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The Dogon #1
The Science of the Dogon: Decoding the African Mystery Tradition
A look at the close resemblance between the creation and structure of matter in both Dogon mythology and modern science
• Reveals striking similarities between Dogon symbols and those used in both the Egyptian and Hebrew religions
• Demonstrates the parallels between Dogon mythical narratives and scientific concepts from atomic theory to quantum theory and string theory
The Dogon people of Mali, West Africa, are famous for their unique art and advanced cosmology. The Dogon’s creation story describes how the one true god, Amma, created all the matter of the universe. Interestingly, the myths that depict his creative efforts bear a striking resemblance to the modern scientific definitions of matter, beginning with the atom and continuing all the way to the vibrating threads of string theory. Furthermore, many of the Dogon words, symbols, and rituals used to describe the structure of matter are quite similar to those found in the myths of ancient Egypt and in the daily rituals of Judaism. For example, the modern scientific depiction of the informed universe as a black hole is identical to Amma’s Egg of the Dogon and the Egyptian Benben Stone.
The Science of the Dogon offers a case-by-case comparison of Dogon descriptions and drawings to corresponding scientific definitions and diagrams from authors like Stephen Hawking and Brian Greene, then extends this analysis to the counterparts of these symbols in both the ancient Egyptian and Hebrew religions. What is ultimately revealed is the scientific basis for the language of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, which was deliberately encoded to prevent the knowledge of these concepts from falling into the hands of all but the highest members of the Egyptian priesthood. The Science of the Dogon also offers compelling new interpretations for many of the most familiar Egyptian symbols, such as the pyramid and the scarab, and presents new explanations for the origins of religiously charged words such as Jehovah and Satan.
• Reveals striking similarities between Dogon symbols and those used in both the Egyptian and Hebrew religions
• Demonstrates the parallels between Dogon mythical narratives and scientific concepts from atomic theory to quantum theory and string theory
The Dogon people of Mali, West Africa, are famous for their unique art and advanced cosmology. The Dogon’s creation story describes how the one true god, Amma, created all the matter of the universe. Interestingly, the myths that depict his creative efforts bear a striking resemblance to the modern scientific definitions of matter, beginning with the atom and continuing all the way to the vibrating threads of string theory. Furthermore, many of the Dogon words, symbols, and rituals used to describe the structure of matter are quite similar to those found in the myths of ancient Egypt and in the daily rituals of Judaism. For example, the modern scientific depiction of the informed universe as a black hole is identical to Amma’s Egg of the Dogon and the Egyptian Benben Stone.
The Science of the Dogon offers a case-by-case comparison of Dogon descriptions and drawings to corresponding scientific definitions and diagrams from authors like Stephen Hawking and Brian Greene, then extends this analysis to the counterparts of these symbols in both the ancient Egyptian and Hebrew religions. What is ultimately revealed is the scientific basis for the language of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, which was deliberately encoded to prevent the knowledge of these concepts from falling into the hands of all but the highest members of the Egyptian priesthood. The Science of the Dogon also offers compelling new interpretations for many of the most familiar Egyptian symbols, such as the pyramid and the scarab, and presents new explanations for the origins of religiously charged words such as Jehovah and Satan.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
74 people are currently reading
570 people want to read
About the author
Laird Scranton
28 books54 followersHe is an independent software designer who became interested in Dogon mythology and symbolism in the early 1990s. He has studied ancient myth, language, and cosmology since 1997 and has been a lecturer at Colgate University. He also appears in John Anthony West’s Magical Egypt DVD series.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 5, 2016
This book peaked at the very beginning for me and just kinda declined as it went. The preface written by John Anthony West (Serpent In The Sky) was my favorite part. Followed by Scranton making some brilliant speculations, that if true, make for some mind-blowing ponderous stuff.
But as the book progresses his arguments seem more and more tenuous.
The author repeatedly attempts some very circuitous logic.
