Author: Ted Holden If Velikovsky is correct about the big catastrophe if 1500 BC described
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Author: Ted Holden
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If Velikovsky is correct about the big catastrophe if 1500 BC
described in Worlds in Collision, one would expect (since
1500 BC isn't really THAT long ago) to find accounts in far off
corners of the world describing the great catastrophe of 1500 BC,
AND ascribing its cause to the planet Venus. Conversely, if Sagan
is correct and Venus has been in its present orbit since before
man's time on earth, there is NO WAY that we should read this same
account from Egypt and Mexico, which to our knowledge had no
contacts in 1500 BC. That would involve these two totally
separated groups of people totally fabricating the same
preposterous tale and ascribing to it the same preposterous cause
by PURE CHANCE. Of all people, Sagan, the great expert on
probability, should know what the odds are on that. Nonetheless:
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Part I, the tale from central America:
Central American people had achieved a high level of organization
at the time of the arrival of the Europeans and, although most of
these peoples literature was burned by the Spaniards, a few pieces
survive not only in hieroglyphics, but also in our own alphabet,
which Mayan priests very quickly picked up on.
One version of the tale survives in the Mayan Popul Vuh, or Council
Book. A number of translations of the Mayan council book (Popol
Vuh) are now available in inexpensive paperback form; I have here
a copy of Dennis Tedlock's translation, Simon & Schuster /
Touchstone 1985/86.
Again, the basic idea of the first half of Worlds in
collision: that Venus (then on an erratic, stretched elliptical
orbit) nearly collided with Earth, causing every manner of havoc,
encounters with debris trailing Venus beginning with fine dust and
growing to ferocious storms of large meteorites, rains of burning
hydrocarbon substances (interaction of Venus' atmosphere and ours),
giant earthquakes, fierce winds, flooding nearly everywhere etc.,
followed by a protracted period of near total darkness either as a
kind of semi-nuclear winter caused by debris hanging in our own
atmosphere, or because our own present relationship with our own
sun was not yet completely established. During that time, Venus
itself served as a light source, at least some of the time.
Back to the Popol Vuh. We read the tale of the third race of
people, who the Mayans regarded as a wooden race because:
p 84. "They were not competent, nor did they speak before the
builder and sculptor who had made them and brought them
forth, and so they were killed, done in by a flood."
"There came a rain of resin from the sky."
p 260. "Andres Xiloj commented: 'This was turpentine that fell,
and it was burning as it fell'".
This is the same tale which we read in Exodus ("and so there was
thunder and hail, and fire mingled with the hail... ...and the
fire ran along the ground... etc.)
p 84. "There came one called Gouger of Faces; he gouged out
their eyeballs."
"There came Sudden Bloodletter; he snapped off their
heads."
"There came Crunching Jaguar; he ate their flesh."
"There came tearing Jaguar; he tore them open."
In other words, these peoples asses really got kicked in...
p 84.
"They were pounded down to the bones and tendons, smashed and
pulverized even to the bones. Their faces were smashed
because they were incompetent before their mother and their
father, the heart of sky, named Hurricane. The Earth was
blackened because of this; the black rainstorm began, rain
all day and rain all night. Into their houses came the
animals small and great. Their faces were crushed by things
of wood and stone."
Glad I wasn't there...
p 58.
"The longest fast, 340 days, corresponds to a segment of the
Mayan Venus calendar, beginning with the departure of Venus as
the morning star, and continuing through its stay in the
underworld and its period of reappearance as the evening star,
leaving just eight days to go before its rebirth as the
morning star. This probably commemorated the heroic
adventures of Hunahpu and Xbalanque in Xibalba, the long
darkness endured by the first generation of lords as they
watched for the appearance of the morning star..."
p 85.
"Such was the scattering of the human work, the human design.
The people were ground down, overthrown. The mouths and faces
of all of them were destroyed and crushed."
p 86.
"This was when there was just a trace of early dawn on the
face of the earth, there was no sun. But there was one who
magnified himself; Seven Macaw was his name. The earth/sky
was already there, but the face of the sun-moon was clouded
over. Even so, it is said that his light provided a sign for
the people who were flooded."
A very clear and precise statement; following the catastrophe, a
celestial body other than the sun or the moon provides light for
the world.
p 360.
"The PV does not specify Seven Macaw's actual astronomical
identification... but A. gives it as Ursa Major..."
