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FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

A QUEST FOR THE BEGINNING AND THE END

Graham Hancock 1995

Chapter 32

Speaking to the Unborn

Page 285

"It is understandable that a huge range of myths from all over the ancient world should describe geological catastrophes in graphic detail. Mankind survived the horror of the last Ice Age, and the most plausible source for our enduring traditions of flooding and freezing, massive volcanism and devastating earthquakes is in the tumultuous upheavals unleashed during the great meltdown of 15,000 to 8000 BC. The final retreat of the ice sheets, and the consequent 300-400 foot rise in global sea levels, took place only a few thousand years before the beginning of the historical period. It is therefore not surprising that all our early civilizations should have retained vivid memories of the vast cataclysms that had terrified their forefathers.
Much harder to explain is the peculiar but distinctive way the myths of cataclysm seem to bear the intelligent imprint of a guiding hand.l Indeed the degree of convergence between such ancient stories is frequently remarkable enough to raise the suspicion that they must all have been 'written' by the same 'author'.
Could that author have had anything to do with the wondrous deity, or superhuman, spoken of in so many of the myths we have reviewed, who appears immediately after the world has been shattered by a horrifying geological catastrophe and brings comfort and the gifts of civilization to the shocked and demoralized survivors?
White and bearded, Osiris is the Egyptian manifestation of this / Page 286 / universal figure, and it may not be an accident that one of the first acts he is remembered for in myth is the abolition of cannibalism among the primitive inhabitants of the Nile Valley.2 Viracocha, in South America, was said to have begun his civilizing mission immediately after a great flood; Quetzalcoatl, the discoverer of maize, brought the benefits of crops, mathematics, astronomy and a refined culture to Mexico after the Fourth Sun had been overwhelmed by a destroying deluge.
Could these strange myths contain a record of encounters between scattered palaeolithic tribes which survived the last Ice Age and an as yet unidentified high civilization which passed through the same epoch?
And could the myths be attempts to communicate?

A message in the bottle of time"

'Of all the other stupendous inventions,' Galileo once remarked,

what sublimity of mind must have been his who conceived how to communicate his most secret thoughts to any other person, though very distant either in time or place, speaking with those who are in the Indies, speaking to those who are not yet born, nor shall be this thousand or ten thousand years? And with no greater difficulty than the various arrangements of two dozen little signs on paper? Let this be the seal of all the admirable inventions of men.3

If the 'precessional message' identified by scholars like Santillana, von Dechend and Jane Sellers is indeed a deliberate attempt at communication by some lost civilization of antiquity, how come it wasn't just written down and left for us to find? Wouldn't that have been easier than encoding it in myths? Perhaps.
Nevertheless, suppose that whatever the message was written on got destroyed or worn away after many thousands of years? Or suppose that the language in which it was inscribed was later forgotten utterly (like the enigmatic Indus Valley script, which has been studied closely for more than half a century but has so far resisted all attempts at decoding)? It must be obvious that in such circumstances a written / Page 287 / legacy to the future would be of no value at all, because nobody would be able to make sense of it.
What one would look for, therefore, would be a universal language, the kind of language that would be comprehensible to any technologically advanced society in any epoch, even a thousand or ten thousand years into the future. Such languages are few and far between, but mathematics is one of them - and the city of Teotihuacan may be the calling-card of a lost civilization written in the eternal language of mathematics.
Geodetic data, related to the exact positioning of fixed geographical points and to the shape and size of the earth, would also remain valid and recognizable for tens of thousands of years, and might be most conveniently expressed by means of cartography (or in the construction of giant geodetic monuments like the Great Pyramid of Egypt, as we shall see).
Another 'constant' in our solar system is the language of time: the great but regular intervals of time calibrated by the inch-worm creep of precessional motion. Now, or ten thousand years in the future, a message that prints out numbers like 72 or 2160 or 4320 or 25,920 should be instantly intelligible to any civilization that has evolved a modest talent for mathematics and the ability to detect and measure the almost imperceptible reverse wobble that the sun appears to make along the ecliptic against the background of the fixed stars..."

"What one would look for, therefore, would be a universal language, the kind of language that would be comprehensible to any technologically advanced society in any epoch, even a thousand or ten thousand years into the future. Such languages are few and far between, but mathematics is one of them"

"WRITTEN IN THE ETERNAL LANGUAGE OF MATHEMATICS"

 

 

HAMLET'S MILL

Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend 1969

Page 10

"Lord Keynes' appraisal, written ca.1942, remains both unconventional and profound. He knew, we all know, that Newton failed. Newton was led astray by his dour sectarian preconceptions. But his undertaking was truly in the archaic spirit, as it begins to appear now after two centuries of scholarly search into many cul­tures of which he could have had no idea. To the few clues he found with rigorous method, a vast number have been added. Still, the wonder remains, the same that was expressed by his great predecessor Galileo:

But of all other stupendous inventions, what sublimity of mind must have been his who conccived how to communicate his most secret thoughts to any othcr person, though very far distant either in time or place, speaking with those who are in the In dies, speaking to those who are not yet born, nor shall be this thousand or ten thousand years) And with no greater difficulty than the various arrangement of two dozcn little signs upon paper? Let this be the seal of all the admirable inventions of man"

 

 

 

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
-
-
--
-
-
--
-
-
--
1+0
1+1
1+2
1+3
1+4
1+5
1+6
1+7
1+8
1+9
2+0
2+1
2+2
2+3
2+4
2+5
2+6
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
-
-
--
-
-
--
-
-
--
-
-
--
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
--
-
-
--
-
-
--
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

 

 

THE

FAR YONDER SCRIBE

AND OFT TIMES SHADOWED SUBSTANCES WATCHED IN FINE AMAZE

THE

ZED ALIZ ZED

IN SWIFT REPEAT SCATTER STAR DUST AMONGST THE LETTERS OF THEIR PROGRESS

AT THE THROW OF THE NINTH RAM WHEN IN CONJUNCTION SET

THE

FAR YONDER SCRIBE

MADE RECORD OF THEIR FALL

 

 

NUMBER

9

THE SEARCH FOR THE SIGMA CODE

Cecil Balmond 1998

Cycles and Patterns

Page 165

Patterns

"The essence of mathematics is to look for patterns.

Our minds seem to be organised to search for relationships and sequences. We look for hidden orders.

These intuitions seem to be more important than the facts themselves, for there is always the thrill at finding something, a pattern, it is a discovery - what was unknown is now revealed. Imagine looking up at the stars and finding the zodiac!

Searching out patterns is a pure delight.

Suddenly the counters fall into place and a connection is found, not necessarily a geometric one, but a relationship between numbers, pictures of the mind, that were not obvious before. There is that excitement of finding order in something that was otherwise hidden.

And there is the knowledge that a huge unseen world lurks behind the facades we see of the numbers themselves."

 

MYTHS MATHS MATHS MYTHS

 

 

-
THE RAINBOW LIGHT
-
-
--
3
THE
33
15
6
7
RAINBOW
82
37
1
5
LIGHT
56
29
2
15
THE RAINBOW LIGHT
171
81
9
1+5
-
1+7+1
8+1
-
6
THE RAINBOW LIGHT
9
9
9

 

 

A
-
J
-
S
-
-
-
-
-
--
1
-
1
-
1
+
=
3
-
=
3
A
-
J
-
S
-
-
-
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
B
-
K
-
T
-
-
-
-
-
--
2
-
2
-
2
+
=
6
-
=
6
B
-
K
-
T
-
-
-
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
C
-
L
-
U
-
-
-
-
-
--
3
-
3
-
3
+
=
9
-
=
9
C
-
L
-
U
-
-
-
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
D
-
M
-
V
-
-
-
-
-
--
4
-
4
-
4
+
=
12
1+2
=
3
D
-
M
-
V
-
-
-
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
E
-
N
-
W
-
-
-
-
-
--
5
-
5
-
5
+
=
15
1+5
=
6
E
-
N
-
W
-
-
-
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
F
-
O
-
X
-
-
-
-
-
--
6
-
6
-
6
+
=
18
1+8
=
9
F
-
O
-
X
-
-
-
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
G
-
P
-
Y
-
-
-
-
-
--
7
-
7
-
7
+
=
21
2+1
=
3
G
-
P
-
Y
-
-
-
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
H
-
Q
-
Z
-
-
-
-
-
--
8
-
8
-
8
+
=
24
2+4
=
6
H
-
Q
-
Z
-
-
-
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
I
-
R
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
--
9
-
9
-
-
+
=
18
1+8
=
9
I
-
R
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
126
-
-
54
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1+2+6
-
-
5+4
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
9

 

 

 

-
A+B+C
-
-
-
2
D+E
9
9
9
-
F+G+H
-
-
-
1
I
9
9
9
-
J+K+L
-
-
-
2
M+N
27
9
9
-
O+P
-
-
-
3
QRS
54
18
9
3
TUV
63
9
9
3
WXY
72
18
9
-
Z
-
-
-
14
First Total
234
72
54
1+4
Add to Reduce
2+3+4
7+2
5+4
5
Reduce to Deduce
9
9
9

 

 

-

4

ZERO

64

28

1

1
3

ONE

34
16
7
2
3

TWO

58
13
4
3
5

THREE

56
29
2
4
4

FOUR

60
24
6
5
4

FIVE

42
24
6
6
3

SIX

52
16
7
7
5

SEVEN

65
20
2
8
5

EIGHT

49
31
4
9
4

NINE

42
24
6
45
40
-
522
225
45
4+5
4+0
-
5+2+2
2+2+5
4+5
9
4
-
9
9
9

 

 

26
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
8
9
-
-
-
-
5
6
-
-
-
1
-
-
-
-
6
-
8
+
=
43
4+3
=
7
-
7
-
7
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
8
9
-
-
-
-
14
15
-
-
-
19
-
-
-
-
24
-
26
+
=
115
1+1+5
=
7
-
7
-
7
26
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
-
-
1
2
3
4
-
-
7
8
9
-
2
3
4
5
-
7
-
+
=
83
8+3
=
11
1+1
2
-
2
-
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
-
-
10
11
12
13
-
-
16
17
18
-
20
21
22
23
-
25
-
+
=
236
2+3+6
=
11
1+1
2
-
2
26
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
+
=
351
3+5+1
=
9
-
9
-
9
-
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
+
=
126
1+2+6
=
9
-
9
-
9
26
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
+
=
1
occurs
x
3
=
3
-
3
-
-
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
+
=
2
occurs
x
3
=
6
-
6
-
-
-
3
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
3
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
3
-
-
-
-
-
+
=
3
occurs
x
3
=
9
-
9
-
-
-
-
4
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
4
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
4
-
-
-
-
+
=
4
occurs
x
3
=
12
1+2
3
-
-
-
-
-
5
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
5
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
5
-
-
-
+
=
5
occurs
x
3
=
15
1+5
6
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
-
-
+
=
6
occurs
x
3
=
18
1+8
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
7
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
7
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
7
-
+
=
7
occurs
x
3
=
21
2+1
3
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
8
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
8
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
8
+
=
8
occurs
x
3
=
24
2+4
6
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
+
=
9
occurs
x
2
=
18
1+8
9
26
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
-
-
45
-
-
26
-
126
-
54
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
4+5
-
-
2+6
-
1+2+6
-
5+4
26
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
-
-
9
-
-
8
-
9
-
9
-
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
26
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
-
-
9
-
-
8
-
9
-
9

 

BEYOND THE VEIL ANOTHER VEIL AND THEN A VEIL BEYOND

 

 

www.bibliotecapleyades.net/hamlets_mill/hamlet

HAMLET'S MILL

AN ESSAY INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

AND ITS TRANSMISSION THROUGH MYTH

Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend 1969

Intoduction

Page 1 (number omitted)

"The unbreakable fetters which bound down the Great Wolf Fenrir had been cunningly forged by Loki from these: the footfall of a cat, the roots of a rock, the beard of a woman, the breath of a fish, the spittle of a bird. The Edda

Toute vue des choses qui n'est pas estrange est fausse. VALERY


THIS IS meant to be only an essay. It is a first reconnaissance of a realm well-nigh unexplored and uncharted. From whichever way onc enters it, one is caught in the same bewildering circular complexity, as in a labyrinth, for it has no deductive order in the abstract sense, but instead resembles an organism tightly closed in itself, or even better, a monumental "Art of the Fugue."

The figure of Hamlet as a favorable starting point came by chance. Many other avenues offered themselves, rich in strange symbols and beckoning with great images, but the choice went to Hamlet because he led the mind on a truly inductive quest through a familiar landscape-and one which has the merit of its literary setting. Here is a character deeply present to our awareness, in whom ambiguities and uncertainties, tormented self-questioning and dispassionate insight give a presentiment of the modern mind. His personal drama was that he had to be a hero, but still try to avoid the role Destiny assigned him. His lucid intellect remained above the conflict of motives-in other words, his was and is a truly con­/ Page 2 / temporary consciousness. And yet this character whom the poet made one of us, the first unhappy intellectual, concealed a past as a legendary being, his features predetermined, preshaped by long­standing myth. There was a numinous aura around him, and many clues led up to him. But it was a surprise to find behind the mask an ancient and all-embracing cosmic power-the original master of the dreamed-of first age of the world.
Yet in all his guises he remained strangely himself. The original Amlodhi, * as his name was in Icelandic legend, shows the same characteristics of melancholy and high intellect. He, too, is a son dedicated to avenge his father, a speaker of cryptic but inescapable truths, an elusive carrier of Fate who must yield once his mission is accomplished and sink once more into concealment in the depths of time to which he belongs: Lord of the Golden Age, the Once and Future King.

This essay will follow the figure farther and farther afield, from the Northland to Rome, from there to Finland, Iran, and India; he will appear again unmistakably in Polynesian legend. Many other Dominations and Powers will materialize to frame him within the proper order.