Paraphrasing:
" If we look at this flimsy evidence in light of my interpretation we might expect to find this (unsubstantiated conclusion,) and that is exactly what we find! "
I am not saying that I disagree with the author's theories, but I found his explanations to be unconvincing.
Indeed, I want to believe his premises, ...
But as the book progresses his arguments seem more and more tenuous.
The author repeatedly attempts some very circuitous logic.
Paraphrasing:
" If we look at this flimsy evidence in light of my interpretation we might expect to find this (unsubstantiated conclusion,) and that is exactly what we find! "
I am not saying that I disagree with the author's theories, but I found his explanations to be unconvincing.
Indeed, I want to believe his premises, ...
November 5, 2012
I bought this book because I have an addiction for ancient Egypt and the concept that there is another civilization that pre-dates that one, and links to it, caught my attention. Plus, I'm really into non-fic that thinks outside the box where the ancients are concerned and I like using research material for my past life fiction writing. That said, this book wasn't an easy read. I definitely got some meaty information out of it that's highlighted and stored away for future reference, but it wasn't written for the lay person like me.
November 3, 2018
The book is awesome. The history of just about everything is written by the winners, it is invariably difficult to gauge, to judge, sometimes even to know, that a battle has taken place or that one is under way. The winners are at liberty to distort, misrepresent, or ignore all that does not support their “official” version, and so they do. It is this version that is disseminated in schools and through the mainstream media. As a result the public gets, and generally accepts at face value, what it has been taught.
Sometimes this doesn’t matter much. If we are ignorant of the actual arguments that were once put forward by defenders of the flat earth theory, we are scarcely the poorer for it. However, in other instances, unquestioning acceptance of the winners’ tale may carry serious adverse consequences.
The accepted history of human civilization is one such winners’ tale, the history of science another. Today, on a daily basis, through every media outlet, we witness a world spinning out of control. This should be obvious to everyone. The litany is endless, familiar, and numbingly repetitious. Yet beneath the racket, sub-audibly and never openly articulated (because it is considered self-evident), a comforting ostinato sounds.
We are endlessly assured by history and by science (and therefore by and large we believe) that despite all those looming doomsday scenarios, we of the twenty- first century represent the most advanced, most developed, and most highly evolved human beings ever to inhabit the planet. No one has been taught anything seriously contrary to these beliefs in high school or university; nothing in our most respected Western mainstream media organs (e.g., New York Times, Scientific American, National Geographic) would suggest an alternative to, or reconsideration of our firmly entrenched historical and scientific winners’ tale — although even these sources routinely publish articles from archaeology, archaeoastronomy, and other sub-disciplines devoted to the past that, put together, would suggest that a comprehensive reconsideration is in order.
Because progress as a linear phenomenon (starting in a misty, primitive, prehistoric past and leading in direct, linear fashion — give or take a blip or detour here and there — to our advanced, developed, and evolved selves) is the central tenet of our reigning “Church of Progress,” no such reconsideration will come from within the winners’ ranks.
However Laird Scranton’s “The Science of The Dogon – Decoding the African Mystery Tradition” challenges the accepted story and calls for reconsideration of our ancient past. Accepting the presentation s as plausible and mostly accurate will drive the academic fraternity out of their comfort zone and make us re-write the history of human progress from the apeman to homo sapiens. The timeline would recede backward and result in facts like Egyptian Civilization being pushed back a few centuries if not a few millennia – and that JUST IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. How could a 6000 year old tribal civilization expound knowledge of cosmology . physics and biology which even today we are not aware of. How could the Dogon talk of the twin star system of Sirius and correctly estimate that the dwarf star Sirius B completes a rotation of Sirius A in approximately 50 years, when the location of Sirius B was detected just a few decades ago. It is just a myth that coincidentally states an astronomical fact – sheer coincidence.
