"[The reigning] model of human history, carefully built-up by scholars over the past two centuries, is sadly and completely wrong . . . [It is something which we cannot] put right with minor tinkering and adjustments. What is needed is for the existing model to be thrown out the window and for us to start again with open minds and with absolutely no preconceptions . . ."

Graham Hancock ¹

hen I was in my early teens -- we're talking early 1970's -- I attended a seminary . . . Think high school with no girls, pressed uniforms, strict rules, a campus marked with Roman Catholic symbolism everywhere, daily observance of innumerable elements of ritual . . . a matrix within the Matrix, if you will. Readers should not read disparagingly into my description, because my overall remembrance of the experience is far more positive than negative.
However, even in my own time, at that early age, I was able to witness how Orthodoxy twists empirical evidence in amazingly convoluted ways to fit its own agenda. Specifically, I can remember one class where the lecturing priest attempted to reinforce a long held believe among strict creationists, namely that our planet, our solar system, our galaxy . . . indeed, the entirely of the Universe, was not only created in seven days, but that the Universe could not possibly have existed prior to 4,004 B.C.
And how would one explain recently developed methodologies, such as carbon-14 dating, which show that the earth is -- at the least -- billions of years old? Well, that's easy, stated my professor, brimming with confidence, "For all we know, a day at the time of Creation may have been equal to a billion years in our time."
As I glanced around the classroom, I was equally sure that I was not the only one in attendance not buying this nonsense. (Years later I would remember this experience while contemplating Joseph Campbell's "chiding mother," who scolds her twelve year old son for writing a paper on evolution, sans Adam and Eve. ["Oh, those scientists! Those are only theories!"]) [2]
Those who hold themselves as unyielding adherents to Modern Science have no cause to laugh or belittle, however. For a far greater discovery in my own life is the degree to which our own orthodox system of knowledge is caught in a vast fabric of cognitive disonance. It rivals in orders of magnitude the minor prejudice that ensnared my high school professor.
As I discussed in Kuhn's work in Chapter 4 [sidebar], the fatal flaw in Scientism is that it cleaves not to the quest for Truth, but to the power of concensus among a professional elite, who exist to tell the unwashed masses the Truth that is acceptable for them to believe. Concurrent with this, they must do what they must to convey that financial and political success, the yardstick by which people of our Age measure their worth, has no influence on the integrity of their work within their underlying disciplines. (That people everywhere accept this absurd proposition is yet another example of Doublespeak.)
Although prevailing historical thought gazes at our Western mechanistic world view and places its origins at the foot of Descartes, or even Bacon [3], I maintain that a more penetrating mind will see that the seeds of our current predictament go back much farther. Toynbee himself, who ascribed to Western Civilization a position of "apparentation" from Graeco-Roman or Hellenic Society, was still able to see enough homogeneity in the twenty civilizations that have lived, breathed, and died before ours in the last 6,000 years to say that "(all) should be regarded hypothetically, as philosophically contemporaneous and philosophically equivalent." [4] For Quigley, in his count of "twenty civilizations which have existed in all of human history," there can be found one "common pattern of experience." [5]
I maintain that these common elements are particular to this Age, but not prior Ages . . . that there are, as it were, "Global Cultural Operating Systems" (GCOS) that operate inter-cataclysmally -- between truly severe mass extinction events. These, however, must not be confused with smaller cataclysmal phenomenon which are not sufficiently severe to cause the GCOS to be rewritten -- only rebooted. Within the GCOS are numerous sub-cultures, some operating at various times within the life of a GCOS that are at considerable variance from one another. Those sub-cultures that are dominant (as "Modern, Western Civilization" does now) are those that play to the strengths of prevailing GCOS . . . as in the Prisoner's Dilemma game model we examine later in this section.
We cannot proceed to examine the history of medicine in our own time, unless we understand the GCOS under which it operates. In attaining this understanding, we first create some fundamental premises.

Premise #1 --- History is Cyclical Not Linear;
Made So Through the Convolutions of Numerous and Surprisingly Frequent Mass Extinctions on this Planet

A fundamental errancy that has dogged orthodox archeology, as tenaciously as the theme of "chemotherapy and radiation treatment for good health" has dogged modern medicine. is that history is linear -- that as my creationist history teacher implied: our civilization rides a linear wave of progress from our progenitors ascending fruit-laden trees butt-naked in the jungle to modern men ascending gleaming skyscrapers in fast-moving elevators. And whether the time span appointed for this alleged improvement is 4,000 or 4 billion years, held within the grips of religious creationist thought or Neodarwinism, is immaterial.
They're wrong -- and the Catastrophists are correct, through the sheer weight of the empirical evidence.
Holding onto ideas that support an establishment's dogma is no more fitting today than assuaging the prejudices of flat-earth proponents five centuries ago. Those who wish to spend untold hours going through incontrovertible evidence without the pre-approval of the Establishment might start with Michael Cremo, or even Immanuel Velikovsky. (See [ 6 ].)

The Ottosdalin metallic spheres are made of such sophisticated material that they cannot be scratched by steel. Found embedded in pyrophyllite rock in the early 1980's, they appear man-made and yet pre-date any acceptable age for advanced life forms on earth. They were made approximately 2.8 billion years ago . . . right here . . . on earth . . . Note: that's billion, not million. "[We are besieged with the ignorant notion that] if facts do not agree with the favored theory, then such facts, even an imposing array of them, must be discarded . . . There exists within the scientific community a knowledge filter that screens out unwelcome evidence. This process of knowledge filtration has been going on for well over a century and continues to the present day . . . " " . . . Man disfigures the past to purge it of anything that violates his need to have harmony and stability, to have 'the heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre, observe degree, priority and place.' " [ 6 ]

It is beyond the scope of this book to re-itemize the thousands of pieces of evidence that clearly show that men -- or to speak more broadly -- humanoids as intelligent as ourselves have lived on this planet for not hundreds of thousands of years, but for what would appear to be hundreds of millions of years. The unspeakable damage that such evidence would inflict on any of the variations of current Neodarwinism thought is self-evident. (What is not so self-evident is why something as simple as humanoid footprints that are 250 million years ago cannot be properly addressed by modern archeology -- and are relegated to investigators on the fringe.) [7]
And yet it is not as if members of the orthodox scientific establishment have not come to similarly dismissive conclusions about some of the most hallowed tenets of our origins. (What comes to mind are things like the late-in-life relevations of Francis Crick, the Nobel Prize winning co-discoverer of DNA. He capped his career preaching that man most probably did not originate on planet earth, but was the result of panspermia -- that is, seeding from extraterrestrial origins). [8]
For readers who cannot accept this Premise as a given, a more thorough reading of books in the Footnotes of this chapter is recommended. Quite apart from footnoted published sources, I can say from personal experience, that numerous colleagues have told me through the course of their own journey that they have independently come to the conclusion that man's history on earth is far older than convention would have us believe.
And if you believe that man -- or beings close to us in morphology and intelligence -- is hundreds of thousands, if not untold millions of years old, than you have to accept that there must have cataclymic events -- lots of them -- that have completely wiped out earlier civilizational periods. As it turns out, there is plenty of archeological evidence to support the contention that mass extinctions occur with a frightening regularity on this planet -- far more than convention would admit. [9]
Such evidence forms the backbone of my second premise.

