Ensnakelopedia

A collection of descriptions and explanations of various terms and phrases that come up frequently on Brothers of the Serpent podcast. A work in progress.

Note: Bold text indicates the word or phrase has its own entry elsewhere in the ensnakelopedia. Images can be enlarged by clicking on them. Minds can be exploded by reading this page.

Note 2: The descriptions here are to help people understand the context in which the terms are used in the podcast. Thus, they do not always align perfectly with the descriptions found elsewhere. If you want the "standard model" descriptions of these terms, go to Wikipedia. Have a nice day.

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• Ahura Mazda - An ancient Mesopotamian sky deity. See Zoroastrianism, Yima, Vara, Zend Avesta

  

  Assyrian depiction of Ahura Mazda

• Antediluvian - Means "before the deluge", usually referring to the legendary/mythical time "before the flood", the "flood" in this case referring to the cataclysm recorded in Biblical texts and many other ancient records and traditions from around the world, which may be a cultural memory of the catastrophic period of the Younger Dryas
• Antimeme - An idea that, by nature, is difficult or impossible to remember and/or spread
• Annunaki - Sumerian sky deities
• Apocrypha - Non-canonical Biblical texts
• Atlantis - A mythical or legendary ancient advanced civilization that existed before recorded history and was destroyed by a cataclysm
• Autumnal Equinox - See Equinox
• Bimini Road - A megalithic formation or wall off the coast of the island of Bimini

  

  The Bimini "road". Image from grahamhancock.com

• Cart Ruts - Parallel grooves in stone that look like they were made by wheeled or sled vehicles when the stone was still soft. They are found all over the world but there are concentrations of them in Turkey and on the island of Malta

  

  Cart ruts in Turkey

  
  

  

  Cart ruts on Malta

• Celtic Knot - A stylized representation of a knot, often seen in Celtic symbology

  

  Celtic Knot

• Cataclysm - A destruction of the world by massive inundations of water
• City States - Small self-contained nations or countries or cultures with their own customs and systems of government, confined to or identified with a single city. Ancient Sumer, for example, is said to have been a collection of allied city-states
• Clovis People or Culture - A paleolithic people who inhabited North America up until the event that caused the beginning of the Younger Dryas, after which all traces of them disappear. They are named after Clovis, New Mexico, the first place where they were identified through their artifacts as a distinct culture

  

  Examples of fine Clovis points

  

  Large Clovis point

• CME - See Coronal Mass Ejection
• Cognitohazard - An idea, image, or concept that, by nature, is destructive to the mind that perceives it
• Columnar Basalt - A hexagonal formation of basalt, an igneous rock, usually due to rapid cooling from water. Some megalithic constructions are built from mined columnar basalt. See Nan Madol, and Gunung Padang

  

  Note that these formations are entirely natural

  
  
  
  
  

  

  An island off Alaska

  
  
  

  

  Columnar basalt doesn't look natural, but it is

• Comparative Mythology - The practice of comparing the mythologies of disparate cultures in order to detect underlying similarities
• Coronal Mass Ejection - (CME) An enormous outburst of solar plasma

  

  A NASA image of a CME in progress

  
  

  

  The circles in the centers of the images is the Sun, which shows how large the CME is

• Cryptids - Animals and/or creatures that have not been confirmed to exist by mainstream science. For example, Sasquatch and the Loch Ness monster
• Cuzco, Peru - A modern city with very ancient structures incorporated into its foundations in many places. The ruins of Sacsayhuaman are nearby, atop a stone bluff, and there are many mysteries regarding the older parts of Cuzco that still remain intact.

  

  Cuzco, from Sacsayhuaman

  

  An amazingly finely built, smoothly curved cyclopean wall of stone ashlars

  
  

  

  Heterogeneous polygonal dry-laid foundation walls in Cuzco

  
  

  

  More cyclopean masonry in the streets of Cuzco

  
  

  

  Interesting unexplained features of remnant blocks from ancient Cuzco

  
  
• Cyclopean - Refers to a type of ancient ruin, made of megalithic dry-laid(no mortar) blocks. The blocks can be either ashlars(shaped like enormous bricks) or polygonal(irregularly shaped and fitted against each other like a jigsaw puzzle). Despite the irregularity of the block shapes and the total lack of mortar, the joins between the blocks are usually so fine that a piece of paper cannot fit between them. This kind of construction is practically earthquake-proof, as the blocks are free to shift around individually during quakes due to the lack of mortar, and the heterogeneous pattern prevents fracturing along joint lines.

