Author's Note:
This article was published on KSL.com in June, 2012. I thought readers of this blog would be interested in the relevance to pop culture and its influence on the motion picture industry.

SALT LAKE CITY — It’s official, apparently. The movie “The Avengers” has broken all box office records, making it the all-time, most popular movie. Audiences are blown away by the action-packed battles between good and evil, and between the egomaniacal characters themselves.

So, why all this escalating interest in comic book heroes and primeval gods? How did fantastic tales of superheroes battling aliens and mythic gods warring with one another as well as chaos monsters grow in popularity to eclipse all other movie genera?

The Avengers

In the waning decades of the last century, comic book superheroes had nearly disappeared from the cultural milieu, and reading of the Greek classics such as Homer’s "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" had long since vanished from education’s curricula. So why all the renewed interest in a species of entertainment that had all but disappeared in the latter part of the last century?

Looking back, perhaps we can see why and what it says about our day and time.

Ancient Superheroes

It’s obvious to all who have dabbled in mythology that these crusaders are modern, technological reincarnations of the cosmic gods and monsters of antiquity. Their quarrelsome, contentious natures — "Transformers" being the best modern example — are obviously derived from their counterparts in ancient mythology. Consider Zeus and his band of misfit Titans, incessantly plotting and scheming against one another when they aren’t actually in open, armed conflict.

While such tales of cosmic chaos, where gods and monsters do battle in the heavens, are universal in ancient lore and cultures worldwide, we get our best glimpse of these interplanetary loners, persecutors and tyrants from the Greek tradition.

The Hydra

In fact, the name for the very place where we go today to witness these horrific spectacles derives from the Greek word for goddess, “thea.” The Greeks called the battles of their sky gods “theomachy,” and government by the gods “theocracy.” Thus, “theater” meant a place for witnessing the exploits of the ancient gods. Their adventures were also rehearsed up close and personal in the rites and rituals enacted in sacred precincts such as temples, henges, kivas and pyramids. Each initiate actually participated ritually in the daring acts or missteps of the gods, goddesses and monsters — some few involuntarily, as in the Aztec ritual of human sacrifice.In Greek custom, the traditional clashes of the gods were rehearsed by actors on a stage using the best special effects they could muster. Gods, beasts and monsters entered the stage in elaborate, sometimes grotesque costume. Their special effects included the roaring sound of battle, theomachy, which could be heard as crude mechanical monstrosities such as Hydra, the serpent like monster with multiple heads, appeared as if from out of nowhere to engage the god and demigod actors on stage.

In fact, the very basis for most of our fiction centers on the confrontation of the villain and the hero, a universal theme in ancient lore.

Modern theater employs an upgraded version of Greek theater, with eye-popping special effects, emotive sound effects and dynamic musical orchestrations — all produced at ear-splitting, mind-boggling levels for added psychological effect. The surreal theomachy of these bullies is spectacularly recreated and take theater to a whole new emotional level.

But make no mistake: Though the Greeks’ efforts were crude by our standards, they had no less an effect on ancient audiences than modern technology allows movie creators to inflict on us. The ancients reacted the same way we do: We enjoy it!

While it takes us on an emotional roller coaster and fills us with dread and astonishment, it also fills deep-seated emotional and psychological needs. Any psychologist worth his salt will tell you that they’re a reflection of the uncertain world we see around us and the anxiety we feel as a result.

 

Godzilla
    

Modern Heroes

The comic book versions of these gods, goddesses and monsters, those we called “action heroes,” and the crude science fiction movie genre that exploded onto the big screen in the aftermath of the Second World War alleviated the doomsday anxiety of a generation of Americans that had seen genocide in that conflict and lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation. Their common storyline involved an effort to set right a world threatened by everything from petty criminals to maniacal tyrants to malevolent aliens from other worlds and dimensions.When the heroes in comic books or the silver screen defeated the villains, it was reassuring. The world seemed less menacing, less overwhelming. It was escapism, a subconscious effort to assure ourselves that all could be made right in an otherwise uncertain, chaotic and threatening world.

Perhaps looking at it from the perspective of another culture will help clarify.

In the wake of nuclear events that leveled most of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese culture invented Godzilla, a fire-breathing dragon stirred from its tomb by the belligerent behavior of the human race and its abuse of technology. He is the incarnation of the mythic dragons of yesteryear. His more recent silver screen counterparts include the monsters from "Alien," "Predator" and even Hollywood's latest take on the monster from the epic poem "Beowulf."

Future Heroes

By extrapolation then, we conclude that the resurgence of this motion picture category in recent years resides in our collective experience, just as it was with the Japanese. So, too, with the ancients, experiencing the problematic nature of the human condition, sought emotional and psychological refuge in ritual sublimation and escapism.

The trigger that spurred the resurgence of heroic and deific cinemas in recent years was the horrific collapse of the World Trade Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, and the struggle to defeat terrorism. Now, our superheroes, gods, monsters, dragons and demigods have emerged once again on the movie screen with a vengeance. And with the impact imparted by computer-enhanced special effects, these hero- based epics are spectacular and action-packed.

This being the case, one may be forgiven for making a couple of predictions.

If world tensions ease, the popularity of this variety of motion pictures will diminish to the same degree. But if world tensions continue or escalate, it will become even more prevalent, popular and graphic. But more than that, the time may come when the pacifying effects of such movies will not be enough. Like our ancestors, if the provocation to re-enact becomes great enough, the urge will be seen in the streets. Modern society will seek ways to inflict this chaos. We will become suffering actors in our own caustic drama.

Prophecy for Dummies

In my quest to popularize the advancing science of comparative mythology and plasma physics as they relate to the Restored Gospel, it occurred to me that the popular “… for Dummies” series, relating to everything from auto repair to brain surgery, might be helpful. A nuts-and-bolts approach to prophetic interpretation that employed an analogy about learning to read might help others better understand my approach. The following is the result. – A.E.L.

While we’re definitely not dummies, we all previously thought that one needed a prophetic calling or a PhD in order to interpret prophecy.

But I have found that not to be the case. Anyone who has learned to read—dummies like me and you—can also learn to understand prophecy.

This is done by simply following the clues throughout history, like Hansel and Gretel followed the breadcrumb trail through the forest, tracing the images or metaphors of prophecy to their source in Earth’s ancient heavens. Then, moving forward in time from antiquity to the present, one can map out their use as the prophets consistently employed them in various epochs and in a variety of cultures.

So, reading prophecy is not all that difficult. It’s learning how to understand it that’s a bit hard. That’s because we’ve never been properly schooled in prophetic imagery, a skill once known to all the prophets that has been lost to us over the eons.

And even though Joseph Smith clearly learned that skill, properly employed it and sought to reinstate its imagery in the minds of Latter-day Saints as part of the Restoration, the membership failed to grasp his meaning. (See “The Keys To Prophecy, #1-#12" and “What Joseph Knew.”)

Yes, reading the imagery of prophecy is an acquired skill, just like riding a bike or reading. In fact, the best analogy for learning to read prophecy comes from your own experience as you first began to read.

Think back to when you couldn’t read, before you learned your ABCs. Do you recall what the printed letters on a page looked like? I can. It looked like so much meaningless gobbledygook. There was no way you or I could make sense of it no matter how long we stared at it. Flipping the pages was futile. Trying to find meaning in it was pointless.

Well, that pretty much describes the situation where prophecy is concerned. You can understand the words, but the message is strange gibberish. Try as you might to find meaning in it or make sense of it, you cannot. Instead, your head begins to hurt. Reading various prophecies only further complicates the matter. It all seems to deal in that same bizarre imagery. Even reading books on the subject by supposed ‘authorities’ on prophecy leaves you no closer to understanding the stuff. And there are whole chunks of prophecy that the 'experts' all seem to avoid. Soon you despair, thinking that making sense of prophecy is going to be nearly impossible.

To teach you how to read, the teacher first started with the alphabet and letter recognition. Each letter had a name—A was “aee,” B was “bee,” and so on. And you learned to recognize them and identify them by name. Once you mastered the alphabet, you took your first step toward reading. But you still could not read.

The same is true of prophecy. To understand it, your teacher must take you back to the basics—stars, planets and plasmas. Why stars, planets and plasmas? Well, that’s where the language of prophecy came from. Earth’s ancient heavens were once alive with planets (the ancients called them stars, not planets) and electrified, glowing, lifelike plasma phenomenon. These impressive elements riveted the attention of ancient peoples the world over and sparked an explosion of imagination and imagery in all cultures.

