The World That Then Was .

8/6/2019 The World That Then Was . . .

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THINGS ASTHEY ARE,WERE �

ARE TO COME

Te World

Tat Ten Was… ANTHONY E. LARSON



THINGS AS THEY ARE,WERE AND ARE TO COME

Te World

Tat Ten Was…Copyright © 2003 Anthony E. Larson

The accounts o the creation and the food o Noah told in the Old Testament

are matched in ancient cultures around the world. However, these two piv-

otal events are only part o a long and constantly changing confguration

in our solar system.

Other than the actual creation itsel, the most notable catastrophein Earth’s early history that also brought the Patriarchal Age to

an end, was Noah’s Flood. Tis was the benchmark, the dividing linebetween two great epochs in Earth’s history. Beore the Flood, the

world was an astonishingly dierent place; aer the Flood, it becamethe “lone and dreary” world we know today.

We learn this rom the scriptures. Peter’s understanding o the

change that brought an end to the most remarkable epoch in Earth’shistory — the age o the Patriarchs or the Golden Age—coincides with

a radical change in the Earth and its heavens. He wrote that the “old

world” disappeared, saying that God

… spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person,a preacher o righteousness, bringing in the ood upon theworld o the ungodly; …Whereby the world that then was, be-

ing overowed with water, perished:But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same

word are kept in store. (2 Peter 2:5, 3:6, 7.)



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Tus, in the Apostle Peter’s view, the change in the Earth, wroughtby the Deluge, was so dramatic that he deemed it proper to say that

“the old world” had “perished,” implying that “the heavens and the

earth which are now” are entirely dierent rom those that existedprior to the Flood.

Tis event, this remarkably dramatic and proound change, is

central to an understanding o Earth’s early history. Tus, knowing

how it came about and what happened to create it are vital to our

understanding o the scriptures, history and the gospel.

The division

Also critical to our view o this epoch is the enigmatic secondary

change that took place soon aer the Deluge: the division o the Earth

in the days o Noah’s grandson. “And unto Eber were born two sons:

the name o one was Peleg; or in his days was the earth divided.”

(Genesis 10:25.)

But to ully understand those changes, one must see them in the

proper context. Only with the understanding that the Saturn myths

and the Polar Conguration give us can we begin to grasp the true

impact o the Old estament narrative.

As catastrophists and mythologists labor to understand the true

history o our planet, a startling and amazing view o Earth’s early

history begins to emerge—one that explains the most enigmatic and

bafing parts o scripture. While there are still many gaps in the nar-

rative, leaving considerable room or urther revision and adjustment,

an overall picture begins to emerge that supports scriptural history

and helps Latter-day Saints better understand the gospel.

In the very beginning

As elucidated elsewhere, it is most likely that Jupiter and Saturn

were part o a binary sun system. Binaries are the most common ar-

rangement known to astronomers, ar more common than the single

star system we inhabit today.Tat parental binary also had several smaller bodies in tow, Earth

being one o them. Indeed, most o the planets we know today as part

o our present solar system were probably part o that original binary



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system. It also would have appeared as what astronomers today call a

“brown dwar ” star with a relatively dim corona or photosphere. Earth

and its companion planets would have orbited beneath that corona,

creating a truly unique set o conditions unlike anything we see orcan even properly imagine.

It was in this state that most o Earth’s pre-history took place, be-

ore Adam came to inhabit the planet. It is likely that the record in

stones and bones, buried in the Earth, represent this earliest epoch.

Te ora and auna o Earth’s prehistoric period are truly bizarre andoreign to our world and, likely, could not have survived the world as

we know it today. It seems reasonable to assume that conditions onour planet were vastly dierent than those we know today, given the

orms o plant and animal lie that prolierated in those prehistoric

days. What is likely is that the ora and auna we see around us today

represent radical adaptations o those early orms.

