Reviews

Review of My Science, My Reliion
Review by Lawrence C. Gallant, Associate Editor, Ancient American Magazine

Michael Cremo grew up in the U.S. military intelligence community in the 1960’s but was drawn to Eastern religions and philosophy while studying international relations at George Washington University. He then decided not to enter government service having become dissatisfied with the formal university educational system. He discovered the Hindu scripture, The Bhagavad Gita in 1972, which inspired him to take up the processes of meditation. This inspired his quest into spirituality and he entered an Ashram, or spiritual hermitage, where he met fellow seeker, Richard Thompson.

From the study of ancient texts, they realized that the ancient history of mankind is quite different than the chronology that is accepted by modern scholars which is taught in our educational systems. Thus began an eight-year quest for the truth which culminated in 1984 with the publication of the monumental masterpiece, Forbidden Archaeology.

After, Forbidden Archaeology, My Science, My Religion, is a book that had to be written. The 24 chapters, each one a story in itself, makes for an easy read. It is a collection of academic papers that Mr. Cremo has presented at major conferences around the world from 1994 to 2009 on the subjects of archaeology, anthropology, consciousness studies and the history of science and religion. His main thesis is that science and religion are one, a view espoused by many ancient cultures but opposed by modern academians who declare that science and religion have nothing to do with one another. Mr. Cremo quotes Albert Einstein as saying, “Science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind.”

The book begins with a discourse on Puranic time and the archaeological record. This talk was presented in New Delhi, India, at the World Archaeological Conference in December of 1994. The paper demonstrated, among other things, a mental experiment of looking at the world from a radically different time perspective - the Puranic concept of India – proposing that time is cyclical rather than lineal. The Hindu Puranas tell of a human presence on the Earth dating back to hundreds of millions of years – to almost the very beginning of life on Earth when humans coexisted with other intelligent human-like species.

Human fossils for this vast period of time are virtually nonexistent as only a small fraction of the sedimentary layers deposited during the course of the earth’s history have survived erosion and other destructive geological processes. But Mr. Cremo presents a sampling of the total body of evidence of humanoid fossils, some anatomically modern and some not, and a bewildering mixture of stone tools and artifacts, some showing a high level of technical ability and some not, that co-existed during the same time period. Some date back to tens and even hundreds of millions of years from locations all over the world.

The beautiful color photos of these objects have never been seen before, to my knowledge. Has anyone ever seen photos elsewhere of the 50-million-year-old gold mines at Table Mountain, California, or the artifacts recovered from there that date back to the Eocene period? Photos of several other sites are featured with their associated artifacts including Monte Redondo in Portugal and the Boncelles, Belgium sandpit with its Oligocene stone tools. But the Tolumne County artifacts, site of the Table Mountain prehistoric gold mines, are truly striking.

Space forbids me from listing all of the material mentioned in this fascinating book. Suffice it to say that Mr. Cremo, as usual, presents incontrovertible evidence of the extreme antiquity of mankind and the systematic suppression by the ‘academics” by the process of “knowledge filtration” whereby accepted material passes through the filter and controversial material is rejected. Typical was the suppression and firing of Virginia Steen-Mcintyre for accidentally finding human artifacts in an excavation at Hueyatalco, Mexico that conflicted with the date where humans were not accepted to have been in this hemisphere by almost a quarter-of-a-million years.

Some of the chapters in this book are truly mind-bending such as the chapter, “The City of Nine Gates,” which explores consciousness and the spiritual nature of mankind. This is truly refreshing material, that wouldn’t be found elsewhere except in some boring psychological journal. But relating it to who we really are, as spiritual beings, and how we fit into the cosmic scheme of things makes for an exciting and inspirational read. Not to be ignored by a seeker of the truth.