Just like the letters of the alphabet, what the ancients saw in those long ago skies became the building blocks of all religious tradition and culture.

As analyzed elsewhere (See "A New Heaven and a New Earth," “The Saturn Myths and the Restored Gospel,” “The Saturn Epic: In The Beginning,” “The Saturn Epic: Mythmaking,” "The Polar Configuration and Joseph Smith," “Prophets and Plasmas” and “The Electric Universe”), with a little effort you’ll discover the reasons for believing that Earth’s ancient skies were vastly different than our own today. You’ll learn of the objects and images our ancestors saw in the astronomical theater, and we’ll give names to those planets and plasmas. This will be the prophetic equivalent of learning your ABCs.

The next thing our reading teacher did was to show us that each letter had one or more sounds. That further complicated things, but we were told that it would all become clear if we just persevered. So, we went down the now familiar alphabet assigning sounds to each of them. We learned, for example, that the letter C could have an “sss” sound as in “see,” or a “kay” sound as in “cat.” This was further complication and confusion for our struggling young minds.

Unlike today, where planets are little more than bright, distant stars in the sky, these planets and plasmas were very close.They were overwhelming and imposing because they were close to the Earth. They actually appeared larger than the moon does today. Brilliantly lit, dynamic and magnificent in ancient skies, these planets and plasmas were reverenced as gods or primeval powers.

And ancient onlookers assigned distinctive characteristics or personalities to these nearby planets and plasmas, based on their appearance, movements and changes. They were considered gods, supernatural powers that ruled the heavens, their sole habitat. The “theater of the gods,” then, was the ancient firmament overhead. In the cultures of antiquity, these planets and plasmas became human-like or animal-like gods who acted out their epoch stories on that grandiose stage.

Their identities included names, though those names varied from culture to culture. Even within a single culture, the same astral object acquired numerous names as it moved and changed over time. To modern eyes, this riotous nomenclature of ancient gods offers only confusion. To the ancients it made perfect sense since each name identified a unique aspect of their planet or plasma gods.

But the identities and attributes of those gods were strikingly similar in every cultural tradition because the look and behavior of those planets and plasmas was consistently interpreted the same way from culture to culture. This was due to the fact that the appearance and actions of these gods or powers suggested the same characteristics, natures or personalities in the minds of the ancients the world over.

For this reason, the ancients wrote and spoke of them as if they were living beings or creatures, and they so illustrated them in their sacred art. For example, Saturn (the largest of the planets seen in earthly skies) was the “father god” or “creator,” Venus came to be seen as the original “queen of heaven” or “mother goddess” and Mars became her “son,” the “hero” and the “warrior,” among many other designations. And the plasmas that were seen stretching between the planets took on a large number of identities: a connecting sky pillar, celestial tree, world mountain, astral river and ladder, stairway or path to heaven. Such commonalities allow us to identify each of the primary actors by their role in Earth’s ancient heavens and the traditions of mankind, no matter what name they went by in the various ancient cultures.

Returning once again to our reading analogy, we recall that our teacher introduced the notion that stringing several letters together produced a readable word. To read it, we used the sounds we had learned for each letter, and we were encouraged to “sound out” the more difficult words phonetically. And so we began to haltingly read our first words. “Look, Jane. See Dick run. Run, Dick, run.”

This was a bit of a tricky process. Sounding out each letter and then stringing those sounds together didn’t always produce a recognizable word. We soon learned that there were more complex rules that governed the way some groups of letters sounded. The u-g-h in “laugh” or “tough” made an “fff” sound, even though when those three stood alone they said “Ugh!” Still more complexity to master.

The corollary in learning to read prophecy is the realization that prophetic interpretation assigned a number of roles or characteristics to each of the congregate powers in the sky. For example, Venus was not only the mother goddess, she later became Mars’ crown of light, the “hand” of god, the wife of Saturn and ultimately a raging, angry goddess. One plasma conduit, stretching between Mars and Venus, was described as a dragon, beast or monster because it writhed, undulated and twisted like a snake.

And the complexity of these cosmic forms only grows and multiplies as we survey the literature and traditions of ancient cultures. These original forms, prototypes or archetypes became the basis for nearly innumerable traditional and religious narratives, and their perceived behaviors became the stuff of sacred rituals in all ancient cultures.

Mastering the use of these archetypes by understanding their astral origins allows any reader to interpret them wherever they are found: in religious ritual, in narratives such as scripture, in hieroglyphics, monumental architecture, petroglyphs or sacred symbols.

In our reading analogy, we eventually discovered that words could be grouped into sentences to complete a thought. And several sentences comprised a paragraph, a tidy group of thoughts that, when grouped together, made a summary or conveyed a concept.

In prophecy, we learn that a few simple symbols can convey whole narratives. In some cases, only one ideogram or hieroglyph invokes whole paragraphs of text.

Conversely, we learn that scriptural or religious metaphors have symbolic equivalents. This was a two-headed coin. On one side we have the symbol, and on the other we have its metaphoric equivalent. This allowed the ancients, most of whom could neither read nor write, to depict, read or relate a whole story with just a few symbols or a single ritual.

In reading, with practice came proficiency. After years of work, we mastered reading sufficient to extract meaning from any text. We were finally readers.

So, too, with deciphering prophecy. With some dedicated time and effort, we can train ourselves to read prophecy as easily as we read the morning paper.

But that was not all there was to reading. We soon learned that there were other languages. Some even used ideograms instead of an alphabet. That is, just when we think we’ve mastered it all, we discover that there are new horizons to explore.

So it is with prophetic language. Once we master the basics—the archetypes—once we learn the imagery those basics gave rise to, we can “read” any prophetic metaphor or arcane symbol as easily as we read the letters on a written page.

Of course when we reach that level, we discover to our amazement that what we have learned is only the tip of the iceberg. We quickly find that the imagery or language of prophecy is also the key to the vision of all the prophets, not just prophecy per se. And that includes the teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith. We realize, too, that it is the key to temple symbolism and ritual, both in ancient cultures and in the modern church.

We should have guessed that learning to interpret prophecy, like learning to read, would ultimately reveal sweeping vistas of knowledge and understanding beyond anything we could have imagined at the outset of our quest.

I guess we’re not dummies after all.

©Anthony E. Larson, 2009

The "One Story"

The mythology, traditions and religions of ancient cultures the world over and across all time are based in singular astral objects and events observed by the earliest inhabitants of this planet. That’s the basis of what one comparative mythologist called “the One Story told around the world.”

This is a novel concept, but one that is central to deciphering almost all the mysteries from the past. It declares that the seemingly bizarre beliefs and traditions of widely divergent and isolated cultures in hoary antiquity all derived from a single source: our ancient heavens.

This notion stands in diametric opposition to the traditional, scientific view that the heavens have appeared constant for as long as Man trod this planet. Yet, when we turn to the records bequeathed us by our ancestors, we find they tell us a very different story—one that makes no sense in light of our present concepts.

What those primeval people saw defies all description. We see nothing remotely like it in our present skies. It was so overwhelming, so dramatic that its elements indelibly impressed themselves upon the human psyche. The mythologies, legends, traditions and religions it spawned still retain a vivid memory of things seen in ancient skies, though we fail to perceive them as such.

These myths, legends, traditions and religions are the repositories for the memories of cosmological pageants that played out over Earth’s skies for an extended period of time in the very earliest epoch of Mankind. They are an invaluable record, bequeathed us by our ancestors, each containing some elements of the One Story.

Each culture remembered the story of those events from a unique, proprietary perspective. Yet they all retain a remarkable coherence when seen as memories stemming from a common, astral origin. Moreover, they were modified and elaborated down through time in very different ways by widely divergent cultures, such that today, they are nearly unrecognizable as the same story. But they are.

For Latter-day Saints who wish to fully benefit from their scripture study, their temple experience and the teachings of Joseph Smith, this knowledge is vital. Because the Prophet sought to restore “all things as at first,” he included the data about Earth’s ancient cosmology in his teachings. If we lack this perspective, his teachings in this regard are meaningless to us. Without this knowledge, our efforts to grasp the teachings of Christ and the Prophets are greatly hampered.

In order to provide the interested reader with an overview of the events once seen to evolve in ancient skies, the following narrative and commentary have been created in an easy to understand, side-by-side format. The italicized text is a narrative describing the beliefs and traditions in the One Story. The normal text is an analytical commentary describing the events and conditions that obtained in order to create those beliefs and traditions.

