Essential Reading for Columbus Day

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

October 12, 1492 is traditionally understood to be the day that Columbus and his companions first set foot in the "New" World. 

The day is officially remembered as Columbus Day in the United States and as Indigenous Peoples' Day, Discovery Day, Discoverers' Day, Native American Day, Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity, Day of the Americas, and other variations in different states and countries.

The number of different names and perspectives on this day reflected in the short list above (and there are others, including Day of Indigenous Resistance) indicates the complexity of the issues raised by the landing of Columbus and his ships on October 12, 1492 . . . and the deep and abiding anguish remaining to this day due to the destruction and slaughter of the American Indians and the wholesale attack on their various cultures and civilizations that subsequently followed in the wake of that landing.

In order to better understand the significance of Christopher Columbus himself, and some of the issues evoked by this historic day, the following books might be considered essential reading for Columbus Day.

This is information that absolutely concerns everyone living on this planet -- and which deserves careful and serious contemplation:

• Thrice Great Hermetica and the Janus Age: Hermetic Cosmology, Finance, Politics and Culture in the Middle Ages through the Late Renaissance, by Joseph P. Farrell (2014). On a list of books billed as "essential reading" regarding Columbus Day, this one is rated "absolutely essential," especially from the standpoint of Columbus himself and the European side of events leading up to October 12, 1492. The information presented in this most-recent contribution from Joseph P. Farrell will forever change the way you understand Christopher Columbus and his voyages. Dr. Farrell's essential text argues that: "The voyage of Columbus, viewed against the large conceptual canvas and backdrop painted above, thus takes on crucial significance in the huge operational complex that has been unfolding, of the struggle between international papal and ecclesiastical power, and the international financial and 'hermetic' order represented by the militant Orders and the Italian city-states and banking centers of Genoa and Venice" (324). He also presents compelling evidence to suggest that October 12, 1492 may not have been the very first time that Columbus set foot in the "New" World! If that isn't enough to convince you to read this book (and it should be), trust me when I say that there is so much more in this book of tremendous significance that this revolutionary possibility is only one of many such astounding, conventional-history-confounding incendiary devices that Dr. Farrell sets off in this volume (all of them backed up by serious analysis, compelling evidence, and his signature "high-octane speculation" when appropriate).
• Christopher Columbus, the Last Templar, by Ruggero Marino (2005, first US edition 2007). Referred to in Joseph Farrell's Thrice Great Hermetica, and one of the sources contributing to his analysis of the significance of Christopher Columbus, this book explores connections between the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" and the mysterious Knights Templar (who also feature heavily in Dr. Farrell's book). Some of the important symbology employed by the Knights Templar can in fact be shown to contain clear connections to the vitally important institution of Sol Invictus Mithras which features prominently in the "Judaic priestly bloodline" thesis of  Flavio Barbiero which is discussed in depth in The Undying Stars, by which the Roman Empire was taken over and its power used (among other things) to initiate a "War on Consciousness" and the institution of oppressive systems of control which featured a centuries-long suppression of the shamanic worldview wherever it could be found. Regarding the possible connection of Columbus to the Templars, note the depiction of the red crosses on white backgrounds (one of the distinctive dress codes of the Knights Templar) on the sails of Columbus' three ships on the cover of Ruggero Marino's book -- and in the painting above by Albert Bierstadt dated 1893. In discussing another of Ruggero Marino's important insights, Dr. Farrell writes in Thrice Great Hermetica of a block quotation from Marino regarding the famous 13th century Venetian merchant and adventurer Marco Polo: "In other words, Marco Polo, if one is actually attentive to what he says, made it to the New World across the Pacific, most likely during a Chinese voyage" (145). This hypothesis later received a huge boost from news released in September of this year (well after the publication of both Marino's and Farrell's books) that a map had surfaced drawn by Polo himself which -- if authentic -- could go a long ways towards "confirming" such a possibility. Here is Dr. Farrell's own commentary on the significance of this recent "find."
• Maps of the Ancient Sea-Kings: Evidence of Advanced Civilization in the Ice Age, by Charles Hapgood (originally published in 1966). Examines the beautiful and sophisticated "portolan" maps which appear to indicate sophisticated ancient understanding of the geography of our planet, including the Americas and even Antarctica, and presents evidence that Columbus may have had in his possession a portolan map which guided him on his voyages. Previous posts have discussed the important and ground-breaking work of Charles Hapgood, and of the portolan maps such as the Piri Re'is map, including "The sub-glacial fjords in Antarctica," "Copernicus, Proclus, and the Lost Knowledge of the Ancients," "Earth's Big Roll," and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."
• Yucatan Before and After the Conquest, by Diego de Landa (first written in the 1560s, and translated by Wm Gates into English in 1937). One of the first accounts of the absolutely brutal and inhuman atrocities perpetrated on the peoples of the Americas in the decades following the 1492 "discovery." It will turn your stomach. The account given by Diego de Landa is discussed in Graham Hancock's landmark Fingerprints of the Gods. The deliberate and genocidal campaigns to wipe out the civilizations of Central and South America are discussed (with references to the Diego de Landa texts) in the previous blog post entitled "450 Years," which I published back on December 15, 2012.
• Hidden No Longer: Genocide in Canada, Past and Present, by Kevin Annett (2010). Presents horrifying evidence of a sustained and deliberate campaign of oppression, brutalization, severe medical neglect and even murder against Native Americans (or First Nations) peoples, specifically focusing on the institution of mandatory "residential schools" run by the government and religious institutions of Canada right up through the end of the twentieth century. In this book and in the related (and equally essential documentary, Unrepentant), Kevin Annett presents arguments connecting certain doctrines and interpretations found in some aspects of literalist Christianity to the crimes which he finds evidence to believe did indeed take place on a staggering scale and duration. He also presents evidence that the criminal neglect in the residential schools fits into a larger narrative stretching back centuries and including deliberate efforts to transmit smallpox to tribe members by representatives of the colonialist governments.
• The previous blog post entitled "A November 11 meditation, 2013" detailing just some of the long string of broken treaties and deceptive and criminal behavior by the US government in its dealings with the American Indians, as well as some discussion of the lack of outrage at these violations by the people who made that government's actions possible. Further discussion of this history of criminal behavior by the government against the Native peoples can be found in this previous post about the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
• The previous blog post entitled "Columba, the Dove," published on January 26 of this year, which describes the constellation of Columba and presents arguments that this constellation was anciently known, and anciently associated with sailing ships (since it is located right next to the constellation Argo Navis). The discussion in that post and the related discussion in The Undying Stars demonstrate that the constellation of Columba features prominently in the ancient myths of Jason and the Argonauts, and Noah and the Ark, among others which also feature a ship and a dove. This fact, combined with some of the astonishing revelations offered by Joseph Farrell in Thrice Great Hermetica, raises the possibility that "Columbus" was not actually Christopher Columbus' birth name, but that he may have either chosen that name or been given that name based upon a preserved stream of esoteric knowledge regarding the connection between the stars and the myths, and the role he was chosen to play as the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea." Columba can be seen early in the morning from many latitudes right now, in the hours before sunrise, when the "Pre-dawn lineup of the Golden Age" are all currently high in the sky in the hours before daybreak, including Orion and Canis Major; look below Canis Major and Lepus to find Argo Navis and Columba using the instructions contained in the linked post above entitled "Columba, the Dove."

There are, of course, many more . . . but the above list should begin to give a fuller picture of the importance of Christopher Columbus, and of the crucial date of October 12, 1492, and of the complexity of the issues raised, and of the scope of the tragedy which followed the "discovery" of what came to be called "The New World."