply
Pacal
3/30/2018 05:14:01 pm

The book is available in multiple copies at The Internet Archive please see https://archive.org/search.php?query=American%20Antiquities%20Josiah%20Priest.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
3/30/2018 05:44:09 pm

Yeah, but the OCR isn't terribly good or easily formatted.

Reply
E.P. Grondine
3/31/2018 01:31:02 pm

Jason -

The "mounds" were in use when DeSoto passed through,
and at the time of French settlement.

Those records were simply ignored by the racists.

Jason Colavito link
3/30/2018 06:27:05 pm

For everyone making suggestions about OCR on American Antiquities: I have the Google Books OCR of the text as a Word document, and its pretty clean copy, but it needs proofreading and formatting. In the old days I wouldn't think twice about devoting a couple of weeks to proofreading it, but nowadays, I just don't have time to spare.

Reply
David Bradbury
3/31/2018 03:23:18 am

Have you tried the various copies at the Hathi Trust?

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Search/Home?lookfor=josiah%20priest%20antiquities&searchtype=all&ft=ft&setft=true

Reply
Only Me
3/30/2018 08:13:52 pm

Priest: "Criticizing my book, which is an explanation of the Biblical account of creation, is a critique of the Bible itself. Do you really want to defend this position?"

Clever.

Scott Wolter: "I know enough to be dangerous."

Not so much.

Reply
Dunior
3/31/2018 07:46:57 am

Mr. "The Church his Going Down" who believes the Christian iconography on the Kensington Rune Stone is "Ohm" who worships the goddess Venus of the star and now Freemason who knows all the "secrets" has the nerve to say to someone:

"Your religious views are coloring your judgment; just an FYI. The Templars absolutely would NEVER have shared treasure or intelligence with the Church. No way, no how."

(let laughter die down)

I guess those Cistercians they hung out with so much were such rebels they NEVER did anything the church told them to do and in fact promoted this bunch of warrior monks who apparently were into yoga and meditation from their time in the Levant thus leaving us this information in Masonic code on a Rune in Minnesota? Then after the Pope dissolved their order they all felt so comfy joining other orders like the one named "Knights of Christ" and "Knights of St. John" to cover up their true pagan beliefs. The whole time they supported the Latin Kingdom they were just joking and didn't really mean it. Stranger than fiction folks. Nothing to see here. I suggest you contact Wolter's "literary agent" and publisher. Maybe no call back?

Reply
Jim
3/31/2018 09:41:23 am

Hey, now that we know Jesus was a Templar, anything is possible,,, maybe they just walked to America eating manna along the way.

Gunn
3/31/2018 10:49:42 am

(In the category of "Not Yet Posted--?")

Thanks for sharing your views about this, Scott. In my mind, I see the Church and the Crusaders as having been able to work together for almost two hundred years, before the fall-out caused by the King of France and a bad, hand-picked pope. I frankly don't see how the various Crusades could have been put together without the serious cooperation of these two entities working together.

I also don't think there was a "secret split" in the combined resources and infrastructure of the two, at least not financially, as relates to building and paying for vast armies.

I realize that you believe there was a secret agenda in the "higher ranks" of the Templars involving a Jesus bloodline and goddess deity worship, etc., but I don't see this as impacting the ability for these two entities to share most common non-religious secrets necessary for fighting wars, including mapping upgrades and, at times, shared possession of treasury resources, as necessary for fighting wars.

All I'm saying, peacefully as usual, is that I don't think the Catholic Church and the Knights Templar were as split-apart as you might be inclined to believe--not for two hundred years. I don't see the animosity between the two that you see, up until the French King and his lackey pope behaved so evilly towards them.

But, anyway, I was hypothesizing about a much-earlier time than 1307, when--in my mind--the two entities would have been getting along amicably enough; I tend to see them as having been able to get along well enough to plant land-claims and treasure together, especially several generations before the Templars were disbanded. But, these are just my own speculations.

Thanks for allowing me to voice my views here about this most important matter concerning "lost and almost forgotten about" Templar treasure.

- Bob Voyles

Jim
3/31/2018 01:20:50 pm

Gunn for Pete's sake, the Templars never were in America !! Since the recent discovery of the 19th century hooked x on a piece of wood and the Larsson Papers, the x's on the runestone are actually proof that it is a fake.
And that goes double for the Catholic Church, they were not running around pre-Columbian America !

Americanegro
3/31/2018 01:41:13 pm

Yes they were! They were prancing hither and thither on "journeys of uptaking/acquisition" planting "land claims" to land they never did and never would control. They and the celibate Cistercians mated with the native sex apes and never went home. This is well-documented, settled science. Way. How. AVM4life.

Jim
3/31/2018 01:58:38 pm

If anyone is still on speaking terms, one might question why, in the midst of constructing their church complex in Newport they switched from a solid stone foundation to a wooden pole foundation that would last from 5 to 20 years. Who the frack builds a church that way ? And where ever does one see an ambulatory roof being built below the tops of the arches ?

