Leviathan: An Exploration of the Origin of Religions

Introduction

Cosmic events played a decisive role in turning times. Events in the sky trigger or at least accompany the change of world ages. The legends report terrible upheavals in the sky during momentous events—when the sky bridge Bifrost breaks, the Fenris wolf loosens its chains, the ship of the dead Naglfar approaches or the Sun darkens, when Marduk kills the sky dragon, or Zeus disempowers his father, Kronos.

Such upheavals in prehistory are rooted in the human psyche. Our deep fear of repetition and terror triggered by concretely experienced cosmic processes led humans to elevate celestial bodies, stars, comets and planets to the rank of gods. The Gauls‘ only fear that the sky might fall on their heads (a Gaulish chieftain to Alexander the Great) was more than pompous talk.

In a previous article, I addressed how we can explain the state of our planetary system. In my explanatory model, a dwarf star, surrounded by an accretion disk, passed through the planetary system. Its gravity deformed and tilted the orbits of the planets. The agreement of my calculations with the actual orbit data was good. The maximum deviation was for the planet Venus 2.5%, but the match was much closer in other cases. In this article, I will delve into the primarily quantitative discussion, i.e. executed by celestial mechanical calculations, by consideration of assignable myths.

A brief recap of the previous article on this topic

Fig. A Artistic animation of an accretion disk (rotating mass of gas, dust, particles) around a center of mass (star, black hole). Note the spiral structure and the plasma flares ejected perpendicularly to the disk plane.
NASA (PDUSGOV)

The intruding star (Red Sun) was surrounded by an accretion disk, as shown in Figure A, in which planets were already forming. Plasma flares are ejected from the center of the disk. In the status of forming planets, the overall structure is characterized by concentric rings of higher material concentration. On approaching the Sun, its gravity disturbed the circling, which at this point had already settled within the disk. Chaos emerged, and friction fanned the dark swung-in disk to a gigantic hellfire.

I have put the time of the passage about 40.000 B.C.. The gravitational disturbances of this second sun changed the planetary orbits forever. The hardest hit was the fifth planet, which was shattered by the impact of a planetesimal and in the hail of the accretion disk. Today there is a gap in the distance of this planet, which is populated by the bodies of the asteroid belt. Scanty remains of a formerly large, and in its core, stony ice planet.

For life on Earth, the passage of the alien star marked a caesura. Whole species were extinguished in the course of this cataclysmic event. The currently preferred explanation assumes a pole migration (Laschamps event) as the cause of the great dying. Allegedly, the absence of a protective magnetic field against solar and cosmic radiation was fatal. Without questioning the Laschamps event, I consider the explanation insufficient since several earlier pole migrations did not produce a disaster on this scale. In my model, the heat plunged the climate into chaos and the radiation from its accretion disk sterilized and killed – despite the – in this situation, insufficiently protective – magnetic field. Mankind survived but was set back to a deplorable cultural and civilizational state. Those who survived saw the world and the sky with different eyes. Forever, the event had been deeply engraved in the human psyche. Thus, the event continues to have an effect on people’s actions and thoughts right up to modern times.

Since the passage of the Red Sun affected the whole Earth, we find an assignable wreath of myths that have survived the millennia on all continents. Without – or due to lost – writing and without state structures, myths and religions alone became carriers of the news of the almost-annihilation.

My forthcoming arguments draw on myths that describe the appearance of the strange apparition and the consequences that the survivors had to deal with. I am sure the Red Sun was more than a myth and that it laid the foundation for the belief in heavenly powers and, thus, the foundation for religion.

Judean tradition

I share the view that religions have their origin in cosmic phenomena with Aristotle, who calls the planets the only gods:¹

Our forefathers in the most remote ages have handed down to their posterity a tradition, in the form of a myth, that these bodies are gods, and that the divine encloses the whole of nature. The rest of the tradition has been added later in mythical form with a view to the persuasion of the multitude and to its legal and utilitarian expediency;

If this thesis seems possible for the ancient polytheistic religions, then it is plausible that this is also true for today’s monotheistic religions. Not so surprising, considering that they have their origin in the Judean doctrine of salvation, which is nothing else than a syncretic combination of Mesopotamian and Egyptian beliefs.