A. is simply wrong. Ursa Major isn't bright enough; remember,
this is all through an atmosphere heavy with dust and debris for a
protracted period.
p 86.
"[Seven Macaw speaking] 'I am great. My place is now higher
than that of the human work, the human design. I am their sun
and I am their light, and I am also their months [they should
begin to figure time by me]. So be it: my light is great.
I am the walkway and I am the foothold of the people, because
my eyes are of metal... And this nose of mine shines white
into the distance like the moon. Since my nest is metal, it
lights up the face of the earth. When I come forth before my
nest, I am like the sun and moon for those who are born in the
light, begotten in the light. It must be so, because my face
reaches into the distance,' says Seven Macaw."
"It is not true that he is the sun, this Seven Macaw, yet he
magnifies himself, his wings, his metal... The faces of the
sun, moon, and stars are not yet visible, it has not yet
dawned."
Seven Macaw is, of course, Venus. The people are seeing all of
this through a ruined atmosphere, hence some confusion of effects.
p 89.
"Here is the beginning of the defeat and destruction of the
day of Seven Macaw by the two boys, the first being named
Hunahpu and the second named Xbalanque. Being gods... [i.e.
celestial objects]...
p 342.
"Hunaphu and his twin succeed their father and uncle in
controlling the morning star aspect of Venus, playing ball at
an eastern site..."
This tale goes on for many pages. Not only does Venus dominate all
of these stories, but we actually see the origin of the various
Meso-American ball games i.e. they are intended to represent the
celestial disorder being referred to in the Popol Vuh as well as in
other sources.
William Mullen, writing in an article entitled "The Mesoamerican
Record" mentions five dominant traits of the Mesoamerican cultures:
1. Urbanization with large populations spread around great
ceremonial centers.
2. Belief in cyclical world ages ended by cosmic agents,
jaguar, fire-rain, wind, flood, earthquake.
3. Human sacrifice.
4. Ritualistic ball game.
5. Venus worship.
Number four we preserve to this day in the form of the NFL.
Velikovsky mentions a time of wandering in darkness after the great
catastrophe: this is seen in pages 175 - 200 of (Tedlock's
translation of) the Popol Vuh:
p 176.
"When they came away from Tulan Zuyua, they weren't eating.
They observed a continuous fast. It was enough that they
watch intently for the dawning, that they watch closely for
the rising of the sun, taking turns at watching for the great
star named daybringer. This one came first before the sun
when the sun was born, the new daybringer.
Page 176 mentions sacrifice and ritualistic self-torture to bring
about the first sunset:
"It remains for you to give thanks since you have yet to take
care of bleeding your ears and passing a cord through your
elbows. You must worship..."
Which the people did and still lamented:
"Alas, we won't be here when we see the dawn, when the sun is
born, when the face of the earth is lit."
i.e. the people were afraid they might die of old age first.
p. 181
"And then, when the sun came up, the animals small and great
were happy."
Whew!
p 182.
"There were countless peoples, but there was just one dawn for
all tribes. And then the face of the earth was dried out by
the sun... Before the sun came up it was soggy, and the face
of the earth was muddy before the sun came up. And when the
sun had risen just a short distance, he was like a person, and
his heat was unbearable. Since he revealed himself only when
he was born, it is only his reflection which now remains. As
they [witnesses] put it in their own words: 'The sun that
shows itself is not the real sun'."
"They were overjoyed when it dawned. The people on the
mountain of Hacauitz were not yet numerous, just a few were
there. Their dawning was there... ...And that became their
citadel, since they were there when the sun, moon, stars
appeared, when it dawned and cleared on the face of the
earth..."
Of course, I don't claim to know every detail of what was going on
here. We have more bits and piece of a picture; Velikovsky's
picture, not that of Sagan or establishment scientists. These
people were seeing the sun for the first time, the sun from our
present close orbit for the first time, or just the sun after a
very long period of darkness. Recent studies indicate a time frame
for these events which correlates well with Velikovsky's date of
roughly -1500 for the big catastrophe in WinC.
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Part II. The tale from Israel
I won't bore you with excessive details here; you can read it for
yourself in the King James bible. The 14'th chapter of the book of
Isaiah contains a hymn of thanksgiving, after Venus settled into
stable orbit and ceased to be a threat:
"How art thou fallen from heaven, oh Lucifer, Son of the
morning [morning star] ... how art thou cut down to the
ground, which did'st weaken the nations... which made the
world as a wilderness and destroyed the cities thereof...