Modern cosmologist Carl Sagan and others ascribe the apparent scientific knowledge of the Dogon tribal culture to recent contacts with modern cultures. However, upon closer examination, we see that this point of view simply does not hold water. The Dogon cosmological system conveys scientific meaning through a complex system of mythological themes, symbols, storylines, and words. These same symbolic elements existed in similar form among the 5,000-year-old mythologies of early cultures from widely separated regions of the earth. The suggestion that this science was conveyed to the Dogon through modern contacts does not adequately explain the presence of these same well-known symbols in ancient myths. These statements of apparent fact also serve to undermine any suggestion that the Dogon could have derived their knowledge from contact with modern sources.
Truth is always bitter, and the bitter truth is our tribal ancients of 6000 or more years ago had far greater scientific knowledge and facts than we do today. The knowledge of the Sirius star system and also professed knowledge of a number of scientific facts by the Dogon were not known, and others that were not even proposed, by modern science when they were documented in the 1930s and 1940s by Griaule and Dieterlen.
The Dogon Myths state the correct attributes of the unformed universe, all matter was created by the opening of universe, spiralling galaxies of stars were formed when the universe opened, this same event was responsible for the creation of light and time, the complex relationship between light and time, matter can behave like a particle or as a wave, that sound travels in waves, that matter is composed of fundamental components, the correct counts of the elements within each component category of matter, that the most basic component of matter is a thread, that this fundamental thread vibrates, that under some conditions threads can form membranes, that threads give rise to the four fundamental quantum forces, the correct attributes of these quantum forces, the correct attributes of the four types of quantum spin particles, the concept of the uncertainty principle, that atoms are formed from smaller particles, that electrons orbit atoms, that component particles other than electrons make up the nucleus of an atom, the correct shape of an electron orbit, that electrons of one atom can be “stolen” by other atoms to form molecular bond, that light is emitted by changes in the energy level of an electron, the correct electron structures of water and of copper, that hydrogen atoms form pairs, that sunlight is the result of the fusion of hydrogen atoms, that water goes through phase transitions, that the emergence of matter in the universe is related to phase transitions, the correct steps in the natural water cycle, that the first single cell emerged spontaneously from water, that cells reproduce by mitosis to form two twin cells, the correct sequence of events during sexual reproduction and growth of an embryo, that female and male contributions are required for sexual reproduction, that children inherit genetic characteristics from each parent, that there are 22 chromosome pairs, that sex is determined by the X and Y chromosomes, that chromosomes move apart and spindles form during mitosis, the correct shapes and attributes of chromosomes and spindles, that sexual reproduction starts with the formation of germ cells, that germ cells reproduce by a process unique to themselves, that eggs live longer than other cells, the correct configuration and attributes of DNA, etc. The deeper one delves more modern scientific knowledge is on display. This is not on account of contact with modern cultures. Similar tales are found in the Maori myths of New Zealand and ancient myths of Meso America. If the scientific knowledge were derived from contacts with modern cultures, they occurred simultaneously in far flung places all across the globe.
A perusal of this book makes one introspect on our ancient past, our arrogance in claiming to be more progressive and advanced than our ancestors and a gnawing sense that there is much we do not know. The day the academic and scientific community will accept these facts, we will open the way for reconsideration of facts that are anomalous to our concept and presentation of human history. Till such time we need more Laird Scrantons and John Anthony Wests and their challenging presentations to make the average person question the oracles of historians, anthropologists and scientists.
Recommended reading for afficandos of ancient history, anthropology, myths and new interpretations thereof. A must read for those interested in alternate facts.
Sometimes this doesn’t matter much. If we are ignorant of the actual arguments that were once put forward by defenders of the flat earth theory, we are scarcely the poorer for it. However, in other instances, unquestioning acceptance of the winners’ tale may carry serious adverse consequences.
The accepted history of human civilization is one such winners’ tale, the history of science another. Today, on a daily basis, through every media outlet, we witness a world spinning out of control. This should be obvious to everyone. The litany is endless, familiar, and numbingly repetitious. Yet beneath the racket, sub-audibly and never openly articulated (because it is considered self-evident), a comforting ostinato sounds.
