Where in the World is Brian Williams?

Brian Williams Was There

Islam: The Untold Story

Tom Holland's documentary film on the early history if Islam. In the 7th century the Arabs came out of nowhere, taking advantage of war and plague that devastated the Roman and Persian empires, conquering most of the known world, but there is very little evidence that these early Arab conquerors were motivated by Islam. Who was the real Muhammad? How was the Quran first written? How much of the official origin story of Islam is real and how much was invented after the fact, a century or more later, to justify the conquests of the Arabs generations earlier? It's well known that the Saudi government has been destroying early Islamic sites for years, including a house that was claimed to be the birthplace of Muhammad. Why would a people willfully erase their own history, unless there is something they are trying to hide?



Tom Holland suggests that the true origins of Islam and Muhammad came not from Arabia, but from the Negev, and it was not until much later that the Mecca story was invented to further distance Islam from Christianity and Judaism. This could explain why the early sites are being destroyed, not because of the danger of idolatry, but because those sites were fakes, built centuries later, and the Wahhabis in the Saudi government don't want anyone - especially devout Muslims - from discovering that the buildings and cemeteries date from well after the life of Muhammad and his companions. It could also explain why the Quran makes more sense when read in Syriac (the language used in the Negev and Sinai at the time) than when read in Arabic.



Runs 71 minutes.







In case of further questions, the author of the program has written a follow up article addressing various criticisms.

Interview With The Sage

Franklin Merrell-Wolff (11 July 1887 - 4 October 1985), affectionately referred by his followers as Dr. Wolff, was a brilliant American philosopher and mathematician who explored various religious movements (Sufism, Theosophy, Kriya Yoga), culminating in experience of Satori in 1936. In 1982 Faustin Bray conducted this interview with  in support of a documentary being produced to save an
ashram he built in the Sierra Nevada. Runs 8:30

Pyramid Secrets Revealed

Jean-Pierre Houdin, French architect, quit his job and sold his home so he could devote himself 24 hours a day for five years to solve the mystery of how the Great Pyramid was built. The result of all that work is probably the only credible hypothesis anyone has ever come up with. Working with Egyptologist Bob Brier, Houdin visits Egypt to look for evidence of his internal ramp hypothesis and does not leave empty handed. It turns out there is a lot of supporting evidence of an internal ramp. Houdin's hypothesis also explains the mystery of the Grand Gallery, a feature that appears in no other pyramid. He proposes that a series of sledges holding heavy counterweights were placed inside the Grand Gallery, permitting a handful of men to lift the mammoth 60 tonne granite stones found in the King's Chamber, a feat that would have been impossible to achieve with manpower alone. Houdin's hypothesis also explains the meaning of the machines that were said to be used to construct the pyramid. It turns out the whole structure was one giant machine after all, designed to build itself from the inside out. No aliens are required to explain the pyramid and our intelligence is not insulted with fanciful notions of thousands of men hauling stones up a giant ramp that would be many times larger than the pyramid itself.



Runs 51 minutes.

Freedom

Richard Rose: Zen and Death

Do we want the Truth or do we want to be "educated"? There is a tendency of people in control, whether in universities or in governments, to want to "educate". Not for the Truth, but for the convenience of the moment, thinking they are the prophets of the zeitgeist, and by their manipulation of the public mind the will bring people around to the "right" direction.
- Richard Rose

Richard Rose talks on everything. He talks about the four categories of mystical experiences, how society conditions us to believe lies regarding who we are and what death is, the near death experience, and the importance of finding the Truth and who we really are. We exist before we are born and continue to exist after we die. The purpose of life is finding this Truth out for ourselves through direct experience. Runs 1 hour 10 minutes.