Forbidden History - Curse of the Crystal Skulls

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

In this episode, we delve into the enigmatic crystal skulls, believed by some to be ancient relics of the Aztec and Maya civilizations, endowed with supernatural powers. Experts follow new leads to determine whether these crystal skulls are authentic artefacts or modern-day forgeries. Cast List: Lynn Picknett: Historian and researcher specialising in exposing historical conspiracies. She is also the co-author of several notable works Andrew Gough: Writer, presenter and editor of The Heretic Magazine Tony McMahon: Former BBC news producer, author, print journalist and historian  Joe Nickell: Paranormal Investigator Bill Homann: Owner of The Mitchell – Hedges skull Dr. Ashwini Bharathula: Material Scientist & Artist Star Johnsen-Moser: Spiritual Healer Israel Casanova: Shaman Elizabeth Cunningham: Participant Patrick Dreher: Crystal Carver Eric Meyers: Narrator Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains mature adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. Over the past century, some of the world's greatest museums have collected a handful of mysterious crystal skulls. Said to be masterpieces of ancient Mesoamerican civilizations, some people believe the skulls have supernatural powers. You can't help to be skeptical about the crystal skulls, but what if it's true? What if they are ancient and otherworldly?

Many amazing legends have formed around the crystal skulls. And today, believers claim to be able to harness their ancient powers. It works not only on your physical body, but it also works on your mental, your psychic, and your spiritual body. I went into an altered state. I was being lifted through the dimensions. What is the truth? Are the crystal skulls just modern fakes? Or are they genuine ancient artifacts

that possess extraordinary powers? It's just not credible, and I would say not scientifically possible. They're modern, post-Columbus. Whether we believe the legends of the crystal skulls or not, we're fascinated by the fact that it just might be might be true. These things could be ancient, they could be powerful, they could be evil, and what if they were? How amazing would that be? For over 120 years, a handful of extraordinary crystal skulls have been collected

and exhibited by some of the world's leading museums, such as the Smithsonian Institution and the British Museum. Historically renowned as masterpieces of ancient Mesoamerican civilizations, the crystal skulls are said by some to possess supernatural powers. Many people have come to believe that crystal skulls are in themselves objects of power. They're like spiritual batteries for good or evil. They are pre-programmed computers. You just have to basically touch them to tune into their extraordinary ancient, lost knowledge. However, dispute the crystal skull's seemingly magical properties, and claim that the

crystal skulls are instead all to ordinary modern fakes. Is the whole crystal skull legend a big hoax? The challenge in dating the skulls is that the crystal itself can be very, very old, but when it was a carved? There are two schools of thought on the crystal skulls. is that they are incredibly ancient. Alternatively, there are more skeptical voices who say that the technology used is modern,

and the evidence is there. They're barely 150 years old. Probably the most mysterious and remarkable of all crystal skulls is the so-called Mitchell Hedges' skull. Exquisitely carved, this privately owned, apparently ancient masterpiece is said to have been discovered

in the 1920s, in the last Mayan city of Lubanton, in what was then British Honduras, now Belize. The Mitchell Hedges Crystal Skull is perhaps the world's most famous crystal skull and continues to draw huge crowds wherever and whenever it's displayed. It really is just a remarkably beautiful artifact. The original discoverer of the skull in the 1920s, was said to be the British adventurer and popular author, F.A. Mitchell Hedges,

who later wrote about the skull and his explorations at Lubanton, in his lurid and melodramatic 1950s autobiography, Danger My Ally. In his memoirs, Mitchell Hedges stipulates that the skull is over 3,000 years old and is the embodiment of evil. In fact, he calls it the skull of doom. Mitchell Hedges also said in his memoirs that, according to local legend in Lubanton,

the skull of doom was used by the ancient Mayan high priests to perform dark and esoteric rituals. Mitchell Hedges was the kind of stereotype of the pipe smoker who just would take a puff on his pipe and then tell some whopping tall tail. I think everything he did was kind of self-promotion, trying to give himself a kind of exotic and exciting life. Mitchell Hedges is a really interesting character. He was absolutely a big personality, a very high-profile adventure, explorer, quite the Indiana Jones of his day.