Once upon a time in a Golden Age, this world was an idyllic place, very different than it is now. People hardly aged at all. They lived much longer than today. There was little or no disease.

Comparative mythology tells us that all ancient cultures have traditions of an idyllic era, a halcyon epoch at the beginning of human memory when life was tranquil and without hardship, pain or illness.

There were no temperature extremes, no rain, no snow, no wind and no weather, as we know it.

Earth’s meteorological environment was drastically different than now due to tremendous electromagnetic forces in play.

Food grew in abundance year round, with no need of cultivation or irrigation. The whole world was a garden.

This electromagnetically enhanced environment dramatically affected its flora and fauna. All life prospered, whether animal or vegetable.

There were no nations, governments or even tribes. Therefore, there were no wars, no battles, no contention and no strife.

The abundance humans enjoyed led to an absence of need and hardship. Competition for vital resources was unknown. It was a completely egalitarian society.

Not only was this Earth vastly different, so were the heavens. A motionless, golden sun that never set warmed the world. Thus, there was no darkness, no day-night cycle. Its light was softer and more diffuse than the brilliant sunlight we see today.

Cultures the world over worshipped this god/sun. Anthropologists consistently refer to early cultures as “sun worshippers,” which is true. But it was not the sun we see in our sky today. Surprisingly, the ancients report the “first, best sun” was the planet we know today as Saturn.

Though it produced a subdued light equivalent to our twilight, Saturn generated sufficient electromagnetic energy to illuminate and warm our world.

It appeared to hover, motionless, because Earth was positioned directly beneath Saturn’s southern pole. At the same time, Earth’s North Pole was oriented toward Saturn. Put simply, they shared a common axis of rotation. Thus, Saturn stood where Polaris, the North Star, stands today.

A Supreme or Universal Monarch, the same sun that lighted the world, ruled from the high heavens. He was the Creator King, the first light of creation, who created himself as well as all the cosmos.

This was the archetype for all earthly kings. Coronation rites reflected Saturn’s station and actions in the heavens. This is also the source of royal imagery in our scriptures.

This creator brought himself into being as he emerged from a pool or sea of churning water, foam or mud, seen hovering like a layer of clouds in the heavens. From that chaotic void, he emerged to begin his reign over this world and its heavens.

This was the event that all cultures, including the Hebrew, recalled as the creation. The cyclonic pool, called the “firmament” in the Old Testament, was the core vortex of a plasma column or “pinch” that enclosed several planets, positioned along the common axis of rotation between them.

This Great King, seated on his throne, was also the City, Temple or Kingdom of God. He presided over an age of natural abundance, longevity and cosmic harmony.

A variety of symbols were ascribed to Saturn, due to its position and size. It was not only anthropomorphosized as a king, it was also considered a city, a temple and a kingdom. Thus, it was so described in a multitude of variations on one archetype, a dominant orb in Earth’s ancient skies.

Also born in this fixed spot in the northern heavens were the Monarch’s first creations and companions. They appeared as the Warrior or Hero of Heaven and the Son of the King and as the Queen of Heaven. Together, they joined the Sovereign to form a Holy Trinity of ruling, celestial deity.

The first act of this creator god/planet was to bring two others into existence to accompany him. Both were planets that shared the same axis of rotation with Earth and Saturn. They were Mars and Venus, Mars standing closest to Earth.

Like Saturn, anthropomorphic characteristics were attributed to them because of their appearance and behavior. One was the female planet, and the other was the male planet—the yin and the yang. Together, they spawned a multitude of sacred images: the celestial city with a temple in the middle, a heavenly eye, a wheel, etc.

These two active, companion planets appeared to stand before Saturn as it emerged from what was characterized as the heavenly “waters” of creation.

All four planets shared a common axis of rotation and were “stacked” in the following order, from the “bottom” upward: Earth, Mars, Venus and Saturn. From a visual perspective on Earth, Mars appeared centered on Venus, and Venus appeared centered on Saturn. Thus, earthbound observers saw three nested planets in Earth’s northern skies.Earth’s inhabitants honored, worshipped and revered these celestial powers in all their phases and manifestations, and there were many.

The abode of the Three was fixed in the heavens, suspended on a marvelous column or pillar of light, the Cosmic Mountain or Celestial Tree of Life. This was also the Heavenly Street and Great River of Light. It was The Way to heaven. It was this Pillar of Light or Celestial Mountain that supported and sustained the Celestial City wherein dwelt the gods. Only the worthy could mount its heights to access high heaven.

But there was more … much more. There was also a polar, plasma column that appeared to connect heaven to Earth, resembling a great pillar of light, that embraced those three planets overhead and our planet beneath, illuminating our world day and night. From its magnificent crest, the planetary triumvirate dominated the earth and the heavens. To the Hebrews, it was Zion or Sinai; to the Greeks, it was Olympus, the abode of Zeus, Hera and all the Olympians.

The polar column was also visualized as the Celestial Tree, with roots in the earth and branches among the planets/stars/gods. It was also seen as the Great River of Light, Life or Abundance connecting heaven and earth and as a ladder/stairway/path to heaven, the only avenue to the gods’ abode, the Heavenly City.

The Queen of Heaven was the wife/daughter/consort of the Creator King. She was the Celestial Egg or the Womb or Heaven, who held within her the Holy Seed, the Son of God, to whom she would later give birth in a monumental event that stirred the imagination of ancient peoples everywhere. She was the Iris of God’s Eye; her unborn child was the Pupil of God’s Eye. She was the Mouth; he was the Opener of the mouth. Together, they were the dual Heart of Heaven, the Creator’s Heart.

Venus was the archetype of all female goddesses in antiquity, the prototype of every female character in religion and mythology.Because Mars was centered on Venus, various aspects were attributed to that planet. It was an iris to Mars’ pupil, forming an eye with Saturn. It was part of Saturn’s heart. It was an egg, with the unborn child within it. Mars completed the mouth formed by Venus on Saturn’s face.

Soon, she became the Star of Heaven, the dazzling Radiant Goddess. She burst into glory that eclipsed the Creator King. She was the light and power of the Heaven King, the animating force that illuminated and protected heaven or the Kingdom of God.

The entire world remembered the planet Venus as the “star” goddess. It was Astarte, Ishtar, Ashteroth, Aphrodite, Hathor and the Greek Venus. It was not only stunningly brilliant, the planet’s plasma discharge assumed a variety of shapes that came to dominate the iconography of all ancient cultures. These star icons still dominate the imagination of humankind today. The flags of nearly every nation carry Venus’ star image in one form or another.

The Warrior Hero was a powerful god, the son of the King and Queen of Heaven. Born of his mother, he left his exalted station to descend to the Earth. As he descended, he grew from a dwarf to a giant, and heaven erupted into chaos. He had become the Destroyer of Worlds. The earth and the heavens shook. The closer he approached, the worse things became and the more terrible he looked. In so descending, he became old, sickly and decrepit, becoming human-like and taking upon himself the evils of the world, thus redeeming mankind.

Mars was the archetype for most male gods of antiquity. That planet’s story is the stuff of a multitude of legends. Mars became the model for every legendary, cultural hero. It was powerful, yet strangely impotent at times. It could topple the heavens, but it could not control itself. It was the dwarf who became a giant, the prototypical shape shifter. It was the quixotic Hero that very nearly destroyed creation, yet it was also the god who restored the heavens to their former peace and glory. It was the youth that aged and then became a youth again.

Yet, this is only one take on a variety of misadventures of Mars in ancient skies.

After his descent to the Earth, the Warrior Hero returned to his home in heaven by climbing the Cosmic Mountain or Celestial Stairway to Heaven. As he ascended, the commotion and tumult diminished. He became the Prince of Peace as the heavens ceased their tumultuous roar and the incessant shaking of the earth died away.

As Mars receded from its close encounter with Earth, it appeared to grow smaller as it also appeared to ascend along the polar column toward Venus. As the distance between Earth and Mars increased, its harmful effect on our planet diminished.

He ascended once again to return to the Mother Goddess’ womb. As he did so, he became youthful once again or reborn. He had completed his given task and overcome many vicissitudes. The Hero entered Heaven only after great Gates of Light parted to admit him, whereupon he took his mother as his wife by coupling with her in the celestial city or garden.

This is the story of the polar column as told in conjunction with Mars’ odyssey. As such, its story became the genesis of heroic adventure tales in all ancient cultures.This version of the Mars saga is the core of the Oedipus legend. As risqué as it sounds to our Victorian ears, this was at the center of many cultural traditions, including illicit temple rites the world over.