The chapters referring to Forbidden Archaeology were also most interesting, reviewing such subjects as 300-million year-old human footprints, evidence of advanced civilizations millions of years old, the “Nampa Image” human figure from a Pleistocene deposit, the Schoningen spears, the Laetoli footprints, weapons, skeletons and tools found in vastly ancient deposits and gold threads, nails and chains recovered from coal seams, metallic tubes, metallic grooved spheres, and other artifacts too numerous to mention. Whether anyone is familiar with Mr. Cremo’s original work or not, there is something of interest and fascination for everyone between the pages of My Science, My religion.

My only complaint about the book is that it was so interesting that it inspired me go back and re-read parts of Forbidden Archaeology to follow Mr. Cremo’s original lines of research, thereby taking much longer to complete this review that I had anticipated. Beware of looking at any of his timelines! They will pull you in and not let you go.

I would also liked to have seen a glossary of terminology for reference as some of the Vedic terminology is somewhat daunting to a neophyte such as myself. But his wonderful and all- inclusive index, a must for any serious piece of work, more than makes up for it. Maybe you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but you can always judge one by its index. There is no more meticulous and thorough researcher on the Earth than Michael Cremo.

My Science, My Religion Academic Papers (1994 – 2009) by Michael Cremo, 2012 Bhaktivedanta Book Publishing, Inc., 9701 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90034 Hardback, 6” x 9”, 411 pages, $35

Published in June 2014 issue of Ancient American

Review of My Science, My Reliion
Review by Richard Dullum, Specialty Editor, The Pleistocene Coalition Newsletter

To the reading public, Michael Cremo’s My Science, My Religion, a collection of his papers presented in conferences of scientists worldwide, offers what those of us felt we needed when finishing Forbidden Archeology and Human Devolution…… more--I want to read more about this! Here we have more: more detail, more thoughts, more background, more getting into the Hindu cosmological concepts, starting with “Puranic Time and the Archaeological Record”. We see Michael Cremo taking the cases from Forbidden Archeology on the road, to Boncelles, Belgium, to unearth and photograph Rutot’s specimens from the Oligocene. On to Otta, Portugal to Ribeiro’s collection of Miocene implements and to Berkeley, California, to view the artifacts found by Whitney. We read that these 19th-Century scientists were real, made real discoveries under rigorous conditions, evidence that went against the nascent Darwinian view then taking shape. Inspired by Forbidden Archeology, my colleague and I have ourselves located the artifact collection (in a museum basement, where you would expect it to be, boxed and bagged) and investigated a site worked by a 19th-Century archaeologist in England, where a humanly-worked flint hand-axe was found at the base of the 19th-Century workings by my colleague, which banks have remained untouched since that time, amazingly. So, I have personal, positive experience with the fruitfulness of pursuing leads from Forbidden Archeology.

Many readers will find that these 24 papers collected in the above volume are a valuable compendium of deep thoughts on the History of Science, and how the philosophical and religious enter into scientific discourse and are never far away. How a linear view of time, a materialistic philosophical outlook, a rejection of the spiritual and a dogmatic adherence to evolutionary concepts really limits scientific thinking on human origins and forces the facts into a pre-made mold like Cinderella’s stepsister trying on the glass slipper.

In total, the collection is an expansion and an exposition of human origins along the Vedic perspective, with all the available (now, thanks to Cremo) archaeological evidence taken into account to draw more valid conclusions about the true reality of the human story. As this is being written, even more evidence for the vast antiquity of humans continues to come out. Eventually, as the weight of this evidence grows, it will tip the balance of the existing paradigm toward the edge of a cliff of its own making. Michael Cremo has started pushing and others are joining in. Reading these papers, given before worldwide audiences including many scientists who stayed to listen, one wonders and waits to see who will push next.

My Science, My Religion Book Review
Reviewed by Wisconsin Bookwatch and Internet Bookwatch [March 2013]

Science and religion have clashed in recent years, and a key to understanding both is understanding why. My Science, My Religion: Academic Papers (1994-2009) is a collection of writings from thinker Michael A. Cremo, who presents his unique view of this relationship of concepts, and his own ideas on the origins of humanity and the origins of modern science and the universe itself. My Science, My Religion is an intriguing delve into science and the metaphysical, recommended reading that should not be swiftly overlooked.