COSMOLOGY AND CULTURE

Webb Telescope M74 Phantom Galaxy

Preface

In my lifelong search for the true nature of reality, I have come to realize that the cosmology that we hold determines how we see our role in nature and in the universe — and rules our actions. This is especially relevant now, as humanity is on the cusp of a new consciousness. This document contains excerpts about cosmology from three authors, and features the work of Anne Baring in her recent book.

Richard Tarnas, “Understanding the Modern Disenchantment of the Cosmos,” in Sky and Psyche: The Relationship Between Cosmos and Consciousness, ed. by N. Campion and P. Curry, 2006:

… The relationship between sky and psyche defines our world view. It defines the cosmology of a culture, and the cosmology of a culture is essentially the container of that culture. … And when the sky and the psyche are seen as radically separate, this creates a very different world view for the human being to live within than a world view and cosmology in which the sky is ensouled. … when you lose it [the larger loss of the sacred] in the cosmos and nature, then you begin to lose it inside as well. 

C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1963:

Our psyche is set up in accord with the structure of the universe, and what happens in the macrocosm likewise happens in the infinitesimal and most subjective reaches of the psyche.

Anne Barine, Dream of the Cosmos, 2020 :

Anne Baring discusses how humanity has arrived at its present condition and where we go from here. How we understand our here and now rests on our cosmology, our understanding of our role in the Cosmos. Does Cosmos have a dream? If so, what is it? Now in her tenth decade, the author shares the fruits of her extensive studies and experiences. Here are some excerpts from Dream of the Cosmos.

Introduction

pxix Discovering a New Story

We are living at a time of momentous evolutionary change. …

Our consciousness is the infinitesimal spark of cosmic light that is now sufficiently developed for the universe to reveal itself to us through the incredible instruments that science has devised….

It seems that we are immersed in a sea or field or web of energy that is co-extensive with the immensity of the visible universe and the most minute particles of matter.…

If the Cosmos is alive, intelligent and the ground of our consciousness, what might be its Dream?

Ch. 2. The Awakening Dream 

p28 The Goddess  [Paleolithic and Neolithic Eras, 25,000 BCE Pyrenees to Lake Baikal]

p29 The Shift from Lunar to Solar Mythology  [Egypt and Mesopotamia ca. 2000 BCE, Greece ca. 500 BCE]

p29 The Lost Images of the Feminine  [Europe 7th millenium BCE]

p30 Everything was woven together in one cosmic web…the idea of the whole Cosmos as an entity with consciousness or soul in which all life participates derives directly from the image of the Great Mother. … What had happened to the image of the goddess?

p31 The Separation from Nature  [Babylonia ca 2000 BCE; Book of Genesis]

p32 A Lost Vision of Reality 

p33 The Myth of the Goddess (by Anne Baring and Jules Cashford, 1991) tells the story of how, over a period of some 20,000 years, the image of the deity gradually changed from goddess to god, and how the god came to be identified with spirit and mind, and the goddess with nature, matter and body. The image of the goddess was feared and rejected and with it women and every aspect of life that had been identified with the feminine, including, most importantly, the soul, nature and matter. As the feminine principle, personified by the goddess, came to be rejected or downgraded in relation to the masculine one, personified by the god, so spirit and nature were sundered. As this divisive process intensified, conscious mind and instinctive soul, head and heart, became increasingly polarized in human consciousness, leading ultimately to the spiritual, political and ecological crisis of the present time.

p36 She [Shekinah] personified what the kabbalists named the feminine face of God: the wisdom and glory and radiant immanence of the divine ground concealed beneath and within the forms of life. The Shekinah literally means the ‘Presence of God in the world’. 

… the Shekinah offers the most complete image of the feminine aspect of spirit to have survived from the ancient past.

p38 …the soul is not in us. We are in the soul.

But more than this: we are of the nature and substance of soul, the nature and substance of spirit.

p39 … To me, the imagery of the Shekinah offered a startlingly complete description of the Soul of the Cosmos.

Ch. 3 The Tree of Life 

p41 Through some four thousand years, a revered chain of teachers passed on the tradition of Kabbalah orally; from its remote origins in Babylon and Egypt until the 13th century when a book called the Zohar or Book of Splendour was written in northern Spain.

p42 At the innermost level or dimension of reality is the unmanifest and knowable divine ground; at the outermost the physical forms we call nature, body and matter. Linking the two [the innermost level of reality and the outermost physical forms] is the archetypal template of the Tree of Life — an inverted tree — whose branches grow from its root in the divine ground and extend through invisible worlds of dimensions of being to this one. … Every aspect of creation, both visible and invisible, is interwoven with every other aspect. All is one life, one cosmic symphony, one integrated whole. We participate in the divine life which informs all these mysterious levels of reality. Our lives are inseparable from the inner life of the Cosmos.

p44 The Teaching of Kabbalah  [Kab-ba’-lah]

The fundamental teaching of Kabbalah or Kabbalism is the doctrine of emanation and, because of this, the oneness or unity of all cosmic dimensions of reality. Divine Creative Spirit, named as the unmanifest godhead, Ain Soph or Ain Soph Aur — the Limitless Light — is regarded not only as totally transcendent and unknowable but also, through emanation, present in every particle of the visible, created world as well is in the intermediary dimensions of reality veiled from our sight. …The aim of the kabbalist was, and is, to unite the two worlds: the Above with the Below; the invisible divine world with the manifest world. 

p45 Worlds with Worlds

Rather than presenting an image of a hierarchical descent from the invisible to the visible, Kabbalah presented the image of worlds nesting within worlds, dimensions within dimensions manifesting, as it were, from within outwards. 

p46 If we want to understand the deep roots of our present ecological and spiritual crisis, we can find them in the loss of three important elements: the feminine image of spirit; the direct shamanic path of communion with spirit through visionary and mystical experience as lived by the great contemplatives of all traditions; and the sacred marriage of the masculine and feminine aspects of the divine. 

p46 The Shekinah and Divine Immanence

The Shekinah is the image of the Divine Feminine or the Feminine Face of God as it was conceived in this mystical tradition of Judaism, …, and transmitted orally for a thousand years and more until it flowered in the writings of the Jewish kabbalists of medieval Spain and south-western France. In the imagery and mythology of the Shekinah, we encounter the most complete description of cosmic soul and the indissoluble relationship between two primary aspects of the godhead that has been lost or hidden for centuries. 