We are endlessly assured by history and by science (and therefore by and large we believe) that despite all those looming doomsday scenarios, we of the twenty- first century represent the most advanced, most developed, and most highly evolved human beings ever to inhabit the planet. No one has been taught anything seriously contrary to these beliefs in high school or university; nothing in our most respected Western mainstream media organs (e.g., New York Times, Scientific American, National Geographic) would suggest an alternative to, or reconsideration of our firmly entrenched historical and scientific winners’ tale — although even these sources routinely publish articles from archaeology, archaeoastronomy, and other sub-disciplines devoted to the past that, put together, would suggest that a comprehensive reconsideration is in order.
Because progress as a linear phenomenon (starting in a misty, primitive, prehistoric past and leading in direct, linear fashion — give or take a blip or detour here and there — to our advanced, developed, and evolved selves) is the central tenet of our reigning “Church of Progress,” no such reconsideration will come from within the winners’ ranks.
However Laird Scranton’s “The Science of The Dogon – Decoding the African Mystery Tradition” challenges the accepted story and calls for reconsideration of our ancient past. Accepting the presentation s as plausible and mostly accurate will drive the academic fraternity out of their comfort zone and make us re-write the history of human progress from the apeman to homo sapiens. The timeline would recede backward and result in facts like Egyptian Civilization being pushed back a few centuries if not a few millennia – and that JUST IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. How could a 6000 year old tribal civilization expound knowledge of cosmology . physics and biology which even today we are not aware of. How could the Dogon talk of the twin star system of Sirius and correctly estimate that the dwarf star Sirius B completes a rotation of Sirius A in approximately 50 years, when the location of Sirius B was detected just a few decades ago. It is just a myth that coincidentally states an astronomical fact – sheer coincidence.
Modern cosmologist Carl Sagan and others ascribe the apparent scientific knowledge of the Dogon tribal culture to recent contacts with modern cultures. However, upon closer examination, we see that this point of view simply does not hold water. The Dogon cosmological system conveys scientific meaning through a complex system of mythological themes, symbols, storylines, and words. These same symbolic elements existed in similar form among the 5,000-year-old mythologies of early cultures from widely separated regions of the earth. The suggestion that this science was conveyed to the Dogon through modern contacts does not adequately explain the presence of these same well-known symbols in ancient myths. These statements of apparent fact also serve to undermine any suggestion that the Dogon could have derived their knowledge from contact with modern sources.
Truth is always bitter, and the bitter truth is our tribal ancients of 6000 or more years ago had far greater scientific knowledge and facts than we do today. The knowledge of the Sirius star system and also professed knowledge of a number of scientific facts by the Dogon were not known, and others that were not even proposed, by modern science when they were documented in the 1930s and 1940s by Griaule and Dieterlen.
The Dogon Myths state the correct attributes of the unformed universe, all matter was created by the opening of universe, spiralling galaxies of stars were formed when the universe opened, this same event was responsible for the creation of light and time, the complex relationship between light and time, matter can behave like a particle or as a wave, that sound travels in waves, that matter is composed of fundamental components, the correct counts of the elements within each component category of matter, that the most basic component of matter is a thread, that this fundamental thread vibrates, that under some conditions threads can form membranes, that threads give rise to the four fundamental quantum forces, the correct attributes of these quantum forces, the correct attributes of the four types of quantum spin particles, the concept of the uncertainty principle, that atoms are formed from smaller particles, that electrons orbit atoms, that component particles other than electrons make up the nucleus of an atom, the correct shape of an electron orbit, that electrons of one atom can be “stolen” by other atoms to form molecular bond, that light is emitted by changes in the energy level of an electron, the correct electron structures of water and of copper, that hydrogen atoms form pairs, that sunlight is the result of the fusion of hydrogen atoms, that water goes through phase transitions, that the emergence of matter in the universe is related to phase transitions, the correct steps in the natural water cycle, that the first single cell emerged spontaneously from water, that cells reproduce by mitosis to form two twin cells, the correct sequence of events during sexual reproduction and growth of an embryo, that female and male contributions are required for sexual reproduction, that children inherit genetic characteristics from each parent, that there are 22 chromosome pairs, that sex is determined by the X and Y chromosomes, that chromosomes move apart and spindles form during mitosis, the correct shapes and attributes of chromosomes and spindles, that sexual reproduction starts with the formation of germ cells, that germ cells reproduce by a process unique to themselves, that eggs live longer than other cells, the correct configuration and attributes of DNA, etc. The deeper one delves more modern scientific knowledge is on display. This is not on account of contact with modern cultures. Similar tales are found in the Maori myths of New Zealand and ancient myths of Meso America. If the scientific knowledge were derived from contacts with modern cultures, they occurred simultaneously in far flung places all across the globe.