Mike M.
3/31/2018 02:49:54 pm

Jason--I got a nice pdf copy of American Antiquities: Discoveries in the West (1834) at http://scienceviews.com/ebooks/pdf/AmericanAntiquities-DiscoveriesInTheWest.pdf

Reply
Giant Flea
4/1/2018 11:24:29 am

Jason,

Take a look at Amazon’s mechanical turk and it’s Human Intelligence Task (HIT) model.

https://www.mturk.com

Pay particular attention to the elastic workforce section. This workforce can be incresibly useful and powerful. It also provides immense scale.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Blog
    Picture

    Author

    I am an author and researcher focusing on pop culture, science, and history. Bylines: New Republic, Esquire, Slate, etc. There's more about me in the About Jason tab.

    Become a Patron!
    Tweets by JasonColavito
    Picture

    Newsletters

    Enter your email below to subscribe to my newsletter for updates on my latest projects, blog posts, and activities, and subscribe to Culture & Curiosities, my Substack newsletter.

    powered by TinyLetter

    Blog Roll

    Ancient Aliens Debunked
    Picture
    A Hot Cup of Joe
    ArchyFantasies
    Bad UFOs
    Mammoth Tales
    Matthew R. X. Dentith
    PaleoBabble
    Picture

    Categories

    All
    Alternative Archaeology
    Alternative Archaeology
    Alternative History
    Alternative History
    America Unearthed
    Ancient Aliens
    Ancient Astronauts
    Ancient History
    Ancient Texts
    Ancient Texts
    Archaeology
    Atlantis
    Conspiracies
    Giants
    Habsburgs
    Horror
    King Arthur
    Knights Templar
    Lovecraft
    Mythology
    Occult
    Popular Culture
    Popular Culture
    Projects
    Pyramids
    Racism
    Science
    Skepticism
    Ufos
    Weird Old Art
    Weird Things
    White Nationalism

    Terms & Conditions

    Please read all applicable terms and conditions before posting a comment on this blog. Posting a comment constitutes your agreement to abide by the terms and conditions linked herein.

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010

    RSS Feed

Picture
Home  |  Blog  |  Books  | Contact  |  About Jason | Terms & Conditions
© 2010-2023 Jason Colavito. All rights reserved.

