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Darkness and the Deep

Copyright Dwardu Cardona

1.  Introduction

While the following study is based on the mytho-historical record, it is a 
highly speculative one. I make no qualms about it.  It deals with that time, 
in the dim prehistory of mankind, when the Saturnian Configuration had not yet 
been formed. In mythological jargon, the world had not yet been created.  What 
this means I hope to elucidate in what follows below.

Certain fundamentals, based on specific proposals offered by others, are here
accepted, but also tested against the record. First among these proposals is
one which was originally offered by Immanuel Velikovsky in 1971 concerning the
possibility that Earth had at one time been a satellite of the planet Saturn.
Actually, a similar, if more bizarre, idea that proposes the Earth to be an
offspring of Saturn was aired as long ago as 1884 by Oskar Reichenbach as part 
of a theory purporting to prove that land masses on Earth have rifted and 
moved northward.  Thus, as wrong as he might have been, and I am not here 
concerned with defending Reichenbach, his ideas preceded the similar ones of 
Alfred Wegener by some 33 years.

Independent of Velikovsky, but basing their work on his, Harold Tresman and
Bernard Newgrosh (writing under the name of Brendan O'Gheoghan), also came to
the conclusion that "Earth must have once been a satellite of Saturn", a topic
to which Tresman has more recently returned.  Combining Velikovskys postulate
with that of David Talbott and others, Frederick Hall embraced the same idea,
presenting it in a speculative scenario concerning the history of the Solar
System.

Prehistoric man, ignorant of astronomical matters, would not have been able to
deduce that his world was a satellite of another planet.  But, being close
enough to Saturn, he would have been able to view that planet as something
bigger than the present pin-point of light in the night sky. Can this much, at
least, be verified?

Evidence of Saturns former proximity to Earth can be derived in quantum
sufficit from the collective mythological record of the ancients but, for the
present, the few items presented below should suffice.

The first of these concerns the Roman god Janus.  That Janus was merely
another name for Saturn was known and acknowledged by the ancients themselves.
Thus, in describing the New Year festival, Joannes, the Lydian, had this to 
say:

"Our own Philadelphia still preserves a trace of the ancient belief.  On 
the first day of the month there goes in procession no less a personage
than Janus himself, dressed up in a two-faced mask, and people call him
Saturnus, identifying him with Kronos."

In view of this, it is interesting to note that Ovid made Janus state: "The
ancients called me chaos, for a being from of old am I."   And, after having
described the creation of the world, the same Janus is made to declare:
"It was then that I, till that time a mere ball, a shapeless lump, assumed the
face and members of a god."

Thus, if it can be accepted that Janus/Saturnus/Kronos was the god of the
planet Saturn, the implication is that, prior to Creation, this planetary body
was visible to ancient man as a sphere or a mere ball rather than a pin-
point of light, which, in turn, presupposes a closer proximity of Saturn to
Earth.

This is also borne by an Eskimo creation myth in which Ataksak, the god who
emitted the primordial light, and therefore recognizable as Saturn, lives in
heaven but does not have the form of a man; he merely looks like a sphere.

The next two items do not even require this sort of interpretation since they 
do not come from the mythological record but from the astronomical lore of 
primitive peoples who have bequeathed their knowledge to civilized man in a 
most unambiguous manner.  How many people can point to that particular speck 
in the night sky and unerringly assert that it is the planet Saturn? The Dogon 
of the western Sudan can not only point to Saturn, they actually know it is 
surrounded by a ring.

Ithe Dogon affirm "there is a permanent halo around the star" [Saturn], 
different from the one sometimes seen around the moon.

Thus when the Dogon are asked to draw a picture of Saturn, they depict a 
circle with a ring around it.  Robert Temple, who became enamored with Dogon 
lore, informed his readers that "these people could have obtained this 
knowledge from ancient astronauts who visited the Earth in days gone by".  
Believe it if you will.  Personally, I look upon this item, as also the next, 
as one of the best pieces of evidence in favor of Saturns former close 
proximity to Earth.

From the rain forests of the Congo, the stars, except through clearings, are
hardly visible.  Yet, the Efe Pygmies of the Ituri forest, still living in the
Stone Age, can not only recognize Saturn in the night sky but know, as they
have for ages, that it does not reign alone.  They have a name for the planet
and it is Bibi Tiba Abutsuaani, which means the "Star of Nine Moons".

There is no way in which these forest dwellers can see the moons of Saturn.  
Today, of course, it is known that Saturn is surrounded by more than nine 
satellites. Only nine, however, are prominent enough to be seen in the field 
of a telescope.  Like the Dogon, of telescopes the Efe pygmies know nothing.  
Unless one wishes to subscribe to the ancient astronaut theory, one is led to 
believe that their knowledge could have been obtained from their ancient 
forebears who had lived close enough to Saturn to have seen the planet's 
satellites with their own unaided eyes.

2.  The Solitary God

Tresmans and Newgroshs finest disclosure was that "there is every indication
that this original deity [Saturn] was at one time the only visible planetary
body of the heavens".  Roger Wescott, on the basis of his own research, came
to the same conclusion: "The sky, instead of being dominated alternately by
the Sun and the Moon, was constantly dominated by a single huge and luminous
body, here called Aster".

David Talbott has also focused attention on this topic.  As he had it stated:

"The Egyptians remembered the creator as the solitary Atum or a, whom we
recognize as the planet Saturn. In the accounts of all periods, a is
originally a solitary god. The ancient sun is he who had no companions."

"I am Atum, when I was alone in Nun", the god is made to state.  The deity is
thus called the God One, the Only God except whom at the beginning none
other existed. Thus the god, in his earliest remembered state, as Talbott
has noted, is "inactive and motionless, doing nothing, lacking activity or
animation".

So, also, in Hindu belief, as the Satapatha Brahmana informs us: "Prajapati
alone, indeed, existed here in the beginning".

This doctrinal conviction is to be found not only in the great faiths of the
ancient world but also among more primitive peoples as note, for instance, the
Haida creed as paraphrased by Helmut Hirnschall:

"No one is exempt from loneliness, and the old and wise ones who teach
the ways of living and tell stories at campfires say that even Raven, the
Creator, knew the burden of loneliness."

According to the Samoans, their creator, Tangaloa, "who lived in the far
spaces, was alone before there was heaven and earth". So, similarly, in a myth
from New Hebrides where it is said that the creator, Naareau the Elder, was
the First of All.  Nothing was before him:

"He was in the void. There was only Naareau sitting in the void. Long he 
sat, and there was only he.

And, from an Orinoco creation cycle, we hear of Wanadi "who is like a sun that
never sets".  There arent any stars there, it is said, just Wanadi, shining
alone.

3.  Being and Not Being

I shall go further.  As noted by Roger Ashton back in 1981, the implication
derived from myth is that, in fact, there was a time when not even Saturn was
yet quite visible.  Thus Ashton spoke of the "unseen god, still to emerge from
the darkness", a belief based on the statements of the Rig Veda which, in one
place, informs us that that which was hidden by the Void, that One, emerging,
stirring came to be.

In another Vedic hymn we find mention of a "time before being and not being"
while, according to the Chandogya Brahmana, "only later did not being become
being".  The Vedic hymn just mentioned also informs us that:

"Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness, this All was
indiscriminated chaos.  All that existed then was void and formless."

A Yuki creation myth tells of a "fog and/or foam" that "moved round and round
continually during a time, in the beginning, when there was yet no light".

According to the Jicarilla Apache, "in the beginning nothing was here, nothing
but Darkness, Water, and Cyclone".   In this Cyclone we seem to catch sight of
the spinning, or rotating, fog and/or foam of the Yuki.

In their creation myth, the Pima state that:

"In the beginning there was nothing at all except darkness.  All was
darkness and emptiness.  For a long, long while, the darkness gathered
until it became a great mass.  Over this the spirit of Earth Doctor
drifted to and fro like a fluffy bit of cotton in the breeze.  Then the
Earth Doctor decided to make for himself an abiding place."

A Cyclone or a rotating "fog, foam", and/or "fluffy cotton" in darkness seems 
to imply a spinning nebular cloud.  This would be in keeping with an idea 
proffered by the late David Griffard.  Back in 1979, when he reviewed the 
original draft of this paper, Griffard suggested that a Saturn-orbiting Earth 
could conceivably have been enshrouded in some obscuration emanating from the 
parent body itself which blotted out a good share of its own radiance.  The 
implication here is that this nebular cloud was spun off by the rotating 
Saturnian body out of which the solitary god, i.e. Saturn, slowly emerged into 
view

4.  Tohu Wa Bohu

The father of all creation myths, at least in the Western World, is that 
contained in the very first chapter of the Book of Genesis.  It is there 
stated that:

"In [the] beginning Elohim created the shemayim and Teretz. And Teretz 
was tohu wa bohu, and darkness was on the surface of the tehom. And the
ruach of Elohim moved upon the face of the mayim."

Elohim (El and/or Eloah), as I have elsewhere indicated, was one of the 
ancient names of Saturn.  Shemayim are the heavens in the plural. Eretz is the
word usually translated as earth, but it more properly means land.  The words
tohu wa bohu are traditionally translated as without form and void or void and
empty.  The tehom is understood as a watery abyss, the deep.  Ruach means
spirit or soul, but also wind, while the mayim are merely the waters, also in
the plural.

What the words of Genesis are therefore telling us is that, in the beginning,
that is, as far back as man can remember, Saturn fashioned the land,  which
was formless and empty, while the spirit of the same Saturn moved over the
darkened waters.

Tohu wa bohu, however, can also mean utter chaos.  This is interesting 
because, in describing the creation as remembered by the Greeks, Hesiod asks: 
"From the beginning, which first came to be"?  And answers: "Chaos was first 
of all".  It is from this chaos that, according to the mythologies of many 
races, creation was said to have proceeded.  Thus, in the Phoenician cosmogony
of Philo Byblius, we find dark chaos presiding as the ruling principle before
creation.

This is similar to what the Roman Ovid had to say concerning the creation as
believed in by his countrymen.  "All nature was Chaos"..."Earth, Air, Water
heaved and turned in darkness." Likewise, the Chinese philosopher Lao-tze
(Lao-tse or Lao-tzu) had it stated that:

"There is something chaotic yet complete which existed before heaven and
earth.  Oh how still it is and formless, standing alone without changing,
reaching everywhere without suffering harm. Its name I know not.  To
designate it I call it Tao.

Or, in a different translation:

"Before Heaven and Earth existed There was something nebulous silent,
isolated, standing alone, changing not, eternally revolving without
fail, worthy to be the Mother of All Things.  I do not know its name and
address it as Tao.

On this all-embracing First Principle, Lao-tze based an entire philosophy
whose influence on Chinese thought, art and literature, despite its varying
interpretation, has been prodigious.  But that its basic idea derives from the
primeval events with which we are presently concerned, there seems to be no
doubt.

In turn, this reminds us of the Roman Janus who, as we have seen above, was
also made to refer to himself as chaos.  But since Janus was the same as
Saturnus/Kronos, what is indicated here is that it was Saturn itself that was
chaotic.

In Jewish myth, the chaotic bohu was also understood as an expanse of mud.  
This brings to mind the Phoenician mot which was produced at the very
beginning of things.

Some say that this [mot] was slime and others a rotting of aquatic composition.
From it came all the "germs of all created things and it was the origin of
everything".

Baudissin supposed the word mot to connote water.  Maspero likewise stated
that Mot is probably a Phoenician form of a word which means water in the
Semitic language.

The Babylonians told the story differently but they, too, held that creation
commenced out of the waters. Consider the Enuma Elish :

"When on high the heaven had not been named.  Firm ground below had not
been called by name.  There was naught but primordial Apsu, their
begetter.  And mother Tiamat, who bore them all their waters commingling
in a single body."

From this and other sections of the Enuma Elish we learn that Apsu (or Abzu
also Zuab) stood for the "primordial ocean of sweet water".  Abzu might even
have been the origin of the Greek Rabyssos (Latin RabyssusS) from which the
English derived the word abyss and thus the deep.  The Babylonian Tiamat,
of course, is equivalent to the Hebrew tehom, or, more correctly, the feminine
tehomoth .  What seems to be indicated, here, is that Apsu and Tiamat were two
bodies of water joined as a single unit.  The Babylonian Berossus additionally
informs us that during this time, i.e. in the beginning, all was darkness.
Even Tiamat, according to him, was shrouded in darkness.

5.  The Waters of Chaos

Up until 1979, I had held the view that the waters of chaos had actually
been terrestrial. In fact I had already earlier described these waters as
having been piled up in a tidal heap due to the gravitational pull of
Saturn which hovered overhead.  Although I have not quite discarded this
hypothesis, I was compelled, on the advice of Roger Ashton and David
Lorton, to reconsider ancient testimony concerning the celestial nature of
these waters.  This idea is perhaps best indicated in Egyptian myth.  
Traditionally, the Egyptian waters of chaos, known as Nu and/or Nun, are
described as having been in the sky.  Budge tells us that "the name Nu" is
expressed by three vases of water which indicate the sound, and the
outstretched heaven and the determinative for water and the sign for
"god," all of which show that this deity was the god of the watery mass in
the sky.  And, in a hymn to Ra, we read:

"Praise be to thee, O thou shining one who dost send forth light upon the
waters of heaven. Of Osiris, also, it is said that [his] water is in
heaven.

Thus, in the Book of the Dead, Ra is made to utter: "I am the Great God who
created himself." It is then asked: "Who is he?" And the answer is given: "The
Great God who created himself is the water, it is the Abyss, the Father of the
Gods."  For that reason Ra is also known as Akeb-ur, the god of the great
celestial waters.

The Satapatha Brahmana informs us that "in the beginning this (universe) was 
water, nothing but a sea of water", where universe is the translation of the 
Sanskrit vishva which actually means "all".  During the time of being and not 
being, according to the Rig Veda, "all was a dark and watery chaos".  The same 
Rig Veda also tells us that this was a sea of upper waters.  Thus Varuna, who 
was also Saturn, was lauded as he who is an ocean far removed while worship 
ascends to him through heaven.  Even more explicitly, the Satapatha Brahmana 
additionally informs us that the "seat of the waters is the sky, for in the 
sky the waters are seated".

According to some accounts, these waters seem to have preceded the creation.
Thus, for instance, Nahum Sarna noted that:

"[Genesis] shares with Enuma Elish the idea of the priority of water in
time.  Just as Apsu and Tiamat exist before all things, so in Genesis
the
existence of water is taken for granted.  The darkness is over the
surface of the deep.  Now this concept of the priority of water is
fairly
widespread among many unrelated mythologies."

Among these unrelated mythologies one might point to that of ancient Egypt.
While all that was created was said to have been raised from the watery abyss
of Nu, the Egyptian story of creation does not state that the waters themselves
were created.  But, in a hymn to Ptah-Tenen, mention is made of a "time when
the waters had not [yet] come forth" while, a little later, the celestial
water is said to have come forth from the mouth of the same god.  Also, in a
hymn to Ra, the creator is praised with the words: "Thou art the One god who
came into being in the beginning of time thou didst make the watery abyss of
the sky".   Wallis Budge could thus paraphrase the point we wish to stress
through the following words:

"In what form [Atum-Ra] existed no one knows, but he created for himself,
as a place wherein to dwell, the great mass of Celestial Waters to which
the Egyptians gave the name of Nu.  In these, for a time, he lived quite
alone."

So, similarly, in the Laws of Manu where the Self-existent, first with a
thought created the waters.  Although described in a philosophical vein,
creation according to the Satapatha Brahmana likewise discloses the creation of
the waters:

"Verily, there was nothing here in the beginning: by Death this
(universe) was covered.  He [the creator] created for himself this mind,
thinking May I have a soul.  He went on worshipping.  Whilst he was
worshipping the waters were produced"

Of special interest here is that what is translated as Death is actually Yama,
one of the Sanskrit names of Saturn.

All this led Roger Ashton to assume that there must have been some celestial
phenomenon resembling shimmering waters, possibly an auroral effect,
surrounding the primeval solitary Saturnian orb in the darkness prior to its
flare up.  As he also elsewhere stated, part of that assemblage must have
looked like waters, whose implicitly or explicitly celestial character has
severally been noted and that these waters evidently appeared in a distinct
image or pattern.

But while an auroral effect might resemble shimmering waters, it is doubtful
that this would have imparted an image of chaos.  It is more conceivable that
the nebular cloud mentioned above, that Cyclone or rotating fog, foam, and/or
fluffy cotton of the myths, was seen by the majority of the ancients as a
spinning whirlpool of chaotic water.  And it seems to have been out of this
indistinct cloud that the body of Saturn was seen to emerge.  Thus the
Satapatha Brahmana continues to state that once the vital airs had departed or
dissipated, that body of [Yama] began to swell.

Does the mytho-historical record have anything more to say about such a
whirlpool or nebular cloud?  Here we have to exercise great caution
because mythology speaks of diverse whirlpools, not the least of which
being the whirlpool of destruction into which the Saturnian configuration
was said to have ultimately sunk.  The mythic whirlpool we are after,
therefore, would have to have preceded the creation.  Coming immediately
to mind is the Egyptian myth of Ptah forming the Saturnian Cosmic Egg on a
potters wheel.  Our argument is that such a whirlpool would have lent
itself easily to the image of a potter's wheel.  Of course an objection
can be raised in that, during the primeval time of which we speak, the
potters wheel would not yet have been invented.  It could be argued,
however, that the analogy derived at a much later time when the potters
wheel had become common.

In describing the cosmology of the Phoenicians according to Sanchoniathon,
Philo wrote that:

"The first principle of the universe he [Sanchoniathon] supposes to have
been air dark with cloud and wind, or rather a blast of cloudy air, and a
turbid chaos dark as Erebus; and these were boundless and for long ages
had no limit."

It was out of this dark and turbid chaos that creation was said to have
progressed, a description that has more in common with a dark whirlpool than an
auroral effect.

Something similar is recounted in the Japanese Nihongi as paraphrased by
Raymond Van Over:

"Before Heaven and Earth were produced, there was something which might 
be compared to a cloud floating over the sea.  It had no place of 
attachment for its root".

And so, also, among the Chinese as we learn from the Tao Te Ching:

"There is [or was] a thing confusedly formed, born before heaven and
earth.  Silent and void, it stands alone and does not change, goes round
and does not weary.  It is [or was] capable of being the mother of the
world."

This is similar to what the Roman Ovid had to say concerning the creation as
believed in by his countrymen.  All nature was Chaos- Earth, Air, Water heaved
and turned in darkness.

6.  The Darkness Over the Deep

Whether these cosmic waters were created or not, whether they were seen to be
emitted by the Saturnian orb or not, they definitely seem to have existed
together with the solitary god.  Thus the Egyptian myths of creation ascertain
that, in the beginning, the creator was the only being that man remembered
having seen in the sky hovering over the waters of the deep.  "I am Atum, the
god is made to utter, who appeared alone rising from the waters of chaos."

The identity of Atum as Saturn need not be repeated. Neither is that of Osiris.
We are thus not surprised to discover that Neb-er-tcher/Khepera/Osiris is
likewise made to state:

"I am the creator of what hath come into being, and I came into being in
primeval time.  I was alone, for they [the other gods] were not born, and
I had emitted from myself neither Shu nor Tefnut.

These Egyptian waters of chaos were, very much like those of Genesis, said to
have been enveloped in darkness.  Nothing existed,  it is written, except a
boundless primeval mass of water which was shrouded in darkness.  In the Pert-
em-hru we even find Osiris/Saturn complaining about his life alone in the
darkness.

Ptah-Seker, another form of the Egyptian creator, was also lauded as the great
god, who came into being in the beginning, "he who resteth upon the darkness".
He was thus known, inter alia as the guardian of the darkness.  Thus Budge
sees Ptah-Seker as a form of Osiris, that is to say, of the night sun, or dead
Sun-god, and that he was originally a power of darkness, or of the night,
which in later times was identified with forms of the night sun like Tem [=
Atum].

The Qoran also preaches that Allah was on the waters when he indulged in
creation.  "Throned above the waters, it is written, He made the heavens and
the earth"

We move to India.  We browse through the pages of a few ancient texts.  In one
Vedic hymn we find it stated that "Darkness there was at first by darkness
hidden; without distinctive marks, this all was water." Or, according to a
different translation, "Darkness was there, all wrapped around by darkness,
and Laws of Manu preach: "This world was darkness, unknowable, without form,
beyond reason and perception, as if utterly asleep."

Not only among the Hindus, but even among the lesser tribes of India, such as
the Muria of the Bastar State in the Central Provinces, the same motif keeps
repeating itself: "When this world was first made, there was neither sun nor
moon, and everything was dark."

From Japan comes a similar belief which Wheeler not only recognizes as being
universal but also as a prototype of the Kronos/Saturn myth.  His words are:

"In the earliest legend with which the recital [i.e. the Kujiki] opens,
one recognizes the primal myth, the development from a primordial
darkness and chaos.  This is the Kronos legend, in its thousand forms,
the father of all mythologies, upon which so many peoples have
constructed their cosmogonies."

Among these "many peoples" were the Greeks. Thus Hesiod tells us that night
preceded day: "From chaos came black night, And night in turn gave birth to
dayI"

Other philosophical myths from Greece, reversing the process described by
Hesiod, imply that darkness was first and from darkness sprang chaos.  Others
claimed that chaos and darkness coexisted, as, for instance, Aristophanes:
"Chaos and Night and black Erebus and wide Tartarus first existed, and
Orpheus red all things that were under the ether."

From the cold spaces of Siberia comes a creation myth that unfolds as a
competition between Num, the demiurge, and Nga, his alter-ego. "Since
you claimtronger than I am,S Num said to Nga, Rorganize the earth."  The sky,
however, was already in existence and, as elsewhere, so was the primordial
ocean.

As the ancestors of the North American Indians are said to have done, we cross
the Bering Strait and, among the Inuit of Alaska, we also find a creation myth
that presupposes the pre-existence of a watery abyss.

Further South, the Indians of British Columbia assert that "Very dark, damp,
and chaotic was the world in the beginning" and that they, i.e. the people,
existed "while the world was still in darkness, and without sun, moon, or
stars."

The Yuki creation myth, which we have already quoted above, is even more
interestingly told:

"[In the beginning] there was only water, and over it a fog.  On the 
water was foam. The foam moved round and round continuallyIAfter a time
there issued from the foam a person in human formIThis was Taik-mol
[literally RSolitude WalkerS]. He floated on the waterIHe stood on the
foam, which still revolved.  There was no light."

The Algonquins believed in an earth that existed anterior to this of ours, but 
one without light.  The Zuni Indians claim that:

"In the beginning of things Awonawilona was alone.  There was nothing 
beside him in the whole space of time.  Everywhere there was black
darkness and void.

Awonawilona is described as "one who contains everything," and this reminds us 
of the Arabic Suhail (Suhayl and/or Sahel) which, as the primordial star, was 
Represented under the form of an "egg that contained all things that were to 
be born."  Our identification of this egg as the primordial Saturn has been 
presented in an earlier work.

Awonawilona's attribute also brings to mind the Egyptian Atum/Saturn, the root
of whose name means "to be complete" and/or "he who is a completeness,"  thus
also connoting "one who contains everything."

There is, in fact, hardly a North American Indian tribe that does not have a
creation myth in which the primeval ocean and/or prolonged darkness was said to
have existed before the demiurge commenced on his work of creation.  Over and
again we hear that there was darkness or a prolonged night in which there was
no sun, no moon, no stars. In the telling, of course, many of these myths
acquired a fanciful cast and framework that borders on childish fable.  But
that, after all, is the nature of allegory and myth.

Traveling further south to Central America, we come across a Cholula legend 
which states that "In the beginning, before the light of the sun had been 
created, this land was in obscurity and darkness and void of any created 
thing".  Likewise, the Mixtec account of origins speaks of the beginning when
"all was chaos and confusion" and "the earth was covered with water."  In a
Nahua myth of creation, the primordial substance also seems to have been
water, while the Chibcha Indians of Colombia tell us that, "in the beginning,
everything was dark".

In South America, myths of the primeval darkness are quite widespread.  As H.
Osborne writes:

"Some mythological cycles feature a primitive age of darkness before the 
existence of the sun, when human beings lived in a state of anarchy
without the techniques of civilized life.  Sometimes myths in this
category appear to embody a confused racial memory of a hunting and
food-gathering stage.  It is not uncommon for them to be associated with
a tradition of the destruction of the primitive food-gathering race by a
creator god and the creation of new races"

In a similar vein, Juan de Betanzos narrates the following:

"They say that in ancient times the land of Peru was dark and there was 
no light nor day in it. In those times there dwelt there a certain people 
who owed allegiance to an overlord whose name they no longer remember.  
And they say that in those times when all was night in the land there 
came forth from a lake in the district called Collasuyu, a Lord named Con 
Ticci Viracocha.  And while he was there, he suddenly made the sun and 
the day and commanded the sun to follow the course which it does follow. 
They say that this Con Ticci Viracocha had emerged on an earlier occasion
and that on this first appearance he made the heaven and the earth and
left everything dark".

Similarly, the account of Sarmiento de Gamboa states that:

"The natives of this country [i.e. Peru] say that in the beginning, 
before the world was created, there was one whom they called Viracocha.
And he created the world dark and without the Sun, nor Moon, nor stars

"The Sun", according to Sarmiento's narrative, Jan Sammer informs us,
"emerged only after the Deluge."

It seems, then, that even the famous Con Ticci (or Kon Tiki) was none other
than Saturn and the "lake" from which he emerged nothing but the dim memory of
the ancient waters of chaos.  The description of this god as a fair-skinned,
red-bearded man has captured the imagination of western chroniclers but, among
the original natives, this belief was not unanimous:

"The oral traditions, which are confusing, diverge on numerous points: 
some describe his [i.e. Viracocha's] physique, while others maintain that
he had neither bones, nor limbs, nor body".

This brings to mind the Roman Janus as well as the Eskimo deity Ataksak, both 
of whom were described as not having the form of a man but, rather, that of a 
ball or a sphere. As we have seen, it was only through "creation" that Janus 
"assumed the face and members of a god."  Similarly, the Egyptian creator was 
Ra formless god [who] stood alone in the "waters" of the sky, "a sphere
without external attributes or limbs."   The "limbs" alluded to were the
appendages that were seen to attach themselves to the Saturnian orb through
the creation, the appendages that transformed the orb into the Saturnian
configuration with which the readers of this periodical should now be
familiar.  Thus the Egyptian creator was made to utter: "[I was] he who had no
companion, created my limbs in my gloryI I was the maker of myselfI"

Returning to Kon Tiki Viracocha we learn that:

"In all the accounts, whatever the regional variations, this hero always 
appeared as a god-creator who intervened in a world which was already
created but unorganized ViracochaUs role was therefore to transform chaos
into cosmos"

Moreover, this myth of the Callao seems to imply that the "earth" which
existed prior to the shedding of the Saturnian light was also considered a
"creation" of Kon Tiki/Saturn.  This belief is not to be wondered at for it
now seems doubtful that man remembers a god older than Saturn.  But it does
seem that he remembers a time when the Sun was not yet apparent in the sky.
Thus another myth from the same region explicitly states: "In the most ancient
times the earth was covered in darkness and there was no sun."  Similarly, the
Popul Vuh, relates that before the "earth" was created, "there was only
motionless sea" and "it was night; silence stood in the dark".

And again, from a Xingu myth we learn that:

"In the beginning it was all dark.  It was always night.  There was no
day".

We cross the Pacific to the archipelagos of Micronesia where we find that a 
pre-existing "rock" was believed to have been the matrix of the "universe".
But even this "rock of ages" is associated with an endless stretch of
original sea from which the first gods were produced.  The Polynesians also
state that, "in the beginning" there was no light.  "A brooding night called
Po enveloped all".  The primeval sea, from which the earth was created, is
also encountered in the beliefs of the natives of Borneo.  In fact most of
the legends [from Oceania] dealing with the origin of the earth make it come
out of the sea.

There may be those who will argue that to the natives of Oceania, surrounded 
as they are by the vast stretches of the Pacific, the creation of the world 
from an endless sea would appear to be a logical genesis.  But we have seen 
that such an origin is, or was, believed in even by tribes in the heartland of 
India, by the peoples of the Fertile Crescent, by those whose world is 
enclosed by the sandy wastes of the Egyptian desert, in fact by the peoples of 
the entire world regardless of their geographical environment.  Even among the 
Aranda aborigines of Australia, living in one of the world's most arid
regions, far from sea or lake, we find the belief that the earth emerged
slowly from an endless ocean.

But our journey is not yet over.  Among the Kenta pygmies of Malaya, tradition 
states that, "in the beginning," the "worldS was all water and in the
firmament above dwelt the great god Kaei".  And from the Nias of Sumatra we
learn that "the world was dark, for as yet there was neither sun nor moon".

We cross the Indian Ocean, travel around the Cape of Good Hope, and up the 
west coast of Africa.  We land among the Yoruba of what was once Nigeria and 
discover that they, also, believe that, "in the beginning", the "world was all 
a watery marsh".  The Bushongo relate that "In the beginning there was nothing 
but darkness, there was nothing but water; in this chaos Bumba, the Chembe [= 
god], reigned alone".

The Dogon of the Sudan, whom we have already met, also believe that their
creator, whom they call Amma, resided in the Regg of the world, which we
recognize as the Saturnian cosmic egg of other races and that this egg resided
"in the original darkness".  And, from South Africa, we have the following:

"No stars were there no sun. Neither moon nor earth.  Nothing existed but
darkness itself, darkness everywhere.  Nothing existed but nothingness.

But even this "nothingness" seems to have been but a memory of "something",
for it is additionally stated that "[this] Nothingness had been floating, for
no one knows how long, upon the invisible waters of TimeI".

7.  Saturn's Glow

The primeval night of nights, must have impressed the ancestors of the
Tahitians deeply for in the mythology of no other race does the topic resurface
as often and with such descriptive clarity.

The night of Rumia [named after Ta'aroa's Egg] was a "long night to name; it
was thick darkness, the long night to name.  The nights would be millions in
the long night to name; it was the long, wearisome night, the night of Rumia!"

While this darkness was described as having been primarily in the sky, in which
the creator was seen to hover, it does not seem to have restricted itself to
the celestial waters.  If the darkness preceded the creation of the Sun, as is
also implied in Genesis, it would necessarily mean that the entire sky was
immersed in darkness.  Such a darkness could not but have touched the Earth
and, in fact, many of the myths we have already enumerated more than intimate
this. In some instances, the myths themselves actually state as much.

The description of such a "thick darkness", meanwhile, seems to imply that
there was absolutely no light.  But, for anything to have been visible, there
must have been.  Even though not yet glorious as a sun, Saturn must have shed
some light.  The myths, in fact, seem to indicate that, even before it hatched,
the Saturnian Cosmic Egg glowed with a golden light.  Before Adoil came apart
to free the effulgence within him, he already "had a belly of great light".
And, in the Linga Purana, we read:

"When the night of Brahma born of the unmanifest reached the stage of 
dawn, this visible universe was one that had not been analyzed.  It was
still enveloped in the nocturnal darknessI[but] the self-born lord, he
who achieves all the affairs of the worlds, moved about like a glow-worm,
with a desire to manifest.

Thus, not only was the universe,i.e. this "all" in darkness, but Brahma, whom 
elsewhere we have already identified as Saturn, radiated but only feebly, 
"like a glow-worm".  This is like saying that Saturn's glow was not enough to
dissipate the darkness.

According to the Mbay:

Ithe First Being [whom they called amandu and/or the amandu Father]Imade 
darkness.  He made the cradle of darkness [but] he did not see [this]
darkness, though the sun did not yet exist.  He was lit by the reflection of
his own inner self.

These fragments make us assume that, even before it flared up, Saturn was not 
entirely dark and the probability is that the luminary radiated a diffused 
glow that was, however, too dim to dispel the surrounding darkness.

According to Hopi legend, there definitely was light in the sky during those
early times; but it was a dark light:

"This was at the time of the dark purple light, Qoyangnuptu, the first 
phase of the dawn of CreationI

(Talbott, on the other hand, has intimated that the primeval darkness was more
of a "greyness" than anything else, but, until he can supply us with more
details, we cannot comment constructively on this.)

8.  Earth's Primeval Heat

Because the Saturnian creator was not described by anyone as having gone
through the process of rising and setting, the daily motion of which could not
but have impressed the ancients, we are forced to assume that the Earth must
have been in phase-lock with Saturn.  We must also assume that Saturn shed
enough warmth to preserve life on Earth.  After all, even today, when Saturn no
longer shines as a star, the luminary continues to radiate more heat than it
receives from the Sun.  At close proximity to Saturn, at a time when Saturn
might have been as massive, if not more massive, than Jupiter, at a time when
the luminary was on the verge of exploding into a veritable sun, the Earth may
in fact have been warmer on its facing hemisphere than it is today.

Describing the primeval Saturn as "the smallest possible red dwarf star or a
brown dwarf star" in its death throes, Hall assumed that, for eons, the giant
planet "had sustained by radiant energy the spark of life" on Earth.  So,
similarly, but without considering the prevailing darkness, Tresman wrote:

"It is also proposed that proto-Saturn gave out its own light and heat.  
At present Saturn radiates two to three times the energy it receives from
the Sun.

The structure of the giant planets Jupiter and Saturn, with their preponderance
of hydrogen and helium, is regarded as more like the Sun than the inner planets
such as the Earth.  If what we see today is the remnant of its former
condition, [Saturn] must have radiated enough energy to sustain life on Earth.

Leroy Ellenberger professed doubts that Saturn could have cooled off from 
Hall's postulated 1350K temperature to its present tepidity in the requisite 
time.  The temperature of planetary bodies, however, might involve the 
tachyon- field, a concept that would invalidate Ellenberger's objection.  As
Hans Nieper has been preaching for quite some time:

We should state that the energy density, which was given by Seike and Valle
for the tachyon-field, is sufficient to explain the heating of the large mass
of the planet Jupiter as well as of the Sun.  The new tachyon-field generated
by the Sun, which first is radiated with a high density, is called a
"perisolar cushion field".  The concept of this perisolar cushion field is
capable of explaining the exceptionally high heating of the mass of the planet
Venus, first explained due to a greenhouse effect, considering the
exceptionally dense and massive Venus atmosphere, [But] the exceptionally high
exogenous heating of the Venus mass, called the hothouse, can only be
explained by the flow of a very dense tachyon-field through it.

So, similarly, in an article that was originally published in 1982 in the
German periodical Raum & Zeit:

"...there are reliable indications that heating in the interior of the
planets (in the case of Earth, we call it geotherma), heat is generated
by the conversion of braking gravitational radiation. In that sense
geothermal energy will be trapped gravitational energy that is constantly
renewed from the outside.  The presumed phenomenon of density increase of
the Feinberg field towards the Sun is explained by stating that the
Feinberg field irradiating from the outside is completely absorbed in the
Sun, thus also releasing considerable energy, and that simultaneously the
Sun generates a new kind of Feinberg or tachyon-field".

Upon emission from the Sun, this field is very dense, and is, on the average, 
slower than the field irradiating the Sun from the outside.  In fact, the peak 
velocity of the tachyons on the way from the Sun to the Earth seems to exceed 
that of light only slightly.  Nieper calls this Feinberg field radiated by the 
Sun, and particularly dense around it, the "perisolar cushion field".  Several
important phenomena can be explained by this theory, especially the heating of
the planet Venus.

Thus, for instance:

"The Japanese scientist, Seike, mentions a tension of 880 million volts 
per cm for the Feinberg field! It is assumed that the traveling
tachyon-fields are hardly slowed down by masses, and yet have a moment
(the gravitational acceleration) and/or generate heat (geothermal heat).
They are also braked by strong magnetic and electric fields. For
instance, the inner moon Io, of JupiterUs moon system, is subjected to
very strong magnetic induction.  This moon is obviously very hot in its
interior and has strong volcanic activity.  This is in spite of the fact
that its size is only that of Earth's moon.  Nieper explains this heating
effect as a consequence of the high braking effect, of the strong
magnetic induction generated from Jupiter into the mass of Io, on the
Feinberg field.  It has been accepted that all other attempted
explanations by physicists of the heating of Io are inadequate.

This might also explain why the dark side of Uranus, which goes through a
winter equivalent to 42 Earth-years, is hotter than the side facing the Sun.
As Jim Schefter wrote:

As Voyager's instruments reported their findings, the truth proved the
theories wrong. Temperatures at the sunlit south pole were not warmer than at
the equator [despite the fact that the pole continuously faces the Sun], rather
they were virtually identical. Even stranger, the dark north pole was slightly
warmer.

"Something is heating that atmosphere", [Dr. Edward] Stone said. "But we don't
understand what it is".

That Uranus' north pole was found to be "slightly warmer" is something of an
understatement.  Nigel Henbest had reported this increase to be just a couple
of degrees but , as Gary Hunt informed the British Association, the difference
is really more like 250{K, an astonishing but unexplained fact.

Thus, if the Feinberg field is returned by the Sun at a greater density to
heat its planets, it could be assumed that, in the absence of the Sun,
Saturn, having also been a sun no matter how small, would also have
absorbed this field to return it to Earth with increased density.  
Earth's primeval heat might therefore have derived from its tachyon-heated
interior as much as from exterior radiation.  The subsequent cooling of
Saturn would then have nothing to do with the slow reduction of nuclear
heat but would owe its cause to a changed tachyon environment while its
subsequent flare-up would also have aided in drastically reducing its
initial temperature.

Tachyon-field technology is still in its infancy and it would not do to be
adamant in claiming that its invocation resolves the problem at hand.
Obviously, much more still needs to be done before this issue can be laid to
rest.  Moreover, it is also possible that the Sun also contributed its heat,
despite the manner in which it was shielded from mortal eyes. In the meantime,
Hall continues with these words:

"In our speculations as to terrestrial conditions at the time, we shall 
consider this to have been the primitive phase of Saturn's Golden Age, It
is gloomy in the sense that Earth does not experience the sharp contrasts
of the modern day and night; but the climate is uniformly moist and warm.
Vegetation is lush, animals are plentiful"

9.  The Logos

In Genesis, the creation of the "earth" is accomplished through the spoken 
word.  Elohim said "Let there be light", and there was light. Millennia later, 
John the evangelist could write that "In the beginning was the Word, and the 
Word was with God, and the Word was God [theos]".  "The Word",  or "Logos", 
according to Baron F. von Hgel, "is a term derived from Heracleitus of Ephesus 
and the Stoics, through the Alexandrian Jew Philo" This may be so, but already
in the Psalms it was written that "By the word of Yahweh the heavens were
made".  As we shall soon see, the idea itself derives from great antiquity.

In the theology of Hermas, "the Word is called glorious angel" and is said to 
have been surrounded by the seven archangels.  In the Gospel of John, of 
course, "the Word was made flesh" as the body of Jesus.  In some early texts, 
Jesus is made to refer to himself as the Sabbath. And, as Lewis Greenberg and
Warner Sizemore indicated, as the Sabbath, Jesus is identifiable as a
Saturnian figure. What, then, is the connection, if any, between the Word and
Saturn?  What, in truth, was this Word?

In a Gnostic myth from Hellenized Egypt, god accomplished the creation not by
speaking but by laughing.  "And the God laughed seven times", it is written.
"God laughed, and from these seven laughs seven Gods sprang up which embraced
the whole universe [kosmos]".  One common denominator between spoken words and
laughter is sound. It therefore seems that the spoken words of creation were
the metaphorical rendering of the sounds mankind heard during this celestial
process. But there is more.

Through his philological studies of ancient sources, John Allegro could
recognize that the Word was something seen as well as heard:

"This idea of the creative Word of God came to have a profound 
philosophical and religious importance and was, and still is, the subject
of much metaphysical debate.  But originally it was not an abstract
notion; you could see the "Word of God".

Of course, to Allegro, taken up as he was with the study of phallic worship
and the relation this has to the hallucinogenic mushroom known as amanita
muscaria, this visible word of god was the fructifying rain with its attendant
thunder as divine verbalization.  The Bambara tribes of the Sudan, however,
believe that , during creation, "things emerge in succession from the Voice
of the Void in whirlwinds and words that spiral upwards".   "Words that spiral
upwards" can hardly be a metaphor for rain that falls downwards. Besides,
Allegro seems to have missed the connection between the Word and the Light.
As von Hgel noted, the Gospel of John shows a close affinity between the Word
and "The Light of the World", and was thus able to speak of "the Logos-Light".

One word that has given some headaches to translators of Assyro-Babylonian 
mythological texts is "Mummu", an entity that, with Apsu and Tiamat, existed
in the primeval beginning.  This word and/or name has been translated as
"mother" or "originator".  "Mummu", however, can also mean "form" or "word",
Thus Van Over was of the opinion that "Mummu is the Logos of Babylonian
thought, and is thus the creative principle and messenger of Apsu".

In Egyptian mythology, the Word is made to play the same role it does in the
Gospel of John.  As we have seen, it is there written that "In the beginning
was the Word".  Similarly the Egyptian creator is made to utter:

"The Word came into being.  All things were mine when I was alone.  I was 
Re in his first manifestations".

And in the Papyrus of Nesi-Amsu, Neb-er-tcher, the creator, is made to say:

"I brought (i.e. fashioned) my mouth, and I uttered my own name as a word 
of power, and thus I evolved myself under the evolutions of the god
Khepera, and I developed myself out of the primeval matter which had
evolved multitudes of evolutions from the beginning of time.  Nothing
existed on this earth before me, I made all things. There was none other
who worked with me at that time.

In a papyrus that dates from Egypt's Eighteenth Dynasty, it is said of Atum
that "[his] mouth controls the word of creation".

What is interesting is that Re's "first manifestationsS are described as Khu
which mean Rwords of power", but also "brilliant or glorious lights", thus
adding weight to von Hgel's identification of the Logos as Light.

Like the Elohim of Genesis, the Hindu Prajapati was also believed to have
fulfilled creation through the utterance of words.  And again we find that the
creative words uttered by Prajapati bhuh, bhuvah, svah (earth, air, and
sky) became lights which further exemplifies the mythical synonymity of words
and light.  This is strengthened through a hymn to Agni in which the god is
lauded as he "whose radiant splendors flow, like sounds".

This ambivalence, in fact, became forged in the very language, both ancient 
and sacred, in which these doctrines were originally penned.  In Sanskrit, the 
verbs "ghant" and "kumsh" mean "to speak", but also "to shine".  So do the
verbs "rut", "loch", and "shik".  Even "om", that word of power out of which
the mystics have made so much, means nothing but "brilliance".

Thus, like Talbott before him, Ashton saw the creation through spoken words as 
"the metaphorical utterance of an expanding wash of brilliant light".  What is
being described, of course, is the very light brought into existence by the
words of Elohim as recounted in Genesis.  This primeval light, we have
elsewhere indicated, was shed by Saturn in a brilliant flare-up.  Much more
can be said about the shedding of this light but we must here restrict
ourselves to the connection between Saturn, the Word, and the light.

Similarly, Talbott informs us that this "outflow" of light was exhaled,
emitted, or spat out by the creator "in a noisy and tumultuous event".  The
implication here is that Saturn's flare-up consisted not only in the shedding
of a blinding light but also in the propagation of an explosive sound in
effect, a colossal detonation.

One might argue that regardless of the vehemence of Saturn's explosive fury,
the sound of its outburst could not have been heard on Earth since sound does
not travel in a vacuum.  But the gases ejected by Saturn would have easily
breached the relatively short distance and, coming in contact with the Earth's
atmospheric envelope, would have been translated into an explosive
reverberation.  Thus the creator is made to say: "Hearts were pervaded with
fear, hearts were pervaded with terror when I was born in the abyss".

"The unearthly sound associated with this eruption of material", Talbott goes 
on, "gave rise to a pervasive mythical idea that the fiery ejecta was itself 
the visible "speech" of the creator. A sea ofI words, viewed in the most 
concrete sense as a manifestation of the sun god's creative power, flowed from 
the god.  One of the most common Egyptian words for this chaotic (and comet- 
like) debris was Aakhu, words of power, ejected particles of fire and light 
Tspoken or Tshouted into existence.  According to all primary sources in 
Egypt, these flaming 'words' constituted the unorganized matter from which the
creator-king fashioned his dwelling in the sky".

What was this "dwelling in the sky"?

10.  The Celestial Earth

There is probably not a race or nation on Earth that has not preserved a myth 
recounting the creation of what mythologists and theologians have termed the 
"world".  The mytho-historical record, however, makes it quite obvious, as
David Talbott disclosed in 1977, that man was a witness to creation.  That
being the case, what man must have seen being "created" could not have been
the world upon which he trod. Derek Douglass recognized this truth when he
wrote:

"The events described as they are in the primitive monotheistic form
typical of the Book of Genesis, are culled from man's earliest memories,
and as such contain a true historical record.  If the events referred to
really described the initial formation of the Earth then it would be
impossible for them to be true historical records in any normal sense
since there could be no question of man being around at the time".

What, then, was this "earth" that man saw being "created"?  Roger Ashton, who
knew the answer, admonished future researchers not to seek mythic creation in
matters terrestrial:

Any effort to trace mythical themes backwards to their origins reveals a
celestial basis. cause for finding anything earthly in myth will melt away
into nothing.  The "earth" of myth has the attributes of a celestial object.

The validity of this pronouncement seems to be indicated by a passage in the
Pyramid Texts. "The earth", it is there stated, "is raised on high", even
though "beneath the sky", by Tefnut.  Likewise, the Rig Veda describes Vishnu
holding up the "earth" as well as heaven.  As Ashton pointed out, an "earth"
held up by a celestial god has to be a celestial earth; one held up together
with heaven has to be in the same domain.  The very language of the Rig Veda
seems to have retained a hint of this state of affairs in the name Ila which
means "earth" but also "heaven".  Thus, whatever can be said of the mythical
"earth" can likewise be said of the mythical "heaven', as Milton Zysman ably
understood:

However imperfectly our forefathers transmitted their description of heaven, 
it was not the boundless expanse of space that we see today.  So pervasive was 
the concept of some kind of structure housing the gods that we today assume it 
to be a religious convention.

Zysman, of course, does not subscribe to the Saturnian scenario being analyzed
here, and yet the point he himself stressed can be aptly illustrated through
Saturnian lore. Thus, for instance, we find that Saurikah, which is one of the
Sanskrit words for "heaven" and/or "paradise", is also a name for the planet
Saturn.

The Soochow Astronomical Chart, from China, couples the planets with the five 
elements. Earth is there linked with TUien-Hsing, which is the Chinese name 
for Saturn.  This is quite interesting because the ancient Egyptians seem to 
have had a similar practice.  Thus one of the Egyptian words for "earth" is
"set".  But the god of the same name, although written with different
hieroglyphs, has been associated with, and even unconditionally identified as,
Saturn as so, also, has Typhon with whom the Greeks identified Set.

Of course, this "earth" with which Saturn is associated is to be understood as
"ground" and/or "soil', and not the planet Earth.  But then so is the "earth"
created by Elohim as described in Genesis.  We saw there that the Hebrew word
is Eretz, and Eretz translates as "land" and/or "ground'.  Thus Plato could
refer to Ouranos (or Uranus), who is usually understood as the personification
of the sky, by the name of Kosmos (or Cosmos), a word normally translated as
"world", despite the fact that the present world and the present sky cannot be
one and the same.  But that Ouranos was a form of Saturn has been posited by
other researchers and, in any case, the Greek "Kosmos" more properly means
"orderly arrangement', as any decent Greek dictionary will testify.

This caused so much confusion among those who came later that the distinction 
between Earth and sky, or heaven, in time became ambiguous.  Thus, to some 
Indians in Peru, heaven was referred to as the world above.  So also with the 
Iroquois Indians.  What they referred to as the "earth" in myth turns out to
be the dome of the sky.

Thus Persian lore asserts that "the sky is arranged above the earth" but also
"below the earth".  For the sky to have been seen both above and below the
"earth", the "earth" itself must have been in the sky.  And this is verified
by the same source when it speaks of "the semblance of the earth, in the midst
of the sky" or "the earth within the sky".

Are we here implying that what man saw being "created" in the sky was the
planet Saturn?  Not quite but, as Douglass surmised, "What is being described
is the aftermath of some catastrophic event caused by Saturn or proto-Saturn.
What man seems to have witnessed was the transformation of the planet Saturn.
What had once been a mere sphere seems to have evolved into something more
complex.

Back in 1977, Talbott had already laid down the foundation for the proper
interpretation of the creation.  Basing his explanation on Egyptian liturgy,
his reconstruction is applicable to all of mythology:

"Now what did the Egyptians mean by creation or by those words which we
translate as "creation"?  The idea is remarkably simple.  The creator
[i.e.  Saturn] fashioned a celestial band or circle round himself, and
this band became his cosmic dwelling.  Basically, that is all there is to
it, though the texts give us very pictorial descriptions of the process
by which this creation was accomplished."

What seems to have transpired is this. Originally, Saturn was seen as an 
indistinct "something" within a rotating nebular cloud.  As it slowly emerged 
from this cloud or as the cloud itself slowly dispersed, it was seen to glow 
feebly while it continued to reign in darkness. At some point in time, having 
existed above man's head as an inactive sphere, it bloated and flared up in 
disruption and emitted a mantle of fiery debris.  The sound produced by this 
outburst or, at least, the explosive sound that reached the Earth was 
visualized by ancient man inter alia as the voice of the creator.  The emitted 
light was the deity's visible speech. The disruption seems to have dispelled 
the chaotic nebular cloud while its new emission slowly congealed into a ring 
which, visually at least, was seen to surround the planet.  Thus chaos was 
organized into order, the kosmos of the Greeks, the "earth" or "world" of
myth.

The Babylonians referred to this ring, or belt, as the markacu which 
mythologists usually translate as the "band of the universe".  Another word
for markacu is Esharra, the circle of created "earth", which, in turn, is
identified as Tiamat.

Thus, in Hebrew legend, when Wisdom is made to speak of her extreme antiquity, 
she makes reference to the creation and the time when Yahweh marked "the 
foundations of the earth 'by drawing' a circle on the face of the deep
[tehom]"

This encircling band around Saturn was considered the god's domain by 
implication, his plot of land, his eretz, a word which, as we have seen, was 
translated as "earth" and, by inference, eventually "the world'.  To the
Sumerians, this band was known as the Ekur, within which the Saturnian deity
An, Enki, and/or Ninurta dwelt.  Like eretz, the Ekur is also usually
translated as "earth" but, according to the myths, it was the celestial home
of the creator.

Thus, also, in the perusal of Hindu mythology one often encounters
descriptions of the creation of what is termed "this (universe)" by one deity
or another.  Some mythologists prefer to render this term as "this all".  But
what is translated as "universe" and/or "all" is actually "vishva", a Sanskrit
word the meaning of which mythologists, burdened by uniformitarian precepts,
found somewhat ambiguous.  Like the translators of Genesis and other myths of
creation, they opted for what seemed to be logical.  "Vishva", however, means
"fixed abode" in other words the abode of the deity. Check any decent Sanskrit
dictionary.

11.  the cosmic egg

Among the sacred chants of the Tahitians, the act of creation is lauded time 
and again.  As in the myths of other races, we find the original deity,
encased in a Cosmic Egg, and therefore recognizable as Saturn, ruling alone in
darkness.

"Ta aroa was the ancestor of all the gods; he made everything.  From time
immemorial was the great Ta aroa."

"Ta aroa developed himself in solitude; he was his own parent, having no
father or mother"

"Ta aroa sat in his shell in darkness for millions of ages"..

"The shell was like an egg revolving in endless space"

"All was darkness, it was continuous, thick darkness.  Rumia was the name 
of that shell of Ta aroa.

"Ta aroa was quite alone in his shell."

Back in 1978, I had described this celestial Egg as having been the "oblate 
spheroid" of the Saturnian orb itself which mankind saw floating on the waters 
of chaos, an idea that, unfortunately, was picked up by Hall and utilized in 
his tentative Saturnian model.  I had also offered the opinion that the light 
of Saturn's flare-up had been seen as having been emitted by the breaking, or 
hatching, of this Egg.  These postulates are no longer tenable for the 
following reasons: (a) it is, first and foremost, more than obvious that the 
Cosmic Egg was actually seen to have been formed, or fashioned, by the 
Saturnian creator who was already in existence; (b) even after the Egg was 
formed, the creator was seen to have been contained within it or, as others 
understood the event, a new being was seen to have been born within its folds.  
The way in which the Egg was finally seen to split also speaks against this 
ovum mundi having been the Saturnian orb.  In fact, contrary to the notion
that the light was shed by the splitting of the Egg, the opposite seems to
have been the case.  In other words, it was the light itself from which the
Egg was seen to have been formed.  Let us examine these postulates.

The Laws of Manu state:

"This (all) was darkness, unknowable, without form, beyond reason and 
perception, as if utterly asleep.  Then the august and self-existing
Being, he who never unfolded, having unfolded this (all ) under the form
of the great elements and others, having shown his energy, appeared to
scatter the shades of darkness.  This (Being) whom only the spirit can
perceive, subtle, without distinct parts, eternal, including in himself
all creatures, incomprehensible, appeared spontaneously.  Wishing to draw
different creatures from his body, he first by thought produced the
waters and deposited his seed in them.  This (seed) became a golden egg,
in brilliancy equal to the sun. In that (egg) he himself was born as
Brahman, the progenitor of the whole world".

What was this "seed" that the creator was said to have deposited on the waters
of chaos, this 'seed" that became "a golden egg"?

Allegro tells us that "The seed of God was the Word of God".  Granted that
Allegro was still identifying this seed and/or Word as the fructifying rain,
with which we do not agree, the philological derivation through which he
identified the seed as the Word that is the Logos remains valid.  This
linguistic equation enabled him to state the axiom in the following words:

"The most forceful spurting of this 'seed' is accompanied by thunder and 
the shrieking wind.  This is the 'voice' of God. Somewhere above the sky 
a mighty penis reaches an orgasm that shakes the heaven.  As saliva can
be seen mixed with breath during forceful human speech, so the 'speaking'
of the divine penis is accompanied by a powerful blast of wind, the holy,
creative spirit, bearing the 'spittle' of semen."

This "spittle" is the visible "speech" of God.

But since, as we have seen, the Word was synonymous with light and the sources 
really say nothing about the fructifying rain, so must the Seed have been.
The "mighty penis" in the sky of which Allegro speaks, meanwhile, is actually
mentioned in the mytho-historical record as having been as visible as the
"seed" of the creator. It was that Saturnian appendage that went down in myth,
inter alia, as the Axis Mundi.  Thus in the mystic processions of the Greeks,
a sacred ark, or coffer, was carried which contained effigies of both the
Cosmic Egg and a phallus.  This topic is outside the scope of the present
study and it is only mentioned here to strengthen Allegro's philological
equation without having to accept his ultimate conclusion.  Thus, for
instance, Talbott has long understood this issue pun only partly intended:

"Atum is the masculine power of heaven, the luminous seed embodying all 
the elements of lifeIwhich flow from him in streams of light.  He is
the
universal source of fertility animating and impregnating the Cosmos."

It therefore seems that it was from the spewing of the light, the Word, the 
Seed, that the Cosmic Egg was formed. If not Saturn's oblate orb, what was
this Egg?

Talbott, of course, has long identified the Saturnian Cosmic Egg as the ring,
or band, of light which encircled the Saturnian orb.  Thus a hymn from the
Egyptian Coffin Texts reads: "I was he who came into existence as circle, he
who was the dweller in his egg".

The way in which this Egg, this circular band of light wrapped itself around 
the Saturnian orb is allegorically described in the sacred texts of the 
Hindus.  Thus the Atharva Veda informs us that "the waters produced an embryo, 
which as it was being born, was enveloped in a golden covering.".  This 
"embryo" was called Hiranyagarbha "the Golden Child" who, in the Rig Veda, is 
also called Prajapati, the lord of created beings, and, in the later 
literature, even identified with Brahma.  "Later Hinduism sometimes 
represented Brahma as born in a golden eggIand spoke of a bubble, which 
contained Vis[h]nu as Brahma".  Millennia later, the alchemists could still
recall this Egg as "a fiery enclosure, a circle with a "sun-point" in the
center", even then still identifiable as "the ancient Saturn".

This Egg, insistently described as having been of a golden color, existed in
the sky above man's head for a long time before it eventually split a year,
state some Hindu sources, although it is not quite certain whether a divine or
terrestrial year is meant. So, for instance, in The Upanishads:

"Aditya [whom mythologists usually identify as the Sun] is BrahmanIIn the 
beginning this [i.e. Aditya] was non-existent.  It became existent, it
grew [another indication of Saturn's bloating].  It turned into an egg.
The egg lay for the time of a year."

(That Aditya was a sun, of course, there is no doubt; but it was the Saturnian
sun.  Thus, for instance, Aditya was a name of Vishnu whom we have already
elsewhere identified as Saturn.)

Concurring with the Upanishads, the Satapatha Brahmana informs us that, 
although "the year, indeed, was not then in existence", the meaning of which
we shall examine below the golden egg floated about for as long as the space
of a year.  So, similarly, the Laws of Manu which state that "The divine one
resided in that egg during a whole year".

After that, the Egg split, but it split in a strange way.  In the Chandogya 
Brahmana we read that not-being became being, that this being changed into an 
egg, and that after a year the Egg split in two to become heaven and earth.
It seems, therefore, that the Egg did not burst and disappear in a flurry of
light.  What seems to have transpired is that the ring of golden light that
wrapped around the Saturnian orb was seen to split into two halves.  It is
these two halves that formed the mythical heaven and the mythical earth.

This is further stated in the Laws of Manu:

"The divine one resided in that egg during a whole year, then he himself 
by his thought (alone) divided it into two halves.  And out of those two
halves he formed heaven and earth [and] between them the middle sphere".

The two halves of the Saturnian band would have presented themselves as two
opposing crescents with the Saturnian orb. "the middle sphere" between them.
But how can a circular ring of golden light have split into two crescents?
Where would the demarcation line have been?

The answer is supplied by the Upanishads:

"The egg broke open.  The two halves were one of silver, the other of 
gold.  The silver one became this earth, the golden one the sky".

This naming of the silver half as "earth" and of the golden one as "sky"
and/or "heaven" was ultimately due to semantic misunderstanding.  In the older
Egyptian versions, the two halves were simply alluded to as "the above" and
"the below", terms which, millennia later, easily lent themselves to
translation as 'heaven" and "earth'.  Nor is this misunderstanding to be laid
entirely at the door of modern mythologists for the ancients themselves, not
having witnessed what their more ancient forefathers had, eventually fell into
the same trap.