In returning to the Center Place, the Warrior/Hero reinstated the Eye or Mouth of God, thus restoring Heaven to its former appearance, glory and splendor.

During Mars’ absence, the eye or mouth was no longer complete. With its return to the center place, the eye or mouth archetypes were reinstated. This is the source of Egyptian resurrection rituals called “The Opening of the Mouth or Eye,” and similar rites in other cultures.

All was well for a time. But one day, a fierce Chaos Monster arose from the Cosmic Mountain. Breathing fire and roaring across heaven, it menaced the Celestial City and the Gods as it writhed and struck out at heaven and earth. The Queen of Heaven became the disheveled Hag of Heaven, the Witch. All creation seemed doomed to destruction by the dragon who had grown many heads until the Warrior/Hero stepped forward to subdue the monster or beast. When he did, all things became tranquil again. Life was beautiful and all heaven was at peace.

On occasion, the denizens of this kingdom moved from their appointed places, changing their appearance and their behavior, menacing our Earth, unleashing chaos and catastrophe. At such times for example, the Cosmic Mountain transformed into a serpent/snake/beast called the Chaos Monster, writhing and fierce beyond comprehension in disordered heavens, striking fear and awe into Earth’s inhabitants.

During these periods of disorder, the formerly brilliant and spectacular Venus did a role reversal, taking on the appearance of a disheveled monster that raged across the skies.

At these times of chaos, Mars became a warrior, appearing to do battle with a monster, using great bolts of lightning to subdue the threatening beast, as in the Babylonian tradition of Marduk and Tiamat.

Then, things would settle down again for a time.

In the end, this Golden Age perished in the greatest upheaval the world had ever known. The monarch was thrown down, fled and vanished, along with his castle, city or kingdom. The mountain that sustained him vanished as well, along with the queen and the son—all went into the dark abyss. The remnants of their dismembered bodies were scattered across the sky to become the glittering star field we know today. But in the process, our world was nearly destroyed, and mankind with it, by a vast flood of epic proportions. Yet, some few survived to inherit a new world and a new sky—not as pleasant as the first, but survivable.

All the movement, appearance changes disruptions and dislocations of orbs in the ancient polar configuration of planets were the result of forces dismantling that grouping. When the final dissolution came, earthlings saw the gods and the mountain they lived on recede into distant space.

Once those brilliant planets and glowing plasma disappeared, the starry heavens could be seen for the first time.

The polar oceans, held in place as permanent tides, were released, flooding the Earth. Centrifugal force drove those waters to the equator, dividing continents and creating islands for the first time. This was the origin of flood traditions in all ancient cultures.

So, everyone lived happily ever after. The end. (Until it all starts over again.)

Humans adapted and thus survived, but at a terrible cost. Constant fear of destruction from the skies haunted all mankind. We adopted survival strategies that evolved into beliefs, institutions and practices taken for granted today.But the fear of astral destruction remains, buried deep in our subconscious. The fear of doomsday remains vivid in the human psyche, though unrecognized and largely unacknowledged. We struggle to suppress those fears, denying them by replacing them with ‘scientific’ theories that put us on a peaceful and largely uneventful planet for “billions and billions of years.”

Sounds a bit like a fairy tale, doesn’t it? That’s because all myths and legends began life as cultural traditions, reenacted in sacred rites, rituals, pageants and holidays designed to preserve those memories. This One Story is also the basis for all religious tradition. Parts of it were incorporated into our temples, telling us that Joseph Smith knew the One Story ... all of it ... by heart.

This overview may be a bit hard to accept for those new to these ideas. Yet, if given enough time to fully consider them and study them in relation to the restored gospel, anyone can see the simplicity and power of such concepts. They not only explain the system of traditions, myths and legends of all nations and cultures, they explain the iconic elements of our restored religion, instituted by a prophet who knew and understood all these things, judging by his many corroborating statements.

Restoring the true religion meant reinstating all the elements of the One Story. The evidence for this can be found in our temples and scriptures, where symbols, rituals and metaphors true to the many actors and elements of the One Story abound. They are the iconic and metaphorical trappings of our religion, restored in their fullness for our edification and enlightenment. This connects us to antiquity and our ancestors. It offers a basis for understanding the ineffable and the inexplicable. But most of all, it promises to expand our wisdom and our testimonies far beyond their present, narrow boundaries.

© Anthony E. Larson, 2009

Easter

Most Christians vaguely grasp the connections between Easter and Passover. What most do not understand are the deep roots both holidays have in paganism and Saturnian symbolism. However, such knowledge serves to explain much of the tradition and ritual surrounding this Christian holiday.

A Christian holiday

Easter celebrates the death and resurrection of the Savior in the meridian of time. Mormons, like the rest of Christianity, see the holiday as a time to remember and reverence that most sacred and remarkable event in all of history.

The entire philosophy of Christianity hinges on the resurrection. Without it, Christianity — and by inference, Mormonism as well — is just another religious philosophy among many. With the resurrection comes the promise that all will rise from the grave, Christ being the first fruits. This concept is at the heart of our religion.

The Passover connection

Easter’s connection with the Passover stems from the fact that the Savior’s crucifixion and resurrection in Jerusalem took place during the annual Jewish Passover celebration, a juxtaposition that was not lost on the Savior since he clearly chose the time and the place of his own expiation.

Seen from the catastrophist’s point of view, the Passover was a celebration of Israelite deliverance — not just from Egyptian bondage, but the entire planet from planetary catastrophe. Passover was the moment of closest approach between Earth and the comet Venus, hence the term “pass over.” It was the culmination of a series of plagues that afflicted not only Egypt, but also the entire world, according to Velikovsky.

So, too, in Christian eyes, Easter is a celebration of the deliverance of the human race from the bonds of death.

Both Easter and Passover involve the consumption of a ritual meal in remembrance of their deliverance. The Jewish Seder reflects the Lord’s directive that the Israelites eat roast lamb, unleavened bread and bitter herbs. (Exodus 12:8-10.) They do so to remember how they were saved from the plague that took so many Egyptians during the Exodus. The Christian sacrament reflects Christ’s instruction that they partake of bread and wine to remember him and the deliverance from death he has provided. (Luke 22:19, 20.)

A note, in passing

Incidentally, it may be noteworthy, in passing, that there may have been a very practical purpose for the consumption of the Passover meal. If, as Velikovsky suggests, Earth’s atmosphere was supercharged with elements from the tail of the passing comet Venus, then eating bread without yeast and bitter herbs may have served to offset the debilitating physical effects on the human body of those pollutants. If, as this author suggests, the compounds that turned the water red in Egypt were acidic, causing sickness and death in animals and humans, then the basic, alkaline nature of bitter herbs would serve to chemically offset the elevated levels of acid in the body (acidosis).

Additionally, it is well known that certain types of yeast (Candida albicans, for example) in the gut can release toxins that can severely debilitate the immune system. Other types of yeast produce compounds that can cause humans to hallucinate. In this instance, the instructions to eat bread without yeast (unleavened) may have been designed to help the Israelites better cope physically with the temporarily hostile environment created by the extraterrestrial pollutants — eminently practical advice given through revelation from God to Moses. The idea of food as medicine is one that modern science has recently come to recognize, a philosophy that has been at the heart of herbal use and practices since time immemorial.

Eating is a religious experience?

Such ritual meals as Seder, the Eucharist and the Sacrament are also practiced in most pagan cultures. They range, on one end of the spectrum, from consumption of simple foods to cannibalism on the other extreme.

Most animal sacrifice did not consist of cremation, as most moderns believe. Rather, it was, in most cases, a ritual method of cooking and preparing the animal for eating. Our modern, seemingly innocuous and strictly culinary practice of barbequing actually has its roots in cultural traditions of sacrifice. So remember, next time you throw something on the ‘barbie,’ you are practicing the time-honored, ritualistic tradition of sacrifice with its roots deep in antiquity.

Recidivist Israelites, too, adopted pagan eating rituals. "The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger." (Jeremiah 7:18.)

Note the similarity between the elements of this ritual and the Christian sacrament. They consumed bread and drink in honor of the goddess. It was a ritual meal. These backsliding Israelites prepared cakes and drink to honor their pagan gods, just as we take bread and water today. Such similarities are not coincidental. Christ, on the eve of his crucifixion, obviously turned to a well-established, ancient practice in the Hebrew culture as the basis for his new eating ritual, the Sacrament.

