Pyramid Quest (48 page)

Cotsworth (1905) was convinced that the Great Pyramid (as well as other pyramids, pyramid-like structures, obelisks, and various stone erections around the world) served as a giant “sun dial” or “almanac,” the changing shadow cast throughout the year being used not only to tell daily time but also to determine the seasons, the times of the equinoxes and solstices, and the exact length of the year. Cotsworth says

Pochan (1978, p. 287) summarized his ideas about the calendar function of the Great Pyramid as follows.

Going back to at least the seventeenth century, with the work of Greaves and Newton (see Greaves, 1646, 1704, 1737), the Great Pyramid has been regarded as either a standard of measures (including linear measure, volume, weight, and in some cases even temperature) or at least a record of the measures used by the ancient Egyptians (see Bonwick, 1877, for a review). One of the driving beliefs behind this type of research during the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries among certain researchers was that the standards of measure used by the ancients were more accurate and meaningful—in the sense of, for instance, being Earth commensurate, based on natural entities like the “fixed” diameter of the planet—than the diverse modern measures then in common usage. There was also a strong amount of both nationalism and religiosity involved in such researches (see for instance, Day, 1868, 1972 [reprint of an 1870 work]; Gray, 1953; Seiss, 1877; Smyth, 1864, 1867; Taylor, 1859). Taylor (1859) was heavily concerned with the issue of British measures, and the first edition of
Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid
(Smyth, 1864) is heavily focused on deriving Earth-commensurate, divinely inspired weights and measures in the Great Pyramid that just so happen to be almost identical with certain traditional British measures. Indeed, Smyth (1864, p. ix) said that the
Our
of his title was “being used in a national [i.e., British] sense,” and he goes on to say:

Commenting on the concept of the reputed standards found in the Great Pyramid being the result of divine inspiration, as asserted by Smyth, Bonwick (1877, p.127) commented:

Pochan (1978, p. 286) contends that, among other functions, the Great Pyramid “was also a solar temple dedicated to the ram-headed god Khnum, for whom were reserved two of the four solar barques discovered at its base. The Pyramid—as well as the head of Sphinx, (Harmachis, the watchful guardian of the rising sun)—was painted red, the color of the sun as it sets in the crimson west.”

“In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord.” Isaiah 19:19 (quoted from the cover of Ferris, 1939). Some have interpreted the Great Pyramid as the altar and pillar referred to in this biblical passage (for instance, Capt, 1986, p. 9).

Many writers have considered the Great Pyramid to be divinely inspired and thus proof of God, and most commonly the Judeo-Christian God specifically, as indicated in the foregoing quotations. Riffert (1952, originally published 1932) titled his book
Great Pyramid Proof of God,
and more recently Zajac (1989) has made the same argument. This concept of the Great Pyramid as proof of God is closely related to the concept of the Great Pyramid’s structure being prophetic if interpreted correctly (see the later section, “Prophecies”).

Using a variety of different measurements and units (various forms of inches, cubits, and so forth), subject to a wide range of mathematical manipulation, different authors have claimed to find many pieces of information encoded in the Great Pyramid, such as pi, phi, and other mathematical relationships; the radius, circumference, and polar flattening of the earth; the distance to the sun, moon, and even planets; the density of the earth; the processional cycle; the length of the year; the shape of the earth’s orbit; the law of gravity; the speed of light and other physical constants; and so forth (see, for instance, various discussions in Adams, 1933; Bonwick, 1877, who summarizes much of this thinking up to his time; Davidson and Aldersmith, 1924; Day, 1868, 1972; Edgar and Edgar, 1988 [originally published 1923-1924]; Gill, 1984, 1997; Gray, 1953; Smyth, 1864, 1867, vol. 3; Stecchini, 1971; Taylor, 1859; Tompkins, 1971; review of certain theories along these lines in Kingsland, 1932, pp. 99-112).

In relation to the concept of ecoding geographic knowledge, Smyth (1877, 1880, 1890) and many subsequent authors have contended that the Great Pyramid sits in the middle of the landmass of the entire Earth (“Geographic Centre of the Land Surface of the Whole World,” to quote from Smyth, 1877, pl. 20) and it also sits at the exact apex of the Nile Delta. Indeed, I have long hypothesized that the Giza Plateau, with the proto-Sphinx (the Predynastic portions of the Great Sphinx) and other Predynastic structures and sites, such as the mound underlying the Great Pyramid, may have been both a very sacred site and also a politically important site marking the apex of the Nile Delta and the an early boundary between Upper (to the north) and Lower (to the south) Egypt.

