I have been on a number of "paranormal" radio and TV shows since my book was published, promoting my book, and there always seems to be just a bit of an uncomfortable undertone to these discussions. The majority of conversations on these shows seem to usually revolve around UFOs, alien abduction, and other such "X Files" sort of subjects. Now, as interesting as these might be, to me they've always seemed miles removed from discussions of life after death phenomena and traditions. In fact, it has always seemed to me that the UFO crowd tends to be rather anti-religion, while the life-after-death crowd tends to identify with most of the basic religious tenets.

But much to my surprise, I have just found that these two subjects may not be as disparate as I'd thought. One of the most curious discoveries of the modern era is the belief-system of the African tribe known as the Dogon. Many have wondered how this primitive people could have possessed advanced astronomical knowledge, such as :

* The fact that the star Sirius has a companion star, too small to be observed by the naked eye (Sirius has a companion star, "Sirius B", a white dwarf star).

* The fact that this companion star is "the smallest thing that there is"(white dwarfs are the smallest type of star known), that it is very heavy (white dwarfs are incredibly dense), that it is white, and that it orbits Sirius once every 50 years (both true).

* The fact that Sirius rotates on its axis.

* The fact that Saturn has rings.

* The fact that the earth and the planets revolve around the sun.

Now, of course, white dwarf stars are not really the smallest "thing that there is" - a black hole is. And the white dwarf is also not the heaviest. If it were, it would not allow light to escape--such as a black hole. But I still think we can all appreciate as meaningful the obvious connection between the nature of Sirius' companion star and the Dogon's belief that it was extraordinarily small and heavy.

The Dogon claim to have received this information long ago, from "the Nommos", spiritual guardians and saviors from a planet in the Sirius system. These "Nommos" were believed to be amphibians, strange creatures that were part-man, part-fish. Sounds like another alien story? Guess again.

The Nommos are sometimes referred to as a single person rather than a group. Nommo, the legend reports, was crucified, died, and then was resurrected. And Nommos is destined to return to earth again, in human form. Sound familiar now? Wait, there's more -

In the act of crucifixion, Nommo divided his body, giving human beings his 'life principle'. DivisionTheory says virtually the same thing - that at death Jesus did divide apart into two parts - His soul and His spirit. And He then gave His soul to all humanity, and that gift "saves" us, insuring that all of our past-life selves will not remain lost forever, swimming blindly in the deepest depths of our unconscious minds, but will one day be restored to us, making us all whole beings once again, conscious of all we have ever done and been and learned and loved.

Just like the Dogon, the early Christian church also once taught that its savior divided apart at death. This teaching was lost for nearly 2000 years. It was only thanks to an archaeological discovery in 1947 that humanity rediscovered that this dividing-savior concept was part of the church's early teachings:

The fact that the Dogon held beliefs about a Savior Who not only was crucified, and was resurrected, and was expected to come again, could, I suppose, be explained by modern cultural corruption. One could speculate that the very same cultural contacts that allowed us to learn of the Dogon's astronomical knowledge also introduced them to Christian doctrines, which they then just regurgitated back to us. If so, we might have mistakenly assumed that these Christian-like beliefs had long been a part of their belief-system.

But even if so, their belief that this Savior divided apart into two parts at His death, and gave one of these parts to humanity, in an act that was believed to somehow "save" humanity, cannot be explained by such theories of cultural corruption, because these concepts were purged from Christian thought nearly 2,000 years ago, and only recently were rediscovered in such lost early Christian scriptures as "The Gospel of Thomas", "The Gospel of Philip", and "The Gospel of Truth".

One is forced to conclude that these tenets of their belief-system, at least, must originate from the same source that produced these scriptures - in a cultural event that occurred nearly 2,000 years. Thus we find reason to accept the proposition that their traditions do include material from ancient sources. And given this, what then are we to make of the fact that this ancient material is intertwined with their astronomical knowledge?

One also wonders about their traditional belief that the Nommos were amphibians - part fish-part man creatures. In that we have already recognized a seemingly genuine (savior crucified, risen, will come again) and uncorrupted (savior divided self in two parts, gave one part away to humanity) connection to original Christianity in their traditional beliefs, shall we not also admit the apparent connection between this "fish-man" symbolism and the original symbol of Christ and Christians - the fish symbol? This seems to me another point of confirmation that their belief-system originated in early Christianity.

Do we see a dim and confused reflection of original Christianity in the beliefs of the Dogon? Do they represent yet further evidence that DivisionTheory really was part-and-parcel of the earliest beliefs of the Church?

If not, how can we otherwise explain the existence in their belief system of a story about a savior who was crucified, resurrected, and will come again, a savior who divided Himself into two parts at His death, and gave one part away to save humanity?

If so, then what are we to make of their obsession with Sirius?