Celestial car crash

Te real story o our world begins when our present sun, Sol, and

our parent, Jupiter/Saturn binary had a close encounter with anotherstar. It was most certainly not a head-on collision, since i the angle

o incidence were that radical, none o the orbs involved would have

survived intact. Rather, one sun overtook the other, much as the space

shuttle docks with other satellites or the space station today. Hence,

the capture o the Jupiter/Saturn binary by Sol was a rather lengthy

process rather than a sudden event, thus lacking any o the catastrophic

maniestations associated with later events.But the contact was not without proound consequences. Te in-

teraction between the two primaries may have created an exchange

o charge or electrical potential that gradually snued out the brown

dwar binary while it boosted the output o Sol. Such an exchange

would explain why early traditions make no mention o the sun that

is so prominent in our heavens, while they recall, at the same time,

the dominant rst god/planet, Saturn, emerging rom the “waters” o “creation” as the photosphere og o the binary aded, allowing earth-

lings to actually see Saturn or the rst time. Indeed, this take on theevents o the creation ound in Genesis ully and understandingly

explains those circumstances as no other theory can.



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Te original binary system remained largely intact while it began

to orbit Sol. Somewhere in this period o relative calm, shortly beore

or aer the capture began, Adam was placed on the Earth. Tis is so

because the earliest recollections o mankind, recorded in culturaltraditions the world over, including the Old estament, remember an

emerging heaven and earth that correspond to the Polar Congura-

tion, as proposed by albott. It is that same conguration illustrated

by Joseph Smith or Philo Dibble.

At this point in the process, Saturn and/or Jupiter became a dyingstar. Te re went out and the star’s photosphere or corona slowly

dissipated, allowing Earth’s newest inhabitants to gradually see Earth’scompanion planets, the orbs that seemed to hover above their world,

in the heavens. What early mankind then saw was the nested group

o planets (Saturn, Venus and Mars) slowly appearing or emerging

rom what seemed to be a heavenly haze or og, sometimes reerred

to as “waters.”

The real creation

It is worthy o note that what is recorded in Genesis as the creation

may not have been the real creation at all, but the recollection o an

event that all mankind witnessed and remembered as the “creation.”

Tis may be so because virtually all ancient cultures remembered and

recorded this creation, indicating that there were many eyewitnessesto this event—an impossibility i man were placed on the Earth only

aer this supposed creation. Te Genesis account is, likely, only one

o many such recollections.As explained elsewhere, the most meaningul explanation yet o-

ered o the creation events, as described in the Bible, is provided by

the emergence o the Earth/Mars/Venus/Saturn/Jupiter system rom

its original status as an independent brown dwar, binary star system

to a satellite system o Sol in a linear, polar conguration. Ancient

cultures the world over, which had already descended several genera-

tions rom Adam, watched and recorded those unolding heavenly events and then recorded them as the creation.

Te late emergence o the biblical creation account is even more

likely when we consider that Moses is traditionally regarded as the



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author o Genesis. While he certainly could have received the story

via revelation, what is more likely is that his account was derived rom

even earlier accounts (much as Joseph Smith received the Book o

Mormon) that reported the same things all other ancient accountsreported about this creation event.

The original heavenly order of things

Saturn occluded Jupiter rom the earthlings’ point o view, so Jupi-ter did not yet step onto the celestial stage or into their iconographic

belie system. But, Venus and Mars were clearly visible, appearing ina nested arrangement within Saturn’s limb. Much less imposing, but

certainly visible, were seven small satellites or moons that orbited

Saturn. Tese seven appeared much smaller than Venus or Mars. All

these planets and moons were the original itans, as remembered by the Greeks, planetary powers that stood imposingly above the Earth.

At this juncture, it is worthy o note that rom these seven small

satellites come all the traditions, practices and icons that employ the

sacred number seven— seven days o the week, seven gates, seven

cities, etc. Perhaps more importantly or scriptorians, these are thearchetypes or the seven angels o John’s Revelation.

A solar system within the solar system

Assuming a new orbit about Sol, its new primary, the Jupiter/Saturn

mini-solar system with its unusual conguration o satellites became

increasingly unstable. It was just a matter o time beore the same

orces that caused its capture also dismantled it. Tat dismantling, likeits original capture, was a process rather than an event. And becauseit was a process, mankind watched it unold over many generations,

rom Adam to Noah.

Te gradual dismemberment o the old binary covered a rather

lengthy period o time. Te same orces that brought Sol and the oldbinary system together now began to dismantle the Polar Congura-

tion. Te motions o Earth, Mars and Venus became more and moreerratic. As they did so, a multitude o celestial phantasmagorias played

out in Earth’s heavens, giving rise to the elements described above,

and many more.



