Sphinx Stargate: The Historical Evolution of the Idea

sphinx-stargate

Historical Context of the Sphinx Stargate Idea

Paul LaViolette, Ph.D.

The Sphinx Stargate Idea Is Circulated to Hollywood

My work on the zodiac’s symbolic encoding of an advanced physics of matter/energy creation dates back to 1976, which is about when I had succeeded in finally unraveling the zodiac cipher.  In 1977, while at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, I began discovering that this same advanced physics and cosmology was also encoded in certain well known creation myths from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Mesopotamia.  Upon completing my Ph.D. in 1983, I began writing up these discoveries as a book which had the working title “Warriors of Creation”, and was the forerunner of my book Beyond the Big Bang published in February 1995 by Inner Traditions, and later reprinted in 2004 under the title Genesis of the CosmosThe background research on the zodiac cipher, then extended back as much as 18 years before the appearance of the Stargate movie.

During the late 80’s I had been sending out sample chapters of my book Warriors of Creation to quite a number of publishers.  This search process extended over years because I was finding it difficult to interest publishers in my work.  At that time I was relatively unknown as a writer, except for having served as the editor of one von Bertalanffy book.  In 1990 I moved from Portland to Schenectady, New York.  Later, in May 1992 I had called Brenda, a long-time friend who lived in Portland, but she was not in.  Her phone was instead answered by a woman who was temporarily visiting her from Hollywood and who worked as a freelance agent brokering ideas to Hollywood script writers.  I had begun telling her about the nonfiction book I was working on, explaining that it revealed the discovery that the astrological zodiac was configured as an ancient time capsule message that conveyed the prehistoric date of arrival on Earth of a major galactic superwave and that the astrological Sphinx was a key to unlocking its code.  I suggested that even though it was nonfiction, it might be an interesting theme for a movie.

She became fascinated by the idea and suggested that I send her some sample chapters from my book, particularly the ones dealing with this astrological timecapsule message.  She said that she had contacts in the Hollywood film industry, that she was about to leave for LA, and that she could help put me in touch with people there who might be interested.  So on May 31st I sent her my book proposal along with sample chapters that included a discussion of the zodiac cipher.  She had strongly advised me to make sure I registered my works with the Screenwriter’s Guild in order to document and protect my ideas.  So it was at that time I had gotten busy and written up a summary of a three part documentary and also three versions of a science fiction movie screenplay treatment that were based on the archaeoastronomy research in my book manuscript.  Some of these incorporated the zodiac cipher idea.  On June 24th, I sent these treatments to the Screenwriter’s Guild in LA, but a few weeks later they were returned with a note stating that they did not catalog documentaries and that I should break my science fiction submission into three separate submissions each with a separate filing fee.  I baulked at paying the excess fee and so did not follow through.  I had noted, though, that someone in the Screenwriter’s Guild had photocopied my treatment because one of the copy pages made its way back to me along with the return of my original submission.  I did not pay it much attention at the time.  Meanwhile, I never heard back again from the freelance agent I had spoken to over the telephone.

About two and a half years later, in October 1994, the science fiction movie Stargate came out.  I went to see it and was surprised to find that the first half hour of the movie had ideas that closely resembled some that were in my screenplay treatment and sample chapters that had been circulated in Hollywood.  It made me wonder if ideas in my book proposals or movie treatments had inspired the conception of the stargate theme portrayed in the movie.  My main purpose for relating all this is so that no one mistakenly thinks that I had gotten the Sphinx Stargate idea from the movie.  If anything, it was the other way around.

