© Lloyd

__VOL I, No. 20 August 3, 1997

VELIKOVSKY'S COMET VENUS (4) By David Talbott

CONTENTS: THE GREAT COMET
ON EVIDENCE AND LOGIC
THE MYTH OF THE COMET VENUS
METHODOLOGY AND OUTCOME
THE GREAT COMET AND THE DEATH OF KINGS
SOUL OF THE CREATOR-KING
QUETZALCOATL AND THE FEARS OF KINGS
MESOAMERICAN ASTRONOMY

THE GREAT COMET

In seeking out the general patterns of the Mesoamerican Venus as serpent-dragon, we cannot fail to observe that our listed "cometary" symbols are not just present, but prominent, that they are enigmatically but self-evidently connected, that they do not direct us to any present forms either in the sky or in the natural world today (rather, they contradict all natural forms at every level), and that they remain unexplained, despite decades of microscopic examination by the best experts.

One conclusion is inescapable, even if interpretations will differ: the Mesoamerican symbolism of the planet Venus — in that planet's guise as serpent-dragon or chaos-monster — is a compendium of globally-recognized comet symbols, representing in one mythical form all five of the most frequently employed cometary glyphs! Yet in more than forty years since Velikovsky's _Worlds in Collision_, no mainstream scholar has even acknowledged this stunning fact.

Of course, no comet admitted by modern science has ever justified the lines of Shakespeare previously cited, or the Aztec image of a comet-like "weapon" in the form of a fiery dragon. But our appreciation for the symbolism changes dramatically once we entertain a new possibility — that in earlier times mankind experienced a far more spectacular and devastating comet than ever experienced in more recent times, a cometary archetype that could fully account for the later symbols. It was said of the great fire serpent Xiuhcoatl that it spewed forth comets. That is exactly the language we should expect if Xiuhcoatl was not just a comet, but the parent of comets, the concrete source of a mythical archetype, from which arose the entire reservoir of comet images. Every cometary apparition, taking its symbolism from the cosmic original, would then be considered a child of the primeval, flaming serpent or dragon remembered in the myths.

ON EVIDENCE AND LOGIC

In all of this there is a fundamental issue of logic. How does one properly weigh the lines of evidence, the repeated convergence of comet words and symbols upon Venus? Having had many opportunities to muse over the way the experts skirt the issue, I am convinced the real question never enters their minds. Until one asks the question — did Venus formerly present itself as a spectacular "comet"? — even the most obvious evidence will be seen as something else, as confirmation of the recklessness and confusion of myth, another reason not to take myth seriously. The question is not asked because the "Velikovskian" field of study lacks all credibility in the eyes of mainstream authorities.

Thus the Mayan scholar Peter Joralemon explained the highly unnatural convergence of symbols on the celestial dragon:

"The primary concern of Olmec art is the representation of creatures that are biologically impossible. Such mythological beings exist in the mind of man, not in the world of nature."

It's easy to see how one might draw this conclusion. But if the symbolism lacks any roots in "the world of nature" and is simply the result of chaotic imagination, then an even greater issue arises: Why do the same symbols continually occur in juxtaposition? Once the critic resorts to unbridled imagination as an explanation of highly specific forms, he is left with nothing but coincidence to account for the convergence. But when it comes to the convergence of all five of the world's most common cometary symbols on one celestial creature, is it reasonable to expect sheer imagination and "coincidence" to account for the situation?

In truth, virtually all respected authorities continually look for natural references, because no one could seriously believe that such dramatic images as the plumed serpent could dominate an entire civilization without a link to natural experience. Only the rarest of specialists would suggest that the primitive mind conjured its primary mythical forms out of a wholesale denial of the world. In truth, if they can find even the most remote natural explanation, the experts will use it. Miguel León-Portilla, for example, offers a picturesque explanation of the Venus-Quetzalcoatl relationship:

"The association of Venus and Quetzalcoatl can probably be attributed to the fact that when this planet sets upon the moving waters of the Pacific, its reflection seems not unlike a serpent with brilliant scales and plumes."

Here is a "natural explanation" that would fit easily into Bob Forrest's analysis, as if there is nothing in the plumed serpent crying out for a comparison with the highly improbable yet similar images of other peoples — and as if the combined cometary associations need not concern us.

How, then, does one break through the vicious circle? Go back to the list of the five most frequently-employed comet images, each of them occurring not only in Mexico but in the global symbolism of the comet. How does one weigh the fact that all five comet glyphs are attached to the Mexican Venus? Indeed not only the general motifs, but virtually all of the listed variations are attached to Venus. Is sheer coincidence even possible in such an extreme case as this?

For starters, it needs to be understood that we are not dealing with a "multiple choice" when it comes to possible interpretations. If one is permitted to include in the lexicon of comets the "shooting star," whose mythical image is drawn from the same reservoir, then the only known and provable celestial phenomenon called a "long-haired star" is a comet; the only celestial phenomenon known to have been called a torch star or a flaming star is a comet; the only celestial phenomenon known to have been represented as a star with streaming "tail feathers" is a comet. The only celestial phenomenon known to have been represented as a star with a serpentine tail is a comet. That these very glyphs are consistently attached to Venus cannot be explained away by ad hoc reasoning.

Now add the mythical role of the comet as the ascending soul of a former great king, together with the explicit role of Venus as the ascending soul of the prototypical king Quetzalcoatl, and you will begin to see what is at issue here. If nothing else the stunning convergence of cometary images should make clear that Humboldt's guess about the "smoking star" Venus and a local volcano is not a sufficient answer! The juxtaposition of cometary motifs with the now-peaceful planet — a planet whose appearance today could not begin to explain these associations — forces us to confront the logical alternative: if Venus did appear as a comet, the entire assembly of improbable "coincidences" disappears.

THE MYTH OF THE COMET VENUS

To establish the coincidence of cometary themes relating to Venus is not to end the subject, but simply to open the door to a new vantage point, one in which the researcher enjoys the freedom to consider unusual possibilities. Do the Aztec and Mayan codices, the inscriptions on stone, the oral histories, and the towering monuments speak for events no longer occurring in the skies?

The unexpected symbolic parallels give the researcher a new way of perceiving his subject. Grant the possibility of a world-threatening comet Venus — frightening enough and destructive enough to substantiate man's deepest fears — and the culture will no longer look the same. Re-envisioning the ancient world in this way will not remove the role of magic and superstition in the myths; nor will it soften the profoundly barbaric components of native rituals; nor will it give to the myths and rites that loftier wisdom we so often seek in ancient words. What it will do is lend the missing perspective, providing new frameworks for understanding the experiential roots of the culture.

The candid researcher must first admit that even the most capable authorities, when considering the core of pre-Columbian thought and culture, find that convincing explanations elude them. Can modern scholars, for example, really claim to understand the cloud of anxiety that hung over Mexican cultures, an anxiety only heightened by the arrival of the Spaniards? Nothing in that civilization's monumental splendor could hide this apprehension. But to expose its roots the researcher must be willing to follow the clues, rather than dismiss them just because they seem so out of touch with the world we know. These clues will lead — inescapably — past the cover of cultural anxiety to its roots in celestial terror.

The sensitive chronicler, Fray Diego Duran, writing just a generation after Columbus, recounted a story about the great emperor Moctezuma, concerning an experience prior to arrival of the conquistadors. It happened that Moctezuma had received word of a comet hanging over Mexico at sunrise. Though the report did not come from his personal astrologers, "he was so filled with fear that he thought his death would arrive within the hour." Moctezuma then asked the king of neighboring Texcoco to tell him what the comet meant.

The answer was as Moctezuma must have feared:

"It is an ill-omen for our kingdoms; terrible, frightful things will come upon them. In all our lands and provinces there will be great calamities and misfortunes, not a thing will be left standing. Death will dominate the land! All our dominion will be lost."

On hearing this news, Moctezuma wept bitterly, saying "O Lord of All Created Things! O mighty gods who gives life or death! Why have you decreed that many kings shall have reigned proudly but that my fate is to witness the unhappy destruction of Mexico?"

It would be senseless to attempt to isolate or explain Moctezuma's fears outside a cultural tradition far more telling than the individual biographies of kings. No king in earlier times could free himself from the mythical and ritual contexts of kingship. And in the overarching symbols of the power and fate of kings one encounters invariably the archaic language of the comet. Of the comet in Moctezuma's day, Duran's modern translators write: "It is curious to note that the Aztecs looked upon comets as ill omens, just as the contemporary Europeans regarded them as signs of war, famine and pestilence." Among the Aztecs, "Comets and earthquakes, which were always carefully marked down each year in the hieroglyphic manuscripts, were always considered omens of misfortune," notes Jacques Soustell.

In our investigation we have grouped comet and meteor symbolism together because mythically the two are synonymous. "Comets are referred to in Quiché [highlands Maya] as uje chlumil, 'tail of the star,' and are considered omens of massive pestilence," observes Barbara Tedlock. "Throughout the Mayan area, meteors are thought to be evil omens forecasting sickness, war, and death."

The Mesoamerican theme resonates with a global fear that no comparative study can ignore: around the world, the comet signaled the approach of doomsday. And it mattered not how quietly and unobtrusively the visitor made its appearance, because the archetypal image did not originate in the little wisps of gas that periodically adorn our sky. With the rarest of exceptions, the cometary _omen_ was _ominous_ (the two English words being derived from the same Latin root). For the ancient stargazers, the comet was the fear-inspiring portent of disaster, the "ill-omened star". And thus does our word _dis-aster_ (evil star) echo the ancient fear of a star (comet) presiding over universal _catastrophe_ (another word reflecting the evil aster or star, the comet of world mythology). But this brief note on language of the evil star does not even scratch the surface when it comes to the depth of man's memory of a world-ending cometary disaster.

__VOL I, No. 21 August 11, 1997

VELIKOVSKY'S COMET VENUS (5) By David Talbott

METHODOLOGY AND OUTCOME

We have previously observed that, in seeking out Velikovsky's comet, "methodology is everything." A useful methodology will not dismiss a widespread theme just because it appears highly irrational or incapable of explanation. In Bob Forrest's critique he acknowledges such "comet" themes as the death of a king or great leader at the appearance of a comet, good wine in the year of a comet, and the comet signaling outbreaks of war. As to the roots of such odd ideas, "heaven only knows," he exclaims. So why should we accept only those comet ideas that support Velikovsky's thesis?

Here Forrest missed each and every opportunity to account for what he assumed could never be explained. If worldwide comet symbolism originated in the experience of a truly terrifying intruder, it is simply impossible to know which portions of comet lore are relevant prior to reconstructing the story from the global evidence. And in truth, ALL of the comet themes cited by Forrest are illuminated by the biography of the Great Comet, as I intend to demonstrate with more than sufficient evidence in this series.

First there is the matter of pervasive fear; for when it comes to "irrational" terror carried as luggage from the past, little else compares to the universal fear of THE COMET. Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, in their book _Comet_, find the fear to be virtually universal:

"Rarely have so many diverse cultures, all over the planet, agreed so well. In the history of the world, more societies have advocated incest or infanticide than have taught that comets were benign, or even neutral. Everywhere on Earth, with only a few exceptions, comets were harbingers of change, ill fortune, evil. It was common knowledge."

Most of us are, in fact, so accustomed to the common expressions of this fear that we fall into a trap of illogic: "Comets, of course, were always regarded in antiquity as omens of disaster," wrote the esteemed authority on comparative religion, Theodore Gaster. It sounds as if ("of course") the overwhelming fear is completely natural and needs no explanation BECAUSE it is so universal.

The trap also caught author David Ritchie: "For thousands of years comets have been associated with all manners of disasters and misfortune. This association is easy to understand." But the pervasiveness of an irrational fear is not an explanation.

I find it of interest that Fred Whipple, one of the deans of modern astronomy, did not find an easy explanation for the hysteria.

"Why should comets — those graceful, sometimes majestic, creatures of the sky — frighten people? They move very slowly, without startling changes in shape or aspect. They make no sounds and emit no dazzling flashes of light. In short, they do nothing that seems to me to be threatening. Yet comets have terrified people as long as there have been people to terrify."

The ancient and poorly understood fear aroused by the appearance of a comet continued through the Middle Ages and even (in a more tempered expression) into the twentieth century, with the arrival of Halley's Comet in 1910. "We may all die laughing when the comet [Halley] comes," the French astronomer Camille Flammarion was quoted as saying, with language that fed a widespread pre-existing apprehension of the fin du monde.

In earlier times the extent of comet fear was deadly. On the arrival of the comet of 1528, the famous French surgeon Ambroise Paré described the public reaction: "This comet was so horrible and so frightful and it produced such great terror in the vulgar that some died of fear and others fell sick."

The range of comet fears is impressive. According to Aristotle, the comet brings wind and drought. Among both the Greeks and Romans, "The comet was inevitably the presage of some cataclysmic event," states A. Barret. Josephus reports in his History of the Jews that prior to the destruction of Jerusalem by Roman armies, "a comet shaped like a sword" hung over the city for an entire year. (While Carl Sagan hastens to point out the impossibility of the literal occurrence, it effectively mirrors the mythical role of the comet.) According to Servius, the ancient and infamous comet Typhon produced terrible famine. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle recorded "firedrakes" — fiery dragons — "seen flying in the air" at the time of a great famine in 779, observing as well that a great comet appeared at the time of famine in 975. And so too does a comet bring great famine in the traditions of the Masai of East Africa.

In Byrhtferth's Manual, published in the year 1011, occurs this description of a comet: "There is a star called a comet. When it appears it betokens famine or pestilence or war or the destruction of the earth or fearful storms." Similarly the Eghap of Nigeria say that pestilence is the regular companion of the feared comet.

Even the historian Isidor Bishop of Seville (602-636), a well known skeptic when it came to astrology, could not set aside the belief that the comet presaged "revolutions, wars, and pestilence." Gregory of Tours (c. 541-594), writing in De Cursu Stellarum, tells us that when a comet "spreads its hair abroad darkly, it announces rain to the country." Nor is it surprising to find the rumor that the Great Plague of London was due to the appearance of a comet; or that a comet is also said to have accompanied the great earthquake at Lima, Peru, in 1746.

While the association of the comet and wide-ranging disaster is worldwide, the pattern may initially seem diffuse, with insufficient coherence to support any unified theory of comet fears. Funk and Wagnall's encyclopedia, for example, included the following description under the heading "comet":

"Not only in antiquity, but through the centuries among all peoples, comets have aroused in man a feeling of terror and foreboding. These mysterious visitors in the heavens have been thought to be connected with war, famine, the plague, the downfall of kings and monarchs, the end of the world, universal suffering, ill-luck, and sickness."

How, then, did this curious profile of the comet arise? The darkly pessimistic ideas about comets inspired Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan to muse:

"There is an overwhelming sadness to the literature of comets. With melancholy consistency we discover that disaster has always been a commonplace; that any comet at any time viewed from anywhere on Earth is assured of some tragedy for which it can be held accountable."

Such is the logic of efforts to explain mythical ideas through experiences familiar to our own day: the commentator simply assumes that when a comet appeared the undisciplined primitive mind freely associated it with one or another disaster occurring around the same time. But this suggested habit will not explain why the first instinct of stargazers was to look for a COMET to account for the occurrence of great disasters.

Nor will the stargazer's haste to connect the comet and disaster explain the deeper theme of the WORLD-ENDING apocalypse. If one looks at comet lore more closely, it will be realized that what the stargazers feared most was no local calamity.

Ancient Chinese comet lore held that "Comets are vile stars. Every time they appear in the south, something happens to wipe out the old and establish the new." In the language of myth that means the end of the world. Both the Sibylline Oracles and a Dead Sea Scroll (War of the Sons of Light and Darkness) present the comet as a sign of the Last Days — all of which sounds very much like the Aztec's comet-like plumed serpent presiding over the end of one world age and beginning of another.

Consider, for example, why it is that the comet soars into prominence as our own calendar approaches a "critical moment," at the end of a millennium. (Yes, it seems that round numbers and "critical moments" go hand in hand, fed by the sense of cyclical time and the global myth of a world age ending in sweeping catastrophe.) Mary Proctor tells us that as the year 1000 approached "even the most simple phenomena assumed terrible proportions." And this included, not surprisingly, "reports of earth-quakes, and a comet visible for nine days." Here again is the earthquake-comet association despite the failure of any known comet to redeem the association. The role of an archetypal myth in influencing reports of ostensibly historical comets will be clearly seen in the following chronicle of the year 1000, cited by Proctor:

"The heavens having opened, a kind of burning torch fell upon the earth, leaving behind a long train of light similar to a flash of lightning ... as this opening in the heavens closed, imperceptibly there became visible the figure of a dragon, whose feet were blue, and whose head seemed continually to increase."

Even the world-famous dragon finds its way into the story, when the calendar calls for it! But let us not forget the distinction between the symbol and the thing symbolized. Every break in the natural order was a reminder (symbol) of what world mythology presents as a universal disaster; in this sense, the local pestilence needed a comet to find its place in the mythically-defined scheme, particularly at the end of the millennium. Even today, as we approach a new millennium, the apocalyptic fear expresses itself with every local catastrophe, offering a "sign" of the anticipated end of the world — just as, century after century, virtually every wisp of a comet played its required part in the psychological drama. How the underlying story and its symbols originated is an entirely different matter, involving patterns that could never be explained by any local disaster or any local experience whatsoever.

That many of the most significant patterns are poorly recognized is due almost entirely to the methodology and suppositions of the investigators. The result is a heap of evidential fragments — more than sufficient to illustrate the global fear of comets, but with little or no comprehension of the remembered events from which the patterns emerged.

The "portentous" news brought by the comet can be summarized as follows:

€ the comet foretells the fall of the kingdom;

€ the comet predicts the arrival of plague, famine, earthquake, pestilence;

€ the comet means the end of a world age, the arrival of universal darkness or night, the occlusion of the sun by chaos monsters, a victory (though temporary) of rebelling powers.

€ the comet forecasts the death of kings or great rulers;

€ the comet heralds cataclysmic wars.

For the present discussion, I shall simply cite enough instances to illustrate the key ideas. These recurring motifs do not explain themselves! Why the repeated idea that a comet means the death of kings? It is the archetype and nothing else that will explain the symbol. (As we will see, appearance of the Great Comet was synonymous with the death of the Universal Monarch, the PROTOTYPE of kings.) While the unobtrusive comets observed in our time only accent the irrationality of ancient fears, the worldwide portent symbolism of the comet answers so completely to the Great Comet (Venus) as to logically preclude the customary, localized explanations of these fears. The things which ancient nations believed about comets are, in every case, inseparably tied to the story of one heaven-shattering, universally-remembered comet, an archetype in every sense of the word.

__VOL I, No. 22 August 31, 1997

VELIKOVSKY'S COMET VENUS (6) By David Talbott

THE GREAT COMET AND THE DEATH OF KINGS

We began this section with a note on the Aztec emperor Moctezuma's terror on the arrival of a comet. The focus of this fear is significant because it was shared by emperors and kings and tribal chiefs the world over. The comet means the death of great leaders.

The idea appears to be as old as Babylonian astronomy, which associates a comet with the death of kings. The Roman poet Lucan offers a vivid description of cometary disaster, when the skies, "blazing fire," bring forth the "hair of the baleful star — the comet which portends changes to monarchs." So too did the Greek mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy connect the comet with the death of kings.

The profound fears of royalty at the appearance of the comet continued well into the present era. The third century Christian theologian Origen cites the comet as heralding a change in dynasties. It was a common "belief that the comet of AD 336 had announced the death of the great emperor Constantine." In connection with the assassination of Julius Caesar, it was said, a comet had appeared in the sky. On learning of a comet Nero was seized with fear, and chroniclers assure us that a comet preceded the death of the Emperor Macrinus in A.D. 218, and of Attila in A.D. 451.

According to Synesius, writing in the fourth century A.D., a comet means great disaster: "And whenever these comets appear, they are an evil portent, which the diviners and soothsayers appease. They assuredly foretell public disasters, enslavements of nations, desolations of cities, deaths of kings."

The Frankish bishop and historian Gregory of Tours, writing in the sixth century, reports that the "flaming diadem" of a comet portends the death of kings. Geoffrey of Monmouth connected the death of Aurelius Ambrosius with the appearance of a spectacular comet whose political symbolism was said to have been explained by Merlin.

Even the brilliant astronomer Tycho Brahe, several centuries later, was unable to free himself from the idea that the comet brought overwhelming pestilence, war, and the death of kings.

When Halley's Comet appeared in April 1066, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gave this report:

"... In this year King Harald came from York to Westminster at Easter, which was after the mid winter in which the king (Edward the Confessor) died. Then was seen over all England such a sign in the heaven as no man ever before saw; some say it was the star Cometa. "

Among the ancient Germanic peoples, according to Grimm, the belief persisted that a comet's "appearance betokens events fraught with peril, especially the death of a king."

The memory of the comet is well preserved in the song of German schoolchildren in the time of Martin Luther"

"[These] things a comet brings ... Storm, plague, famine, death of kings, War, earthquake, flood, and upheaval."

A drawing of a comet in the Chinese cometary atlas from the tomb at Mawangdui is accompanied by the simple statement: "There will be deaths of kings." The Chinese Record of the World Changes, by Li Ch'un Feng, (602-667 AD) warns of dire consequences: "When a comet travels into the Constellation Taurus ... within three years the emperor dies and the country is in chaos." So, too, do the Luba of Africa say that comet means the death of a leader. And in the same way, natives of the Polynesian Islands, claimed that a comet signified the death of a chief.

Here, then, is the universal mythical context in which we must understand Moctezuma's fears. In the global tradition it is as if the comet bore particularly ominous news for heads of state, and the Aztec world view was no exception. Aveni, noting the intense interest in cometary phenomena among Mesoamerican peoples, tells us that illustrations of comets are frequently accompanied by interpretations of these portents: "These usually signify that a person of nobility will die."

The paradox is accented in Shakespeare's famous lines:

"When beggars die there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes."

Of course kings knew very well the special perils of comets. When a comet in 837 drew the attention of King Louis the Pious of France, "The king went into a veritable orgy of prayers and devotions, ordering churches and shrines built to appease the imagined wrath of God." The Carthaginian general Hannibal in 184 B.C. was warned that a "recently-discovered comet meant he would die soon." He answered the comet by committing suicide.

Is there something to be explained in the comet's threat to kings? When Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan encountered the "death of kings" idea, they offered the usual explanation, calling such ideas "the triumph of superstition" and assuming the fear arose from the random coincidence of certain kings dying at the time comets appeared.

Velikovsky's critic Bob Forrest was even less impressed with the strange idea. While noting that the death of kings is "perhaps the commonest" theme of all, he adds:

""Certainly I see no pressing need to postulate cometary "collisions" on the basis of the "evil" reputation of comets any more than I need to invoke cometary/planetary exhalations to explain good wine years.""