How can this be proven or at least be justified? The search turns out as an easy task. Let’s start with an ancient legend in the Jewish faith. The stories, which entwine themselves in the Bible, the Apokryphen and in the Torah around the two monsters Leviathan and Behemoth, were, to my understanding, religiously dressed-up descriptions of the Red Sun. The myth about these two monsters is far older than the Bible. Already the etymology of the word ‘Leviathan’ fits my thesis. The name Leviathan is derived from liwjātān, meaning “the winding”. In my model of the Red Sun, it would seem downright trivial if Leviathan was seen as a giant serpent in the sky, and then later it is depicted as such. In fact, the physical description of Leviathan is eerily reminiscent of the appearance of God himself. With this thesis, the bow is struck that the Red Sun manifests itself in the gods‘ genealogy of Ninurta, Marduk, Bel, and finally as Elohim or Yahweh.

Fig. B A depiction of Leviathan on a chalice from a time that pre-dates the times of the biblical forefathers.² The chalice was found in Samaria and is dated to 2000 to 2300 BC. The relationship to the sky is due to the star seen in the upper right, presumably the Sun.
CCBYSA4.0

In the Book of Enoch in the Apocrypha and the Book of Job, as well as the Revelation of John in the Old Testament, there are several references to a celestial dragon monster. The dragon in the sky, described as serpentine, is too fascinating and strange an image to exist by chance. It reflects something real. Undoubtedly, using the image of a dragon or a giant snake, the appearance of the accretion disk is well met. Also, that the second beast, Behemoth, less present in the ancient news, is represented as a bull is of little surprise. As a representative, an animal was picked, which symbolizes, above all, the plasma flares in the form of its horns. In this interpretation, strange images find a simple explanation. Abyss and/or Abzu is supposedly the birthplace and dwelling place of monsters. The place is mostly understood as primordial water. I am sure the infinite abyss is not so much the world sea but should be understood as the infinite outer space.

What was chosen as a pictorial description under the fresh impression of the apparition gained eschatological significance in later theological exegesis. Perplexity about the meaning of the message led the way to ever more complicated and devious explanations and reinterpretations. A celestial event that would have wiped out mankind by a hair’s breadth became an allegory for threatening the imminent end of the world. As an eschatological way out of the dominance of the beasts, the exegetes saved themselves when they taught that at the end of time, the true God – Yahweh – kills the Leviathan. Solely this way, God assures the world of his uniqueness and fullness of power. Only in this way he does not just represent the avatar of a Red Sun.

Fig. C: Pictorially painted in an eschatological drama of the end times, God kills the ominous serpent, which here dwells not in the depths of space, but in the depths of the world’s sea.³
Destruction of Leviathan by Gustave Doré, 1865 (PD0)

Even later prophecies in the Old Testament use the imagery of the myths about the monsters we have identified as the Red Sun. I suppose the myths – even today’s forgotten ones – about the Red Sun and the cosmogenic struggle associated with it inspired the horror stories in the Apocrypha and even the images in John’s Revelations.

In Isaiah, we read something like: ⁴

27, 1 In that day,

the Lord will punish with his sword—

his fierce, great and powerful sword—

Leviathan the gliding serpent,

Leviathan the coiling serpent;

he will slay the monster of the sea.

Consistent with our understanding, Jewish tradition as handed down in the Midrash Rabbah (a collection of interpretation of religious texts in rabbinic Judaism) also describes an accretion disk when reporting an end-time battle between the monsters Behemoth and Leviathan by characterizing the two monsters as follows:⁵

Behemoth will, with its horns, pull Leviathan down and rend it, and Leviathan will, with it fins, pull Behemoth down and pierce it through.

The eschatological exegesis in the biblical-historical discussion (Midrash Rabbah) is not of interest, but the two monsters that reflect the same celestial phenomenon under two names are. Crucially, we again encounter the description of an accretion disk described by the figurative features of horns representing the plasma flares and fins representing the fraying rotating disk.

In a liturgical text (Akdamut Milin), the accretion disk is even more clearly divided into two monsters when it says: ⁶

Behemoth arches his horns [plasma torch], Leviathan rears his fins [level of accretion disk], but now he puts an end to them both to slaughter, prepare and consecrate them.

A description that fits. The solar wind bends the plasma jet, just as it bends the tail of a comet. The initially flat accretion disk undulates under the oblique gravitational pull of the sun. It frays from the edges and thus becomes steadily smaller.

Confirmation of our model is in what Andrei Orlov presents in his research on the Leviathan in Jewish tradition and religion. Some of his remarks are excerpted here: ⁷

… where the story depicts Leviathan as the one whose “sneezes flash forth light”. The account further conveys that the monster’s “eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn. From its mouth go flaming torches; sparks of fire leap out. Out of its nostrils comes smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes. Its breath kindles coals, and a flame comes out of its mouth.”

…..

For our study of the theophanic symbolism associated with Leviathan, it is also important that Leviathan is closely associated with the symbolism of the primordial serpent ( נחש קדמון ) in some later Jewish traditions.

