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A Catastrophics Newsletter
VOL III, No. 17
Dec 15, 1999

THE DEMANDS OF THE SATURNIAN CONFIGURATION THEORY
Excerpts from Dwardu Cardona's SIS Silver Jubilee Paper
Summaries by Amy Acheson

INTRODUCTION

I will make no apologies here for the fact that this theory was
constructed on the basis of the mytho-historical record rather than
through astrophysical considerations. I will only say in passing that,
other than its mythological content, the mytho- historical record also
incorporates the world-wide astronomical beliefs of our ancient
forefathers, and that these beliefs coincide with their mytho-religious
convictions. Ancient astronomical beliefs can therefore be considered
together with mythology as a unified whole regardless of the fact that
what comes to light in an in-depth research of such subjects ends up
describing a Solar System that was entirely alien to the one we now
inhabit.

Be that as it may, the outlandishness of what my research was uncovering
made me disbelieve the entire thing and I must honestly say that it was
not until I had read Hamlet's Mill that I finally accepted all that I had
unearthed. If, as I reasoned at the time, scholars of the caliber of
Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, the authors of Hamlet's
Mill, had been able to unearth the same set of bizarre situations, I could
not be that far off the mark myself.

Amy adds:

The full introduction can be found at the following SIS Silver Jubilee
website, and the full paper is scheduled to be published early next year
by the SIS Review.

http://www.knowledge.co.uk/sis/silver/

CARDONA:

What do I mean by 'demands'?  Theories do not stand, if they are to stand
at all, in isolation.  They raise certain demands.  For instance, the
theory concerning the nuclear fueling of the Sun demands that the Sun shed
a vast amount of neutrinos. To date, only about one third of the predicted
amount have been detected.  The theory concerning the Big Bang demands a
vast amount of matter that should be there.  To date, this so-called dark
matter is still being looked for.  These two theories should not be
allowed to stand, but because science is optimistic in that it will
eventually detect both the missing neutrinos and the missing dark matter,
they are _allowed_ to stand.  Personally, I shall not use similar optimism
as a crutch.  ... On the contrary, I aim to present a series of demands
which this theory raises, both within itself as also through hard science,
and how these can be met.  The list is not meant to be comprehensive, but
it should suffice to illustrate the significance and consequence of the
evidence. ... I neither have the space nor the time to deal with all the
planets that once constituted the Saturnian configuration.  I have
therefore decided to concentrate on the two most important bodies of the
alignment - namely Saturn and the earth itself. ...

THE AGE OF DARKNESS

My version of the Saturnian scenario posits that man's earliest memory of
the sky above him was one in which the planet Saturn was the only visible
celestial body which was seen looming large in the sky in an all-pervading
darkness -- an endless night.  One of the most persistent of beliefs among
the civilizations of the ancient nations ... is that during a time usually
remembered as 'the beginning' Earth had been engulfed in darkness.  Time
and again ... we are told that 'in the beginning' there was no Sun, no
Moon, no stars.

Amy:

Here Cardona supplies a sampling of the enormous number of myths from
every continent on earth which support this thesis of a common beginning
to all creation stories.  He adds that this darkness was primarily in the
sky, but that it also affected the earth below, with Saturn radiating
feebly above, in the words of the Linga Purana, 'like a glow-worm.'

CARDONA:

... keep in mind now that the Saturn theory posits that Saturn and Earth
shared the same axis of rotation, so that Saturn, at this time the only
luminary visible in the sky, was not seen to rise and set, but remained
ever visible, fixed to one spot in Earth's north celestial sphere.  Add to
this the perpetual night ... and mankind would have been kept from being
able to tell the passage of time.

This, then, becomes one of the theory's first demands, because, if mankind
was not able to tell the passage of time during this period, the
mytho-historical record itself should tell us as much. Does it?

THE TIMELESS ERA

Amy:

Cardona recounts many myths which not only explicitly claim that time once
did not exist, but others which refer to an era when there was no time,
and several in which the terms 'time' and 'year' and 'day' are strangely
equivalent.  He ends up recounting the Chinese record of an age in which
'the day and night had not yet been divided.'

CARDONA:

... the first demand raised by our interpretation of the mytho-
historical record is actually met by that same record ... [and] the demand
we have just seen being met raises another -- because, since the record
does treat of an era during which time did not exist, it should also treat
of a following era during which time was recognized as having begun.  Do
we find such records among the beliefs of the ancients?

THE BEGINNING OF TIME

Not only do such records exist, but quite a few of them connect the
beginning of time directly with Saturn.

Amy:

Here Cardona reveals a sampling of myths which both make connections
between Saturn and time and reveal Saturn as the originator of time.  He
points out that conventional mythologists have also noticed this
connection, and have taken great pains to explain it away.