What seems to have transpired is evident.  As Talbott has already shown, the
luminous gases expelled by SaturnUs flare slowly congealed into a circular
band which was seen to surround the Saturnian orb.  This band, so the sources
inform us, was of a bright golden color. At first one is led to assume that
this golden illumination was due to the glowing gas that composed the ring
itself or the reflected light of the Saturnian sun.  But because of the manner
in which the ring was seen to split, this could not have been so.  As we have
seen, having glowed as a complete circle for a long but unspecified time, the
band's illumination changed so that, while half of it remained a brilliant
gold, the other half changed to a lesser silvery light or half bright and half
dark, as other sources inform us.  This eventual state is best understood as
solar illumination if the band, as per Ashton (and later also Talbott), was of
toroidal form.  What this also means is that the position of the ring,
and so also of Saturn itself, must have changed in relation to the present, but
still somehow hidden, Sun.  Any physical model that attempts to explain the
formation of the primeval Saturnian configuration has to account for this
change of position.

12.  The Beginning of Time

If what we have postulated so far actually transpired, it would follow that, 
during the time of darkness, man would have had no way of telling time.  With 
Saturn perpetually suspended overhead and with the Sun, the Moon, and the 
stars still apparently absent from the sky, there would have been nothing on 
which ancient man could have focused that would have enabled him to calculate 
the passage of time. Does man's collective memory has anything to say about
this?  And, if it does, would it not, of itself, serve to confirm the
postulate at hand?

On this point, as on many others, ancient man did not mince words.  As we have 
already seen, the Satapatha Brahmana informs us that while the Cosmic Egg 
"floated about for as long as the space of a year, the year, indeed, was not
then in existence".  Thus, in the Ugaritic pantheon, El, who was Saturn, "the
creator of created things",  was also called "the father of the years".  Not
only the year, but time itself was not. As the Malay Charmbook informs us:

"In the days when Haze bore Darkness, and Darkness Haze, when the Lord of 
the Outer Silence Himself was yet in the womb of Creation, before the 
existence of the names of Earth and Heaven, of God and Muhammad, of the 
Empyrean and Crystalline spheres, or of Space and Void, the Creator of 
the entire Universe pre-existed by Himself, and He was the Eldest 
Magician.  Now from before the beginning of time existed that Magician 
that is, God".

Or, as Macrobius tells us:

They [the ancients] conclude that, when there was chaos, no time existed, 
insofar as time is a fixed measure derived from the revolution of the
sky.  Time begins there; and of this is believed to have been born Kronos
who is Chronos [i.e. Time]I

The equation of Kronos/Saturn with Chronos/Time has long been contested by 
philologists.  Arthur Cook, commenting on the Philadelphians' identification
of Janus with Kronos/Saturnus, states that "The confusion of Ianus [the same
as Janus] with Kronos no doubt presupposes the usual blunder Kronos = Chronos,
which from the fifth century bc onwards queered the course of Greek theology".

The identification of Janus as Kronos, however, is not due to confusion 
anymore than the equation of Kronos with Chronos is due to a blunder. As
William Heidel noted:

"It is not for naught that Pherecydes identified Cronus [Kronos] with 
Chronos (Time), whose cycle is defined by the year.  The myths and 
festivals of Cronus- Saturn prove beyond a doubt that he was associated 
with the turn of the year, for the myth of the Golden Age, which 
coincided with the beginnings of mankind is connected with the reign of 
Cronus-Saturn.  In keeping with this fact is the recognized association
of Saturn with Janus."

This view has more recently been echoed by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha
von Dechend:

"It is not hidden from us that the indestructible laws of philology do 
not allow for the identification of Kronos and Chronos, although in
Greece to do so "was customary at all times" yet it seems advisable to
emphasize, on the one hand, that technical terminology has its own laws
and is not subject to the jurisdiction of linguists, and to point, on the
other hand, to one of the Sanskrit names of Saturn, i.e., "Kala", meaning
time".

And also:

"It should be stressed that the disinclination of philologists to allow 
for the "essential" connection of Chronos and Kronos rests upon the stern
belief that the "god" Saturn has nothing to do with the planet Saturn,
and upon the supposition that an expert in classical philology has
nothing whatever to learn from Indian texts.  Were it not so, they might
have stumbled over Kala, i.e., Chronos, as a name of Yama, i.e., Kronos,
alias the planet Saturn."

So, similarly, Livio Stecchini.

"That Time (Kala) was a name of Yama can also be learned from Burgess; 
that the Hindu Yama, the same as the Persian Yima, was Saturn can be
learned from Collitz.  This is the same as saying that Time was another
name for Saturn.

To the Hindus, the "Wheel of Time" is known as the Kala-cakra (or "chakra".)
Of importance to us is the fact that it was Brahma, i.e. Saturn, who is said
to turn this wheel of time.  In the Svetasvatara Upanishad it is stated that
"Some wise men, deluded, speak of Nature, and others of Time as the cause of
everything, but it is the greatness of God by which this Brahma-wheel is made
to turn".  Thus the same source alludes to Brahma as "the time of time".  The
Mundaka Upanishad proclaims that the year, indeed, came from Brahma.  What has
also significant meaning is the added fact that the waters of chaos, which we
have postulated to have originated in Saturn, were said to have arisen from
Kala (Time).

In the Atharva Veda it is stated that "Time is the lord of all, who was the 
father of Prajapati" but also that "time in the beginning [is or was] 
Prajapati", who was Saturn.  The Satapatha Brahmana tells us that "Vaishvanara 
[who was Agni]Itruly is the year, and Prajapati is the year".  In fact
Prajapati is alluded to as "the year" in numerous passages of the same work.
There, Varuna, another Saturnian deity, is also called "the year".  Vishnu,
also, has been equated with Saturn, so that it should not surprise us to find
this deity lauded as MahakalaQi.e. Great Time.  Shiva was also called Kala,
and that Shiva was Saturn we have indicated in more than one of our past
studies on the subject.  According to the Atharva Veda, Kala, who was both
Time and the planet Saturn, was considered the very first god.  Dhruva, the
Pole Star, was also an earlier name of Saturn, and, as such, the word dhruva
came to mean "time", "epoch", and/or "era".

Iranian time was personified as Zurvan.  According to Brandon, Zurvan was an 
ancient deity.  Van der Waerden tells us that in Armenian texts Saturn is 
called Zruan which is the same as Zurvan.  Norden claims that Kronos/Chronos
can hardly be other than Iranian in origin, by which he meant to equate
Kronos, and therefore Saturn, with Zurvan.  Kronos himself, of course, was
lauded as "the originator of times'.

In Egypt, Ra, who was Saturn, was made to say: "I am the maker of hours, the
creator of days, I am the opener of the festivals of the year".

In the Chinese Compendium of Wong-shi-Shing, we are told of a time when "PUan- 
ku came forth in the midst of the great chaotic void", having "existed before 
the shining of the Light".   We are further told that "After the chaos cleared 
away" or "the chaotic state passed away", "heaven appeared first in order, 
then earth".  Parallel statements inform us that "the atmosphere had changed
its character" or "the atmosphere gradually cleared", which seems to be the
same as saying that the chaotic state had cleared away.  It was then that "the
order of time was gradually settled" for, before then, "the day and night had
not yet been divided" but that, eventually, "day and night were distinguished
from each other".

The association of time with the planet Saturn could not, of course, have
eluded mythologists and, in seeking an explanation, they naturally appealed to
logic.  Back in 1875, Gustave Schlegel, citing Dupuis, justified the phenomenon
through the following commentary:

"This planet, with its slow and heavy walk, imitating age, drags itself 
along its path, in a manner of speaking; before finishing its revolution,
it would have seen a great number of men die whom it had seen born, so
slow was its paceIHe [i.e. Saturn] was the father of the years and the
centuriesIhis was the longest measure of time which nature seemed to give
for a single revolution of one of the celestial bodies or one of the
moving stars.  Is it not, therefore, natural to believe that the
Ancients, who had attributed to each star its domain and its function in
Nature, should have given to the planet Saturn the supervision of the
celestial movements which regulate the length of the years and the
centuries?"

A similar view was also offered by Livio Stecchini.

"Saturn's slow motion along its orbit, however, does not explain why the
planet was chosen to represent the year.  If any celestial body has ever
earned the right to represent the year, it surely would have to be the
Sun.  As an indicator of the passage of time, it remains supreme.  Even
the Moon would have been a better indicator with which to gauge the time.
More importantly, Dupuis', or Schlegel's, as also Stecchini's, exposition
does not explain what Saturn, as Time, had to do with creation.

As we have seen, it was the Saturnian deity who was held responsible for the
creation. In an Iranian Rivayat, this role is bestowed on Time: "Time is both
Creator and the Lord of Creation which it created".  This is paralleled by the
Atharva Veda which states that "Time created the earth'.

A curious passage concerning creation in a Hindu Brahmana brings various
elements together:

"Then the seed became a year. Before that time there was no year. Speech 
bore him so long as a year"

This is a multiple equation of much interest.  We saw earlier how the Seed 
turned into the Cosmic Egg.  We also saw how the Egg bore the creator within 
it. Here it is said that it was Speech that bore him.  Having equated both the 
Seed and the Word with the emanation of visible light which became an Egg, 
i.e., a circular band, the equivalence of Seed and Speech in the above
Brahmana becomes understandable.

What is of greater importance, however, is that instead of turning into a 
golden egg, the Seed is here stated to have become the year.  It is as if the 
Egg itself was thought of as the year.  This can be verified through another 
route.  Despite the fact that the waters were said to have come from Time, the 
reverse was just as true.  Thus the waters of chaos were also said to have 
produced the year, "the ordainer of the days and nights", which is the same as
saying that the waters produced the Egg and so the Egg must have been the
year.  It can, in fact, be said that this circle, or band, of light around
Saturn was visualized as the year personified.

More than that, the Maitri Upanishad states that "the year, verily, is 
Prajapati, [who] is Time'.  What this intimates is that what Hindu sources
term as "the year" was a synonym for "time".  This synonymity is also apparent
in Hebrew where "yom" (or "yowm"), which is normally taken to mean "day", has
the additional meaning of "year" but also "time".

In Egypt, Ptah, who was Saturn, was also called "the Lord of the Year".  Atum,
who was also Saturn, was called "The Lord of Time"  In view of the above, the
two epithets appear to be identical.

Both Ptah and Atum were associated with the Cosmic Egg; the former fashioned 
it, the later was contained within it.  According to Rundle Clark, Atum was so 
called because he was "the governor of the revolving egg" since, according to 
Egyptian thought, "time is regulated by the motion around the egg'.  It was 
similarly said of Chronos that the egg he fashioned "moved without slackening 
in a vast circle".  This brings to mind the Tahitian creator Ta aroa,
mentioned above, whose "shell was like an egg revolving in endless space".

If our postulate is correct, it therefore seems that it was the turning, or
revolving, of this circular band, or Cosmic Egg, that first served man as a
means of telling time.  It was this revolving band that the ancients alluded
to as the wheel of time, the Brahma-wheel of the Hindus. But how could the
ancients have counted, or kept track of, its rotations? The answer is that
they could not have, until the Egg, the circular band, split in two.  As they
revolved around the central orb, the position of the two halves, one of gold,
the other of silver, would have been enough to tell the ancients what time of
day it was.  It was like having a colossal clock suspended in the sky.

The correctness of this postulate can actually be verified.  As we saw above, 
the alchemists continued to remember the Cosmic Egg as "a fiery enclosure, a 
circle with a "sun-point" in the center", remembered as a symbol of "the 
ancient Saturn".  This symbol, a circle with a dot in the center, with which
the readers of this journal should be quite familiar, also known to
mythologists as "the male seed-point or bindu", was extensively used by the
ancient Egyptians as one of their numerous hieroglyphs.  It stood, among other
things, for the Aten which Talbott has already identified as the Saturnian
band and, therefore, equivalent to the Cosmic Egg.  What is, however,
interesting to the present study is that the same sign was also chosen as a
determinative for "time", thus showing that the idea of "time" was definitely
associated with the Saturnian band.

