Volume 4 Number 2 | MYTHOLOG | Spring 2006 |
Joseph P. Farrell is a conference speaker, frequent radio talk show guest, and author of the Giza Death Star Trilogy and the Reich of the Black Sun series (both from Adventures Unlimited Press) -- works of speculative history dealing with the "weapons hypothesis" of the Great Pyramid at Giza, and Nazi weapons research, respectively. His works include:
We interviewed Joseph P. Farrell, because his Giza works offer creative interpretations of ancient texts of mythology, finding in them little-appreciated descriptions of ancient cultures. Likewise, his works on Nazi research offer a unique analysis of the current mythos surrounding Nazi science in the Third Reich. The author graciously answered the following questions:
What connections, if any, exist between the two series of books -- the Reich series and the Giza series?
Well, as I point out in both books, I hypothesize that both the Great Pyramid and a super-secret Nazi weapons project called "The Bell" were both based on a kind of vorticular, or scalar, physics. Moreover, as I detail in the third Giza book, The Giza Death Star Deployed, the famous revisionist Egyptologist R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz did research for the Nazis during the war, and made no secret of his support of the Nazi regime. This is interesting in and of itself, since Schwaller was probably the last century's most learned esotericist and hermeticist.
The bios on the Net indicate that you have a background in theology. What connections, if any, exist between that research and this research?
One would think that there is none, but in some respects, my "paleophysics" interpretations of some ancient Platonic, Neoplatonic, and Hermetic texts -- particularly in the first and third Giza books -- are really telling "the other side of the story" to some of my published commentaries on theological texts. The search for this "paleophysics" was planted in my mind years ago when I read in some Greek Church Fathers (who were responding to a particular Neoplatonicially influenced doctrine that had arisen in the Mediaeval Latin Church) that such formulations and texts as the Latin Church was appealing to or developing were more appropriate to "sensory things" (i.e., were more appropriate as physics than as metaphysics). Since one of my hobbies is reading physics papers, that really stuck in my mind, and I began keeping private notebooks of observations, many of which are included in the Giza Death Star series -- as many, that is, as I dare include in them.
Why, given the rebirth of interest in and study of myth, do you think the mythological material mentioned in your Giza series (e.g., the Hindu sources) has been underanalyzed, or would you say that's true?
Oh, I don't think it has been underanalyzed. The more one looks, the more one comes away convinced that at least some serious scientific study is being made of such texts with a view to ascertaining their scientific contents. One only need think of the magisterial work of Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend in Hamlet's Mill, or plasma physicist Anthony Peratt's study of ancient petroglyphs as depictions of large scale celestial plasma discharges. And, of course, during World War II there is every indication that, at some level, the Nazis were engaged in organized research into this material. Perhaps the most famous example is Robert Oppenheimer, father of America's atom bomb, who quoted a passage of the ancient Hindu epic, The Mahabharata -- a passage eerily descriptive of a nuclear blast, though written hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago -- during the Trinity test of the plutonium bomb in New Mexico.
What is there to be learned from the ancient myths that would interest those not particularly fascinated by myth studies?
There is certainly a wealth of encoded scientific information, and, I believe, history -- albeit garbled and perhaps disguised -- as well. There's something for everyone, really: for the philosopher and moralist, for the sociologist, for the anthropologist, the physicist ... I could go on and on. The trick is learning to swallow one's pride in thinking we are at the pinnacle of civilization, and learning to see the modern parallels in the ancient myths.
As a writer, what has been your most discouraging moment?
I suppose every writer goes through this, but writing is hard work, and one always wonders if anyone out there is actually reading one's books.
As an author, what has been your most satisfying experience?
I write fairly technical books, as I've never thought writing "for a popular audience" about technical things -- especially when one is elaborating a radical alternative hypothesis to the standard view (whatever that may be) -- is the way to go. I sometimes get criticism for this, as my books tend to be footnoted rather heavily. But this is offset by the more predominant response from people who tell me that they are grateful I don't talk down to them. And some have even told me they appreciate the footnotes!
What advice would you have for those writers struggling to finish a book?
Ha! That is a difficult one to answer, as I've never had any difficulty in finishing a book. My hang-up comes in starting them, in hitting just the right tone and articlation of the themes that will be with the reader throughout the book. It's that initial string of information, that initial setting of the mood and tone, that is so difficult, and I often stew over how to get started on a book for weeks or months. Once inspiration hits, though, one just knows it. It feels right, it fits. Once that happens to me, I usually am able to organize the book fairly quickly in my head, and then writing it usually goes rather quickly after that. I'm "working" on a book right now that I hope will tie up loose ends from the Giza Death Star series, but I haven't set a word to paper yet, as I'm still trying to figure out how to articulate that initial statement and mood. And I've been stuck in this stage for some five months now. I know what I want to write about and where it has to go, but as yet haven't figured where and how to start it.
What would you do differently in terms of authorship and publishing, knowing now what you did not know at the outset?
If anything, I think I would have had more confidence and tried to seek out a larger publisher with wider distribution. But given the highly "alternative" nature of the history and science I deal with, I am grateful that there are publishers and readers willing to tackle such material.
Do you think all literature of "alternative science," "alternative archeology," and "alternative history" gets relegated to obscurity, or is there a mainstream audience and a wider market?
I don't think one can honestly say that it's mainstream yet, but the audience is growing and is now quite large. Certainly authors like Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval have penetrated major publishers and a very wide market with their works, and they are wholly of the "alternative" ken. I can say that one reason so many "alternative" works get relegated to obscurity is that the referencing is threadbare, if it exists at all. That's one reason I try to footnote so heavily, since my works are highly speculative. I try to show I'm not just pulling things out of my head, but to show the basis for my speculations.
What do you think about the words "conspiracy theory" being applied nearly without qualification to all such literature?
In my opinion, it's the response of a lazy and narrow mind.
We're all aware of some alternative science, archeology, and history that became accepted fact, and is no longer "alternative." Whether it's a species once thought extinct, a civilization once thought non-existent, or a long-held historical explanation that turned out to be fiction. What does it take for an alternative explanation to become the accepted one?
Well, that depends on the alternative explanation. But in the case of my work or Chris Dunn's or others of a similar vein, I think it really boils down to what the German scientist Max Planck said, that a new idea or theory is really accepted when the older generation quite literally dies off and the new comes to occupy the academic chairs and editorial positions in newspapers and publishing houses.
How has story, in the case of your non-fiction writing, been helpful in pursuing that writing?
Well, very simply, the Giza Death Star series would not have come about at all if I had not read some ancient texts that were told as stories and that were conventionally understood to be "myths." In reading them, however, I encountered detailed descriptions of things and events that sounded far too detailed and too similar to some modern ideas, so I literally decided to investigate further by comparing the "stories" to these ideas.
In the case of Reich of the Black Sun and its sequel, The SS Brotherhood of the Bell, there is a certain "mythology" that most of us are familiar with, of Nazi survival after the war, of incredible secret weapons projects. The stories are all out there and have been since the end of the war, and with the arrival of the Internet, many of them can be easily accessed, so one doesn't have to chase down the obscure and rare book or veteran. Yet, in many of these cases, the stories were without adequate substantiation. All of that changed with the reunification of Germany in the last two decades of the 20th century, and it became possible to investigate the stories for their factual content and basis. So again, the stories served as the point of departure for my investigations.
Joseph P. Farrell was recently a radio guest of Whitley Strieber on Unknown Country The author will be speaking at the upcoming Ancient Science & Modern Secrets Conference hosted by the World Explorers Club in Kempton, Illinois.