  

  Heterogeneous dry-laid construction from Cuzco

  

  More cyclopean walls from Cuzco

  

  Shows how fine the joins are, despite the irregular block shapes

  

  More incredibly fine joining in cyclopean masonry

  
  

  

  Megalithic polygonal blocks of Sacsayhuaman

   
• Deluge - Vast inundation of water. Usually used to refer to the legendary Flood
• Doppler Effect - The changing frequency of light or sound resulting from the movement of the source. See also, Redshift
• ELF - Extremely Low Frequency
• EMF - Electro-Magnetic Frequency
• Equinox - A day on which the length of the night and the length of the day are exactly the same. There are two equinoxes per year, one in spring(vernal equinox) and one in the fall(autumnal equinox). See also, Solstice
• Erratics - Stones that were picked up, carried, and then dropped by various natural processes. They range in size from tiny pebbles to enormous boulders weighing tens of thousands of tons. Most erratics stand out against the surrounding landscape, as they are sitting on top of it instead of protruding from it like native rock. Many of them have been transported tens or even hundreds of miles from their origin points. The three kinds of erratics most discussed on Brothers of the Serpent are as follows:
• Glacial Erratics - Carried by glaciers. These usually have a smooth, rounded profile, their sharp edges having been ground smooth by their time within the glacial ice
• Flood Erratics - Carried by floodwaters. These are also usually somewhat smooth and rounded, having been ground smooth by their time within the turbulent floodwaters
• Rafted Erratics - Broken off by and carried atop iceberg-like chunks of broken glacier floating in floodwaters. These are mostly sharp edged and jagged, having been spared the grinding action of the ice and the water

  

  Okotoks rafted Erratic

• Esoterica - Information that is hidden within or behind other information, usually in the form of a song or story. Mythology and ancient texts are filled with esoteric information.
• Geoglyph - Artwork, usually on a large scale, built into the landscape. See also, Nazca Lines, Paracas Candelabra

  

  A geometric geoglyph in Nazca, Peru

• Gobekli Tepe - A vast megalithic site in modern day Turkey that has been dated to be around 10,000 years old

  

  Carved "T-pillars" at Gobekli Tepe

  
  

  

  The site is huge, very little has been uncovered

• Gradualism - See Uniformitarianism
• Great Year - See Precession
• Gunung Padang - A megalithic site in Indonesia that has multiple layers of structures on it. The top layer, built of columnar basalt, is dated to be roughly 2,000 years old. The deepest level has been dated at more than 30,000 years old

  

  The columnar basalt of the top level of Gunung Padang

  
  

  

  The basalt columns form naturally, but these have been mined and moved here

• Halton Arp - A scientist who photographed many objects, pairs of objects, and groups of objects in space whose inherent arrangement seems to disprove the redshift theory
• High Strangeness - Refers to the weird set of sensations often reported to precede and/or coincide with singular or paranormal experiences. Also known as the Oz Effect
• Hypogeum - An underground system of caverns and tunnels in rock that have been dug out or heavily modified by human hands. Often refers specifically to the famous Hypogeum on the island of Malta

  

  Hypogeum on Malta

• Igneous - Indicates stone formed from lava, such as obsidian or columnar basalt.  See also, metamorphic, sedimentary
• King List - List of rulers going much farther back into prehistory than mainstream science is prepared to accept, despite the fact that they accept the more recent parts of the list. Kings lists have been found in Egypt and Sumer

  

  Abydos King List, Egypt

  
  

  