 

A Summary of the Stargate Movie

Here is a synopsis of the movie.  A Professor Langford in 1928 discovers a massive stone ring that had been buried in the sands of Giza for 10,000 years.  Many decades later his daughter Catherine, now elderly, contacts an Egyptologist linguistics professor Daniel Jackson requesting his assistance in deciphering the symbols engraved on the ring that had now been transported to the U.S.  Jackson accepts thinking that it might help prove his controversial theory about the origin of the Great Pyramid.  He manages to translate the hieroglyphics on the ring’s coverstones which read “A million years into the sky is Ra. Sealed and buried for all time, his Stargate.”  At this point the project is taken over by a retired special forces Colonel Jack O’Neil who classifies it.  Jackson who continues on the project later comes to the realization that the the 9 symbols spaced around the ring are in fact star constellations that give coordinates for a location in space.  With Jackson’s help, the Stargate research team activates the ring by rotating its mechanism first clockwise by a certain amount, then counterclockwise by another predetermined amount, then clockwise, and so on, until it activates producing a wormhole dimensional portal.  The team of researchers then pass through this portal finding themselves on a planet in another Galaxy, and from there the adventure continues.

 

Early Ideas of the Concept Presented in my Writings

Various editions of my book manuscript dating back to October 1990 alluded to the Great Sphinx of Giza as being a symbolic “stargate portal.”  For example, in the book manuscript I submitted to Inner Traditions in November 1993, chapter 7 which dealt with the Egyptian mysteries stated the following:

“For the ancient Egyptians, the Sphinx was a kind of dimensional portal, somewhat like the monolith star gate in Arthur Clarke’s 2001.  In passing through it into the Underworld, one crossed from the visible world of three dimensions into the higher dimensional realm of the etheric abode.  Although the Duat was symbolically represented as being below ground level, this was only a metaphor intended to convey the idea that this realm, while closely bordering our physical world, lay “beneath” or beyond it in the sense of not being directly observable from it.  The Underworld did not carry the same negative connotation as the Christian concept of hell.  It was conceived to be an intermediary region of the afterlife in which the soul could work towards its own resurrection.”

(For a similar quote see Beyond the Big Bang, 1995, p. 134; or Genesis of the Cosmos, 2005, p. 134)

Also in Chapter 10 of my book manuscript where I discussed the Thermodynamics of Astrology, I explained how the Sphinx astrological symbols provide a key to unlocking the zodiac cipher and then I compared the decoded sequence to the unlocking of the combination lock of a safe.  In my book manuscript dating from December 1990, I wrote:

“When deciphering astrology’s thermodynamic message, we quickly find that if we go consistently clockwise or counterclockwise around the zodiac wheel we do not arrive at a meaningful order for the signs.  Unlike the Tarot arcana, which already display the proper order, the astrological signs must be rearranged.  In reciting the correct sequence, one must proceed around the zodiac wheel first clockwise, then counterclockwise, then counterclockwise again, and so on, somewhat like turning the dial of a combination lock.

(For a similar quote see Beyond the Big Bang, 1995, p. 185; or Genesis of the Cosmos, 2005, p.186)

So we have the idea of 1) a “stargate” portal metaphorically located at the breast of the Sphinx, 2) of the Sphinx embodying animal depictions of four zodiac constellations that serve as a key to deciphering a message encoded in astrological lore, and 3) wherein in the course of this decoding the 12 zodiac signs are resequenced by proceeding around the zodiac wheel first clockwise, then counterclockwise, and so on.  Those who have seen the movie Stargate may find this imagary familiar, except that, rather than being 12 constellations that are sequenced, the stone ring in the Stargate movie has 36 constellations represented by hieroglyphic symbols.  Also rather than opening a portal to a higher dimensional etheric realm through which only one’s spirit may pass, the Stargate ring opens up a wormhole that transports people to another location in our universe, or to some parallel universe (a theme that has appeared in some of the Stargate SG1 TV episodes).

To continue the story, one of the science fiction screenplays I had circulated to Hollywood via the freelance agent also described a character whose role was very similar to the character of Daniel Jackson in the Stargate movie.  Screenplay A, describes how a group of highly advanced scientists living 11,000 years ago crafts an allegorical constellation message to warn future generations of the superwave cataclysm that has just come to an end.  Then the screenplay jumps to the late twentieth century and continues as follows:

“Here, we encounter the second hero, a young scientist who has a background similar to Indiana Jones, one who has a keen interest in archaeology and ancient writings and an excellent command of physics, astronomy, and geology.  He has just deciphered the time capsule message.