CARDONA:

... as far back as 1875, attempts were being made to justify the
phenomenon by appealing to the planet's present lagging orbital pace.  
... However, slow as Saturn might move, it _moves_, and, in that respect,
it is no different than the other planets.  Besides, why would the
_beginning_ of time be associated with the planets solely because of its
slow pace?  Or, better still, why would Saturn's sluggish amble have led
to the belief that time _must_ have had a beginning -- that, at one period
of the ages, time did not exist?

Or why would Saturn have been chosen to represent the year?  If any
celestial body can presently claim the right to represent the year, it
surely would have been the Sun.  ...  our ancient forebears ... would
hardly have even noticed the planet Saturn if it appeared , like now, as
nothing but a pin point of light in the night sky, let alone have noticed
its slow advance across the night sky.

THE SATURNIAN SUN

CARDONA:  
One of the themes I wish to touch upon concerns the model's prediction
that Saturn had once shone as a virtual sun.  More than that, the model
also posits that what past mythologists have identified as a bevy of
sun-gods - such as the Assyro-Babylonian Shamash, the Egyptian Ra, the
Indic Surya, the Greek Helios - are actually misidentified Saturnian suns.  
In the case of Shamash, of course, the issue is at once settled by
appealing to those very ancients who venerated the god. . . . despite the
objection of most modern mythologists, the case is really closed since the
Assyro-Babylonians themselves vouched for the identity of Shamash as a
name of the planet we call Saturn.

Amy:

Cardona then discusses the identification of the Egyptian Ra with the sun,
an identification he personally found more difficult to accept.

CARDONA:

And yet, here is precisely where the method I have been expounding proved
itself - because, if the theory demanded that Ra was really a
personification of Saturn rather than the Sun, it should also demand that
the characteristics and motions ascribed to Ra will not be found to fit
those of the Sun.

Amy:

Quoting from Jastrow, Boll, Budge, and the Pyramid texts, CARDONA
describes the characteristics and motions of Ra, as a deity that reigned
within the Circles, then further identifies this Circle as the "Duat" the
"underworld", which, according to Budge, was located "away beyond the
earth, probably in the sky."

CARDONA:

It is thus obvious that, whatever Ra once signified, it was a celestial
body that resided within a circle or band or ring - nay, within a nest of
concentric circles or bands or rings.  As we all know, the Sun does not
send forth its rays into a circle;  it does not reside in a ring or nest
of rings.  The planet Saturn, however, does.

. . . under certain conditions, the Sun is seen to be surrounded by . . .
atmospheric refraction which lends a halo to the solar orb.  But not only
is this too rare an apparition to have earned Ra his title of 'Governor of
the Circle,' it is also a phenomenon which is restricted to the northern
regions and hardly, if ever, seen at the latitude of Egypt.  But there is
more.

Amy:

Cardona recounts the widespread and unusual belief by many ancient
cultures that Saturn was the "night sun" or the "sun of night."  Saturn
was also remembered as a 'radiant green disk' and Cardona quotes an
Egyptian hymn which refer to Saturn's 'beams of emerald light.'

CARDONA:

Consider further the motions of the celestial object called Ra.  In a
statement found in one of the Coffin Texts, the deity is addressed with
these words:  'You shall go up upon the great West side of the sky and go
down upon the great East side of the earth.' Is this not contrary to what
the Sun does?  Does the Sun 'go up' in the west?  Does it 'go down' in the
east?  Thus Faulkner, who translated this passage, could not help stating
that this 'unexpected reversal of the points of the compass is
incomprehensible' - and ended up by blaming what to him was an
inconsistency on 'a blunder in an early copy which no one has noticed or
at least attempted to correct.' This explanation, however, presupposes
that there must be other texts which give the rising and setting of Ra
correctly.  But, as David Talbott has indicated, 'wherever the direction
of the [sun] ship's movement is explicitly connected with the phases of
morning and evening, the texts always reverse the direction expected by
the solar interpretation.

More than that, when sailing in his ship, or boat, Ra is said to move down
at dawn, and 'upstream' at night contrary to what we see the Sun doing in
our sky.  How, then, can mythologists continue to perpetuate the lie that
the Egyptian Ra was a personification of the Sun?

CARDONA CONTINUES:

THE POLAR STATION

But hold on - someone may have already noticed.  If, as the model assumes,
Saturn appeared motionless in the earth's north celestial sphere, how
could it have been seen to rise and set, even if contrary to the way the
Sun does?  This is a point that troubled me for some time until, with Dave
Talbott, I came to realize that the fault lay with mythologists and not
mythology.  Or, to state it more correctly, the fault lay with those who
had translated the ancient myths.  Not that I blame them because, after
all, they only had the arrangement of the present sky to work with.  In
short, when it comes to the Egyptian Ra, the terms 'rising' and 'setting'
were actually mistranslations.  If we were to translate the Egyptian texts
concerning Ra literally, and forget about what the Sun is supposed to do,
we find that the light of the god is simply said to 'come forth' and
'recede'.  The god himself 'comes out' and 'goes in.'

Egyptologists, of course, will claim that this was the way in which the
Egyptians alluded to the rising and setting of the Sun - and, as I said,
one cannot really blame them.  But, as Talbott noted, when we say today
that the moon comes out at night, we do not really mean that it rises, but
that it grows bright.  And so, also, with Ra - the god did not rise and
set; he simply grew bright and dimmed.  And this is vindicated by the
additional fact that the god was said to come forth and recede while
remaining em hetep, that is, 'at rest' or 'in one spot.'

And, in fact, it was this immobility of Saturn, stated of the god and of
the planet, that made me realize very early in my research, together with
Talbott, but independent of him, that Saturn once occupied a stable
position in Earth's north celestial sphere.

AMY:

Cardona then quotes Assyro-Babylonian, Hebrew, and Egyptian sources which
translate the meaning of local names for Saturn as 'the steady planet' and
'the resting planet'.  He speaks of rituals in which Saturn is referred to
as 'without motion' and 'without movement.' He quotes the Makiritare
Indians of Venezuela, 'Wanadi is like a sun that never sets.'

CARDONA:

. . . If Ra was the Sun, as mythologists would have us believe, why was it
said to have been without movement?

Unless I am mistaken, there are only two ways in which the planet Saturn
could have appeared suspended motionless in the sky without rising and
setting.  The first, and most believable, is to assume, as Lynn Rose has
done, that Earth orbited Saturn in phase-lock, very much as the Moon does
in relation to Earth, thus always pointing the same hemisphere toward
Saturn.

AMY:

The second way in which Saturn could have appeared suspended motionless in
the sky is if it were stationed at the celestial pole.  Cardona quotes
from Egyptian, Chinese, Babylonian, Iranian, and Celtic myths, a few of
the many hundreds of traditions which place Saturn in the north.

He quotes Lynn Rose in Lynn's belief that after the phase-lock era of
Saturn came to a close, the ancients knew of no other "immovable station
of the sky" in which to place Saturn, so universally revised their myths
to locate Saturn at the pole.  Cardona also mentioned as a possibility
David Talbott's suggestion that Saturn may have moved from phase-lock to
polar station.  Either way, Cardona says that the polar position of Saturn
is an integral part of global mythology.

CARDONA:

What is of additional importance, however, is the fact that the record of
the ancients does not describe this strange situation always in the same
manner, but, on the contrary, in a hundred different ways which speaks
against a diffusionist borrowing of the belief.

DWARDU CARDONA:

But what of the demands which this postulate raises? Can they, too, be
met?

The postulate concerning the former polar station of the planet Saturn
raises more than one demand, but I will only touch upon one-and it will
serve to show that physical requirements, as well as those which the
mytho-historical record itself answers, can be met.

THE LITHIC BULGE

We all know how terrestrial tides are raised; they are caused by the
attraction of the Sun and Moon on Earth's oceanic waters.  .

. . Now consider: With the massive Saturn in proximity to Earth, the
tides that would have been raised should have exceeded those at present.
And since Earth's tides are aggravated when the attractive force of the
Moon is added to that of the Sun, it stands to reason that the additional
pull of Venus and Mars, which the theory dictates to have been in direct
line with Saturn and Earth, should have raised the northern tide even
more. More than that, with Saturn having been positioned in Earth's north
celestial sphere, terrestrial tides should have accumulated at Earth's
north polar region. The hydrosphere, moreover, would not have been the
only terrestrial element to respond to Saturn's attractive force. The
atmosphere should also have piled up at Earth's northern areas. And so,
also, should have Earth's crust. This, then is what the Saturnian thesis
demands. Do we find it so?

Well, let's be fair now. What was, no longer is, so that we cannot now
take a trip up north to see if the water of the world is actually piled up
in a tide around the north pole. Earth's crust, however, is a different
mater. Earth's hydrosphere and atmosphere would have easily-although not
necessarily suddenly- have rebounded to settle in a more uniform shell
around the world Earth's crust, on the other hand, would have taken a much
longer period to re-adjust to the new conditions. And since the scenario
we have been positing is theorized to have played its drama just prior to
the rise of civilization, we should expect this northern lithic bulge not
to have yet subsided.

AMY:

Cardona discusses how this lithic bulge fits into several theories of
planetary catastrophism, including phase-lock theories and theories
involving planets other than Saturn.

CARDONA:

Is there any evidence of a remnant of such a tidal bulge in Earth's north
polar region?

Of course there is ... The real shape of Earth ... is better described as
a triaxial spheroid rather than an oblate one, with the bulge of its
pearshape measured in meters rather than kilometers. But as a residue, or
remnant, of a former greater uplift of land even meters are of
significance. As Frederick Hall asked:

"What pulled Earth out of shape from above its north pole?  The small
dimensions of this shift indicate the pull was short term (as in centuries
to millennia) rather than eons.  Furthermore the effect is relaxing, and
in geological terms the distorting influence must have been remarkably
recent."

. . . Now it is true that Earth's present pear-shape could be explained
through different causes than that proposed by the Saturnian configuration
theory.  But that is not the issue now, is it?  What rightly concerns us
here is that the theory demands such a state of affairs, and the demand is
met.

THE AXIS MUNDI

One of the most mysterious of elements that can he retrieved from the
mytho-historical record concerning the Saturnian configuration is what
seems to have appeared, at least at first, as a tapered swath of light
which stretched all the way down from the configuration to touch Earth at
its northern horizon.  Having received the generic name of axis mundi,
this appendage is also recognized as the polar column and cosmic tree. It
was even known as the world mountain which ... is not to he confused with
the lithic bulge we have just discussed.

This tapering appendage has been explained in various ways. Rose compared
it to the so-called flux tube which stretches between Jupiter and its
satellite, Io.  In his own Martian, as opposed to a Saturnian, model,
Jueneman sees the axis as a colossal Rankine vortex.  David Talbott, on
the other hand, had originally explained the polar column as a stream of
debris stretching between Saturn and Earth, but later amended this to a
stream of debris attracted from Mars toward Earth Additionally, Wallace
Thornhill believes he has recognized this ethereal pillar as a sustained
plasma discharge in the form of Birkeland current.

AMY:

Here Cardona disagrees with Talbott's interpretation on the basis that
such an occurrence would have depleted Mars of its rubble and that Martian
meteorites have not yet been found in the northern regions of the Earth.

CARDONA:

What Thornhill's explanation has going for it...is the fact that galaxies
exhibit what Thornhill terms plasma focus characteristics at their centre
during their active, or quasar, phase by emitting beams of particles in
the form of twisted vortices.' These vortices bear a remarkable similarity
to the posited axis mundi deduced from the mytho-historical record
Moreover, such a beam in the form of a filament of light has now not only
been detected ... but even photographed.  And, together with the beam, we
now have the first actual photograph of an extra-solar planet, a member of
a double-star system known as TMR-1. What the photograph shows is what
appears to be a runaway planet, jettisoned by the double stars together
with what has been described as 'a thin filament of gas' extending all the
way from the planet to its primaries. Anyone living on that planet . . .
would see a swath of light stretching all the way from the horizon to the
double sun very much like our ancestors would have seen a similar swath of
light stretching .. from Earth's northern horizon to the Saturnian
configuration.  Those who used to tell us that such a phenomenon is not
physically possible can now be silenced.

One other aspect of Thornhill's postulate that fits well with the
mytho-historical record is that magnetic fields tend to twist Birkeland
currents into 'ropes,' making the structure appear like entwined snakes.  
As I will indicate below, this structure is important because, during its
fina1 phase, the Saturnian axis developed exactly that form.

AMY:

Cardona then expresses his opinion that, although Thornhill's Birkeland
currents fit most of the criteria of the polar column, they would not be
able to suck material up from the earth, which he believes the myths
describe.  Cardona prefers Fred Jueneman's proposed Rankine vortex, an
interplanetary tornado, as an explanation for the axis mundi.

CARDONA: THE WHIRLING COLUMN

Once again, I cannot here present the entire string of evidential sources
which attest to the whirling motion of the cosmic pillar. Instead I will
merely present the opinion of four authorities on the subject . . .

DC Santillana and von Dechend are two of many who came to the conclusion
that the axis did twist and turn--although they seemed somewhat unsure of
whether it did so slowly or rapidly-even if to them the axis was anything
but an actual physical entity.  So, incidentally, did Elmer Suhr when he
speaks of the 'whirling cosmic column' and 'the whirling column of the
cosmos.' In fact, Suhr goes on to stress:  'It is especially important to
think of the cosmic column not as a static post but as a constantly
whirling crucible...' Talbott, of course, also recognized this fact when
he wrote that 'the cosmic mountain in many creation epics is presented as
a churning, serpentine column rising along the world axis...'

. . . it is more than obvious from descriptions of the Saturnian axis, as
well as prehistoric Petroglyphs, that the polar column was a visible
entity rather than a deduced abstraction.  This was so much so that, in
some cases, the axis was even pictured as a ladder reaching to the
Saturnian sun.

Amy:

Cardona mentioned that he finds it difficult to reconcile a the whirling
motion of the axis with Suhr's interpretation of the cosmic pillar as the
cone-shaped shadow which the moon sends to the Earth during a solar
eclipse.