Hot cross buns

Just such a ritual meal is connected with the Christian’s celebration of Easter. Hot cross buns are a lesser, but well established part of this holiday that, doubtlessly, have their origins in pagan antiquity. These loaves were originally marked with horns, the crescent symbol for ancient Saturn, or the cross, the cruciform symbol for the Queen of Heaven, Astarte or Venus. The ancient Greeks also consumed these types of buns in their celebrations of Artemis, Goddess of the hunt (known as Diana to the Romans). And the Egyptians ate a similar cake in their worship of the Goddess Isis. Later, Saxons ate buns that were marked with a cross in honor of Eastre (Astarte). These customs of creating a ceremonial bread or loaf, marking it with the symbol of the goddess, then eating it as part of a festival in honor of that same goddess is an echo of the Israelite practice of making cakes to their Queen of Heaven.

Such universal practices beg the question, where did the human race get the idea that eating something was a sacred practice? The idea that eating should be part of religious ritual may have begun in Earth’s ancient heavens when one planet ‘consumed’ other, smaller satellites. In a later monograph, we will discuss more about sacrificial rituals around the world and the events and beliefs that may have inspired the practice.

A Christian or pagan holiday?

Returning to our Easter theme, it seems rather ironic that this ostensibly Christian holiday is burdened with much of the celebration and ceremony that once attached itself to the ancient cults that worshipped astral goddesses.

We discover, for instance, that the very name of the holiday has its roots in idolatry. Easter is a corruption of the name of the goddess who leant her name to the holiday, Aster or Astarte, as the Greeks knew her. Her Syro-Phoenician counterpart was the goddess Ashtoreth. The Babylonians called her Ishtar and the Romans called her Venus. She was also the great mother goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe, who knew her as Eastre, from whence we get the name Easter today.

The Saturn connection

Surely these ancient goddesses from a variety of ancient cultures all had their origins in the planet Venus that once stood near the Earth in the Polar Configuration because they all share common attributes, history, and iconography. Talbott wrote:

Wherever you find the Universal Monarch (Saturn) you will find close at hand the ancient mother goddess — the goddess whom the Sumerians called Inanna, the Queen of Heaven, and the Babylonians Ishtar, and the Egyptians Isis, Hathor, and Sekhmet, each with numerous counterparts in their own and in other lands, and virtually all of them viewed symbolically as daughter or spouse of the creator-king, and the mother of another, equally prominent figure.

The Mother Goddess is the planet Venus, the luminous, central orb seen squarely in the center of Saturn and from which radiating streams of material course outward. (Thoth, Vol. 2, No. 8.)

So, we see that the true origins of this most Christian of holidays actually owes its existence to events that transpired in Earth ancient heavens.

The Easter egg

Originally, the egg, now a cultural symbol of Easter, was closely related to the eye symbol — both symbols of this mother goddess, this goddess of fertility anciently. Mythical traditions say that she was born as/or in a celestial egg. Indeed, in the Polar Configuration, Venus’ transformation into the prototypical star — the archetype of all radiant star symbols — began when it took on an ovoid shape, thus forever connecting the goddess with the egg.


It is for this reason that the favored decoration for Easter eggs anciently was a star. Indeed, the very name of this goddess in several cultures, as well as our own, came to mean ‘star.’

Yet, in our culture, stars and the eggs have no discernable relationship. Like so much in mythology, the connection seems absurd to the modern mind. Yet, in ancient myth and tradition they are intimately connected. Only the theory of the Polar Configuration satisfactorily explains their symbolic ligature. Indeed, it not only explains it; it demands it. The star and the egg were two primary aspects or phases in the development of ancient Venus while in the Polar Configuration at the dawn of time.

Dyed eggs, originally colored to match the turquoise color of ancient Venus, were part of the rituals enacted in the Babylonian mystery religions. The variety of colors we see today was a natural, artistic elaboration of the original idea. Such colorfully dyed and decorated eggs were considered sacred because of their symbolic representation of the ancient goddess/planet Venus. They played an integral part of the religious ceremonies in Egypt and the Orient. Dyed eggs were hung in Egyptian temples. The egg was regarded as the emblem of regenerative life proceeding from the mouth of the great Egyptian god Atum because the actual planet Venus so presented itself in the Polar Configuration. Venus (Hathor) was centered on Saturn (Atum), assumed an egg shape that seemed to house the child, Mars (Horus) and then appeared to give birth to Mars.

The Easter rabbit

In addition to the egg symbol, the Norse goddess of fertility, Ostara, whose name was clearly a derivative of Aster or Astarte, was connected to the hare. This connection was a later one, unique to the Norse culture, which probably stems from the well-known fecundity of rabbits.

Three other seemingly disconnected traditions of Easter further connect the holiday to pagan practices and ultimately to the Polar Configuration: the woman’s Easter bonnet and special holiday dress as well as the Easter parade.

Easter bonnets and finery

Festivals that celebrated the ancient star goddess, Venus, were ideal occasions for women, who sought to emulate the goddess, to adorn themselves as the goddess herself. The bonnet worn today is a distant replication of the hat, hair dress or crown worn by the goddess in heaven.


Older, more customary variants of the bonnet draped a veil across the face, also a feature of the ancient sky goddess. LDS temple-goers will recognize the validity of this tradition and its connection to temple ritual and furnishings. The dress, usually white, was designed with symbolic significance relevant to the ancient appearance of Venus and her role as a fertility goddess. Thus, anything that enhanced the gender specific attributes of a woman was employed to demonstrate her procreative role. Indeed, the more elaborate, yet accurate, the duplication of the symbols/appearance — because the symbols of the goddess were representations of what she looked like in Earth’s ancient heavens — the greater the identification of the individual with the mother goddess, imitating her essential aspects. Thus, a practice that had deep religious significance in antiquity has come to be a mere fashion statement today. Such is the dilution of the original concepts and practices over time. Yet, the themes persist in our cultural traditions, outliving, by far, the knowledge and understanding they were meant to convey.

The Easter parade

Parading up and down the streets, carrying an effigy of the god or goddess upon their shoulders, the ancients moved from one strategically sited temple location to another to re-enact the mythical movements of their deity in the heavens anciently. In many cultures — especially the Egyptian — these portable shrines were set in replicas of boats, carried on long, stout poles that could be borne by several carriers. It is the image of the god or goddess, sitting in a celestial boat, that we commonly see in ancient Egyptian art. It is for this reason that we apply the term “float” to our modern version of these icons that move along city streets in modern parades. They were originally boats; so calling them floats is natural.

Additionally, it is the reason the term “ark” was applied to the most sacred object in Judaism, the Ark of the Covenant. It was applied to the conveyance that bore tablets containing the Ten Commandments and other artifacts of the Exodus.
Thus, the Easter parade is a modern counterpart of this ancient practice. Once again, our culture maintains the practices or traditions instigated in Earth’s ancient skies with no concept or grasp of their origins or original meanings.

Christian hypocrisy

Ironically, modern Christians, who seem so determined to avoid any suggestion of paganism or cultism in their religions, who vociferously denounce the paganism of Christmas and Mormons as cultists, have enthusiastically embraced the paganism of Easter.

Latter-day Saints, too, fail to recognize the astral traditions in our culture and religion, yet it should not be so. Joseph Smith and the prophets that succeeded him sought to connect us to our ancient past and the traditions handed down through cultural transmission. Sadly, we Saints discarded our understanding of these things in favor of the Christianized customs and practices of the American culture. Yet, like our Christian cousins, our traditions, our temples and our scriptures are filled with the evidence from the past of their true cosmological nature.

© Anthony E. Larson, 2002

"The World That Then Was ..."

Other than the actual creation itself, the most notable catastrophe in Earth’s early history that also brought the Patriarchal Age to an end, was Noah’s Flood. This was the benchmark, the dividing line between two great epochs in Earth’s history. Before the Flood, the world was an astonishingly different place; after the Flood, it became the “lone and dreary” world we know today.

We learn this from the scriptures. Peter’s understanding of the change that brought an end to the most remarkable epoch in Earth’s history — the age of the Patriarchs or the Golden Age — coincides with a radical change in the Earth and its heavens. He wrote that the “old world” disappeared, saying that God

… spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; … Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store. (2 Peter 2:5, 3:6, 7.)

Thus, in the Apostle Peter’s view, the change in the Earth, wrought by the Deluge, was so dramatic that he deemed it proper to say that “the old world” had “perished,” implying that “the heavens and the earth which are now” are entirely different from those that existed prior to the Flood.

