Customer Reviews

Eye of the Phoenix: Mysterious Visions and Secrets in the American Southwest

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Worth reading slowly and thinking about. I thought I already knew a lot about lore of the Southwest, but David covers a lot of unexplored ground. He pulls together information from both research and personal field work, to produce new viewpoints. For example, I was intrigued by his tracing of the meanings of "reed" throughout both the Old World and New. Please give David's work the respect it's due, and take your time with it. You may not agree with his conclusions, but you'll have some new questions.

I've asked myself a number of times why Orion and Sirius play an important part in myth and legends around the globe. In "Eye of the Phoenix", David, brings out similarities in legends, past and present, from the Americas with those from other cultures. He speaks of Star Cities and Star Ancestors of the American Southwest which mirror the heavens on earth. He speaks of the Blue Star and the Hopi Prophecy in a way that connects the dots. As we approach the date of the end of the Mayan calendar, December 21,2012, many have put forth pieces of a puzzle. David adds his pieces in very plausible ways. I have also read the "Orion Zone", by David as well, and recommend both books to anyone with a curiosity about the ancients, the stars, and prophecy.

This book is amazing, Gary A David has shared a depth of knowledge
and insights into the Hopi people, Arizona and world symbology as
a whole.Physical,mental and spiritual all come together in this
one volume.

Let us first cite a couple of features we find having some value: The material covering Anasazi/Hisatsinom archeology, petro- and geoglyphs, Hopi mythology and ethnography; brief hints at the possible routes of their ancestors' migrations and the accounts regarding the origins of various Hopi clans; their relations to certain MesoAmerican cultures -- mainly as outlined in chapters 1-5, 16-17; and the corresponding illustrations (photos, drawings, maps) scattered throughout the study. Keen aficionados of archeoastronomy/-alignments and astromythology, doom-gloom catastrophism scenarios, in the mould of Hancock - Bauval and their ilk, may also be delighted to find more than just snippets of relevance. Much to our surprise, however, not a sole Hopi native is referenced as Gary A. David's personal informant (not even in the acknowledgement section); consequently the author had to rely on secondary sources despite the fact that, as a resident of Arizona, he has been researching the subject on the ground for at least 14 years.

Once we step beyond the confines of the 'Four Corners' region and the neighbouring terrain to the south, and the writer paddles global, the discussion becomes more of a hotchpotch of half-digested/baked ideas/conclusions where current popular themes (i.e., alien contact, Knights Templar, Freemasons, ancient seafarers, primarily of Phoenician stock, et al.) intermingle with strands drawn from the local lore of the American SW and ancient Levant -- only to be served upon a platter of some imaginary template (ch. 6-16 and concluding segment). Rash conjectures, tortured speculations abound, employing - not infrequently - what one might call pseudo or hobby comparitive linguistics and mythology based on ubiquitous commonalities, superficial comparisons, overgeneralization and -simplification rather than meticulous treatment devoid of sensationalism. Ch. 6, for example, informs the reader that Tyre (today in incapacitated Lebanon), Babylon (in what is known nowadays as bloodshed Iraq), the archeological site of Poverty Point (dated 1800 BCE, in Louisiana), and Warm Springs (in connection with president FDR) sit on the the 33 dg. northern latitude. Aside from the obvious correspondency to the number appearing in the 33rd degree of AASR, what does that prove? Strangely though, the author fails to mention that Dealey plaza in Dallas where poor JFK was assassinated is also located along the same belt, and that the site would house a masonic temple.