…..

.. when Leviathan “raises his head against the mighty ones … the angels are struck with dread and flee from him in dismay

Theological and eschatological considerations regularly get lost in speculations, which trivially resolve themselves in our model of the accretion disk. For example, what question remains unexplained in the model of the Red Sun, when K. William Whitney states: ⁸

The “circled” serpent (Ouroboros) is portrayed as surrounding another “axial” serpent ..

The experience of the turmoil in heaven, anchored in the primordial memory and suppressed in the ‘modern’ world, lives on unnoticed in the New Testament. According to the revelations of John, the arrival of the Savior and the beginning of the kingdom of God is preceded by the end of the world with cataclysmic celestial events. With the horror pictures painted, one feels tempted to renounce the coming of Christ. Basically an ancient story, it could be described as a variation of “scenes and figures from the mysteries of Taht-Aan (= Thoth), who was literally Aan (= John), the divine scribe.” Indeed, there is little that is Christian in the Revelation of John. The basic ideas of this book in the New Testament go back thousands of years. This variation of ancient myths applies not only to Revelation but the Bible in general. Both the Old and New Testaments draw in great parts from Egyptian mythology.

On the East Mediterranean coast, not only Jewish tradition and doctrine have preserved the appearance of the Red Sun. The Phoenician writer Sanchoniatho who lived in the same region, reports: ⁹

The nature then of the dragon and of serpents Tauthus himself (Phoenician Taataus = Egyptian Thot) ¹⁰ regarded as divine, and so again after him did the Phoenicians and Egyptians: for this animal was declared by him to be of all reptiles most full of breath, and fiery. In consequence of which it also exerts an unsurpassable swiftness by means of its breath, without feet and hands or any other of the external members by which the other animals make their movements. It also exhibits forms of various shapes, and in its progress makes spiral leaps as swift as it chooses.

A better naturalistic description of a decaying accretion disk is hardly imaginable.

Egypt

The appearance of a Red Sun has found expression as a description in several ancient Egyptian writings. Regarding this subject, the Egyptologist Gerald Massey writes in his book:¹¹

….. it is noticeable that the name of the Apap in Egyptian signifies to mount on high, become tall, vast, gigantic, like the swirling dust and darkness of the sand-storm.

In the Pyramid Texts of Pharaoh Unas (No. 138), as a warning against the wheel of fire, the accretion disk, we also find appropriate descriptions of its appearance: ¹²

O King Unas, beware of the lake of fire.

…..

.. the stays of thy sails and of thy rudder are taut in the wind as thou sailest up the Pool of Fire in the underworld.

I have come from the Pool of Flame.

…

you make your creations as the ruler of your circle.

…..

And in the negative confessions, we read: ¹³

Hail, thou whose legs are of fire, who comest forth out of the darkness …,

Everything fits again to the appearance of an accretion disk, even in detail, when for example, the sails and taut rods are spoken of. In the pictorial description, the combination of the accretion disk (pool of fire) and plasma jets (rods) has been the inspiration.

The fact that the name of the Egyptian god Ra was written as two concentric circles, sometimes even encircled by a snake, confirms the thesis that in him, we also have the god of the accretion disk.

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamian myths are about a ‘planet’ Nibiru, which once crossed the planetary system and plunged into chaos. The name Nibiru, as it is recorded on cuneiform tablets, gives a first hint about the event and the nature of this celestial body. Here is the translation of a cuneiform tablet after Immanuel Freedmann:¹⁴

The brown-red star that divides the sky (towards) the rising of the south wind, after the gods of the night are finished, and stands there, this star is Nēbiru-Marduk

The characterization of Nibiru as a brown-red star provides extensive confirmation for the thesis of the passage of a strange dwarf star. It remains incomprehensible how the classical research against all proofs almost desperately tries to assign the celestial phenomenon Nibiru to a planet or even to the Milky Way.¹⁵

The name Nibiru is Sumerian and translated means “planet of the crossing”. In cuneiform, ‘Nibiru’ is consequently written as a cross or winged disk – a fitting icon. In the myth about Nibiru, we meet a remarkable example of an account of a prehistoric catastrophe that was accompanied by, or triggered by, an apparition in the sky.

Myths from Mesopotamia complement and confirm, sometimes even in written form, what Egypt has handed down about the shape and structural changes of the Red Sun. In accordance with the Egyptian descriptions of the god Ra, the Babylonian creation myth Enuma Elish describes the god Marduk as a twisting and circling celestial phenomenon. With these characteristic features, the god Marduk of Enuma Elish fits perfectly into our hypothesis. The congruence of the myths about the god Marduk and the Egyptian god Ra, respectively, at least links these two cultures, ¹⁶ or, more likely, the myths report about a real event that affected all of humanity. In either case, both myths refer to the appearance of a Red Sun, just as outlined in my model.