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Books
    • Legends of the Pyramids
    • The Mound Builder Myth
    • Jason and the Argonauts
    • Cult of Alien Gods >
      • Contents
      • Excerpt
      • Image Gallery
    • Foundations of Atlantis
    • Knowing Fear >
      • Contents
      • Excerpt
      • Image Gallery
    • Hideous Bit of Morbidity >
      • Contents
      • Excerpt
      • Image Gallery
    • Cthulhu in World Mythology >
      • Excerpt
      • Image Gallery
      • Necronomicon Fragments
      • Oral Histories
    • Fiction >
      • Short Stories
      • Free Fiction
    • JasonColavito.com Books >
      • Faking History
      • Unearthing the Truth
      • Critical Companion to Ancient Aliens
      • Studies in Ancient Astronautics (Series) >
        • Theosophy on Ancient Astronauts
        • Pyramidiots!
        • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • Fiction Anthologies >
        • Unseen Horror >
          • Contents
          • Excerpt
        • Moon Men! >
          • Contents
      • The Orphic Argonautica >
        • Contents
        • Excerpt
      • The Faust Book >
        • Contents
        • Excerpt
      • Classic Reprints
      • eBook Minis
    • Free eBooks >
      • Origin of the Space Gods
      • Ancient Atom Bombs
      • Golden Fleeced
      • Ancient America
      • Horror & Science
  • Articles
    • Skeptical Xenoarchaeologist Newsletter >
      • Volumes 1-10 Archive >
        • Volume 1 Archive
        • Volume 2 Archive
        • Volume 3 Archive
        • Volume 4 Archive
        • Volume 5 Archive
        • Volume 6 Archive
        • Volume 7 Archive
        • Volume 8 Archive
        • Volume 9 Archive
        • Volume 10 Archive
      • Volumes 11-20 Archive >
        • Volume 11 Archive
        • Volume 12 Archive
        • Volume 13 Archive
        • Volume 14 Archive
        • Volume 15 Archive
        • Volume 16 Archive
        • Volume 17 Archive
        • Volume 18 Archive
        • Volume 19 Archive
        • Volume 20 Archive
      • Volumes 21-30 Archive >
        • Volume 21 Archive
        • Volume 22 Archive
    • Television Reviews >
      • Ancient Aliens Reviews
      • In Search of Aliens Reviews
      • America Unearthed
      • Pirate Treasure of the Knights Templar
      • Search for the Lost Giants
      • Forbidden History Reviews
      • Expedition Unknown Reviews
      • Legends of the Lost
      • Unexplained + Unexplored
      • Rob Riggle: Global Investigator
    • Book Reviews
    • Galleries >
      • Bad Archaeology
      • Ancient Civilizations >
        • Ancient Egypt
        • Ancient Greece
        • Ancient Near East
        • Ancient Americas
      • Supernatural History
      • Book Image Galleries
    • Videos
    • Collection: Ancient Alien Fraud >
      • Chariots of the Gods at 50
      • Secret History of Ancient Astronauts
      • Of Atlantis and Aliens
      • Aliens and Ancient Texts
      • Profiles in Ancient Astronautics >
        • Erich von Däniken
        • Robert Temple
        • Giorgio Tsoukalos
        • David Childress
      • Blunders in the Sky
      • The Case of the False Quotes
      • Alternative Authors' Quote Fraud
      • David Childress & the Aliens
      • Faking Ancient Art in Uzbekistan
      • Intimations of Persecution
      • Zecharia Sitchin's World
      • Jesus' Alien Ancestors?
      • Extraterrestrial Evolution?
    • Collection: Skeptic Magazine >
      • America Before Review
      • Native American Discovery of Europe
      • Interview: Scott Sigler
      • Golden Fleeced
      • Oh the Horror
      • Discovery of America
      • Supernatural Television
      • Review of Civilization One
      • Who Lost the Middle Ages
      • Charioteer of the Gods
    • Collection: Ancient History >
      • Prehistoric Nuclear War
      • The China Syndrome
      • Atlantis, Mu, and the Maya
      • Easter Island Exposed
      • Who Built the Sphinx?
      • Who Built the Great Pyramid?
      • Archaeological Cover Up?
    • Collection: The Lovecraft Legacy >
      • Pauwels, Bergier, and Lovecraft
      • Lovecraft in Bergier
      • Lovecraft and Scientology
    • Collection: UFOs >
      • Alien Abduction at the Outer Limits
      • Aliens and Anal Probes
      • Ultra-Terrestrials and UFOs
      • Rebels, Queers, and Aliens
    • Scholomance: The Devil's School
    • Prehistory of Chupacabra
    • The Templars, the Holy Grail, & Henry Sinclair
    • Magicians of the Gods Review
    • The Curse of the Pharaohs
    • The Antediluvian Pyramid Myth
    • Whitewashing American Prehistory
    • James Dean's Cursed Porsche
  • The Library
    • Ancient Mysteries >
      • Ancient Texts >
        • Mesopotamian Texts >
          • Atrahasis Epic
          • Epic of Gilgamesh
          • Kutha Creation Legend
          • Babylonian Creation Myth
          • Descent of Ishtar
          • Berossus
          • Comparison of Antediluvian Histories
        • Egyptian Texts >
          • The Shipwrecked Sailor
          • Dream Stela of Thutmose IV
          • The Papyrus of Ani
          • Classical Accounts of the Pyramids
          • Inventory Stela
          • Manetho
          • Eratosthenes' King List
          • The Story of Setna
          • Leon of Pella
          • Diodorus on Egyptian History
          • On Isis and Osiris
          • Famine Stela
          • Old Egyptian Chronicle
          • The Book of Sothis
          • Horapollo
          • Al-Maqrizi's King List
        • Teshub and the Dragon
        • Hermetica >
          • The Three Hermeses
          • Kore Kosmou
          • Corpus Hermeticum
          • The Asclepius
          • The Emerald Tablet
          • Hermetic Fragments
          • Prologue to the Kyranides
          • The Secret of Creation
          • Ancient Alphabets Explained
          • Prologue to Ibn Umayl's Silvery Water
          • Book of the 24 Philosophers
          • Aurora of the Philosophers
        • Hesiod's Theogony
        • Periplus of Hanno
        • Ctesias' Indica
        • Sanchuniathon
        • Sima Qian
        • Syncellus's Enoch Fragments
        • The Book of Enoch
        • Slavonic Enoch
        • Sepher Yetzirah
        • Tacitus' Germania
        • De Dea Syria
        • Aelian's Various Histories
        • Julius Africanus' Chronography
        • Eusebius' Chronicle
        • Chinese Accounts of Rome
        • Ancient Chinese Automaton
        • The Orphic Argonautica
        • Fragments of Panodorus
        • Annianus on the Watchers
        • The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
      • Medieval Texts >
        • Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
          • Medieval Pyramid Lore
          • John Malalas on Ancient Egypt
          • Fragments of Abenephius
          • Akhbar al-zaman
          • Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah
          • Murtada ibn al-‘Afif
          • Al-Maqrizi on the Pyramids
          • Al-Suyuti on the Pyramids
        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
        • Isidore of Seville
        • Book of Liang: Fusang
        • Agobard on Magonia
        • Book of Thousands
        • Voyage of Saint Brendan
        • Power of Art and of Nature
        • Travels of Sir John Mandeville
        • Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
      • James Dean's Scrapbook
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
  • About Jason
    • Biography
    • Jason in the Media
    • Contact Jason
    • About JasonColavito.com
    • Terms and Conditions
  • Search