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This site author knows David Talbott very
well, and considers him to be the foremost mythologist in the world, if not
the foremost scholar. He is a polymath of extremely high intelligence and
integration capability. More importantly, in scholarship his integrity and
valuation of the truth is at the highest level. The genius of David Talbott as a
mythologist is that he has made a science out
of the comparative method to winnow out identifications and historical
realities,
and he has identified the acid tests to support or falsify the proposals.
The Serpents of Creation
By David Talbott
The following text is excerpted from a chapter of Thunderbolt of
the Gods, by David Talbott and Wallace Thornhill.
ENVISIONING THE ANCIENT SKY
Were it possible for you, the reader, to stand alongside our early
ancestors, to witness the events that provoked the age of myth-making,
you would see celestial dramas on a scale virtually inconceivable today.
You would see an electric sky filled with luminous clouds, threads of
light, and undulating rivers of fire. And you would see great spheres
joined in a cosmic performance–events seemingly too vast, too
improbable for anything but a dream. Observe this celestial theater, and
your first thought will be, "This could not have happened!"Yet allow
events to unfold, and that first response will give way to a
contradiction–a sense of the eerily familiar: "Where have I seen this
before?"
Our answer is that you HAVE seen these events before–through their
universal reflection in art and storytelling. These reflections are, in
fact, the core images of the ancient world, recorded on papyrus and
stone, mirrored in the sacred symbols of the great religions, reenacted
in mystery plays, and embodied in monumental construction on every
habitable continent. Once recognized, the images leap out from every
page of world mythology.
SERPENTS IN THE SKY
The pervasive role of cosmic "serpents" in world mythology is a
mystery often mentioned in historical and astronomical studies, but
never satisfactorily explained. Frequently adorned with feathers or
wings, sprouting long-flowing hair, or breathing fire, these monsters
rank among the most enigmatic and outrageous cultural icons, invariably
eluding the grasp of the researchers attempting to explain them. Yet
around the world, these biologically absurd serpents reveal numerous
features in common–the clearest indication that the monsters DO have an
explanation. But when investigators, exploring every possibility they can
imagine, still find no answer, it becomes increasingly likely that the
truth is simply "off the map"–outside the limits of current thinking.
The boundaries of perception have excluded a memory so powerful that it
influenced every ancient culture. From the infancy of civilization
through all prior epochs of human history, world-altering serpents were
claimed to have once moved in the heavens.
In most great mysteries, recurring patterns are the key to discovery.
Is it significant, for example, that wherever the theme of Doomsday or
celestial chaos occurs, a great serpent or dragon (mythic alter ego of
the serpent) presides over the disaster? The connection is as old as the
earliest civilizations. In ancient Egypt, the serpent Apep, whom the
Greeks called Apophis, was the arch-enemy of the creator and of
celestial order. His plotting against the supreme god Ra produced an
earthshaking tempest in the heavens, and numerous Egyptian rites
commemorated the victory of Ra over Apep, whose hideous forms and
terrible roar haunted the Egyptians throughout their history. At the
temple of Ra in Heliopolis the priests ritually trod underfoot images of
Apep to represent his defeat at the hands of Ra. At the temple of Edfu,
a long series of reliefs depict the warrior Horus and his followers
vanquishing Apep or his counterpart Set, cutting to pieces the monster's
companions, the "fiends of darkness."
Comparative investigation confirms that every well-documented culture
possessed its own names and images of the serpent or dragon of
chaos–the monster whom the Babylonians called Tiamat, the Greeks knew
as Typhon or Python, and the Hindus called Vritra or Ahi. In Australia
it was the Bunyip-monster, sometimes identified as the "Rainbow
Serpent," that once decimated the earth. And in North America remarkably
similar stories were told of the "Great Horned Serpent."
Hundreds of mythic counterparts to these serpents or dragons could be
named as well. But what useful information do such monsters offer the
modern world? Their contribution lies in a collective memory too
consistent to be denied, including agreement on numerous, highly
improbable details.
