FOOTPRINTS ON THE SANDS OF TIME by L.M. Lewis

 

Well, I dreamed I saw the silver space ships flyin'

In the yellow haze of the sun

There were children cryin' and colors flyin'

All around the chosen ones

You might think that 1975 is getting a little late in the game (after the gold rush, even) for yet another bold type, going-beyond-Chariots-of-the Gods? blurbed Ancient Astronauts piece, but author L.M. Lewis tells us he's been working on the mystery behind THE MASTER RACE for years, and far be it from us to deny him sharing the fruits of his life's work ...

Looking back fifty years later, despite Lewis' frequent invocation of the MASTER RACE that came from the stars and gifted humanity with our civilizational uplift, thankfully this isn't another Holocaust denyin' or otherwise fascistic work. Frankly, Lewis comes out far ahead of von Daniken in this regard. No, this is enjoyable, pure crank writing - Lewis has pegged the arrival of the MASTER RACE to exactly 6790 BC, and walks us through his maths as the enlightened ones from outer space interact with burgeoning human societies, ultimately taking their leave in 1451 BC for reasons Lewis will also elucidate ...

We've seen all this before, of course: Ezekial's wheel was a UFO, Sodom and Gomorrah were nuked, the pyramids were built by aliens - or, more properly in this case, inspired by aliens, as Lewis gives the Egyptians full credit for the hard work, albeit in an outdated way as he believes they relied on slave labor for the feat. Anyways, the point is that Mr. Lewis presents some tried and true Ancient Astronaut grist in an engaging manner, all killer no filler. Let the man speak for himself:

In 1970 the author became convinced that (1) the Master Race landed on this planet in 6790 B.C., with as much wheat as they could conveniently carry. (2) Quickly establishing themselves, they multiplied their stocks by two harvests a year - one natural, the other artificial - for five years. (3) With an eye to the future, they instructed the Egyptian nomads (who began to settle down two years later, namely in 6783 B.C.) in the growing of wheat and in agriculture. Villages and towns began to grow up, and officials of the Master Race guided the affairs of the infant nation for the next forty-nine years- "when gods ruled Egypt"! (4) Members of the new nation taken gradually into the government as they progressed (in 6770 в.c.) wished to build the biggest monument ever to the freedom they had been promised within fifty years. (5) The Master Race agreed to supply the brains and "know-how," the Egyptians, the materials and labor, which the Master Race would control. As stated earlier, Memphis was founded and work started on the great road in 6764 B.C.

By these calculations, it will be observed that the coming of the Master Race, the founding of Memphis, and the building of the Great Pyramid, all took place in the seventh century before the Flood.

History is full of the manifestations of novel ideas, unusual happenings, and unlooked-for results, all of which make it stranger than fiction! How many decisive battles have been won and lost. How many great men have stepped upon the mighty stage of Earth's affairs for one brief day of glory that at evening passed away. Some names will always be remembered, but they are few in number. Undoubtedly the most amazing is Jesus Christ - that astounding young man who put the world on fire, whose memory has often changed the intentions of mankind, and whose words, after nearly 2,000 years, are still a living power! Because he lived - and died - even man's reckoning of time has changed.

Lewis is fond of lists and summaries. Compare this to W. Raymond Drake's endless and interminable series of Gods And Spacemen from hither and yon as featured in the opening ad page. By the time Drake has gotten around to Gods and Spacemen in East Lansing, Michigan, Lewis has already said his piece and retired to a sensible evening after this one and done title.

No quickie cash-in huckster he, it's only right to give Lewis the final word as well:

Poised on the brink of a third and final world war, the nations of mankind stare enviously at each other in mutual fear, akin to mesmeric terror. How much time will elapse before the seemingly inevitable happens and the nations again start murdering their neighbors?

No! Don't deny the fatal probability. As an unbiased and logical person, take a good look for yourself at the world of today. The peoples of the Earth stand armed to the teeth! The majority are half-starved, because the world's substance is being squandered on hydrogen bombs, ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines, poison gas, and offensive germ cultures. All this is in the cause of "defense," of course! What utter stupidity!

If these international propensities were manifested in individuals rather than by nations, we should be well justified in immediately incarcerating them in a criminal lunatic asylum!