p47 The Shekinah brings together heaven and earth, the invisible and visible dimensions of reality, in a resplendent vision of their essential relationship and union. 

p48 The Zohar or The Book of Radiance that appeared in Spain in 1290 was the principal text of medieval Kabbalism… It speaks of the Shekinah as the Voice of God, the Wisdom of God, the Glory of God, … The mythology of the Shekinah as Divine Wisdom and Holy Spirit offers one of the most incandescent, vivid and powerful images of the immanence of the divine in this dimension. It transmutes all creation, including the apparent insignificance and ordinariness of everyday life, into something to be loved, embraced, honoured and celebrated because it is the epiphany or shining forth of the divine intelligence and love that has brought it into being and dwells hidden within it.

p48 The Imagery of the Sacred Marriage and the  Transmission of Light

The highly-developed cosmology of this tradition preserves the ancient Bronze Age image of the sacred marriage, reflected in the union of the Divine Father-Mother in the ground of being. There is not a Father God but a Mother-Father who are one in their eternal embrace, one in their ground, one in their emanation, one in their ecstatic and continuous act of creation through all the dimensions that they bring into being and sustain. From the perspective of divine immanence, there is no essential separation between spirit and nature. 

The essential concept of this mystical tradition expresses itself in an image of worlds within worlds rather than as a hierarchy of descent. Divine Spirit (Ain Soph) beyond form or conception is the ineffable Light at the root, the Source, the Ground of Being. Emanating as creative Sound (Word), Light, Intelligence and Love, it brings into being successive spheres, realms, or dimensions named as veils or robes which clothe and hide the hidden source, yet at the same time transmit its radiant light.

p49 The Divine Feminine

The Shekinah or feminine face or aspect of the godhead is named as Cosmic Womb, Palace, … She is named as the architect of worlds, source or foundation of our world, …

She brings into being all spheres or dimensions of manifestation which are ensouled and sustained by the ineffable source until she generates the manifest world we know and remains here until such time as the whole creation is enfolded once again into its source.

p53 The Gnostic Imagery of the Divine Mother

p54 I find it fascinating that in Gnosticism the imagery and mythology of the Divine Mother as the Holy Spirit is so similar to the imagery of the Shekinah in the Kabbalah that they seem to belong to one and the same tradition. 

In a gnostic text called the Trimorphic Protennoia appears this poem:

I am the voice speaking softly.

I exist from the first.

I dwell within the Silence,

Within the immeasurable Silence.

I descended to the midst of the underworld

And I shone down upon the darkness.

It is I who poured forth the Water.

I am the one hidden within Radiant Waters…

I am the Image of the Invisible Spirit.

I am the Womb that gives shape to the All

by giving birth to the Light that shines in splendour.

p55 The Holy Spirit Today

How could we imagine the Holy Spirit today? Perhaps as the light that manifests as both wave and particle, as the deep unexplored ‘sea’ of cosmic space and the invisible light particles which are the ground of all physical reality, including the extraordinary complex structure and organization of the patterns of energy that we name as matter: a word which comes from mater, the Latin word for mother. After so many billions of years the energy of life has evolved a form, the planet earth, and a consciousness, our own which is slowly growing towards the recognition of its ground and source. Yet, because of the loss of the tradition of the Divine Feminine, we do not know that what physicists, cosmologists and biologists are exploring in the finer and finer gradations of matter they are discovering is what the awe-struck explorers of the Tree of Life in Kabbalah named the Face and the Glory of God; nor that the universe we explore with the Hubble telescope is the outer covering or veil of a vast unseen Cosmos and an unimaginably fine web of luminous and invisible relationships. If only these images of the Shekinah could be restored to us, how differently we might see matter; with what respect we might treat it.

p56 If we could awaken to the sacredness and divinity of life we would begin to see matter and our own bodies in a different light; we would treat them with greater respect. If we could awaken to Her Presence, we could bring matter and spirit, body and soul together, healing the deep wounds inflicted by the beliefs and concepts which have separated them. Even as we accomplish this, we would begin to transmit the light and love of the Holy Spirit flowing to us and all creation.

p56 [A web of light spoke to Anne Baring]:  

“My dream, the Dream of the Cosmos, is for you to know Me again, 

to realize that you live within My Being, My Light and My Love.”

Webb Telescope IC 348

Anne Barine, Dream of the Cosmos, 2020:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-dream-of-the-cosmos-a-quest-for-the-soul-anne-baring/12954132?ean=9781906289485

***

The Mayan Calendar and the December Solstice of 2012: What now?

Keywords:  winter solstice, 2012, Mayan calendar, galaxy, precession, cosmos, consciousness, evolution 

Mayan Calandar and December 21, 2012

There was much speculation about the end of the Mayan calendar on the date of the winter solstice, December 21, of the year 2012. The world did not come to an end. What really happened?

Mayan calendar reference: Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 by John Major Jenkins, 1998

Three of the cycles of the Mayan calendar

This article is about the Mayan calendar which has cycles within cycles, extending over an enormous duration of time. We have heard about its date of 13.0.0.0.0. That date represents the time when the old cycle of the 13-baktun, 5125 years, Long Count Calendar ends and a new one begins. In the Gregorian calendar, this date is 2012.12.21 or December 21, 2012. December 21 is the date of the December solstice, also called the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere (summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere).

Why 5125 years? The Mayan date of 13.0.0.0.0 means 13 baktuns, 0 katuns, 0 tuns, 0 uinals, and 0 kin from the reference date of the calendar. This is the number of years in one-fifth of Earth’s astronomical precessional period of about 26,000 years. It is called the precession of the equinoxes.

The Ancients of planet Earth regarded precession as the evolution of life on Earth, the unfolding of spirit and consciousness. To the Maya, 26,000 years is the gestation period of humanity, just as 260 days is the gestation of a human fetus before it is born.

What, in astronomy, is a precessional cycle? 

The axis of the spinning earth wobbles like any spinning top, the axis slowly turning in a circle with angular radius 23.5 degrees. This angle of 23.5 degrees is the angle of the tilt of the earth’s axis to the orbital plane around the sun. This is the reason that the tropical zones, the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, are 23.5 degrees north and south of the equator. Moreover, this is the reason we have seasons.