The Babylonian Marduk has his predecessor in the Sumerian god Ninurta. He is also characterized as a sky serpent [accretion disk] with a forked tongue [plasma rays] or as a dragon.

Here is a quotation of some lines that have been handed down in various sources using the same wording: ¹⁷

Deluge, tireless serpent (constrictor?) vibrating the rebel land

….

Knight whose awe-inspiring halo blankets the Mountains like a south storm

….

The mouth of a lion: Serpents stretching (their forked) tongues; the wave roars

I am convinced E. A. Wallis Budge is right when he considers, as a certainty, the common origin of the Marduk and the Ra myth and the epic Enuma Elish as the older and better-preserved version. This a plausible assessment because the Egyptian pantheon is by far the more syncretistic and was changed several times in the hierarchy of the gods and their meaning.

Europe

After the appearance of the Red Sun, in Europe, culture and religion developed in a completely different direction. Although the strongest of the Nordic gods, Thor, was assumed to kill the Midgard serpent (Red Sun) at the coming change of times (Ragnarok), here, people not only prayed and developed sophisticated ideas but took precautions. To them, it seemed indicated to arm themselves against the next celestial catastrophe.

A popular belief prevailed, which preserved the memory of the accretion disk almost until our time through rock carvings in the form of concentric circles or as spirals, often supplemented by a shooting-out beam. The horror of the accretion disk was passed on from generation to generation, and the population built shelters quite pragmatically instead of losing themselves in refined rituals and complicated doctrines of faith.

Fig. D View into a duct (in German literature called “Erdstall”) Left: vertical hatch ¹⁸ / Right: horizontal slip through¹⁹
Erdstall by Josef Weichenberger (1 CCBYSA4.0, 2 GNUFDL1.2)

Only those who had been able to hide from the climatic catastrophe — the heat of the fire wheel, the global sauna with torrents of rain and the subsequent iron cold resulting from a cloudy sky — survived the traverse of the Red Sun. In response and to be protected in case of a recurrence, tunnels and underground chambers were afterwards created everywhere as a precaution. In Germany and Austria, they are called “Erdställe” – ‘Erd’ here means ground, and ‘Stall’ means place. Few have aptly and sufficiently appreciated the tremendous achievement of their construction. Narrow tunnels, with even narrower passages, steps and niches, were sometimes driven more than 100 meters deep into mountains. It remains puzzling why often multi-level passage systems, with slip-throughs, were constructed so narrowly that an adult can hardly squeeze through. To make matters more difficult during subsequent digging, excavated material had to be maneuvered through these narrow passages when driving the tunnel further forward or when even excavating extended niches and chambers. There must have been a reason for this difficulty. The assumption of stupidity as explanation is not really convincing. Where ever the ground was unsuitable for underground construction because it was either too loose or too hard and rocky, artificial mounds were heaped up for shelters or stones were gathered together to form mounds.

The fear of burning in the heat of a fire wheel could have been a sufficiently strong motive for erecting these constructions. Once solidified into a dogma of faith, the construction measures took on a life of their own and were now religiously and culturally anchored, even when no one really knew why anymore.

Such mounds with passages and niches are found in their thousands in Europe. The best known is probably the giant mound of Newgrange in Ireland. Classical archaeology considers these structures to have been used for astronomical observation. It takes a very strong faith or extreme desperation to believe in such things. Instead of someone waiting in a dark passage for a ray of light, it seems much more plausible to me that he hid there, especially when there are cross passages into which neither the sun nor a star can shine, see Figure E.

If there is only one entrance to a tunnel system, this speaks against the thesis that it was a place of escape in case of war. No one retreats into a trap without an escape exit, but he can find shelter there against the rigors of a weather disaster.

It is unknown when these constructions were built. What is known is that they were finally abandoned only during the Middle Ages. For some of them, Heinrich Kusch finds indications for an age of up to 50,000 years. ²⁰ Surprisingly, or more likely not, this date fits to the Laschamp event and to my time estimate for the passage of the Red Sun.

Inside the chambered cairn on the Holm of Papa Westray, Orkney Islands, by hayley green (CCBYSA2.0)

The correlation that the tunnels and mounds have with the Red Sun becomes apparent when these buildings are decorated with rock carvings. In my understanding, it is compelling that the symbol of the accretion disk in the form of circles and spirals appears as the main decoration. Not only as decoration in and at the shelters but from the Shetlands to Malta and from Portugal to Finland, one finds this kind of symbol perpetuated in innumerable rock carvings.