But again the critic has drawn his conclusion prematurely, and we are left only with what amounts to a guess as to whether there is a connection with planetary upheaval. What happens, on the other hand, if instead of setting the fragments aside once gathered, we look for connecting links? In summarizing the curious theme of the comet and the death of kings, Mary Proctor adds a telling observation.

"The comet of A.D. 451 or A.D. 453 announced the death of Attila, and the comet of A.D. 455 that of the Emperor Valentinian. So widely spread was the belief in the connection between the death of the great and those menacing signs in the heavens that the chroniclers of old appear to have recorded comets which were never seen, such as the comet of A.D. 814, which was supposed to have presaged the death of Charlemagne."

The note concerning the death of Charlemagne is significant. Can one really believe that localized, random, and disconnected events caused the same theme to arise on every continent — and with such oppressive influence that a comet would be invented when the expected visitor failed to materialize at the death of a powerful ruler? According to Peter Lancaster Brown, "Every bright comet which appeared during the medieval period, the Middle Ages, and even the Renaissance had itself affixed to the death or misfortune of a prominent historical figure.

These beliefs were so widespread that (according to Pingre) the chronicles recorded in good faith comets which were never actually seen." This suggests that the death of kings motif, rather than reflecting random local events, conditioned man's perception of local events for century upon century. For those familiar with the way core mythical ideas work their way down through history, this is a key indicator of a very ancient and well-rooted idea. The chroniclers would happily re-write history to bring it into accord with the great mythical traditions of kingship and the gods.

To the modern reader it may appear as if the ideas dropped randomly out of the sky, but a closer look will eliminate that impression completely. The patterns are the key. One fascinating idea about comets, for example, provides a unifying thread, while directing our attention to earlier mythical sources. A comet was frequently claimed to be the soul of a great ruler rising in the sky (certainly a good reason for loyalists to find a comet on the death of a ruler, even if the sky is not cooperating). Consider the famous case of Julius Caesar. On the death of that ruler, according to the Latin poet Ovid and others, a great cometary spectacle occurred in the sky, as Caesar's soul itself rose as a comet. And from Ovid's reverent description it seems that it could not have been otherwise for a leader of such stature. Clearly, the mythically-rooted story — celebrating the cometary "soul" of a great leader — preceded Ovid's poetic license!

Aristotle, not given to celebrate the mythical tradition, tells us that the Greek philosopher Democritus held that comets were the souls of men of renown. Among the Polynesian Islanders, according to Williams, a comet did not just signify the death of a king, a comet meant the flight of the soul. Similarly, the eminent student of comparative myth and religion, James Frazer, produced extensive proof that "a widespread superstition ... associates meteors or falling stars with the souls of the dead. Often they are believed to be the spirits of the departed on their way to the other world."

With respect to the departing cometary soul of Caesar, which I shall take up in a summary of the Greek and Roman material, I cannot resist passing on to the reader one fascinating detail. When Robert Schilling, perhaps the world's leading authority on the Latin goddess Venus, gathered the references to Caesar's apotheosis, he noticed a curious blend of two ideas: one that the soul rose as a comet, the other that the soul rose as the planet Venus. And the two ideas were actually joined as one, for the poet Ovid describes the soul as a flaming comet CARRIED ALOFT BY VENUS. In more than one instance the soul itself is celebrated as Venus. A curiosity indeed. "What general conspiracy," Schilling asks, "seems to have tacitly excluded the comet to the profit of the star [Venus]?" That the specialist did not discern the connection to a larger pattern (Venus = comet in a global tradition) is why the comparative study is so crucial.

SOUL OF THE CREATOR-KING

We are thus brought back to Moctezuma's terror. One "explanation" for his fear of the comet asks unidentified local experiences to account for it and asks coincidence to account for parallel comet fears around the world. But another explanation is possible, in terms of an ancient story known to every native of Mexico and reflected in the most powerful cosmic images of Aztec culture. I refer to the myth of Quetzalcoatl, whose soul rose as the comet-like Venus. If Quetzalcoatl's departing heart-soul provided a prototype of the comet myth, we do not need to look further for an explanation of the comet's relation to the "death of kings" . In this case, the relationship is self-evident: the comet means the death of the king because tradition proclaimed that on the death of GREAT KING (the god remembered as the PROTOTYPE of kings) his soul departed from him in a cosmic disaster. And the comet brings the end of the world because, in the death of the god-king and the departure of his heart-soul as a comet, a former world age ended catastrophically.