Alford (2003, 2004; see also Alford, 2000; DeSalvo, 2003, p. 107) has suggested that the Great Pyramid was a symbol and memorial to the creation of the universe. It served as tomb in its subterranean parts, but the upper sealed portions were a sort of a museum, repository, or time capsule. The coffer in the King’s Chamber, in Alford’s view, contained meteoritic iron representing the seed of the creator god. From the King’s Chamber, low-frequency sound may have been broadcast to the Giza Plateau, via the so-called airshafts. Alford has suggested in his 2004 book
The Midnight Sun
that the Great Pyramid was part of an ancient “cult of creation,” the primary aim of which was a celebration and reenactment of the myth of the creation of the cosmos. In Alford’s view, the Great Pyramid was a simulacrum of the cosmos in its intial stages of coming-into-being, whereas various Egyptain temples symbolized later or final stages of coming-into-being (Alford’s term). Alford suggests that restorative rituals were carried out at both pyramids and temples that helped ensure the continuity and ultimate immortality of the world. In this conception, the Great Pyramid in particular was infinitely important to the cosmos.

Doreal (1938) and Edgar Cayce (see Lehner, 1974; Robinson, 1958; Cayce, 2004) are among the spiritual leaders who viewed the Great Pyramid as having a connection with the lost continent of Atlantis and a possible Hall of Records for the Atlantean civilization. Doreal (1938/1992, pp. 2-3) explicitly says that the Great Pyramid, besides being “used as a temple of initiation by the priests of Thoth, in fact, is still used as such. . . . It was also used as a storehouse for the records brought from Atlantis when the Atlantean Islands sank beneath the waves, which had happened some 12,000 years before the building of the Great Pyramid.”

As best summarized by DeSalvo (2003), following in the footsteps of Antoine Bovis, who in the 1930s believed there was evidence that the Great Pyramid helped to preserve organic remains, such as dead animals, and Karl Drbal, who in the 1940s developed a method that he believed could preserve and even sharpen razor blades utilizing a pyramid shape, research on “pyramid power” and “pyramid physics” continues to this day. A leader in this field since the 1970s is Patrick Flanagan (1975; DeSalvo, 2003, p. 251), who has done numerous experiments with “pyramid energy” (“biocosmic energy”; see also DeSalvo, 2003, p. 168), such as the effects on food, razor blades (claiming to have duplicated successfully Drbal’s experiments along these lines), growing plants, and so forth.

The Ukraine physicist Dr. Volodymyr Krasnoholovets has also been working with pyramid shapes and their properties, and has reputedly found that the pyramid shape, when the orientation is correct, can affect the fine structure of metals, including the result that razors are sharpened (see discussion in DeSalvo, 2003, pp. 143-152). According to DeSalvo (2003, p. 147), Krasnoholovets believes

In Russia, a series of large fiberglass pyramids, up to 144 feet tall, has been erected, and experiments involving nonorganic and organic materials, as well as living organisms, are being carried out in them (DeSalvo, 2003, pp. 117-141). Pyramids are also being used in Canada, India, and elsewhere for meditation and health purposes (DeSalvo, 2003, pp. 169-173).

Another prominent researcher in the field of “pyramid physics” is Joe Parr, a man who has twice spent a night on top of the Great Pyramid taking electrical, magnetic, and radioactive measurements in 1977 and 1987 (DeSalvo, 2003, p. 153). It has been noticed since at least the nineteenth century by some people that anomalously large electrical charges may build up on the summit of the Great Pyramid. DeSalvo (2003, p. 12; see also Tompkins, 1971, pp. 278-279) relates the account of the nineteenth-century British inventor Sir William Siemens, who, at the top of the pyramid, felt a prickling sensation and received an electrical shock. Reputedly on the spot, Siemens made a Leyden jar (which will store static electricity) out of a wine bottle and newspaper. He was able to charge the Leyden jar by holding it up over his head, and it started to emit sparks. It then discharged toward one of the Arab guides, giving him a shock that knocked him to the ground.