Premise #2 --- Severe Global Cataclysms Creates New,
Distinctive Civilizational Ages & Rewrite the New
Global Cultural Operating System (GCOS) That Mark Them

The archeological evidence, most of it spurned by the orthodox community, showing that mass extinctions have taken place on earth with a shocking regularity, is so voluminous that a host of theories have arisen to try to make sense of the data. Some cataclysms are mildy severe, such that the global operating system has to reboot. Like your computer, your system starts anew -- but still, with no changes having been made to your operating system. (Only when the cataclysm reaches serious mass extinction levels is the GCOS entirely rewritten -- but we'll get to that later.)
Richard Firestone, and his associates, have written about the relatively recent effects of a super nova explosion (their best candidate being called "Geminga") that caused mass extinction events on this planet in waves, at roughly 41,000, 34,000, and a longer wave that occurred 13,000 to 16,000 years ago. The effects of the first wave were so great that virtually all megafauna on the North American continent was destroyed (i.e. horses, camels, mammoths, masadons, etc.) [10]
The evidence is compelling and overwhelming.
Thought provoking is Firestone's approach in including indigenous stories which support and enlarge the evidence gathered -- (seventeen in all). [11]

As Firestone points out, supernova remnants move with incredible speed. This specimen from the constellation Sagitarrius travels at more than 1.3 million miles per hour. The evidence suggests that a similar fragment hit earth around 41,000 BCE. Because the life of a man is of such short duration, we are not able to appreciate just how dangerous our galaxy is and how frequently our solar system (and earth specifically) encounters extraterrestrial objects. (p. 175) "Legend has one great foe to its perpetuation -- civilization. Civilization brings with it a contempt for everything which it cannot understand; skepticism becomes the synonym for intelligence; men no longer repeat -- they doubt, they dissect, they sneer, they reject, they invent . . . " [ 12 ]

Equally impressive is the work of D.S. Allan and J.B. Delair. They distill a host of archeological findings, some of which overlays Firestone's comments concerning conditions evidenced after the Younger Dryas period. One of the results of this particular extraterrestrial cataclysm (which many believe to have been caused by the celestial body, Phaeton, popularized by Ovid) was "the flood." As it turns out, the resulting deluge is not an isolated story from the Bible. There are over 500 known stories, most from the descendants of indigenous survivors scattered around the world on all six populated continents that confirm the event -- which the authors estimate happened approximately 9,500 BCE. [13]
Where I live in South America, the legends of previous great civilizations is rampant. Harold Wilkins provided a connection between legends throughout Latin America and the fall of Atlantis [14]
Of more recent date, is the collection of essays brought together by J. Douglas Kenyon in his Forbidden History [15], who introduces his work by reminding us of the miopic conditions that prevent us from recognizing the signs of our immense past that are all around us:

"[For] after all, it is argued, if there had been an earlier, advanced civilization we would have discovered unmistakeable evidence of its existence. Presumably, we would have seen the remains of its highways, and bridges, and electrical wiring. We would have found its plastic bottles, its city dumps, and its CD-ROMS. Those are, after all, the things we will leave behind for future archeologists to puzzle over. "But could an ancient civilization have risen to heights similar to our own, yet have traveled a different road? What would we understand of a world that might have employed fundamentally different -- though no less effective -- techniques to harness the forces of nature? Would we, or could we, comprehend a world capable of, for example, creating and transmitting energy by means other than a power grid, traveling great distances without internal combustion engines, or making highly complex calculations involving earth science and astronomy without electronic computers? "Do we have the grace to recognize and respect achievements other than our own, or must we take the easy way out and resort to crude stereotyping of our mysterious primitive ancestors, dismissing out of hand anything we don't immediately understand? " [16]

Kenyon himself goes on to note that Velikovsky studied the issue of prior civilizations extensively and came to the conclusion that modern man is suffering from a collective amnesia . . . that tramatic events of the past have so scarred man's collective consciousness that a protective psychological defense mechanism prevents us from remembering events we cannot bear to remember. On the individual level we call this post-traumatic stress syndrome, but, as Kenyon notes, why could this diagnosis not apply to the culture of an entire planet? [17]
It is futile to grade the probability of the various theories that have emerged to explain the new archaeological data -- and it is unnecessary for the purposes of our study. What IS important is to recognize that evidence exists that entire world civilizations has fallen and been replaced by new ones. And it is at the juncture where cataclysm occurs, where nature has "cleaned out the pitri dish," laid waste prior complex societies and ecosystems worldwide, and left advanced life forms to begin anew that real change can occur, unhampered by huge inertial impediments of the prior age.
Any computer programmer knows that when he or she sits down to write code, the moment where the screen is bare and not one character has been set down holds infinite possibilities, limited only by the boundaries of the underlying hardware. With the first line brings dramatic limitation. Structure has begun. Functionality requires focus and limits. There may be 50,000 lines of code -- but none that so narrow the course of what follows as the first few lines.
An arrow may travel 200 meters to reach its target, but nothing so restricts the direction, range, and speed of the arrow as the conditions set by the archer before the arrow leaves the bow.
I maintain that to uncover, through a process not unlike linear regression, what code was written at the beginning of one's Age, one may, with a level of comprehension that borders on the metaphysical, grasp everything else that follows. You cannot understand the essence of your Age, see through thousands of years of Orwellian Doublespeak, or successfully navigate through a sea of cognitive disonance and the unending disparities between common narratives and the understandings of Elites, if you don't.
My journey in coming to this conclusion was greatly aided by the work of Stephen Wolfram. A prodigy in mathematics, Wolfram began at age twelve (1972) to study cellular automata and was surprised to find that formulas of immense simplicity gave rise to patterns of such unintended complexity that the outcomes were completely counter-intuitive. We live, after all, in a world culture where it is given that engineering a complex outcome requires the development of complex inputs.
Devoting himself, for the next 30 years -- first as an occasional hobby and then eventually with considerable effort -- to studying this phenomenon, Wolfram released his findings in 2002. [18]
Early on, Wolfram provides 255 "rules," or simple formulas to demonstrate his "new science." His question began with a simple idea, or as he himself explains:

