One of the first things you need to understand as you wade your way into the rabbit hole of Alternative Ancient History (Alt. History) is to understand that there exists a barricade to discovery and academic progress within orthodox academia. It’s a direct result of dogmatic (normal science/history) paradigms. It’s called the Knowledge Filter.
To my knowledge, the term was coined by Michael A. Cremo, co-author of “Forbidden Archaeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race.” He also had a regular column in the magazine Atlantis Rising wherein he shared many examples and clarified his Knowledge Filter definition.
Knowledge Filtration: Evidence that contradicts dominant paradigms in science tends to be filtered out of the mainstream discourse – it is ignored, forgotten, dismissed on flimsy grounds, and in some cases, actively suppressed.
Evidence and claims that are consistent with the establishment paradigm passes through the knowledge filter. Evidence and claims that contradict the establishment paradigm do not pass through the knowledge filter.
— Michael A. Cremo
Knowledge that does not pass through the filter will not be shared in text books, studies, papers, academic discourse, etc. Unfortunately, some of what doesn’t pass through the filter are important nuggets of little-known (hidden) knowledge, that if considered in a truly objective manner would launch new realms of knowledge adventuring. Yet academia has no interest.
The Knowledge Filter manifests itself in several ways:
- It blocks honest intellectual inquiry and research for any topic outside the orthodox paradigm
- It blocks discussion in academic publications, societies and universities for anything outside of the orthodox paradigm
- It blocks funding for research deemed outside the orthodox paradigm
- It blocks any hypothesis or theory deemed outside the orthodox paradigm
- It blocks evidence discovered and shared even prior to the orthodox paradigm’s lock on the narrative
- Interprets/twists evidence that is discovered today to fit the dominant orthodox paradigm and ignores anything that can’t be shoe-horned into the paradigm
- Sees only as far as the theoretical preconceptions of normal science allow
“Normal science, the activity in which most scientists inevitably spend most all their time, is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like. Normal science often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments. As a puzzle-solving activity, normal science does not aim at novelties of fact or theory and, when successful, finds none.”— Thomas Kuhn, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”By that measure, normal archaeology is very successful. It finds nothing that contradicts its theoretical preconceptions.— Michael Cremo, Atlantis Rising, #115, January/February 2016
Bottom line: What isn’t part of the paradigm is fervently excluded from consideration, discussion, research, and publication. Laughed at, denigrated, ignored, suppressed.
It’s stupidly and morbidly fascinating as to how block-headed and blinded the establishment orthodoxy can be when it comes to ignoring anomalistic evidence that challenges their cherished paradigms – worldviews protected by their Knowledge Filter.
With each article about Alternative Ancient History I write, this stupidity will become more blatant and hard to ignore – even for the willfully ignorant and the helplessly stupid. I’ll mention one of the most egregious stupidities here though – megalithic stone constructions.
There are innumerable examples but a quick two or three will suffice for now to give you a taste of the absurdity:
The pyramids of Egypt:
- The Great Pyramid alone: An estimated 2,300,000 blocks of stone ranging between 2 and 80 tons quarried, lifted, transported, lifted again, finished, and placed. The whole structure was covered & finished in bright limestone casing stones whose large surfaces were fitted with joint gaps of .020 of an inch (less than the thickness of a credit card). The whole structure is perfectly aligned with the cardinal points (N,S,E,W). We are expected to believe that this effort was accomplished by unskilled slaves in 20-25 year time-span using nothing more than copper chisels, copper saws and stone pounding balls – and oh, by the way, no wheels, pulleys or steel of any kind. This is astoundingly blind idiocy; blind to the realities of the field of engineering (which is entirely reality-based). There’s MUCH more to this laughable stupidity I’ll cover in future articles.
Baalbek, Lebanon:
- Twenty-seven podium stones in a temple platform each weighing 350 tons-plus. Add three “Trilithon” stones sitting atop some of them (26-feet above grade) that each weigh in excess of 800 tons. ALL of them quarried, lifted from the quarry, transported to the site 1/4-mile away, lifted again, moved, finished and placed together so tightly that nothing can penetrate the seam between the blocks – not a knife blade, not a playing card, nothing. We’re told that the Romans did this near the time of Christ, including the building of subterranes (man-made tunnels) and three wonderful temples on the site. The problems? First: The podium stones and Trilithion are far more eroded and aged than the Roman temples built upon them. Second: Did the Romans ever successfully transport and lift 350-ton-plus stones anywhere else in the world? No. More to come.