These monsters also provide a bridge connecting mythology to the
tangible world of plasma physics. Until very recently historical
researchers have had no reason to think of PLASMA when considering the
mysteries of the cosmic serpent. Yet, as we shall attempt to
demonstrate, everything known about the serpent-archetype finds a
corollary in the recently documented behavior of electric plasma. And
from this new vantage point, ancient reverence and fear take on
astonishing clarity.
THE COSMIC SERPENT IN CREATION MYTHOLOGY
Though serpent images pervade world mythology, few investigators have
realized that the diverse–and always preposterous–mythic claims about
serpents are the echoes of a universal story. The first chapters of the
story trace to the beginnings of human memory, prior to the rise of the
great civilizations. Before there was an "evil" monster–a serpent or
dragon of chaos–there was a serpent that called forth no moral judgment
at all. The myths describe it as prodigious and awe-inspiring, even
frightful in its countenance, but its appearance occurred before
disaster. In fact, the serpent of chaos is but the alter ego of the
serpent of LIFE, a creature well represented around the world. Chinese
serpents and dragon are frequent bearers of the life elements. The
Mexican "feathered serpent" was the giver of life. For the ancient
Egyptians, the Uraeus serpent was the soul or "life" of the creator
himself. The Chaldean word for "serpent" meant also "life." And while
the Arabic word for "serpent" is el-hayyah, the word for "life" is el-hayat.
Thus, El-Hay, one of the common Arabic names for the creator (betraying
an archaic but unrecognized relationship to the cosmic serpent), means
"the giver of life," or the "principle of life itself."
To find the original meaning of the serpent-image in world mythology
we must consider a mythic theme that is profoundly misunderstood
today–the story of "creation." It is in the ancient accounts of
creation that we find the cosmic serpent in both its life-giving and destructive
aspects. But if scholars do not recognize the "serpent of creation," the
reason is that a misperception of vast historic consequence is shared
today by orthodox religious teachers and secular experts alike. All have
failed to see the true meaning of the creation theme, whose origins
predate most modern religious traditions by thousands of years.
The first creation stories did NOT answer the question–"How did we
get here?" These accounts did not speak of the origin of our earth, the
appearance of the distant stars, or the birth of human beings. In fact,
the creation myth was not "speculation" at all. The described events
WERE NOT IMAGINED. They were WITNESSED by human beings on earth and then
INTERPRETED IMAGINATIVELY. That distinction will prove to be of sweeping
significance.
It is not an accident that archaic "creator" gods appear as visible
powers. They are seen and they are heard, a fact still evident in the
biblical narrative, with its many references to the frightful
countenance of Yahweh surrounded by cosmic waters. "The voice of thy
thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth
trembled and shook." "The pillars of heaven shook and were astounded at
his roar." Such language is, of course, quite abundant in the biblical
texts, though the modern reader naturally assumes that all references to
the sights and sounds of the creation are metaphorical.
We see the commotion and upheaval of creation in one religious
tradition after another. The oldest and most comprehensive Greek
account, Hesiod's THEOGONY ("the Origin of the Gods"), tells of
earth-disturbing catastrophe, including the famous attack of the serpent
Typhon, when the world teetered on the edge of complete destruction. The
birth of the gods in the more archaic Babylonian creation epic, ENUMA
ELISH, is accompanied by frightful noise and tumult, as the serpent
Tiamat rebelled against the gods, and chaos overtook the world. The
Egyptian PYRAMID TEXTS recall the terrifying occasion of the great god's
birth: "Hearts were pervaded with fear, hearts were pervaded with terror
when I was born in the abyss." The theme is repeated in the oldest Hindu
texts, the RIG VEDA, in connection with the birth of Indra, most famous
for his defeat of the world-threatening serpent Vritra: "...When thou
first wast born, o Indra, thou struckest terror into all the people."