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Part III. The view from Egypt
One version of the Egyptian equivalent of the same tale is found in
E.A. Wallis Budge's "Gods of the Egyptians" Vol I, pp 388 - 399,
wherein Ra, the old and dying chief God (actually a small star in
the last stages of dying out and being removed to an orbit little
visible from earth], sends his eye to destroy mankind, which are
beginning to blaspheme and no longer take him seriously enough:
From Samuel Noah Kramer's "Mythologies of the Ancient World",
Doubleday Anchor, pp 89-90, we read the following concerning the
Egyptian conception of the so-called "Eye of Ra", which we read
much of in Egyptian mythology:
"Only the eye of Re is identified as a heavenly body in a few
sentences in the pyramid texts. We used to understand them as
though the eye of Re was identified as the sun, but a careful
interpretation of them has unmistakably shown that the eye of
Re was the morning star..."
i.e. this is common knowledge amongst Egyptologists. Those who
might doubt Kramer as a source can check pages 37 - 40 of the
latest version of LaRousse's popular mythological encyclopedia
(Pierre Grimal, I believe I'm remembering the name correctly,
editor). You'll find the same identification of Sekhet, the Eye of
Ra, and Venus.
The following fragment of the Egyptian version of Phaeton myth may
thus be seen as clearly implicating the planet Venus in the event.
To the best of my knowledge, Velikovsky was unaware of at the time
WinC was published.
The most common translations of Egyptian texts from pyramid and
tomb walls are those of E.A. Wallis Budge, and Dover offers
inexpensive, high-quality paperback versions of these. Budge
published his translations towards the end of the last century, and
had no ax to grind pro or con Velikovsky.
In Budge's "Gods of the Egyptians", Vol I, pp 388 - 399, we read
the story of the destruction of mankind. As the story goes, the
great god (Ra) had grown old and feeble and men began to blaspheme,
saying:
"behold, his majesty, life, strength, health, has grown old,
his bones are like silver, his limbs like gold, his hair like
lapis lazuli real"
The attendant gods counseled sending the eye of Ra to punish
mankind:
"... let thine eye be upon those who blaspheme thee. ...Let
go forth thine eye, let it destroy for thee those who
blaspheme with wickedness, not an eye can proceed it in
resistance, when it goeth down in the form of Hathor
[Venus]... Went forth then goddess this, she slew mankind on
the mountain... Said goddess this, when I had power over
mankind, it was pleasing to my heart... It came to pass that
Sekhet [again, Venus] of the offerings of the night waded
about in their blood, beginning in Suten-henen...
Note the term "she slew mankind on the mountain". Where else do we
find this phrase?
Isaiah 2/19:
And they shall go into the holes of the rocks and into the
caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord and for the glory of
his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
Isaiah 2/21:
To go into the clefts of the rocks and into the tops of the
jagged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of His
majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
Normal earthquakes don't give much warning; running up into clefts
in high mountains thus isn't a normal reaction to them. Isaiah,
however, is talking about a different kind of an earthquake, such
as has not been seen in awhile. The thing is, that when the CAUSE
of the earthquake is right there in the sky getting closer daily,
you don't need to be but so much of a prophet/astrologer/astronomer
to know that you'd BETTER get to high ground or do some kind of
thing before long, or your ass is grass.
The peculiar phrase from the pyramid wall is in the same vein,
describing people seeking shelter in the hills, and mostly dying
anyway.
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There are two versions of what was going on around 1500 BC: The
version provided by "scientists" who believe they can string tree
ring sequences together for 11000 years in such a way as to show
uniformity, stability, cosmic harmony, normality, etc. etc. ...,
and the version provided by the people who LIVED THROUGH those
times. Dr. Velikovsky did nothing more than piece that body of
testimony together and present it to the modern reader for his
viewing. He noted that these fragments of literature, especially
when several of them tell the same story despite coming from areas
of the world too far apart to have had contact in prehistoric or
barely historic times, constitute evidence every bit as much as do
stones, bones, tree rings etc.
The choice to me is easy. If I wanted to find out how life was in
Magnitogorsk, for instance, and my choice lay between asking
somebody in the poli-sci department at the university about it, and
calling up a number of people in Magnitogorsk and asking them how
life in Magnitogorsk was, I'd have no trouble deciding which system
would provide more useful information.
The situation with life in 1500 BC is little different.
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