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Myth making in the heavens

It is in the elucidation o this part o the planetary saga that albott

has made the greatest strides. His work has shown how very many

images rom antiquity —

iconographic and metaphoric—

have theirorigins in the heavenly epic seen by ancient peoples the world over as

the planets began their sky dance and metamorphoses. Tis has been

the area where this author has concentrated his explanatory eorts

concerning the connection between those ancient planetary powers

and the gospel and the scriptures are concerned. Nearly everything

his author has written has dealt with the archetypes that originated

in this period o the Polar Conguration. Each o the planets becamean actor in this, as yet, poorly understood drama that played itsel out

across earthly heavens—poorly understood because o the distortion

and elaboration o traditions (myths and legends) over the millen-

nia, because modern science can accept only what it can see and test

(empiricism) and because recent generations have no amiliar point

o reerence since nothing even remotely like those events has trans-

pired in our time.The roles they played

Each o the planets, which stood majestically above the Earth in

that epoch, looked and behaved dierently due to their position in

that conguration. As a result, each was assigned a dierent role, at-

tributes and character by ancient observers.

Saturn was not as active, so he remained in the background—ever

present, ruling the skies, the king o heaven, the architect o all creation,the great center. He was Cronus (Kronos), the timekeeper because all

else turned around him while he remained motionless in the heavens.

Venus became the archetype or emale goddesses in all cultures.

She was the prototypical star rom which all modern star symbols are

derived, a thing o beauty and wonder in the heavens. She was god’s

(Saturn’s) daughter and/or wie, his invigorating power and his glory.

I the goddess is emale—

whatever the culture—

she was probably invented to depict some aspect or act o Venus. And because Venus

was the most active element in the planetary saga, she has the most

incarnations in myth and legend. At some point in the celestial drama,



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she moved away rom her previous location, centered on Saturn. Hence,

she (Athena) was said to have been born rom the head o Zeus.

Mars had his own career. He became the archetype or all ancient

hero gods. He was a warrior, a villain, a ool, a giant, a dwar, etc. Hewas also the son o Saturn, because he was seen to leave or be born

rom within Venus, god’s wie/sister/daughter. Being the most proxi-

mate o the planets to Earth, Mars soon became the most terriying

when periodic instabilities in the Polar Conguration brought Earthand Mars close together. Mars was seen to descend toward the Earth,

along the common planetary axis. As he did so, he grew rom a child

to a youth and then to an adult. He then receded, moving away romthe Earth. Tis, in eect, reversed the previous process in that he once

again became a child and returned to his ormer place in the center

o Venus, the “womb” o heaven.

Elements other than planets

During these events, a ux tube o electried plasma and elements

rom the atmospheres o both planets erupted into an apparent con-

nection between the two, Earth and Mars, that changed its appearancerom time to time. On one occasion, it was an awe-inspiring pillar o

light, standing majestically between heaven and earth with Mars sitting

atop its pyramidal shape. At other times, it became an interplanetary vortex, the mother o all twisters that oscillated in Earth’s heavens,

churning up Earth’s polar landscape and all beneath it, leaving behind

it the polar ice cap and the permarost layer known today as tundra.

It was the archetype o all sacred mountains (Olympus) atop whichsat the temple o heaven (Saturn), god’s habitation. It was a pillar, a

mountain, a ladder, a stream o water or wind, and the great celestialtree aer which our Christmas trees are modeled.

O course, there is much, much more to the story. Whole books

could and will be written as ongoing research reveals more and more

about each o the gods, goddesses, icons, appearances and elements

that went to make up the history o the Polar Conguration.The great change

What happened next in the history o this conguration o plan-

ets is presently the least understood part o the entire epic. For that



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reason, any analysis will necessarily be awed and thereore sub-

ject to revision. Nevertheless, it is worth risking a ew missteps to

connect the entire story to ancient traditions—especially scriptural

accounts—

and the modern epic so that we may better understandour catastrophic, planetary heritage. Moreover, this segment o the

planetary history supplied its own share o unique images, still moregrist or the myth mill.