CARDONA: THE ENTWINED SERPENTS

. . . the cosmic pillar was often described as having had the form of a
serpent or celestial dragon....  And, as [Talbott] continues to inform us,
"in several lands the word for 'mountain' is the same as the word for
'serpent' or 'dragon,' though our natural world offers no basis for the
equivalence.' For examples, Talbott offers the following: 'In Mexico,
Nahuatl _can_ means 'serpent' but also 'mountain'... and [the] Egyptian
Set is the primordial serpent or dragon, but _set_ also means 'mountain,"
and '[the] ancient Sumerian dragon ...  was the Kur...but _kur_ also
possessed the meaning 'mountain"...[The Greek] Boreas is the primeval
serpent... but etymologists connect the serpent- dragon's name with a
primitive _bora_, 'mountain'."

As Suhr tells us: "Among primitive peoples there are signs of the column
in the form of a python or dragon rising from the level of the earth to
the clouds.' In fact, Suhr adds that, among the Murngin people of northern
Australia, the great python 'is the most impressive representative of the
column.' In China '[a] dragon ascending from the earth to the clouds can
serve as the whirling column--which no doubt accounts for so many dragons
on pillars."

A serpent, or dragon, on the other hand, is not exactly the same thing as
a pair of entwined serpents. So, if we are going to keep to the motif of
Thornhill's Birkeland current, where do we look to find the cosmic pillar
described as a pair of entwined serpents or, at least, a serpent entwined
around a vertical prominence? In this respect, we only have to turn our
attention to that object which the Greeks referred to as the caduceus--two
serpents entwined around a central shaft--which Suhr also recognized as
representative of the cosmic axis. Nor must we think of the caduceus as a
uniquely Greek invention since the symbol was also popular in the east,
including Mesopotamia.

A fourth century BC relief from Greece depicts a cylindrical altar with a
snake coiled around it ... the word 'altar,' although derived from Latin,
has its phonetic equivalent in the Arabic Al-Tur which means 'The
Mountain' This connection did not escape Talbott who has provided some
intriguing insights concerning the associations shared between the altar,
the world mountain, the cosmic pillar, and other Saturnian elements.

Other examples of this motif are encountered in depictions of Mithras,
shown with a serpent coiled around him in spiral fashion, and in that of
the Mithraic Kronos, or Aion, who is likewise shown within the coils of a
spiraling snake. A variant of the same motif is to be found in the
serpent-footed Yahweh on coins of the Hellenistic period ... Yahweh
originated as a personification of Saturn ... As Heidel tells us: 'That
Yahweh and Saturn were identical was a belief widely accepted in
antiquity...' This can be verified through Tacitus who had it recorded
that the Jews worshipped the planet Saturn as their god. I mention all
this, here, because the image of Yahweh reproduced on the coins mentioned
above do not merely show him as serpent- footed, but with both serpentine
legs entwined together, thus conforming to the demands of our model.

... Since we have opted for Jueneman's Rankine vortex in lieu of
Thornhill's Birkeland current--sat least temporarily--how do we account
for the image of the serpentine nature under this scheme? The answer is
easy enough.  As Jueneman himself explained:

"Terrestrial tornadoes occasionally exhibit smaller counter- rotating
vortices in close ... proximity to the primary whirlwind. 0n a much vaster
scale, similar counter-rotating catenulate bolus flows would have snaked
around the polar column in filamentary fashion, first in a
counterclockwise, then in a clockwise direction in a slow oscillation."

It is, therefore, this bolus flow that would have given the planetary
tornado, or Rankine vortex, its serpentine quality.

THE WATERY VORTEX

AMY:

Cardona proposes, if the polar column were actually a colossal tornado,
that the Saturn theory demands that this, too, should be part of the
mytho-historical record.  That is, the tornado would have sucked large
amounts of waters from the Earth and ancient man should have been aware of
this, if not from observing the column itself, then at least from
observing what happened when the column was severed.

CARDONA:

. . . among the Australian Aborigines, the great python is the most
impressive representative of the polar column. It is therefore significant
that this python is not only believed to tower up to the level of the
clouds, but that he also 'brings about rain and flood.' The Efe pygmies of
the Ituri forest tell of a deluge of water which gushed forth as a mighty
river when their version of the Cosmic Tree, which was the polar column,
was felled.  Similarly, the Arawak Indians of the Guinas tell of a
wondrous tree which Sigu cut down. From its stump, water gushed out in
such quantity as to cause a deluge. This tale is also found among the
traditions of the Cuna, who tell of their mischief-maker, the Tapir,
chopping down the Saltwater Tree from which salt water gushed out to form
the oceans of the world. Thus, Velikovsky was correct when he surmised
that the water of the Deluge would have been salty, but not, as he
believed, because the salt, or at least its chlorine content, originated
from Saturn. The water was salty because it came from the same oceanic
water the vortex had sucked up in the first place.

THE FLOOD FROM THE NORTH

AMY:

Cardona moves on to the next demand of the Saturn Theory.  If the Deluge
was the result of the collapse of a colossal tornado situated in the
north, then the mytho-historical record must also contain this
information.  And it does.  Among others, three American Indian tribes,
the Wintus, the Wichita, and the Pawnee, tell different legends of the
flood, but in each case the deluge arrives from the north.

CARDONA:

But what of the hard sciences? Is the evidence there?

Once again, I can only mention a few items here, but that an enormous
flood had once swept down from the north to scour the land surface of
North America has been suggested by J. Harlan Bretz. So, similarly, with
C. Warren Hunt who speaks of evidence pointing to a flood from the north,
excavating the land as it went before it emptied into Lake Bonneville.
That Lake Bonneville itself also burst its bounds to cause a secondary
flood has been documented by Robert Jarred and Harold Malde. What is of
additional interest here is that the area once covered by this lake
constitutes a vast salt deposit 100 square miles in extent. Similar signs
of a vast scouring flood from the north have also been discovered in
Siberia.

It is, of course, theorized that this flood was due to the catastrophic
melting of the northern ice cap at the end of the Ice Age.  I, on the
other hand, claim that, at this time, the northern ice cap had not yet
been formed

THE CHURNING OF THE OCEAN

One of the most dramatic images of the concept under discussion, and one
which brings various of our motifs together in one place, is invoked by
the Indic myth, from the Mahabharata and the Bhagavata Purana, concerning
the production of amrita (or ambrosia). In brief the myth is this: In an
effort to produce this divine nectar, both gods and demons used Mount
Mandara as a churning stick.  Winding the serpent Vasuki, also known as
Ananta, around Mount Mandara, the gods (at one end) and the demons (at the
other) grasped hold of Vasuki by the head and tail and, pulling him back
and forth, were able to rotate Mount Mandara fast enough to whisk the sea
into an ocean of milk from which amrita was produced.

Now, to be sure, in most visual representations of the myth in question,
Mount Mara is depicted not in the form of a mountain, but in that of a
pillar, thus validating our conviction that the mythic World Mountain and
the Axis Mundi were one and the same. In fact, it has long been known to
Indologists that Mount Mandara stood for the axis of the world.  The
second thing we notice is hardly worth mentioning, and that is that this
cosmic pillar did twist and churn.  In Vasuki we recognize the bolus flow
wrapped around the central vortex -- and here it is interesting to note
that this entity was 'associated with the north,' thus locating the entire
action in that locality.  Finally, in the divinities' churning by pulling
at the coiled Vasuki this way and that way, an echo is retained of the
clockwise/counterclockwise rotation of the bolus flow as described by
Jueneman.

The elements contained in the myth of the churning of the ocean must not
be thought of as uniquely Hindu in origin. In the Hindu myth, for
instance, we see that Mandara was placed on the back of a tortoise.  In
Chinese mythology, it is Shang-ti who is depicted as standing on the
celestial tortoise, while the serpent was said to have encircled the
tortoise.  Shang-ti's title was The Holy and Propitious Prince of the
North Pole, who is usually represented as surrounded by a halo, both of
which have special meaning to this study.  It is also noteworthy that the
symbolism of the tortoise and serpent goes at least as far back as the Han
dynasty and was used as an emblem for the northern region of the world.  
More than that, as Lord of the Centre, Shang-ti was also revered as
Huang-ti, who is perhaps better known as the Yellow Lord or Yellow
Emperor. The Yellow Emperor has long been acknowledged to be an avatar of
Saturn.

And in the Japanese Kojiki we learn of the Heavenly Jeweled Spear which
joined heaven to Earth and which acted as the churning stick responsible
for the surfacing of the mythical -- one might as well say celestial --
island of Onogoro.

CARDONA: THE ARCTIC CARNAGE

Meanwhile, does not this scenario, involving a tornado of planetary
proportions, raise even more demands? . . .  we are all acquainted with
the destructive force that tornadoes exhibit.  Should not Saturn's Rankine
vortex, therefore, have left signs of an even greater destruction? This
would have been especially so since this titanic maelstrom would have
wrought its devastation while laterally standing still.

A full exposition concerning the history of the axis mundi requires a
volume [by itself]. . . . I point to . . . the Arctic muck, or frozen
soil, which 'covers no less than one seventh of the land surface of
earth,' all of which encircles the Arctic Ocean and lies within the Arctic
Circle. Composed mainly of silt, sand, pebbles, and boulders, it is often
accompanied by 'preserved, semi-decayed, or fully decayed vegetable and
animal matter.' Its depth, in some places, 'has always caused even the
most open-minded geologists to boggle.' The Russians, who have conducted
prolonged studies on this muck, have in some places drilled down to more
than 4000 feet without reaching rock bottom.  Entire forests have been
found buried in this area, including plum trees complete with their leaves
and fruits, to say nothing of palm trees and huge exotic ferns. . . .  
animals [have been] found buried in this muck, the most noteworthy and
famous of which, needless to say, is the mammoth.  Let's face it, as
George Gaylord Simpson was astute enough to realize, catastrophic events
at the end of the Pleistocene were not only much more severe in North than
in South America, they also affected a much larger proportion of animals.