Having raised the question rhetorically, I do not expect the critic to accept the suggested explanation of comet symbolism apart from the complete presentation of evidence in this series. Nevertheless, for the sake of saving time, it may be helpful to give the gist of the idea I intend to develop and substantiate with each future installment:

Within human memory extraordinary changes have occurred in the solar system. Planets now remote from the Earth once moved in much, much closer proximity to our planet, appearing as gigantic powers looming over man. Hence, we cannot understand the mythical age of the gods without confronting the "gods" as visible forms in the sky, forms that are no longer present. In all mythical systems the gods rule for a time, then depart amid celestial upheaval.

Mythically, there was once a founding king, a celestial model of the good king. But neither this charismatic figure, nor his celestial progeny will answer to familiar references in a now-settled sky. Nor will the mythical powers of darkness, in their monstrous dress, find any explanation in our experienced world.

Inherent in the myths of the gods is the collective human experience of extraordinary trauma. An idyllic world, a paradisal condition, a Golden Age ruled by a former "great king" (the CREATOR-king, the Universal Monarch), came crashing down in a world-ending disaster: wars of the gods, earthquake, famine, wind and flood, the arrival of universal night.

Of this world-ending catastrophe the Great Comet Venus — the departing heart-soul of the creator-king — was remembered as both symbol and agent.

__VOL I, No. 23 August 17, 1997

VELIKOVSKY'S COMET VENUS (7) By David Talbott

QUETZALCOATL AND THE FEARS OF KINGS

The apprehension of Moctezuma, mentioned in our previous submission, can be illuminated by a sweeping mythical tradition concerning the life and death of Quetzalcoatl, the celestial prototype of kings.

Quetzalcoatl was called the "sun," but the mythical and ritual sources remind us that this does not mean the light we call Sun today. The most revered figure of Mexican myth, Quetzalcoatl ruled for a time, then disembarked for other realms. As the great "teacher," the exemplary ruler, his life and death defined the duties and expectations of kings. But as we will see, it also substantiated a pervasive fear, and this fear always rose to the surface on the appearance of a COMET. Moctezuma's fear of the comet, the fear of the neighboring king of Texcoco, and the fear of every emperor when a comet appeared must be understood in terms of a cosmic crisis at the center not just of the Quetzalcoatl myth but of a universal tradition. When the celestial king or prototype of kings died or departed, a world cycle ended catastrophically — AND THE "GREAT COMET" WAS SEEN RAGING IN THE SKY.

To amplify this crucial point: it was not just the myth of Quetzalcoatl that reminded rulers of their tenuous hold on the kingdom and on life itself. Such is the message of universal myth, which affirms two intimately connected principles:

1) AS ABOVE, SO BELOW. This theme couldn't be more clearly stated throughout Mesoamerica: the terrestrial king lives in the shadow of the former celestial king, the Great Example for later kings. The death of Quetzalcoatl and the collapse of his kingdom (or world age) contained signposts and warnings which no terrestrial king could ignore.

2) AS BEFORE, SO AGAIN. This is the key to all mythically-rooted fear. What happened before will happen in the future. Quite apart from their interesting mathematics, for example, the mythical context of the Mesoamerican calendar system was the periodic cataclysm. But that deeply-embedded fear reached far beyond the calendar and into every expression of culture from war, to sacrifice, to such seemingly mundane practices as ritual sweeping. The collective goal was to reckon with divine caprice, to bargain for a new lease on life, to avoid the recurring disaster.

Though Immanuel Velikovsky did not give substantial attention to the myth of Quetzalcoatl, he did observe the relationship to Venus, and the catastrophic nature of the god's death and transformation. To which Bob Forrest replied with considerable skepticism, claiming that in the life and death of Quetzalcoatl he found:

"... no reference to the planets in a Velikovskian sense. True, Quetzalcoatl ... was symbolically related to the Morning Star, but this is a far cry from being told that the planet Venus brought about the End of the World with a cosmic hurricane! Quetzalcoatl is here a Great Teacher, rather than a rampant super-comet."

Notice the critic's reasoning: if Quetzalcoatl was a "great teacher," his story could not involve an account of Velikovsky's comet Venus. It seems that Forrest could not imagine a celestial form filling the role of exemplary model in the myths, nor could he imagine the "death" of this charismatic personality in terms of a sweeping natural catastrophe. But this is precisely where comparative study becomes so essential. Had he known that virtually all of the celestial, "founding kings" of myth suffer some variation on the fate of Quetzalcoatl, he might have noticed as well a recurring corollary: the god-king's "heart-soul" — the planet Venus — departs to join in a celestial conflagration. (On such a grand claim as this, I can only ask the reader's indulgence as the evidence unfolds.)