This event, this remarkably dramatic and profound change, is central to an understanding of Earth’s early history. Thus, knowing how it came about and what happened to create it are vital to our understanding of the scriptures, history and the gospel.

The division

Also critical to our view of this epoch is the enigmatic secondary change that took place soon after the Deluge: the division of the Earth in the days of Noah’s grandson. “And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided.” (Genesis 10:25.)

But to fully understand those changes, one must see them in the proper context. Only with the understanding that the Saturn myths and the Polar Configuration give us can we begin to grasp the true impact of the Old Testament narrative.

As catastrophists and mythologists labor to understand the true history of our planet, a startling and amazing view of Earth’s early history begins to emerge — one that explains the most enigmatic and baffling parts of scripture. While there are still many gaps in the narrative, leaving considerable room for further revision and adjustment, an overall picture begins to emerge that supports scriptural history and helps Latter-day Saints better understand the gospel.

In the very beginning

As elucidated elsewhere, it is most likely that Jupiter and Saturn were part of a binary sun system. Binaries are the most common arrangement known to astronomers, far more common than the single star system we inhabit today.

That parental binary also had several smaller bodies in tow, Earth being one of them. Indeed, most of the planets we know today as part of our present solar system were probably part of that original binary system. It also would have appeared as what astronomers today call a “brown dwarf” star with a relatively dim corona or photosphere. Earth and its companion planets would have orbited beneath that corona, creating a truly unique set of conditions unlike anything we see or can even properly imagine.

It was in this state that most of Earth’s pre-history took place, before Adam came to inhabit the planet. It is likely that the record in stones and bones, buried in the Earth, represent this earliest epoch. The flora and fauna of Earth’s prehistoric period are truly bizarre and foreign to our world and, likely, could not have survived the world as we know it today. It seems reasonable to assume that conditions on our planet were vastly different than those we know today, given the forms of plant and animal life that proliferated in those prehistoric days. What is likely is that the flora and fauna we see around us today represent radical adaptations of those early forms.

Celestial car crash

The real story of our world begins when our present sun, Sol, and our parent, Jupiter/Saturn binary had a close encounter with another star. It was most certainly not a head-on collision, since if the angle of incidence were that radical, none of the orbs involved would have survived intact. Rather, one sun overtook the other, much as the space shuttle docks with other satellites or the space station today. Hence, the capture of the Jupiter/Saturn binary by Sol was a rather lengthy process rather than a sudden event, thus lacking any of the catastrophic manifestations associated with later events.

But the contact was not without profound consequences. The interaction between the two primaries may have created an exchange of charge or electrical potential that gradually snuffed out the brown dwarf binary while it boosted the output of Sol. Such an exchange would explain why early traditions make no mention of the sun that is so prominent in our heavens, while they recall, at the same time, the dominant first god/planet, Saturn, emerging from the “waters” of “creation” as the photosphere fog of the binary faded, allowing earthlings to actually see Saturn for the first time. Indeed, this take on the events of the creation found in Genesis fully and understandingly explains those circumstances as no other theory can.

The original binary system remained largely intact while it began to orbit Sol. Somewhere in this period of relative calm, shortly before or after the capture began, Adam was placed on the Earth. This is so because the earliest recollections of mankind, recorded in cultural traditions the world over, including the Old Testament, remember an emerging heaven and earth that correspond to the Polar Configuration, as proposed by Talbott. It is that same configuration illustrated by Joseph Smith for Philo Dibble.

At this point in the process, Saturn and/or Jupiter became a dying star. The fire went out and the star’s photosphere or corona slowly dissipated, allowing Earth’s newest inhabitants to gradually see Earth’s companion planets, the orbs that seemed to hover above their world, in the heavens. What early mankind then saw was the nested group of planets (Saturn, Venus and Mars) slowly appearing or emerging from what seemed to be a heavenly haze or fog, sometimes referred to as “waters.”

The real creation

It is worthy of note that what is recorded in Genesis as the creation may not have been the real creation at all, but the recollection of an event that all mankind witnessed and remembered as the “creation.” This may be so because virtually all ancient cultures remembered and recorded this creation, indicating that there were many eyewitnesses to this event — an impossibility if man were placed on the Earth only after this supposed creation. The Genesis account is, likely, only one of many such recollections.

As explained elsewhere, the most meaningful explanation yet offered of the creation events, as described in the Bible, is provided by the emergence of the Earth/Mars/Venus/Saturn/Jupiter system from its original status as an independent brown dwarf, binary star system to a satellite system of Sol in a linear, polar configuration. Ancient cultures the world over, which had already descended several generations from Adam, watched and recorded those unfolding heavenly events and then recorded them as the creation.

The late emergence of the biblical creation account is even more likely when we consider that Moses is traditionally regarded as the author of Genesis. While he certainly could have received the story via revelation, what is more likely is that his account was derived from even earlier accounts (much as Joseph Smith received the Book of Mormon) that reported the same things all other ancient accounts reported about this creation event.

The original heavenly order of things

Saturn occluded Jupiter from the earthlings’ point of view, so Jupiter did not yet step onto the celestial stage or into their iconographic belief system. But, Venus and Mars were clearly visible, appearing in a nested arrangement within Saturn’s limb. Much less imposing, but certainly visible, were seven small satellites or moons that orbited Saturn. These seven appeared much smaller than Venus or Mars. All these planets and moons were the original Titans, as remembered by the Greeks, planetary powers that stood imposingly above the Earth.

At this juncture, it is worthy of note that from these seven small satellites come all the traditions, practices and icons that employ the sacred number seven — seven days of the week, seven gates, seven cities, etc. Perhaps more importantly for scriptorians, these are the archetypes for the seven angels of John’s Revelation.

A solar system within the solar system

Assuming a new orbit about Sol, its new primary, the Jupiter/Saturn mini-solar system with its unusual configuration of satellites became increasingly unstable. It was just a matter of time before the same forces that caused its capture also dismantled it. That dismantling, like its original capture, was a process rather than an event. And because it was a process, mankind watched it unfold over many generations, from Adam to Noah.

The gradual dismemberment of the old binary covered a rather lengthy period of time. The same forces that brought Sol and the old binary system together now began to dismantle the Polar Configuration. The motions of Earth, Mars and Venus became more and more erratic. As they did so, a multitude of celestial phantasmagorias played out in Earth’s heavens, giving rise to the elements described above, and many more.

Myth making in the heavens

It is in the elucidation of this part of the planetary saga that Talbott has made the greatest strides. His work has shown how very many images from antiquity — iconographic and metaphoric — have their origins in the heavenly epic seen by ancient peoples the world over as the planets began their sky dance and metamorphoses. This has been the area where this author has concentrated his explanatory efforts concerning the connection between those ancient planetary powers and the gospel and the scriptures are concerned. Nearly everything his author has written has dealt with the archetypes that originated in this period of the Polar Configuration. Each of the planets became an actor in this, as yet, poorly understood drama that played itself out across earthly heavens — poorly understood because of the distortion and elaboration of traditions (myths and legends) over the millennia, because modern science can accept only what it can see and test (empiricism) and because recent generations have no familiar point of reference since nothing even remotely like those events has transpired in our time.

The roles they played

Each of the planets, which stood majestically above the Earth in that epoch, looked and behaved differently due to their position in that configuration. As a result, each was assigned a different role, attributes and character by ancient observers.
Saturn was not as active, so he remained in the background — ever present, ruling the skies, the king of heaven, the architect of all creation, the great center. He was Cronus (Kronos), the timekeeper because all else turned around him while he remained motionless in the heavens.

Venus became the archetype for female goddesses in all cultures. She was the prototypical star from which all modern star symbols are derived, a thing of beauty and wonder in the heavens. She was god’s (Saturn’s) daughter and/or wife, his invigorating power and his glory. If the goddess is female — whatever the culture — she was probably invented to depict some aspect or act of Venus. And because Venus was the most active element in the planetary saga, she has the most incarnations in myth and legend. At some point in the celestial drama, she moved away from her previous location, centered on Saturn. Hence, she (Athena) was said to have been born from the head of Zeus.