A few incongruities:

+ It's not crystal clear whether the Hopi term for the so-called 'ant people' is an existing vocabulary item, or has simply been glued together by the author so as to yield anu (allegedly the Hopi word for 'ant') + naki ('friend') -- hence a tip of the hat to the Anunnaki of Sumer (p. 112)?! Were they humanoids (like the Hopi deity Sótuknang) or insectlike grays (this latter type of ET is being paralleled with Masau'u: the Hopi god of earth, underworld, death, who occasionally mated with humans), provided one subscribes to the tenets of the Sitchin crowd at all? These questions, not unlike many others, are left unanswered in the book.
+ To see overgeneralization in action, the reader is kindly referred to the author's claim according to which the ancient round tower structures (from the island of Sardinia to Ireland) are in some way - via the medium of Templars, he says - related to Gothic cathedrals, what's more, to Asian stupas and pagodas (ch. 10). Huh! Taken steps further, it is even stated that "[The Templars'] fixation on round temple architecture reflects the circular form of the womb" (p. 181). No comment.
+ The round towers of the Hopi ancestors that are called 'snake houses' are "either the temples or domiciles of a dangerous, snake-like race. They may even have been home to what we now call the Reptilians" (p. 123). There you go! Apparently, the idea that these snake houses had sg. to do with healing has not occured to Mr. David. It should have, nonetheless, for he mentions, "Easter Island may have been another steppingstone in the ancient Hopi migration" (p. 140). Now, this island is also dotted with remnants of stone towers "[k]nown locally as pipi hereko, they stood some twenty feet high. Behind their walls were stored the umbilical cords of every infant born on the island." (Cf. stem-cell research; see in Frank Joseph's "The Lost Civilization of Lemuria," p. 120) In addition, "the Hopi word nqa'at means 'medicine root' with magical properties -- both chtonic and morphologically snake-like" (in David, p. 138). So why stick to the literal interpretation of a Hopi legend?
+ Moreover, the author is more than eager to attribute the widespread distribution of simple cross motifs in the area to European influence predating Columbus, calling such signs 'Maltese crosses'. But what's the Hopi name for them? Is it nögla, the 'butterfly whorl' coiffure "worn by virgins on both sides of the head above the ears" and/or the "two-dimensional headdress known as tablita" (p. 176); or sg. entirely different? Loose thread, or locke rather...Quoting archeologist Jesse Walter Fewkes of saying, "[T]he presence of the various kinds of crosses do not...indicate the influence of Semitic or Aryan races, for I have already shown that even cross-shape prayer sticks were in use among the Pueblos when Coronado first visited them" (p. 178). Yet G. David disparages him as 'isolationist' or with 'anti-diffusionist bias' (ibid.) Why autochthonous development for such a primary sign/symbol as the cross is so inconceivable? A bit later the author contradicts himself when emphasizing that the crosses used in the sand altars of the Snake Dance ceremony were "apparently inspired by the diamond pattern on the backs of rattlesnake" (p. 179).
+ Nor can he miss the opportunity to compare the red hat or cape of the Hopi god Pahana (Elder White Brother) to that of the Shriner's red fez or the Templar's red pillbox hat. "In this context," he further adds, "the Red Hat Sect of Tibetan Buddhism also comes to mind"(p. 179, also on p. 225, 251)...So does Little Red Riding Hood. Instead, on the apropos of Hopi - Tibetan spiritual bond the author could have inserted the Hopi prophecy, paraphrasing and expanding on a Tibetan one by the 13th Dalai lama, thusly: "When the iron bird flies, the red-robed people of the East who have lost their land will appear, and the two brothers across the great ocean will be reunited" (in Nancy Red Star's "Star Ancestors," p. 79). From the very same source (p. 89) we can glean that in Maya "the word hopi means 'illumination'...the action when the light comes from the skullcap." What the aforementioned author intended to imply was perhaps the anterior fontanelle on the crown of the head (compare w/ Sanskrit 'ushnisha' and/or Tibetan 'gtsug-tor'), not some Jewish yarmulka.