A perusal of this book makes one introspect on our ancient past, our arrogance in claiming to be more progressive and advanced than our ancestors and a gnawing sense that there is much we do not know. The day the academic and scientific community will accept these facts, we will open the way for reconsideration of facts that are anomalous to our concept and presentation of human history. Till such time we need more Laird Scrantons and John Anthony Wests and their challenging presentations to make the average person question the oracles of historians, anthropologists and scientists.
Recommended reading for afficandos of ancient history, anthropology, myths and new interpretations thereof. A must read for those interested in alternate facts.
August 14, 2010
The Dogon are known for their sophisticated culture and complex cosmology. In this book, Laird Scranton shows how the Dogon creation "myths" have deeper scientific meaning. Not an easy book to read but providing a wealth of information.
February 19, 2025
Unbiased, fascinating read on how ancient scientific knowledge came about, knowledge that modern science has only recently discovered. This passage sums it perfectly:
"No matter which legend of which of these ancient cultures we choose to believe, a consistent pattern of events is made plainly clear. A knowledgeable, godlike teacher who was associated with the symbol of the serpent taught mankind the rudiments of civilization -- agriculture, weaving, language, mathematics, science, and the skills of the arts and crafts. After a period of time living among them and having imparted these civilizing skills, the teacher either left or was driven out - an event that is seen by culture after culture."
"No matter which legend of which of these ancient cultures we choose to believe, a consistent pattern of events is made plainly clear. A knowledgeable, godlike teacher who was associated with the symbol of the serpent taught mankind the rudiments of civilization -- agriculture, weaving, language, mathematics, science, and the skills of the arts and crafts. After a period of time living among them and having imparted these civilizing skills, the teacher either left or was driven out - an event that is seen by culture after culture."
Want to read
November 25, 2009false start on this one - dry documentary, not very exciting. Not ready! (why the hell did I buy it? oh yeah, Amazon gift certificate splurge.. DUH!)
February 21, 2013
Ancient Egyptian words
French anthropologist
1930-1960
The Pale Fox
Primary Resources
French anthropologist
1930-1960
The Pale Fox
Primary Resources
January 15, 2025
A very interesting and thought-provoking read. The writer has a very clear voice and provides lots of examples and credible sources to support his claims and theories about the mysterious Dogon tribe. Rather than focus on more sensational things like aliens, he focuses only on the Dogon people's parallels and possible influence on advanced math and science. He doesn't speculate on how they attained their beliefs but I wish he challenged doubters better. This was a good and very easy introduction to the Dogon religion and culture.
October 19, 2017
Very interesting. I went in with a very skeptical mind, however the great research here has made me reconsider.
Read
March 28, 2014great on dogon + string (and torque) theories, but it gets too rushed on the decline of serpent religions.
September 10, 2014
Wow, this was a great read. And even if you don't know much about the subject the author makes it easy to follow and understand so you may see the correlations for yourself
Read
March 18, 2018Love this, met the man at CPAK in 2010 .. if you have not been introduced... here is an awesome introduction
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews