Did The Vikings Use a Solar Stone Crystal to Navigate Cloudy Seas?
Vikings dominated the North Atlantic seas for at least 300 years, but how did they sail across great distances with incredible accuracy, without a magnetic compass? A long-held theory about Vikings using crystals for navigation may have been proven true with modern science.
The Vikings, the great north seamen, sailed from Norway to Greenland and many parts in between. They were known to have amazing maritime navigation skills, by using the sun to plot their position on the globe. But scientists have wondered for years how they could navigate when they couldn’t see the Sun. Enter the sunstone, or solar sign, a crystal that when held up to a cloudy sky, can help to locate the Sun.
For years the use of Sunstones has been nothing but a theory based on a legend. Such as this mention in the tale Rauðúlfs þáttr:
“The king made people look out and they could nowhere see a clear sky. Then he asked Sigurður to tell where the sun was at that time. He gave a clear assertion. Then the king made them fetch the solar stone and held it up and saw where the light radiated from the stone and thus directly verified Sigurður’s prediction.”
Watch more:
About the Author
Emerald Tablet 101: The Birth of Alchemy
“As above; so below. As within; so without. As with the universe; so with the soul.” ~ Hermes Trismegistus
The story of the Emerald Tablet reads like the syllabus for an ancient civilization college course, with Egyptian pharaohs, Greek conquerors and philosophers, and travels through long-gone countries. While no one in the modern world has seen it, accounts of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus describe a slab of brilliant, crystalline green stone covered with bas-relief Phoenician text. Some believe the tablet holds the secrets of the universe.
Considered the original source of hermeticism, gnosticism, Western alchemy and science, the tablet is inseparable from the elusive Hermes Trismegistus, an ancient philosopher, healer and sage. References to Trismegistus can be found in Renaissance, Christian, Islamic, Roman and Greek literature.
No one knows what became of the original tablet — what remains are translations and translations of translations, along with a historic timeline punctuated with disconnects and gaps. The tablet appears and disappears across the ancient world, before and after the birth of Christ, with periods of revival, including the Italian Renaissance.
Dennis William Hauck, author of the classic “The Emerald Tablet,” wrote, “One of the most mysterious documents ever put before the eyes of man, the Emerald Tablet has been described as everything from a succinct summary of Neoplatonic philosophy to an extraterrestrial artifact or a gift from Atlantis.” The tablet’s premise that “All is One,” and that direct experience of the Divine is possible through meditation and psychological exercise, became the foundations of Freemasonry, and later Theosophy and esoteric schools including The Golden Dawn.