Earth’s precession takes about 26,000 years to complete. This is one precessional period. In the chart, the circle is the precessional circle. At the left is Polaris, the current pole star in the year 2000. Note that Thuban was the pole star in 3000 BCE (5,000 years ago), and then half a precessional cycle from now it will be the brilliant star Vega in constellation Libra, as it was in 12,000 BCE.  

How did ancient indigenous people know the precessional cycle without access to highly accurate instruments? 

They observed that the north pole star slowly moved in the night sky across the years and decades. It takes 72 years to move one degree in the sky. It may seem like too small a change to detect, but generations of indigenous people have noticed that different stars in different constellations have taken the place of the pole star.

What is so special about the date 13.0.0.0.0? 

We convert the date to the Gregorian calendar which is used today, and ask our astronomical software to give us the positions of Earth and Sun relative to the astronomical objects in space around our galaxy, the Milky Way. We reference the Milky Way by the location of its center, the Galactic Center. Here is what we find, and we go on to interpret the  specialness of the date in various aspects.

The Galactic Center (GC) is indicated by the arrow in the photo of the Milky Way.

On this date:

Astronomically:  The GC is behind an obscuring Black Rift. It is known to be in the constellation of Sagittarius; its location is designated Sag A* (Sagittarius A*). On this date, the Sun is in alignment with the GC as seen from Earth. That is, the Earth, Sun, and Galactic Center are on a straight line. This happens once every 26,000 years.

Astrologically:  This alignment means astrologically that it is a conjunction of humans with the Cosmos.

Mythologically:  Father Sun conjoins with Mother Galaxy, creating children (Humankind). This takes place at a portal to the Underworld, affecting human consciousness.

Metaphysically:  The solar system enters a region of space with certain high energies, according to the Ageless Wisdom teachings.

Esoterically:  Generation or regeneration of human consciousness takes place to a new level of evolution. 

What is the Galactic Center in astronomy?   

* Physical center of the Milky Way Galaxy

* Place where Sun’s ecliptic path crosses the Milky Way Galactic plane, at a 60-degree angle.

* Location of the galactic supermassive black hole in the Great Black Rift noted by Mayan astronomers.

By the way, here are relevant astronomical data.

* Earth spins around its axis once in 24 hours.

* Earth orbits the Sun at a speed of 67,100 miles per hour, taking a year of 365.2 days for the  orbital period.

* As Earth orbits Sun, Sun orbits Galactic Center, taking its solar system with it, the circuit taking 226 million years. Speed of Sun through the Galaxy: around 500,000 mph.

* Our Galaxy the Milky Way is also traveling through space.

* Earth’s path is thus a circular helical spiral with Sun (red) travelling through space. Earth’s path is indicated by the blue curve. The paths of the two inner planets are shown in red and yellow.

Milky Way Astronomy of Galactic Center

A new study of the center of the Milky Way using radio and X-ray images provides the best view so far of the strange space near the center of the Galaxy. This image shows a full-color high-resolution Chandra X-ray Observatory X-ray image of the 1000 by 2000 lightyear region around the center the Milky Way. The X-ray image is colored orange, green, blue, purple, representing increasingly higher X-ray energies (and increasingly more extreme phenomena).   

Chandra x-ray image in four wavelengths. https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/objects/heapow/archive/normal_galaxies/galcenter_chandra.html 

Center of Milky Way, simulation of stars close to Sag A*. 

Various Remarks on Precession Effects

Jose Arguelles (The Mayan Factor, 1987): 2012.12.21 marks the conclusion of the passage of our solar system through a galactic synchronization beam.

The authors of Hamlet’s Mill (Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, 1969) contend that ancient cultures believed precession to have a primary influence on the changing destinies of humankind. The authors discuss ancient myths that a future time would come when cosmic harmony would return.

Kryon, October 2015:

If humanity survived past the December solstice of 2012, it would begin its journey of a further evolution of consciousness.

Concluding Remarks

We can safely surmise from observing the growing spiritual activity on this planet that there is something going on with the elevation of human consciousness to higher frequencies, to higher dimensions. Further, that the rate of evolution has stepped up since 2012 together with a shifting perception of time. Now time seems not so much the ruler of our daily activities, but a connection with the short to long cyles from the distant past into the future. We are coming out of our dark period to an understanding of being here now. 

We have passed the winter solstice of our dark period. Spring and summer of humanity have not yet arrived, but the winter solstice is a herald of the coming spring.

***

Quantum Plenum of All Possibilities

Image credit. Click to enlarge.

Quantum Plenum

In the previous post, we suggested that the universe was created out of chaos which contained all possibilities. This is a worldview of the quantum vacuum which is an emptiness that contains the plenum, the fullness of All That Is. These posts are a continuation of the theme of E. Sahtouris’ Gaia’s Dance, the dance that creates the entire universe. I wanted to write an article on how the quantum vacuum is the quantum plenum. I found that Anne Baring had already done so in her wonderful post, The Quantum Vacuum. She states:

At the quantum level of reality, we are all connected.

The quantum field is the source ground of the visible universe which holds the recorded information of everything that has been, is and will be in the future. It is like a gigantic memory field holding other fields within it which eventually manifest as the “forms” of life on this planet.

Baring quotes physicist Bernard Haisch:

It may represent an unlimited source of energy available everywhere, and perhaps even a way to modify gravity and inertia. The quantum vacuum is, therefore, in reality a plenum.

Compare this with Sahtouris’ All That Is. Aren’t they saying the same thing? Another physicist with a similar view was David Bohm and his What Is, which is so like All That Is.

David Bohm, 1917-1992

David Bohm

David Bohm received his doctorate in theoretical physics under Robert Oppenheimer at the University of California, Berkeley Radiation Laboratory. He is the author of Quantum Theory, Prentice-Hall, 1951, and many other books. He is most noted for his treatise, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 1980, a new way for quantum physics to look at the nature of reality and consciousness. His main thesis is that underlying the unfolded explicit order of our three-dimensional physical world is an enfolded (non-physical) implicit order of movement. This resonates with themes from ancient India and Tibet. 

