Depiction
of an aurora formed of numerous pencil like rays
above a cloud of ‘stars’, as seen on
12. January 1570 in Bohemia. Germanisches
National museum, Nürnberg.
What on Earth …?
Aug
20, 2010
A comparative study of the
world's creation myths suggests that
the created "earth" may have been a
plasma formation in the sky,
appearing as the "dwelling of the
gods."
The earth occupies a prominent place
in human traditions about the
creation of the world. Myths supply
many details about its purported
creation, while a familiar refrain
in the world’s religions is that the
‘gods’ used to dwell on earth –
before their eventual departure into
the sky. For example, according to
an ancient Egyptian myth, the sun
god, Rē‘, originally ruled on earth
as a king. The San people, of the
Kalahari Desert, had it that “In the
earliest days the sun lived among
the tribes of the bush” and “was
like other men”. Scores of
variations on this theme are on
record.
Insuperable difficulties arise for
the interpretation of such
traditions if it is assumed that the
‘earth’ in such traditions literally
represents the surface of our
planet. Were that the case, the
global belief that celestial bodies
such as the sun, the moon, the
planets or the stars formerly
inhabited the earth would become
risible. And the numerous specific
details supplied in creation
mythology regarding the construction
and shape of the earth would evade
any meaningful explanation – that
the earth was a flat disc formed
through radial expansion from a
single starting point; that a
circular snake surrounded its
perimeter; that it had a hole at its
centre; that four columns rose up
from it to support the sky at the
cardinal points; and so forth. At
the same time, it cannot be denied
that, in many of such traditions,
the tradition keepers and
chroniclers themselves honestly
believed the reference was to the
actual earth. What is going on here?
An intellectually indolent solution
is that such myths concerning the
earth are simply imaginative, naïve,
artistic or deluded. But before this
conclusion is reached, it is worth
contemplating the idea that numerous
anomalous traditions about the earth
are really concerned with past
transient phenomena in the
atmosphere, too distant to rank as
geology, but close enough – from a
pre-scientific point of view – to
warrant a contrast between this
‘terrestrial’ part of space and the
sky populated by stars and planets.
The advantage of this hypothesis is
that abstruse stories of the origin
and the features of this ‘earth’
qualify as potentially reliable
eye-witness accounts of real events,
that transpired during the early
Holocene – and have nothing to do
with the beginning of geological
time or life.
The strongest support for this
subtle reinterpretation of the term
‘earth’ in mythological and early
scientific descriptions is the
complete typological symmetry
between ‘earth’ mythology and the
mythology of a ‘land’, a ‘paradise’
or an ‘abode’ of mythical beings –
at once described as gods and souls
of deceased ancestors – in the sky.
A rich tapestry of structural
similarities between the mythical
‘sky land’ and the ‘earth’ suggests
that one and the same place is being
referred to consistently.
A very widespread traditional belief
is that the sky is really a solid
plane extended over the earth, which
itself forms the surface of another
‘land’ – or earth. In many cases,
the former presence of a deity on
the apex of a sky-reaching tree or
mountain is expressed mythically as
the being’s residence on the earth.
According to the ancient Greek
mythographers, the gathering of the
Olympian gods on the peak of Mount
Olympus amounted to their dwelling
in heaven and the very word Olympus
itself developed into a synonym for
ouranos or ‘sky’. The indigenous
people of the Andaman Islands held
that the creator, Pū•luga-, used to
live on the summit of the local
Saddle Peak, yet this same location
was described as “the sky”. The
Ashanti, of Ghana, stated with
respect to the supreme god that
“Long, long ago
Onyankõpoṅ lived on
earth, or at least was very near to
us.” The story makes it clear that
the god’s dwelling on earth was
really his existence in the
atmosphere, in close proximity to
the earth. And so on.
In some cases, a comparison between
different narrations of the same
myth bears out that the mythical
‘earth’ was really a celestial
region. The Seneca, a branch of the
Iroquois from New York state,
contended that “the earth was the
thought of the Indian Ruler of a
great island which floats in space.
… This mythical island of the
Iroquois is a place of eternal
peace. In its abundance there are no
burdens to weary; in its
fruitfulness all needs are endlessly
provided. To its perpetual calm
death never comes, and to its
tranquillity, no desire, no sorrow
nor pain.” This paradise was home to
“one stately tree that branched
beyond the range of visions” and
must be interpreted as a form of the
axis mundi. The story goes on to
tell how the uprooting of this
cosmic tree led to the creation of
the oeh-da, the present earth, below
the “floating island” in space.
Tellingly, whereas Harriet Converse,
in her recording of this myth, had
described the original land “in
space” as the “earth”, John Hewitt,
an anthropologist of the Tuscarora
nation, had more directly situated
this land in the sky:
“The dwelling place of these first
great primal beings … was conceived
to have been on the upper surface of
the visible sky, which was regarded
as a solid plane. Here dwelt these
first beings in peace and
contentment for a very long period
of time; no one knows or ever knew
the length of this first cosmic
period of tranquil existence.”
Other versions of the same Iroquois
myth offer: “A long time ago human
beings lived high up in what is now
called heaven.” And: “Before this
earth came into existence there were
human beings who dwelt in the center
of the sky above. In the middle of
the village in the sky stood a tree
which was covered with white
blossoms.”
How does this work on a physical
level? A promising possibility is
that near-earth plasmas of a very
high intensity, owing visibility due
to synchrotron radiation, once
assumed semi-stable forms that gave
terrestrial skywatchers the
impression of a magical and lively
landscape with distinct features. If
today’s aurorae are capable of
inspiring visions of battles and
sports enacted by multitudes of
‘spirits’ in the sky, plasma
activities on a larger order of
magnitude would certainly be so.
In most cases, the issue is not
really a case of mistranslating the
word for ‘earth’, but of the
difficulty to describe a distinct
circumscribed area in near-earth
space that is no longer visible.
Interestingly, Plato faced a similar
lexical challenge in his discussion
of the ‘ideal’ earth as opposed to
what we regard as the earth. In his
dialogue Phaedo, he introduced
Socrates on his deathbed, explaining
that the surface of the earth in
optima forma is not at the level of
the elements of earth and water,
inhabited by us, but higher up,
where the element of air gives way
to that of fire:
“… we dwell in a hollow of the earth
and think we dwell on its upper
surface; and the air we call the
heaven, and think that is the heaven
in which the stars move. But the
fact is the same, that by reason of
feebleness and sluggishness, we are
unable to attain to the upper
surface of the air; … that is the
real heaven and the real light and
the real earth.”
Had Socrates lived today, he would
probably have said that the earth’s
boundary is defined by its
magnetosphere, not by the orb on
which we live. And it is precisely
in this region that, in prehistoric
times, heightened electromagnetic
activity may have produced
aurora-like formations suggestive of
a land of gods and ancestors. This
proposition furnishes an elegant
explanation of myths concerning
‘gods and stars that formerly lived
on earth’ as well as concerning
‘people that formerly lived in the
sky’.
As a disclaimer, none of this rules
out that some mythical materials
relate to the geological history of
the earth itself. There are vast
classes of traditions – such as the
myths about the deluge, fossils,
orogenesis and the formation of
river beds – that seem equally
amenable to geological and
atmospheric explanations. Perhaps a
direct physical connection must
eventually be assumed between
certain energetic forces in the
atmosphere and some geological
events. A careful and uninhibited
examination of the sources is the
only way forward.
Contributed by Rens Van der Sluijs
www.mythopedia.info
Further Reading:
The Mythology of the World Axis;
Exploring the Role of Plasma in
World Mythology
www.lulu.com/content/1085275
The World Axis as an
Atmospheric Phenomenon
www.lulu.com/content/1305081
