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_F ROM M YTH_

TO A P HYSICAL M ODEL
_________________________________________________________________

Dave Talbott

INTRODUCTION

I n this article, the first of three parts, I take up these issues

_1) General issues for catastrophists working in the Velikovskian
tradition. _What is the basis of our confidence in myth? Can it ever
be _proven _that myth is a reflection of unusual celestial events?

_2) Evolution of a mythically-based model. _A summary of recent
changes in the model of the polar configuration, and a look at other
aspects of the configuration on which little or no detail has been
previously published.

_3) Introduction of Robert Grubaugh and a physical model of the polar
configuration. _Grubaugh has considerable professional experience with
orbital dynamics through his work with the US Space Program. His
recently-submitted model (presented in this issue of _AEON_) is both
simple in concept and remarkably congruent with the myths on which the
thesis rests.

_MYTHICALLY-BASED MODEL_

For over twenty years now, I have argued that a planetary assembly I
called the polar configuration oncemoved close to the Earth,
dominating the sky of ancient star worshippers.

The evolution of the theory has advanced significantly in recent
years, with certain details throwing new light on the celestial images
involved. Given the scale of the subject matter and the recent
amendments to the mythically-based model, the only efficient way to
proceed is by synopsis first, then by elaboration of discrete story
elements, so that there is a whole story to which one can relate the
discrete parts. In keeping with this approach, I offer this three-part
series as an outline of more fully developed material to follow in
future issues of _AEON_.

A NEED FOR CLARITY

Every catastrophist following a Velikovskian approach to myth must
continually ask himself: how seriously do I believe that myth can
illuminate an unknown past?

The question will pursue the catastrophist relentlessly because his
theoretical approach is challenged every time he wonders if an
extraordinary celestial phenomenon some possibility yet to be admitted
by mainstream science might explain a particular form or episode of
myth. And the path he has chosen leaves little room for compromise.
Logic does not permit one to pick and choose _which_ unusual mythical
themes one will take seriously. If myth has a reference in spectacular
natural events, then no well-established mythical theme can be
ignored. Sidestepping various themes in order to bolster a more easily
defended interpretation becomes an invitation to a misunderstanding of
the past.

I emphasize this point because one of the biggest potential
distractions to catastrophists is the discussion of elaborate physical
models based on a few mythical fragments. This kind of discussion is
not only generally useless but easily leads to self-deception: it
implies that complex _historical_ questions can be answered by
abstract logic, or by mathematical or physical demonstration. But
there are a thousand abstract possibilities, and that doesn't make any
of them true. Moreover, the first effect of arm-chair theorizing on
fragmentary evidence is to discredit the idea that myth is useful.

The goal is not to expound upon purely theoretical models, but to
reconstruct an unknown past on the basis of pervasive images and
pictures historical evidence that finds no reference in the natural
order today. The logical focus is the _human experience_ as recorded
on papyrus, on clay, and on stone. Through comparative analysis and
cross-referencing, one must seek out the observed patterns, for it is
these patterns that provide the foundation of a systematic inquiry.

CONFRONTING OUR BELIEF SYSTEMS

If the well-documented, recurring mythical themes actually originated
in a different celestial order, then a revolution in science and in
our understanding of the past is inevitable. For catastrophists in the
Velikovskian tradition, it is _receptivity _to the veiled messages of
myth that provides a common ground for discussion. Without that
receptivity to myth, what do we talk about?

If you are considering venturing into myth in these terms, however,
there is a certain risk. The risk is that, guided by the desire to
know what happened, and finding yourself at the intellectual
crossroads, you really do let the myths speak for themselves,
irrespective of conventional teaching or prior theory. You simply
can't take this step without opening the door to previously unimagined
possibilities. When examined comprehensively from a Velikovskian
orientation, with full cross-referencing of recurring themes, myth
will inevitably bring you to a point of no return.

Now one of the reasons to ask whether myth might refer to an alien sky
is very simple: All attempts to explain myth even the most explicitly
astral myths by present behavior of presently-observed celestial
bodies have failed. Is there any global mythical theme that can be
explained by reference to the present celestial order? Not one among
hundreds of well-developed motifs. Once you realize that the myths
speak for _unfamiliar _experiences that they reflect celestial forms
no longer present, or events no longer occurring in nature you are
entering uncharted territory. And if the excursion has any sane and
rational justification, then the ground-rules for study of the past
are radically changed.

The key is to follow the anomaly. For example: perhaps you begin to
notice that a variety of mythical themes all point to an anomalous
conclusion about the past say, the planet Venus' former cometary
identity (first discerned by Velikovsky). You begin to wonder if
Venus' recurring identity as soul-star, hair star, bearded star,
serpent-dragon, torch of heaven, feathered serpent, bearded serpent,
hairy serpent, fiery serpent, etc. all acknowledged pre-astronomical
glyphs of the _comet_ might actually be explained by the most
straightforward interpretation possible, even though that
interpretation obviously conflicts with modern theory.

Are these mythical images themselves worth pursuing to a higher level
of detail, to see how well the suggested pattern holds up under closer
scrutiny and to see what complementary patterns might emerge? If you
choose to disregard the cometary interpretation because it isn't
scientifically supported, then you are closing the door. If, on the
other hand, you simply suspend judgment and explore the imagery to
test its underlying coherence, you are already approaching the point
of no return. You can't justify this kind of exercise on the basis of
one anomaly and then resist the exercise as you begin to encounter
other equally compelling patterns, all suggesting something entirely
different from what we see in the sky today.

THE SURPRISING COHERENCE OF MYTH

I can remember, as a first impression of myth, little more than a
jumble of meaningless, disconnected ideas. Nothing seemed more futile
than seeking out an intelligent account. In these early encounters,
the mass of random details didn't even look interesting! And this is
why, today, I can't imagine anyone just casually glancing at the myths
and finding something compelling.

Each time I returned, however, the sense of coherence or underlying
unity was heightened. And gradually I could see distinctive patterns
that simply couldn't be explained away. The more you become aware of
these patterns, the more confident you become that something
incredible happened, and it is simply not useful to interpret the
patterns through conventional references. Let's not forget that every
previous attempt to interpret and explain myth by reference to the
Sun, Moon, stars or planets today has lasted only as long as it took
the critics to set pen to paper.

I offer here some general observations on the character of world
mythology, noting a few of the anomalous facts one must confront in
seeking an explanation of myth as a whole.

1. No recurring mythical theme is explained by the present celestial order.

This is an amazing fact, in view of many hundreds of identifiable
themes. The inescapable conclusion: it is self-defeating to ignore the
possibility of a changing sky.

2. There is _no evidence_ that early man was a fabricator in the sense commonly
assumed.

It's impossible to immerse oneself in the mythical world without
realizing that the storyteller himself is bound to the integrity of
the original experience, though the _first _storytellers could not
help but interpret, or to project meanings onto experienced phenomena.
The highest obligation of ancient storytelling was to be true to the
remembered event, to get the story right. Conversely, there is no
documented instance of primitives inventing a central episode of myth.
The duty of the storyteller is to repeat the story as it was told by
his predecessors.

In myth, the event itself is filtered through the subjective
interpretation or projection of those experiencing it. Event and
interpretation _are_ the story. No living dragon ever flew about in
the sky. But it is preposterous to assume that the _global _myth of
the dragon was unrelated to anything actually experienced by man.
Early man did not could not fabricate the events inspiring the
interpretation.

Honoring the story by repeating it in words reflected the same
fundamental impulse as all other forms of imitation and alignment in
ancient ritual, art, and architecture. Recitation of the story
momentarily transported both the storyteller and the listener
backwards to the mythical epoch, which was experienced as more
compelling, more true than the later age. That's why, among all early
civilizations, as noted by Mircea Eliade and others, the age of myth
provided the models for _all_ sacred activity.

3 Recurring mythical themes are almost certainly _prehistoric_.

The basis of this generalization is a simple provable fact. All
fundamental mythical themes will be found in very early historical
sources, and the related _signs and_ _symbols _will be found in
prehistoric settings. This rarely acknowledged fact, which could be
easily disproved if incorrect, is of incredible significance. If early
man was habituated to making up experience, one would expect an
endless stream of new mythical themes new forms and personalities
arising as if from nowhere. This absence of invention forces us to
ask: what unknown ancient experience could have produced the massive
story content of myth, including hundreds of underlying patterns that
have lasted for _thousands of years_?

4. All myths are associated with the age of the gods.

Now what do you think that people meant by that expression? The
Egyptians called the lost epoch the age of the primeval gods which
began with the Tep Zepi, the First Time or Golden Age of Ra. The age
of the gods was not only dramatically different from the present age,
it represented for all ancient nations a _preferred_ order, a standard
and reference for all later activity.

Mythically speaking, as the phrase age of the gods suggests, man lived
close to the gods, or in communion with the gods, or the gods lived on
earth in some sense, on the world's highest mountain, occupied the
central province, kingdom, or island. But again, none of this means
anything, in a casual observation of myth. _No theory of myth that is
unable to account for the age of the gods can explain its subject._

5. The gods are no longer present.

The age of gods, in all variations on the theme, passes into a more
mundane, more confused age, a less interesting, less real, less
dramatic, less heroic time, which can only take sustenance from
reference backwards. The gods and heroes _departed_, and in numerous
accounts the departure of a god or hero is accompanied by great
upheaval.

If we can oversimplify the many forms in which the departure of one or
another god occurs, the most common idea is transfiguration into a
distant star in the more meticulously elaborated astronomies, a
specific planet. Countless other forms of transfiguration, as a
soul-bird a feathered serpent, a comet, a stone, a column of smoke,
when examined in detail, consistently support the planetary
transfiguration.

6. Through storytelling over time, the gods are brought down to earth.

In the course of re-enactment and storytelling over the centuries, the
celestial gods become the aged kings and warring heroes, the great
queens and long-haired princesses of epic literature.

That this process occurred is easily verifiable because there are
countries in which the process can be observed over many centuries,
perhaps a couple of millennia. In the case of the Egyptian Ra, the
prototype of the good king, or Shu or Horus, prototypes of the hero
Hercules, you can see this transformation clearly in the classical
histories of Egypt. Similarly, all of the personalities and motifs
associated with the great queens and princesses of folk tale will be
found in the images of the Egyptian Nut, Isis, Hathor and other
_unequivocally_ _celestial_ goddess figures. But in the later
accounts, all of the events occur on earth and the players, though
charismatic and possessing great magical powers, become increasingly
_human._

7. The first civilizations arose from attempts to celebrate or recapture the
age of the gods.

The degree of early man's orientation backwards, to the age of the
god's, is extraordinary. The definitive features distinguishing early
civilizations from the more pastoral age that preceded them seem to
have arisen as ritual expressions, honoring, re-enacting and extending
celestial forms and celestial episodes in the age of the gods. The
first writing, vital technologies, monumental architecture, the rise
of kings and larger-scale political organization, rites of sacrifice
and wars of conquest all of these distinctive attributes and
tendencies of the first civilizations can be traced to religious or
ritual practices in which men sought to re-live and to extend the
_Prime Example _provided in the mythical age. It is not an
exaggeration to say that the makers of civilization never built
anything considered sacred or undertook any religious act without
first finding inspiration and guidance in a celestial prototype. _And
all traditions agree that prototype arose in the age of the gods._

ELABORATION OF THE PROTOTYPE

To expand on this last tenet briefly

In the upward movement of early civilizations, one does not discover
the introduction of new prototypes or a new vision, only more
ambitious, larger-scale, and more fully elaborated expressions of the
original prototype. The emergence of early technology was what made
this increase in scale and in progressive elaboration possible. And
the varied technologies themselves were, to an astonishing degree, the
outflow of ritual celebrating the age of the gods.

All that separates the Great Pyramids of early Egyptian from the small
mounds spread across that ancient land is _scale_. The motivation is
provided by one and the same prototype. It is the compulsive extension
of the prototype that brings forth technology. Until this stirring of
religious fervor there is no collective impulse to fuel technology.
And always the reference of this nearly obsessive activity is to the
age of the gods and to things celestial.

First there is a wheel in the sky. Then come the ritual wheels
fashioned as duplicates of the cosmic wheel. Then come the
elaborations from which the useful wheel emerges.