Yet in popular imagination, the birth of the gods could have nothing to
do with human terror, because human beings had not been "created" yet.
What, then, was the true subject of the original creation myth? It
told how gods and goddesses, monsters and heroes ruled the world for a
time and then went away. The story described how these powers fashioned
a prodigious dwelling in the heavens, the celebrated home of the gods.
It also recounted how this dwelling was overwhelmed in a great uprising
or revolt led by a monstrous serpent or chaos-power, as celestial armies
fought over the fate of the world, the conflagration ending in the
defeat of the monster, the vanquishing of the rebel. And finally, the
story told how the gods eventually retreated from the world or were
translated into distant stars or planets.
We offer a radically new perspective on the creation theme. With the
rise of the first civilizations, ALL commemorative activity pointed back
to the events of "creation" and to nothing else. For this striking fact,
no scholarly rationalization will suffice, and the answer can only lie
in intensely experienced events–events of sufficient magnitude to
account for both the global pattern and the extraordinary power over
human imagination. The point was duly emphasized by professor Irving
Wolfe in a recently published compendium of catastrophist inquiry–
"Nature produces Culture and the natural cataclysms which our
ancestors have collectively experienced have influenced and shaped
the cultural artifacts created afterwards. To put it simply,
cultures are what they have gone through. The past determines the
present, and the cosmic past exerts the greatest influence. A
culture, if properly interpreted, therefore becomes a mirror of what
preceded it."
It is in the recurrent details that we find the most compelling
clues. At the core of the creation story is the activity of a cosmic
serpent or dragon, whose biography embraces the mythic age of the gods
from start to finish. The serpent's masks are many, and often the
creature will present itself in unfamiliar garb, only to reappear in its
serpentine aspect. But the creature has a story to tell and it is only
necessary that we trace the theme back to the beginning, when the
serpent first appears as a CONSTRUCTIVE power in the events of creation.
It is a well-established fact that the great creator-gods of
antiquity possessed serpentine features or serpent companions, and the
two notions often merge. What we shall ask the reader to consider is a
new possibility–that these serpentine associations answer to things
once seen in the heavens.
In Egyptian sources the creator Atum received his visible "form" from
the serpent Neheb Kau, arising from the cosmic waters. The name means
"Provider of Attributes": the serpent's coils were the god's own
external form or body. "I was encircled in my coils," the god declares,
"one who made a place for himself in the midst of his coils." Muslim
legends recall a brilliant serpent around the throne of the creator
Allah: "Then Allah surrounded it by a serpent ... this serpent wound
itself around the throne." Much the same image occurs in Hebrew
traditions: "And a silver dragon was on the machinery of the throne."
"... And a silver serpent bore the wheel of the throne." The Orphic
creator Chronos held in his hands a snake which formed a ring by holding
its tail in its mouth. The Hindu great god Vishnu rested upon the coils
of a serpent Ananta, floating on the cosmic waters.
Australian aboriginal myths celebrate the Rainbow Serpent, Aido Hwedo,
said to have "assisted" in the creation. Natives of the African Sahara
say that God utilized the body of the serpent Minia in the creation. In
numerous Polynesian traditions, the "creator" appears as a serpent or
the "Great Serpent." The male and female aspects of the Chinese creator
were depicted as two human beings–Fu Xi and NÃ* Wa–with entwining
serpentine bodies. And throughout the Americas, from Alaska to Peru,
native traditions portrayed various creator gods as "the Great Serpent"
or insisted that the creator possessed serpentine attributes.
It is not enough to simply observe that the "serpent of creation" is
a primitive or irrational idea. The mystery arises from the fact that
the archetype is preposterous–simply inconceivable under any assumption
that the biological snake must account for the creature's prominence in
world mythology. No snake on earth will inspire the notion of a primeval
"creator"! Hence, the remarkable fact that EVERY culture honored the
"serpent of creation" demands an explanation far more direct than any
appeal to primitive "speculation" or make believe.