Having published a textbook on quantum theory in 1951, Bohm was nevertheless feeling that the customary separation of things of the world into different parts was not working well, and that a new world view was needed in modern physics. He sought to approach the nature of reality as an “undivided wholeness of the universe.” He saw underlying reality was a movement, a process.

In Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980), he introduces the focus of his work:

“I would say that in my scientific and philosophical work, my main concern has been with understanding the nature of reality in general and of consciousness in particular as a coherent whole, which is never static or complete, but which is in an unending process of movement and unfoldment.”

Bohm proposes:

“… a new notion of order, that may be appropriate to a universe of unbroken wholeness. This is the implicate or enfolded order. In the enfolded order, space and time are no longer the dominant factors… Rather, an entirely different sort of basic connection of elements is possible… [as] forms derived from the deeper order. These ordinary notions in fact appear in what is called the explicate or unfolded order.”

“There is a universal flow in which mind and matter are not separate, but are “different aspects of one whole and unbroken movement.”

“Moreover we are now able to understand in a new and more consistent way our proposed notion concerning the general nature of reality, that what is is movement.”

Tibetan Bon Dzogchen

“There are interconnections and resonances between the later quantum philosophy of interdependent wholeness proposed by David Bohm and the metaphysical perspectives of Tibetan Bon and Buddhist traditions. In particular Bohm’s later vision of the necessity of a quantum vision of wholeness within which fragmented organic ‘subunits’ embodying limited consciousness have a relative independence at the same time as being connected to the whole, is shown to be spectacularly resonant with Buddhist Yogacara (Consciousness-Only) and Bon and Buddhist Dzogchen metaphysical perspectives.” — The Tibetan Book of the Undivided Universe: David Bohm’s Quantum Philosophy of Wholeness in the Light of Buddhist Metaphysics by Graham Smetham. See also Unbounded Wholeness by Anne Carolyn Klein and Tenzin Wangyal.

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Gaia’s Dance: All That Is

Gaia’s Dance by Elisabet Sahtouris

This is the fifth in the series of posts on the true nature of reality. Here we view Reality from a Gaian perspective.

Gaia’s Dance

Gaia’s Dance is a perceptive book about the living nature of our mother planet, Gaia. Scientist Dr. Elisabet Sahtouris can see the evolution of Earth as a dance of powerful energies. Not only does she look into ancient Greek and Vedic myths and past five-billion-year Earth history, but interprets the latest scientific findings and looks ahead into the future as well. She shows us how we’ve crippled Gaia and what we can do to make her healthy again, along with transforming our own human foibles and destiny. The book is entitled, Gaia’s Dance: The Story of Earth and Us, 2018 . This book is written in a comfortable style for non-specialists to understand the complex science. Other titles of Sahtouris include:  Earthdance: Living Systems in Evolution, A Walk Through Time: From Stardust to Us; and Biology Revisioned with Willis Harman.

The Dance of the Universe

“Every piece of matter, everything we know, is a beautiful ballet made of countless invisible dancers’ movements together. It is a dance too small to see, and yet so large it is the whole universe!

“This reminded some physicists that ancient people in India had called the universe the dance of Shiva and his wife, Shakti…and the dance of living nature, of the whole universe, is All That Is.

“Physicists everywhere now understand the universe this way, showing us that matter is a moving dance of energy forming endless patterns. What ‘matters’ is the design of the dance. People everywhere are getting this, too, that we are all One, all individually and together a single energy dance, all of us affecting each other’s lives, all of us co-creating our dance now and always.

“Perhaps the biggest question in science now is about the nature of this basic energy of All That Is. Just like the hunt for the tiniest indivisible ‘original’ particle from which all matter is composed, scientists now hunt for the original energy from which all the matter in the universe is made. Some physicists believe it is what we call consciousness as was, and still is, believed in the Vedic science of India; others disagree.”

Sea of Energy Model

Scientists have begun to abandon the popular Big Bang theory. Now scientists believe that the universe that we know began as ripples of energy like waves on a sea of energy, or like the breath of a living organism. In the 20th century, Einstein’s theory of relativity showed that matter is equivalent to energy. And quantum mechanics theory posits that everything is connected, which agrees with the ancient teachings of sages that All is One. What is it that makes All One?

Electromagnetic spectrum

Keyboard Model

Elisabet Sahtouris suggests we imagine the stuff of the universe as like a musical keyboard. It does make some sense, since musical notes are vibrations of different frequencies. The lowest keys/notes are the particles of Matter, the middle keys are the electromagnetic energies of light, and the highest keys are the high frequencies of Spirit. In this model, each of us is a being of Matter-Energy-Spirit. Einstein showed that matter and energy are the same thing. But what is this “same thing”? We are now beginning to accept the ages-old teaching of the Vedas that this basic stuff is consciousness, consciousness which is Spirit. Consciousness has all these vibrations of energy of the keyboard, from Spirit to Energy to Matter.

Consciousness: All That Is

The universe is All That Is. We are All That Is. 

What is “All That Is”? Well, isn’t it what consciousness is — pure energy? Physicists call All That Is the quantum field, a field of pure energy.

We will go into further consideration of the quantum field and we will be sharing further thoughts on consciousness in following posts.

The Evolving Dance

In the final chapter of Sahtouris’ Gaia’s Dance, she shares her wisdom with the reader.

“We humans, as we have seen, are still quite new compared with so many other species, yet we are already forming a still newer and larger global body of humanity. We are taking evolution to a new stage — one in which we are aware of what we are doing, one in which we organize ourselves by ideas instead of by instincts — one in which we can know ourselves as spirit having a human experience, as some people say, and knowing, or waking up to, our Oneness, our presence in All That Is.”

“If people all over the world come to love their own lives as part of Gaia’s Dance, Gaia’s big brain experiment may prove to be well worth the risk. We will all know that we are still young, as a human species, and can make the future as bright as we would like it to be. With our love and cooperation, Gaia’s Dance will go on in creative balance and harmony — both for itself and as part of the greater harmonies of the whole universe.”

In the Beginning …

The ancient Greeks said that the universe originated with the dance of the goddess Gaia. Dancing brought order out of chaos. Let’s take a further look at chaos.

Next: In the Beginning was Chaos

***

MIND OF SHINTO

The World of Shinto, 1985

Rarely do we see deep thoughts of Shinto in open literature. This unassuming book is valuable not only for Shinto studies, but also for consciousness studies in various spiritual traditions. This post is but one of a number of Okunomichi’s series on consciousness and Mind. By Mind, we refer to the great Mind of Universe as well as the higher consciousness of the human Mind.

The World of Shinto, Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai, 1985, 268pp, 4892374113.

The contents of this book were first made into modern Japanese in 1977 by Professor Kamata Jun’ichi of the Okura Institute for Spiritual Cultures. Then it was rendered into English by Norman Havens of Kokugakuin University. The book is published by the Buddhist Promoting Organization.

The book contains a number of essays by members of notable Shinto families. We present excerpts from five essays written during the 12th, 14th, and 16th centuries.

p29

Nakatomi no Harae Kunge (An Explication of the Nakatomi Liturgy of Purification)

Written near the very end of the Heian (794 – 1185) or early in the Kamakura period (1185-1333).

“The individual mind, my mind, should be viewed as something which communes with heaven and earth, nature, the cosmos. When considered in this way, we know that the gods ruling the cosmos exist within my very mind. When I come to this realization, I can comprehend the mind of the deities within my own mind. And that becomes the purification of no-mind, no-thought. When I confront the deity with this no-mind, no-thought, god and man are united, namely, I become one with god, and it is clear that all my thoughts, all my desires, are in communion with god. Namely, this is a means, a discipline for knowing my own mind, and by that, I am changed into my true self. The union of god and man means the road whereby I return to myself.”

Notes: Nakatomi no harae refers to the ritual invocations of the oharae great purification ritual which was recited on the last day of the sixth and twelfth months by the Nakatomi clan. The Nakatomi no Harae Kunge text is the oldest-known commentary on this ritual. The commentary found in the text is based upon the esoteric teachings (taimitsu) of the Tendai Buddhist sect.

p36

Toyoashihara Jinpuu Waki (A Simple Record of the Divine Wind in Japan, by Jihen*, 1340)

“The correct way of Shinto practice is not to be misled by senseless words and theories, but merely to seek the sole true source of the mind [kokoro]. To know its origin and ultimate, and to become one with it, one must merely endeavor earnestly. Not to be led astray on false paths, but to awaken to the root of the Way, and to teach that Way even to fools, and to those who have forgotton virtue and become lost — such is the true method of Shinto practice. To act in such a way is to be in accord with the command of heaven, the fundamental Way of the universe; it can be said to be in communion with the fundamental spiritual essence of the universe.”

*Jihen was the son of the Shinto diviner Urabe Kaneaki. He was a Buddhist and became interested in Shinto, developing a unique viewpoint and theory regarding Shinto. Jihen was a strong influence on Shinto thought in the Nambokuchō and Muromachi eras, formulating the “Root, Branch and Flower” doctrine (konpon shōka, wherein Shinto represented the root, Confucianism the branches, and Buddhism the flower of the order of all things).

p38

Shinto Yuraiki (Records of the Origins of Shinto, by Yoshida Kanetomo** 1435-1511)

“That which governs heaven and earth is called deity [kami]. That which governs the individual things in the world is called spirit [rei], while that which governs the individual human being is called mind [kokoro]. At the same time, the human mind is the very place where the kami—who govern the entire universe—dwell, a sacred place within which thus resides the root origin of the cosmos and all things. “

**Yoshida Kanetomo was the founder of Yoshida Shinto (Yuiitsu, “One and Only Shinto”). He was from the family of Shinto diviners called Urabe. They served as priests for the Yoshida, Hirano, and Ume no Miya shrines.  

p38

Yuiitsu Shinto Myoubou Youshuu (Essentials of the Distinguished System of “The One and Only Shinto,” by Yoshida Kanetomo, 1435-1511

“The center of heaven and earth is kami. Kami is also the center of all things. Even devils and beasts—compassionless things—have kami at their center. The core of grass and trees, this is kami. If so, then how can it be that the human center, mind [kokoro] can be anything but kami? Certainly, the human mind, too, is kami. The spirits possessed by all things within this world—there is none that is not kami. There is nothing within which the kami does not dwell. “

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Shinto Taii (An Outline of Shinto, by Yoshida Kanetomo, 1435-1511)

“Kami is that which was there before the appearance of heaven and earth, and which gave form to them; that which surpasses the yin and the yang, yet has the quality of them. This kami is thus an absolute existence, governing the entire universe of heaven and earth, yet at the same time, it dwells within all things, where it is called spirit [rei]; omnipresent within human beings, it is called mind [kokoro]. “

  ” In other words, human mind communes with the kami which is ruler of heaven and earth; mind and kami are one and the same. Kami is the root origin of heaven and earth, the spiritual nature of all things, and the source of human destiny. Itself without form, it is kami which nurtures things with form. Residing within man’s “five organs,” the deepest part of the human, kami becomes the five kami. “

   “For this reason, the character 神 is read not only as “kami,” but also as “tamashii” [spirit or soul]. We see color with our eyes, yet the color is not in our eyes. That which is the root source of our seeing color is kami. We hear sounds with our ears, yet it is not the ear which produces the sound. That which is the hearing is kami. Our noses’ smelling, our mouths’ tasting, the feeling of hot and cold by our skin—all these are the same. And from this, we know that mind is the dwelling place of the kami, one and the same with the origin of heaven and earth. “

Note: We suggest you re-read these essays, substituting for kami, the words Mind or consciousness. The Japanese word, kokoro, means heart-mind, heart, or mind. 

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Power Places and the Kanayama Megaliths

Megaliths as Power Places

Earth and Celestial Energies.  Humans have long held a deep relationship with Earth and its energies. Even as hunter-gatherers, early man knew places of power as sacred places. They gathered at these sites to honor and venerate life-giving energies of Earth and Sky.

People became aware of fluctuations of these terrestrial energies, and they realized that these earth cycles were related to celestial cycles, the movements of Sun, Moon, and stars in our sky. They knew how to live in harmony with these energies.

Megaliths.  Soon, humans learned that these energies could benefit the health and welfare of people and society, that these energies were associated with naturally occuring megaliths. They learned, as they settled down and began cultivating crops, how to improve their lives. At first, they utilized megaliths to mark significant places. Then they assembled them into megalithic structures, often moving huge boulders from far away, to these special sites — how we do not know. Thus, energies were enhanced. Energies could be redirected to areas where needed, for example, to their crop fields. Megalithic structures could be erected to tamp excessive earth energies such as those due to earthquakes.

As modern research technologies have advanced, and our minds have been opened to new ways of viewing early societies, we have come to better understand early man. These megalithic places served multiple purposes, the least and the last of which was to serve as cemeteries. Through more accurate dating of materials, we know that the structures were built in the 4,000 BCE time-frame, that they were later and only occasionally re-purposed as burial sites.

Purposes of megaliths.  As mentioned, megalithic sites served to mark sacred places; they were developed to manage earth and celestial energies to benefit society. And, finally, megalithic structures were designed and built and operated to serve as observatories. They could then provide accurate data for calendars and for predicting future celestial phenomena, to know when there would be significant changes in energy.

Each of these megalithic observatories investigated the celestial body pertinent to that particular site. Although these observatories were a late development, there are not so many that are known to us today. 

In summary, let’s list the purposes of megaliths and megalithic structures, in roughly chronological order.

+ Identify locations of sacred sites,

+ Hold sacred ceremonies to venerate life-giving force of Universe,

+ Control and manage energies for beneficial purposes,

+ Learn periodic fluctuations of celestial energies affecting earth energies,

+ Observe celestial phenomena in specially-built observatories to determine more exactly the timing of special energies,

+ Determine an accurate calendar of the year/years.

Kanayama Megalithic Observatory

Deep in a mountain forest on the main island of the Japanese archipelago lies a megalithic solar observatory. This site has recently come to the attention of those outside of Japan as the source of a super-accurate solar calendar. This calendar of the tropical year is based on sunlight observation and is 15 times more accurate than our modern calendar. The megaliths were shaped and assembled more than 5,000 years ago. We know, because later humans deposited ashes that have so been dated.

Japanese news media have termed this solar observatory a “power spot”. People have been coming from near and far to experience this remarkable achievement from long ago. They are amazed at the ancient people’s knowledge of astronomy, of their skill in shaping 100-ton and 200-ton blocks of stone, of moving them with precision into desired — and well-planned — configurations. These configurations enable a human observer to accurately track sunbeams and their patterns over the course of the year. at special times, special phenomena are observed. These times of observation determine the solar calendar.

This sun-tracking station is situated amidst tall trees in the mountains near a rushing river. To track the sun would have been simpler if the site were on a flat plain as in most other calendrical observatories. However, the site was cleverly chosen so that it could operate in winter as well as in summer, throughout the entire tropical year.

What’s also remarkable is that two non-specialist researchers have, in less than 20 years, decoded the purpose of this megalithic site. Actually, it is a system of three sites which cooperate to produce all the needed observations, and more. These modern researchers in fact have accomplished their own feat of reverse engineering. They have deduced, from what they themselves have observed, what the original purpose of each megalithic solar event was, and the functions of each megalithic structure.

And to top it off, they are able to explain to the large tour groups how it all works, in language that is simple and direct, uncluttered by scientific jargon. They have already published a fully-illustrated guidebook to the site and have a more technical bi-lingual book in preparation.

The Kanayama Megaliths are a living example of an ancient scientific system. To young children and adults alike it teaches basic astronomy ‘in the field’ so that everyone can experience being a sun tracker in megalithic times.

Concluding Remarks

Megaliths are found all over the globe. They are well-known in Europe, less evident in the Far East. This post was inspired by the article of Martin Gray  about megaliths of Europe. We then related it to our own research at Kanayama Megaliths.  Photo of a tour group at Kanayama Megaliths by Okunomichi.

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December Solstice Greetings

Megalith for viewing winter solstice sunrise (photo by S. Tokuda)

 

One Earth, One Sun, One People

In ancient cultures, winter solstice day was the beginning of the new year. On this shortest day of the year, people knew that the next day would start to be slightly longer, and spring would be coming. Winter solstice is a symbol of rebirth and regeneration.

December 21 and 22 mark the days of the solstice which we call the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere.

Iwakage has posted an article entitled, Winter Solstice 2017. It gives some of the dates and times in various time zones around the world. At the instant of time that is astronomical solstice, it is already early Friday morning of the 22nd in Japan, where Iwakage is located. One of the “earliest” times is in Hawaii when the solstice occurs at 6:28 a.m. on the 21st.

To our readers around the world, thank you for visiting us:

U.S., Japan, France, Italy, U.K., Australia, Canada, Brazil, Germany, Morocco, Russia, Netherlands, Spain, India, Philippines, Hungary, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, Belgium, Mexico, Switzerland, Estonia, Chile, Thailand, New Zealand, Serbia, Bulgaria, Portugal, Austria, S. Korea, Ukraine, Argentina, Finland, Romania, Poland, Taiwan, Switzerland, Slovenia, S. Africa, Israel, Greece, E.U., Norway, Cape Verde, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Peru, Denmark, United Arab Emirates, Colombia, Turkey, China, Iceland, Belarus, Croatia, Pakistan, Latvia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Lithuania, Puerto Rico, Slovakia, Venezuela, Panama, and eighty other countries.

Seeing the names of these 150 countries truly impresses upon us that we are all One People living on this Earth under our Sun. Solstices, equinoxes, and all the days of the year come to all of us. Although the times on our clocks may differ, these astronomical times are the exact same moment for all of us.

Okunomichi wishes every one of you a Happy New Year!

 

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David Bohm: Wholeness and the Nature of Reality

The question of whether the world we live in is a simulation of some other has recently been raised in the media. For those of our readers who, too, are pondering the nature of reality — and we think that includes most of you — we recommend the study of David Bohm’s work.

Dialogues with Scientists and Sages

We first learned about David Bohm in the book by Renee Weber, Dialogues with Scientists and Sages: The Search for Unity, Routledge, 1986. Philosopher Weber interviewed a number of exemplary people of our time: Lama Govinda, Rupert Sheldrake, David Bohm, The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Father Bede Griffiths, Ilya Prigogine, Stephen Hawking, and Krishnamurti. This book can be truly transformative and although out of print, should be on our bookshelves to be read and reread. Bohm himself was greatly affected by the Eastern views of Krishnamurti.

David Bohm

David Bohm, 1917-1992, was a prominent quantum theoretical physicist who had studied and worked with Einstein and Oppenheimer. He made a number of important contributions to quantum mechanics, relativity, plasma theory, and ontology theory. Ontology is the branch of metaphysics and philosophy that is concerned with the nature of reality. His work challenged conventional physical thought and offered an innovative approach, so innovative as to be little understood nor accepted by the mainstream. His work, unfortunately unappreciated until now, will surely become more widely known in this century.

Wholeness and the Implicate Order

David Bohm was an extraordinary physicist whose great work, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, was published by Routledge in 1980. In the Introduction of this book, he wrote:

• “I would say that in my scientific and philosophical work, my main concern has been with understanding the nature of reality in general and of consciousness in particular as a coherent whole, which is an unending process of movement and unfoldment.”
• “How are we to think coherently of a simple, unbroken, flowing actuality of existence as a whole, containing both thought (consciousness) and external reality as we experience it?
• “Clearly, this brings us to consider our overall world view, which includes our general notions concerning the nature of reality along with those concerning the total order of the universe, i.e., cosmology.”
• “My suggestion is that a proper world view, appropriate for its time, is generally one of the basic factors that is essential for harmony in the individua and in society as a whole.”

Topics in his book include the following:

• Ch. 1 Wholeness as a world view compared with fragmentation world view.
• Ch. 2 Language can be noun-based or verb-based, divisive or unitive.
• Ch. 3 Reality as an underlying universal movement/process; world view in which consciousness and reality are not fragmented from each other.
• Ch. 4, 5, 6 Technical subjects
• Ch. 7 Consciousness and the enfolding-unfolding universe

There is an important Appendix at the end of Chapter 1 on the Western and Eastern forms of insight into wholeness. Here, he notes that in the East, the immeasurable was seen as the primary reality, for measure is a thought of man. “When measure is identified with the very essence of reality, this is illusion.” It is the immeasurable that Bohm calls the implicate order.

What the West can do, Bohm states, is to

• “develop new insight into fragmentation and wholeness [that] requires a creative work even more difficult than that needed to make fundamental new discoveries in science, or great and original works of art.”
• “assimilate [the great wisdom from the whole of the past, both in the East and in the West] and to go on to new and original perception relevant to our present condition of life.”

In the rest of the book, Bohm lays out the results of his own creative work. We, now, can take up the reins and move ahead into greater wholeness and harmony in our world view and in our lives. This is one of the great books of the twentieth century.

David Bohm and F. David Peat:  Science, Order, and Creativity

This book was published in 1987. It is a more descriptive book and may be easier to understand. It takes up topics such as creativity in science, what is order?, the implicate order, consciousness, and creativity in the whole of life. Certainly well worth reading.

D. Bohm and B.J. Hiley, The Undivided Universe: An ontological interpretation of quantum theory

The Undivided Universe by Bohm and his long-time collaborator was published in 1993, a year after Bohm’s passing. This epitome of Bohm’s work elucidates the implicate order and its role in quantum theory, as well as in consciousness.

• “As we develop this idea, we shall see that the notion of enfoldment is not merely a metaphor, but that it has to be taken fairly literally. To emphasise this point, we shall therefore say that the order in the hologram is implicate. The order in the object, as well as in the image, will then be unfolded and we shall call it explicate. The process, in this case wave movement, in which this order is conveyed from the object to the hologram will be called enfoldment or implication. The process in which the order in the hologram becomes manifest to the viewer in an image will be called unfoldment or explication.”
• “What all this suggests is that our most primary experience in consciousness actually is of an implicate order. And our perception of the explicate order is constituted mostly by a series of abstractions from this.”
• “The implicate order is not only the ground of perception, but also of the actual process of thought.”
• “All of this is clearly compatible with the notion that the basic order of the mind is implicate and that the explicate arises as a particular case of this implicate order in much the way that we have suggested.”

Links

• http://www.david-bohm.net/
• http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/K/K.html
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm

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KATAKAMUNA ANCIENT CIVILIZATION

Introduction

Katakamuna is an ancient civilization, a moji script, a science of the universe. This post contains information from Japanese sources in a book and on the Internet.

Part 1  Katakamuna Civilization and Documents

From http://ejje.weblio.jp/sentence/content/katakamuna, whose entries come from Japanese Wikipedia.

Katakamuna civilization is a super ancient civilization that is said to have existed in Japan. カタカムナ文明とは、かつて日本に存在したとされる超古代文明。

Katakamuna civilization is said to have existed at the end of the paleolithic period (Japan) before the Jomon period.  縄文時代以前、旧石器時代(日本)末期に存在したとされる。

NARASAKI Kogetsu was the first to advocate the existence of the Katakamuna civilization in Japan. 日本で初めてカタカムナ文明の存在を唱えたのは楢崎皐月（ならさき・こうげつ）である。

According to the Katakamuna documents, it is assumed that the civilization had highly sophisticated technology and an original system of philosophy. 極めて高度な科学技術や独自の哲学体系を持っていたことがカタカムナ文献から推測される。

It [these documents] is so called because the Katakamuna characters were used.  カタカムナ文字を使用していたとされる事から呼ばれる。

Later, Kogetsu succeeded in deciphering this document (commonly called “Katakamuna documents”) over five years.

後に皐月は五年をかけてこの文書（通称「カタカムナ文献」）の解読に成功。

These characters were called “Katakamuna characters” from the location where they were enshrined and “Katakamuna Civilization” was advocated as the civilization in which the characters were used. この文字はそれが祀られていたとされる場所の名から「カタカムナ文字」と呼ばれ、その文字を使用していた文明として「カタカムナ文明」が提唱されたのである。

Part 2   Fukano Kazuyuki, Chogakusho Katakamuna no Nazo, 超科学書「カタカムナ」の謎, Kosaido Books, 1993

NARASAKI Kougetsu  (楢崎皐月), born 1899, was a scientist who studied at Japan Electronic Engineering School. In the 1920s he was in Manchuria where he invented a special oil that blocks electricity and developed a man-made gasoline; he was in the Japanese Army that was making iron in Manchuria. After he came back, he worked in a medical company where he had a project to raise farming yields by use of electricity. So he was putting up power lines in Hyogo-ken’s Kincho-zanchu in the Rokkousan 六甲山 mountain range. He wanted to learn why a large matsu pine could grow on top of an iwa large stone. He spent five years living in the wild and this experience resulted in his writing a book. Moreover, it resulted in his discovery of Katakamuna.