Over time, the same orces that brought Jupiter/Saturn into an orbit

around Sol and that held Earth, Mars and Venus in the relatively short-

lived, linear conguration, eventually dismembered the old binary

system, allowing all the bodies in that deunct group to assume theirown, individual orbits around Sol. Tis process is recorded in Genesis

as the Great Flood and the dividing o the earth in the days o Peleg.

The end and the beginning

Tat nal process o dismemberment began, likely, with the event

known to students o the Bible as Noah’s Flood or the Great Deluge.

It began with a nova-like explosion o the old binary, Jupiter/Saturn.

Perhaps it was the nal stage o the old stars’ death throws. In any

case, the are-up rst threw out light, then copious amounts o wa-

ter in the orm o ice. According to Hebrew tradition, Noah and his

contemporaries saw seven days o light ollowed by copious amounts

o rain that rapidly inundated the world.

Te Genesis account o Noah’s miraculous escape rom the Deluge

is not the only such story. Accounts rom ancient cultures the world

over tell o the Great Flood. Each account also tells o survivors. Tus,it may be that the Old estament perspective that Noah and his amily

were the exclusive survivors may be misleading. From the Hebrew

perspective, they were the sole survivors. However, rom a worldwide

perspective, they were only some o many. Tis view is supportedby evidence that people rom many cultures the world over saw the

subsequent celestial events.

A new heaven and a new earth

In any case, when the heavens cleared, the survivors and their de-

scendents saw a changed sky. Saturn, they thought, was dying because,



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rather than the eatureless, shining white orb that once dominated the

heavens, it had become a dark body with clearly delineated eatures.

It now had clearly visible variegated stripes girding it, much as it does

today, giving religious signicance to the unerary practice o wrap-ping the corpse in the mummication process and a wide variety o

other mythic themes.

What is more, the dying god (Osiris) now appeared to wander away

rom his exalted station at the center o heaven— something he had

never done beore, rom the ancients’ perspective. Tis was not the

simple meandering about the center axis as Mars and Venus had done

previously. At this juncture, the highest god, the center, god’s house,the celestial city itsel began to move—almost imperceptibly at rst,

then in ever increasing circles. Tis new movement in the sky was

actually mostly due to Earth’s own erratic motions as it le its loca-

tion at the common axis o planets to eventually assume a new orbit

around Jupiter. Tis movement now revealed Jupiter (Zeus), which

up to this point had been occluded by Saturn (Cronus)—hence the

traditions that Zeus was Cronus’ ospring.

Te seven small satellites that played a very minor role in the early

part o the epoch now played a pivotal role that gave rise to numerous

sacricial traditions and rituals as they appeared to all into Saturn

(Cronus/Kronos), who was seen by the ancients to consume his

“children” in ames. For example, rom this event comes the pagan

tradition, recorded in the Old estament, practiced by those who

worshipped Moloch (Cronus/Saturn), o burning children as sacrices

to the planetary gods, a particularly repugnant practice denouncedby Israelite prophets.

Celestial battles

As Jupiter emerged rom behind Saturn, a battle appeared to com-

mence between them, with Jupiter (Zeus) throwing interplanetary

lightning bolts. Tus, Jupiter seemed to come out o nowhere to evict

Saturn rom his throne, the center place o heaven.Saturn, Venus and Mars le their ormer positions along the central

axis o the polar conguration—as did the Earth as well. Tat arrange-

ment ended as Saturn le the congregation o planets to assume its own



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orbit around Sol. Judging by ancient religious traditions, it vanished

into the starry heavens (or today’s amiliar stars were now visible to

mankind or the rst time) in the vicinity o the constellation o Orion

to become the dead god, Osiris, o the Egyptians.Instead o peace, beauty and an inspiring display in the heavens

as beore, there was now chaos and mayhem as the gods began to do

battle with one another. Lightning bolts leaping across millions o

miles o space became the weapons the gods launched at one another.

Te most menacing, evil icons rom ancient lore emerge in Earth’s

skies in this brie period o chaos. Swarms o debris became demons

o destruction and darkness. Images o many-headed serpents andmenacing goddesses, witches, wolves, incredible dragons and antastic

beasts, ound in all the ancient religions o mankind, have there origins

in greatly distorted plasma streams, debris, gases and electromagnetic

phenomena that now stretched between planets as they moved inhighly erratic ways.