Moreover, both the life-supporting and destructive aspects of the
serpent require investigation, for enigmatically they stand side by side
as the two great polarities of creation mythology–on the one hand, the
vehicle of an exemplary cosmic order; on the other hand, the agent of
primeval chaos. In fact the two cannot be separated, for a vast
reservoir of evidence makes clear that the chaos serpent was, in fact,
nothing else than the terrible aspect of the life-giving serpent. But
how did such an outrageous polarity take hold around the world? As the
parent of catastrophe, the serpent became the symbol of collective fear–the Doomsday anxiety–hanging like a cloud over the ancient cultures.
It was within the context of this cultural memory that priests and poets
and philosopher strove for moral clarity, separating the monster into
distinctive personalities, a host of alter egos appearing as the
serpent's good and evil aspects.
Though the different forms of the mythic serpent can easily mask its
origins, certain conclusions follow inescapably from a cross-cultural
inquiry into the origins of the serpent theme. As suggested above, when
human memory repeatedly converges on highly specific but "preposterous"
claims, one can be certain that the convergence is not accidental:
Serpent mythology arose from a common human experience. Though this
conclusion is logically inescapable, it is neither recognized nor
acknowledged by mainstream historians of ancient myth and religion.
While specialists propose countless "explanations" for the different
regional variations, we are really dealing with a single mystery here,
but one having wide-ranging textures and subplots.
Moreover, to simply observe the cosmic serpent's effect on cultures
the world over is to realize that the cause was far more catastrophic
and fundamentally disturbing than anything surmised in traditional
treatments of the theme.
THE "LIVING" POWERS OF HEAVEN
The cosmic serpent was an ancient and powerful symbol of things once
seen in the heavens but no longer present: that is the hypothesis we
intend to support with evidence from wide ranging fields of study. The
serpent was a metaphor filled with meaning, and it must be counted among
the most "logical" and appropriate metaphors in the ancient world.
Moreover, this metaphor points directly to electrical phenomena that can
no longer be ignored. The serpent's every nuance is a feature of PLASMA
DISCHARGE. Without the plasma formations, the mythic serpent is an
effect without a cause. But if such structures once enchanted ancient
observers the world over, the serpent metaphor is redeemed: it will
explain what has been left unexplained through all of human history.
Since the forms of plasma discharge are now well documented, the
question is susceptible to rigorous investigation, detail by detail.
Plasma science invites us to compare the "serpent of creation" to known
plasma structures, including the violently evolving Peratt Instabilities
(discussed in Chapter II). In following this comparison, we must proceed
from general to specific observations. We propose a vantage point
outside all of modern theory. We are challenging the accepted history of
the solar system and all commonly held ideas about the origins of human
thought in prehistoric and early historic times.
Planets and moons were once seen in the sky close to the earth.
Between these bodies stretched heaven-spanning plasma formations, giving
rise to distinctive, evolving structure–the exclusive subject of the
worldwide creation legends. The fact that the filamentary, spiraling,
twisting, undulating aspects of these plasma configurations were
identified as serpentine is fundamentally reasonable under this
hypothesis. And thus we shall welcome all appropriate tests, while
urging scholarly and scientific review of possibilities never before considered.
Certain patterns of ancient belief are so common that scholars rarely
pause to wonder about the cause. How did it happen, for example, that
every ancient tribe on our planet came to see celestial bodies as living
entities? Is there something inherent in the appearance of the Sun or
Moon, or in the character of distant stars, to support the notion that
celestial bodies are alive? Is it the daily or seasonal cycle of the
Sun, perhaps, or the phases of the Moon? Is it the movement of the stars
across the sky? Celestial bodies now seen from Earth offer very little
to suggest animated and intelligent powers–and even less do they
suggest a cosmic serpent, or help to explain the serpent's violent or
raging aspect in worldwide traditions.