fittingly, one of the Indiana Jones movies was focused on the mystery of the Crystal Skulls. The Indiana Jones movie about the Crystal Skull certainly added to the umph behind the whole Crystal Skull story. As told by the Mitchell Hedges family, the drama surrounding the discovery of the Crystal Skull in the 1920s rivaled any Indiana Jones plotline. Ironically, today, the current owner of the Skull of Doom, lives in Indiana. Bill Holman regularly does public tours with the skull, spreading its fame. Bill is the widower of Mitchell Hedge's daughter, Anna,

who died in 2007. Anna inherited the crystal skull after her father's death, and when Bill first met her in the 1980s, they bonded over their reverence for the skull and its legendary powers. Yeah, we would sit in a picnic table in the backyard with the skull, and we'd sit there and talk. and it'd be just a skull and Anna and I itself.

And as we were talking and somebody took a picture of it, to me it looks like a little baby sitting there right between us. Anna Mitchell Hedges explained to Bill that at the age of 17, she had accompanied her father during his explorations in Belize. And she told Bill that it was she, not her father, who had originally discovered the skull in Lubanton's tallest pyramid. Anna, an adventurous little girl which she was, snuck to the top of this pyramid. And all of a sudden the sun moved behind this clouds and came straight down into the rocks.

And inside the pyramid was a big light. And she ran down to tell her father, he got all the men up. And it took them like six weeks to make a small hole in the top of the pyramid. And Anna was chosen, being a small person. They tied a rope around her and lowered her into this pyramid, This completely dark, hadn't been open for a thousand years, and she's going down, down into it. And she feels around and finds something,

and when they bring her back up, and the sun hits the skull, the Mayans started crying and kissing the ground. It's like their god had returned. Since Anna's death, Bill has carefully treasured the crystal skull that her father initially called the skull of doom. It was due to its apparent powers of healing, however, that Bill and Anna renamed it, the skull of love.

Anas claims that she attributed to the skull are really quite incredible. For a start, she said it could cure cancer. For the last like seven years of her life, she trained me on what to do with the skull, how to take care of the skull, and what she expected. She didn't want it to go to a museum because in a museum it'd be in a one inch thick glass

and she felt that the skull needed to be around people. And it has an important, job to do right now. It works not only on your physical body, but it also works on your mental, your psychic, and your spiritual body because it works on your heart chakra. You have to see it to really understand it. Does the skull of love kept securely padlocked in Bill's house, really have such remarkable powers? And can he prove it? Scientific evidence may be able to provide some insight. Over a century, many legends have formed around a handful of crystal skulls, said to have

originally been used by Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Maya, for dark and esoteric rituals. It's claimed that the crystal skull's ancient powers can be harnessed for healing even today. The most famous of these apparently therapeutic skulls is the so-called skull of love, which Anna Mitchell Hedges said she found inside an ancient Mayan pyramid. After the death of her father, Anna Mitchell Hedges becomes a bit of a cult figure because she takes the Mitchell Hedges Crystal Skull on tour around the world. Anna went on to Mary, Bill Holman, and after Anna's death, Bill has continued the tradition of the Mitchell Hedges' crystal skull going on tour.

People perform meditations with it, and it continues to be, even more of a new age icon than it ever was in Anna's time. Today, when it isn't out on tour for healing sessions, the skull of love is kept securely padlocked in Bill Homan's house. Bill claims that quartz rock crystal, from which all crystal skulls are carved, has remarkable scientific properties. Quartz, he says, can store and transmit ancient wisdom and energy,

helping to explain the Crystal Skull's healing powers. As far as healing, you know, I don't want to say, oh, you come here, you're going to get healed. That doesn't work that way. The skull has its own program, its own agenda. If there's 20 people in the room, the skull will affect each one in a different way. So it's not like one thing fits all,

but it's very, very individual. Sometimes when people have a problem in the physical world, It's caused by something maybe psychically or maybe even spiritually. So where the healing goes is where it needs to go and it's very, very unusual how it changes people. Because it shows your inner self who you are and what your capabilities are. I tell people, once you see it, you'll never, ever forget it. And that seems to be the case. The assertion that the skull of love has the power to heal is a remarkable claim.

remarkable claim. How could it be possible? Bill believes the scientific properties of quartz provide the explanation. Its piezoelectric quartz is the same kind of courts that they make computer chips out of. And so this is like a supercomputer. And if we had the knowledge to understand how it was programmed, I would think we would be able to use it for a lot of good things for mankind right now. Bill believes the ancient wisdom programmed into the skull of love over 1,000 years ago has been stored within the skull ever since, as a result of the crystal's piezoelectric properties.

There's no doubt that crystals appear to have qualities unique to them. They're special. But that doesn't mean that a crystal skull has magical powers. Material scientist and artist Ashwini Baratula is an expert on the crystal's genuine pizio-electrical characteristics. So what happens with piazoelectric materials is that if you take these crystals like quartz, for example, and you make a slice out of this crystal and kind of press down upon it or squeeze on it, it generates positive and negative charges on the opposite sides of the crystal. So now you have something like a tiny battery or a power source.

The cuts that you make in these crystals have to be extremely precise and done in a certain way. The higher the force you apply, the greater the voltage. The reverse also applies. If an alternating current is applied to quartz, it will compress and expand alternately. In other words, oscillate. In fact, the energy produced by crystal oscillators today helps quartz watches and computers to keep accurate. time. Extrapolating from these scientific facts, believers in the healing powers of crystal skulls say that like a computer, quartz can store ancient knowledge as data coded into the form

of energy. Believers also claim that quartz can absorb, store, release, and amplify both healing energy and malevolent powers. Many people do believe that these crystals have of healing properties and that different varieties of cords will bring benefits to different parts of your body, if you will. Personally, I'm skeptical about these claims because of the basic disconnect that exists between the claims and the scientific basis for them. But believers in the power of Crystal Skulls emphasize that even if Crystal's therapeutic properties can't be scientifically explained, they have been accepted for thousands of

of years. In many ancient cultures, people wore crystal amulets to ward off illness and negative energy, and the practice remains popular today. People believe that by owning a certain type of rock or crystal, that it would maybe cure a disease or give them good fortune. And this has been revived in recent decades with kind of esoteric and new age beliefs. And it's now a vast industry. And if you're convinced that a small crystal can have a certain curative healing power, then imagine a skull, a quartz skull. I mean, just the power of that imagery allied to its physical properties goes a long way to explain why people ascribe a huge amount of significance to these objects.

Is there any real-life evidence of the crystal skull's claimed therapeutic effects? According to traditional Mayan wisdom, skulls do possess remarkable and transformative powers. Treasured in museums and private collections across the world, a handful of apparently ancient crystal skulls are said to possess supernatural powers, both malevolence and healing, partly as a result of the claimed scientific properties of quartz. There are extraordinary special properties to crystals, and it's given rise to all sorts of ideas, semi-mystical ideas, that if you get up close and personal with one of these skulls, you can absorb some of its amazing vibrations for good or ill. Although ancient crystal skulls are thought to possess the greatest powers, even modern crystal skulls are believed to have a therapeutic effect. Today, popular spiritual healer, star Johnson Moser, is leading a healing ceremony using crystal

skulls on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. In the course of the ceremony, all of these crystals on the altar will be amplifying the healing energy, the Holy Spirit, the universal life force, whatever you want to call it. And if we can open ourselves enough, we can allow the entire energy of the universe to flow through us. But we have to get out of the way. Star has chosen this location for the healing ceremony because 1,000 years ago,

this region was a cultural stronghold of the ancient Maya, who are said to have originally harnessed the powers of crystal skulls. So Israel is going to offer this water into the ocean and call forth the ancestors in the Mayan language. If anybody feels like taking a crystal skull and putting it in the water, can do it.

Just don't let it go. Although the therapeutic significance of crystal is disputed, local Mayan shaman Israel explains that crystal skulls help spiritually revitalize people, because skulls, by their very nature, encourage people to focus on life. It's important to understand our life is short. The crystals, the death, represent our harmony or balance.

There's undoubtedly something about the image of the skull that's hugely powerful. I mean, we've all got a skull. It's sitting somewhere underneath my skin. But the sight of a skull raises questions about death, whether or not there's an afterlife. There's something about looking into a skull. that really moves and unnerves us. Whether or not the crystal skulls actually have any real influence on the participants in the ceremony, it seems clear that people do feel better afterwards. The ceremony was absolutely fabulous.

It was really very moving and I think little by little, if we spread this kind of energy, we will create a better planet. What kind of people do we want to be? There is an immense appeal to believing that crystal skulls have a magical quality. It imbued with power by people's belief, it's a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Perhaps the power of crystal skulls is just a placebo effect. The scientific principle, which suggests that if you believe something can heal you, than it will.

Although believers feel all crystal skulls, even modern ones, can have a healing effect, the supposedly ancient Mesoamerican crystal skulls are said to have much greater powers. But are these legendary crystal skulls actually ancient? Or are they nothing more than modern fakes? In recent years, scientific investigation of the crystal skulls has provided clues. Since the late 19th century, a handful of mysterious crystal skulls have been treasured by private collectors and some of the world's greatest museums, such as the Smithsonian and the British Museum. Long accepted as ancient Mesoamerican masterpieces, the crystal skulls are believed to

possess extraordinary powers. But does scientific evidence suggest that they are in fact, just modern day fakes. Nobody wants to be a spoil sport and say, you know, these skulls are not as old as it's claimed, but of course it's hugely important to the museums, to the British Museum, because they can't put skulls on display claiming they're thousands of years old when they're nothing of the sort. In recent decades, scientific techniques have been developed to date the crystal skulls. But initially in the late 19th century, when the British

The British Museum purchased their skull. The crystal skulls were authenticated mainly on the basis of their very convincing similarity to other Mesoamerican sculptures. Anybody who's been to historic sites in Mexico or Central America will have seen plenty of skulls. I mean, they pop up over and over again in pre-Columbian art. So the idea of skulls being made by these peoples is not outlandish. Nevertheless, the problem with these crystal skulls, all of them, even the ones held by museums, is that there just isn't enough evidence of real

archaeology having been behind their discovery. The only account that we have of the discovery of a crystal skull is the Mitchell Hedges skull, and even that is called massively into question. Until the end of her life, Anna Mitchell Hedges stuck by her story of the skull's discovery, She claimed that during the 1920s, when her father was exploring the lost ancient Mayan city of Lubanton, in what is now Belize, she found what he called the skull of doom. But Anna's story was never corroborated by anyone else who was at Lubanton at the time. None of the archaeologists working at the Mayan temple site make any record of a discovery of a crystal skull. And of course you would, right?

So there's all kinds of uncertainty, and rightfully so, that's been levied against where did this alleged Mayan crystal skull actually come from? The British Museum Crystal Skull, meanwhile, was purchased in the late 19th century via an antiques dealer. But from which ancient archaeological site it was excavated, if any, is unclear. It would be possible to radio-carbon data crystal skull by examining organic material in the layer of earth it was dug up from. But without this option, skeptics have had to rely on less certain, recently developed methods to test the age of the crystal skulls.

The British Museum and the Mitchell Hedges skulls have been subjected to tests using new technology, and this has involved the application of dental pusks, onto the skulls and then an analysis of the incision marks. You can actually approximate the date of the crystal skulls by examining the tool marks on the crystal. And when you do that, in each case, we find markings of a rotary device

that would only have been in existence in the 19th century. So unless the Mayans had motorized rotary tools that we're not aware of, they have to be modern creations. The scientific judgment that motorized tools were used to carve the crystal skulls, and that they are therefore modern, is accepted by most observers, but not by the caretaker of the Mitchell Hedges' skull, Bill Hohman. They keep wanting to say that it was made with modern tools,

but I did the same test using the same technique, the same technique with this dental punty and I took it off and I worked with a scientist from one of the universities and we did testing on it and we found that it's perfectly clear and no marks at any kind. So the skull does not have any tool marks anywhere on the skull. Even if it's proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that motorized tools were used to carve of the crystal skull, Bill believes this still doesn't confirm that it's modern. The crystal skulls are of such incredible perfection and they've been crafted in such an exact way that some claim that extraterrestials could have been involved in the making of these

skulls. Who made it? How it was made? I don't know. It's the most mysterious artifact. But I'm sure that there's some type of... extraterraceal group that communicates with the skull or through the skull. They say it has the knowledge of the universe programmed inside of it.

The Mayas say that it's a communicator with the gods, is what they call it. It's certainly a remarkable claim that aliens may have created the skull of love and the other ancient crystal skulls. But believers say that this extraordinary claim is in fact so supported by the content of ancient Mayan texts. People who believe the crystal skulls have unearthly powers claim that the ancients received otherworldly guidance. A solid piece of crystal was a really difficult thing to carve

with the instruments and technology available at the time in the Mayans. So of course the belief is they must have had some help. Those who believe that alien intelligence shaped the crystal skulls, Point to what they claim is corroborating evidence found in a remarkable document known as the Dresden Codex. The Dresden Codex is a really important piece of the Mayan legend. It's the oldest surviving piece of pre-Columbian literature. What's significant about it is that it refers to a really elite level of knowledge that the Mayans had in terms of astronomy, Detailed descriptions about the transit of Venus and eclipse table predictions, you know, really intricate stuff.

People believe, there's no way the Mayans could have known that. Thus, they must have been guided by extraterrestrials. According to Bill Holman, Mayan legend suggests something more specific about the Mitchell Hedges skull. The so-called skull of love may not only have a connection with aliens, it may have been created in the lost sunken kingdom of Atlantis. The Maya believed that it was brought to their homeland by a people whose land had gone under the sea many, many years ago. There was a main area of Atlantis, and that, I believe, was probably around the Bahamas.

And the skull probably has something to be. probably has something to do with the Bermuda Triangle and the energy down there, the strange energy that they're finding. From what I understand, the skull was created for a Lantean high priest that was loved very much. And they took his physical skull, and they used that as a mold to build the crystal skull.

If you look in the eyes of the skull, it takes you into a world, some other kind of world. So it's pretty amazing that way. Skeptics believe that time and dates are important, however. Anna Mitchell Hedges, for example, claimed that she'd found the relic her father called the Skull of Doom at the lost ancient Mayan city of Lubanton in the 1920s.

But skeptical investigator Joe Nichol has discovered evidence which he believes indicates that this story cannot be true. The Mitchell Hedges skull has nothing to do with the Mayans. It's at the center of an incredible hoax. What is the supposedly conclusive evidence suggesting that the Mitchell Hedges skull is not what it's claimed to be? And if this and the other famous crystal skulls are really fakes,

created in the modern era, who made them? How? And why? 150 years ago, the great cultural achievements of the Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Maya, were little known. But from the mid-19th century onwards, many spectacular lost cities began to be discovered. Soon a handful of mysterious crystal skulls appeared on the art market, and were bought by some of the world's greatest museums.

At the end of the 19th century, there's massive interest in Europe in all things pre-year. Colombian and the British Museum got onto the bandwagon and bought this skull at that time believed to be thousands of years old. With no scientific techniques at the time to accurately date it, nor proof of where it was found, the British Museum's skull was originally authenticated, mainly because it exhibited traits matching an ancient Mesoamerican obsession with skulls. Another famous crystal skull came to light in the 1950s, when adventurer Frederick Mitchell Hedges wrote about the skull of doom in his autobiography. His daughter, Anna, said she'd found the skull in the 1920s, hidden in an ancient Mayan pyramid at Lubanton, in what's now Belize. Sadly, it would appear as though the story of the

crystal skull is not what we were led to believe. Documentation confirms that Frederick Mitchell Hedges purchased the crystal skull in 1943 at a Sutherby's auction. It was skeptical investigator Joe Nickel, who did the detective work, to find out the truth about the origins of the skull of doom, later renamed the Skull of Love. It turned out that Mitchell Hedges had bought this skull from an art dealer named Sidney Bernie. But when contacted by Nassizabeth,

about his findings, Mitchell Hedge's daughter Anna stood by her story of the Crystal Skull's discovery. She told him that after she found the skull in the 1920s, inside the Mayan Pyramid at Lubandon, her father gave it to Bernie as a security for a loan, and then later bought it back at Sotheby's. We asked her if she had any kind of documentary proof. No, no, it had all been destroyed in a hurricane. Whatever the truth is, skeptics point to the scientific tests indicating that both the Mitchell Hedges and British Museum Skulls were carved using motorized tools, which ancient Mesoamerican civilizations didn't possess. There's also further scientific evidence published in 2008. Using Roman spectroscopy, the British Museum's chemical properties were tested. When the quartz from which the skull was carved, originally crystallized millions of years ago,

tiny amounts of minerals became trapped inside, providing a tell-tale fingerprint of the original geological source. The chemical properties of the quartz from which the skull is made suggests that the raw material came from either Brazil or Madagascar, and frankly, neither of those two places were anywhere near the Mayan Empire. and it's unlikely that the Mayans had anywhere like that kind of reach. So if the rock used to make the British Museum skull was mined in Brazil or Madagascar, where was the skull carved? A possible clue is that in the 19th century, a large amount of Brazilian quartz was shipped to the German town of Edar Oberstein,

one of Europe's leading centers of crystal carving. Patrick Dreher, whose family has been carving crystal in Edar Oberstein for centuries, believes it's likely that the British Museum skull was carved there, and that other supposedly ancient Mesoamerican crystal skulls were, too. So I read a lot about this Mitchell Hedged skull in the past, because it was an interesting topic. And for me it was always, how to say, funny stories, if it's really this mystical skull, or is it a fake?

I think the Mitchell Hatcher's skull is a very nice masterpiece, but it's easy to fix out that it was carved as a wheel. I think the chance that the Mitchell Hatcher's skull get produced in the Dover Sheld is very, very high. The quality was amazing, so you need definitely good craftsmen which can do this very high-end job. Here in Idaubash, the people have the skill, the knowledge,

and also the gemstone to produce the skull. It could be possible that my great-grandfather was one of the guys who maybe worked with the skulls, maybe also with the hatchet skull. He lives in this time which the skulls get done, so this could be possible. If the crystal skulls were carved in Edar Oberstein in the 19th century,

who paid for them to be made? for them to be made. The British Museum skull was originally bought from a colorful French antiquities dealer named Eugene Boban, and Patrick believes Boban may have commissioned many of the skulls to be made in Edar Oberstein. I think this Paris dealer, he gets an idea to produce the skulls to sell it together with this nice story about the Mayas. Our gemstone carvers learned in Paris around 1870, 1871,

the technique of gemstone carving. So it was easy that this guy gives orders here to produce the skulls in Ida Oberstein. Later for sure he sells the skulls as the original found in Mexico to earn money. Eugene Boban sold some crystal skulls. He sold them for profit and ends up having helped create an enduring mystery. enduring mystery. The British Museum now accepts that their crystal skull isn't genuinely ancient and may well have been carved for Eugene Boban in Edar Oberstein in the 19th century.

But believers in the Crystal Skull's extraordinary, otherworldly powers remain unconvinced by skeptic's doubts. You know, everybody has their own truth, and I don't believe that the truth is absolute. I believe that we each have our own truth. The fact is that it works on people's hearts and opens them up and gives them a feeling of hope. I think it's really a good thing and that's why I work and bring it around

so people can experience this. Whether we believe the legends of the crystal skulls or not, we're fascinated by the fact that it just might be true. However, now we understand that the truth may not be as romantic or as adventurous as we were led to believe. Even though scientific evidence suggests the crystal skulls are modern fakes, believers remain convinced that the skulls have ancient supernatural powers. It seems inevitable that people will continue to believe what they want to believe.

Some people really do feel affected by their reputed powers. But whatever the truth is, the legendary crystal skulls will surely long be treasured.