Forrest's concluding exclamation mark only emphasizes the gap that separates conventional students of myth from the world of the earliest skywatchers. Coherent motives disappear before the eyes of the researcher, and the primary cultural symbols dissolve into dust under the specialist's microscope. Then it becomes possible to believe that it was merely a chaotic mixture of ambiguous and UNRELATED experiences came together as the doomsday anxiety, or gave rise to pervasive ritual sacrifice, or provided the impetus for relentless, fear-driven observations of Venus.

This is where Velikovsky's comet will help to rescue ancient myth and ritual from a theoretical vacuum. It will do so by providing a coherent reference, sufficient to substantiate an entirely new approach to the subject matter. The comet Venus enters ancient myth as the celestial agent of disaster, and its emergence is synonymous with the DEATH OF THE CREATOR KING. In the story we will reconstruct, we will see the now-peaceful Venus again and again appearing in ancient times as the great god's heart-soul, departing from him (or removed violently, or flung into the ensuing holocaust) to become a comet-like flaming star, then presiding over the re-establishment of celestial order, the dawn of a new world age.

It will take time to tell this story with sufficient color and detail, but I can assure every reader that we ARE dealing here with a coherent and universal theme — a theme completely ignored by specialist[s] too preoccupied with their own narrow turf to discern the definitive patterns of human memory.

To see Velikovsky's comet in its globally-defined and catastrophic role is to realize something overlooked by the specialists: that a planetary history we have forgotten will do more to explain the pervasive fears of ancient cultures than all of the more fashionable speculations combined. How are we to understand the unending ritual wars and sacrifices in which rulers remembered, honored and satisfied the gods, hoping to hold the heavens together? How do we interpret the complex calendars of world ages, anticipating the return of doomsday with every completion of a Venus cycle? Or the endless preoccupation with catastrophic omens and portents tied to the planet? For centuries the priest-astronomers reacted with terror to any natural phenomenon that might suggest the return to world chaos. In what experience did this fear arise? Surely one way of illuminating the symbols of celestial TERROR is to consider the possibility of TERRIFYING EVENTS.

To make this point completely clear it will be useful to look at a few of the Mesoamerican symbols of the doomsday fear, asking the reader at each stage whether we are considering randomly-evolved absurdities, or the coherent reflections of a traumatic experience remembered around the world.

MESOAMERICAN ASTRONOMY

Velikovsky reminded us that to the natives of Mexico the planet Venus bore a very special significance. No celestial body loomed more centrally in their meticulous observations of the sky. To emphasize the point, Velikovsky noted the Augustinian friar Ramón Y Zamora's report that the Mexican tribes held Venus in great esteem and kept a precise record of its appearance. "So exact was the book-record of the day when it appeared and when it concealed itself, that they never made mistakes," stated Zamora.

In Velikovsky's interpretation, the carefully recorded observations of Venus by the Mexicans, Babylonians, Chinese and other cultures arose in direct response to Venus' cometary past. And for many centuries after the cometary disaster, the astronomers perceived closer approaches of Venus as a grave potential threat.

If Velikovsky was correct, astronomy arose in response to UNPREDICTABLE planetary powers, but could only flower as a science after planets achieved their present predictable orbits. Then the new observational science strove to bring the movements into a comprehensible system, enabling the priest to reckon with the gods and, by reading ancient signs properly, to ANTICIPATE divine behavior.

The special place of astronomy in Mesoamerican myths and rites is acknowledged by the best authorities, though the origins of this culture-wide theme appear lost in a gray past. "It has been clear to all serious students of Mesoamerican culture," writes David Kelley, "that there was an intimate relationship between astronomical knowledge, the calendar, and religious beliefs and rituals."

Or, as Anthony Aveni puts it, " ... Quite unlike our modern astronomy, the raison d'être of Mesoamerican, particularly Mayan astronomy, was ritualistic and divinatory in nature." But what were the roots of the religious motive, placing such an emphasis on astronomy?

The intense interest Venus is noted by Burr Cartwright Brundage:

"The true role of the planet Venus in the development of the Mesoamerican cultures is not understood. It might not be far wrong to look upon the Mesoamerican's great skill in numeration as a child of that planet and to state that their intellectual life pulsed to its periods. Certainly a significant portion of their mythology involved that planet ..."

To observers approaching the Mesoamerican cultures from an interdisciplinary vantage point, the cultural preoccupation with Venus immediately stands out. E. C. Krupp, a popularizer of modern archaeoastronomy, was impressed with the Venus profile in Mesoamerica, noting that the priest-astronomers computed portentous moments "based upon their calendar and the behavior of Venus. They installed their kings, sacrificed prisoners and went to war by these omens." But why? Must we assume unhesitatingly that the anxiety over Venus' movements arose under a tranquil sky?

This unquestioned presumption of cosmic regularity is surely the single greatest obstacle to our comprehension of ancient fears.