Pleiades Star Command

Pleiades Cluster, courtesy NASA

I apparently talk a lot in my sleep.  I have done so for years.  I used to keep a voice activated recorder by my bed to find out the things I said at night.  One night, my Chinese room mate in college who seemed to keep his old schedule by staying up until 3 in the morning explained that I sat up in bed the night before and proclaimed "I am not from here!  I am from the other star!" I then laid back down to sleep as though nothing untoward had happened. I have absolutely no memory of this night time bit of activity....  Is it any wonder we think we came from the stars?  We have this relationship with the Pleiades that is pretty unusual, I have to admit.  Its pretty much global, too.  I never knew this, but apparently, the Pleiades are a star cluster that has captured the imagination of countless cultures across vast time periods. With so much space out there, it seems a real waste of it if there isn't more life out there.  

The Pleiades appear in the Chinese annals of 2537 BC as a point of worship and identity for young women who called them the 'Seven Sisters'.  Emperor Huang Ti, considered by many scholars to be the driving force behind cultural, social and economic development of China, attributed his vast knowledge to visits from beings from the Pleiades.  The Lakota believe that they came from and will return after each life, to the the Pleiades.  The Kiowa and Cheyenne have oral histories that seven maidens were placed in the night sky to protect them from a bear. These seven maidens became the Pleiades.

Rolling Thunder, a medicine man who was active during the 1960's up into the 80's until his death, once explained that his people knew where they came from.  He explained that they were a mix of people who were already here on the North American continent with people who came from the  Pleiades.  He explained that the people could "out think the smartest person ten to one."  Other native groups have stories speaking of the great "Star Lodge" which refers to extraterrestrials.  They do not always speak directly to where they came from, but this awareness of this concept is one that appears to go back a long time in history.  The revered medicine man and elder Black Elk also mentioned extraterrestrials.  Given that he grew up before any rockets went to the moon, the idea of space ships from other worlds is a novel idea especialy given how many people tend to view Native culture as somehow primitive.  

The Greeks left no written record about the Pleiades directly, but some key temples are oriented around key alignments with this star cluster, the Hecatompedon, erected in 1150 BC and the Parthenon, finished in 438 BC are among the notable.

In Egypt, in the year 2170 BC, on the first day of spring, at precisely midnight, the Pleiades were visible through the south passageway of The Great pyramid. The pyramids at Cheops contains fascinating mathematical correlations to the Pleiades. The rotation of our solar system around the Pleiades takes 25, 827.5 years. This number comes up at Cheops in four separate locations. The most notable is in the base diagonals of the pyramid which are 12, 913.75. This number multiplied by two is 25, 827.5.

At Teotihuacan, in South America, the west face of the great pyramid of the sun is oriented to the setting of the Pleiades. Eleven of the streets of this ancient city point to the same spot on the horizon. On the platform of one of the lesser buildings, the Pleiades are carved into the rock floor. Not far from this area, in the crumbling rooms archeologists believe the priests lived in, the Pleiades are depicted on the floor in brilliant red.  In the Mayan and Aztec traditions, the Pleiades were involved in what amounted to their new year where new fires were set, where the old energy was released and the new was brought into the world. 

In ancient Peru the Pleiades were revered as "The arbitors of human destiny." The Apibones tribe of the Brazilian Amazon believed the Pleiades were the home of their ancestors and the Inca called them Capoc Collea Coyllur, "the god that brings things into being" These civilizations of South America believed the stars were inhabited and that "gods" came from the stars to change their lives. Pre-Inca societies believed that people from the Pleiades taught them how to use fire, plant and harvest crops and utilize mathematics and astronomy.

The Dyaks of Borneo, the Berbers of North Africa, and the early Arabic nations believed this small cluster of stars was the central point of the universe and the seat of immortality. Muhammad once wrote, "When these stars rise all harm rises from the earth."

This same star cluster, along with Arcturus, have been mentioned in the bible, too.  Only several other clusters are mentioned besides it.  It seems that the Pleiades have occupied an important place in our collective minds and imaginations over vast time scales. No wonder, then, that so much is suggested about their being extraterrestrials from the Pleiades in our current mythos.  Is it that this cluster of stars excites the imagination in some way that is universal simply by how they look, or is there some more distant memory that pulls on us when we stare into the heavens?