Recently, there have been several articles in entertainment magazines about the fact that movie box office returns go up when the economy goes down. These articles ascribe this interesting fact to people’s need for escapism.

Whenever indigenous tribes and cultures confronted times such as these, they looked to their storytellers to tell the archetypal stories that helped them face their fears. They would take heart knowing that others had faced similar hardships and life endured.

Movies are our modern day storytellers. People turn to movies during times of great change and distress, not only to escape, but also to find meaning, understanding, inspiration, hope and courage to face challenges.

Max Radiating Energy

Photo credit: Dr. Chet Snow 

Mystery of the Crystal Skulls- The truth behind Indiana Jones’s latest quest  is the cover story for the 60th anniversary issue of Archaeology Magazine. The author of the article is an anthropologist at the Smithsonian Museum. She tells us the TRUTH about first through fifth generation crystal skull fakes, claiming that all crystal skulls are fakes.

As my friend and Egyptian Scholar John Anthony West pointed out when we discussed this article: in order for a fake to exist, surely there must exist an authentic original to model the fake upon. How do you have a fake diamond if all diamonds are fakes, a fake Van Gogh without an authentic Van Gogh….? What exactly were all these crystal skull fakers, faking?

John West is no stranger to the experience of challenging accepted scientific beliefs. He and geologist Robert Schoch, in the 1993 documentary The Mystery of the Sphinx, broadcast on NBC television and narrated by Charleton Heston, challenged the currently accepted archaeological belief concerning the age of the Sphinx. The documentary also offered evidence that the ancient Egyptians likely possessed scientific knowledge unknown to us and continued a wisdom tradition from an earlier lost civilization.

Na Pali Coastline of Kauai

Photo credit: Wings Over Kauai

The Na Pali Coast takes center stage this month in an article in National Geographic Magazine. The writer, Joel K. Bourne, Jr., chronicles his hike on the 11 mile trail to the Kalalau Valley. Along the way he describes some of the history of the area as well as the mystical ambiance of the environment. As so many writers before him, he evokes heavenly adjectives to describe the setting: magical, spiritual, Shambala, Shangri-La, paradise…

The Na Pali is not only the primary location for the movie, Secret of the Crystal Skulls, but in many ways plays one of the starring roles. The archaeological ruins at Nu’alolo Kai provide the backdrop for some of the most dramatic scenes of the movie. This spectacular site, which is now only accessible by boat, is significantly featured in the article.

On his climb out of the Kalalau Valley, Bourne meets a “young outlaw” who is headed to a cave in the back of the valley for a two month stay. He tells Bourne that he will be “…meditating and getting centered with the universe. You go back up that valley and there are rock platforms, taro fields, sacred altars all the way up. It was a metropolis in there! It’s the land of the menehune, the ancient ones. It’s primal!”

I couldn’t have described it better myself.

Photo credit: Diane Cook and Len Jenshel

Singer/songwriter Shawna Carol composed a beautiful song for Secret of the Crystal Skulls called Magic of Na Pali. The character of Jill, also a singer/songwriter and poet, composes it as she is hiking the Na Pali Coast trail.  Listen to her song on the main website for the movie: 

 Kalalau Beach

Photo credit: Diane Cook and Len Jenshel

See an amazing archival photo of Nu’alolo Kai taken in the 1920’s.

Read the National Geographic Magazine article.

Please visit our main website for Secret of the Crystal Skulls

                                                Ancient Skull Found in Palauan Cave 

Another discovery of 3 to 4-foot tall human skeletons was made on the island nation of Palau. This discovery has added more fuel to the ongoing debate on whether these little people can be classified as a new species of human beings.

Scientists whom seem bent on proving that these little people were diseased rather than a newly discovered, unique species remind me of the reluctance of many scientists to accept the possibility of the existence of other intelligent life in the universe.

Is it fear? Is it narcissism? Why is it so hard for us to accept the possibility of the existence of other species different from us? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, human beings are still embroiled in the struggle to understand and accept other races and religions. We are egocentric and ethnocentric, no surprise that we are also speciescentric. 

I believe this is the most essential need on our planet at this time - the need to release our belief in separation and embrace the connection between everything in existence.

The ancient Hawaiians, like most indigenous people, understood the web of life.  Huna, the spiritual wisdom of the ancient Hawaiians, describes everything as being made from the same life force energy or mana.  It also acknowledges the interdependence between people, animals, plants, air, water, the sun, moon, stars, planets and even other galaxies.

Let’s hope modern humans can soon learn to open their hearts and minds to what connects and unites us to the all that is.