Our postulate can additionally be verified through other means.  As we have
earlier indicated, Saturn was later to be encompassed by seven rings.  It is
therefore interesting to find the Atharva Veda lauding Kala (Time) with these
words: "With seven wheels does this time ride, seven naves has heI".

Time, it therefore seems, came into being with the bisecting of this band into
two crescents.  The crescents were seen to revolve because the Earth, sharing
Saturn's axis of rotation, was itself rotating.  Thus, even though they were
following a cosmic scenario entirely different from the one we are proposing,
de Santillana and von Dechend could not help but realize that mythic themes
pertained to a "Great Game played over the aeons, a never ending tale of
positions and relations, starting from an assigned Time Zero".

13. In Conclusion

It is accepted that this study has raised problems that have yet to be 
resolved.  The real nature of the primeval darkness and the manner in which 
the Sun was shielded from mortal eyes has yet to be analyzed.  The survival,
and quality of life, in gloom must also be investigated.  So, also, must the
cause of Saturn's flare-up, the manner in which the golden Egg, or band of
light, was formed, to say nothing of its constitution.

Having lived in darkness for untold ages, the shedding of the light would have 
affected humankind in ways unknown to us.  Familiar objects, including animals 
and humans, would no longer have looked the same and, in truth, the mytho- 
historical record has a few things to say concerning this effect.  The very
nature of the air seems also to have been affected and distance itself, so
important to those early hunters and food gatherers, seems to have undergone
an apparent, even if perhaps illusory, change.

The reckoning of time would not have immediately burdened mankind and, for
long ages, the nomenclature which became attached to this novel element of
life led to a confusion of terms which still encumbers language to this day.

Much more can be said about this complex subject.  A line, however, must be
drawn somewhere and, for the time being at least, this is where I have chosen
to draw it.  Future studies will hopefully shed as much light on our
understanding of these primeval events as the planet Saturn once did.

* This paper, first drafted in 1978-79, owes much to Roger Ashton and David
Lorton, both of whom had a hand in ironing out some of its original creases.
Mainly, however, I wish to dedicate this final version to the late David
Griffard who, more than anybody else, helped in elucidating its original
ambiguities. Even so, I alone take full responsibility for the often bizarre
ideas herein reflected while I burden no one with the physical difficulties
these ideas raise.

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birth of Athena; Oedipus in Compartive Mythology; etc.

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I. Velikovsky, ROn Saturn and the Flood,S KRONOS V:1 (Fall 1979), p. 7; See
also idem, Mankind in Amnesia (N.Y., 1982), p. 99.

O. Reichenbach, On Some of the Remarkable Features in the Evolution of the
Earth (London, 1884), p. 5.

H. Tresman & B. OUGheoghan, RThe Primordial Light?S SIS Review II:2 (December
1977), p. 6.

H. Tresman, RGeological Genesis,S C & C Workshop 1992:2, pp. 4ff.

F.F. Hall, RSolar System Studies,S Part 2, AEON I:4 (July 1988), p.26.

Joannes Laurentius Lydus, De Mensibus 4:2 (emphasis added).

Ovid, Fasti I:103.

Ibid., I:111 (emphasis added).

M. Fauconnet, RMythology of the Two Americas,S New Larousse Encyclopedia of
Mythology (London, 1972), p.427.

R.K.G. Temple, The Sirius Mystery (N.Y., 1976), p.27.

M. Griaule & G. Dieterlen, Le Renard Pale (Paris, 1965), p.292.

R.K.G. Temple, op. cit., p.29.

Ibid., in toto.

Jean-Pierre Hallet (with A. Pelle), Pygmy Kitabu (N.Y., 1973), p.385.

H. Tresman & B. OUGheoghan, op. cit., p.36 (emphasis added).

R.W. Wescott, RAster and Disaster: The Golden AgeQI,S KRONOS X:1 (Fall 1984),
p.42.

D. Talbott, RMother Goddess and Warrior-Hero,S Part One, AEON I:5 (September
1988), p.43.

J.A. Wilson, REgyptian Myths, Tales and Mortuary Texts,S in J. Pritchard,
Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, 1969), p.
3.

E.A.W. Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol.I (N.Y., 1969), pp.131 ff., 400,
501.

D. Talbott, ROn Models and Scenarios,S AEON I:4 (July 1988), p.7.

Satapatha Brahmana II:2:4:1.

H. Hirnschall, The Song of Creation (West Vancouver, 1979), myth 9.

R. Van Over, Sun Songs: Creation Myths From Around the World (N.Y., 1980), p.
381.

Ibid., p.382.

Ibid.

M. de Civrieux, Watunna: An Orinoco Creation Cycle, as reviewed by I. Wolfe in
CSIS Newsletter 1:3 (June 1982), pp.6-7.

R. Ashton, RThe Age of Purple Darkness,S unpublished, p.8.

Rig Veda X:129:3.

Ibid.

A.A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology (Strassburg, 1897), p.14.

Ibid.

J. Bierhorst, The Red Swan: Myths and Tales of the American Indians (N.Y.,
1976), p.39.

Ibid., p.52. (NOTE: By RcycloneS it is more than obvious that the later Axis
Mundi is meant, but this subject does not concern the present study).

R. Van Over, op. cit., p.28.

D. Griffard to D. Cardona, November 29, 1979, private communique (emphasis
added.)

Transcription of Genesis 1:1-2, with Hebrew interpositions.

D. Cardona, RLet There Be Light,S KRONOS III:3 (Spring 1978), p.34.

I am indebted to both Curtis Taub and David Lorton for this revelation.

Hesiod, Theogony 115-116.

L. Delaporte, RPhoenician Mythology,S New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology
(London, 1972), p.82.

H. Gregory, The Metamorphosis (N.Y., 1960), p.31.

L. Graham, Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (N.Y., 1979), p.15.

The Tao Teh Ching, in Lin Yutang, The Wisdom of China and India (N.Y., 1942),
p.596.

H.S. Bellamy, Moons, Myths and Man (London, 1949 revised edition), p.150.

L. Delaporte, loc. cit.

W.W. Baudissin, Studien zur Semitischen Religioneschichte (Leipzig, 1876), i,
11f, 195.

G. Maspero, The Struggle of the Nations (London, 1896), p.168.

J. Gray, Near Eastern Mythology (London, 1969), p.117.

A. Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis (Chicago, 1942),p.10; M. Vieyra, REmpires of
the Ancient Near East: The Hymns of Creation,S Larousse World Mythology
(London, 1972), p.65.

G. Michanowsky, The Once and Future Star (N.Y., 1977), p.49.

A. Heidel, op. cit., p.84.

Again, I am indebted to David Lorton for this revelation, but see also A.B.
Cook, Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, Vol.II, Part II (N.Y., 1965), p.1038.

A. Heidel, op. cit., p.86.

D. Cardona, op. cit., p.39; idem, RThe Mystery of the Pleiades,S KRONOS III:4
(Summer 1978), p.28.

E.A.W. Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol.I (N.Y., 1895/1967), p.283.

Ibid., p.341.

Idem, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, Vol.I (N.Y., 1911/1973), p.142.

A. Piankoff, The Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon (N.Y., 1955), p.121.

E.A.W. Budge, op. cit., p.131.

Satapatha Brahmana 11:1:6:1.

Rig Veda X:129.

Ibid, I:163:1.

Ibid., VIII:41:8.

Satapatha Brahmana VII:5:2:56.

N.M. Sarna, Understanding Genesis (N.Y., 1976), p.13.

E.A.W. Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians , Vol.I (N.Y., 1904/69), p.295.

Ibid., p.510.

Ibid., p.511.

Idem., The Egyptian Book of the Dead (N.Y., 1895/1967), p.251.

Idem, as cited by R. Van Over, Sun Songs: Creation Myths from Around the World
(N.Y., 1980), p.253.

Laws of Manu I:6-8.

Satapatha Brahmana X:6:5:1-7.

R. Ashton, RThe Age of Purple Darkness,S unpublished manuscript, p.8.

Idem, RSaturn: The First of the Gods,S unpublished manuscript, p.17.

Satapatha Brahmana, loc. cit.

E.A.W. Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians (N.Y., 1904/1969), p.499.

Eusebii Pamphili, Evangelicae Praeparationis, Book I, chapter X.

R. Van Over, op. cit., p.354.

J. Purce, The Mystic Spiral: Journey of the Soul (N.Y., 1974) p.20.

H. Gregory, The Metamorphosis (N.Y., 1960), p.31.

RThe Book of the Overthrow of Apophis,S as cited by F.G. Bratton, Myths and
Legends of the Ancient Near East (N.Y., 1970), pp.63-64 (emphasis added).

E.A.W. Budge, op. cit., p.300 (emphasis added).

Idem, The Egyptian Book of the Dead (N.Y., 1895/1967), p.xcviii.

R. Anthes, RMythology in Ancient Egypt,S Mythologies of the Ancient World (N.
Y., 1961), p.50.

E.A.W. Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol.I (N.Y., 1904/69), pp.503-504.

Qoran, sura 11.

Rig Veda X:129:3 as translated by A.A. Macdonell in Swami Nikhilananda,The
Upanishads (London, 1963).

Rig Veda X:129:3 as translated by R. Panikkar, The Vedic Experience (U. of C.,
1977).

Laws of Manu I:v:5.

R. Van Over, op. cit., p.299.

P. Wheeler, The sacred Scriptures of the Japanese (N.Y., 1952), p.387.

D. Wender, Hesiod and Theognis (Harmondsworth, 1976), p.27.

R. Graves, The Greek Myths, Vol.I (Harmondsworth, 1964), p.33.

I. Donnelly, Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel, reissued as The Destruction
of Atlantis (N.Y., 1971), p.208.

E. Lot-Falck, RSiberia: The Three Worlds,S Larousse World Mythology (London,
1972), p.433.

Idem, REskimo Lands: Man Against Nature,S in ibid., p.441.

H.H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States , Vol.III (1874-76), p.
98.

J. Bierhorst, op. cit., p.39.

I. Donnelly, op. cit., p.222.

R. Van Over, op. cit., p.23.

C. Burland, RNorth American Indian Mythology,S Mythology of the Americas
(London, 1970), p.120.

D. Cardona, RLet There Be Light,S KRONOS III:3 (Spring 1978), pp.38, 55.

R.M. Lowery, editorUs note to H. Tresman & B. OUGheoghan, op. cit., p.38.

For further examples see, R. Van Over, op. cit., pp.35, 36, 37, 48, 61, 63,
67, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90.

I. Donnelly, op. cit., p.215.

M. Lon-Portilla, Pre-Columbian Literatures of Mexico (Norman, 1969), pp.56-57.

I. Nicholson, Mexican and Central American Mythology (London, 1967), p.26.

A. Metraux, RSouth America: Creation and Destruction,S Larousse World
Mythology (London, 1972), p.483.

H. Osborne, RSouth American Mythology,S Mythology of the Americas (London,
1970), p.294 (emphasis added).

J. de Betanzos, Suma y Narracion de los Incas, as cited by H. Osborne in ibid.
, p.332.

As quoted by J.N. Sammer, RThe Cosmology of Tawantinsuyu,S KRONOS IX:2 (Winter
1984), p.22.

Ibid.

J-C Valla, The Civilization of the Incas (Geneva, 1978), p.66.

D. Talbott, RMother Goddess and Warrior-Hero,S AEON I:5 (September 1988), p.42
(emphasis as given).

T.R. Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt (N.Y., 1959), p.74.

J-C Valla, loc. cit. (emphasis added).

H. Osborne, op. cit., p.338 (emphasis added).

R. Nelson, Popul Vuh (Boston, 1976), p.33.

R. Van Over, op. cit., p.108.

A.M. Panoff, ROceania: Society and Tradition,S Larousse World Mythology
(London, 1972), p.507.