Mars had his own career. He became the archetype for all ancient hero gods. He was a warrior, a villain, a fool, a giant, a dwarf, etc. He was also the son of Saturn, because he was seen to leave or be born from within Venus, god’s wife/sister/daughter. Being the most proximate of the planets to Earth, Mars soon became the most terrifying when periodic instabilities in the Polar Configuration brought Earth and Mars close together. Mars was seen to descend toward the Earth, along the common planetary axis. As he did so, he grew from a child to a youth and then to an adult. He then receded, moving away from the Earth. This, in effect, reversed the previous process in that he once again became a child and returned to his former place in the center of Venus, the "womb" of heaven.

Elements other than planets

During these events, a flux tube of electrified plasma and elements from the atmospheres of both planets erupted into an apparent connection between the two, Earth and Mars, that changed its appearance from time to time. On one occasion, it was an awe-inspiring pillar of light, standing majestically between heaven and earth with Mars sitting atop its pyramidal shape. At other times, it became an interplanetary vortex, the mother of all twisters that oscillated in Earth’s heavens, churning up Earth’s polar landscape and all beneath it, leaving behind it the polar ice cap and the permafrost layer known today as tundra. It was the archetype of all sacred mountains (Olympus) atop which sat the temple of heaven (Saturn), god’s habitation. It was a pillar, a mountain, a ladder, a stream of water or wind, and the great celestial tree after which our Christmas trees are modeled.

Of course, there is much, much more to the story. Whole books could and will be written as ongoing research reveals more and more about each of the gods, goddesses, icons, appearances and elements that went to make up the history of the Polar Configuration.

The great change

What happened next in the history of this configuration of planets is presently the least understood part of the entire epic. For that reason, any analysis will necessarily be flawed and therefore subject to revision. Nevertheless, it is worth risking a few missteps to connect the entire story to ancient traditions — especially scriptural accounts — and the modern epic so that we may better understand our catastrophic, planetary heritage. Moreover, this segment of the planetary history supplied its own share of unique images, still more grist for the myth mill.

Over time, the same forces that brought Jupiter/Saturn into an orbit around Sol and that held Earth, Mars and Venus in the relatively short-lived, linear configuration, eventually dismembered the old binary system, allowing all the bodies in that defunct group to assume their own, individual orbits around Sol. This process is recorded in Genesis as the Great Flood and the dividing of the earth in the days of Peleg.

The end and the beginning

That final process of dismemberment began, likely, with the event known to students of the Bible as Noah’s Flood or the Great Deluge. It began with a nova-like explosion of the old binary, Jupiter/Saturn. Perhaps it was the final stage of the old stars’ death throws. In any case, the flare-up first threw out light, then copious amounts of water in the form of ice. According to Hebrew tradition, Noah and his contemporaries saw seven days of light followed by copious amounts of rain that rapidly inundated the world.

The Genesis account of Noah’s miraculous escape from the Deluge is not the only such story. Accounts from ancient cultures the world over tell of the Great Flood. Each account also tells of survivors. Thus, it may be that the Old Testament perspective that Noah and his family were the exclusive survivors may be misleading. From the Hebrew perspective, they were the sole survivors. However, from a worldwide perspective, they were only some of many. This view is supported by evidence that people from many cultures the world over saw the subsequent celestial events.

A new heaven and a new earth

In any case, when the heavens cleared, the survivors and their descendents saw a changed sky. Saturn, they thought, was dying because, rather than the featureless, shining white orb that once dominated the heavens, it had become a dark body with clearly delineated features. It now had clearly visible variegated stripes girding it, much as it does today, giving religious significance to the funerary practice of wrapping the corpse in the mummification process and a wide variety of other mythic themes.

What is more, the dying god (Osiris) now appeared to wander away from his exalted station at the center of heaven — something he had never done before, from the ancients’ perspective. This was not the simple meandering about the center axis as Mars and Venus had done previously. At this juncture, the highest god, the center, god’s house, the celestial city itself began to move — almost imperceptibly at first, then in ever increasing circles. This new movement in the sky was actually mostly due to Earth’s own erratic motions as it left its location at the common axis of planets to eventually assume a new orbit around Jupiter. This movement now revealed Jupiter (Zeus), which up to this point had been occluded by Saturn (Cronus) — hence the traditions that Zeus was Cronus’ offspring.

The seven small satellites that played a very minor role in the early part of the epoch now played a pivotal role that gave rise to numerous sacrificial traditions and rituals as they appeared to fall into Saturn (Cronus/Kronos), who was seen by the ancients to consume his “children” in flames. For example, from this event comes the pagan tradition, recorded in the Old Testament, practiced by those who worshipped Moloch (Cronus/Saturn), of burning children as sacrifices to the planetary gods, a particularly repugnant practice denounced by Israelite prophets.

Celestial battles

As Jupiter emerged from behind Saturn, a battle appeared to commence between them, with Jupiter (Zeus) throwing interplanetary lightning bolts. Thus, Jupiter seemed to come out of nowhere to evict Saturn from his throne, the center place of heaven.

Saturn, Venus and Mars left their former positions along the central axis of the polar configuration — as did the Earth as well. That arrangement ended as Saturn left the congregation of planets to assume its own orbit around Sol. Judging by ancient religious traditions, it vanished into the starry heavens (for today’s familiar stars were now visible to mankind for the first time) in the vicinity of the constellation of Orion to become the dead god, Osiris, of the Egyptians.

Instead of peace, beauty and an inspiring display in the heavens as before, there was now chaos and mayhem as the gods began to do battle with one another. Lightning bolts leaping across millions of miles of space became the weapons the gods launched at one another. The most menacing, evil icons from ancient lore emerge in Earth’s skies in this brief period of chaos. Swarms of debris became demons of destruction and darkness. Images of many-headed serpents and menacing goddesses, witches, wolves, incredible dragons and fantastic beasts, found in all the ancient religions of mankind, have there origins in greatly distorted plasma streams, debris, gases and electromagnetic phenomena that now stretched between planets as they moved in highly erratic ways.

A new god replaces the old

Jupiter now dominated Earth’s skies, appearing to stand where vanished Saturn once stood. For a time, it ruled over a chaotic heaven where Mars and Venus appeared to metamorphose wildly as these orbs did battle with one another. This period gave rise to the universal story told about the struggle between a god of light and the demons of darkness or hell led by a dragon or monster. These were the chaos hoards, evil fiends that threatened to destroy all creation as the earth trembled, heaven thundered and the skies repeatedly darkened. Jupiter was not the benign monarch, as Saturn had been. He is darker, more ruthless and war-like. Yet he battles to keep at bay the powers of darkness that seemingly threaten all creation. Indeed, he is the archetype for the angry, vengeful god of the Old Testament.

The fall

Earth, too, succumbed to the forces that wrenched the polar configuration apart. It fell into an orbit around Sol similar to that which it follows today. This dramatic change, from the perspective of earth-bound observers, sent Earth’s former neighboring planets and the seat of god or heaven itself off into the “wilderness” of distant space to become mere pinpoints of light — planeta, or “wanderers” in the heavens. Earth was then said to have “fallen” from its formerly exalted status and position near heaven or the throne of god. Indeed, the “division” of the Earth that is said in the scriptures (Genesis 10:25, D&C 133:24.) to have occurred in the days of Peleg, one of Noah’s grandsons, was this very event, thereby establishing a sequence of events: the Flood first, followed by the “division” two generations later.

The Earth was divided

There are two elements to the “division” of the Earth, providing two equally credible explanations for that scriptural statement: one is the separation of the Earth from its “celestial” counterparts, the other is the dividing of Earth’s continents by the oceans.

The ancients considered the ground they stood upon to be an intimately connected part of the collection of orbs they saw in the sky above them. Hence, in their view, when those orbs departed the sky it made good sense to say that the Earth had been divided — another way of saying it had fallen. Additionally, with the demise of the Polar Configuration, which held Earth’s oceans in tremendous tides at the poles, water rushed to the equator due to centrifugal force, raising the water levels around the globe’s girth to unprecedented levels. Include in that the tremendous volume of additional water the Flood event added to Earth’s store. Thus oceanic water levels rose dramatically worldwide in the wake of the Flood, inundating many land bridges that once connected continents, effectively changing the topography of the entire earth and creating another, new “division” of the landmasses.

Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end

The above events are remembered in the Old Testament as Noah’s Flood and the division of the Earth in the days of Peleg, while other ancient cultures characterized it as the end of one world and the beginning of another.

The profound effects of the Earth’s “fall” cannot be overemphasized. Ancient prophets sought to impress this fact upon future generations, making this motif a part of the description of Adam’s transgression, as we read in the scriptures.