                                   Palauan Island Cave Where Skeletons Were Discovered

Read More About This Discovery

A Pro New Species Argument

An Anti New Species Argument

Please visit our main website for Secret of the Crystal Skulls

Max in France 

Photo credit: Dr. Chet Snow 

“I want out of this closet.” No, not what you’re thinking. This is not a declaration from someone with a same-sex orientation. This was a telepathic message from an ancient crystal skull imprisoned in the back of a bedroom closet in Texas for seven years.

The constant messages were causing Jo Ann Parks, a fairly ordinary wife and mother, to feel she was going crazy. She found herself on the floor of the closet telling the skull to leave her alone and get out of her life.

As she slammed shut the cosmetic case the skull was stored in and ran down the stairs, she heard: “The world is going to know about me. I am important to mankind. And by the way, my name isn’t skull, it’s Max!”

Jo Ann had come to be Max’s caretaker when Norbu Chen, a Red Hat Lama of the Tibetan tradition, had given her the skull before he died in 1980. He told her that one day she would understand what to do with Max.

She had become a secretary to the healer after he worked miracles with her daughter. Diana had been diagnosed with cancer and given three months to live. In those days Max sat on a red altar illuminated by candlelight in a room with red carpet, red walls and a red ceiling. Norbu used the energy of the crystal skull in his healing practice.

Max did finally manage to escape from the closet. He continually sent telepathic text messages to Jo Ann: “contact the man”. She had no idea who ‘the man’ was, but one day when she was watching a show on TV about UFO’s, she saw a photograph of a crystal skull. When she called the television station, they put her in touch with Nick Nocerino.

Indeed, ‘the man’ was perhaps the foremost expert on crystal skulls at the time. When Jo Ann called, Nick told her he had been looking for Max since 1949, the year he had first received a communication from Max.

When Jo Ann and Nick met, he reassured her she wasn’t crazy and encouraged her to allow other people to have their own experiences with Max. She took his advice and opened her home to interested people and later traveled with Max. To this day it brings her joy to observe people from all over the world have extraordinary experiences with Max, the crystal skull.

                                                           Jo Ann Parks and Max

    Please visit our main website for Secret of the Crystal Skulls

In my previous post I talked about a new species of three-foot tall humans discovered in a cave on Flores Island in Indonesia. Scientific tests conducted on several skeletons ruled out that these individuals were children, pygmies, dwarfs or were suffering from microcephaly.

Indeed, scientists have found them to be a unique species related to Homo Erectus, hominids who lived 2 million years ago and died out some 25,000 years ago. One of the most fascinating discoveries about this new species named Homo Floresiensis and nicknamed ‘Hobbits’, involved conclusions derived from CAT scans of the inside of their skulls.                                 

                                                Homo Floresiensis Brain

                                               Photo Source: Daily Times

Hobbit brains were unlike those of Homo Erectus or even modern humans. Their brains had ‘fat’ temporal lobes, even proportionally larger than those of humans. Temporal lobes are where vision, speech, perceptual organization, emotional processing and memory functions take place.

These tiny people were undoubtedly very intelligent, not unlike the Menehune in Secret of the Crystal Skulls.

Read more about this discovery

Please visit our main website for the movie Secret of the Crystal Skulls

Stories and legends of little people can be found in many countries around the world. The Menehune are the Hawaiian version, which many people in the islands claim exist even in our present day. A new scientific discovery by archaeologists, proves that at the very least, little people existed up to 13,000 years ago.

The 1m-Tall ‘Hobbit’ That Rewrites the

History of Mankind

12:00AM Thursday October 28, 2004
By Steve Connor 

A model of the ‘hobbit’ skull is held by an employee at the Science Museum in London. Picture / Reuters

11.45am - By STEVE CONNOR and DAVID KEYS

Scientists are celebrating the most important breakthrough in anthropology for a century: the discovery of a new species of apeman. Described as human “hobbits”, the apemen grew no taller than about 1m and had brains the size of grapefruits.They lived alongside prehistoric man for thousands of years before they finally died out in the dense jungles of Indonesia, in a lost world inhabited by dwarf elephants and giant rats.

Archaeologists excavated the skeletal remains of the little humans from a cave on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, which has a rich history of exotic animals such as giant lizards and miniature beasts. Four dating techniques proved the species of “little people” was still living in the region as recently as 13,000 years ago.

They may even have survived into more modern times - when they could have been the inspiration for local folktales of shy pygmy apemen who lived in the forest. Specialists said the new species, officially named Homo floresiensis or Flores Man, calls into question the very nature of what it means to be human, because of its extraordinary dwarfed features and tiny brain.

