Archaeotrek—Alternate Perceptions Magazine, March 2016
Ancient Aliens in the Oahspe—1882
by: Dr. Greg Little
The Oahspe, containing over 900 pages in a large, oversized volume, was first published in 1882. A New York dentist, John Ballou Newbrough (1828-1891), reportedly wrote the book through “automatic writing” in 1880. To be more accurate in this instance, the term “automatic writing” refers to automatic typewriting, as Newbrough used the newly invented typewriter to produce the manuscript. (In my early career in criminal justice, I encountered just one other individual who had produced a manuscript through alleged “automatic typewriting.” (He was a clinical psychologist who related that images and sentences just appeared in his mind and his fingers simply typed words as if some other force was in control of them.)
The Oahspe was touted as a history of the past 24,000 years and was widely read. It became extremely popular in spiritualist circles. It appears to be the source for story ideas used by several later horror and science fiction writers. The book is still advertised as the “secret history of Earth” and it describes in detail the many extraterrestrial powers that have influenced the development of humanity. The book sometimes calls the extraterrestrials “angels” but makes it clear that they are physical beings performing the work of their leaders (called “gods”). It also makes it clear that all angels begin as physical beings: “Who are the angels of heaven? People who lived on earth or other corporeal (physical) worlds” (p. 653). In essence, the Oahspe is the ancient astronaut theory. The Oahspe tells (literally) of legions of flying ships coming to Earth from other worlds to teach mankind in ancient times. At least a hundred references in the book mention “fire ships” that travel between planets and star systems—and their many inhabitants. Many descriptions in the book relate that there are “hundreds of millions” of these extraterrestrials and that they travel through “etherea,” the vast space between stars and planets.
The Oahspe states that angels travel in “ships” that go by several names: “I send down from etherea ships … ships descend to these heavens” (p. 11). “I send my angels with heavenly ships” (p. 739). “The angels shall descend to the earth” (p. 750). “Behold my otevan, my fire-ship, goeth that way on her cruise of ten thousand years” (p. 751). “Provide an arrow ship of great velocity…” (p. 751). “Four hundred million miles a day, sped the airvagna through the etherean worlds; like a flash of light shot forth the ship…” (p. 752).
The book asserts that these angels are physical beings in physical craft, needing both fuel and food: “Here he halted his ship … then gathering fuel and substance from the rich growing lands, he stowed the ship to the full, he and his traveling host” (p. 24). “… wherein ye may be relieved from the watch by other angels from other worlds coming to exchange with you” (p. 11). The spaceships of the Oahspe are of many different sizes and shapes, varying from small scout ships to large mother ships, sometimes so large they are the size of planets: “the Gods were received by hundreds of millions called the receiving hosts, in fire-ships of great size and brilliancy” (p. 420).
The Oahspe reveals that just as mortal men build physical ships to cross oceans, the angels built physical ships to cross the vast space between planets: “As mortals sail corporeal ships across the corporeal ocean, so sailed the ship of God in the atmospherean ocean” (p. 24). According to the Oahspe it was the fire-ships of the gods that inspired early humans to build ships to cross the seas: “As ye travel from heaven to heaven in this atmospherea, even shall ye inspire mortals to build corporeal ships, and sail across the oceans, that the inhabitants of different divisions of the earth may become known to one another” (p. 13). The book also gives descriptions of the angels’ “fire-ships” similar to many modern UFO reports: “When I had thus spoken in Hored before the angels of heaven, a great light, like a sun, was seen descending from the firmament above” (p. 13). This section goes on to describe 27,600,000 angels that were sent “to visit the earth” (p. 14). It continues, “The light above us descended fast toward us, like a ship of fire it came nearer and nearer… But the lights from the columns of fire, brilliant in all colors and shades and tints, baffled many of them from seeing plainly.”
In a similar way that UFOs sometimes seem to vanish from sight, the Oahspe explains why that occurs: “When the ship of the hosts of God came to the city of Ul’oo, mortals saw it high up in the air, and they feared and ran hastily to consult the prophet of the Lord. … And God caused the ship to made unseen, that fear might subside on earth …” (p. 23).
From the contents of the Oahspe, there can be no doubt that it essentially presented the entirety of the ancient astronaut theory. “The gods and their legions of angels are flying around the universe in circular, disk-like ships. They are called fire-ships, star-ships, and dozens of other names. There are many inhabited worlds throughout the universe but the fire-ships are the vehicles of god and angels. Most of these are disk-like, but others are described as blimp-like with several other descriptions. The Oahspe reveals that just as we need ships to cross our oceans that the gods and their angels [physical beings] need ships to cross the atmospherean oceans between planets. The ships usually remain invisible because man would fear them if he were able to see them” (Little, “The Archetype Experience,” 1984; p. 32.)
According to the Oahspe, “early in man’s development the angels descended from the heavens in their fire-ships to teach man. They first raised man upright and then taught him to dwell together in cities and nations” (p. 32). This seems to be the earliest mention of genetic manipulation of humans by extraterrestrials (raising man upright).
One Edgar Cayce reading mentioned the Oahspe (Reading 2067-2). In this 1940 reading Cayce was asked, “Is the revelation Oahspe, the Kosmon Bible, true in most particulars?” Cayce replied, “Individuals and individual instances, yes; and some very apart.”