If it's not too late, Footprints on the Sands of Time is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Signet Books, 1975

SECRETS OF THE PYRAMIDS REVEALED by Robert K. Moffett

By now, it may have become apparent that doctorates carry substantial weight among the nonconformist schools of pyramid study. In fact, academic titles abound to a point where it is hardly paranoid to conclude that they are used for the purpose of impressing the reader with the author’s scholarship. But do they not also imply a promise that the scholarship in the books will be sound?

Perhaps a more accurate title would have been Secrets of Pyramidology Revealed? Author Robert K. Moffett teases us with a pointless introduction in a style that seems to have been de rigueur for skeptical works in the '70s: dressing up your critical work like it's just another mystery mongering meatloaf volume. Moffett mentions Karel Drbal and his razor sharpening pyramids, Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, and Uri Geller - but none of these are relevant for the rest of the book. Moffett's actual text is about how we got here, to the pyramid mania of the '70s, through a history of the theories of the original pyramidologists. It's a crash course on writers like John Taylor and Howard Vyse (and their precursor John Greaves), fine tuners like Piazzi Smyth, and then bandwagon jumpers on up to the 20th century and the modern day. 

Moffett gives context on why specific writers were interested in certain aspects of the pyramids, and how oftentimes their facts and figures had less to do with the actual stones in the sand than with contemporary religious and political struggles:

At this point, Taylor was sure he had had a revelation, for this was a matter of keen topical interest.

The metric system, developed in France, had by this time spread throughout the Continent, and there was agitation both from the scientific community and export-conscious manufacturers to adopt it in Great Britain. But there was a strong British resistance movement largely based on religious grounds. The French Revolution, with its strong anticlerical bias, had aroused grave misgivings in Britain, and the metric system was closely identified with it. As originally proposed, the metric conversion had involved switching to a ten-day week. Genesis made it perfectly clear that the Lord endorsed the seven-day week. That, after a period of trial, the French themselves had abandoned the decimal week was immaterial. If, in this, the original thinking had been contrary to the Will of God, the entire system was suspect.

Now Taylor could perceive the true function of the Great Pyramid: It was not by chance that the pyramid used the British system of weights and measures. Rather, it was a compendium incorporating the original, Divinely inspired system which had survived in Britain. The Great Pyramid was a message passed down to modern times to strengthen the wills of the anti-metric faction.

The search for cosmic truths collapses inward! Moffett writes with a dry humor, respectfully conveying various crank ideas but occasionally popping an especially ridiculous balloon such as in the case of psychic gadfly Edgar Cayce:

In terms of both current popularity and sheer volume, the most important of the clairvoyants to have contributed to the story of Atlantis was Edgar Cayce who, despite the widespread belief in his ability to communicate across the barrier between this and the afterworld, hasn’t been heard from since his death in 1945.

Once we've completed our journey with Moffett from Ancient Egypt to 19th century Europe to 20th century America, we might be able to say we've learned something about human thought and frailty.

Tempo Books gifts us a few typos here and there, but at least they also give us a picture spread in the middle with lots of vintage images. Moffett, a class act, also gives us a bibliography:

Moffet has a few other books available, including one coauthored with (presumably) his wife - not the title you'd think though! Their shared author blurb says that "Robert and Martha Moffett are both editors as well as published writers. Mr. Moffett's introduction to the animal kingdom was as a snake farmer."

Pyramid Power now and forever! This title is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Tempo Books, 1976

COSMIC DEBRIS: Pyramid Water Bed

"We make no claims that our bed could make you live to be a thousand. That all remains to be seen. However, if our bed helps you to live a healthy life cycle of 115 years it is well worth the investment." And if you don't live to 115, how are you going to complain? The price tag alone is enough to give you a heart attack though ...

It's all backed by pyramid monger Dr. Patrick Flanagan, a man with a lot of experience in, well, let's call it "innovative" ways of unleashing pyramid power .

From Probe the Unknown magazine, Vol. 4 - No. 6, November 1976.

MAPS OF THE UNKNOWN: Inca Roads Instrumental

Much more intricate that our last look at ancient Peru, this is another great map from Max Toth and Greg Nielsen's blockbuster Pyramid Power. Was it round? Did it have a motor? Or was it something different?