A partial skeleton of a female, nicknamed “Hobbit” by the research team, has left the specialists in no doubt that Flores Woman represents a new and most unusual member of the human family.The skeleton is 18,000 years old and, although small, is perfectly proportioned.

At first, researchers thought she was a child but closed skull sutures and wear on the teeth suggest that she was about 30 when she died. Further remains of up to seven individuals, some dating to only 13,000 years ago, suggest that there was once a thriving population on the volcanic island of Flores.

It is unequivocal evidence that another species of human was living at the same time as our recent ancestors.

 Read more of the original article 

Please visit our main website for the movie Secret of the Crystal Skulls

According to an Indian legend, there are 13 ancient crystal skulls in existence on the planet.  Some of these skulls have been identified and others have yet to surface. The skulls are said to have an important role in the transformation of the planet that will culminate in 2012.

Some versions of the legend foretell a time when all 13 skulls will be brought together to assist humanity during this pivotal time. The first skull to be brought to public attention was the Mitchell-Hedges Skull. It was discovered in Central America in 1927 at an archaeological dig site of the ancient city of Lubaantun, in present day Belize. 

The Mitchell-Hedges Skull:

Read more about this fascinating discovery, the legend and other ancient skulls:

mendhak.com

Please visit our main website for the movie: Secret of the Crystal Skulls:

When people hear about Secret of the Crystal Skulls they often ask me how I came to write the story. Like most stories, it was written from a combination of personal experience, research and imagination.

I first began writing Secret of the Crystal Skulls in 1993 after living on Kauai for a year and a half.  Those eighteen months were packed with several profound life and near-death experiences. I was inspired to contemplate the effect such intense and often, traumatic experiences have on shaping your life.

I came to Kauai with my husband in January of 1991 when I was 6 months pregnant with my second child. The first event of note was my husband’s near-drowning on Easter at Secret Beach. Next, I straddled the edge of life and death during the later stage of my pregnancy and during the birth of my son. Of course, his birth was also a profound experience of life at it’s beginning.

The event that foreshadowed more to come was the Anahola Flood in December of 1991. The rain came so hard and so fast in the darkest of the night, it seemed like a Biblical event. It took four lives. Then came devastating Hurricane Iniki on 9/11/92. Yes, for those who don’t know, we had our own 9/11 on Kauai long before the infamous one. Hurricane Iniki was my second major hurricane experience. The first one happened when I was 9 months pregnant with my first child. My first husband nearly died in that event.

As you can see, I have lots of experience in the life/death/disaster arena. What I know about these experiences is that they absolutely put you in touch with who you are, what you are and what truly matters. The paradox of being close to death is that it makes you more aware of the gift of life than perhaps any other experience.

For Secret of the Crystal Skulls, I wanted to create characters who were unable to completely embrace life due to some deep pain they were not acknowledging. The experience of trying to survive on the Na Pali coast during a raging hurricane would put them directly in touch with that pain and the desire to live life fully.

After my initial work on the story, I put it aside. It seemed to be waiting for something. That something came in 1999 when I went to Glastonbury, England by myself on a pilgrimage. One afternoon while visiting the Chalice Well, a woman came up to me and told me her crystal skull had chosen me to hold it during a meditation/activation ceremony that was beginning in a few moments. I had never heard of the crystal skulls, but felt compelled to participate.

What followed was an incredibly amazing experience that influenced my destiny in a certain way. I was so altered by the ceremony that I didn’t even get the woman’s name or the name of the crystal skull. Much of that experience has been written into Secret of the Crystal Skulls.         

Please visit our main website for the movie: Secret of the Crystal Skulls

Secret of the Crystal Skulls, the archetypal crystal skull movie, seeks champion : (Producer, Financier, Literary Agent or Manager, A-list Director or Actor or Anybody with the right connections) to help launch it into production.

After seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, those who want to experience more, understand more, go deeper into the phenomenon and mystery of the crystal skulls, will want to see this movie. 

Written before the Indiana Jones script, it also explores the little known world of Hawaiian spirituality, culture and magic. At its heart is an exciting, unique, family adventure film set against the backdrop of the beautiful Na Pali Coast of Kauai.

Logline: Teenage hikers and their injured guide discover a secret  world and two magical crystal skulls when they are helped by the Menehune (Hawaii’s legendary little people) during a raging hurricane.

Please visit our main website for the movie: Secret of the Crystal Skulls