  Sumerian King List

• Kraken - A mythical/legendary sea creature. More recent legends describe the Kraken as a kind of gigantic cephalopod or octopus, while older myths describe it as an animal so enormous that, when seen resting near the surface, could be(and usually was) mistaken for an island
• Laurentide Ice Sheet - Part of the enormous ice cap that covered much of North America during the last Ice Age. It was as much as two miles thick over most of Canada

  

  A map showing the southern line of the ice during Last Glacial Maximum

  
  

  

  A Google Earth globe with an overlay simulating the ice cap of the last ice age
  

  

  A view of New York Harbor from two miles up, where the top of the ice cap would have been. That's the Statue of Liberty island on the bottom right

• Magnetic Anomalies - Refers to discontinuities in the uniformity of the earth's magnetic field
• Magnetosphere - A  protective magnetic shield around the earth, resulting from earth's own magnetic field, that protects the surface from hard radiation
• Megafauna - Any animal that weighs over 100 lbs on average when fully grown, but more specifically is usually meant to refer to the species of extremely large mammals that became extinct at the end of the Younger Dryas(Mammoths, Mastodons, Sabertooth Tigers, etc)
• Megalithic - Translates to "large stone". Usually used to refer to structures or ruins built with very large stones. For example, Stonehenge is megalithic.

  

  Stonehenge megalithic stones

  
  

  

  Shows the size of the outer ring of megaliths

  

  Artist's depiction of what Stonehenge may have looked like back when everyone wore buttflaps

• Mesolithic - Indicates the middle portion of the "stone age" period of human development. See also, Paleolithic, Neolithic
• Mesopotamia - (meaning 'between two rivers’) was an ancient region located in the eastern Mediterranean bounded in the northeast by the Zagros Mountains and in the southeast by the Arabian Plateau, corresponding to today’s Iraq, mostly, but also parts of modern-day Iran, Syria, and Turkey
• Metamorphic Rock - Stone that was initially sedimentary, but due to subduction, heat and pressure, has been transformed into much harder, crystalline stone. For example, marble is a metamorphic rock. See also, igneous
• Metrology - The science and study of measurement
• Missing 411 - The collective name of a series of books written by David Paulides about very strange missing person's cases
• Moai - The name of the megalithic statues on Easter Island

  

  Easter Island Moai

• Moon-Eyed People - The name given to a mysterious and almost mythical people that were said to be inhabiting parts of what became the U.S. when the ancestors of American Indians first arrived
• Mound Builders - The peoples responsible for constructing the numerous burial mounds found all over North America
• Nan Madol - A very mysterious, megalithic site just off the coast of the island of Pohnpei in the Pacific. Constructed of an estimated 500 million tons of columnar basalt, and built upon man-made platforms that protrude from the water
  
   
  
  
  
  
  
• Nazca Lines - Enormous ancient geoglyphs etched into the desert on the Nazca plateau in Peru

  

  Geometric Nazca glyph

  
  

  

  One of the many animal glyphs

• Neolithic - Indicates the last or most recent part of the "stone age" period of human development. See also, Paleolithic, Mesolithic
• Obelisks - Enigmatic artifacts found in Egypt. They are tall, thin towers sculpted of single pieces of pink granite

  

  Obelisk at Karnak Temple, Egypt

• Ollantaytambo, Peru - A megalithic complex in the Andes mountains near the city of Cuzco. There are many unexplained ruins and remnants around and near Ollantaytambo.

  

  The "Temple of the Sun", an incomplete megalithic structure

  
  

  

  Strange rock-cut features in the landscape

  
  

  

  What was the point of these rock-cut walls?

  
  

  

  What is this?

  
  

  

  A seemingly haphazard and whimsical set of cuts, curves, and stairways

  
  

  

  Looking through three aligned window portals in three sets of walls

  
  

  

  The quality of the stonework cannot be denied. Note the strange protrusions at the bottoms of some of the blocks

  
  

  

  Enormous "tired stones" near the Temple of the Sun. These beautifully cut blocks appear to never have made it to their intended placements

  
  

  

  More strange rock-cut features

  
  

  

  Appears to be a three-dimensional map of some kind?