"New directions in science have typically been initiated by certain central observations or experiments. And for the kind of science that I describe . . . these concerned the behavior of simple programs. In our everyday experience with computers, the programs that we encounter are normally set up to perform very definite tasks. But the key idea that I had nearly twenty years ago . . . was to ask what happens if one instead just looks at simple arbitrarily chosen programs, created without any specific task in mind. How do such programs typically behave? The mathematical methods that have in the past dominated theoritical science do not help much with such a question. But with a computer it is straightforward to start doing experiments to investigate it. For all one need do is just set up a sequence of possible simple programs, and then run them and see how they behave... An important feature of cellular automata is that their behavior can readily be presented in a visual way. And so the picture below shows what one cellular automaton does over the course of ten steps. [16]

The picture Wolfram points to is shown below. The precondition is simple: each every step, as in all cellular automata of this type, there is a definite rule determining the color of a given cell from the color of that cell and its immediate left and right neighbors on the step before. Here, the formula is: each cell on each row will be black where it or either of its neighbors were black on the step before:

Simple, right? . . . We know what this pattern is going to look like 10,000 generations from now. But what happens if we introduce the tiniest variation -- still keeping the formula simple. Do we still get a predictable, intuitive result? In the 50 generation sample below, we see the pattern produced by "Rule 90," shown on p. 25 of Wolfram's book. The formula is as follows: a cell should be black whenever one or the other, but not both, of its neighbors were black on the step before. [Click to enlarge, or see p. 25 of New Science.]

It's not all that complicated, but it still contains nested elements that would not have occurred to us without forethought -- namely, producing the automata for ourselves from the formula provided. The following example is the same formula taken out 500 steps. It is more complicated, but still just a larger version of the 50 step evolution of the same formula. Novelty has peaked. [Click to enlarge, or see p. 26 of New Science.]

The last example we'll use from Wolfram's work is called Rule 30. The formula is: Look at each cell and its right-hand neighbor. If both of these were white on the previous step, then take the new color of the cell to be whatever the previous color of its left-hand neighbor was. Otherwise, take the new color to be the opposite of that. Given a moment of thought, you realize that this is still a very simple formula. Taken out 50 generations, we get the following. [Click to enlarge, or see p. 27 of New Science.]

What we get, on the surface, appears to be chaotic. We see neither discernable order or clearly defineable regularity. However, if we carry out the automaton evolution to 500 generations, we get a complete different picture. Although chaos still occupies the right side of the pattern, a very regular set of patterns emerges on the left. The imbalance exists because even if we were not immediately aware of it, even if it didn't appear intuitive to us at the onset, the originating formula contained with it the requisite assymetry. [Click to enlarge, or see p. 29 of New Science.]

Wolfram was not the first to note the enormous, unforeseen complexities that can emerge from simple initiating conditions. The emerging field of chaos theory was built on this premise. Years earlier, Gleick noted in his treatise on the subject a population biologist at Princeton University who in the early days of this discipline was "about to publish an impassioned plea that all scientists should look at the surprisingly complex behavior lurking in some simple models." [19] Seen, from a different angle, the impetus behind Sheldrake's work on "formative causation" was based, in part, on his observation that in terms of morphology, behavior, social structure, etc., there was far too much that could not be explained through conventional, mechanistic explanations of genetic predisposition. (In other words, how is it possible for all this complexity to emerge from such simple biological preconditions. We must be missing something). [20] Nevertheless, Wolfram's work is the most illustrative for our purposes.

The idea that marks our current premise is simple, but not novel. Moreover, it is hardly controvertible. In fact, the converse is ludicrous: that you have severe cataclysms that decimate people, their civilizations, the animal and plant life of the period . . . that you can, essentially, bring breathtaking destruction to the existing order, and then, as if by magic, the GCOS of the one dominant species continues on, unimpeded.
Cultural operating systems, once set in motion in earnest, are like tailor-made gloves. If you destroy the hands for which the gloves were made, you render the gloves useless. Someone else may wear them, albeit ill-fitting. If my analogy appears awkward it is because it is -- and we grope to find one that is better. Cultural operating systems are not tailor made; they grow as the new emerging Age following a world cataclysm grows. Calcification begins to set in only a few centuries after inception, taking millenia to unfold until, to use the conceptual framework of Terence McKenna, the novelty critical to the survival of that civilization approaches zero. [21]
What is more controvertible is the existence of a truly worldwide cultural operating system. Does enough commonality exist, as is alluded to by our earlier comments from Toynbee and Quigley? Surely, the records of cultural anthropologists are replete with stories of clashing civilizations that are not only distinctly different, but completely opposite in character. The most notable example for those of us who have lived most of our lives as North Americans, is that of native, indigenous peoples versus Western Civilization, characterized by waves of Europeans who sought not to co-exist with native cultures, but control, conquer, and subsume them.
Whereas European culture carried with it a concept of governance that served primarily monied interest, native cultures were primarily socialist, in the truest sense. European leadership was marked by what it could take from its people; native peoples in North America accessed leadership by what it did for its people. Europeans left medicine and the healing arts to a specialized class; native peoples felt that something so personal as healing should be owned by everyone in the tribe. Europeans spread with them law enforcement, prisons, and criminal laws; native peoples did not have law enforcement, prisons, or criminal laws because, living in an appreciation of life in its natural state, they never needed them -- crime being rare. Europeans had a concept known as the mental institution; native peoples didn't have them and couldn't relate to them, because their people had no concept of mental illness -- probably because their lifestyles don't lend themselves to producing people who are mentally ill.
Seton illustrates these distinct differences between these localized sub-cultures (as opposed to World Cultures) then quotes Dr. Edgar L. Hewett in his own comparison, "There can be no question that the Red man had evolved a better civilization than our own. Its one weakness was in the fact that it did not carry the mastery of metals . . . In esthetic, ethical, and social culture, the Indians surpassed their conquerors . . . it is to the glory of the American Indian race that it developed a type of government entirely different from that of the European, and more effective. The welfare of the people was the supreme end of government." (1930)
Professor C. A. Nicols, reportedly a "profound student of Indian life," was quoted in the same work, saying: "I am afraid we have stamped out a system that was a producing men who, taken all round, were better than ourselves." [22]
Surely, one cannot say that Western Civilization and the cultures of the hundreds of native tribes that occupied North America were similar. They certainly are not branches coming from the same tree.
So what can possibly be meant by a controlling or Global Cultural Operating System? The answer, strange as it seems, comes from examining what has become a widely accepted tenet of evolutionary biology: our "selfish genes."