Sacsayhuman, Peru
- A huge megalithic three-tier wall in Peru stretching over 1,700 feet long and containing over 200,000 cubic-feet of stone. Megalithic stones ranging up to 200 tons each, polygonally-shaped and entirely fitted with no gap between their complex, irregular joints. Again, we’re expected to believe that this was done using nothing but stone pounding balls (supposedly no metal tools, wheels or pulleys) to quarry, shape, transport, lift, finish and fit these massive stones that were quarried elsewhere. To be blunt, the orthodox reeks of stupidity.
“Cutting right to the chase, a modern locomotive engine weighs 200 tons. Take that steel leviathan off the track and give a large team of men some ropes and let’s see how far they can pull it or if they can lift it up at all.”
— Will Hart, “The Ancient Enigma – Moving the Megaliths” 2002 (author of The Genesis Race)
Better yet, take the wheels off (since they theoretically didn’t use them), try to load it on a wooden sled, or wooden rollers, and attempt to drag it through the thousands of feet (or miles) of sand, or up and down mountainsides to get from quarry to the build site.
Has orthodox academic archaeology ever tested these “rock-solid” theories? (pun intended) Has our modern, brilliant academic, archaeological minds ever built anything like this – even to a much smaller scale using the primitive techniques they claim were used? Answer: No. Or at best, rarely. And even the few times they did attempt a recreation: utter failure. I’ll share the details in later articles.
What we commonly hear when a question is raised as to the validity of their claims for how it was actually accomplished?
Well, they obviously did it, and we’ve discovered their copper or bronze chisels, so therefore it’s possible.
This is part of the Knowledge Filter. But it’s default, willful ignorance – plain and simple.
I’ll be writing articles on the issues of Specialization vs. Generalization as well as the problems of Archaeology as a “Science”, but for now let’s ask a few simple questions:
- Are these archaeologists educated, experienced & well-versed in the realities of materials engineering – particularly for the hardest stones on the planet (stone hardness, quarrying, cutting, carving, polishing, etc.)? No.
- Are these archaeologists educated, experienced & well-versed in the realities of building and construction (alignments, tolerances, designing, planning, project coordination, timelines and actual construction)? No.
- Are these archaeologists educated, experienced & well-versed in the realities of metallurgy? No.
- Are these archaeologists educated, experienced & well-versed in the realities of lifting & transporting heavy, enormous weights? No.
- Are these archaeologists educated, experienced & well-versed in the realities of modern machining and stone-working practices? No.
Orthodoxy flippantly demands: “Well if these were built with higher technology then where are the machines? Where are the tools that accomplished it?” On the surface that sounds like a fairly good question, yet it’s intellectually lazy and maybe something an adolescent would ask.
My reality-based response? I can equally demand of them: Stand in the presence of the Empire State Building, Shanghai Tower, Burj Khalifa, Golden Gate Bridge or any monstrosity of construction we have in today’s modern world. Where are the machines and tools that built them? Answer: They are LONG gone and used/repurposed elsewhere; perhaps even melted for scrap and the metal reused as something else. Should we expect our ancient engineers to have wasted and done differently? If in 5,000 years in the debris of our “modern” site you uncovered socket wrenches, a hacksaw, a hammer, wrenches and screwdrivers left in the ruins which were used by the maintenance crew for the building, would you stupidly assume that those tools were used to build the structure? No. Only a child would assume this.
Are any of these realities addressed or shared in orthodox academia? No. The Knowledge Filter prevents the anomalistic realities from ever being entered into the academic/orthodox record. Why? Because it would blow their weakly constructed theories out of the water. The realities are a direct threat to their academic standing and credentials. They are far too invested (professionally, personally, egotistically) in the status quo to accept their theories as flawed.
The Knowledge Filter is a “Keep Out” sign for academic orthodoxy to those on the outside with real knowledge and experience, but not indoctrinated in its protected paradigm.
Welcome to the fight of reality over stupidity – welcome to the fight against the Knowledge Filter.
Carpe diem my friends!
Featured Image by Angela from Pixabay via Pixabay License
