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Eleusinian Mysteries and Astral Projection: The Secret Knowledge

It is a subject that often fascinates those who research it and intrigues the dreamers. Sceptics view it with suspicion, while scholars of esotericism regard it with certainty. Is it possible that ancient people knew something we do not? Did they possess practises that could truly separate the soul from the body? if so, how did the Eleusinian Mysteries-perhaps the supreme religious festival of the ancient Greeks-relate to this? This article will provide answers to some of these questions.  "For entertainment purposes only." Ancient Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia In ancient Egypt, a fundamental element of religious belief was the faith in the 'Ba', which was depicted as a bird with a human head. The Ba lived within the body, yet it possessed the ability to detach from it during sleep or after death, wandering through both the material and spiritual worlds. It is considered likely that priests practised techniques for the conscious release of the Ba to communicate with t...

Linear A: The Minoan Writing System

  Linear A is considered today one of the most mysterious writing systems of the Bronze Age in the Aegean. It uses symbols to represent syllables and ideograms for objects and concepts, as well as numerical signs. In a very similar way to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.  The source of our knowledge about this system primarily comes from clay tablets found at various archaeological sites over time in many regions of Crete, such as Hagia Triada, Knossos, Phaistos, and Chania.  Its name was coined by sir Arthur Evans, who distinguished its symbols as Linear-meaning lines drawn onto the clay-in contrast to the more pictorial Cretan Hieroglyphs. Why does Linear A Remain a Mystery? Two primary reasons prevent us from deciphering this ancient writing system.  The language it records, Minoan, is completely unknown. It does not appear to be related to any known language, such as ancient Greek, Egyptian, or Semitic.Regarding Linear B, which researchers eventually managed to deci...

The Pre-Monetary Economy of the Minoans: Barter, Palaces, and the Power of the Weight

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Money is defined as any good or medium that is generally accepted in an economy as a medium of exchange, a unit of account (or measure of value), and a store of value.  The economy of the ancient Cretans is refereed to today as pre-monetary. That is, they did not mint coins, as is done today, but their transactions were based on a system of exchange and redistribution of various goods such as milk, honey, meat, precious stones and others. This redistribution, researchers believe, was handled by the palaces themselves. Due to the inability to decipher the Minoan scripts (Linear A), it is not possible to know precisely what this system looked like or exactly how they measured value. However, through other evidence, we can at least get some ideas.  The traditional view holds that the palaces collected agricultural products and manufactured goods and redistributed them to the population or used them in trade. Trade itself became a medium of exchange. In various shipwrecks around t...

The Theory of the Block Universe and the Minoan Skeleton in the Museum

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The time is the fourth dimension, akin to length, width, and height. the past, what we designate as the present, and the future all co-exist simultaneously, like distinct cross-sections of the four dimensional continuum known as spacetime. This perspective, at least, is the tenet of the Block Universe theory, a concept derived from the mathematical framework of relativity. The theory says time is a static dimension, and the past and future are the same as the present. This entire sensation of time that we experience is subjective. All events already exist in the block universe.  In the city of Heraklion, a museum hosts an impressive exhibit. It is a skeleton, placed within a large pithos (storage jar), buried thousands of years ago according to the customs and practices of its time-customs common in Crete during the Minoan era, perhaps around 1450. The real miracle is that the pithos was not broken open to discover what was inside but was found in the form seen in the image.  ...

The Minoan Deities: Goddesses and Gods

Long before Homer and Hesiod invoked the Muses and began to proclaim the deeds of gods and heroes, a civilisation had flourished there in Crete for over 1000 years before their time. Their script, which is today called linear A, remains unknown, and thus, most of what we know about them comes from the buildings they left behind-the famous palaces, Knossos, Phaistos, Malia, and Zakros- but also through the oldest language of man, the painting that was favoured during their period. The Minoans flourished during the period today called Bronze Age, specifically the period between 2700 and 1400 or 1100 BC. Their name was given by sir Arthur Evans, who led the excavations at Knossos. He coined this term based on the legendary king of Crete, Minos.  From the artefacts that have survived, we can understand that religion played a central role in their lives. The names of the deities differed significantly from those of the traditional Ancient Greek religion, the one known to all as Dodecath...