It goes without saying that in our global Western culture, it is competition, and not cooperation, which provide the backdrop for our sense of healthy development, advance, and self-worth. (For example . . . do we ever consider the implications of our ubiquitous sporting events as they reflect on our culture? Remember, I cannot call myself successful unless I have beaten all my opponents. I am not a winner unless all others up to the point of my coronation are certified losers.)
It wouldn't seem right to see the scientific establishment, to which the current, dominant sub-culture within our GCOS gave birth, provide a self-definition that deviated from this outlook. "We are survival machines -- robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes." [23] And not just people: " . . . all animals, plants, bacteria, and viruses." [24] The problem I have with Darwinists like Dawkins is that, if -- truly -- we are reduced to nothing but machines exclusively committed to the four "F's" (feeding, fearing, fighting and fucking) does this not severely limit our cultural development possibilities? Or are we not limited in seeing all our cultural development options through the rubric of our current global zeitgeist?
Dawkins saw in an old game, Prisoner's Dilemma, the opportunity to examine the possibilities. [25] There are many variations to this extremely simple two party game, but here is the the original one, the one used by Dawkins in his book. At the center of the game is a "banker," who pays winnings and collects "fines" from the two players. Each side has but two hards in his hands. One is marked "cooperate" and the other "defect." Each holds the cards face down so that the other party cannot see or be influenced by the other's move. We submit our playing card and wait for the banker to turn them over.
The outcome is very limited -- or so it seems: two to the second, or four. The outcomes, and the payments and fines connected thereto, are as follows:
Outcome 1 -- BOTH COOPERATE: The banker each pays us $300. We call this outcome, REWARD.
Outcome 2 -- BOTH DEFECT: The banker fines each of us $10. We call this outcome, PUNISHMENT.
Outcome 3 -- YOU COOPERATE, I DEFECT: The banker pays me $500 (the Temptation to Defect) and fines you (the Sucker) $100.
Outcome 4 -- YOU DEFECT, I COOPERATE: The banker pays you the Temptation payoff of $500 and fines me, the Sucker, $100.

The table below illustrates the outcomes, with all monetary gains or losses indicated from my perspective:

The simplicity of the game and the surprising number of possible outcomes when played through an extensive number of rounds is beguiling. When played repeatedly (called "Iterated" or "Repeated" Prisoner's Dilemma), you get a wide range of potential strategies. These strategies carry descriptive names (like "Always Cooperate" and "Always Defect" -- where, as you can see under the prevailing rules, the latter will always defeat the former . . . "Tit for Tat," where the player cooperates on the first move and thereafter copies the previous move of the other player . . . "Naive Prober," identical to Tit for Tat, except that there are random moves where the player throws in a gratuitous defection and claims the high Temptation payment . . . "Suspicious Tit for Tat," identical to Tit for Tat, except that it defects on the first move . . . "Remorseful Prober," like Naive Prober except that it remembers whether it has just "spontaneously defected, and whether the result was prompt retaliation. If so it 'remorsefully' allows its opponent 'one free hit' without retaliating; etc.)
Dawkins leans heavily on the work of Robert Axelrod, who ran computerized competitions using a variety of submitted "strategies." Those strategies leaning in favor of cooperation were termed "nice"; those in favor of defection, "nasty." These strategies can be thought of in terms of localized cultures, or perhaps the culture of an entire civilization. The rules of the game -- Prisoner's Dilemma -- can be thought of as our Global Cultural Operating System, of which the strategies or localized cultures are but possible subsets. Stated another way, you might think of the GCOS as the global cultural conditions over which sub-cultures are strategies for playing, within those set of rules.
Statistically -- but not intuitively, the "nice" strategies faired better overall. In fact, Dawkins entitles the chapter on this subject, "Nice guys finish first."
Such outcomes, however, do not translate into the real world. I suspect that this is largely because of the artificiality of the game: each player sees the move of his opponent as soon as it is played. The same rules apply to both sides. Knowledge is not bifurcated. Truth is not sequestered.
It goes without saying that today's "winning strategy" -- modern or "Western" civilization -- is most decidedly "nasty." It is not by accident that an axiom of American business is the expression, "Nice guys come in last place." It is with this self-evident observation that Harold Bloom could look at the expanse of history, find within it the unerring leaning to the forces of the demonic and proclaim, "Nature does not abhor evil; she embraces it. She uses it to build. With it, she moves the human world to greater heights of organization, intricacy, and power . . . Death, destruction, and fury do not disturb the Mother of our world, they are merely parts of her plan. Only we are outraged by the Lucifer Principle's consequences . . . for we are casualties of Nature's callous indifference to life, pawns who suffer and die to live out her schemes. One result: from our best qualities come out worst. From our urge to pull together comes our tendency to tear each other apart. From our devotion to a higher good comes our propensity to the foulest atrocities. From our commitment to ideals comes our excuse to hate. Since the beginning of history, we have been blinded by evil's ability to don a selfless disguise. We have failed to see that our finest qualities often lead us to the actions we most abhor -- murder, torture, genocide, and war." It is no wonder that in observing the effects of what was, even then, the winning strategy of our current global operating system, Descartes would come to the conclusion that the "basic categories of ethics are not good and evil, iniquity and righteousness, but, as in the natural world, power and impotence." [26]
The astute reader will not miss this application of this tendency in modern medicine. Stripped of its well-worn, thread-thin propaganda, we see an organism that creates diagnostic techniques that actually induce disease [27], vaccines that confer more disease than they have ever prevented [28], pharmaceutical drugs with laughably lengthy side effect caveats that even at their best address one or more symptoms, rarely the underlying cause -- why? because they're fundamentally toxic [29], scientific research elites who effectively create parameters that absolutely insure that it will be impossible to find a cure for the disease for which taxpayers are paying them billions [30], regulatory agencies (think: U.S. FDA) that work to ban or make unavailable inexpensive vitamin and mineral products that threaten pharmaceutical profits [31] or even EXISTING medications for indications when they threaten existing patent drugs [32], prostitutional medical journals that admit that the research they are publishing make a "mockery of clinical investigation," [33] . . . to name just a few of defining attributes that form the cesspool that is modern, organized medicine.
Has it always been this way and must it always be? Bloom closes with a glimmer of hope, stating "To our species, evolution has given something new -- the imagination. What that gift, we have dreamed of peace. Our task -- perhaps the only one that will save us -- is to turn what we have dreamed into reality." [34] I agree with Bloom's sense of urgency concerning our future, but I disagree with his assessment of our past.
Our age is Luciferian because it is so dictated by our current dominant Global Operating System, set in place at the close of the last major catastrophy -- the Deluge, an event that was not the last major global catastrophy, but certainly its most severe. (See Velikovsky). Evidence abounds of a Golden Age -- one preceeding the current run of 26 civilizations -- where peace dominated, life was simple, and the Luciferian principle did not hold sway. "The malaise has apparently been perceived in all civilizations," notes Hiram Caton, "for none lacks a mythology of yearning for the golden age and the simple life." [35] Steve Taylor's recent work combs through considerable recent anthropological evidence to show that throughout the world, indigenous peoples tell of a "Golden Age," where war was virtually non-existent, in patriarchy's place stood an equality and mutual respect between the sexes, greed and exploitation were unknown as they are now, and predominant was a 'strong attachment to the natural world' and a deep reverence for it." He calls the transition to our current GCOS, The Fall -- which is the title of his work. [36]
"It sounds like paradise, and in a way . . . it was. In fact . . . this is exactly how it seemed to later peoples, who remembered this pre-Fall period of history in their mythology, as a Golden Age or an era when 'The men of perfect virtue' lived. No human groups invaded other groups' territory and tried to conquer them and steal their possessions. There were no wandering bands of marauders who raided villages, and no pirates who lived by attacking coastal settlements. Everywhere the status of women was equal to that of men and nowhere were there any different classes or castes, with different degrees of status and wealth . . . a spirit of natural harmony seems to have filled the whole planet, a harmony between human beings and nature and amongst human beings themselves. Human beings may have been oppressed by nature to an extent, but they were free from oppression by other human beings. Human groups didn't oppress other groups, members of the same groups didn't oppress each other, and men didn't oppress women." [37]
Heinberg, writing 16 years earlier, with less access to the recent findings, notes, "The evidence of anthropology and archaeology may not prove (though it certainly does not deny) the former existence of a Golden Age -- that is, of a unitary culture in which people were universally and continually telepathic, lived close to Nature, and possessed miraculous powers. But . . . anthropological and archaeological discoveries have shown, almost beyond a doubt, that two of the most destructure aspects of civilization (the use and justification of violence as a means of ordering society and the desire for dominance over other human beings and over Nature) were acquired only recently. The findings of archaeologists show that in the past human beings did live -- and therefore in principle are capable of living -- in peace and harmony both among themselves and with Nature." [38]
It has been a grand quest through the ages to determine what caused this "Golden Age" to come to an end. Taylor has no problem locating a point of descension, which he attempts to show is connected to environmental causes in an area which James DeMeo calls "Saharasia." What resulted were resource wars (or . . . just plain wars --- for what war has ever existed that wasn't, in truth, about dominion over resources?), which resulted in man's devolvement into an "ego explosion" from which our species have been plaguing itself and Nature ever since. [39] But Heinberg is not willing to commit to any one theory, "What caused the Fall? Why and how was the Age of Innocence brought to an end? These questions have perplexed theologians and philosophers for millenia . . . the myths themselves do not present a straightforward, unified explanation, rather, in describing what seems to be a shift in the fundamental polarity of human consciousness, they employ a variety of images that seem to be metaphors for some subjective, spiritual event." From the orthodox Christian, who believes that the "Fall" took place in the Garden of Eden, to the similar myths recounted by Heinberg, one thing is undeniable: the common elements that unite them all. Such stories are regarded as myth -- but it is the contention of researchers like Heinberg that they are meant to convey real events. (Velikovsky notes that the prophets of the Old Testement speak incessantly about global catastrophes, which although they are more recent than those which called the "Fall," are equally the victims of discounting: "(they all) speak insistently about these catastrophes (but despite their clear intent and concreteness of testimony they have gone) unnoticed. The texts are read and looked upon as mere metaphors or allegories of political events." [40]