A new god replaces the old

Jupiter now dominated Earth’s skies, appearing to stand where

vanished Saturn once stood. For a time, it ruled over a chaotic heaven

where Mars and Venus appeared to metamorphose wildly as these

orbs did battle with one another. Tis period gave rise to the universal

story told about the struggle between a god o light and the demons

o darkness or hell led by a dragon or monster. Tese were the chaos

hoards, evil ends that threatened to destroy all creation as the earth

trembled, heaven thundered and the skies repeatedly darkened. Jupiterwas not the benign monarch, as Saturn had been. He is darker, moreruthless and war-like. Yet he battles to keep at bay the powers o dark-

ness that seemingly threaten all creation. Indeed, he is the archetype

or the angry, vengeul god o the Old estament.

The fall

Earth, too, succumbed to the orces that wrenched the polar con-guration apart. It ell into an orbit around Sol similar to that which

it ollows today. Tis dramatic change, rom the perspective o earth-

bound observers, sent Earth’s ormer neighboring planets and the seat



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o god or heaven itsel o into the “wilderness” o distant space to be-

come mere pinpoints o light—planeta, or “wanderers” in the heavens.

Earth was then said to have “allen” rom its ormerly exalted status

and position near heaven or the throne o god. Indeed, the “division”o the Earth that is said in the scriptures (Genesis 10:25, D&C 133:24.)

to have occurred in the days o Peleg, one o Noah’s grandsons, was

this very event, thereby establishing a sequence o events: the Flood

rst, ollowed by the “division” two generations later.

The Earth was divided

Tere are two elements to the “division” o the Earth, providing twoequally credible explanations or that scriptural statement: one is the

separation o the Earth rom its “celestial” counterparts, the other is

the dividing o Earth’s continents by the oceans.

Te ancients considered the ground they stood upon to be an in-

timately connected part o the collection o orbs they saw in the sky

above them. Hence, in their view, when those orbs departed the sky

it made good sense to say that the Earth had been divided—another

way o saying it had allen. Additionally, with the demise o the PolarConguration, which held Earth’s oceans in tremendous tides at the

poles, water rushed to the equator due to centriugal orce, raising the

water levels around the globe’s girth to unprecedented levels. Include

in that the tremendous volume o additional water the Flood event

added to Earth’s store. Tus oceanic water levels rose dramatically

worldwide in the wake o the Flood, inundating many land bridges

that once connected continents, eectively changing the topography o the entire earth and creating another, new “division” o the landmasses.

Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end

Te above events are remembered in the Old estament as Noah’s

Flood and the division o the Earth in the days o Peleg, while other

ancient cultures characterized it as the end o one world and the

beginning o another.Te proound eects o the Earth’s “all” cannot be overemphasized.

Ancient prophets sought to impress this act upon uture generations,

making this moti a part o the description o Adam’s transgression,

as we read in the scriptures.



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Te appearance o the rmament above the Earth had changedradically, as had the environment on the Earth. As i to inorm us as

well as Noah, the Lord swears to maintain the new order as long as

the Earth exists by listing the burdensome new conditions that hadnot existed beore, “seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and

summer and winter, and day and night …” (Genesis 8:22.) All these

new conditions were imposed on mankind due to the Earth’s “all” to

its new position in the solar system.

Abbreviated life spans

Nowhere is this altered environment that came with Earth’s allmore evident than in the lie span or longevity o human beings. We

learn rom the genealogy o Adam (Genesis, chapter 5) that the normal

lie span beore the Flood reached many hundreds o years—almost

a thousand in Methuselah’s case. But compare that to the normal lie

span immediately aer the Flood and in the ollowing generations

as recorded in the genealogy o Abraham (Genesis, chapter 11). Te

lie span o those born aer the Flood was dramatically oreshort-

ened to almost hal o pre-Flood lengths. Furthermore, within eightgenerations it was down to a little over a hundred in Abraham’s case,

a raction o pre-Flood lie expectancy.

No wonder the human race associated the “all” with death. Lie–

spans had been drastically truncated.