Perhaps it is too easy to suppose that universal beliefs need no
explanation. If we encounter a primitive idea everywhere, we assume it
to be a perfectly "natural" mistake of pre-rational minds. In fact,
precisely such a claim was made by the student of comparative myth and
religion, T. W. Doane, in the nineteenth century: "When a marvelous
occurrence is said to have happened everywhere, we may feel sure that it
never happened anywhere." By such reasoning, the theorist allows himself
to sidestep the obvious challenge: why did every race make the same
irrational mistake?
An animated, living entity possesses self-organizing, regenerative,
and procreative abilities. As a rule, inert matter does not mimic living
organisms. But as we earlier observed, plasma behavior is a notable
exception. Irving Langmuir borrowed the name "plasma" from physiology
(blood plasma) because, in the presence of electric fields, this state
of matter takes on life-like attributes.
The analogy is quite fitting. The Greek plasma is akin to plassein, "to form, to mold," a concept that is also fundamental to
creation mythology. Electric plasma produces distinctive structure, and
our contention will be that the plasma configurations of ancient times
implied the presence of animated and intelligent powers in the heavens.
To primitive observers, these powers certainly seemed alive–they
acquired shape, moved with apparent intent, grew to prodigious size,
changed shape, and "intelligently" organized their surroundings, even
reproduced secondary versions of themselves. These life-like powers
emitted unearthly sounds, "spoke" to ancient witnesses in unknown
tongues, and produced celestial harmonies or "music of the spheres." In
the more energetic and unstable phases, monsters in the sky shrieked and
bellowed and roared. They displayed undulating tails or tentacles, their
throats breathed fire, and they raged about the sky with long-flowing
"manes" or flaming "hair." In their presence the earth shook, lightning
blazed in the heavens, and great tempests nearly overwhelmed the world.
In remarkable agreement with the "animated" qualities of electric
plasma, the mythic serpent typically reveals two complementary ideas.The
monster undergoes metamorphosis–as when a "serpent" becomes a
"lion"–and it incessantly appears as a hybrid form, a composite of two
or more animal types, such as a lion headed serpent. That this
remarkable pattern occurs universally is surely significant, and the
pattern is observed among the earliest civilizations.
The "contradictory" language is telling. It implies that
one-dimensional symbolism could not capture the range of the experience,
the sights and sounds of the earth-disturbing occurrences. Clues are
plentiful, however. Why, for example, did ancient symbolists so
frequently combine serpent and leonine features in a single monster? We
see this juxtaposition in the Greek Chimera, with the head of a lion and
a tail in the form of a serpent. The Chinese "lion" has the countenance
of a dragon, while the Chinese "dragon" possesses a distinctively
leonine mane. The Egyptian goddess Tefnut appears as the Uraeus serpent,
but in her terrible aspect becomes a giant lion head, with "smoking
mane." The Mesopotamian dragon Labbu was a snake, but its name means
"lion". The Sumerian goddess Inanna was the "lioness" of heaven, but in
her rage became a fire-spitting serpent or dragon devastating the land.
In Orphic theology, the god Phanes was born from an egg as a winged
snake, though he grew the head of lion. "Snake of the Lion" was the name
of a Mixtec creator god. The connection also shows up in the
formulations of the early languages. The Hebrew nahash, "serpent," is
cognate with Akkadian neshu "lion," and Ethiopic arwe,
"serpent," is cognate with Hebrew aryeh, ari, "lion."
Accordingly, it can be shown that the metamorphosing and hybrid forms
of the cosmic serpent include all of the phases of plasma discharging
listed in Chapter II (pages 27-32). Each of the cited discharging phases
lends a distinguishing attribute to the cosmic serpent in the creation myth–
* Plasma FILAMENTATION gave the serpent its
"hair" and "beard."
* The plasma CORKSCREW produced the undulating body of the serpent.
* The two filaments of the plasma ROPE produced the entwining serpent-twins.
* The plasma STRING OF PEARLS was the serpent's treasure, represented
by gems or beads on a string.
* And the plasma SPIRAL was the winding tail of the serpent.