L. Graham, loc. cit.

G.H. Luquet, ROceanic Mythology,S New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology
(London, 1972), pp.457, 466.

Ibid.

A.M. Panoff, op. cit., p.511.

P. Schebesta, Among Forest Dwarfs in Malaya, as cited by M.K. Jessup, The
Expanding Case for the UFO (N.Y., 1957), p.231.

R. Van Over, op. cit., p.392.

G. Parrinder, African Mythology (London, 1967), p.20.

E.A.W. Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, Vol.II (N.Y., 1911/73), p.
364.

M. Griaule & G. Dieterlen, RA Sudanese Sirius System,S in R.K.G. Temple, op.
cit., pp.36, 37, 49.

V.C. Mutwa, Indaba, My Children (Johannesburg, 1965), p.3.

Ibid. (NOTE: As we will soon see, Time and Saturn were one.)

Auna, et al, RDiscontent of the Gods in Darkness,S as cited by T. Henry,
Ancient Tahiti (Honolulu, 1928), p.404.

V. Ions, Indian Mythology (London, 1967), p.25; A.B. Cook, Zeus: A Study in
Ancient Religion, Vol.II, Part II (N.Y., 1965), p.1035. But see also D.
Cardona, RLet There Be Light,S KRONOS III:3 (Spring 1978), p.37 for a Cosmic
Egg that was said to have been silver in color.

The Secrets of Enoch XXV:1.

Linga Purana I:59:6-9.

J. Bierhorst, op. cit., p.38 (paragraphing altered).

F. Waters (with O. White Bear Fredericks), Book of the Hopi (N.Y., 1963), p.6.

D. Talbott, RThe Mythical History of the Comet Venus,S Part I, AEON II:4 (MAY
1991), P.31.

D. Cardona, RThe Sun of Night,S KRONOS III:1 (Fall 1977), p.31 where further
sources are cited.

F.F. Hall, op. cit., p.26.

H. Tresman, loc. cit.

L. Ellenberger, RStill Missing the Point on Ice Cores,S AEON II:1 (June 1989),
P.118.

H.A. Nieper, Revolution in Technology, Medicine and Society (Oldenburg, 1985),
pp.41-42.

Ibid., pp.46-47.

Ibid., p.49.

J. Schefter, RUranus!S Popular Science (May 1986), p.121; see also Scientific
American (January 1987), pp.30-38.

N. Henbest, New Scientist (July 31, 1986), p.42.

G. Hunt, The Guardian (September 3, 1986).

F.F. Hall, op. cit., p.27.

The Gospel according to St. John 1:1.

F. von Hgel, RGospel of St. John,S Encyclop>dia Britannica, Vol. 13 (1959 ed.
), p.99.

Psalms 33:6.

J. Danielou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity (London, 1964), pp.117, 119,
121.

The Gospel according to St. John 1:14.

J. Danielou, op. cit., p.123.

L.M. Greenberg & W.B. Sizemore, RJerusalemQCity of Venus,S KRONOS III:3
(Spring 1978), p.79. See also, P. Wendland, RJesus als Saturnalienknig,S
Hermes, 33 (1898), pp.175 ff. as cited in ibid.

R. Van Over, op. cit., p.272. (NOTE: The seven gods embracing the kosmos,
equivalent to the seven archangels surrounding the Logos, translate as the
seven circles embracing the Saturnian sun, but this is a topic which is outside
the scope of the present study).

J.M. Allegro, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (N.Y., 1970), p.21 (emphasis
added).

Ibid.

R. Bastide, RAfrica: Magic and Symbolism,S Larousse World Mythology (London,
1972), p.528 (emphasis added).

F. von Hgel, op. cit., pp.99, 100.

R. Van Over, op. cit., p.175.

R.T. Rundle Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt (N.Y., 1959), p.79.

Ibid., p.255 (emphasis added).

W. Beyerlin, Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating to the Old Testament
(Philadelphia), p.14.

D.N. Talbott, The Saturn Myth (N.Y., 1980), p.12.

Satapatha Brahmana XI:5:8:1-2.

Rig Veda X:3:5 (emphasis added).

V.S. Apte, The Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary (Delhi, 1965), pp.359,
420.

Ibid., pp.804, 821, 920.

R. Ashton, RSaturn: The First of the Gods,S unpublished manuscript, p.11.

D. Cardona, RLet There Be Light,S KRONOS III:3 (Spring 1978), pp.34 ff.

D. Talbott, RMother Goddess and Warrior Hero,S Part One, AEON I:5 (September
1988), pp.45-46 (emphasis added).

Pyramid Texts 1039-1040.

D. Talbott, op. cit., p.46; see also idem, RThe Mythical History of the Comet
Venus,S Part I, AEON II:4 (May 1991), p.33.

D. Talbott, in J. Gibson, RSaturnUs Age,S Research Communications Network
Newsletter #3 (October 15, 1977), p.3.

D. Douglass, RSome Theological Implications of Catastrophism,S SIS Workshop
4:1 (July 1981), pp.33-34.

R. Ashton, RThe Incredible Theme,S unpublished manuscript (November 26, 1983),
p.1.

Pyramid Text 1405.

Rig Veda I:154:4.

R. Ashton, RThe Polar Planet,S unpublished manuscript (February 1984), p.3.

V.S. Apte, op. cit., p.244.

M. Zysman, RSaturn MythQA Challenge to the Planetary Hypothesis,S Kataklysmos
(May 19, 1987), p.6.

V.S. Apte, op. cit., p.1002.

W.C. Rufus & Hsing-chih Tien, The Soochow Astronomical Chart (Michigan, 1945),
p.23.

E.A.W. Budge, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary Vol.II (N.Y., 1920/78), p.
627.

W.A. Heidel, The Day of Yahweh (N.Y., 1929), p.456; M. Oldfield Howie, The
Encircled Serpent (N.Y., 1955), pp.64-65.

J. Strong, Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary(Madison, 1890), p.17.

Plato, Epinomis 101, 83.

L.E. Rose, RThe Afar Triangle as the Nether Reaches of Eden and Babel,S AEON
II:4 (May 1991), p.23.

J.G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, Vol.II (N.Y., 1890/1981), p.118-119.

R. Van Over, op. cit., p.72.

E.W. West, The Sacred Books of the East, as quoted by A.B. Cook, Zeus: A Study
in Ancient Religion , Vol.II, Part II (N.Y., 1965), p.1036.

Ibid., (emphasis added).

D. Douglass, loc. cit.

D. Talbott in J. Gibson, loc. cit.

M.J. Vermaseren, Mithras: The Secret God (N.Y., 1963), p.309.

R.C. Thompson, The Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh and
Babylon (London, 1900), p.249.

Proverbs 8:27-29.

P. Jensen, Die Kosmologie der Babylonier (Strassburg, 1890), pp.188 ff.; S.
Langdon, Semitic Mythology (N.Y., 1964), p.102.

PaoraUi, RCreation of the World,S as cited by T. Henry, Ancient Tahiti
(Honolulu, 1928), p.336 (emphasis added).

D. Cardona, RLet There Be light,S KRONOS III:3 (Spring 1978), p.38.

F.F. Hall, op. cit., p.26.

D. Cardona, op. cit., p.42.

Laws of Manu I:v:5-9.

J.M. Allegro, op. cit., p.viii.

Ibid., pp.20-21. (NOTE: The philological equations which led Allegro to this
conclusion are too complex to be included here so that the interested reader is
asked to consult AllegroUs notes on the subject.)

A. Wilder, Appendix to H.M. Westropp & C.S. Wake, Ancient Symbol Worship (N.Y.
, 1875), p.85.

D.N. Talbott, The Saturn Myth (N.Y., 1980), p.12 (emphasis added), but see
also pp.123, 130, 205.

Ibid., p.67.

R.T.R. Clark, op. cit., p.74 (emphasis added).

Atharva Veda IV:2.

A.B. Cook, op. cit., p.1035.

Ibid., p.1036 (emphasis added).

C.G. Jung, as cited by D.N. Talbott, op. cit., p.68.

A.B. Cook, op. cit., p.1035.

V.S. Apte, op. cit., p.212.

A.B. Cook, op. cit., pp.1035-1036.

Ibid., p.1036.

Ibid., p.1035.

Ibid., p.1036.

Ibid., p.1035.

D.N. Talbott, The Saturn Myth (N.Y., 1980), pp.318-319.

R. Ashton, RSaturn: The First of the Gods,S unpublished manuscript (Oct. 10,
1982), p.29.

D. Talbott, RGuidelines to the Saturn Myth,S KRONOS X:3 (Summer 1985), p.51.

A. Caquot, RWestern Semitic Lands: The Idea of the Supreme God,S Larousse
World Mythology (London, 1972), p.87.

R. Van Over, op. cit., pp.386-387 (emphasis added).

Macrobius, Saturnalia I:22:8.

A.B. Cook, op. cit., Vol.II, Part I, p.374.

W.A. Heidel, The Day of Yahweh (N.Y., 1929), pp.468-469.

G. de Santillana & H. von Dechend, HamletUs Mill: An Essay on Myth and the
Frame of Time (Boston, 1969), p.135.

Ibid., p.373.

L.C. Stecchini, RChronos and Kronos,S KRONOS VII:2 (Winter 1982), p.41.

E. Burgess, Surya Siddhanta (Calcutta, 1860/1935), p.5.

H. Collitz, RKonig Yima und Saturn,S Festschrift Pavry (1933), pp.86-108.

W.E. Begley, VisnuUs Flaming Wheel: The Iconography of the Sudarsana-Cakra (N.
Y., 1973), p.96.

F.O. Schrader, Introduction to the Pancaratra and the Ahirbudhnya-Samhita
(Madras, 1916), pp.106, 132.

R. Van Over, op. cit., p.308.

Ibid.

Ibid., p.311.

Atharva Veda XIX:54.

Ibid., XIX:53:8-10.

Satapatha Brahmana V:2:5:14.

Ibid., IV:1:4:10.

V.S. Apte, op. cit., p.749.

H. de Wilman-Grabowska, RBrahmanic Mythology,S Asiatic Mythology (London,
1972), p.120.

Atharva Veda XIX:53:2.

V.S. Apte, op. cit., p.531.

S.G.F. Brandon, Creation Legends of the Ancient Near East (1963), p.203.

Ibid.

B.L. van der Waerden, Science Awakening II: The Birth of Astronomy
(Nederlands, 1974), p.194.

Norden, Die Geburt des Kindes, as cited by W.A. Heidel, op. cit., p.468.

G. de Santillana & H. von Dechend, op. cit., p.133.

E.A.W. Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol.I (N.Y., 1969), p.383.

As cited by I. Donnelly, Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel, republished as
The Destruction of Atlantis (N.Y., 1971), pp.210-211.

G. Schlegel, Uranographie Chinoise (Leiden, 1875), p.628 (as translated
privately by the author by Birgit Leisching & Gayle Chin).

L.C. Stecchini, loc. cit.

S.G.F. Brandon, op. cit., p.204.

Atharva Veda XIX:53:6-10.

R. Van Over, op. cit., p.318.

Rig Veda X:190:2.

Maitri Upanishad VI:15.

J. Strong, op. cit., p.48.

M.S. Holmberg, The God Ptah (Lund, 1946), pp.22, 64, 77, 178-180.

R.T.R. Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt (N.Y., 1959), p.56

W.K.C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion (N.Y., 1966), p.137.

A.W. Watts, RForewordS to J.W. Perry, Lord of the Four Quarters: Myths of the
Royal Father (N.Y., 1970), p.vii.

S. Mewhinney, RVelikovsky, Mars, and the Eighth Century B.C.,S KRONOS XI:3
(Summer 1986), pp.51-52

D. Cardona, RThe Mystery of the Pleiades,S KRONOS III:4 (Summer 1978), p.38.

M. Bloomfield, Hymns of the Atharva-Veda (Delhi, 1897/1964), p.224.

G. de Santillana & H. von Dechend, op. cit., p.177.

AEON Vol. III, No. 3