• Olmec - An ancient, mysterious culture from Mexico, Central, and South America, most famously associated with enormous sculptures of human heads in basalt

  

  An old image of the discovery of one of the basalt heads

  
  
  

  

  One of the heads on display

  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  One of the most famous of the heads

• OOPArts - Stands for "Out Of Place Artifacts", meaning objects or traces of objects that are considered anachronistic(like a working glider toy found in an Egyptian tomb or a bullet hole in an auroch skull), too far from their supposed place of origin(such as the box of boomerangs discovered in Tutankhamen's tomb), or in an otherwise "impossible" location(such as human footprints or bones in rock strata considered to be many millions of years old, or ruins of structures at the bottoms of oceans)
• Oz Effect - See High Strangeness
• Paleolithic - relating to or denoting the early phase of the "Stone Age" period of human development. See also, Mesolithic, Neolithic
• Paracas Candelabra - A giant geoglyph on the western coastline of Peru, in Paracas

  

  Paracas Candelabra Geoglyph

• Paradoxical Undressing -  A physiological condition caused by acute hypothermia that results in the person afflicted feeling "too hot", causing them to shed articles of clothing even though they are freezing to death. It only takes place when the person is moments from unconsciousness and death
• Pillars of Enoch - A mythical/legendary set of pillars that are said to have all of antediluvian knowledge inscribed upon them, or alternatively to have inscribed upon them the instructions for locating a "Hall of Records" which contains a vast library of such knowledge
• Precession - (Precession of the Equinox) The apparent retrograde movement of the background stars due to an astronomical cycle that takes approximately 25,920 years to complete. Also known as the Great Year and is probably associated with the Yuga Cycle
  
  
  
  
• Puma Punku - A very ancient, mysterious megalithic site near Lake Titicaca in Bolivia/Peru. See also, Tiahuanaco

  

  Megalithic blocks at Puma Punku

• Pyramids - Giant triangles made of stone
• Pyroclastic Flow - A dense, incredibly destructive mass of very hot ash, lava fragments, and gases ejected explosively from a volcano and typically flowing downslope at great speed. Entire forests have been encased within and beneath pyroclastic flows, resulting in the fossilization of the entire forest. The city of Pompeii was engulfed in a pyroclastic flow from the eruption of Vesuvius
• Quantum Mechanics - If you think you understand quantum mechanics, then you don't understand quantum mechanics. We don't think we understand quantum mechanics, so we are not going to attempt to define it here
• Redshift - Refers specifically to the lowered frequency of light emitted by distant objects in space, theoretically due to their movement away from earth. There are problems with this conclusion, see Halton Arp
• Retrocausality - The present affecting the past, or the future affecting the present
• Retrograde - A backwards movement of an object in a system, relative to the movement of other objects in the system. Is usually referring to astronomical movements. Most things in the solar system move and spin counterclockwise if looking down from above the sun's north pole. But Venus has a retrograde rotation, and Neptune's moon Triton has a retrograde orbit.
• Rock-Cut - Refers to any structure that was cut out of solid rock, rather than being built of stone blocks. Some of the world's most awe-inspiring and beautiful temples are rock-cut, and most are incredibly ancient and no one is sure who, exactly, was responsible for their construction.

  

  Temple of Ramesses II, Egypt

  
  

  

  Ethiopia

  
  

  

  Kailash, India

  
  
  
  

  

  Interior of a rock-cut temple in India

  

  Interior of another rock-cut temple in India

  
  

  

  Petra, Jordan

• Sacsayhuaman - A massive megalithic ruin in Peru near the city of Cuzco consisting of the foundations of some kind of large structure surrounded by the remnants of three cyclopean walls. The walls follow a jagged line that, when viewed from above, form the mane and head of a puma, while the ancient outlines of the city below form the body. There are many unexplained features within and surrounding Sacsayhuaman, including rock-cut stairways that are now upside down and a labyrinth of underground tunnels cut through solid rock that spans for miles beneath the ruins and the city, and possibly spreading out to ruins much farther away.
  