These structures are, of course, abundantly present in the global
symbolism of the serpent, but there is a great deal more. Certain plasma
forms such as the "horns" and the "wings" of the plasma column (phases
of the violently evolving Peratt Instability) lack any obvious
connection to "serpentine" attributes. Yet these forms repeatedly appear
as features of the cosmic serpent, confirming that the inspiration did
not come from any characteristic of a terrestrial snake. To reinforce
this point we list below some of the more prominent features of the
serpent or dragon in the universal tradition, all of them appearing to
mock natural experience.
THE SERPENT-DRAGON HAS A BEARD.
The Greek Typhon was bearded, and
even the universal sovereign Zeus was said to have taken the form of a
"bearded serpent." Numerous Egyptian serpent-powers displayed flowing
beards. The Chinese dragon typically displays long whiskers and tufted
beards. So also the Maya "Great Bearded dragon," the Maya serpent god
Itzamna, the Aztec bearded dragon Xiuhcoatl, and the most famous Aztec
serpent god, Quetzalcoatl, with his "long-flowing beard."
THE SERPENT-DRAGON HAS LONG-FLOWING HAIR.
The hair of the monster,
typically long and disheveled, is among its most distinctive attributes.
In ceremonial reenactments, this "hair" may be represented by paper
streamers or by other artificial means capturing the effusion of
luminous hair-like filaments. Of the serpent Typhon, Apollodorus writes,
"unkempt hair streamed on the wind from his head and cheeks." In the
Egyptian language, word roots meaning "serpent" typically overlap with
words meaning "hair." Set, the "Egyptian Typhon," is called also Thebeh,
from theb, "lock of hair," and the COFFIN TEXTS celebrate the "bright
hair of Set" or the "tuft of hair" on the tail of Set. The name of the
serpent Nebet means 'lock of hair.' The serpent aspect of Atum, the
original sovereign of the sky, is Seshem, while the root sesh also
means "hair" or "lock of hair." A serpent Tcha was also said to have
issued from Atum's alter ego, Ra; one meaning of the word is "hair." The
name of the serpent Nesh, 'terrifier', cannot be separated from nesh,
"raised hair". Similarly the Chinese and numerous Oriental variation of
the dragon are commonly presented with streaming hair. The Maya "sky
serpent" displays along the length of its body the sacred lock of hair,
the Caban-curl. Inca chroniclers tell of the horned rattlesnake-god that
descended from the sky, its body "hairy, with a tail of gold."
THE SERPENT-DRAGON IS WINGED OR FEATHERED.
The mystery was stated by
Robert Briffault more than 75 years ago. "Snakes have the power to put
forth wings and to become converted into flying dragons." That
preposterous idea is global. Indeed, the winged or feathered serpent is
so familiar that we are easily desensitized to the enigma. Apollodorus
says of the serpent Typhon that "his body was all feathered." The
"feathered serpent" was particularly well known in the Americas.
Quetzalcoatl's name means "feathered serpent." The great serpents and
dragons of Mesopotamia possess wings or wear feathers. In her terrible
aspect, the Sumerian goddess Inanna became a "winged dragon": "Propelled
on your own wings you peck away at the land. With a roaring storm you
roar; with thunder you continually thunder." Upon their death Egyptian
kings expected to meet the winged serpent of heaven, a serpent
frequently depicted in Egyptian books of the afterworld. Chinese
chroniclers recalled the "winged serpent" associated with immortality.
Even the natives of San Cristoval, near the Solomon Islands, revered the
"winged serpent" Hatuibwari.
THE SERPENT-DRAGON DISPLAYS HORNS
A few of the many examples would
include the Mesopotamian horned serpent Basmu, child of Tiamat, the
Greek horned serpent Ladon, killed by Heracles in his twelfth labor, the
"great horned serpent," "long-horned serpent," "great water serpent," or
"Horned Alligator" remembered across North America, and the Australian
horned Rainbow Serpent. Like so many Native American versions of the
Horned Serpent, the Chinese Dragon, with its reptilian head and
serpentine, scaly neck wears the horns of a stag. Cerastes, the horned
serpent of medieval European tradition, was also called "Hornworm."
British folklore speaks of the "Horned Worm" (derived from the Norse
word for "dragon"), which can be compared to the Kraken, a huge horned
sea monster occurring in the folk tales of Norway and northern
Scandinavia. Monoceros Marinus, a monstrous fish-like being with a
gigantic horn, appears in German and Austrian legend. The famous cosmic
dragon Mushussu of Babylonian myth, had the head and tail of a serpent,
but with horns projecting from its head. Inhabitants of West Malaysia
remember the reptilian dragon Tioman, formerly the daughter of a famous
king, "with horns on her head and a vast swirling tail."
THE SERPENT-DRAGON IS A TWIN-FORM
Though this theme has far too many
nuances to be adequately presented in a single paragraph, the twin
aspect of the serpent will prove of great significance, pointing
directly to celestial phenomena no longer seen in the heaven. The dragon Typhon's trunk is two entwined serpent-tails, and the same is either
stated or implied in connection with other Greek monsters and giants.
DUSTY PLASMA: THE PRIMARY MATERIAL OF CREATION
Data from plasma science
suggest that the cosmic medium in which the anciently-recorded
formations appeared was a "dusty plasma." In the interplanetary space
through which Earth formerly moved, dissociated electrons and positively
charged ions combined with neutral gases and dust particles, all subject
to electrical forces. In such a plasma, the dust particles have a strong
tendency to capture electrons and become negatively charged, adding
features to plasma configurations that would not otherwise be present.
The particles will tend to space themselves at equal distances from each
other within discrete regions of a plasma configuration, and this
gathered dust can produce light reflecting characteristics that would
not occur in a dust-free discharge formation.
One must also keep in mind that the analogy in space for the
microscopic "dust" of laboratory plasma experiments could well have
included fields of sand, gravel, ice, or rock.
Additionally, it bears emphasizing that the formation of the
heaven-spanning configurations requires the presence of charged bodies
in the vicinity of Earth, the anodes and cathodes in discharge
sequences. Based on a comprehensive survey of ancient testimony,
cross-referenced with data from space, we contend that electrical
discharges occurred between celestial bodies moving in close
congregation. This electrical arcing cast huge volumes of material into
surrounding space, ranging in size from microscopic particles to
asteroid-sized rocks. It was this material within the dusty plasma that
gave the celestial configurations their appearance of solidity in
relatively stable phases, including light-reflecting characteristics
that could only emphasize the three-dimensional look of the
configurations.
When seen from this perspective, the many mysteries of the serpent
become aspects of one mystery: "What was the serpent of creation"?
Plasma science suggests that the creature signified both the RAW
MATERIAL of celestial construction and its evolving FORM. The serpent
was constituted by the medium–a dusty, electric plasma–and its
metamorphosing form could only be the evolving, visible STRUCTURE
resulting from the electrical interaction of charged bodies across a
plasma. As to this identity, ancient sources offer a huge reservoir of
support.
Virtually all creation mythology speaks of an irreducible RAW
MATERIAL used to fashion the cosmic dwelling, the habitation of the
gods. Such mythic "elements" as water, wind, or fire typically provide
this universal substance, though ancient sources repeatedly bring the
"elements" together in ways that may seem to obscure any concrete
meaning. From ancient Egypt to Mesoamerica, for example, water and fire
frequently appear together as a "sea of flame" or "fire water." But if
we are on the right track, the original subject of the myths DID look
like water and fire. Nor should it surprise us that the sky worshippers
saw in this elementary material the luminous soul-substance of the gods,
their living essence. It ANIMATED the heavens. It was both the gods' own
creative outflow and the medium in which they lived. And it was the raw
"stuff" of creation. We see this meaning, for example, in the early
Egyptian language of the pautti (using Budge's transliteration), the
"primeval matter" fashioned into the dwelling of the gods. It was the
soul-material of the gods themselves, exploding from the creator Atum or
Ra to form a fiery, watery mass. Thousands of years later, the
alchemists named it the prima materia, the universal substance from
which all else originated. Mythic images of this raw material–the
wind-blown waters of heaven, the luminous breath of the gods, the
flaming aether–simply drew upon the different ways of seeing the
celestial medium we recognize as dusty plasma. And not surprisingly, the
cosmic serpent is entirely bound up with this stuff of creation. It is
at once the carrier and the form of the "soul-substance." In its root
identity the serpent is elemental. It is water. It is wind. It is fire.