Courtesy Warner Books, 1976 (original pub. 1974).

THE AMERICAN INDIAN AND THE OCCULT by Christopher Dane

This purported guide to Amerindian occultism merely collects 35 quick hit chapters with no real analysis or through-line, making this another big pile of slop from bad, bad Brad Steiger working under his Christopher Dane pseudonym. Popular Library gave us a beautiful cover but slacks on the interior: we have typos here and there including chapter titles, and they even accidentally left Brad's true name on the inside cover!

What did readers make of this slip-up back then?

Steiger kicks things off with the Hartford Circus Fire of 1944. One Robert Segee confessed to arson in the case, and Steiger writes of vengeful Indian spirits compelling him to set the fire that killed 167 people and injured over 700. Segee would later recant his confession, but Steiger is content to finger him as the culprit and not get too involved in details about whether the fire was even really arson at all ...

Segee was supposedly of Native descent, by the way, which merits his inclusion here.

Moving on, there's no real structure as Steiger darts from outdated mystery mongering over sites like the Big Medicine Wheel in Wyoming and the Palenque ruins in Mexico, from peoples as varied as the Incas, Aztecs, Apache, and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), with no attempts at delineation across two continents, countless cultures, and thousands of years of history.

Chapter 23, "The Sailors Who Came Before Columbus," discusses the Metcalf Stone of Georgia which purportedly illustrates pre-Columbian contact between Greece and the New World, while Chapter 29, "The Moon of Flowers," touches on Ancient Astronaut ideas around the Maya, in line with the Umlands' Mystery of the Ancients. Chapter 23 also mentions those famous Olmec heads and the Piri Reis Map - not by name though! Steiger is strangely subdued with his usual Fortean name checking.

Besides this de rigueur pseudoarchaeological mystery mongering, Steiger pads out his pages with the spectral threat of werewolf cults, vengeful ghosts, visions, killings and so on. These are in the classic Fortean maybe-fiction style of C.B. Colby and Frank Edwards, with nothing in the way of authentication or sourcing but plenty of invented dialogue and cheeseball scene setting:

Chapter 8 deals with the chindi or chʼįį́dii spirit, a malevolent force from Diné (Navajo) culture, of which Brad would later write a whole horror novel.

Two covers for this undoubtedly authentic chiller

Another real life horror is uncovered in Chapter 19, "The Manitou Grand Cavern Mummy," as miscreant Tom O'Neel (or "Jackknife Tom") is killed in a fight and then experimentally preserved by one Dr. Isaac A. Davis. Eventually Tom's corpse goes on the road as an "Indian mummy" ... yech!

Various just-so stories of uncertain provenance and bits of garbled history fill out the rest: Chapter 9 is an abbreviated account of Running Eagle, a warrior woman of the Blackfeet Tribe, here referred to as Weasel Woman. Steiger's version features dialogue like "Hooo, Ah," from rival Flathead fighters, go figure. Other chapters cover leaders like Wovoka, Handsome Lake, and Wabokieshiek. Sourcing is always thin regardless the subject.

Running Eagle, aka Pi'tamaka, aka Brown Weasel Woman

In style and content this volume straddles the classic "Dead Indian" era of frontier tales that was fading out by C.B Colby's time and the emerging New Age fascination with subjects like Hopi prophecy and general indigenous mysticism. Steiger was no stranger to this, whether here in the Americas, in "the Orient," or with the fraudulent Kahuna magic of Max Freedom Long. Nowadays we just have to seek out one of a thousand online "creepypasta" stories to find Amerindian concepts like skin-walker witches and the wendigo appropriated, sometimes mangled beyond recognition - reinterpreted from distinct cultural forms to generic oogy-boogy monsters.

True to form for Steiger's meatloaf volumes released as "Dane," the chapters are very uneven. Some are wisps that barely merit inclusion, some go on far too long for basic stories, some are obvious piffle and some are interesting enough. Chapter 32, "Many Scalps Has Laughing Wolf," surprises with a very measured history of scalping among Amerindians and settlers, analyzing the spread of the practice through bounties offered by settlers, and the difference between these bounty scalps, tit-for-tat atrocity scalping, and ritualistic scalping as practiced by a small number of tribes. Steiger was capable of decent writing when he put the effort in, and it's disappointing that the rest of this volume doesn't measure up.