This is a book about Katakamuna, a super-science from a super-ancient civilization. The information comes from a scroll which Narasaki copied over a period of twenty days in 1949. Narasaki was studying the environment when a hunter, around 50-60 years old, appeared holding a gun. The hunter told Narasaki that the power lines were preventing animals from drinking from lakes, so Narasaki stopped doing that. In gratitude, the hunter came back and said that his father was guji at Katakamuna Jinja. He brought a makimono that he said is their goshintai, written in strange moji. He allowed Narasaki to copy the document. The document had been protected by the Hira-Ke and Meshi-Ke families.

By a strange coincidence, Narasaki had studied in Manchurian temples with Taoist elders. They told him that there was once in Japan a zoku, tribe, of people called Ashiya, a civilization with a high technology. They had yatakagami writing and special iron for making steel as well as a high level of culture. Their culture came to China through the Chinese Shinoushi who brought from Japan what would be the beginning of Chinese culture.

Katakamuna comes from the early Jomon at the end of the ice age more than 10,000 years ago.

Eighty Uta

There are 80 uta in the Katakamuna document that Narasaki copied out in 1949. Five out of 80 were published in Narasaki’s jisho. There are other uta in this Fukano book; they were written by Narasaki, who spent five years studying the document.

This is how Fusano explains Katakamuna.

Kata = seen world, the world of form

Kamu = unseen world

Na = nushi, lord

Thus, Kata-kamu-na is the lord of the seen and unseen worlds. A Katakamuna-jin has knowledge of the unseen world behind the world of form.

Everything comes from Ama. Uchu is everything, the universe. Mari is an atom of matter. Ama creates everything, and it comes from the unseen world, Kamu-no-sekai.

Tennen, everything, is made of 8 different rasen-no-kaiten spirals or junkai circular movements and opposite movements.

Katakamuna includes the super-micro and super-macro of joukyo appearance. Seimei no honjitsu, life and mind and uchu universe. Seibetsu living organisms occur naturally, and all things have life.

In Narasaki’s book, there are 80 uta arranged in spirals with three types of symbols in the center: Yatakagami symbol in 71 spirals, Futomani in 7, Mikumari in 2 spirals. The illustration shows the Yatakagami symbol in the center of one of the uta.

The first uta reads:

katakamuna –  hibiki – mano suheshi – ashia touan – utsushi – matsuri.

Katakamuna – sound – mano suheshi? – Ashia Touan – wrote this – made offering in matsuri.

Start reading from the center and spiral out. It seems to say that Ashia Touan received the message of Katakamuna from somewhere and he wrote it down and made an offering in matsuri.

Katakamuna reveals konpongen principles of: Universe, tennen, and shizen This is something like the Universe, Heaven-and-Earth, and Nature.

The first uta is telling about basic principles of everything in the seen world. The Unseen world has limitless energy, Kamu and the lord of Kamu. The Seen world is made from the Unseen world, Amana is the lord of Amana. Everything we have here is Kamuna and Amana vibration; tougou integration of Amana and Kamuna.

Here are verses 5 and 6. Below them are shown the three types of centers: Yatakakami, Futomani, and Mikumari.

     

 

KOBAYASHI: Koshinto Nyumon Part 1

Kobayashi Biigen is an interesting author. We will post some of his writings. Guji Kobayashi passed away a few years ago.

Kobayashi Bigen, Koshinto Nyumon, 1998

Chapter 7 Kannagara naru Omichi he:  Energy Lines pp244-249

The Author: Kobayashi Sensei was guji for 37 years. Born in Taipei in 1927, served on battleship. Attended Shinto school at Atsuta Jinja 12 years; guji at Kumano Motomiya; Omiya Jinja 11 years; Ishikiri Tsurugiya Jinja 13 years. He also spent some time in Europe but unfortunately for us, he hasn’t published in the English language. He was exceptionally knowledgeable in broad areas of sacred wisdom and philosophy, and we are trying hard to translate his works. Here is a part of the last chapter in this book. He is writing about energy lines connecting sacred places in Japan. They have something to do with how principles in the universe are reflected as patterns on earth.

On pages 245ff Kobayashi shows what he terms energy lines in Figures 26 – 31. He begins with an area centered on Awaji Shima, the legendary birthplace of Japan. See Fig. 26.

Fig. 26 shows a triangular alignment ABC, distance 160 km between apexes.

A  Sengamine (mountain) Hyogo

B  Tamakiyama, Nara

C  Tsurugiyama, Shikoku

On those mountain tops are himorogi/iwakura from 15,000 yearso ago.

Fig. 27 is a larger region and shows a circle passing through points A, B, and D, where

D  Izanagi Jingu, Awaji no Ichinomiya

Then the circle also passes through

E  Ise no Naiku

F  Ibukiyama

G  Oue Yama, Motoise Naiku

Fig. 28 is an even larger region. A star-shape is formed by connecting jinja. The lines of the star are DE, EG, GH, HF,FD. Points on the star are G F E H D, where

H  Kumano Motomiya Taisha

If we extend GF to the east, we get a straight line to

J   Fuji Yama

Extending to the west, our line goes to

K  Izumo Taisha

Additional alignments are shown in Figs. 29 – 31 of his book, not shown here, with points L M N.

L  Kushimoto Ushiyo-misaki, Wakayama

M  Kaizu

N  Suwa Taisha

O  Nikko Futa-areyama Jinja (Toshogu)

He mentions some names which I have not succeeded in tracking down: Nakanishi Akira, professor, who studied himorogi, iwakura; Yamada Hirokuni, shocho/manager Stock Data Systems, studied triangular alignments of shrines. Also Yamashita Hiromichi, “Haruka naru daichi Mu kara no Yogen” published by Tama Shuppan.

On p. 243, he states that we have the power to connect to energies. The ancient Japanese prevented earthquakes by praying. Their oinori saved Japan from sinking like the Mu continent. Here is a similar map we found on the Internet.

This image is from  http://whowont.com/wisdom/ley-line-maps/japan-line-map.html.

2020.01.01 Note: The name of mountain A in Hyogo has been corrected to Sengamine.

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