Scholars and scriptorians have always been puzzled by the seem-

ingly inordinate lie expectancy o the Patriarchs and its sudden ore-

shortening aer the Flood. Some dismissed it as a distortion o thetruth. Some accepted it on aith, but still could not explain it. Only the

catastrophist view o Earth history gives any meaning to the longev-

ity rates recorded in Genesis and the records and traditions o other

ancient cultures. Even accepting the likely act that “years” beore the

ood were not the same time length as those we know today (since

planetary close encounters have clearly altered the length o the solar

year since those ancient times), the dramatic decrease o longevity immediately aer the Flood and the declining lie expectancy rates

thereaer serve as indicators that some dramatic change was aoot in

Earth’s environment to cause those declines.



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Radical environmental change

What changed to bring about oreshortened lie spans? Tere can

be little doubt, rom a catastrophist point o view, that the electro-

magnetic environment in the Jupiter/Saturn binary system was armore hospitable to lie than the sterile, hostile, one-sun system we

inherited. It is like comparing lie in an incubator, where everything

necessary to promote lie is present in abundance, to survival in an

inhospitable world that oscillated between cold and heat, dark and

light, where lie became a struggle or survival. When the salubrious

electromagnetic environment o early Earth collapsed, lie expectancy

naturally dropped dramatically.

A more stable, but still destructive epoch

What is more, Earth’s new orbit opened the door to a new, pro-

longed epoch o instability. Earth and its inhabitants were not yet out

o the woods—not by a long shot. While the Earth, Jupiter and Saturn

apparently settled quickly into somewhat stable orbits very nearly

like their present paths around the Sun, Venus and Mars entered intoelongated, elliptical orbits much dierent rom those they ollow today.

Tose eccentric orbits, which crossed Earth’s orbit, determined that

Venus and Mars would periodically pass in close proximity to one

another and the Earth, generating new catastrophes in the process.

Tis was the historical epoch with which Velikovsky concerned himsel.

Beginning aer the Flood with the ower o Babel incident and

continuing on down to the destruction o Sodom and Gomorrah, this

new period o instability and danger also included later biblical events

such as the Exodus, Joshua’s Long Day, Jonah’s ministry to Nineveh and

the day re rom heaven consumed Elijah’s sacrice on Mt. Carmel.

In the biblical narrative, the last catastrophic episode that saw Earth

menaced by another planet was in approximately 701 B.C. when the

Assyrian army o Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem. “And it came to

pass that night, that the angel o the Lord went out, and smote in the

camp o the Assyrians an hundred ourscore and ve thousand: andwhen they (the Jews in Jerusalem) arose early in the morning, behold,

they (the Assyrians soldiers) were all dead corpses.” (2 Kings 19:35.)



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Beyond the Bible

Every emerging culture rom that prolonged epoch, whether He-

brew, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Chinese or

Inca, le records o those events rom their own perspective. Eachculture— even city-states within cultures—gave dierent names to

the same planets/gods. Tus, the same story or a similar story is told

in separate cultures, using dierent names, deeds and settings; yet

modern scholars ail to see the commonalities. For example, there can

be little doubt that Homer’s epic story o the battle o roy recorded a

catastrophic event that was also reported by Old estament prophets;

or that the Exodus even was chronicled by those outside Egypt whoexperienced those phenomena. Te trick, as Velikovsky discovered,

is to correlate the two because each saw those events rom vastly di-

erent perspectives.

So, it may not be prudent to assume that since Venus was said to

be Aphrodite, she was not Athena as well. She was both. She was also

Hera, Medussa, Pandora, Isis, Hathor, Astarte and a multitude o other

goddesses—

all in dierent guises and settings to tell some aspect o the ancient planet’s story anthropomorphically.

What historians see as transmissions or “borrowings” o knowledge

and cultural traditions—one culture to another— are largely parallel

accounts rom dierent cultures o the same events, gods and condi-

tions in antiquity. In addition, each story or cultural tradition may or

may not indicate a new event or a new god or goddess. It may simply

be a re-telling o the same story rom a new perspective. o urthercomplicate things, characters, events and conditions are swapped

around to create even more elaborate story lines, as in modern works

o ction or modern holidays. It is a time-tested tradition, even in

temple or estival rituals where dramatic rehearsals o the acts o the

gods were rehearsed.

