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Chapter Ten Q: (L) When did these events that these Sumerian stories are talking about take place? A: 309000 years ago, approx. Reflection passed down through psychic memory channel. As I browsed over the writings of authorities on mythology, I discovered with surprise that the theme of twin creator beings of celestial origin was extremely common in South America, and indeed throughout the world. [...] I wondered what all these twin beings in the creation myths of indigenous people could possibly mean. [...] Ruminating over this mental block I recalled Carlos Perez Shuma’s words: “look at the FORM.” That morning, at the library, I had looked up DNA in several encyclopedias and had noted in passing that the shape of the double helix was most often described as a ladder, or twisted rope ladder, or a spiral staircase. It was during the following split second, asking myself whether there were any ladders in shamanism, that the revelation occurred: “THE LADDERS! The shamans’ ladders, symbols of the profession, according to Metraux, present in shamanic themes around the world according to Eliade!” [In] Mircea Elieade’s book Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of ecstasy, [I] discovered that there were “countless examples” of shamanic ladders on all five continents, [and that] “the symbolism of the rope, like that of the ladder, necessarily implies communication between sky and earth. It is by means of a rope of ladder... that the gods descend to earth and men go up to the sky”. (Eliade, quoted by Narby, 1999) [...] According to Eliade, the shamanic ladder is the earliest version of the idea of an axis of the world, which connects the different levels of the cosmos, and is ° 1 aoe oo. roa Campbell writes about this omnipresent snake symbolism: “throughout the material in the Primitive, Oriental and Occidental volumes of this work, a ao ea e a o44 myths and rites of the serpent frequently appear, and in a remarkably consistent symbolic sense. Wherever nature is revered as self-moving, and so inherently divine, the serpent is revered as symbolic of its divine life”. (Campbell, quoted by Narby, 1999) [...] “Thus the visible snake appears as merely the brief incarnation of the vital principle and of all the forces of nature. It is a primary OLD GOD found at the beginning of all cosmogonies, before monotheism and reason toppled it”. But Joseph Campbell goes on to talk about an “inversion” a “twist” in the world mythology of the cosmic serpent/tree/ladder. The first twist is that the serpent, formerly the offspring of the Earth Goddess, 294 A: Lizard beings genetically altering the human race after battle for their own feeding purposes. Jeremy Narby writes in “The Cosmic Serpent:" found in numerous creation myths in the form of a tree. [...]