Esoteric Astrology, Part 2: Creation of Earth & Life

This is Part 2 of three parts, focused on Archeology and Esoteric Philosophy. Based from recent archeological findings of ancient civilization and an analysis of their mythologies, the objective of this presentation is to reconcile the Creation theory and Evolution theory.

A. Creation and Evolution

1. “And God said, ‘let there be light;’ and there was light.” (Genesis 1: 3).The scientific “Big Bang” theory supposed that the universe was created some 15 billion years ago. At a “time before time,” the “events” took place at quantum realms. When the universe was a second old, the photons (light), with protons, neutrons and electrons (building blocks of atom) materialized, along with their anti-particles. But the stew of matter and energy was so concentrated that photons could not move. Then, when the universe was 300,000 years old, light broke away from matter and traveled through the expanded speck of space, leaving a faint and extremely cold haze of photons, called cosmic background radiation, an afterglow that permeated the universe.[1] The elements hydrogen and helium also emerged after the primeval fire, which became the building blocks for all known elements. Thereafter, 12 billion years ago, galaxies were formed; 5 billion years ago, the Solar System was formed and the earth 4.5 B years ago.

2. Earth receives energy from the sun and about 100,000 tons of stardust daily.[2] Some 4 billion years ago, these energies mixed with earth’s atmosphere, composed primarily of water, carbon dioxide, ammonia, methane and hydrogen to brew the first life forms. In 1952, American chemist Stanley Miller duplicated the brew by mixing the compounds of the primordial soup in a flask past an electric discharge (simulating the sun’s energies). “At the end of the week, organic compounds emerged, including simpler amino acids. Under the drive of energy, the primordial ocean would have slowly filled with more and more complex compounds: amino acids, sugars, porphyrins, nucleotides. These would be built up further so that amino acids might combine into proteins, and nucleotides into nucleic acids.”[3] “When the first tiny living things eventually formed out of successive synthesis of simple molecular building blocks, it probably reproduced and spread rapidly over the planet, eating up the less advanced content of the primeval soup.”[4]

3.  Initially, the sun’s deadly ultra-violet rays were dangerous for earth life. But as new varieties of living matter emerged, a pollution of the planet began. An important effect of the activities of the precursor of green plants is oxygen in the atmosphere, which led to the ozone layer, the tri-atomic molecular form of oxygen (15-30 miles up) that blocked out ultra-violet rays and permitted the explosion of a variety of life forms.[5]

4. Archeologists had classified pre-history in terms of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age (2 million to 10,000 BC), Middle Stone Age (10,000 BC to 8,000 BC) and New Stone Age (8000 BC to 3500 BC).The Homo sapiens (wise man) had emerged since at least 200,000 years ago from the Homo erectus (c, 1.5 M – 300,000 years ago).[6] Summarizing the Jewish genealogy, it took 1,656 years from Adam until the Flood and 390 years from Noah to Abraham (Genesis 5; 11). Historical evidences point to Abraham as having lived in c. 1900 BC. Adding it up, Adam lived in c. 4000 BC. But the Sumerians existed in c. 4000 BC and Jericho, the oldest city, was discovered to be 8000 BC. These imply that either Adam is mythical (and allegorical) or he emerged during the time of the Sumerians.  Likewise, there is a huge gap between the emergence of man and the first civilization (Sumerian – c. 4000 BC) of 196,000 years.

5. Before the Sumerians, the people were considered primitive. This view is now being challenged with new archeological discoveries. According to Lewis Spence, prehistoric cultures in Europe roughly correspond to the periodic sinking of ocean lands due to glaciers or climactic disturbances from the glaciations. He classified them as: Aurignacians (c.32,000 BC), Solutreans (c. 22,000-20,000 BC), Magdaleans (c. 16,000 BC), and Azilians (c. 12,000 BC).[7] The ancients had culture but were probably in the caves to escape the ice and beasts. Perhaps ancient mythologies bore kernels of truth about those pre-historic times.

B. Mythological Creation

1. Conventionally, mythologies were considered as the products of the imagination of the ancients. That is, the ancient civilizations invented the gods through primitive imaginings and projections of personality on the great forces of nature. Then, as strides in science made unexplained events fathomable, myths were relegated to the Humanities as “fiction.”  But despite scientific progress, the myths persisted and filled in the natural curiosity and deep longing for a primordial source and an ultimate destination. They served as the cornerstones of belief systems, accounted for traditional rites and customs and justified an existing social system. “One constant rule of mythology is that whatever happens among the gods above reflects events on earth.” [8] The oldest known mythology was written in cuneiform by the Sumerians in c. 3000 BC, with similarities discernable with those of succeeding civilizations. I suppose, either Sumerian mythology was diffused in later civilizations or the Sumerians and later civilizations had similar sources.

2. In 1877, ancient Lagash was the first significant excavation of a Sumerian site. In 1956, Professor Samuel Kramer transcribed the Sumerian cuneiform in his book “From the Tablets of Sumer.” Interestingly, it talked of events before the Flood when giants ruled the earth. In the 1970s, Zechariah Sitchin, a Russian archeologist who analyzed the Sumerian texts in relation to ancient Akkadian and Babylonian records, posited that the Sumerian tales of creation recorded in c. 3000 BC were factual accounts similar to the scientific view. However, 1,500 years later, the Babylonians and Assyrians diffused the tales as myths. For the Babylonians, the events became the story of a personalized God, Marduk. Analyzing the Akkadian-Babylonian text uncovered by Henry Layard in the library ruins of Ashurbanipal in Ninevah, Sitchin noted that the Akkadian-Babylonian deity’s work was not done in six days, but were written over the span of six tablets, with a seventh tablet dedicated to the exaltation of the deity. Now called the “Creation Epic,” the text was known in antiquity by its opening words, Enuma Elish (“When in the heights”). “There is enough evidence to show that the Babylonian version of the epic is a forgery of earlier Sumerian versions.” The Jews, held captive by the Babylonians, rewrote it to establish Yahweh as God. [9]

3. Here is a summary of Sitchin’s account of the formation of the Solar system, based on the Enuma Elish.[10]  Amidst the primordial ocean in the heavens, there was only Aspu (the Sun), Mummu, his “counselor and emissary” (Mercury), and Tiamat, a planet between Mars and Jupiter. Creation went on: Lahmu, “deity of war” (Mars) and Lahamu, “lady of battles” (Venus). Before their formation was complete, another pair of majestic planets was formed: Anshar, “prince, foremost of the heavens” (Saturn), and Kishar, “foremost of the firm lands” (Jupiter). After some time (“multiplied the years”), a third pair of planets was born. First came Anu, “he of the heavens,” (Uranus), smaller than Jupiter and Saturn (“their son”), but larger than the first planets (“of his ancestors, a rival in size”). Then Anu begot a twin planet, (“his equal and in his image”), Ea, “artful creator,” (also called Nudimmud, Neptune). Another planet was born to Anshar (Saturn), her emissary, Gaga (Pluto), who appeared in “function and stature” to Apsu’s emissary, Mummu (Mercury) and was initially between Saturn and Uranus.

4. How was the earth formed? Sitchin explained that Nibiru (“Planet of Crossing”) was a tenth planet that orbits the sun every 3,600 years. He considered Nibiru (Babylonian Marduk) the 12^th planet after the Sumerian’s scheme of this solar system, which depicted 12 celestial bodies - the sun, the moon and ten planets. Nibiru spun retrograde and moved in a clockwise direction in an orbit between Mars and Tiamat (the other planets move counterclockwise). Accordingly, billions of years ago (i.e., 4.5 billion years ago), Marduk was catapulted into a different path in the solar system by the gravitational pull of Neptune towards the orbit of Tiamat. One of Marduk’s moons (“arrows”) collided with and split Tiamat. Tiamat’s upper half (Ki), along with her chief satellite (Kingu) was pulled between Venus and Mars; they became Earth and her moon. Tiamat’s lower half, shattered by Marduk during its second orbit, became the asteroid belt. As Marduk journeyed away from the Solar System, it pulled Pluto along, which explains the reverse orbit and present location of Pluto.[11] 

5. Rick Gore’s The Planets, Between Fire and Ice,[12]  provided a scientific version of the formation of the solar system. It is similar to that of The 12th Planet, except for  Jupiter assuming the role of Neptune, and a meteor instead of a moon of Marduk (10^th planet) causing the demise of a planet between Mars and Jupiter and the formation of the asteroid belt.  The scientific version: 4.6 billion years ago, the sun was overcrowded with millions of moon-size objects, competing for orbit amidst a milieu of the gas and dust. Over 100,000 years, dust and ice within this stellar embryo magnetized to one another to form and reassemble into larger bodies. For the planets closest to the sun, the warmth kept ice from forming. Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars built up their masses mostly from rocks and metals. For Jupiter and Saturn, the more abundant ice was attracted along their rocky materials. Suddenly, both planets reached critical masses that attracted enormous matter of gases. They were far enough to take on masses of ice and central enough to encounter greater densities of gases to become the giants of the planets. As the solar system began to take the form it retains today, large objects were hurled in erratic orbits. Slowly, collisions and close encounters cleared the system of such wandering objects. Jupiter served as a gravitational slingshot, deflecting many planetesimals towards the inner solar system, where they had violent encounters with earth and the other inner planets, recorded in the cratered surfaces of the moon.

C. Formation of Earth

1.   What happened to earth? Apparently, Genesis 1 was a synthesized version of the Sumerian tale, not about the creation of the universe, but about the earth’s 4.5 billion years, with a day (of the biblical creation) approximating a billion years.

(a) On the first day, the Spirit (“wind”) of the Lord (Nibiru or Marduk) moved over the watery deeps of Tiamat (or Hebrew Tehom) and his lightning lit the darkness of space as it splits Tiamat; creating earth and the asteroid belt (Akkadian “hammered bracelet”).

(b) On the second day, the firmament divided the waters from above the firmament and the waters below the firmament. The Lord named the firmament “heaven” (Hebrew shamaim; Akkad rakki); the Sumerian tale referred to the “hammered bracelet” as the firmament; thus, heaven and earth were the two halves of Tiamat.[13]

(c) On the third day, earth’s land and seas stabilized, and life emerged.

(d) On the fourth day, the earth’s orbit around the sun and on its axis were fixed, with pronounced seasons, along with the orbit of the moon around earth (“the great light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night”), and with the stars visible at night (the phrase “he made the stars also” was apparently inserted as an afterthought).

(d) On the fifth day, the explosion of the variety of life forms occurred due to the emergence of oxygen and the ozone layer.

(e) The sixth day (the last 500,000 years) saw the emergence of the Homo sapiens. 

2. Greek mythology (c.1500 BC) was traced back to the Minoans (c. 3000-1400 BC) and Phoenicians (c. 2000 BC), who in turn based their myths from the Egyptians (c. 3500 BC) and Sumerians. Hesiod’s poem Theogony, (c. 800 BC) was considered official until the 6^th century BC, when the Orphic Doctrines (in turn influenced by Hindu mythology) assumed dominance. Hesiod’s rendition of creation also describes earth 4.5 million years ago. “In the beginning was Chaos, vast and dark. Then appeared Gaea, the deep-breasted Earth, and finally Eros, the love that softens the heart, whose fructifying influence would thenceforth preside over the formation of beings and things. From Chaos were born Erebus and Night, who uniting, gave birth…to Ether and Hemera, the day. On her part, Gaea first bore Uranus, the sky covered with stars, whom she made equal in grandeur, so that he entirely covered her. Then she created the high mountains and Pontus, the sterile sea, with its harmonious waves.” [14] Uranus (not the planet, which was an 18^th century designation) is the sky. Eros, also not to be confused with the Eros of later legends, metaphysically represents the force of attraction for things to come together.

D. Creation of Man

1. How did man emerge? In Genesis 1: 26, “God” fashioned man out of clay: “Let us make man in our image; after our likeness.” And “then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breath into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Genesis 2: 7). “Adam” was first mentioned when “God” cursed Adam and Eve after they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 3: 17). Adam came from the Akkadian “adamatu,” meaning dark-red soil and the Hebrew “adamu,” blood.[15]  Adam was a red blooded “earthling” infused with the genes (“breathe”) of the gods.  

2. Note that God (Hebrew: “Elohim”) referred to Himself in the plural form, although zealous Christians and Jews justified that “our” meant “One God.” In Genesis 6: 1-4, the “sons of God,” were described. “When men began to multiply…and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters were fair; and they took to wife such of them as they chose…The Nefilim were in the earth in those days, and so afterwards, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men of old, the men of renown.” Nefilim is Hebrew for “those who fell,” from “naphal,” “to fall.” The Nefilim “sons of God” copulated with humans. For humans to bear Nefilim children, their genes must be compatible. Humans were like Nefilims and thus, in “the likeness of God.” In Greek mythology, the gods of Olympus copulated with humans, with Hercules as an offspring of Zeus.

3. According to Sitchin, the Sumerian cuneiform depicted that the gods originated from the planet Nibiru (Marduk). The Nefilims were Nibiruan Anunnakis, that is, "Those who from heaven to earth came.”  The Anunnakis were giants, 10 to 16 feet tall, with a lifetime of 370,000 years.[16] He added: the Nefilim brothers, Enlil and Enki had always been at odds with each other. Enki (“god of earth”) was the Nefilim scientist who, together with his half-sister scientist, Ninhursag (Nammu), created humans and had always been favorable to them. Enlil (“god of air”) always had reservations and dominated humans with severity. An (“god of the heavens”), from a vehicle in space, had commissioned them to nurture earth. “After An, Enlil, Enki and Ninhursag had fashioned the black headed people, vegetation bludgeoned from the earth, animals, quadrupeds of the plain were brought artfully into existence.” The Anunnakis “praised him (Enki) fulsomely for his invention of a race that would serve as slaves, to work diligently the farms from which they would now derive the rich fats and nourishment of sacrifice forever.” [17] In Greek Mythology, the creation of humans was credited to Prometheus (Sumerian Enki) and Athena (goddess of wisdom; Roman Minerva; Sumerian Nimhursag) who gave breath, i.e., “soul and life.”[18]

4. From the viewpoint of scientists, the 4.5 billion year-old Earth is only about one-third of the age of the universe. And 4 billion years ago, life emerged on Earth. Dr. Cyril Ponnamperuma opined: “given similar atmospheric conditions, light-years away, in another galaxy, it seems highly logical that a similar form of life might evolve.” [19] The human race, with a brief 200,000 years of its pedigree, is only in its infancy. Paul Davies posited: “if there is anybody there, they are indeed super-beings…either we are alone in the galaxy, or if technical communities are common, we are the youngest.” [20] Highly evolved beings from somewhere or other realms may have reached earth in pre-historic times; they may be the mythical gods.

E.    Nefilim Descendants

1. To understand what happened to the Nefilims and their descendants, the lineage of humanity, from the viewpoint of the Bible, must be traced. “Then the Lord said, ‘My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh, but his days shall be a hundred and twenty’” (Genesis 6: 3). Humanity had devolved. Except for Enoch, the ten Patriarchs from Adam to Noah lived for more or less 900 years (Genesis 5). After the Flood, Noah’s descendants lived for less than 500 years until Eber at 464 years old (Genesis 10). After the Babel Tower destruction, people lived for less than 230 years (Genesis 11). Abraham lived for 175 years (Genesis 25: 8-10). Moses was 120 years old when he died (Deuteronomy 34: 7).

2. Other mythologies also depicted a cycle of devolution. Greek Mythology had five stages. In the Golden Age, men lived long like the gods of Olympus, free from worry and fatigue. In the Silver Age, humans became feeble and inept in a matriarchal, agricultural society. In the Bronze Age, men were robust and warlike; with first attempts at civilization and use of metals. The Age of Heroes was the era of valiant heroes who fought in Thebes and Troy. The Iron Age was the contemporary period of misery.[14]

3. The Andeans of Peru had five “Suns” or ages: Age of Viracochas (White Bearded Gods), Age of Giants, Age of Primitive Man, Age of Heroes and the Age of Kings (contemporary, with the Incas as last in line).[15] The Age of Viracochas is similar to the time of the biblical Nefilims, the Age of Giants to the offspring of Nefilims and humans, and the Age of Primitive Man to a pre-Deluge era, when humans reverted to caves.

