Georgia Guidestones!
I am going to take a break from talking about The Gemstone Chronicles. Since I’m not writing reviews showcasing other Indie authors this week, I want to talk about something else very cool – the Georgia Guidestones!
I never knew about the Georgia Guidestones until I saw them on an episode of Brad Meltzer’s Decoded. This past Labor Day, Lana (my lovely and adorable bride of 25 years) and I were riding around in Northeast Georgia and we decided to visit. It was a very interesting thing to see!
First, a little background on the Georgia Guidestones. The story goes that a gentleman named R.C. Christian commissioned the monument. Mr. Christian represented a group that wished to remain permanently anonymously. Mr. Christian and his group, The Guidestone Group, chose Georgia for its granite and its mild climate. Mr. Christian’s great-grandmother was allegedly a Georgia native, so that might have helped. The monument was erected March 22, 1980 in a field off Georgia Hwy 77 in Elbert County. Below is the stone that provides some history and details about the monument (sorry about the picture quality – it was a very sunny day).
The Guidestones:
The Guidestones themselves are arranged in a paddle-wheel shape around a central granite pillar. There are 4 vertical slabs around the central pillar, all resting on base slab. The vertical slabs are topped by a capstone slab. The 4 vertical slabs have the following 10 guidelines or principles in 8 different languages (English, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, and Chinese):
- Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature
- Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity
- Unite humanity with a living new language
- Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason
- Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts
- Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court
- Avoid petty laws and useless officials
- Balance personal rights with social duties
- Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite
- Be not a cancer on the Earth – leave room for nature – leave room for nature
See the pictures below.
The Slabs:
Topping off the vertical slabs is a capstone with 4 additional languages: Babylonian, Sanskrit, Classical Greek, and Egyptian Hieroglyphs. The central slab has a hole aligned with the North Star, and there is a slot that aligns with the equinoxes and solstices. Lastly, there is a small hole that allows a beam of sunlight to illuminate the date at noon each day.
Conspiracy theories:
With all of the languages, the guidelines (especially the one about keeping population below 500,000,000), and the astronomical alignments, there is little wonder that the guidestones have become linked with many conspiracy theories. Because of that, the stones themselves are subjected to vandalism on a regular basis. Too numerous to go into in this post, you can do an Internet search to discover more. One to ponder is whether this is the work of the New World Order…
The Georgia Guidestones are enigmatic, mysterious, and kind of bizarre. Set in a field about halfway between Elberton and Hartwell, they suddenly appear at the side of the highway. While we didn’t get any spooky feelings, or tap into any of the cosmic consciousness, it was a very cool place to visit! Thanks Brad Meltzer for letting us know about this wonderfully odd Georgia treasure!! If you’re ever nearby, visit! If you do, let me know your thoughts.
What mysterious places exist where you live? Have you investigated them? Leave me a comment and let me know! I can’t wait to hear your stories.
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Charlie says
Oh duh, typing on my phone and your site makes it impossible to see as i go… Anyway, the company that actually cut and sold the stones has an actual name on file, possibly more than one, for who arranged to have them cut, engraved, erected, etc. Mr. Christian is a pseudonym, and certainly not one that satanists would use, it wouldn’t amuse them. However, the nearby granite quarry does have a rather large collection of info related to the project. It’s mainly things like the detailed specifications/measurements, but it’s not just a couple pages, it’s more like a small BOOK!
The land ownership is a matter of public record. I have no clue why the conspiracy theorists and other nutjobs haven’t bothered getting those records, it wouldn’t be illegal to post them online. One thought occurred, that it might be a corporation/organization using one/some of a few ways of having legal documentation specifically NOT include the names of individuals… But if there was something like that going on, it would have almost certainly had the nutters screaming even more.
I’m pretty sure the land ownership was given to the county or something along those lines, but purchase/title history is public record, as are things like a transaction that hands it over to a government body. The missing ORIGINAL piece still leaves me with a few questions, but those shouldn’t be terribly difficult to find answers to. It’s the group that had the thing created and erected in the first place that’s still most interesting to me. There were somewhere around 100 to 400 people at the stones on the march 22, 1980ish ‘opening day’ sort of thing. Everything i’ve found so far seems to indicate that the relevant group of people involved weren’t locals, though it’s locals who seem to be the reason for the range discrepancy of attendees, like there were those who were actually involved, then there were a bunch of local onlookers just staring but not involved. Reports of events that day are a bit mixed and there aren’t many of them from good sources. So the mystery of the *inserted* block was solved quite some time ago.
The location of the stones is a bit interesting. To the east, south, and west are three rather important army bases, each at a fairly similar distance. To the north, also in a similar range, is mount mitchell, the tallest peak in the appalachians. Directly below the stones is a bit of somewhat important geology. A LOT of the southeastern US, particularly forts benning, gordon, and bragg, is not much but some rather deep sand. I know this because i’ve not only had to dig foxholes at each of those bases, but i’ve also gone quite a bit deeper for wells on my own properties. Those stones are on what’s basically the most solid FLAT ground in that part of the continent, the mountains aren’t terribly distant but things quickly turn sandy before you get too far from them.
That separate stone off to the side is possibly the weirdest thing on the site. It has blank space for dates that a sort of time capsule is to be buried and dug up. Blank.
That missing close-to-perfect cube shape CUT out of the corner of solid granite, while it’s basically under a separate piece of granite… That part still has me scratching my head because other corners would have been difficult without some good equipment, but that particular corner is another matter entirely. It also doesn’t look like they cut beyond exactly the chunk that was removed. Even a skilled stonemason with good equipment will admit that’s a bit of a challenge, especially since there doesn’t seem to be any overcutting nor errors like the internal corner sort of thing that would almost certainly happen if not done by someone with experience and skill. Even a fully exposed corner would be difficult to cut with the right tools, especially without overcutting. It would be a bit of a challenge to even do such a thing well to a simple piece of pine, particularly in that arrangement.
Vernette says
I came across this information before on TV!!! Interesting to say the least. Check out Serpent Mound in Ohio. It is very intriguing as well!!! There are various stories that surround its existence!!!
Bill Stuart says
I will do that. I’ve seen a couple of things about various mounds and find them very cool!