Like witnesses to an auto accident, each one tells the story di-

erently. Te task is to recreate the actual event rom the variousperspectives. In this case, we are trying to sort out the accounts o a

multitude o planetary encounters, told by a variety o cultures, where

the actors and the settings change more requently than ever imag-

ined. So, each mythical account has elements o truth, but none is a



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ully accurate retelling o what happened or who participated. Each

myth, each legend, each tradition must be careully blended with its

counterparts to create a whole that tells the real story. Tis is a work

in progress that has only just begun.

Symbolic masking and overlays

In addition to that, these periodic, catastrophic encounters between

Earth and its ormerly two closest neighbors in the polar conguration,

Venus and Mars, generated a new symbolism and iconography, which

was superimposed on the old symbolism o the Polar Conguration.

Tis “masking” o earlier catastrophic events by later ones makes itdoubly difcult to discern the symbolism o the older events and

the original conguration because o similarities—all catastrophes

are natural events, born o similar physical phenomena. Tus, the

mythical and ritual symbolism o later events copies or mimics that

o earlier catastrophes.

Cultures not destroyed in any given catastrophe tended to ocus

their traditions on those most recent events. Hence, various cultures

reverenced gods and icons that emerged in that catastrophe, yet they also drew on older, traditional imagery with which to adorn their

new gods.

Tus, the masking o older events and symbols by more recentones and the dramatically dierent perspective o events recorded by

divergent cultures all has a multiplying eect on early traditions, icons

and motis, causing even more variations on ancient mythic themes.

Hence, any attempt to unravel the interwoven threads o cultural andreligious traditions creates bewilderment and perplexity. Tere is

such a multitude o symbolic stories and traditions—myths, in otherwords— that it rustrates any systematic study o these remnants o

history. Anyone who attempts to sort out the cacophony and conu-

sion o ancient mythology can be easily overwhelmed.

Skepticism buries history

As i that were not enough, add the conusion o myth, legend and

religion to the disbelie and skepticism o later generations who saw

nothing but peace and stability in the solar system, and you have a



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ormula or complete dismissal o the message our ancient orebears

struggled to preserve and communicate in stone, story and ritual.

Tese close passes ended in the 6th century B.C., leaving a tradi-

tion o planetary catastrophe that upcoming generations had difculty understanding or even accepting. Millennia later, mankind is almosttotally ignorant o Earth’s catastrophic past. Most records o those

events have long since vanished. Tose ew records that survived, like

the scriptures, have been savaged by translators who knew nothing o

ancient planetary catastrophes and subsequently mistranslated reer-ences to catastrophes. Moreover, a spirit o skepticism and unbelie

has taken hold o mankind that tends to dismiss anything the leastbit antastic as invention rather than act. Hence, those ew records

that have survived, sacred and proane, have been almost completely stripped o their real meaning, whitewashed by ignorance and bias.

Oral traditions, myths and legends have been relegated to obscurity

by generations o scientists and scholars that obstinately deny that

anything extraordinary has happened in our solar system—certainly

nothing like the account given above.

While much inormation regarding the true nature o Earth’s cata-

strophic past still remains in the religious traditions, customs, records,

architecture, rites and rituals o all cultures—careully preserved due

to its “sacred” nature—such data carries no real credibility today, even

in the minds o religious believers who completely ail to examine the

evidence with anything but “spiritual” eyes.

Where the Saints standMormons are no exception to this rule. Te ounder o Mormon-

ism, Joseph Smith, spent copious amounts o his precious time trying

to restore and revive inormation about and belie in those ancient

events and conditions. His notes on Egyptian texts and his use o uni-

versal, symbolically correct archetypical symbols in modern temples

as well as rites and rituals true to ancient orms are moot evidence

o this. Why did he spend his invaluable time doing that rather thansome other, more overtly good works? Because this knowledge is

vital to one’s understanding o the gospel, the scriptures, the temple

and one’s religion.



18

Latter-day Saints who ignore that inormation— the vast majority

o the church membership, as it turns out—do so at their own peril.

For more essays rom this series:http://mormonprophecy.blogspot.com/

For online classes, videos, newsletters and published books exploringthis material in depth:http://www.mormonprophecy.com/

Your questions or comments are welcome:[email protected]

http://www.mormonprophecy.com/


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Documents

The World That Then Was .