Were the exact cause of "The Fall" crucial to Meditopia -- assuming it comes down to just one cause -- I would extend my own argument.
It is not.
Were the exact chronological location of the spiritual demise of our race crucial -- again, I would extend my own argument.
But it is not . . . for it matters not one whit whether -- to use Taylor's language -- we have subjected ourselves, our environment, our planet, to 6,000 years of insanity . . . 8,000 years, or if I am to use D.S. Allan's chronology going back to the last major Deluge in 9,500 B.C. -- 11,500 years. It matters little whether or not the deluge was created because of a pole shift; the gravitational effects of a large, passing extraterrestial object; a supernova explosion outside our Solar System, like Geminga; or some combination thereof.
The point is, it happened. The record is too replete from too many sources to pretend it didn't happen.
Contained within those same records are the stories of altered life that follow cataclysm -- and here is where common sense must override the incessant need to justify everything from the archaeological record, as if we have all lost the ability to reason the obvious: cataclysm brings with it a breakdown of the established order. Mass extinction comes, and with it ecosystems and societies are remade. I regard this as self-evident -- though the record is clearly supportive. (In the realm of science, you will remember our discussions of Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions in the last chapter: paradigm shifts (a microcosmic example of what we're talking about) never occur on their own. They are a result of crisis posed by a new and compelling theory or stream of thought. The old thought is not destroyed unless a new and compelling "cataclysm" arrives to remake the discipline. Rebirth does not occur without destruction.)
In the act of a GCOS rewrite --- not a reboot, but a rewrite --- the rules of Prisoner's Dilemma change. Wolfram, at it were, gets to start fresh with a few formula for his cellular automata. In that delicate moment when life begins anew, opportunities emerge to take the world in a direction that may be at complete variance with the dictates of life in the prior Age. The petri dish that we call Earth is a new, fresh culture, ready to accept the first few lines of our new operating code. What new program will we introduce to run the new Earth? Will it be anything close to what we have now --- where a variation of "Always Defect, Especially When You Deceptively Can Make It Look Like You're Cooperating" has been employed now for thousands of years to give the greatest spoils to the one who does the best job of pillaging, raping, bombing, while perfecting internal and external propaganga to justify such benign behavior? Will the new program we create allow an organized medicine to continue as it is now --- creating more disease than it relieves? Underwriting a health care holocaust that rivals the most vicious of declared wars?
We hope not.
But then it is my argument that we risk making the same mistakes in "writing" the new program, unless we regressively go back to the first few lines of code from the existing GCOP --- the one that was written 6,000 . . . or 8,000 . . . or 11,500 years ago and examine the DNA that created our world. Ours is a "seed corrupted," and we will not succeed in creating a new world unless we can grasp --- bookend --- the one we leave behind. Moreover, we coincidentally now find ourselves with an emerging urgency to do so.
People like Ervin Laszlo believe we are approaching the "tipping point," and the time to make changes to our global operating system is now -- because as dire as things appear on the surface, it's not too late (though he doesn't use those exact words.) Yes, despite all the evidence that the inertial factors that hold our unsustainable ways in place are implacable, Laszlo pleads for a miracle within the next seven . . . well, let's see now, make that . . . five years. [41] Sir Martin Rees argues that our species is approached its "final hour," and is "more at risk than at any earlier phase in its history," [42], an opinion seconded by the Sir James Locklock (who popularized the concept of "Gaia").
"I am not a pessimist," Locklock writes, "and have always imagined that good in the end would prevail. When our Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees, now President of the Royal Society, published in 2004 his book, Our Final Century, he dared to think and write about the end of civilization and the human race. I enjoyed it as a good read, full of wisdom, but took it as no more than a speculation among friends and nothing to lose sleep over."
"I was wrong; it was prescient, for now the evidence coming in from the watchers around the world brings news of an imminent shift in our climate towards one that could easily be described as Hell: so hot, so deadly that only a handful of the teeming billions now alive will survive." [43]
Given the timing of the current global malaise, we are almost moved to wonder, "Is it the Severe Cataclysm that brings an end to the GCOS and causes it to be rewritten . . . or does the GCOS contain the seeds of imperfection that invite the next Cataclysm?"

Premise #3 --- Characteristics of Our 6,000+ Year
Civilizational Age and the "Winning Strategy
Sub-Cultures" That Have Defined It Provide Clues
To The Opening Lines of our GCOS

What initial conditions could possibly have been written in the opening code of our Age such that we would get, as an unintended outcome, the hellhole we have now? Can we work backwards to cognize the initial code by studying a sampling of its many outcomes -- or as Wittgenstein states in commentary to the second "line of code" in his own exposition on the philosophy of knowing, "In logic, nothing is accidental: if a thing can occur in a state of affairs, the possibility of the state of affairs must be written into the thing itself . . . If things can occur in states of affairs, this possibility must be in them from the beginning." [44]
Theories abound . . . from orthodox Christians we would hear that this world -- and everything in it -- belongs to, or is the dominion of, Satan. The opening code has in it the plucking of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, an open defiance of God, and only with a cataclysmic outcome (Armageddon) and the return of Christ will we see a more wholesome direction [where the Kingdom of God rules . . . a positive change in the operating system?].
For Steve Taylor, the opening code might include his "ego explosion" -- such that the changes to the code are the result of changes in us -- mankind collectively. There are certainly plenty of books on the market now that preach that the only way out of man's current dilemma is a change of heart -- again, a collective change within mankind. [45]
For those who want something more structured, may I recommend Terrence McKenna's Time Wave Zero? It's done a pretty good job of deconstructing history so far . . . but the initial conditions are ambiguous -- nor is it clear that we have the ability to change them. [46]
Then again, we can use the mind to build more creative --- many would say outrageous --- possibilities: if you marry together the translated Sumerian texts of Zacharia Sitchin with the psychological analysis of Immanuel Velikovsky --- then toss in the observations of a handful of related authors . . . here's what you get -- forget Francis Crick, panspermia, and being seeded from outer space -- it's much worse than that: homo sapiens is a designer species created by a nefarious, sadistic, exploitative, extraterresial group called the Annunaki. (They'll come again when the planet Nibiru does a fly-by in 2012 A.D.) We've had a "War on Terror" --- in some form or fashion, with arguments for their perpetuation varying in their ridiculousness --- for some 6,000 years now, but it's what they left behind that ails us: a world governing "Elite," whose tentacles are the influencial secret societies who members can be found in every corner of the world. These Elites, whose members and their forebears, were once victimized by the Annunaki and earth disasters, now emulate them. We could remember some of this past trauma ourselves, but are collectively prevented from doing so as a self-protective mechanism of the psyche. [47]
Wow . . . talk about defying the common narrative!
Well, forget other people's theories. Let's build our own. If we were to create a formula -- with the simplicity of those used by Wolfram in his cellular automata, how would it read?
Stated in plain language, not mathematical symbolism, perhaps it would read something like this:

1. My thoughts are separate from others.
   
2. "I" is separate from "not I"
   
3. Mine (possessions) are separate from not mine.
   
4. Aid "not I" only if materially beneficial to "I".
   

That's it. Remember, any initial program must be simple.
Right away, we see that our opening code contains elements of Taylor's "ego explosion," but this is not an original idea. Bucke proposed over a century ago that man must pass through self-consciousness on the way to higher states of collective evolution -- ending in cosmic consciousness, first for select individuals, and then for the entire species. Bucke makes clear that passing through this stage means experiencing the "ego" in ways inaccessible in prior stages of development.
What we get from these first few lines of "code" is a collective move to fragmentationalism, not wholeness. Individual benefit at the expense of the collective polity. There is assymmetry. There is a "sum zero" struggle which must inevitably develop between the "I's" who have and the "not I's" who do not. From this originating operating code there develops a natural bifurcation in assets, social standing, and knowledge.
Yes, you see peoples, like most of the native American tribes who predominated North America before the European invasion, playing out cultures that seem counter to the opening code. But they do not survive. Variants of "Always Cooperate," they are not winning strategies. They are not Luciferian. They will not make it --- (and, indeed, they haven't).
For any of the indigenous cultures of the Americas to have winning strategies, the GCOS would have had to read something like this:

1. My thoughts spring from a Collective Unconscious.
   
2. "I" is not separate from the collective.
   
