![[Hexagonal diagram]](../images/hexagon.Gif)
In an earlier posting (letter 3) I discussed the BBC television programme on Atlantis that went out under the umbrella of the "Horizon" documentary series. My concern then about this programme was not its wider target of whether or not there ever was a submerged continent of Atlantis but rather its more focused attack on the thesis contained in The Orion Mystery, which I co-authored with Robert Bauval. Since then I have been asked to comment further on the scientific rebuttal of the Orion correlation theory by people such as Dr Edwin Krupp of the USA and Professor Anthony Fairall of the Department of Astronomy at the University of Cape Town. As Robert Bauval has already made a spirited defence of his ideas in the face of these attacks I will not go into this subject again. However, the barely suppressed anger concerning theories of the cosmological significance of pyramids indicates the annoyance felt by at least some scientists concerning the whole Orion correlation thesis which they regard as being "unscientific". This, however, begs the question of what is scientific and how do we know that a theory has been properly substantiated? Philosophically speaking this in itself is a very interesting question and is one I would like to consider today.
Publicly at least most orthodox Egyptologists dismiss the Orion correlation theory as unproven and therefore not to be taken seriously. In their minds it is bracketed with the earlier "God is a spaceman" theories of Erich von Däniken as dangerous speculation. Bauval and Hancock (and to a lesser extent myself) are regarded as so many "Pied Pipers", who have stolen the hearts of their students and led them astray from the straight and narrow of orthodox science. To bring them back a vigorous campaign is being waged to discredit the Orion correlation theory, this being rightly seen as the cornerstone on which so much else has been built. The tool being used to dislodge this cornerstone is exactitude. For if the physical evidence indicates that the pyramids were not laid our exactly in the positions required for them to be a totally accurate map of the Orion can we really say they were meant to be such a map? When considering this point, the first question we have to ask ourselves is just what would constitute scientific proof for the theory that the pyramids represent the Belt of Orion? Is it really just a question of exactitude or is there something more subtle that is involved? Put in a nutshell the argument for the Orion correlation theory is that old canard: "If it looks like a duck and quacks, then it probably is a duck". The argument against is to say we cannot know that it is a duck because we have never seen one that looks exactly like this one. Now this, I would contend, is all a matter of vision and how we approach the problem of correlation. Should we be looking at the matter "scientifically", that is to say using set-squares, protractors, calculus and the like, is it really a matter of intuitive perception?
What I am saying here might seem nonsensical but that our own perceptions can have a bearing on what we understand of the world around us and what we accept as proof can be seen from the following simple experiment.
Now if we examine the diagram below what we have before us is a hexagonal figure divided up into six equilateral triangles.
If the centre of the hexagon is the point "O", then we can clearly see, and indeed measure with a protractor, that the angles FEO and DEO are each of them 60º. The angle FED, being the sum of FEO and DEO, is therefore exactly 120º. From a scientific point of view this is unarguably the case.
However, now look at the diagram again. It will be clear to most people looking at it that what is really being represented here is not a two-dimensional, hexagonal figure but rather a three dimensional cube drawn in a two-dimensional plane. Viewed in this way the rhombus FEDO is really one of the square faces of the cube. This being the case, the angle FED, which looks to be and can be measured as 120º is really a right angle. It only looks like 120º because of the way we are viewing the cube with one corner directly in the centre of our line of vision. Were the cube turned around so that we viewed it sideways on we would see it as 90º. Thus our scientific reasoning, which tells us unequivocally that the angle is 120º (and in fact we can measure it as such) in this case gives us a false answer. It does so because the parameters in which it is addressing the problem are wrong: Our "scientific" model is third dimension blind. It cannot "see" that the figure is really three dimensional and not two.
Now it is this philosophical paradox of "not seeing the cube because you are third dimension blind" which I believe is at the heart of the criticism of the Orion correlation theory. The reason Chadwick, Krupp and others refuse to accept the Orion correlation theory is that they are "blind" to the rationale that underlies the hypothesis. They do not look at the problem with the equivalent of a "3d" perspective which in this case means they do not have the inner perception to see the close connection between the Hermetic dictum "As above, so below" and the physical reality of pyramids constructed to represent stars on the ground. No amount of measuring, surveying, back-tracking the stars or searching texts is going to affect this. It is as though they are looking at the diagram above and are only able to see a hexagonal figure because they cannot see that it conceals a hidden cube.
This, I believe, is why the Orion correlation theory arouses so much passion: it separates people into two camps. The division roughly corresponds with right-brain and left-brain perception. It is therefore not surprising that those who are most highly skilled in the process of logical deduction—those we label as "scientists"— tend to be the theories greatest critics. It is not because they are better able to measure the facts on the ground (for example whether the relative size of pyramids exactly matches the relative brightness of the stars of Orion's Belt or whether the off-set of the Menkaure pyramid from the diagonal running through the centre of Khufu and Khafre is the same as offset of the star Mintaka from the line running through Alnitak and Alnilam) but rather they do not look at the situation artistically. This is the nub of the problem and, now I come to think of it, the cause of so much of the conflict between science and the arts. We need all of us to become aware of the "third dimension" when considering the mysteries of the past. Then and only then will we be able see the truth that sets us free.
Copyright © 2000 Adrian G Gilbert