I am suggesting a history of gnosticism tied to the existence of an ancient shamanistic meditation practice that helped drive human evolution. This theory at least provides a plausible explanation for a dynamic growth in cranium size and IQ during the last Ice Age. Could meditation be the missing link between caveman and civilized man?
Figure 1d - The “Serpent-Headed People“ of Eridu
Figure 1e -Homage to Egyptian Nobility Figure 1f - Incan Skull
Figure 1g - Peruvian Skulls
Modern research has already established that meditation has many physiological benefits, and it is generally acknowledged as mankind’s most ancient and sacred vehicle for achieving spiritual Enlightenment. There is considerable evidence to suggest that Middle Eastern cave dwellers became the great catalyst in moving civilization forward. This implies that the revelations of early man played an important role in developing the axioms of the various mathematical disciplines. Perhaps meditation provides the means to integrate these disciplines into a holistic perspective that is greater than the sum of its parts. EMH “Enlightened” tribes thus became the stuff of legend. They were worshipped as gods by the many civilizations that followed. They have often been called Aryans (Sanskrit: Noblemen), and I believe them to be the Nephilim described within Hebrew Scripture. The word Nephilim can be most accurately translated from the Hebrew as “Men of Renown” or “Heros of Old.” Later cultures paid homage to the Sumerian “gods” by binding the heads of their infants during early skull formation. This was practiced in the Armenian Highlands, in Nubia, and in Egypt, as well as in South America. Armenian mothers still practice it to this day, albeit in a modified, more acceptable way.26 It appears unlikely, however, that the binding of infant skulls adequately accounts for the enormity of the largest dolichocephalic skull-types that have been discovered.
Ancient legend, traditions, and artifacts indicate — and the oldest examples of cuneiform writings, suggest — that a highly evolved people did exist. Perhaps due to their imposing physical appearance and special “gifts” they became both feared and worshipped as gods. Ancient sculpture and stelae depict elongated skulls as the trademark of divine blood (see Figure 1e).27 Historically, the headdress of kings, priests, pharaohs, wizards and witches should also be considered a significant cultural remnant of these so-called gods (see Figures 2a - e). Those who came into contact with the “serpent-headed ones” depicted them as “giants” in artwork scattered across the Neolithic sites of the Ancient Near East, including Jericho, Jarmo, Susa, Eridu, etc. (Figures 1a, b & c). The number and diversity of relevant archeological discoveries reflect the syncretistic notion that this unique spiritual community became the “gods on the mountain” for many ancient cultures. The mythology of these legendary shepherd-gods made its way into the art, architecture, science and literature of the entire ancient world, including: Sumer, Babylon, Egypt, India, Mitanni, Israel, Assyria, Media, Elam, Greece, Rome, etc..
Our hypothesis suggests that a bigger, more utilized brain evolved as a result of thousands of years of meditation. This might account for the dramatic transition between caveman and the sophisticated sexagesimal mathematics of the first historical civilization. In more recent historical memory, one can appreciate the prophet Mohammed’s Koranic revelations as a function of his well-known cave practice meditation. Similarly, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Jainism,... have all been founded on the bedrock of “Enlightenment” brought about by a life of meditation. What has been largely lost in the West is the awareness that the three main Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are also rooted in the same priestly meditation practice.28 Within the Abrahamic religions, meditation has largely been relegated to the practices of fringe mystical groups, such as the Muslim Sufis, Christian Rosicrucians, and Jewish Kabbalists.
Figure 2a - Pharaoh’s conical Headdress 2b High Priest of Solomon’sTemple
Figures 2c, d & e - Pope’s Conical Hat; Dalai Lama’s Conical Hat; Arab Turban
The Good Shepherds
With the end of the last Ice Age, circa 10,500 BCE, the EMH were no longer captives of cave life. They domesticated sheep and goats and wandered the perimeter of the Tigris-Euphrates and Indus River Valleys. It seems likely that their greater size and strength was the genetic result of tens of thousands of years of excursions into the perpetual winter as hunter-gatherers. When they finally left the safety of their caves, they also left behind the constraints of cave life — the original impetus for assuming a meditative posture as a way of life. Over the course of the next several thousand years, it is also logical to assume that meditation was no longer practiced by the entire community. At some point in time the benefits of a “sitting practice” would have been limited to, and preserved by, spiritual leaders, priests, shamans, and the like.
The end of cave life also accounts for the relatively quick disappearance of EMH distinguishing physical traits. My thesis suggests that man began to devolve from their evolutionary peak attained at the end of the Ice Age, and slowly lost their meditation-derived traits and skills. Today’s more frontal lobe oriented humans have smaller brains and skulls, and a less robust physical stature. After the extinction of Neanderthal Man (ca. 29,000 BCE), and without the brutality of Ice Age weather, we can also speculate about a time when highly evolved EMH would have experienced a pastoral golden age, wandering the mountain foothills as wise and spiritual shepherds. These tribes became the protagonists of history’s great religious allegories.
From this scenario, we might conclude that whatever it is that we now call civilization, did not really begin in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley’s Fertile Crescent, as most academics would have us believe. It appears to have begun in the unbroken mountainous perimeter of Iraq (Figure 3), where these Aryan “shepherd-gods” came to inhabit the Taurus and Nur Mountains of Turkey, the southern Caucasus in the Armenian Highlands, the Elburz, Kurdistan, and Zagros Mountains of Iran, as well as Pakistan’s Central Makran Range, bordering the Indus Valley.
Melting glaciers overflowed the Black Sea and flooded the river valley between roughly 14,000 - 7,000 BCE. The Bible’s timeline for the Great Flood (ca. 2348 BCE) does not match the geological record, although there is said to have been some local flooding around that time. The Genesis allegories, especially the Biblical flood myth, shares many common elements with the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh and the Babylonian Epic of Atrahasis. If we were to closely compare these stories with one another, we could observe what is essentially the same flood myth being told from different cultural perspectives. Bible stories, in fact, may be one of our best modern guides to prehistoric times. From this perspective, we might consider the Biblical allegory of Noah and his family emerging from the Ark on Mount Ararat as metaphor for the EMH emerging from their mountain caves