3. My life is woven into the fabric of community -- the collective.
   
4. Aid the community that is an expression of the wholeness of Life.
   

Such an initial set of operating conditions represents almost an antithesis of what mankind has been witness to for the last 6,000 years.
What you would get IF you took the first set of operating code and in Wolfram-esque fashion fast-forwarded through 300+ generations of human existence can be seen permeating every area of human life.
But this is Meditopia.
So we'll stick to the effects --- the history --- of just one area for now.
Medicine.

Footnotes

---

1. Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson, The Hidden History of the Human Race, p. xiii. The comment is made in conjunction with Graham Hancock's introduction to Cremo's condensed version of his magnum opus, Forbidden Archaeology. The comment is in reference to "pre-history," and not "modern history." I use it here because the cracked foundation upon which modern archeology is built mimic the incorrible cracks found in Orthodox Medicine -- and, as we shall see as Meditopia unfolds, a host of other areas of supposed "knowledge" held dear by the high priests of modern science. They have all been victimized by the unseen hand of our Cultural Operating System, as soon becomes apparent.
2. Campbell, Myths to Live By, p. 3-4 . . . Incidentally, the notion of us living in a Universe that is scarsely more than 6,000 years old has been with us a while. The Archbishop of Armagh, James Ussher, "famously dated the creation at Saturday afternoon on 22nd October, 4004 B.C.E." Our Final Hour, p. 185. He was one of several over the past millenium to come up with a creation date of this proximity.
3. I've read this in more places than I care to tell, but still notable is Rifkin, Entropy, p. 19-29; Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence, p. 203-204. As a side note, Barzun interestingly doesn't come to the the defense of Bacon ("The master of those who know") in recounting the latter's recommendation to observe nature "free of preconceived ideas" - a fundamental principle of the scientific method. (And yet, Stephen Wolfram's discovery of the highly complex forms derived from the simplest of rules -- one of the greatest discoveries in my lifetime -- was made by observing Bacon's edict and not that of traditional scientific methodology: A New Kind of Science, p. 108. As Bacon himself noted, most great "scientific" discoveries are achieved by accident or surrendipity.)
4. Toynbee, A Study of History, p. 43.
5. Quigley, Tragedy of Hope, p. 3, 7.
6. See Footnote #1. Cremo, The Hidden History of the Human Race; first quote: p. xviii. The orbs are discussed on p. 120-122; 267. The second quote is taken from Mankind in Amnesia, p. 46 (the secondary quote Velikovsky takes from Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida," Act I). Incidentally, I recommend Velikovsky's two prior works in cementing the obvious: that the catastrophists are correct -- and the uniformitarians should now be regarded as a relic of the past: Worlds in Collision and Earth in Upheaval. In my own worldview, the Uniformitarians of modern science are to the Catastrophists what apologists for Modern Medicine are to alternative practitioners like myself, who are strictly empirical. For those not familiar with the difference, I recommend D.S. Allen's discussions in Cataclysm!, p. 17-18, 66; though, Velikovsky's treatises makes Allan's appear narrower in scope. Nonetheless, the latter is more succinct.
7. Brad Steiger, The Philadelphia Experiment & Other UFO Conspiracies, p. 97.
8. Francis Crick, Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature. Read the whole book. Pp. 73-88 provides his explanation of why there is such a small chance that life could have begun on earth.
9. Richard Leakey, et al., The Sixth Extinction, pp. 38-58, in a chapter entitled "The Big Five" details what convention would have us believe are the five previous mass extinctions on this planet that preceed the one that you and I are now gleefully committing, along with all our other fellow homo insapiens. I do not confuse a downfall of individual civilizations with something as drastic as a planet-wide extinction involving a cross section of all life on the planet, but my reading of current anthropological data suggests that there have been a great many more than five. Leakey makes mention of an average cycle of 26 million years on p. 57. But my belief is that it is far more frequent than this as suggested in the text that follows.
10. Richard Firestone, et al., The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes.
11. Ibid., Brule (Lakota), p. 152-153; Ojibwe, p. 154-156; Aztec/Atayala, p. 161-162; Arawak, p. 169-170; Hopi, p. 177-178; Maltamuskeets, p. 193-194; Iroquois, p. 209-210; Pawnee, p. 217-218; Aztec, p. 224-225; Navajo, p. 234-235; Toba/ Pilagá (South America), p. 252-253; India, p. 263-264; Wintu (California), p. 290-291; Greece, p. 299-300; Inca, p. 308-309; Kato (north of San Francisco), p. 324-325; Yurok, p. 337.
12. D.S. Allan, J.B. Delair, Cataclysm!, p. 149. Taken from Donnelly, I., 1894, Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel. (New York), vi + 452pp; p117, as quoted by Allan/Delair.
13. Ibid., p. 150-151.
14. Harold Wilkins, Mysteries of Ancient South America, 1947.
15. J. Douglas Kenyon (editor), Forbidden History: Prehistoric Technologies, Extraterrestrial Intervention, and the Suppressed Origins of Civilization, 2005.
16. Ibid., p. 1.
17. Ibid., p. 3; 53-68.
18. Wolfram, A New Kind of Science, p. 17-22. By the way, this concept should not be confused with "entelechy," where something complexity emerges when you put a large number if simple objects together. Such an idea has existed in the philosophy of science for many years. This complexity emerges from one very simple concept or "program."
19. Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science, p. 4.
20. Sheldrake, A New Science of Life.
21. McKenna, The Invisible Landscape. The point cannot be made without a lengthy explanation of McKenna's exposition of the I Ching as it relates to Rule 2(6) -- (the "I Ching" has 64 hexagram, or two to the sixth power), and the resulting development of his Timewave Zero. But the truly intuitive will get the picture from Graph 32 on p. 209, at the end of the epilogue.
22. Seton, The Gospel of the Red Man, 1936, p. 31-32.
23. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, p. xxi. (In the Preface to the First Edition).
24. Ibid., p. 21.