Surely the most common "element" in creation mythology is water,
since every well-documented culture depicted its creator gods immersed
within a watery abyss or floating upon a primordial sea. That
electrified dusty plasma could create this appearance of cosmic "waters"
is certain. And the inherent tendency of electric plasma to form
spiraling and filamentary configurations cannot be ignored when
considering either the serpentine aspect of the creator gods or the
cosmic serpent's own embodiment of the primordial waters. Additionally,
from this unique vantage point, it is easy to recognize the serpent of
creation as the prototype of the mythic "sea-serpent" or dragon arising
from watery depths to threaten the creation–a theme of universal
distribution.
The same can be said of the serpent's identity as wind or
life-breath. Serpents and dragons are the celestial soul-essence, the
living "breath" of the gods, as exemplified by the serpentine pneuma of
the Greeks, the World Soul or divine life-breath, organizing and
animating the heavens. Egyptian texts identify the Uraeus-serpent, the
out-breathing of the gods, as the soul of Ra, whose activity produced
the tangible, external form of Ra in the heavens. Indeed the "souls" of
numerous ancient gods appear in the form of a serpent. The heart-soul of
the Aztec Quetzalcoatl rose in the sky as a fiery serpent. In the
Egyptian Coffin Texts, the deceased travels the sky "by means of this
soul of the horned serpent." And one culture after another declared
that, in its violent aspect, the cosmic serpent was the "stormwind,"
appearing as a tornado or whirlwind assaulting the land of the gods.
Consider also the serpent's elemental identity as fire. Throughout
the ancient world serpent and flame are inseparably linked archetypes,
despite the outrageous incongruity of the idea. The cosmic serpent's venom,
blood, breath, or spittle is most frequently depicted as fire.
Fire flew from the monster Typhon. The Greek Chimera, Typhon's own
progeny, was a composite of serpent, goat, and lion destroying the land
with its fiery breath. The Egyptian Uraeus-serpent spit fire, appearing
in the sky as "the Great Flame," destroying the enemies of Ra. In
Chinese imagery, "a strange fire plays about the body of the dragon."
The Aztec Xiuhcoatl was a dragon of fire, this "fire-serpent" being
depicted in ritual re-enactments by a fire-breathing mask. The serpent
or dragon form of the Sumerian Inanna spewed fire: "Like a dragon you
have deposited venom on the land...Raining the fanned fire down upon the
nation ..." Of the biblical dragon, Job declares, "Out of his mouth go
burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. Out of his nostrils goeth
smoke ... His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his
mouth."
Taken as a whole, the evidence demands a sweeping shift in
perception. The dramas of the myth-making epoch were extraordinary, and
they are not occurring today. Hence, they are not familiar to us. But
the analogies utilized by the myth-makers ARE familiar, and these
analogies constitute the primary language of world mythology. To simply
recognize this fact is to see that a combination of analogies (such as
the hybrid or metamorphosing leonine and serpentine monsters) will often
point to the same phenomenon, each symbol adding vital nuances that
would be less apparent, or not apparent at all, without the others.
Together with more archaic and more literal drawings of things seen in
the heavens–all pointing to an alien sky–the symbolic language of myth
is a storehouse of information, encouraging rigorous cross-cultural
comparison. |