Fig. F Rock carvings in Scotland
Left: prehistoric ²², Cup & Ring rock carvings in Ketley Crag rock shelter by Anne Patterson CCBYSA2.0
Right: recent ²³, Cup-and-Ring-Marked Rock by Anne Burgess CCBYSA2.0

It is not only in Central Europe that these constructions exist. In other places, for example, in Malta, unknown persons have left behind the Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni — a prehistoric building that stands out in complexity and scale from the “Erdstall” architecture. ²⁴ In the so-called oracle room, prehistoric frescoes in the form of red spirals are preserved. Here the relation of the building to the traverse and appearance of the Red Sun becomes obvious both in the form and in the color of these signs.

Fig. G Hypogeum in Malta Left: Photo, note the painting with the rings on the ceiling. ²⁵, by Richard Ellis, 1900 PD0 / Right: Model of the hypogeum illustrating its multi-storey, complex structure. ²⁶, by Heiko Gorski CCBYSA3.0

Elsewhere, such as the broch [tower] of Mousa (Shetland Island), comparatively primitive yet similar structures are preserved. Windowless, with extremely thick walls and niches, a bunker is the most discernable explanation of their purpose.

More myths

Michael Rappenglück refers to the motif of the one-legged god. It is a ubiquitous image found worldwide, often supplemented by the reference to something rotating. Rappenglück assigns it to the world tree and the rotating canopy, ²⁸ a rather daring but plain and only weakly substantiated explanation. More appropriate to the description is to assume a rotating accretion disk with its plasma jet whirling from its center into the universe as a template. The one-legged god shows up as a plasma jet. In my understanding, this is a more straightforward interpretation, and it explains, above all, how this motif was established in the first place.

In the Indian Vedas, many cryptic messages can be identified as descriptions of a celestial wheel of fire or at least as an ominous apparition in the sky. In any case, its (Red Sun) appearance and the related events could be attributed to various gods such as Indra, Agni and Rudra, as they seem assignable to the same event.²⁹

Also, the characteristics/weapons of the Indian Vishnu, who is considered as God of the Gods, fit with understanding of a worldwide myth that was handed down through the ages and whose origin I attribute to the Red Sun. Here is a quotation from the ‘Vishnu Purana: Krishna’s pastimes’:³⁰

The cakra (discus), the mace, the Śārṅga bow, the quiver, the conch, and the sword circled Hari clockwise and continued on the path of the sun.

We find the same symbols and devices: the rotating disc, the club, the circling and the traverse in the sky. It is also fitting that Vishnu is described with a lotus flower in his hands. If in other myths from other regions, the plasma beam leads to the image of the one-legged god, in the present Purana text, a flower growing from the center symbolizes the plasma beam.

The most stylized representation of the accretion disk exists in the swastika and in a more complex form in the representation of the Red Sun, ³¹ also known as the Dark Sun. Our assumption fits the conclusion of Amanda Laoupi. She concludes that the swastika symbol, which dates from the Bronze Age, represents a celestial fire:

Archaeologically, there is a deep relationship between the swastika and fire (the sun, the wheel of creation, the architecture of the cosmos), creation and evolution.

… it is a weapon of the Serpent King (Dragon). …..

The swastika also appears in the myths surrounding the Persian god Mithras.³² Here, too, research locates the origin of the symbol in heaven:

… the swastika was known in Iran as the ‘chariot of Mithra’. … He [Mithra] appears before sunrise and after sunset and touches both ends of the spherical earth, and he observes everything between the earth and the sky ….

Many other myths related to this phenomenon have been handed down from other cultures and regions. There are too many to refer to all of them. Some of them I have already quoted in my previous articles about the ‘Red Sun’, so I will refrain from repeating them.

Conclusion

In view of the data and factual situation, it becomes a near certainty that the planetary system experienced the passage of an alien star in human time. The events that were connected with this event or that grew out of it changed the solar system forever. Not only are the orbits of the planets different today than they were in primordial times, life on Earth suffered a catastrophe that culminated in mass extinctions of species and the near extinction of mankind.

In this other article on the same subject, the astronomical and physical arguments were strengthened by adding references to further myths. In the prehistoric structures, carvings and in ancient reports, the descriptions of an accretion disk are too consistent and too many to relegate them all to the realm of fantasy or coincidence.

Regarding classical explanations, in some cases, asteroids grazing the atmosphere may have been the cause of the described celestial phenomena. However, at the latest, when discs and circular movements are mentioned, no comet or asteroid can have served as a template.