AMY:

Cardona quotes various researchers defining the puzzle of how so much
surface material could have been transported so far and piled so deep,
with no apparent highland source or sufficient drainage.

CARDONA:

. . . But consider now the model being discussed and tested.  Would not
such a colossal vortex as posited above have scoured the land, year-in
year-out, uprooting . . . trees . . . sizable chunks of rock, [and]
boulders, which would have swirled around, grinding relentlessly against
each other; breaking apart into ever smaller pieces, and smaller still
until ground into sand and silt? And what is the area that is now filled
with the Arctic Ocean if not an immense basin scoured out of the living
rock?

AMY:

Cardona describes the Arctic muck of Siberia, Alaska and the Arctic
islands, emphasizing the "vast remains of torn and broken mammoths" as
"evidence of an atmospheric tempest of unprecedented dimensions."

CARDONA:

. . . Entire forests in an uprooted condition, bituminous trunks and
fossilized charcoal, are everywhere intermingled with petrified ash, and
veins of ice, and sand that has turned into sandstone. Among this colossal
devastation are found the skeletons of mammoths, rhinoceroses, bison, and
horses.

AMY:

Cardona compares his own thesis to other catastrophic theories, and
especially to the non-polar theories, concluding that:

CARDONA:

. . .  on this topic, I have the additional evidence of the
mytho-historical record on my side-as the theory, in fact, continues to
demand.  What is this evidence? Does it, for instance, have anything to
say re the catastrophic demise of the mammoths in the north?

. . . Are elephants [mammoths] . . .  mentioned in the record in
connection with the polar vortex? In the Mahabharata we read that Mandara,
that churning mountain, was 'crowded with tusked animals.' Moreover, when
the churning began, . . .  great trees spun off, were crushed against one
another, lightning flashed forth, a fire blazed burning the elephants and
other beasts, 'and all the various creatures there lost their life's
breath.' The water pouring from above eventually dowsed the fire and
flowed into the ocean. Thus we can see that we have here the entire
spectrum of the devastation -- the whirlwind, the uprooted forest, the
carnage, the fire, and the ensuing flood. Does this not tally with is
found in Earth's northern regions?

AMY:

Cardona quotes mytho-historical records which caution that man cannot
approach the vortex, this golden mountain, and he suspects that, at first,
the animals didn't approach it, either.

CARDONA:

. . . But in the end, when the planets were displaced from their polar
alignment, the funnel of the polar column was dislodged from its axial
locus. Swirling now in corkscrew fashion, writhing like a serpent in
travail, it went berserk and overstepped the bounds within which it had
been contained for ages. Taken unawares, beasts fell prone to it.  Man,
apparently, was just that much smarter.

THE ONSLAUGHT OF ICE

The penultimate question I wish to raise concerns the freezing of the . .
. Arctic muck or permafrost. How did it all freeze? Where did the ice come
from? . . . Is it traceable to the planet Saturn or Earth's primeval
position in relation to Saturn? Can this demand also be met?

This is an easy question to answer. The Greeks, for instance, had long
associated . . . Saturn, with snow and hail. In fact, Saturn was renowned
for being 'cold' and 'moist.' This seemingly-odd belief is not met only
among the Greeks. Abu Ma'sar also had it stated that Saturn's nature is
cold. . . .  Alcabitius likewise recorded that 'he [Saturn] is bad,
masculine, in daytime cold...' Epigenes of Byzantium classified Saturn as
'cold and windy.' Dorotheus also talks of 'cold Saturn.' Pliny wrote that
'Saturn is of a cold and frozen nature,' while Virgil spoke of 'Saturn's
cold star.' We can thus be close to certain that when the Zunis of New
Mexico refer to Awonawilona as having also been associated with cold, they
were reiterating an archaic testimonial concerning the planet Saturn's
affiliation with snow and ice.  This is all the more made clear since
Awonawilona means All- Father Father, an epithet which elsewhere was
reserved for the Saturnian deity. Thus Kronos/Saturn was referred to as
First Father, while Odin was known as All-father, the very same name of
the Zuni Awonawilona.

Mythologists have never been able to supply a convincing theory to explain
why the planet Saturn and its deity should be associated with cold, snow,
and ice. A telling clue comes from William of Conches who tells us that
'Saturn is called cold not because he is inherently cold himself but
because he causes cold.'