Per usual, Popular Library doesn't bother with a table of contents or index.

Table of contents:

1.  Spirit Councils in the Forest of Fiery Death (5)

2.  Massau's Great Star: The Hopi Book of Genesis (11)

3.  A Wheel Older Than Memory (17)

4.  The Pyramid at Palenque (23)

5.  Where Are the Sheepeaters Now? (29)

6.  The Knife of the Arikaras (35)

7.  Death to the Apache Witch (41)

8.  Run From the Devil (47)

9.  Death Comes to the Woman Warrior of Two Medicine Lodge (55)

10. To Walk Among Rattlesnakes (63)

11. Roaring Thunder Returns From the Dead (69)

12. In Quest of the Medicine Arrows (75)

13. The Invincible One (83)

14. The Werewolf of Eagle Creek (91)

15. An Apache Head in Search of a Body (97)

16. Who Will Dance for Wovoka? (103)

17. Lake for Sale: Inquire of the Devil (109)

18. The Sign of Ubabeneli (115)

19. The Manitou Grand Cavern Mummy (121)

20. The Aztec God Demand's a Woman (127)

21. Tell Two Bears I Am Coming (135)

22. The Mysterious Hand of Gray Robe (141)

23. The Sailors Who Came Before Columbus (147)

24. The Rain Gods of Mesa Ecantantada (153)

25. The Secret of the Soul Eaters (159)

26. The Strange Dreams of Prince Viracocha (167)

27. Makers of Great Medicine (175)

28. The Amazing Empire of the Sun (181)

29. The Moon of Flowers (189)

30. The Good Gentle Words of Handsome Lake (195)

31. A Prophet of Another Sort (199)

32. Many Scalps Has Laughing Wolf (205)

33. The Search for Fons Juventutis (209)

34. Wabokieshiek Knows the Future (215)

35. To See the Spirit Home (219)

The American Indian and the Occult is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Popular Library, 1973

MAPS OF THE UNKNOWN: Ancient Egypt

More elucidating illustration from Pyramid Prophecies by Max Toth! For pyramid power, more often than not the map is the territory.

Courtesy Warner Books, 1979.

SOME TRUST IN CHARIOTS edited by Barry Thiering and Edgar Castle

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. They are brought to their knees and fall, but we rise up and stand firm.

Psalms 20:7-8 New International Version (NIV)

New year, new BOMBSHELL books with the IRREFUTABLE TRUTH about man's ancient past! Popular Library doesn't tip their hand at all with the presentation, packaging this volume as just another Chariots follower, but how many readers got a shock when they actually started reading and found this to be a fairly dry, thorough analysis of von Daniken's lies, blunders, and misrepresentations? The editors have assembled a broad board of experts - mostly Australian, it turns out, and spurred to action by the thus far lackluster critical response to von Daniken's bestselling bollocks.

Theologians and archaeologists, an engineer and an anonymous wag, one thing you start to realize when reading this volume is how many disciplines von Daniken mangled with Chariots of the Gods? and how much effort it takes to straighten things out. Von Daniken bungles basic facts and figures, not even getting into the alien side of things yet. Says Professor Basil Hennessy: 

There's some focus on von Daniken's use of the pseudohistorical idea of Queztalcoatl as a white god, but this volume is mostly concerned with academic corrections, and we're still a few years off from von Daniken's Signs of the Gods wherein he ponders black people being a failed alien experiment engineered for music and basketball. The racial implications of white star gods raising/engineering nonwhite ancient peoples will only become more evident over the decades, but for now in 1972 these academic writers were staking out a rather lonely position standing against von Daniken's blockbuster cultural phenomenon.

It's frustrating to read this volume 50+ years on and still see the same old busted "evidence" trotted out nowadays in favor of von Daniken's chariots. Things like the Piri Reis map, the Nazca lines, misrepresentation of the Easter Island moai and pyramid construction ... on and on it goes. There's some dry humor here and there as evidenced by Professor Hennessy's callout above, and the final chapter is a fun exercise titled "Was Santa a Spaceman?"

Some Trust in Chariots is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Popular Library, 1972