The appearance of the firmament above the Earth had changed radically, as had the environment on the Earth. As if to inform us as well as Noah, the Lord swears to maintain the new order as long as the Earth exists by listing the burdensome new conditions that had not existed before, “seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night …” (Genesis 8:22.) All these new conditions were imposed on mankind due to the Earth’s “fall” to its new position in the solar system.

Abbreviated life spans

Nowhere is this altered environment that came with Earth’s fall more evident than in the life span or longevity of human beings. We learn from the genealogy of Adam (Genesis, chapter 5) that the normal life span before the Flood reached many hundreds of years — almost a thousand in Methuselah’s case. But compare that to the normal life span immediately after the Flood and in the following generations as recorded in the genealogy of Abraham (Genesis, chapter 11). The life span of those born after the Flood was dramatically foreshortened to almost half of pre-Flood lengths. Furthermore, within eight generations it was down to a little over a hundred in Abraham’s case, a fraction of pre-Flood life expectancy.

No wonder the human race associated the "fall" with death. Lifespans had been drastically truncated.

Scholars and scriptorians have always been puzzled by the seemingly inordinate life expectancy of the Patriarchs and its sudden foreshortening after the Flood. Some dismissed it as a distortion of the truth. Some accepted it on faith, but still could not explain it. Only the catastrophist view of Earth history gives any meaning to the longevity rates recorded in Genesis and the records and traditions of other ancient cultures. Even accepting the likely fact that “years” before the flood were not the same time length as those we know today (since planetary close encounters have clearly altered the length of the solar year since those ancient times), the dramatic decrease of longevity immediately after the Flood and the declining life expectancy rates thereafter serve as indicators that some dramatic change was afoot in Earth’s environment to cause those declines.

Radical environmental change

What changed to bring about foreshortened life spans? There can be little doubt, from a catastrophist point of view, that the electromagnetic environment in the Jupiter/Saturn binary system was far more hospitable to life than the sterile, hostile, one-sun system we inherited. It is like comparing life in an incubator, where everything necessary to promote life is present in abundance, to survival in an inhospitable world that oscillated between cold and heat, dark and light, where life became a struggle for survival. When the salubrious electromagnetic environment of early Earth collapsed, life expectancy naturally dropped dramatically.

A more stable, but still destructive epoch

What is more, Earth’s new orbit opened the door to a new, prolonged epoch of instability. Earth and its inhabitants were not yet out of the woods — not by a long shot. While the Earth, Jupiter and Saturn apparently settled quickly into somewhat stable orbits very nearly like their present paths around the Sun, Venus and Mars entered into elongated, elliptical orbits much different from those they follow today. Those eccentric orbits, which crossed Earth’s orbit, determined that Venus and Mars would periodically pass in close proximity to one another and the Earth, generating new catastrophes in the process. This was the historical epoch with which Velikovsky concerned himself.

Beginning after the flood with the Tower of Babel incident and continuing on down to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, this new period of instability and danger also included later biblical events such as the Exodus, Joshua’s Long Day, Jonah’s ministry to Nineveh and the day fire from heaven consumed Elijah’s sacrifice on Mt. Carmel. In the biblical narrative, the last catastrophic episode that saw Earth menaced by another planet was in approximately 701 B.C. when the Assyrian army of Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem. “And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they (the Jews in Jerusalem) arose early in the morning, behold, they (the Assyrians soldiers) were all dead corpses.” (2 Kings 19:35.)

Beyond the Bible

Every emerging culture from that prolonged epoch, whether Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Chinese or Inca, left records of those events from their own perspective. Each culture — even city-states within cultures — gave different names to the same planets/gods. Thus, the same story or a similar story is told in separate cultures, using different names, deeds and settings; yet modern scholars fail to see the commonalities. For example, there can be little doubt that Homer’s epic story of the battle of Troy recorded a catastrophic event that was also reported by Old Testament prophets; or that the Exodus even was chronicled by those outside Egypt who experienced those phenomena. The trick, as Velikovsky discovered, is to correlate the two because each saw those events from vastly different perspectives.

So, it may not be prudent to assume that since Venus was said to be Aphrodite, she was not Athena as well. She was both. She was also Hera, Medussa, Pandora, Isis, Hathor, Astarte and a multitude of other goddesses — all in different guises and settings to tell some aspect of the ancient planet’s story anthropomorphically.

What historians see as transmissions or “borrowings” of knowledge and cultural traditions — one culture to another — are largely parallel accounts from different cultures of the same events, gods and conditions in antiquity. In addition, each story or cultural tradition may or may not indicate a new event or a new god or goddess. It may simply be a re-telling of the same story from a new perspective. To further complicate things, characters, events and conditions are swapped around to create even more elaborate story lines, as in modern works of fiction or modern holidays. It is a time-tested tradition, even in temple or festival rituals where dramatic rehearsals of the acts of the gods were rehearsed.

Like witnesses to an auto accident, each one tells the story differently. The task is to recreate the actual event from the various perspectives. In this case, we are trying to sort out the accounts of a multitude of planetary encounters, told by a variety of cultures, where the actors and the settings change more frequently than ever imagined. So, each mythical account has elements of truth, but none is a fully accurate retelling of what happened or who participated. Each myth, each legend, each tradition must be carefully blended with its counterparts to create a whole that tells the real story. This is a work in progress that has only just begun.

Symbolic masking and overlays

In addition to that, these periodic, catastrophic encounters between Earth and its formerly two closest neighbors in the polar configuration, Venus and Mars, generated a new symbolism and iconography, which was superimposed on the old symbolism of the Polar Configuration. This “masking” of earlier catastrophic events by later ones makes it doubly difficult to discern the symbolism of the older events and the original configuration because of similarities — all catastrophes are natural events, born of similar physical phenomena. Thus, the mythical and ritual symbolism of later events copies or mimics that of earlier catastrophes.

Cultures not destroyed in any given catastrophe tended to focus their traditions on those most recent events. Hence, various cultures reverenced gods and icons that emerged in that catastrophe, yet they also drew on older, traditional imagery with which to adorn their new gods.

Thus, the masking of older events and symbols by more recent ones and the dramatically different perspective of events recorded by divergent cultures all has a multiplying effect on early traditions, icons and motifs, causing even more variations on ancient mythic themes. Hence, any attempt to unravel the interwoven threads of cultural and religious traditions creates bewilderment and perplexity. There is such a multitude of symbolic stories and traditions — myths, in other words — that it frustrates any systematic study of these remnants of history. Anyone who attempts to sort out the cacophony and confusion of ancient mythology can be easily overwhelmed.

Skepticism buries history

As if that were not enough, add the confusion of myth, legend and religion to the disbelief and skepticism of later generations who saw nothing but peace and stability in the solar system, and you have a formula for complete dismissal of the message our ancient forebears struggled to preserve and communicate in stone, story and ritual.

These close passes ended in the 6th century B.C., leaving a tradition of planetary catastrophe that upcoming generations had difficulty understanding or even accepting. Millennia later, mankind is almost totally ignorant of Earth’s catastrophic past. Most records of those events have long since vanished. Those few records that survived, like the scriptures, have been savaged by translators who knew nothing of ancient planetary catastrophes and subsequently mistranslated references to catastrophes. Moreover, a spirit of skepticism and unbelief has taken hold of mankind that tends to dismiss anything the least bit fantastic as invention rather than fact. Hence, those few records that have survived, sacred and profane, have been almost completely stripped of their real meaning, whitewashed by ignorance and bias. Oral traditions, myths and legends have been relegated to obscurity by generations of scientists and scholars that obstinately deny that anything extraordinary has happened in our solar system — certainly nothing like the account given above.

While much information regarding the true nature of Earth’s catastrophic past still remains in the religious traditions, customs, records, architecture, rites and rituals of all cultures — carefully preserved due to its “sacred” nature — such data carries no real credibility today, even in the minds of religious believers who completely fail to examine the evidence with anything but “spiritual” eyes.

Where the Saints stand

Mormons are no exception to this rule. The founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, spent copious amounts of his precious time trying to restore and revive information about and belief in those ancient events and conditions. His notes on Egyptian texts and his use of universal, symbolically correct archetypical symbols in modern temples as well as rites and rituals true to ancient forms are moot evidence of this. Why did he spend his invaluable time doing that rather than some other, more overtly good works? Because this knowledge is vital to one’s understanding of the gospel, the scriptures, the temple and one’s religion.

Latter-day Saints who ignore that information — the vast majority of the church membership, as it turns out — do so at their own peril.

© Anthony E. Larson, 2003