4. In the Mahabharata and other Puranic text (c. 400 AD), the Indians called a complete cycle as Manvantara, consisting of four Ages, satya-yuga (Golden Age), tetra-yuga (Silver Age), dwapara-yuga (Copper Age) and kali-yuga (Iron Age). Each Yuga has an ascending and descending phase; it consisted of 3,240 years or 6,480 for both phases. Earth is now at the tail end of the ascending kali-yuga (age of turmoil and sleep) and will commence in the ascending dwapara-yuga (period of awakening) by 2012.[16]

F. Hindsight: Creation and Evolution

1. The preceding texts point out that the creation of the universe and the emergence of the Homo sapiens did not happen by chance; they were deliberate. But, in the same way that the universe took time to unfold, a period of 15 billion years, the process of creating life on earth had taken 4 billion years, until the Adam model some 200,000 years ago. In painting a picture or in making a sculpture, the artist first must have an idea in mind, a pattern or inspiration coming from a deeper part of the artist. The painter, in making his masterpiece, must choose the colors to make his tapestry. The DNA, like paint, is such a simple and at the same time complex microchip of life. A natural art form such as a flower is so intricate that not even the finest filigree of gold could compare to it. To create an artwork like the human being, the genetic masters must carefully mix the nucleotides, the language of life.

2. That creation happened in seven days by the Supreme Creator is untenable. Creation follows physical and natural laws; the laws must first be created. (Scientists do not create the laws; they discover and label laws. From their discoveries, the technological inventions are made.) The processes of creation must be invented in the levels of the mind before the physical manifestation. So the Ultimate Creator must have created higher levels of consciousness first, which became the basis for the laws.  Following this through, the Creationists and Evolutionists were both half right. There was a creation event, but earth life and the emergence of the human being did not directly come from the Ultimate Creator, but through evolved beings which understood the laws and made patterns from which life at the physical level came about. These beings, with their understanding of genetics, created physical man by introducing genetic patterns to earlier primate forms. These beings (created from the Ultimate Creator) were the mythical gods. Thereafter, the Homo sapiens were destined to evolve “in the likeness of God.”

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[1] Bradford Smith, “New Eyes on the Universe,” National Geographic, January 1994, pp. 2-41

[2] Buckminster Fuller, Utopia or Oblivion: The Prospects for Humanity, Bantam Books, NY, 1972

[3] Isaac Asimov, The Wellsprings of Life, Signet Science Library Books, New York, 1960, p. 204

[4] Paul Davies, Stardoom, William Collins Son & Co, Ltd., 1978, p. 72

[5] Ibid,  p. 71; Rick Gore, Explosion of Life: The Cambrian Period, Nat’l Geographic, Oct 1993, pp. 120-130

[6] Rick Gore, Tracking the First of Our Kind, National Geographic, September 1997,  p. 94

[7] Charles Berlitz, Mysteries of Forgotten Worlds, Rediscovering Lost Civilizations, Souvenir Press, 1972, p.159-161

[8] Robert Graves, “Introduction” to The Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, Batchworth Press Ltd., 1967, p. v-vi

[9] Zechariah Sitchin, “The 12^th Planet,” Avon Books, New York, 1976, pp. 197, 210-211; Neil Freer, The Alien Question: An Expanded Perspective - A White Paper, (<freer1 (at) concentric.net>), posted 6 Oct 1999

[10] Sitchin, pp. 204-235

[11] Ibid

[12] Rick Gore, Between Planet and Ice, National Geographic, January 1985, pp. 4-51

[13] Ibid, 229-230

[14] Felix Guirand, “Greek Mythology,”  in Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, pp. 90-101

[15] Sirchin, 357-358

[16] Samuel Noah Kramer, From the Tablets of Sumer, Colorado: Falcon’s Wing Press, 1956p. 195

[17] Ibid, p. 195;  A. Poebel, “Historical Texts,” quoted by J. Campbell, Oriental Mythology, the Masks of the Gods, p. 17

[18] Guirand, pp. 90-101

[19] Gerry Hunt, The Zone of Silence, Avon Books, New York, 1986, pp. 97-101

[20] Paul Davies, Stardoom, William Collins Sons & Co., Great Britain, 1978, p. 98