25. In The Selfish Gene, p. 205, Dawkins explains the original: " ' Prisoner comes from one particular imaginery example. The currency in this case is not money but prison sentences. Two men -- call them Peterson and Moriarty -- are in jail, suspected of collaborating on a crime. Each prisoner, in his separate cell, is invited to betray his colleague (DEFECT) by turning King's Evidence against him. What happens depends upon what both prisoners do, and neither knows what the other has done. If Peterson throws the blame entirely on Moriarty, and Mariarty renders the story plausible by remaining silent (cooperating with his erstwhile and, as it turns out, treacherous friend). Moriarty gets a heavy jail sentence while Peterson gets off scot-free, having yielded to the TEMPTATION to defect. If each betrays the other, both are convicted of the crime, but receive some credit for giving evidence and get a somewhat reduced, though still stiff, sentence, the Punishment for mutual defection. If both cooperate (with each other, not with the authorities) by refusing to speak, there is not enough evidence to convict either of them of the main crime, and they receive a small sentence for a lesser offence, the Reward for mutual cooperation. Although it may seem odd to call a jail sentence a "reward," that is how the men would see it if the alternative was a longer spell behind bars. You will notice that, although the 'payoffs' are not in dollars but in jail sentences, the essential features of the game are preserved . . . If you put yourself in each prisoner's place, assuming both to be motivated by rational self-interest and remembering that they cannot talk to one another to make a pact, you will see that neither has any choice but to betray the other, thereby condemning both to heavy sentences." The 'iterated' version of this game, played out an indefinite number of times with the same players, produces, as Dawkins notes, a higher level of complication, and "in its complication lies hope."
26. Howard Bloom, The Lucifer Principle, p. 2-3. Comments on Descartes are taken from Hiram Caton's The Politics of Progress, p. 63.
27. Lynne McTaggart, What Doctors Don't Tell You, p. 15-41. The author states that most of the more than 1,400 different diagnostic tests have been shown not to work very well. (p. 17) She goes on to innumerate the more common tests and some of the related dangers. I chose this text as an example because McTaggart goes to considerable length to be balanced.
28. Neil Z. Miller, Vaccines: Are They Really Safe & Effective?. p. 105-106. The book closes with its Summary and Conclusions. The book begins giving medicine every benefit of a doubt until the evidence in laid out, and organized medicine is forced to take it on the chin. The book concludes with the only possible position for those who can review the particulars without an interest in medicine itself: (1) Vaccines have largely not been the cause of a epidemiological decline in disease, (2) No vaccine is able to confer genuine immunity. (3) All vaccines can produce side effects. (4) The long-term effects of all vaccines are unknown. (5) Several of the vaccines (cited) are especially dangerous.
29. Bian, Tonda R.; The Drug Lords: America's Pharmaceutical Cartel. p. 95. "Any drug without toxic effects is not a drug at all." -- Eli Lilly. I found particularly illuminating Andrew Weil, M.D.'s comments on p. 160, extracted from his Health and Healing, namely that medicine "lacks any clear concept of health." He adds: "I heard the word health mentioned very infrequently during four years of medical school . . . allopathic doctors gave lip service to preventative medicine . . . "
30. Dermer, Gerald B.; The Immortal Cell. " . . . I have learned that there is a vast and deadly gap between the reality of cancer, which strikes human beings, and the theory of cancer, which thousands of researchers are using in their search for a cure . . . it is an account of a scientific and medical scandal of the highest order." (p. ix - xi) So begins Dermer's account in a book that left me so pissed off at various intervals that I had to put it down. Everyone in the cancer researcher field should read this book . . . but, of course, they don't and they won't. And that is the entire point.
31. Feuer, Elaine; Innocent Casualties: The FDA's War Against Humanity. p. 65-79. I could have picked hundreds of sources for this footnote, but Feuer's chapter seven of this book, "The FDA -- As Dangerous As The Worst Disease," does an excellent job of covering the history of the FDA has it pertains to that agency's suppression of essential nutritional supplements.
32. Dreyfus, Jack; A Remarkable Medicine Has Been Overlooked. When someone as powerful as Jack Dreyfus spends 20 years and untold millions of dollars, helps produce over 10,000 studies from 38 countries, published in over 250 medical journals, and still can't get the FDA to move, you know how powerful the pharmaceutical company overlords are. The study itself begins on p. 297.
33. Abramson, John (M.D.); Overdosed America, p. 96-97.
34. Howard Bloom, The Lucifer Principle, p. 331.
35. Hiram Caton, The Politics of Progress, p. 11.
36. Steve Taylor, The Fall, p. 29-49.
37. Ibid., p. 49.
38. Richard Heinberg, Memories and Visions of Paradise, p. 239.
39. Steve Taylor, The Fall, p. 50-51 and 104-124.
40. Immanuel Velikovsky, Mankind in Amnesia, p. 43. The quote from Heinberg is taken from Memories, p. 82. The entire exposition on the cause of the fall is contained in Chapter 5, "The Saddest Story," pp. 81-111.
41. Laszlo, Ervin, The Chaos Point, p. 84-87.
42. Rees, Martin, Our Final Century, p. 188.
43. James Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia, p. 147-148 . . . When I contemplate the effects that the enormous global warming to come will have, I cannot help but reflect on an old Burmese traditional saying, "When luxury prevails, fire consumes the world and water washes it away . . . " Mysteries of Old South America, p. 24.
44. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, p. 6. Taken from proposition commentaries 2.012 and 2.0121.
45. Taylor, The Fall, pp. 28, 114-115.
46. McKenna, The Invisible Landscape, pp. 161, 170-175
47. In the order mentioned in this paragraph: Few people have time to read all seven books that Zacharia Sitchin has written on this subject. Fortunately, there is considerable overlap, so if you don't have time to begin with The Twelve Planet (1985) and work forward, at least read the summation in the seventh and final installment of his Earth Chronicles series: The End of Days Immanuel Velikovsky, Mankind in Amnesia The balance of the thoughts are taken from sources diverse as Marshall Masters, David Icke, Jon Rappaport, Jim Marrs, Jim Keith, Ralph Epperson . . . to name but a few who speak along these lines.
    
48. Michio Kaku, Visions, p. 350-353. I could pick numerous examples, but those who study physics -- even like myself, a complete amateur, out of my field, settling for layman's predigested texts sans the advanced mathematics -- know that in the Big Bang we are dealing with a vague theory that exists simply to help us piece together the evidence. I find it fitting that Kaku has quoted, not in one or two of his books, but three, the following well-worn story (which does nothing but enhance my argument, even though it deals with the Unified Field Theory): "In 1958, physicist Jeremy Bernstein attended a talk at Columbia University where Wolfgang Pauli presented his version of the unified field theory, which he developed with Werner Heisenberg. Neils Bohr, who was in the audience, was not impressed. Finally, Bohr rose up and said, 'We in the back are convinced that your theory is crazy. But what divides us is whether your theory is crazy enough." Parallel Worlds, p. 186-187.