The plot after this point though takes a different course from the Stargate movie.  The stargate theme was also described in the documentary summary that I had written up.  At one point the summary states that the documentary would describe the meaning of the Sphinx and how its animal form summarizes the zodiac’s physics by expressing the notion of physical creation, the emergence of the explicit physical world from the implicit hidden etheric realm, the Underworld.  It then states:

“The documentary shows how the Sphinx represents the gate to the Underworld, the multidimensional sacred ether.  The documentary shows how the symbolism of the Sphinx in many respects parallels the symbolism of the monolith Star Gate in 2001, a portal through which one could access higher dimensions.”

Then the summary goes on to state:

“The documentary examines more closely the cryptographic aspect of astrology.  It points out how the order of the signs must be rearranged to properly express the encoded physics, an order properly given in the first 10 major arcana of the Tarot.  The documentary shows that when rearranged in this new order, the polarities, and qualities assigned to the 12 astrological signs yield a new order, a nonrandom pattern that serves as a cryptographic check on the decoding process.  The documentary points out that the Tarot and the Sphinx serve as cryptographic keys to this decoding process.

The idea of alternately rotating around the wheel circumference clockwise, then counterclockwise is not found in the documentary, but was described in the astrology sample chapter mentioned above.  The table below summarizes various elements from my screenplay for comparison with the Stargate movie.  One cannot deny that the Stargate movie theme is different, but the many similarities are striking.

 A Comparison

My Screenplay and Documentary Summary The Stargate Movie
A technically advanced prehistoric race formulates a zodiac constellation message 11,000 years ago and its significance becomes subsequently forgotten. A scientifically advanced ancient civilization of extraterrestrial origin fabricates an advanced technology relic, a “stargate” which becomes buried in Giza Egypt 10,000 years ago and subsequently forgotten.
The time capsule message consists of 12 zodiac constellations distributed around the periphery of a zodiac wheel. The stargate ring consists of 36 constellations distributed around the circumference of a stone ring with 9 pointer indicator stones equidistantly spaced around it on a separate ring mechanism.
The ancient physics encoded in the time capsule message is also found encoded in the Pyramid Text writings of the story of Osiris and myth of Atum. The originators of the stargate leave a cipher encoded in hieroglyphic symbols found in the ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts.
A young Indiana Jones-like scientist, who is versed in archaeology and ancient writings and also has an excellent command of physics, astronomy, and geology successfully decodes the zodiac constellation cipher. A young Egyptologist linquistics professor, Daniel Jackson, successfully deciphers the star constellation code around the periphery of the stargate wheel.
The zodiac code is deciphered with the help of the Sphinx symbol key, by sequencing its constellations first clockwise, then counterclockwise, then clockwise, then counterclockwise, like 4 turns of a combination lock. As a result of this decoding, the 12 signs are locked into a new ordered sequence. The stargate is activated by rotating its outer pointer hoop relative to the 36 constellations with seven clockwise or counterclockwise turns of its indicator pointers to lock 7 of these constellations into a specific sequence.
The deciphered sequence relates an advanced physics of cosmic creation that explains how the matter and energy forming our physical universe manifests from an underlying higher dimensional transmuting ether.  The ancient Egyptians believed that this higher dimensional etheric realm, the Duat, was accessible via a doorway in the breast of the Sphinx, reminiscent of the stargate portal in the movie 2001. The deciphered sequence activates a stargate wormhole portal.
The Sphinx, whose symbology is a key to deciphering the zodiac time capsule message, to the ancient Egyptians signified a dimensional doorway to the higher dimensional etheric realm. Human spirits would pass to this realm beyond the physical at the time of death. The stargate physically transports people to a planet in a galaxy billions of light years away. Sequels have also explored travel to planets in parallel universes.
The zodiac time capsule message and metaphorical encoding of an ancient physics in myths and lores are a historical fact. The Stargate movie is science fiction, as is also the idea of wormholes.

 

 

 

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