+ The interpretation that a purported pictograph discovered by a certain Jack Andrews at Palatki Ruin and confirmed by the writer's Tamil colleague Chandira Bose to be a 'Sanskrit OM symbol rotated counter-clockwise 90 degrees' is highly debatable, especially because this is the only 'hard evidence' cited to support the 'Hindu influence in ancient American SW'-theory (ch. 13). But if he's right, just for the sake of argument, why the very same native of India was not quick to describe the geoglyph in Homolovi Ruins State Park (p. 237, photo in the bottom corner) as a trishula (Sanskrit for 'trident'), god Shiva's favourite attribute? A well-known fallacy in anthropological literature is that many indigenous people, in their urge to please Western researchers (in the present case allow for national pride), have a tendency to answer queries in affirmative, rather than say no. No matter how hard the reader strains his/her eyes, the invisible 'OM symbol'(ligature) within concentric circles on the face of a rock in South Africa (p. 272) doesn't back up the argument either.
+ The author would have us believe that "Indo-European Nagas...snake worshipping seafarers originating in the Indus valley" (p. 124, also on p. 136) existed in the remote past. Apart from clues as to various snake-cults and related mythologies/legends, far removed from each other both in time and place, there is no historical, let alone linguistic, proof that such a people, as homogenous group or otherwise, have ever walked the Earth or inhabited the physical realm. Today the closest we can get is the ethnonym Naga (etymologically derived from Burmese 'Naka,' "people with pierced earlobes," or from Assamese 'Noga,' < Sanskrit 'Nagna,' meaning "naked") that designates an ethnic of about 2 millions in the NE of India (also known as the 'Seven Sisters' - an allusion to the Pleiades? - region), speaking dialects of a sub-/sidebranch language of the Tibeto-Burman language family. They are jungle dwellers mainly, except for those urbanized, who used to practice headhunting even as late as the first quarter of the last century.
+ G. David's baseless theories are best summarized in his own words: "Did the Phoenicians, who might have assisted the Anasazi in building the round towers, come to the American Southwest and establish outposts in order to trade with the latter? Were the Knights Templar the recipients of this Naga/Phoenician legacy, carrying forth the ancient traditions bequeathed from Egypt? Do these structures form a global network centered upon ophidian fertility symbols" (p. 125)?
+ Judge for yourself the quality and depth of the author's research method when considering the following 'linguistic' jugglery: "[W]e see a similarity between the name of the Patki (or Water) Clan and the Sanskrit word for Phoenician: Pani or Panch -- especially if we attribute a hard 'ch' sound to the latter term. The Tibetan usage of this term is especially relevant. The Panchen Lama...is derived from the Chinese word banchán. This word is a transliteration of the Sanskrit pandita... literally a 'learned man'." (p. 284) Duh, almost complete nonsense: The Sanskrit pani means 'water,' whereas panyc(a) - sorry, we don't have that diacritic in form of a wave sign on top of the letter 'n', therefore we use 'ny' - stands for the numeral 'five'. Where's Phoenicia in all this? The Tibetan word panchen is a contraction of the Sanskrit noun pandita ('scholar') and the Tibetan adjective chen-po for 'great', thus we have 'professor'; a term, endeictic of someone among the top ranks of the monastic education system (not unlike in medieval Western scholasticism), which had been in circulation in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism long before (from the 11-12th century CE onward) the office/dignity of Panchen lama or erdeni/er-te-ni (this latter word is from Mongolian) was established in 1645, at the latest. The Chinese banchán appears to be a pinyin romanization of the Tibetan term, not the other way around. Important to note here is that the present incumbent, if still alive, has been a captive secreted away in the U.N. role model state of PRC since early childhood.

Lastly, we could have been better off without G. David's moralizing about 'global warming,' 'jihadist terrorists,' etc. in the end part of the corpus, given the fact that the author seems to adhere to the party line on these events as they are being canonized daily in the disinfotainment mediaplex. He brings up (p. 294), for instance, the disgraced former presidential candidate turned NWO 'enviromentalist' mouthpiece Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" instead of quoting, say, the documentary called "The Global Warming Swindle"; or the patented technology for enviromental modification (ENMOD)/weather control; or how the sinister GWOT based on a dungheap of prefabricated lies has been run by means of proxy, false flag operations, and gangster diplomacy.