In the
half-forgotten ancient civilizations of the Old and New Worlds there existed
world concepts and world intuitions which went far beyond the knowledge of
modern man. These world concepts were the basic inspiration of the great
cultures of the past. They gave to ancient man an understanding of life which
has been almost lost today.
It is
possible to reconstruct the meanings of these ancient world concepts with
scientific accuracy and philosophical intuition from archeological findings
which have been made, in some instances, within relatively recent history.
This application of philosophy to archeology is a new science. It is called
Archeosophy.
Its
basic purpose is to bring the intuitive world synthesis of the ancients to the
use of modern man. Ancient man saw life as a direct opposite to the world's
present chaos, with its analytical speculation. The intensity and integrity of
life recorded in those early times is in sharp contrast to the extensity and
disintegration of modern living. The natural ethico-philosophical culture of
integral values attained by those early peoples is very different from our
modern mechanistic, technological civilization, the pseudo-values of which
point toward the age of individual neurosis, profound sociological problems,
and even thermonuclear destruction.
But
archeosophy goes beyond even this.
Etymologically
the Greek form arch has three meanings. In combining form archaeo-, it
signifies ancient, as in archeology. In the prefix archi- it means chief, most
important, as in archbishop, archangel. As arche-, it means first, original,
as in archetype. The term "archeosophy" utilizes aU of these
meanings. It deals with wisdom that is ancient; with the wisdom. that came
first, in the beginning; and with the wisdom that is most important.
If we
travel back from the present through previous ages we come upon several
significant landmarks. Contemporary languages are the starting point. These
languages are a series of sounds, symbolizing and communicating ideas,
represented by alphabetical systems which are in themselves only irrelevant
signs. All this is a very abstract and confusing way of expressing knowledge
and of interpreting wisdom. These languages, consequently, have given forth
hundreds and hundreds of contradictory philosophies.
But if
we go back farther, through thousands of years, we come to the first important
landmark: the few great masterpieces of ancient thought. As we study the
Bible, the Precepts of Pta Hotep and the Book of the Dead of ancient Egypt,
Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, the Four Books of Confucius, the Upanishads and the
Vedas of India, the Zend Avesta of Zarathustra, a significant fact becomes
apparent. The farther back we go chronologically, the fewer are the
contradictions between the different schools of thought.
When,
finally, we examine the earliest of these great masterpieces, the Zend Avesta
and the Vedas, we find teachings which are in entire accord with each other,
teachings which have created extensive civilizations and cultures, influencing
the way of life of hundreds of millions of people within these cultures. We
find that the teachings are in harmony because they reveal the laws of life,
of the universe, and of man, laws which are the same now and two thousand and
eight thousand years ago. They are in harmony because they have come down to
us in their original simplicity and clarity, free from the shackles of schools
of thought, the dogma and petrification of institutions and movements and
organized religion. Philosophy can go back to these earliest teachings and
attempt to reconstruct the basic intuitions which brought them forth. And that
is all it can do.
In the
present age, sterile antagonisms and disputes between the different religions
and schools of thought are based on artificial contradictions. Their arsenals
of arguments do not go back to the original sources, but rely on commentaries
and tran~ations of these great books, in which the original meaning is often
distorted or lost in a confusion of words. It is a great step forward,
therefore, to go back to the original sources and clarify the ideas in both
philosophy and religion. The most important achievement of philosophical
inquiry is this clarification of ideas and the elimination of contradictions
by a return to the original intuitions of life and of the universe as given
forth in the Avesta, the Vedic world conception, the Upanishads, and the
ancient Chinese and Egyptian philosophies.
But
archeosophy is an attempt to go far beyond this philophical reconstruction. It
attempts by means of scientific methods to go back farther than those few
basic books which had such an enormous influence on the history of mankind.
An
analysis of these great books of mankind makes it apparent that they
themselves were preceded by centuries and sometimes by thousands of years of
philosophical ideology. They represent a certain point in the evolution of man
and are actually a synthesis of previous traditions and cultures. The Zend
Avesta, for instance, is a synthesis and encyclopedia of still earlier
Sumerian traditions. The Vedas are the codification of unwritten teachings
handed down through previous centuries.
Archeosophy
tries to go back chronologically and analyze the organic evolution of the
ideas and ideologies which precede these great books and which were their
source.
The
next great landmark to which we come, as we travel backward in time from these
masterpieces, is the appearance of alphabets. The landmark beyond the
alphabets is that one in which ideas and primeval wisdom were expressed in
another way, in pictographs and symbols. These ancient symbols preceded the
alphabetical systems, as the latter preceded the writing of the great
masterpieces of antiquity and as these preceded our present analytical
civilization with its confusion of words.
These
three important
landmarks are
separated by thousands of years. It is the object of archeosophy to
guide the way in
this very extensive journey backward, and to analyze these primeval symbols
and pictographs. It will attempt to reconstruct methodically the ancient
wisdom, which is also, as we shall see later, the most important wisdom. It
will riot only reconstruct the ancient world pictures of those remote ages,
but it will harmonize their knowledge and their wisdom with the knowledge and
wisdom of that great masterpiece, the Zend Avesta of Zarathustra. Its final
purpose is to reconstruct values which may serve as a source of knowledge for
man today, and which will have practical application in this confused age.