  

  

  The walls of Sacsayhuaman

  
  

  

  Sacsayhuaman with Cuzco in the background

  
  
  
  

  

  Rock-cut features and stairways, broken and upside down

  
  

  

  The foundations inside the walls, all that is left of whatever structure used to sit here

  
  

  

  Another view of the walls

  
  
  
  

  

  Strange geological features nearby

  
  

  

  More strange geology, for some reason surrounded by the remnants of a cyclopean wall

     
• Sedimentary Rock - Indicates rock that is formed of layers of sediment, usually deposited by water. Sedimentary rock often is full of marine fossils. For example, limestone is a marine sedimentary rock. See also, igneous, metamorphic
• SIDA - Solar Induced Dark Age. Refers to the theory by geologist Dr. Robert Schoch that the catastrophic Younger Dryas period was induced in whole or in part by enormous solar outbursts
• Shamir - One of the names of a legendary/mythical tool that could "soften stone" so that it could be worked like clay. It could also re-harden the stone after it was worked
• Solstice - There are two solstices per year, one in the summer and one during winter. The summer solstice marks the longest day and shortest night of the year, while the winter solstice marks the shortest day and longest night. See also, Equinox
• Sumer - (Also "Sumeria") The most ancient complex and advanced(city-building) culture acknowledged by mainstream academia. Appeared in Mesopotamia around 4,000 BC. Thought of themselves as "The people of the sun" from "the lands of the sun", thus the word "summer" for the time of year when the sun is warmest. Ancient texts(including Biblical texts) sometimes referred to Sumer as "the lands of Shinar"
• Symbology - The science and study of symbols. Often associated with deciphering ancient imagery 
• Tiahuanaco - Ancient megalithic ruins near Lake Titicaca in modern day Bolivia/Peru. See also, Puma Punku

  

  Megalithic ruins at Tiahuanaco

• Teotihuacan - The name of an ancient collection of pyramidal constructions and other ancient monuments near Mexico City. Translates to "The Place where Men Become Gods"

  

  Pyramids at Teotihuacan

• Uniformitarianism - A philosophical underpinning of most of modern geological theory that embraces the concept of "uniformity", meaning the only geological forces that have acted in the past are those that can be seen in action today. This gives rise to the concept of "gradualism", meaning that geology is a very slow and gradual process taking place across millions of years, and completely eschews the possibility of abrupt, catastrophic processes
• Vara - A large underground construction or hypogeum capable of holding and supporting large amounts of people for extended periods of time. The underground "city" of Derinkuyu in Turkey may be the remnants of an ancient Vara. See also, Yima, Zend Avesta, Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda

  

  An example of a vara, using images of Derinkuyu

  

  Inside Derinkuyu. Showing one of the large stone rolling doors

  
  

  

  Inside Derinkuyu

  
  
  

  

  Inside Derinkuyu

• Vernal Equinox - See Equinox
• Yima - "Mythical" hero depicted in the Zoroastrian text known as the Zend Avesta. See also, Vara
• Younger Dryas (YD) - An anomalous climactic period that took place at approximately 10,500 BC and lasted for roughly 1,000 years. The Younger Dryas began with an abrupt melting and then resurgence of ice-age glaciation, then ended with a second, final catastrophic melting. Huge earthquakes, enormous tidal waves, and a global sea level rise of about 400 ft., as well as many other natural disasters on a scale unimaginable to us today resulted in the mass extinction of megafauna and the complete disappearance of many human cultures around the world during this period. Named after the Dryas flower, which only grows in arctic conditions

  

  Dryas flower

• Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis - A relatively new hypothesis stating that the YD period was induced, in whole or in part, by enormous impacts of cometary meteors
• Yuga Cycle - A Hindu belief in a cyclical changing of human consciousness across a vast span of time, probably associated with Precession
  
• Zend Avesta - The only remaining text of Zoroastrianism. The beginning of the text, known as the "Vendidad", instructs the "mythical" hero Yima to construct an underground Vara in order to save himself, his family, and other select lifeforms from a catastrophic destruction of earth caused, in part or in whole, by intense cold
• Zoroastrianism - An monotheistic "religion" from ancient Mesopotamia. See also, Ahura Mazda, Zend Avesta, Yima