AMY:

Cardona discusses this connection between Saturn and cold with respect to
the Greek and Persian mytho-historical record, and then adds this story
told by the Modoc Indians of southern Oregon and northern California:

CARDONA:

. . .  the Chief of the Sky Spirits drilled a hole in the sky with a
rotating stone through which he pushed snow and ice to form a mound which
almost touched the sky. . . . the drilling of the sky with a rotating
stone is too similar to the churning of the ocean by Mount Madara to
escape our notice.  Destruction of the world by cold is also met with
among the marginal, forest, and southern Andean peoples. As Dolph Hooker
informs us:

". . . we cannot find evidence that Earth's climate grew cold before the
advent of an ice age; . . . on the contrary, climate grew colder only
after the ice arrived and only to the extent that the ice itself
refrigerated the Earth..."

. . . As Hooker also tells us: "Obviously the perma-frost accumulated from
the bottom upward--not by freezing from the top downward.' What this means
is that the detritus which forms the permafrost was frozen as it was being
laid down.

Am I here advocating that the ice which caused the so-called Ice Age came
from the planet Saturn?  Not really. What I am claiming is that the snow,
ice, and sleet came from the axial vortex when it was severed for the last
time because that is where a vast quantity of terrestrial moisture had
been stored. But why, and how, then did it freeze to fall as snow, and
ice, and sleet? As mentioned earlier, this all transpired during the
break-up of the Saturnian configuration. Saturn, Venus, and Mars were
thrown out of axial alignment. And so was Earth. Its axis shifted to take
up the alignment it now possesses. Do we find this also contained in the
mytho-historical record? Is this demand also met?

EARTH'S SHIFTING AXIS

. . . The Muria, a tribe of the Bastar State in the Central Provinces of
India . . . tell without ambiguity how Mahapurub turned the world
topsy-turvy. . . . [the record] of the Hopi . .  .  is one of the best to
illustrate the subject under discussion.  As these Indians narrate:

'. . . .the world, with no one to control it, teetered off balance, spun
around crazily, then rolled over twice. Mountains plunged into seas with a
great splash, seas and lakes sloshed over the land; and as the world spun
through cold and lifeless space it froze into solid ice..'

How would these Indians have known that the teetering of the world would
cause seas and lakes to slosh over the land? How would they have known
that a shifting of earth's axis could freeze it into solid ice?

Actually, had I any faith in the accuracy of counting the annual layers of
ice retrieved in cores drilled out of Greenland's ice fields, I would even
be able to date the event for you.

SATURN'S DEPARTURE

. . . I do not need to tell that Saturn is no longer in Earth's proximity.
The theory then demands that somewhere in the record Saturn's removal from
Earth's proximity should be encountered.  And so we find as, for example,
with the tale of Quetzelcoatl, whose 'paladins' died from the cold through
the snow that fell upon them just before the god took off on his serpent
raft to be seen no more. I mention this one myth because, as one can see,
it ties in nicely with Saturn's removal at the very time when Earth,
teetering off balance, was deluged with the onslaught of ice that ushered
in the so-called Ice Age.

. . . having said so much about the Egyptian Ra toward the beginning of
this treatise, it should perhaps be fitting for me to end with him. Thus,
in an Egyptian myth, Ra is made to say:

'Weary indeed are my limbs and they fail me. I shall go forth...  
Henceforth my dwelling place must be in the heavens.  No longer will I
reign upon the earth.' And: 'I have determined to cause myself to be
uplifted into the sky, to join the blessed gods and to renounce rule of
the world'

. . . Then Ra raised himself from the back of the goddess Nut into the
sky.

So here I must ask: if Ra was truly the Sun, where had it been prior to
its ascent into the sky? And if, as mythologists tell us, Nut was the
goddess of the sky, what would it mean that the Sun rose from the back of
the sky (i.e. Nut) into the sky? What does it mean that, before ascending
into the sky, the Sun had reigned upon Earth?  What does it mean that the
Sun once ruled the world? Do we not, in fact, find it stated in an Orphic
fragment that 'Saturn dwelt openly on earth among men'?  So, also,
Dionysus of Halicarnassus who declared that 'Kronos ruled on this very
earth.' Besides, as it was written, when Ra removed himself into the sky,
'darkness came on' and 'Ra was borne through darkness.' Does this make
sense if Ra was the Sun? Do we see darkness coming on when the Sun rises
into the sky? The answer to this mystery is that the sun of night, which
had ruled Earth due to its proximity, had now removed itself into the
blackness of space. True night, as we now know it, finally descended upon
the world. And the stars, which could not have been seen as long as the
Saturnian sun of night was shining down on Earth, appeared in all their
brilliance for the first time.  Do we find this stated in the
mytho-historical record? Can this last demand be met? As it is written:

'[When Ra left Earth he] went on his way through the realms which are
above, and these he divided and set in order. He spake creating words, and
called into existence the field of Aalu, and there he caused to assemble a
multitude of beings which are beheld in heaven, even the stars...'

Dwardu Cardona