First there are the forms in the sky. Then come the abstract and
natural hieroglyphs representing and interpreting these forms. Then
comes the further abstraction into systems of writing. Writing emerges
as a tool of ritual, enabling worshippers to extend their celebration
of the gods.

How are we to explain this obsessive orientation to the age of the
gods? Where did the incredible power of the prototype come from if
there _was_ _no prototype_? If you think the myth of the celestial
prototype was an invention, you are required to conjure an
_undocumented_ period of rampant fabrication followed by a _documented_
period in which fabrication making things up out of nothing would have
been unthinkable.

RECURRING MYTHICAL IMAGES

The difficulty of explaining myth through familiar references grows
exponentially as you begin to chronicle the well-established images.
With each new theme uncovered, you are multiplying the unlikely by the
nearly impossible. The _improbability _of the standard interpretations
quickly reaches astronomical proportions, for the fact is that the
global images present a degree of coherence and internal consistency
that could never be explained by sheer make believe and that's the
problem for any approach to myth that must ultimately resort to make
believe in order to account for the universal forms and event
sequences.

I shall enumerate here a few examples, in terms of clearly universal
mythical themes. It is remarkable how consistently the same
underpinnings express themselves, not only suggesting a singular
experience, but vouching for the _durability_ of myth: the
preservation of the underpinnings even in the face of continuing
fragmentation and degradation.

The listed themes are, of course, only a few of hundreds

Age of the gods

Prior to the present age, an age of decline, an age of iron, an age of
separation, there was an age of the gods. At that time the gods
dwelled with man or close to man.

Golden Age

The age of the gods began with the Golden Age. There were no seasons,
no sickness, no war. Cosmic harmony and natural abundance prevailed
the world over.

Creator-King

In the beginning the creator himself ruled the world. He was the model
of the good king, and therefore the founding king, the first in the
line of kings.

Heaven

In the beginning heaven was close to the earth.

One-eyed God

The creator-king possessed a single, central, luminous eye.

Cosmic Temple, Cosmic City

There was once a great temple or city in the center of heaven and this
celestial dwelling served as the model for sacred cities and kingdoms
on earth.

World Mountain

Once a great mountain or pillar rose from the earth to heaven and
provided a support to the dwelling of the gods.

Superior sun, central sun

In an earlier age, the great luminary of the sky was a superior sun,
the true sun, or best sun. This central sun neither rose nor set but
remained fixed and ever turning in the sky.

Goddess

The creator king had a mother, daughter or consort, who was the
universal goddess, the mother of all creation.

Warrior Hero

In earliest times a great hero arose, who helped to rid the world of
chaos-monsters and to give creation its special form.

Consort of Queens and Princesses

Long ago a famous hero won through hard labor or a contest of strength
or wit the daughter of a great king or chief, or took as consort the
king's own spouse.

Sword-God

A magical sword, arising from the waters, or hewn from an immense tree
or pillar, or forged by a great smith, provided a famous young prince
with victory against evil powers.

Four rivers

The original land of the gods was divided by four rivers, four streams
of light, or four winds, signifying the four directions of space.

Four pillars

Originally four shining pillars supported the dwelling of the gods; or
heaven itself rested on four pillars.

Dying or Displaced God

Whether slain by a competitor, losing control due to his own failure
or old age, or growing tired of the world and sailing away, the
creator king did not stay.

World Catastrophe

A long time ago the entire world was destroyed by the descent of fire
or water, and only one person or a select few survived.

_Ill-Omened Comet_

When a great comet appeared, it signified the death of a renowned
leader, or the coming of a great war or disaster.

_Raging or Lamenting Goddess_

The world was once thrown into confusion by the rampage of a great
goddess, lamenting the death of a son or lover.

_Serpent-Dragon_

In ancient times a celestial serpent or dragon attacked the world,
bringing overwhelming chaos, and threatening both gods and man.

Star of the Heart-Soul

There is a star in the sky that is the ascended heart or soul of a
former great king or chief.

To list these most obvious themes is barely to scratch the surface of
a universal tradition. Yet consider the nature of the challenge posed
by just these few motifs alone not one of which explains itself or
answers to any known or observable experience, though each theme seems
to have established itself on every continent, as if deliberately to
contradict natural experience today. How has it happened that, at the
level of _universal myth_, all references point to unrecognized
experiences?

HOLOGRAPHIC PARADIGM

To recount such universal themes is only to raise a deeper issue the
phenomenon of _linkage. _Each part or theme, when fully examined
through a comparative approach, _contains all of the other themes_.
Keep in mind that you will never verify this point through specialized
study, since the issue is the relationship between _recurring _themes.
Just as the themes occur from one civilization to another, so do the
same _connections_.

We are confronted with what might be called the holographic paradigm
of myth. There is no Golden Age without the creator-king anywhere. The
province of the creator king is the cosmic temple, city, or kingdom
always. And the creator-king _is_ the primeval sun god, the superior
sun that lights the world from one spot. That spot is the summit of
the world mountain in every well-developed mythical system.

The land ruled by the creator-king is the land of the four rivers,
also depicted as a celestial domain supported by the four pillars,
which turn out to be _four extensions of the central mount or column_.

None of the recurring mythical themes can be separated from any of the
others. The eye of the one-eyed god turns out to be his own spouse,
daughter or consort who is called, appropriately, the eye-goddess. But
the same goddess-figure is the _heart-soul _that ascends as a star
upon the death of the creator-king. When the king dies, the heart-soul
is also claimed to depart as a _great comet, _which happens to be the
form taken by the lamenting goddess, who is _the same figure _as the
eye- and heart-soul goddess. But this raging goddess is also depicted
as a great _serpent or dragon_ attacking the world.

Nor can the legendary warrior-hero be treated as an isolated figure.
He appears universally as the _servant of the creator-king._ But this
turns out to be the very same figure who wins the daughter or spouse
of a famous king or chief in a great contest, while the most popular
form of the contest is _the hero's battle against the serpent or
dragon that attacked the world. _The birth of the hero is from the
womb of the eye- or soul-goddess, and the event itself is inseparably
connected to the formation of the world mountain or world pillar, a
column with which the hero is, in fact, _identified _though prior to
this identification the hero exists as the _pupil _in the eye of the
one-eyed creator king, which is provably the same thing mythically as
the hero's pre-existence in the womb of the great goddess. The pillar
or mountain, on the other hand, turns out to be the famous weapon the
sword, mace or club used by the hero in his battle against the chaos
monster.

The implications, yet to be acknowledged by mythologists, are
stunning. All recurring themes are vitally _connected_. Pealing away
the superficial layers of localized myth is a laborious, but necessary
exercise if one is to discover the connecting rivers of the
substratum. Beneath the layers of superficial confusion, local
coloring and fragmentation, there is a layer of coherence and symmetry
that no prior theory of myth has even begun to address in its full
integrity, much less explain.

It is the discovery of this _connectedness_ that will ultimately
redeem the catastrophist's interest in myth and provide the confidence
that, with sufficient analysis, the roots of myth can be exposed,
supplying the crucial details necessary for a _physical model._

_FROM UNITY TO DIFFERENTIATION_

In view of the incredible confusion and self-contradiction of myth at
the level of surface detail, a few additional comments are appropriate
concerning the evolution of myth over time and the historical
fragmentation of once-unified images.

The substratum of myth demonstrates, in the most dramatic way, that
originally the central mythical images possessed _multiple meanings_
that were subsequently lost to differentiation. Originally a singular
form expresses itself in a variety of mythical guises. Originally
there is a warrior god who _is_ his weapon a sword, club, mace, or
spear. That weapon is also a pillar or cosmic mountain supporting
heaven, but (if we can add two more fundamental themes to the list)
the same column appears as a stream of luminous wind stretching
between heaven and earth, but also the underworld fount or river. In
archaic terms, one interpretation sits comfortably alongside the
others, because a singular form in the sky produced a series of
_equally compelling_ interpretations. But how long could the unified
image of the celestial sword-pillar-mountain-wind-river survive, once
the external reference the actual celestial form had been removed?

Eventually the sword of the warrior hero is only a sword carried by a
god that has come to look like a man. The pillar too is differentiated
and perhaps now stands beside the human form of the god as a
semi-independent symbol. The god may continue to be represented
hieroglyphically by the sword or by the pillar, but he is no longer
identified conceptually _as_ the sword or _as_ the pillar. Over time
the separation of god, sword, pillar, mountain, wind and river will
leave only the anomaly of archaic language and images: a _single_
hieroglyph or pictograph with a _dual_ meaning of sword and pillar; a
mythical fragment recalling a sword embedded in, or functioning _as_
the central pillar of a palatial dwelling; a sword-god bearing the
epithet north wind or south wind (always meaning the wind _below_ the
land of the gods, identical to the fountain welling up from the deep);
a mountain that bears the name of the celestial wind or river, but is
launched as a sword or weapon. At every turn we confront anomalies
that point not to confusion or irrationality (the common assumption),
but to the original _integrity _of myth. For example: all of these
echoes of that underlying unity literally surround the fully developed
warrior hero figures Assyrian Nergal, Hindu Indra, Rudra and Shiva,
Greek Ares, Hercules, Apollo, and of course the Egyptian Shu, Horus,
Set, Sept, Anup and others.

It is the earliest instances that illuminate the later, for the
obvious reason that the farther back you reach, the closer you are to
the original, unified experience. So it is not surprising to find that
the Egyptian Shu, or Shu-Anhur, a sword-god _par excellence, _reveals
the full range of anticipated motifs. In addition to worshipping the
god as heaven-reaching sword or scepter, the Egyptians invoked the
celestial waterway of Shu, celebrated the god as the North Wind
(literally, the wind of the below, rising to vivify the stationary sun
god Ra), and depicted the god as the great pillar of the sky, even as
they declared the very same god to be the Primeval Hill, the
resplendent mountain of beginnings. As to this unified portrait, not
one Egyptologist in a hundred and fifty years has even attempted an
explanation. For what explanation is possible? The images, in their
own terms and deprived of a celestial reference, are as contradictory
as night and day.

PROTOTYPE AND SYMBOL

It is ironic that the universal compulsion to celebrateand to extend
the age of the gods actually contributed profoundly to the
dismemberment of myth. Localized expressions, or symbols of the cosmic
prototype, progressively distorted and confused the underlying memory.

A simple example: In the myths, an enclosure was formed in the middle
of heaven, as the navel of the world, or the center of the cosmic sea.
Originally that form in the sky was the hallowed place or province,
from which creation began. It was not unequivocally a _crown_ until
someone on earth fashioned a band of cloth or gold or laurel and
placed it on a terrestrial representative of the creator king or the
warrior-hero. It was not separately conceived as a _throne_ until
someone fashioned a throne on earth. It was only when someone on earth
built a temple or a city honoring the enclosure of the gods that the
enclosure became the _cosmic city_ or _cosmic temple_. In each of
these instances the prototype is the same, but the scale and practical
function of the local symbol differ dramatically. And the natural
progression of the imitative rites, adding great varieties of scale,
interpretation and local function, could not fail to complicate or add
diversity to the symbolism, while re-coloring or re-orienting the myth
itself through the lens of its local expressions.

In this way, the original integrity of myth was gradually undermined
by the compulsion _to remember and to celebrate the gods_. It was
_devotion to the gods_ the yearning for paradise, the reverence for
the symmetry, the beauty, the drama, even the awe and terror of the
past that first led nations to project images of the lost epoch onto
their surroundings. Seeking to sanctify their own habitation and their
own surroundings with the glow of the great prototype or Prime
Example, they projected images of the gods onto every natural
phenomenon. Mountains, rivers, lakes, rainbows, lightning and thunder,
constellations, meteors, comets, even our Sun and Moon all received
their names and assigned mythical attributes from the more unified
forms arising in the age of the gods.

CONFUSION THROUGH LOCALIZATION

Now how long do you think this process could go on before the symbol
began to get confused with the thing symbolized? How long before the
local mount Zion or Mount Olympus was confused with the cosmic
original the world mountain and residence of the gods? The very fact
that the symbol _took its name _from the archetype made this eventual
confusion virtually certain. What is Zion? It is the mountain on which
Yahweh shone in the beginning. Since only the modest local hill, the
local Zion, actually stood before the worshippers, how could the
confusion be avoided?

That a confusion _is _involved, however, is clear from the universal
tradition. The same mount occurs around the world. And not only that,
the cosmic mountain appears under the _same name_ in different
locations. It's not general knowledge, but there were several mount
Olympus's in Greece. Obviously, the tradition of the mount _preceded_
the localization!

What happened to the so-called sun god is a good example of this
process

The creator-king is the supreme luminary. On this there is no
discrepancy between the different traditions. _But not all figures of
the creator king are sun gods. _So what determines whether a figure of
the creator king is remembered as the primeval sun?

The answer couldn't be more clear: if the name of the creator-king, in
a later age, was projected onto the body we call Sun, then that figure
of the creator-king became, by definition, the _primeval _sun.
Remember that sunrise the instant when the Sun first appeared over an
eastern mountain was in many lands a symbolic occasion, representing,
if only for a frozen moment, the epoch of the gods, when the
creator-king shone above the mountain of the world. In the later
_festive _moment of sunrise, the symbolic Sun wore the mythical dress
of the original supreme luminary. And it could not do so without
carrying the name of the creator-king. Extension of the language and
symbolism of the gods was inevitable. It is only because this happened
in more than one land that the planet Saturn could be called the
primeval, archetypal sun god, the true sun, the best sun, etc. Had the
Sun rising over the eastern mountain not become a symbol of the
original supreme luminary, there would be no confusion of sun and
Saturn in the ancient languages. But there is such a confusion, it is
rampant, and the confusion itself is the proof that an extension of
symbolism did occur. Ask yourself, for example: would the confusion
have occurred in an uneventful solar system? Unless there has been a
fundamental shift of orientation, why would the remote and
inconspicuous Saturn carry the same ancient name as the Sun? The
principle involved in this particular issue must be confronted again
and again. The key to resolving a thousand anomalies of myth is the
realization that _they all evaporate_ the moment one permits the
archetypal references of myth to have existed as literal forms in the
sky.

PRIMEVAL SUN GOD

Now the flowering of commemorative Sun-symbolism does not make the
mythical sun god different from those figures of the creator-king
whose names were never shifted to our Sun. Given the extensive tribal
unification achieved by the great civilizations, it is not even
possible that the respective names of the creator-king could all be
acquired by the Sun. That the Egyptian Atum Ra corresponds in
countless ways to the Akkadian Anu is easily demonstrated. But the
name Anu was never attached to our Sun. Rather, a counterpart of Anu
or an aspect of Anu, named Shamash, gave his name to the Sun in
Mesopotamia, and that name was carried into modern times as a name of
the Sun by the Mandaeans of Iraq. Anu was therefore not the sun god in
Mesopotamia. But both Anu and Shamash _were_ identified with Saturn,
according to the most perceptive experts. And both were associated
with Saturn, archetypical best sun.

Similarly, _Kronos_, the common Greek name of Saturn in classical
times, was never shifted to the Sun. That's because a counterpart of
the god Kronos, named Helios, gave his name to the Sun. But both names
once belonged to the now-distant Saturn. So you can understand the
confusion caused for later copyists, when they encountered in archaic
manuscripts the word _Helios _as the name of the planet Saturn! They
eliminated the confusion by literally _changing the words_, replacing
the name Helios with the name of the god that had not been transferred
to the Sun Kronos. That, then, left the great mystery for the more
insightful modern scholars, when they discovered that the planet
Saturn was, before the copyists began changing words, called _Helios_.

GODS BROUGHT DOWN TO EARTH

By this fundamental and universal process of transference, the symbol
came to be confused with the thing symbolized. The celebrants began to
confuse the symbolic Sun rising over the eastern mountain with the
primeval god himself. In precisely the same way, men came to believe
that the symbolic local mountain, mythical image of the world
mountain, was actually the place where creation began. They began to
think that the local city, named after the navel or central enclosure
of heaven, was itself the original habitation of the gods.

This extension of symbolism could continue only so long before the
gods had been _brought down to earth,_ the various terrestrial symbols
and functions progressively fragmenting the once-unified core of myth.

One of the best examples of this is provided by the warrior hero, who
is without question the most pervasive mythical figure (due to the
dramatic _activity _of the god, in contrast to the more passive role
of the _stationary_ sun or creator-king).

It is incredible how many different religious, political and cultural
functions emerged from this singular mythical personality. Warrior,
priest, servant, builder, messenger, administrator, judge, musician,
poet, bard, artist, smith, healer, magician, shaman, medicine man,
trickster, harlequin, fool. In various cultures, such specialized
roles had a prototype in the local myths. But what scholars as a whole
have overlooked is that the original prototype for each of these
evolved functions is the _same mythical personality: _the warrior
hero. The original warrior-hero contained within himself (in a less
_specialized_ sense, one might say) all of these functions. In the
underlying mythical scheme, there is one figure only the demiurge, the
servant of the creator king, providing the creator with his external
voice, producing the _form of creation_, defeating the powers of
chaos, laboring on behalf of the god to build his dwelling, excavating
sacred space, holding the god aloft, and, from the vantage point of
the terrestrial observer, roving up and down the world axis, and at
certain critical junctures causing trouble or wholesale disaster, then
at other junctures appearing as the agent of restoration or renewal.

You will notice for example, that each of the culturally-defined or
narrowed functions warrior, priest, magician, etc. involved a kind of
initiation ceremony. But the different ceremonies for initiating the
priest, the poet, magician or smith followed the same formulae as has
already been noticed by such insightful mythologists as Joseph
Campbell and Mircea Eliade. The reason for the similarity is that the
ritual prototype was provided by the biography of a single _archetypal_
figure.

In later epochs, the localized smith no longer functioned as a shaman,
musician, warrior, or fool, because the more specialized function
gradually led to the shedding of aspects no longer fitting the
function. What is extraneous to an increasingly specialized function
eventually drops away. If the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it. So we
forget that the poet was originally a warrior. His words were things,
more specifically, _weapons_. They were magical, and could kill. We
forget that the fool, harlequin, or court jester in the service of the
king had his prototype in the trickster-hero, whose original form was
the warrior-hero, the servant of the creator-king. His jokes or tricks
were deadly.

The warriors Hercules and Apollo were musicians and renowned
tricksters. Merlin the magician was originally a warrior. The wand of
the magician functions as a sword. It is pointed at someone and he
dies. Or it's thrown at someone and he dies. Well the same thing was
said of the unerring sword of the warrior hero. The Smith Ilmarinen,
one of the central figures of the Finnish _Kalevala_, was a famous
warrior. It was said that the trickster Coyote, like the trickster
Maui, was originally a great warrior. Study the global trickster and
fool myths around the world, pull together the many diverse threads,
and in every instance you will come face to face with the myth of the
warrior hero.

GOOD AND EVIL GOD

It needs to be pointed out as well that, in the earlier strata of the
mythical record, this very same hero-god is also the archetypal fiend,
the rebel-barbarian. Horus and Set are two aspects of the same figure,
presented as a light and dark head on one body. Though both the
Babylonian Nergal and Greek Ares are called the Hero, they are also
murderers. The poets could not conceal the murderous side of the
greatest of Greek heroes, Heracles.

Earlier myths, incidentally, do not follow familiar literary
conventions with easily defined boundaries between good and evil. It
is significant, however, that later poets, historians and
philosophers, in seeking to define these boundaries or reflecting on
human existence or questions of man's place in the universe,
continually looked back to the age of the gods for an analogy or
example, just as their predecessors looked back to the age of the gods
for every guiding principle. Even in the later age, the creator king
remained the prototype of the philosopher's unmoved mover; the divine
race presiding over the Golden Age continued to serve as a mythical
reference for civilized conduct; the spindle of the world axis or
world mountain continued to provide the analogy for a world order
behind the random appearance of nature; the cosmic wheel still turned
above the world as the poet's wheel of fate; and even as philosophers,
poets and naturalists _ceased to believe in the gods_, countless
symbols of the mythical age still supplied the great examples for
science in its infancy. That is how powerfully the mythical age
influenced several millennia of human thought.

From the first glimmerings of civilization onward man lived in the
shadow of Saturn and the planetary gods. That the memory grew confused
over the centuries should not surprise us, for once the compelling
forms in the sky had vanished, man had only his _subjective memories
_and _interpretive concepts _to guide him. Over time the universal
tendency to localize, elaborate, or rationally explain the memories,
or to retain particular aspects of a story while shedding aspects that
no longer made any sense, would progressively fragment the originally
experience. Of course memory alone can never perfectly represent an
experience, and archaic memories gradually lost their integrity in the
course of cultural evolution. Yet the resulting jumble of
contradictions need not frustrate or mislead the investigator. By his
recourse to the _recurring themes _of myth, the investigator can move
through the superficial layers without distraction, permitting only
the core of myth to speak with authority. For here, one is dealing
with memories that have _not _given way to random distortion but
rather have endured for thousands of years, still speaking eloquently
for a forgotten sky.

Surely the origins of these thought-structures deserve to be analyzed
and brought to light. For there is every reason to believe that the
great awakening of modern science will begin the moment that
mainstream scholars confront the underlying message of myth, and
wonder if a different vantage point may be necessary.

EVOLUTION OF A PHYSICAL MODEL

Ancient mythology is a window to an alien sky and to events modern man
has forgotten events whose effects still confront us as scars on
distant planets and as exotic signs and symbols of unrecognized
origin.

But how are we to reconstruct events occurring thousands of years ago?
One must re-experience them through the eyes of ancient witnesses. Our
confidence in myth and symbol arises from the recognition that the
_substratum_ is an accurate mirror of _origins_. Having survived for
several millennia, the fundamental themes take us back in time,
permitting early man, whose recollections had not yet dimmed, to
relate his experiences with clarity. That is why we can speak of the
_integrity, _the lack of contradiction, the interconnectedness of the
themes.

Celestial forms no longer present and events no longer occurring left
their signature not just on the landscape of affected planets, but in
the collective memory of man as he strove to align himself with the
experienced powers, to be _true _to the gods. For modern science, this
is an utterly unknown dimension of history, and it is therefore
necessary to temporarily hold in suspension all prior beliefs about
the past. Not in the sense that we abandon reason or ignore physical
principles once and for all, but that we let nothing __get in the way
of listening to the _whole story_. Considering the very nature of the
subject matter and the incredible chasm between myth and modern
theory, a reconstruction simply could not be achieved without a period
of suspended judgment. The required methodology does not seek, or
require, principles of certainty. __It calls for provisional
allowances, the granting of suggested possibilities that can then be
cross-referenced with all available historical information.

This means, of course, that questions of celestial mechanics including
many issues that must eventually be addressed should not intrude on
the first phases of reconstruction. Nor should the investigator allow
himself to be distracted by the interesting questions that
mythically-based models might pose for geology or climatology. We are
counting on the integrity of the underlying memory: there is no reason
to fear that this collective memory will lead us into a maze of
physical absurdities. (Presumably, the events did not violate any laws
of nature!) But one will never know the _questions_ until one
confronts, in full, the _experience_ that physics is asked to explain.

_A METHODOLOGY FOR RECONSTRUCTING THE PAST_

In seeking to comprehend the external events reflected in the myths,
one must build a model from the ground up. The ground is the
historical experience, and the investigator coming to the subject from
the perspective of planetary catastrophism has these primary
objectives

1) to identify the dominant images (recurring themes deduced from
ancient myth, ritual and art).

2) to identify historically-based planetary associations that might
account for the images.

3) to determine where the implicated planets had to be in relation to
the Earth and to each other in order to produce such images.

As a simple exercise under the proposed methodology, one might start
with these fundamental motifs: age of the gods, central sun, axial or
polar sun, ancient day reckoned from sunset to sunset, Saturn's Golden
Age, Saturn as Universal Monarch, Saturn as sun god, Saturn as polar
power, Saturn as Heaven or primeval Unity.

The methodology suggests that the investigator tentatively grant
whatever natural condition is necessary to account for the listed
motifs, but no more than is necessary _. _Hence, to take up the
challenge without immediately compromising the approach, there is no
logical option to placing Saturn at the celestial pole, close enough
to the Earth to have inspired the listed themes. In our imagination,
as we proceed under this _re-envisioning_ of the past, Saturn towers
over ancient man. It does not move, but as the earth rotates on its
axis the heavens visually revolve around the immense planet. During
the day, the appearance of the giant sphere is subdued, but at sunset
(beginning of the archaic day) Saturn grows brilliant, precisely as
the ancient hymns and rites proclaim of the ancient sun.

It should go without saying that to produce a model accounting for
these few themes, while interesting, would be far from conclusive. If
we are confident in the final outcome of the inquiry, it is only
because of the sheer volume of interconnected and recurring themes. On
the other hand, a model that accounts for only a handful of themes
_could be _a significant start, since no prior theory of myth explains
_any _theme when that theme is examined in detail.

_THE POLAR CONFIGURATION_

I do not propose here to lead the reader through all of the threads of
an inquiry now more than 20 years old. In this and the two remaining
articles in the series we will simply sketch an outline of the
celestial forms which our investigation suggests once held sway above
the ancient world. This outline can then serve as the backdrop for a
detailed look at some of the most interesting and significant themes.

I am going to assume that readers are generally familiar with the
suggested planetary assembly I have called the polar configuration,
but I will add a few thoughts concerning the logical context of the
thesis. Because the theory has evolved in certain unexpected
directions in recent years, I will also note a couple of critical
revisions to the mythically-based model.

Saturn was not alone in the sky, but part of a gathering of planets
moving in unison to constitute a nearly overwhelming celestial
presence. The participating planets in the proposed configuration are:
Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Mars and Earth. Each planet receives its
assigned place in the assembly for very specific reasons, and all of
the threads of evidence supporting this lineup are interconnected:
change the sequence of planets and the argument as a whole unravels.
But allow the planets to fulfill their mythical roles, and neither the
planets nor the myths will disappoint us.

The above illustration represents certain tenets of planetary
mythology, without any attempt to reflect _distance _or relative
motions of the bodies in relation to each other or to the Sun. It is a
just a starting point. The thesis holds that in the
earliest-remembered phase of the configuration, the participants were
held in alignment, so that from a terrestrial vantage point, Saturn
occluded the view of Jupiter, Venus appeared in the center of Saturn,
and Mars appeared inside the orb of Venus.

Additionally, the Earth itself was aligned axially to the other
planets, so that the giant configuration appeared fixed in the polar
sky.

Scale and perspective are not only vital, but establish a set of
principles and requirements that must coincide with the mythical
material, _without contradiction. _These principles and requirements
are specific enough to provide an easy means of disproving the model
if it is fundamentally invalid

ï the participants are held in a conjunction, but for the observer on
Earth the planet Mars must move up and down the axis visually;

ï light arrives from the Sun at a particular angle, producing specific
effects;

ï the rotating Earth has a direct effect on the movement of the
resulting celestial forms;

ï the participating planets are of dramatically different _sizes_, and
these differences must cooperate with _distance_ to produce
identifiable images (as well as specific changes with the evolution of
the configuration);

ï the viewer on Earth is not precisely on the axis, but slightly
removed, affecting the appearance of Mars in its descent. (In treating
issues of perspective it is not unreasonable to place the terrestrial
observer on the 45th parallel.)

It is not merely a matter of asking whether the mythical evidence
supports a particular placement of the planets. The equally telling
question is: when you grant the planetary placement, will scale and
perspective yield the visual images necessary to make the
mythically-based model as a whole work? I trust the reader will see
that, given the many variables contributing to the visual effects, the
possibility of an accident producing an accord with universal myth and
symbol is either extraordinarily remote or _nonexistent. _

The colors associated with the participating planets in this early
stage are Saturn: yellow, gold, i.e., as god of the Golden Age; Venus:
white, silver, gray, later turning to bright turquoise; Mars: rusty
red and dark.

The two images presented below represent the view of the celestial
configuration from Earth under two closely related conditions, without
any attempt to accommodate the light from the Sun (a critical
component). In the first, the dark orb of Mars appears in the center
of a spherical Venus, which in turn rests visually in the center of
Saturn; in the other image Venus' atmosphere has acquired an ovoid
shape. In the second part of this series, I will give the reasons for
believing that this evolving form of Venus was due to Venus pulling
atmosphere from Mars, this gas then spiraling around Venus. What
_happens_ to this gas-or dust-cloud is fundamental to the mythical
history of the configuration.

_The Polar Configuration Earliest Phase
_
_SATURN SIGN_

Before proceeding further, I must briefly address issues raised by an
ancient image that, for many years, I called the sign of the enclosed
sun

This elementary image, presented in countless variations around the
world, has figured prominently in earlier discussions of the polar
configuration. But I wish to credit Ev Cochrane and Lynn Rose for
having helped me to confront a particularly important issue.

In 1982, two years after Ev had read _The Saturn Myth,_ he asked me
what I thought about Velikovsky's _comet _Venus. I gave him a quick
summary of my opinion that, mythically, Venus was the exhaled
heart-soul of the sun god Saturn, becoming the god's curled and/or
braided beard or sidelock and eventually emerging as the cosmic
serpent or dragon wrapping itself around the god. I told him that I
thought Venus' original position was on the shared planetary axis, but
_between Saturn and Jupiter,_ originally hidden behind Saturn, then
(when it was displaced from the axis) becoming visible as an emission
or exhaled soul-essence of Saturn.

It was not long before Ev challenged me, saying it would seem to make
more sense to put Venus in front of Saturn to give more concrete
meaning to the role as eye-heart-soul of the sun god.

I told Ev this would open a real can of worms, and though I wanted to
explore the issue, I simply hadn't had the time.

There was some history to this issue. In 1974 I had submitted an
article to the editors of _Pensée_ titled Saturn: the Polar Night Sun.
It included a brief note on the sign of the enclosed sun. I received a
letter of comment and criticism from Lynn Rose. In it he asked how I
knew that the outer circle wasn't Saturn and the inner circle or dot
something else? That was the very question that eventually became
paramount.

What does the famous symbol represent? In _The Saturn Myth, _I
interpreted the sign in one way: it is a picture of the planet Saturn
surrounded by a band. But if you place Venus in front of Saturn, in
answer to the image of Saturn's central eye-heart-soul, that automatic
identification of the sign is no longer appropriate.

Now, many years later, I need to thank both Lynn and Ev for not
letting me sidestep what turned out to be one of the most fundamental
questions for the evolution of a mythically-based model. Eventually I
did have the time to thoroughly investigate the issue. A key was
confronting the character of Mars, the warrior hero, as the pupil of
the eye, the heart of the heart and the child carried inside the womb
of the mother goddess. When examined in detail, the imagery didn't
leave any basis for putting Venus behind Saturn!

Several other lines of investigation were, simultaneously, giving me a
new perspective on what I had termed the Saturnian enclosure. As to
the existence of a celestial enclosure __in the myths, there can be no
doubt, but as the relationship of that enclosure to Saturn took on
increasing clarity, I realized that its formation, said to have
occurred _in the center of heaven, in the navel of the sea,_ _in the
middle_ _of the world, _was not visually _around _Saturn but _inside_
Saturn, at least in the beginning. The gases of the elliptical
Venus-egg are, in consequence of certain dramatic events, resolved
into a band that expands outward. In recent years, numerous aspects of
the cosmic scenario have crystallized, including dimensions I had
never imagined ten years ago.

What follows is a brief review of key mythical images relating to
Saturn and the planetary gods in their earliest appearance

_SATURN AND HEAVEN_

In the beginning the creator-king _was_. That is the underlying
message of countless myths. I think it is likely that Saturn and the
planetary orbs juxtaposed with Saturn, were the only bodies seen at
the time that Saturn was said to have dominated the sky.

The stars were probably not visible because the night sky was so
brightly lit by this primary congregation of planets. (There is also
evidence discussed in the second part of this series that the
participating planets moved through a diffuse gaseous envelope, which
almost certainly would have prevented a view of the stars.) In many
years of looking, I have never found any evidence that our Sun was an
object of attention, though it was clearly present. Two principles are
evident: 1) the Sun was not directly a part of the spectacular
configuration, and 2) the Sun _participated_ in the configuration from
a distance, in the sense that the light from the Sun produced highly
visible and definitive effects.

In the earliest remembered age the creator-king and _heaven_ are
synonymous. Sumerian An, Babylonian Anu, Egyptian Atum-Ra, Greek
Uranos-Kronos, Hindu Varuna.

The Chinese _Tien_ is both god and heaven. Sanskrit _dyaus _(Latin
_deus_) carries the double meaning god and heaven. Among the
Zoroastrians heaven originally took the form of the great sphere
called _Spihr, _the body of Zurvan, ruler of the Golden Age. The Lapps
speak of the ancient _Waralden Olmay _or World Man identified as
Saturn _, _while Norse legends remembered the former Heaven Man,
called Kroder, also identified with Saturn.

Saturn is the Heaven Man, the all-containing Unity, holding within
himself all the latent powers that are subsequently activated,
externalized, or set into motion, giving _form _to Saturn's creation.
In the language of Egyptian myth this means bringing forth the
differentiated limbs of the creator king himself. What was originally
void __of form acquires a more elaborate organization, with
distinctive motions of the parts. Primeval void chaos, and
formlessness signify one and same state.

The flowering form of the Heaven Man _is_ the creation. In several
versions of the myth, the god's own body is the primeval matter of
creation; then in later lore the mythical figure frequently appears as
a primordial monster or giant (Norse Ymir, Hindu Purusha, Chinese Pan
Ku) sacrificed to produce the varied forms of a new cosmic order.

Early episodes of the creation myth deserve much closer attention than
can be given here. The events are highly concrete and involve
_identifiable shapes, _preceded by _formlessness. _Today, when we
think of a creation myth, we imagine a story telling how the visible
world, including the terrestrial landscape, came into being. But the
original myth told of the organization, disruption and transformation
of a visible _celestial_ dwelling, the land of the gods.

Creation involved events seen and heard by man. That is why one must
__see heaven as the ancients did a luminous sphere holding within
itself the latent powers activated in the creation. As noted by Plato
and other early philosophers, the unformed world was a _sphere. _In
the words of the Latin Poet Ovid, the unformed world was all Chaos,
the _rounded body_ of all things in one. Hence, when early myths speak
of the heaven god, the subject is not an abstract sky, but the
_province of beginnings _the theater for the birth of the secondary
gods and the great dramas of the First Time. Heaven the place was once
close to the earth; that's a universal tenet of myth. When the myths
say that in the beginning Saturn ruled, they proclaim the same thing,
for Saturn and Heaven are one and the same god

The majority of myths say that only water stretched across heaven or
the unformed world in the beginning. Imagine the gas-giant Saturn
(with no visible rings) hovering above ancient man and brought to a
golden glow in the night sky. Mythically the heaven-god was the golden
waters, the sea. The gaseous, turbulent envelope of Saturn, for the
observer on earth, had all of features of a wind-driven ocean above
the boundless, formless sea, the misty place or backdrop of certain,
more focused events. Cosmic sea and heaven-god are originally
synonymous. In more than one astronomical tradition, of course, Saturn
is not only the sphere of heaven, but the _water planet_.

PLANETARY MOTIFS EARLIEST PHASE

With respect to the original condition, when Mars and Venus stood in
conjunction _inside _the orb of Saturn, a series of symbols and
mythical equations can be identified. In this brief review I will
place the accent on Venus, noting the repeated association with both
the creator-king and the warrior-hero. All of the attributes outlined
here relate to the earliest phase of the configuration, in which the
crucial ideas are _sphericity_ (both the spherical and ovoid forms of
Venus illustrated above), _centrality_ (Venus was seen squarely in the
middle of Saturn or heaven), and the planet's role as an _enclosure_
housing a smaller orb.

As the reader will observe, the three attributes are vital to numerous
links in the argument, all connecting what are otherwise incompatible
mythical interpretations to a _single underlying form. _Though an
overview requires a compression of material, asking the reader to
briskly tread a lot of ground, the discernment of repeated
relationships can add immensely to one's sense of symmetry: a singular
form, interpreted in different ways, will eliminate countless
_apparent _contradictions in ancient symbolism of the Venus-goddess.

_VENUS_

_Womb-Goddess_

Though it is only with the beginning of differentiation that Venus
emerges as an independent power, the Venusian character as celestial
_womb _and _female principle_ is clearly an overarching motif. Venus
is the great goddess, born in the center of heaven (more literally,
_signifying _the center of heaven in her earliest character), while
carrying the warrior-hero as impregnating seed, as unborn god, and as
newborn child on the lap.

A systematic analysis of the primary Egyptian goddess figures will
show that in each and every instance whatever the mythical guise the
root idea is that of an enclosure. Isis as throne and crown, Hathor as
house of Horus, Nut as sacred city or place, Sekhemet as eye, etc.,
all denote in the most explicit way the mother-womb from which is born
the warrior hero.

The same underlying goddess image will be found in Mesopotamia. The
Sumerian Gula is mother-womb. The Babylonian Ishtar's name means womb.
In Hindu myth, the goddess is the _yoni _or womb, while the hero is
the masculine power shining in the Mother's eternal womb.

In the _Saturn Myth, _I devoted many pages to the global idea of the
mother goddess as a band or enclosure, without discerning the original
relationship to Venus. What does an enclosure have to do with a
planetary orb? I later realized that the answer is: Everything. The
mythical identity of Venus starts as an enclosure and ends as one and
the intervening biographical events are more colorful and complex than
I had ever imagined in the early years of the research. Both an
advantage and a challenge confront us. The challenge is to integrate
the massive new material into a unified reconstruction; the advantage
is that the new details provide spectacular additional levels of
evidence.

_Animating Soul: Glory, Splendor, Power, Wisdom_

Venus is the interior light, the divine glory, splendor, or majesty of
the creator king, conceived as the life source, departing to become an
independent power and achieving an _intelligent design_. Hence, the
earliest sacred astronomy identified Venus as soul-star (Babylonian
title of Venus). All of the Egyptian counterparts of the Near Eastern
Venus goddesses reveal this identity, as I have noted more than once
in earlier articles. When the Romans deemed Venus the soul of Caesar
shining in the sky, they celebrated an ancient tradition. In the same
way, natives of Mexico invoked Venus as the soul of the old sun god
Quetzalcoatl.

What the Hebrews remembered as the Shekinah, the indwelling glory of
God, the Sumerians remembered as the terrifying splendor in the
_center_ of heaven, the Hindus as the _shakti _or animating interior
power of the creator king, and the Egyptians as the _khemet _or
resplendent power of the sun god.

Each of the major mythologies preserved its own variation of this idea
the visible, animating, radiant soul, or soul-star declaring this
power to be a _goddess_. The female power of the creator-king is seen.
It has, or acquires, a _form_. It behaves in specific ways, that is,
has a history, and it is the full history of this soul-star to which
one must look in order to understand the related _goddess-_types as
intelligence, idea, wisdom, fate, word, charm, or binding spell. The
intimately connected terms fill the ancient lexicons: the Word of the
creator-king is his own life breath, going forth as a terrifying
power: it is the concrete expression of the creator-king's thought
(intelligence, wisdom), _shaping _events, producing the _form _of
creation, _determining the fate _of the gods, and _binding _the
enemies of cosmic order. While the stationary creator-king is, by
definition, a largely passive figure, the goddess is _highly active. _

_Heart_

Inseparably tied to Venus' identity as soul-star is the
planet-goddess' role as the _heart_ of the creator-king a vital,
luminous, internal organ providing life to its owner. Heart and soul
are thus virtually _indistinguishable _in most mythical symbolism.

The Martian hero, on the other hand, will be the enclosed sphere
(stone, ball, small orb) _inside_ the heart what the Egyptians called
the heart of the heart, the _ab-en-hati,_ or reddish _ab_-heart inside
the female _hati_-heart.

In examining the myths of other peoples, many vital clues can be
derived from analyzing the hero in his relationship, _at birth, _to
the heart of the creator-king or sun god. For the ancient Sumerians,
the heart of heaven meant the _womb of the hero's birth. _In the
general tradition, the hero comes forth as the _outflow of the heart,_
which is what the myths mean when they identify the hero as the
externalized will or desire of the creator-king the Demiurge (c.f.,
the Greek Eros: in numerous sources one notes that the will or outflow
of the creator's heart _took form_ as the warrior hero). In the case
of Egyptian symbolism the relationship can be confirmed in every major
variant of the warrior hero, from Shu, to Horus, to Thoth. The heart
from which the hero is born _is _the great goddess.

_Venus-Eye_

I believe it was O.G.S. Crawford who first drew scholars' attention to
the widespread pictographs and symbolic images of what he called the
Eye Goddess. But the planet Venus he never mentioned, so he missed the
key. It is incredible how frequently one encounters the identity of
the planet Venus or Venus-goddess as eye or Great Eye. Egypt,
Mesopotamia, China, the Americas, Polynesia it is everywhere. But no
one seems to have asked whether the relationship to Venus the planet
might tell us something about Crawford's _eye-goddess_ pictographs,
most commonly involving simple concentric circles.

Moreover, all of the experts seem to have ignored the other half of
the equation. _The creator-king possessed a single eye_. Atum was god
of the Sole-Eye. The eye shineth with splendors on the forehead of Ra.
And countless ritual texts leave no room for disputing that this eye
_was_ the mother goddess, a fact repeated by every Egyptian tribe,
whatever the particular name for the goddess. _It is simply impossible
to separate the Eye Goddess from the original personality of the
creator-king._

Nor can one isolate the eye goddess from the warrior hero, for he
appears explicitly as the _pupil_ of the Eye, or the red _apple_ of
the eye. (This too, I have noted in earlier essays.) Shu is, in his
original state, seated in the middle of his father's [Atum's] eye. The
hero Horus proclaims: I am Horus in his Eye. Thus does the hero appear
as the dweller in the middle of his own eye. My origin is from the
apple of his eye, the texts say. I am ...the Terrible One who issued
from his Eye.

Today we are so used to the phrase apple of his mother's eye that we
do not even notice the _irrationality_ of the image. But trace the
language to its origins and you will see that the apple of the eye was
the _child of the goddess._

_Vase_

As the surrounding, radiant womb housing the unborn warrior-hero,
Venus was the _receptacle par excellence_. To the mythmaker, the
illuminated gas or dust cloud revolving around the planet was seen as
the revolving mud and waters of the cosmic sea, from which a
receptacle or vase took form, as if on a potters wheel. In Egyptian
symbolism the vase and the goddess are virtually synonymous. And of
course the female or goddess form of the vase in primitive cultures
has been noted by numerous authors from Eric Neumann to Marija
Gimbutas.

But this vase-goddess is the _same_ goddess who carries the
warrior-hero in her womb, and hundreds of examples could be given from
around the world, showing the unborn or re-born warrior hero contained
within a vase or receptacle goddess. The Hindu Vasishtha is born from
the jar, while the Iranian Fravashi, Khumbya, is the son of the jar.
Muslim tradition echoes this theme in declaring that the soul of
Mohammed _preexisted in a vase of light_ in the world of spirits.

Zelia Nuttall's study of Mexican symbolism confirmed the very same
idea: the sacred man-child of the Mayans emerges from a _vase.
_(Appropriately, the Mayan vase signified the navel or center of
heaven, according to Nuttall.) The same symbolism of the vase has been
documented in both China and the Americas by Carl Hentze and others.

Presented below are the two most common Egyptian versions of the vase:

_Egyptian Vase Hieroglyphs_

The consistency of the imagery is compelling. The Egyptians clearly
knew, for example, that the vase _was_ the goddess. The vase-sign was
a common glyph for the goddess Nut. More generally, the vase _meant_
goddess, mistress, queen, to consort with, etc. Normally, when we see
a vase we do not think either goddess or female principle. Nor do we
think of a heart or internal organ, but to the Egyptians the
vase-goddess and heart of the creator-king were _one and the same,_
and there's no possibility of this being due to later syncretism or
indiscriminate assimilation. In the Egyptian language _,_ the heart is
_written with the vase-sign_, and the sign also carried the general
meaning internal organ and occupying the center.

_Navel of the World_

Saturn is Heaven, the primeval, unformed world, the cosmic sea. Venus
is the hallowed, hollow place at the center of heaven, in the center
of the world, in the center of the cosmic sea called _the navel_.

Identity of goddess and navel or _omphalos_, of course, has been long
recognized. Omphalia was a Greek goddess. And when Hindu or Greek
poets remembered their favorite warrior-hero as the navel-born, they
honored the archetypical link of hero and goddess.

Navel of the world, navel of the sea, navel of heaven. How often have
mythologists, reviewing the genesis myths, noticed that the navel is
the focus of initial activity, then offered only abstractions as
explanations. In all mythological systems (and here I mean _literally
_all systems on which we have significant data) creation acquires its
form through the _activity of the mother goddess and warrior hero_.
Originally these juxtaposed powers _constitute_ the navel. Their
departure from that position is _the beginning of creation_.

_Nave of the Sun-Wheel_

Around the world the image of the orb contained within a circle, a
band, or larger orb was associated with the idea of a great turning
wheel both mythically and pictographically. Images of Crawford's eye
goddess merge with images of the cosmic wheel carved in stone on every
continent. But why was the mystic eye conceived as a wheel? Again,
natural experience today provides not a clue. Yet somehow the
identification established itself in more than one land. The famous
Greek Cyclops, literary echo of the Heaven Man, is the wheel-eyed; the
Norse great god Odin possessed a single eye, remembered as a giant
wheel.

The language of the wheel is instructive, for there is a self-evident
etymological link of the wheel's _nave _and the mythical _navel_.
__The nave is the receptacle or sleeve at the center of the wheel, in
which the axle turns. If one applies the concepts discussed here to
the language of the _cosmic wheel, _the implications are inescapable:
the nave of the cosmic wheel _must _be the goddess, and the axle of
the wheel _must _be the warrior hero, or the integrity we have claimed
for myth breaks down.

Though the cosmic wheel will be a primary topic in the concluding
article, it is only appropriate to note, in this brief summary, that
all of the key associations are confirmed in Hindu symbolism of the
sun wheel. The most fully developed and preserved symbolism of the
wheel will be found in India: There the ritual texts explicitly
identify the mother goddess as _nave_ of the sun-wheel, and, in
equally explicit terms, they declare the warrior-hero (c.f., Indra,
the most widely venerated hero god in ancient India) to have formerly
served as the wheel's _axle _.

_Cosmic Egg_

One of the mythical events consistently placed in an early phase of
creation is the birth of the cosmic egg or world egg. The Greek
Chronos, or Time, brings forth a cosmic egg, then sets the egg in
motion.

The Great Chronos fashioned in the divine

Aether a silver egg.

And it moved without slackening in a vast circle

Professor Eliade traced recollections of the cosmic egg one of the
most universal images of the great goddess across Indonesia, Iran,
Phoenicia, Latvia, Estonia, West Africa, Central America, and the west
coast of South America.

Numerous Egyptian sources say that the egg took form in the cosmic
waters much the same way that the _vase-_goddess appeared. That the
Egyptians recognized the _identity_ of egg and vase is clear: for they
declared, without contradiction, that the god Ptah fashioned the egg
on the _potter's wheel._

The island of the egg, the land of the egg, the egg of the sun, in
Egyptian symbolism, mean the middle place, the navel, the starting
point of creation. Hence, it is completely consistent with the
above-noted range of symbols that the same egg denotes the cosmic womb
from which the warrior-hero sprang in the beginning. In the Egyptian
language the egg is a common determinative for goddess, and the
priests could thus celebrate the unborn hero as the mighty one in the
egg.

Enigmatically, the hero proclaims, I sit in the Eye, my egg. Need we
point out that natural experience (today!) could never inspire such a
statement? Yet the image of Mars visually centered within the ovoid
Venus does indeed _look like _an eye, but also a reddish sphere inside
an egg. When referred to the unifying celestial form, the internal
consistency of the mythical imagery meets our every expectation.

_THE LOGIC OF THE POLAR CONFIGURATION_

When considered as a whole, the variety of goddess forms provides a
series of _verifiable_ symbolic equations. Taken alone, or deprived of
their objective reference, the identities will seem incongruous or
hopelessly confused; but see them in terms of the unifying reference a
literal source in the sky and the seeming irrationality instantly
vanishes.

To fully appreciate the unified substratum of myth and to weigh the
historical implications one must continually engage the subject from
the vantage point of a _test. _

Does any experience of nature today offer a clue to the historical
origins of the cited ideas?

_If _the celestial form we have illustrated hung spectacularly above
ancient man, is anything more needed to explain the mythical images?

Since the model implies extremely specific relationships between
symbolic forms, one does not have to be concerned that the oft-noted
ambiguity of myth will allow a proponent of the polar configuration to
recklessly equate mythical ideas that were originally unrelated. That
the eye-goddess meant the eye of the creator-king is a provable
equation and is not refuted by any body of data. That this eye meant
the soul or soul-star is also provable. That the eye was the womb from
which the hero burst forth is provable as well. Against such layers of
mythical evidence a critic is invited to bring forward _any
_countervailing evidence based on recurring themes.

And if the countervailing evidence is not forthcoming, how is one to
assess the logic of the situation? Is it possible that the sky we know
today could produce _no _mythical themes, while a wholly unified but
_entirely imaginary_ order could produce _all _mythical themes?

To summarize the foregoing: the planetary identities associated with
the earliest phase of the proposed configuration are

_Saturn: _all-containing Unity, Heaven, Heaven Man, unformed world,
the cosmic sea; primeval sun, central sun, polar sun.

_Venus_ : universal goddess, womb, heart, soul, glory of the creator
king, eye goddess, vase, navel, nave of world wheel, cosmic egg.

_Mars_ : child carried by Venus, the heart-born god, heart of the
heart, vase-born god, navel-born god, axle of the world wheel, pupil
or apple of the eye, hero born of the cosmic egg.

SATURNIAN CRESCENT

When I was in the earliest stages of developing the thesis of the
polar configuration before I had presented the idea to anyone there
was a point at which the idea occurred to me of an illuminated
crescent or half-circle of light revolving around a stationary god. It
was not a single mythical theme that produced the idea but a series of
interconnected images revolving ships, revolving horns, horned peaks,
outstretched arms and outstretched wings, all presented in alternating
positions around a central figure, with a distinctive relationship to
an apparent celestialcolumn, and in explicit association with a cycle
of day and night.

The specific form I believed to be latent in the wide-ranging mythical
images was this

If the crescent was produced by light from the Sun, then this form
would be the midnight position for the observer on Earth. And if a
rotating Earth was in _any_ relationship to the Sun that could produce
such an image, then the celestial form would go through a daily cycle.

Sunset Midnight Sunrise Noon

The thesis concerning the revolving crescent was a turning point in
the investigation, because it produced a level of specificity
permitting the entire notion to be _easily_ _disproved if the
revolving crescent did not exist. _In that sense, it met the classical
test of a good theory. It gave me a highly specific set of questions
to apply to each and every motif. Did the outstretched arms, or
extended wings, so often depicted reaching around a divine figure,
consistently relate to a daily cycle? Were they to the left and right
in connection with the archaic dawn and evening? Were they above at
night and below in the day? (Keep in mind that the ancient day began
at sunset; night was the period from sunrise to sunset.) Did the
respective positions of the cosmic ship and horns consistently fulfill
the same requirements? And did the twin peaks of the cosmic mountain
actually revolve around the polar center, standing inverted above the
god during the phase of receding light, or night? These questions were
_so specific _and the answers _so consistent, even while flatly
contradicting all observations of nature today, _it was no longer
possible to doubt the existence of an objective reference.

In 1988 and many times thereafter I invited critics to submit their
refutations under the obvious tests. It was only necessary for the
critic to show that the _highly unusual_ behavior of the proposed
crescent-forms was contradicted by early sources _somewhere_. It is,
after all, more than a little interesting to discover that while
hundreds of sources are consistent with the behavior of the suggested
crescent-forms, one finds no recurring images or recurring traditions
_contradicting _that behavior. In the five years since that
invitation, no one has stepped forward to offer a challenge based on
historical evidence.

CRESCENT AND ENCLOSURE

As for the _explanation _of the revolving crescent, I had looked to
Saturn standing within an illuminated cloud-like band. But how did the
light fall on this broad band to create a crescent? An illuminated
semicircle, or half-donut would be the image if the light arrived on a
line coinciding with the plane of the revolving dust or gas.

About four years ago, a computer specialist named Dennis Baker called
me to tell me that the crescent issue was bothering him. We agreed
that a degree of back lighting would be necessary to create a long
crescent image on a doughnut-like torus-cloud around a polar Saturn,
but he emphasized that this would also create a counter-crescent on
_the inside_ of the doughnut.

My assumption was that a degree of back lighting occurred, at least in
certain phases, giving more of a crescent image, and that at other
times the light arrived precisely along the plane of the torus-cloud's
revolution, creating a simple half-circle all depending on relative
relationships to the light source as the configuration revolved around
the Sun. Though I wasn't satisfied with this ambiguity of the mythical
model, and tended not to want to commit myself on the issue, I did a
revised illustration of the polar configuration showing something of a
counter-crescent, while the crescent itself was compromised a bit at
the two terminations. The illustration took a tenuous middle ground
between crescent and half-circle.

But a far more fundamental issue was raised by myth and symbol. I was
at this time becoming increasingly aware of the possibility that the
orb of Saturn itself was illuminated in such a way as to create a
great crescent revolving visually with the rotation of the Earth. In
all of my early formulations of the polar configuration, I was guided
by the conclusion that the pictographic dot or orb in a circle always
meant Saturn enclosed by a band; so wherever a crescent could be seen
wrapped half way around a circle, I saw it as a crescent placed on the
band by the light of the Sun.

But once I had settled on the juxtaposed images of Venus and Mars in
the center of Saturn, I could no longer ignore the possibility that
the crescent was on Saturn and that the central orb, star or cross
inside the crescent related to Venus or Venus-Mars in conjunction!
That Venus is, in a global tradition, the Star par excellence, the
mother and prototype of stars, only accentuates the issue.

The star-in-crescent will be found on every continent, and its
concrete meaning will be discussed in the second installment of this
series. If the crescent was actually displayed on the orb of Saturn
itself, one would possess a very direct answer for the _sun god _Ra's
title as Shining Horn (noted in _The Saturn Myth_) _. _And when
Babylonian astronomical texts associate the great crescent of Sin with
the planet Saturn, as first noted by the pioneering Assyriologist
George Rawlinson, the connection could be taken in the most direct
sense.

About two and a half years ago, having realized that several new
dimensions of research were necessary and apparently one highly
significant amendment of the model I broached the subject with Ev
Cochrane. The context of that discussion was a sharing of thoughts on
the likelihood that the presentation of the polar configuration was
going to grow more complex. I expressed the sense that, at the present
publication rate, my once-envisioned schedule for completing a summary
would apparently have to be extended to several life times. Putting an
exclamation mark to the observation, I informed Ev that I had been
musing over a _crescent on the orb of Saturn itself_ an idea that
would require a re-write of much of my earlier published material, and
a mass of new material. Instead of our making headway, perhaps the
road ahead was just growing longer.

Over the following months, the idea of a Saturnian crescent solidified
itself into a powerful conviction. At the same time, I was
encountering many new twists to the thesis, all of them exciting, all
of them critical to a complete scenario of events, and all seeming to
remove the possibility of ever finishing satisfactorily a task I had
once conceived as a life's work.

It's not my purpose here to a give a personal account of the
situation, so I will only state the conclusion: I set the task aside.
For about a year and a half, I never opened a book or once set pen to
paper on the subject of ancient myth and planetary history.

_JUPITER_

Back to the narrative (since the sabbatical is, as you can see, over).

The heart of the argument on behalf of the polar configuration is an
extraordinary planetary line up. Though I have often mentioned the
planet Jupiter's role in the suggested configuration, prior discussion
has added only the scantiest of details. It seems appropriate in this
synopsis, therefore, to provide the gist of the reasoning behind my
insistence, for over two decades, on Jupiter's position behind Saturn.

What caught my attention very early in the research was the
consistently repeated relationship between Saturn and Jupiter
mythically the same _Father-Son_ connection recurring in the symbolism
of many lands. The essential idea seems to be that of a retiring,
aging, departing, displaced or dying creator-king giving way to a
_rejuvenated version of himself_ this renewed god-king occupying
precisely the same location as his predecessor and figuring as the
central subject of annual rites celebrating renewed cosmic cycles most
significantly, the New Year.

The relationship of the two mythical figures is extraordinarily close.
In fact, to talk about these figures as if they are _different
_mythical personalities is to immediately mislead. In countless
instances the personalities are blended as aspects of one celestial
power. There is in many versions of the New Year's myth only one
god-king, showing two aspects the aged and the rejuvenated god. Even
today, we celebrate at the New Year the cycle of Father Time (a
Saturnian image of extreme import) who grows old, his beard long, but
who is renewed at the conclusion of the year by a younger or re-born
version of himself.

Though ancient races and tribal traditions may have presented varying
emphases on the _differentiation_ of the two personalities, the
overarching mythical figure is associated with _two_ planets. One
planet signifies the original creator-king, god of the golden age; the
other the re-born or rejuvenated creator-king whose saga was
celebrated every _New Year._

An and Marduk, Atum-Ra and Osiris, El and Yahweh, Zurvan and Ahura
Mazda, Kronos and Zeus, Saturn and Jupiter. _It is impossible not to
notice that the elder figure is continually associated with Saturn and
the younger with Jupiter._ A general principle might be stated thus:
the younger Saturn is Jupiter, and the elder Jupiter is Saturn. That
was, in fact, the way classical authors perceived the relationship.

_ELDER AND YOUNGER GOD_

In the chronicles of the gods, the biographies of the younger and
elder personalities are continually mingled. Kronos, the elder figure,
identified as Saturn by the Greeks, fulfills the role of the _younger_
in the displacement of his father Uranus (all encompassing Heaven),
the latter serving unequivocally as elder figure in Hesiod's brief
account, before Kronos then assumes the elder role in relationship to
the younger creator-king, Zeus, whose most common epithet was Son of
Kronos and who was, in all astronomical traditions, identified as the
planet Jupiter.

Yet Zeus himself plays the elder god in relation to Dionysos, an
eternally youthful god-king, while Dionysos in his turn becomes the
overarching father-creator figure in Orphic thought and in relation to
Zagreus, another eternally youthful figure. The mind boggles in
attempting to strictly separate the elder from the younger. All that
can be said is that, with respect to planetary identifications, the
consistency of the _general principle_ is remarkable: The Saturn
figure is, in his primary character, the displaced figure; the Jovian
is the younger or rejuvenated divinity. And the language itself bears
out the relationship. _Jove _means youth, and is of the same root as
_juvenalis, _from which comes our word rejuvenation. The Babylonian
Marduk-Jupiter is _Shulpae, _the youth, whose enthronement was
celebrated in the famous Babylonian New Year's festival.

(It was not until the mid-eighties that I began to realize that
Osiris, in his relation to Ra, fit the general pattern; in _The Saturn
Myth _I identified Osiris with Saturn pure and simple).

The New Year's concept is repeated in festivals around the world. To
oversimplify some very complex sequences, one can say that the fall or
displacement of the creator-king Saturn is synonymous with the end of
the Golden Age. It signifies the conclusion of one cosmic cycle and
triggers the complex events leading to the beginning of another. These
events include wars of the gods, flight, famine, attack upon the world
by a great chaos monster, winter and darkness, birth (more properly,
re-birth) of the warrior-hero, defeat of the chaos monster,
enthronement of the _rejuvenated _creator-king, and festivity or
celebration the _joy_ and _joviality _of the celebrants also belonging
to Jovian roots linguistically. For this reason, and in the most
fundamental terms, the two planets Saturn and Jupiter came to
represent the polar opposites of gloom and celebration astrologically.
Thus _saturnine_ remains in our language as pertaining to Saturn, but
more commonly gloominess, taciturn and melancholy, while _jovial
_possesses the sense pertaining to Jove, but also to be filled with a
joyous spirit. It may seem a little incongruous that the god of the
Golden Age came to be seen through a dark and gloomy lens, but it
needs to be remembered that in the celebration of the New Year the
most influential celebration in the ancient world the displacement of
the central luminary, the darkness, the loss of cosmic order were
central story elements acted out in the rites. The aged Father Time,
unable to retain his control of the world, _is _a melancholy symbol,
particularly when balanced against the figure of renewal, the young
child or youthful god bringing forth a new cycle, as in the Latin poet
Ovid's brief refrain

After old Saturn fell to Death's dark country

Straitly Jove ruled the world with silver charm

Saturn's displacement is, in a quite straightforward way, synonymous
with Jupiter's appearance, as we should expect if Jupiter was there
all the time, hidden behind Saturn. The Egyptian sources depict the
creator-king bringing forth from his own body the youthful version of
himself. He is the second Ra, the creator-king himself reborn.

One of the keys to the symbolism is the role of the creator-king's
heart-soul. It departs the god upon his death and returns to him with
his renewal. Or, stated in slightly different terms, the soul departs
the elder, displaced god in Egypt, Ra and enters the younger god in
Egypt, Osiris. The dying and resurrected Osiris carries the soul of
Ra, a point that is not often noticed by Egyptologists. In fact, there
is in this celestial sequence an apparent prototype of the
reincarnation theme the soul of the predecessor passing on to and
_legitimizing_ the successor.

The underlying events suggest that with Saturn's removal from the
polar center and a period of general confusion, Jupiter came to occupy
the visible position previously held by Saturn.

Though we cannot here attempt a reconstruction of the spectacular
events and images involved, the reader will remember that the Egyptian
heart has two aspects the female _hati-_heart and the reddish, male
_ab-_heart enclosed within the female heart, the first being identical
to the mother goddess and the second to the warrior hero, carried
within the womb of the goddess. What the story of Osiris establishes
beyond dispute is that both aspects of the heart-soul participate
dramatically in the cosmic drama of Osiris' ordeals, culminating in
the _intensely celebrated _restoration of the god to his rightful
place. (Aspects of this sequence are summarized in the third
installment of this series.)

It is interesting to note, incidentally, that it is not just the
luminous heart or heart-soul that passes to Osiris. Egyptian sources
repeat again and again that Horus, the warrior-hero and former pupil
of the Eye, delivered the Eye to Osiris, and the texts also confirm
that the Eye and heart-soul are _synonymous_. The ritual proclaims
that, thanks to Horus' activity on behalf of Osiris, the resurrected
and rejuvenated god was filled with the Eye, that he received his soul
thereby, that he was made to live thereby.

_PORTRAITS OF JUPITER_

One of the distinguishing features of the Jovian image
pictographically is a series of bands placed on a circle or sphere.
Additionally, there is the prominence of wavy, meandering or swirling
lines suggestive of well-defined atmospheric currents such as are
characteristic of Jupiter's appearance today, accentuated and stylized
in artistic representations. A third component, less common but not
infrequent, is spots or small circles or dabs of gold or other color
spread along the bands, suggestive of atmospheric vortices (both the
famous Red Spot and lesser examples of atmospheric vortices are
noteworthy in photographs of Jupiter today.

Of the banded sphere I offer below a few examples from ancient art

_Images of the banded sphere: 1. North America. 2. Mexico. 3. Africa.
4. Crete. 5. Polynesia. 6. Northern Europe._

As is well known, the Roman god Jupiter came to be represented by a
sphere on which was placed a series of bands. One such instance of the
banded sphere is shown below.

_Sphere of Jupiter_

But in many of the more familiar representations of the god, his human
form dominates. Here it is the _dress _of the god that gives the key
symbols. Note in the image of Zeus (Jupiter) placed on the cover of A.
B. Cook's book, _Zeus, _that the bands constitute the primary design
motif and are distinguished by the very elements expected.

_Zeus (Jupiter)_

(I should add that in the cover illustration, which cannot be fully
duplicated in black and white, the dress of Zeus is further enhanced
by spots or dabs of gold.)

It occurred to me that in Egypt all of the key images of the age of
the gods, in addition to countless well-developed human and zoomorphic
depictions, found pictographic representation in simpler, more literal
forms. So I wondered if there was an elementary hieroglyphic
representation of the banded Jupiter, perhaps in connection with the
youthful or re-born sun god.

Among hundreds of hieroglyphs there is only _one _that fits the image
of a banded sphere. In the writing system, it is the glyph for the
_kh_-sound:

_Enigmatic Egyptian Glyph_

There are, of course, many hundreds of Egyptian words that employ the
glyph. But interestingly, there are only _three instances_ in which
the glyph stands on its own. In the first, the glyph is employed with
the determinative for high or to be high In the second it is combined
with the determinative for babe, boy, child, youth. These first two
uses of the glyph are surely related: the _high_ god is the
creator-king; and the babe or youth is the rejuvenated or reborn
creator-king. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that the _Book
of the Dead_ employs _this very glyph_ to denote the re-born form of
the sun god.

There is a third instance deserving mention as well, though it opens
up a connection with the dying, dismembered and scattered youth which
I have, up to this point reserved for future discussion. In this third
instance the glyph appears with a picture of a small twig as
determinative, and means grain. The connection with the rejuvenated
god seems clear. Osiris himself is called the grain; in symbolic
representations his body is _constituted_ of grain; and it is as grain
that the body of the god is scattered far and wide prior to
reconstitution and the celebrated resurrection of the god.

Once again we see the convergence of motifs on an image answering to
_nothing _in the sky today, yet suggesting an underlying coherence
outside all present experience. On its own, nothing in the image would
present the ideas of youth, to be high, or grain. Yet in Egypt and
many other lands as well, these are the very concepts entwined around
the dying and resurrected god. Is it possible to believe that the
widespread astronomical connection of the rejuvenated god with the
banded sphere of Jupiter is purely accidental?

(One is tempted to elaborate upon other details, but for now this
all-too-brief summary will have to suffice.)

TOWARD A PHYSICAL MODEL

The first requirement of a physical model is that it be consistent
with the data it seeks to explain.

When it comes to myth, the field of particulars is immense, and one
might easily assume that a unifying model is out of the question. On
the face of it the claims of myth are hopelessly contradictory,
removing the very possibility of integrity. What changes the situation
is the surprising unity of the underlying themes. The underpinnings
are far, far less complex than the surface details of myth. If one
formulates the requirements of a model in reference to universal
motifs and permits no other details to complicate the issue, the
challenge becomes remarkably clear. It is no longer an issue of
coherence, but one of plausibility.

Consider, for example: in the list of recurring themes presented
earlier in this article, _there are no contradictions._ That fact does
not involve any manipulation of the list by the author. It is just
that, at the level of the substratum, _myth is not self-contradictory.
_Moreover, as stated earlier, no theme stands alone; each is
inseparably tied to the others, each illuminating and illuminated by
the whole.

Is it possible that a single physical model could accommodate _all_ of
the listed themes? Or is the apparent integrity only an illusion that
bursts the moment one invokes the physical references?

Of course the most obvious physical requirement immediately
establishes a horrendous gap between the mythically-based scheme and
accepted theory: the physical model must sustain an assembly of
planets moving close to the Earth closer than conventional astronomy
has _ever_ imagined.

But the other requirements appear far more vexing. One of the
participants is the gas giant Saturn, and the model must produce for
the terrestrial observer a _stationary_ Saturn at the celestial pole,
so that, as the Earth turns on its axis, the planet visually appears
as the pivot of the cosmic revolutions. To the best of my knowledge,
in the history of scientific speculation, no one has never posited a
_planet _in such an improbable position.

The difficulty multiplies with the addition of Jupiter as a hidden
power behind Saturn. Not a fleeting conjunction of the two giants, but
a quasi-stable alignment that keeps Jupiter hidden from terrestrial
view through the indeterminate early period of Saturn's visual
dominance, the Golden Age.

In answer to the planet Venus' role as the creator-king's central eye
or luminous heart-soul, the model must allow for Venus to appear plump
in the center of Saturn and to retain that position at least for a
time as the participating planets move through space. By what exotic
forces could such an alignment have been maintained?

Adding to the seeming implausibility of it all is the role of the
planet Mars, now seen as a small red orb in the center of Venus, now
moving down the polar axis toward the Earth to become immense beneath
the sphere of Saturn, now moving back into conjunction with Venus, now
moving down the axis again and menacingly close to the Earth.

And finally, the planetary configuration must retain a very specific
position in relation to the Sun, so that the light from the Sun
produces a permanent crescent on Saturn, such that, as the Earth turns
on its axis, the crescent revolves around the polar center.

Quite apart from the issue of celestial dynamics, it will be obvious
to the reader that the above requirements allow for only one planetary
lineup and this lineup forecloses the few best efforts at a physical
model by others up to this point. The few previous attempts to
accommodate one or another aspect of the myths have simply not
reckoned with the full range of motifs.

SYNCHRONOUS ORBITS

In 1974 I suggested a planetary arrangement that seemed consistent
with the myths. The proposed arrangement included a synchronous orbit
of Saturn, Mars and Earth around Jupiter in which the three satellites
of Jupiter revolved around the larger body once with each revolution
around the Sun, maintaining their alignment. (At that time I did not
know where to place Venus, though I had no doubt of its cometary
character, which I related to the celestial beard or sidelock). As the
entire planetary assembly revolved around the sun let's say, in a
counter-clockwise direction the three satellites also revolved once
around Jupiter in a counter-clockwise direction, thus maintaining the
same angle of alignment in relation to the sun.

I had put the planets on something close to a tangential line to
Saturn's orbit around the Sun because I needed the light of the Sun to
fall on the Saturnian band in a particular way. In other words, the
orbits were synchronous not because I had any idea of physical
dynamics involved in such orbits, but because maintaining the same
angle of illumination during the full orbit of the Sun required the
entire line of planets to revolve around Jupiter at the same time.

_Original Tangential Model_

The model presented three inherent problems to critics: 1) satellites
at different orbital distances have different periods (Kepler's Third
Law), so they will not stay in line; 2) the Earth is a giant
gyroscope: as it moves around the Sun it would not keep its northern
axis pointed toward Saturn, even if it were aimed toward Saturn at one
point in the orbit; and 3) maintaining the same angle of solar
illumination on the band would require the plane of the band to
continually shift as the aligned planets moved around the Sun.

With the placement of the crescent on Saturn itself rather than on a
cloud _around_ Saturn, the primary physical issues were reduced to
two, though obviously the angle of the aligned planets in relation to
the Sun would have to be changed in order to produce the crescent on
Saturn and if on Saturn, why not a crescent on the other visible
participants? (I only raise the issue now, but will offer a
fascinating possibility in the second article in this series.)

_PLANETARY ALIGNMENT_

The idea of a series of planets strung out on a line from Jupiter
appeared somewhat amusing to several commentators, one friendly critic
styling the odd planetary array the shish-kabob model, while the
accompanying illustration of the idea became Talbott's cartoon.

In place of this model, which was claimed to leave planets magically
dangling on a string, several interested parties conjured a different
planetary lineup, in what came to be known as the tumbling barbell
model, this often including Saturn and Jupiter at opposite ends of the
Earth axis, with the two giants tumbling around each other as they
moved through space with the Earth caught at an equilibrium point
between the two.

For some twenty years now, the celestial barbell has been well,
tumbling about in catastrophist circles. And though there may be
nothing inherently objectionable to the concept theoretically, no one
resorting to the idea ever produced a version consistent with the
mythical themes we have noted here.

In 1987, through a series of lively and entertaining phone calls, I
got to know the engineer Fred Hall (formerly of the Stanford Linear
Accelerator Laboratory). Fred had read the _Saturn Myth_ in 1980 and
had, over the following years, speculated on how orbital dynamics
could sustain a polar Saturn. He had opted for the barbell concept and
at one point nearly had me convinced that this was the only plausible
arrangement. But the more he worked at it, in an attempt to
accommodate other details on which I was insisting, the more incapable
the model seemed of supporting the _core _of myth.

I think it was in 1989 that I asked him to reconsider my 1974
shish-kabob. His good-natured response was: you can't just have the
planets hanging there.

A few weeks later, however, Fred called on other matters.
Unexpectedly, toward the close of the conversation, he said he had
been tinkering with the shish-kabob, putting the planetary string on
the tangent I had argued for. At the right distances, he said, the
lesser planets trailing behind Jupiter actually followed along rather
nicely. But I never saw a set of equations or any drawings in defense
of the idea.

Fred Hall died the following year. Though we had never met in person,
I had come to know him well and had hoped it would be Fred who would
unravel the celestial dynamics puzzle.

During this period the physicist Robert Driscoll, who is well-trained
in the necessary disciplines, submitted several versions of some
interesting theoretical possibilities (one of these being published in
_AEON_). Driscoll's interest has continued and he can be expected to
make a valuable contribution.

Sometime in this general period I also received a Macintosh diskette
from an R.M. Smith of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who was a
subscriber to _AEON. _He had been following the discussion of the
polar configuration with interest, he said, and offered on the
diskette two different models accommodating the idea of a polar
Saturn. I found the submission encouraging and intended to talk with
Smith directly, but as it happened other events were pulling me in
quite a different direction at the time, leading to the above-noted
year and a half sabbatical.

It was close to the end of that self-imposed retreat that I received a
call from an engineer named Robert Grubaugh, whose name I had never
heard before. He told me he was a structural dynamicist by training
but also quite familiar with orbital calculations. He had worked for a
number of years for TRW, a high-tech contributor to the US space
program, and putting bodies into the right orbit was just part of a
good day's work. He told me that people were troubling themselves too
much over the physics of the polar configuration, that he had worked
regularly with synchronous orbits, and that the basic planetary lineup
you're looking for is simply a _set_ of synchronous orbits. Developing
a model, starting with good old Newtonian physics, was really not that
difficult, he told me. But here's what caught my attention: He said
that the model he had worked out _required _Jupiter to be behind
Saturn (providing the magnetic strength for the required torque on the
Earth's pole to cause it to precess, keeping it aligned to Saturn) and
that it put a _continuous quarter crescent on the orb of Saturn_. Now
that got my interest!

It was only a short time later that we personally met in Portland.
When he left I had little doubt that his contribution would be vital.
Bob is 70 years old with the energy and spirit of someone half that
age. And there is no question as to his hands-on experience and
competence when it comes to calculating orbits.

Synchronous orbits require an unusual equilibrium position for each of
the participating planets. Particularly interesting to Bob Grubaugh,
however, was this significant fact emerging from his calculations of
equilibrium positions: the calculations showed that if planets move in
_close proximity_, as required by the mythically-based model, they
tend to _move into_ _their respective equilibrium positions_; even if
disturbed somewhat by secondary forces, they will recover and continue
toward the equilibrium necessary to sustain synchronous orbits.

Because no one had previously raised the mechanical issue concerning
multiple synchronous planetary orbits of the type needed for the polar
configuration (nothing in the solar system today would prompt the
question), it seems that no one had performed the elementary
calculations to show that orbits of the very sort required to make the
model work can in fact be a natural outcome of planets close enough to
interact dynamically.

Grubaugh's calculations provided a surprising answer to the physical
question many thought might never be answered.

Grubaugh sent his orbital calculations to Ev Cochrane of Ames, Iowa,
and Ev, in turn, submitted them to one of the country's leading
computer animation firms, Engineering Animation Inc., obtaining a
commitment from the company to produce a moving three-dimensional
model based on Grubaugh's figures.

Ev and I were planning to attend a symposium of the Canadian Society
for Interdisciplinary Studies in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and we
decided to drive together from Ames. So I flew into Ames several days
early, giving us a chance to meet with the engineer in charge of the
project at Engineering Animation and to observe the completion of the
brief video production.

The four-minute video enables the viewer to watch the planetary
motions from an external view, showing the entire congregation of
planets moving around the Sun. From the remote vantage point necessary
to view the full orbits (the orbits are substantially compressed for
visual purposes), the planet Mars is barely visible. When the camera
zooms in on the Earth-Venus view, however, the small planet Mars
becomes clearly visible, moving on an _elliptical _orbit between the
orbits of the two larger bodies, Earth and Venus. Because the orbits
are synchronous, Mars appears to be moving first toward the Earth,
then toward Venus.

But the most dramatic point in the video comes from the _earthbound
_view, at the 45th parallel. As the planets in the animated model
follow their mathematically defined orbits, they present to the viewer
on Earth the precise sequence of images we have substantiated on the
basis of universal myth

Saturn stationary in the sky, hiding Jupiter behind it.

Venus in the center of Saturn.

Mars in the center of Venus, descending to become immense over the
northern horizon, then ascending back to its position inside Venus.

In this computer-generated model, all references were provided by
Grubaugh's orbital dynamics, and none by the oft-repeated
_mythically-suggested_ movement of Mars up and down the polar axis.

It is important to emphasize as well that orbital mechanics will not
allow arbitrary motions or arbitrary placement of planets in the
positions necessary to fit the visual requirements of the model. Once
the distance of the planetary congregation from the Sun is defined,
there is only _one_ equilibrium position for each of the planets in
the sequence. The reason Mars moves so dramatically in Grubaugh's
calculations is due to the much smaller mass of that planet. As it
orbits _between_ two larger bodies (Venus and Earth) a _resonance _is
induced that gives increasing eccentricity to Mars' orbit. The accord
of the resulting motions with the fundamental Martian mythical motif
the hero descending and ascending the world axis is stunning.

This preliminary video does not reproduce the light from the Sun,
though that is easily defined from the 45 degree angle of the planets
synchronous movement around the Sun.

The video was shown at Scranton following a brief presentation by
Grubaugh. Though the response was highly encouraging, one issue raised
at the event continued to crop up afterwards as others heard about
Grubaugh's orbits. The issue relates to Kepler's Third Law. Ignoring
the equation itself, the relevant principle is: the farther a planet
is from the Sun, the lower will be its orbital velocity; hence, the
farther a planet is from the Sun, the longer will be its period (the
time it takes to revolve around the Sun once). The same principle
would, of course, apply to the satellites moving around a planet.

And yet, when one considers the Grubaugh synchronous orbits, it is as
if the principle is being reversed. Moving outward either from Jupiter
or from the Sun, each of the participating bodies is moving _faster
_than its inner partners _. _How can this be?

The answer is that all of the participants are interacting. Each of
the outer bodies is literally revolving around _all_ of the inner
bodies, in addition to revolving around the Sun. And all of the
revolutions are equal to one Earth-year.

The seeming violation of Kepler's Third Law is only illusory. The Law
_can't apply to bodies that are interacting significantly with each
other as_ _well as the Sun_.

Yet several critics continued to appeal to Kepler. One of these whose
name would be recognized by _AEON_ subscribers and whose contribution
has in recent years degenerated to flurries of mean-spirited postcards
was driven to new heights by Grubaugh's calculations. Having staked
everything on the absolute and unequivocal _impossibility _of the
polar configuration, he began flailing away day and night, the
postcards stacking up to a half an inch or so before he realized that
Grubaugh was correct: Kepler doesn't apply.

Even persons familiar with orbital dynamics seem to have stumbled, at
least briefly, on the Kepler issue.

Samuel Windsor, who has contributed orbital data to Don Patten,
asserted the impossibility of Grubaugh's synchronous orbits, saying
that in order for the math to work, the mass of one body would have to
be inside the other.

Actually, a demonstration of both the _concept _and the _workability
_of synchronous orbits is not difficult. The principle at stake can be
shown with a simple three-body illustration. Assume that Saturn is
orbiting the Sun and that the Earth is orbiting Saturn

In this simple illustration, the Earth is farther from the Sun than is
Saturn. Does this mean that the Earth must be moving slower in
relation to the Sun than the inner planet Saturn (as required by
Kepler's Third Law)? Not at all, because the Earth is not orbiting the
Sun independently of Saturn. As a satellite of Saturn its movements
are related dynamically to _both _the Sun and Saturn.

In the familiar relations of moons to planets in the solar system
today, as the moons swing around the far side of the planets (the side
away from the Sun) their movement in relation to the Sun is _faster_
than the primary's orbital velocities. And nothing more than this is
happening in the stipulated synchronous orbit except that the
satellite Earth in the above illustration is placed at a distance
whereby (following accepted Newtonian dynamics) it revolves in _one
year_. Now _no one _could deny that such a placement is easily
calculated. Place Saturn at any location in the vicinity of Earth's or
Venus' orbit today, and there will be _one_ easily defined distance
from Saturn at which the Earth would revolve once around Saturn with
each circuit of Earth-Saturn around the Sun.

For example, if you place Saturn at Venus' present orbit, and none of
the other polar configuration participants are included in the
calculations, an Earth orbit with a radius of about 3.3 million
kilometers would have a period of one solar year.

In the illustrated planetary relationships, given a one-year period,
what happens to the relative position of the Earth in relation to
Saturn and the Sun? The angle of the Earth-Saturn lineup here, 45
degrees removed from the tangential orientation I had originally
proposed places a permanent one-quarter crescent on Saturn.

If you add Jupiter to the equation so that Saturn is revolving around
Jupiter and the Earth is revolving around Saturn _and _Jupiter, the
math becomes more complex while the primary forces remain the same.
Nor do the additions of Mars and Venus change the primary dynamics.
With the additional planets what you do get, according to Grubaugh,
are certain secondary forces that could, over time, cause a gradual
migration away from the 45 degree angle, perhaps also introduce other
instabilities. Because the more subtle interactions can be quite
complex, he has emphasized that further, more precise calculations
will have to be undertaken in order to project the potential
consequences.

As for the primary forces active in the model, Grubaugh's calculations
seem to imply that, under the stipulated conditions (gas giants in the
general vicinity of Venus' and Earth's orbits today), synchronous
orbits _could _be as natural as the common orbits of planetary moons
today. In fact, if Grubaugh is correct, when the required conditions
are present, there is a natural tendency of dynamically interacting
bodies to _move into the very synchronous relationships illustrated by
the three-body model_. That, too, suggests a possibility of stunning
impact.

The role of Mars in the computer-animated model proves interesting. In
recent years more than one critic of the suggested Martian role in the
polar configuration has stated that Mars would not appear inside of
Venus at the general distances involved. Another objection has been
that, in moving closer to the Earth, Mars would not appear below
Venus, just bigger. The computer model provided impressive visual
confirmation that both objections are unfounded.

The illustration below gives a thumbnail perspective on Mars as the
planet moves toward the Earth. As we have noted on several prior
occasions, a small _descent from the polar center _visually produces a
much larger orb visually. In fact, Mars becomes much larger than Venus
even before it has fully emerged from the Venus-womb (cf., the myth of
the hero's birth: he bursts from the womb, is of giant size at birth,
then quickly grows immense after birth.)

If one imagines Mars continuing toward the Earth, eventually reaching
the (Earth-threatening!) position depicted below, the planet appears
as a giant mound on the northern horizon. As will be documented in
future articles, all of the respective positions find striking support
in the myth of the warrior hero.

The Grubaugh model is, of course, highly preliminary and must be
submitted to critical analysis by others. Whatever the outcome of this
analysis, these first steps certainly do not present a final answer to
the myths, because there is much more to mythical history than is
contained in these initial orbital calculations.

The calculations themselves are not complete, in the sense that more
precise calculations of primary forces and the addition of secondary
forces will be necessary to determine relative degrees of stability.

Also, everyone involved will do well to remember that stability in a
lasting sense is not the objective of the model. Everything about the
mythical history of the polar configuration suggests evolving
relationships of the participating bodies, with chaotic forces
periodically intervening. Additionally, certain well-established
traditions imply features of the celestial environment that may have
no counterpart in the solar system today.

_Descent of Mars_

From the beginning, critics have frequently asserted the impossibility
of planetary alignment, and one can assume that removal of this
objection will only invite other equally assured objections. Our
position, on the other hand, has been that one's sense of the possible
is expanded by the historically-supported sense of _what happened.
_And that is another reason to keep the priority on the reconstruction
of the historical experience.

I have argued for approaching the subject with these priorities: first
the mythical images, then the explanation of the images in terms of
planetary placement, then the physical model. In my own experience,
the evolution of the mythically-based model of the polar configuration
has already validated the approach. In more than one instance the
documented images have survived changes in both the explanation and
the physical model. Amendments to the explanatory model were in fact
_required_ by the progressive unveiling of additional images. As a
verifiable celestial form, the revolving crescent remains intact after
twenty-one years. So also does the orb within the circle. But the
original explanations must be modified, and consequently the
requirements on the physical model as well. (More on these issues in
Parts Two and Three of this series.

-----------------------------------------------------

A word on publication schedule: Our next article will deal with the
global myth of the comet Venus and take up the criticisms of
Velikovsky by the British author, Robert Forrest. Part II of the
present series will follow that article.