Amlodhi was identified, in the crude and vivid imagery of the Norse, by the ownership of a fabled mill which, in his own time, ground out peace and plenty. Later, in decaying times, it ground out salt; and now finally, having landed at the bottom of the sea, it is grinding rock and sand, creating a vast whirlpool, the Maelstrom (i.e., the grinding stream, from the verb mala, "to grind"), which is supposed to be a way to the land of the dead. This imagery stands, as the evidence develops, for an astronomical process, the secular shifting of the sun through the signs of the zodiac which determines world-ages, each numbering thousands of years. Each age brings a World Era, a Twilight of the Gods. Great structures collapse; pillars topple which supported the great fabric; floods and cataclysms herald the shaping of a new world.
The image of the mill and its owner yielded elsewhere to more / Page 3 / sophisticated ones, more adherent to celestial events. In Plato's powerful mind, the figure stood out as the Craftsman God, the Demiurge, who shaped the heavens; but even Plato did not escape the idea he had inherited, of catastrophes and the periodic rebuilding of the world.

Tradition will show that the measures of a new world had to be procured from the depths of the celestial ocean and tuned with the measures from above, dictated by the "Seven Sages," as they are often cryptically mentioned in India and elsewhere. They turn out to be the Seven Stars of Ursa, which are normative in all cosmological alignments on the starry sphere. These dominant stars of the Far North are peculiarly but systematically linked with those which are considered the operative powers of the cosmos, that is, the planets as they move in different placements and configurations along the zodiac. The ancient Pythagoreans, in their conventional language, called the two Bears the Hands of Rhea (the Lady of Turning Heaven), and called the planets the Hounds of Persephone, Queen of the Underworld. Far away to the south, the mysterious ship Argo with its Pilot star held the depths of the past; and the Galaxy was the Bridge out of Time. These notions appear to have been common doctrine in the age before history-all over the belt of high civilizations around our globe. They also seem to have been born of the great intellectual and technological revolution of the late Neolithic period.

The intensity and richness, the coincidence of details, in this cumulative thought have led to the conclusion that it all had its origin in the Near East. It is evident that this indicates a diffusion of ideas to an extent hardly countenanced by current anthropology. But this science, although it has dug up a marvelous wealth of details, has been led by its modern evolutionary and psychological bent to forget about the main source of myth, which was astronomy -the Royal Science. This obliviousness is itself a recent turn of events-barely a century old. Today expert philologists tell us that Saturn and Jupiter are names of vague deities, subterranean or atmospheric, superimposed on the planets at a "late" period; they neatly sort out folk origins and "late" derivations, all unaware that planetary periods, sidereal and synodic, were known and rehearsed / Page 4 / in numerous ways by celebrations already traditional in archaic times. If a scholar has never known those periods even from elementary science, he is not in the best position to recognize them when they come up in his material.

Ancient historians would have been aghast had they been told that obvious things were to become unnoticeable. Aristotle was proud to state it as known that the gods were originally stars, even if popular fantasy had later obscured this truth. Little as he believed in progress, he felt this much had been secured for the future. He could not guess that W. D. Ross, his modern editor, would condescendingly annotate: "This is historically untrue." Yet we know that Saturday and Sabbath had to do with Saturn, just as Wednesday and Mercredi had to do with Mercury. Such names are as old as time; as old, certainly, as the planetary heptagram of the Har­ranians. They go back far before Professor Ross' Greek philology. The inquiries of great and meticulous scholars such as Ideler, Lep­sius, Chwolson, BoIl and, to go farther back, of Athanasius Kircher and Petavius, had they only been read carefully, and noted, would have taught several relevant lessons to the historians of culture, but interest shifted to other goals, as can be seen from current anthropology, which has built up its own idea of the "primitive" and what came after.

One still reads in that most unscientific of records, the Bible, that God disposed all things by number, weight and measure; ancient Chinese texts say that "the calendar and the pitch pipes have such a close fit, that you could not slip a hair between them." People read it, and think nothing of it. Yet such hints might reveal a world of vast and firmly established complexity, infinitely different from ours. But the experts now are benighted by the current folk fantasy, which is the belief that they are beyond all this-critics without nonsense and extremely wise.

In 1959 I wrote:
The dust of centuries had settled upon the remains of this great world-wide archaic construction when the Greeks came upon the scene. Yet something of it survived in traditional rites, in myths and fairy tales no longer understood. Taken verbally, it matured the / Page 5 / bloody cults intended to procure fertility, based on the belief in a dark universal force of an ambivalent nature, which seems now to monopolize our interest. Yet its original themes could flash out again, preserved almost intact, in the later thought of the Pythagoreans and of Plato.

But they are tantalizing fragments of a lost whole. They make one think of those "mist landscapes" of which Chinese painters are masters, which show here a rock, here a gable, there the tip of a tree, and leave the rest to imagination. Even when the code shall have yielded, when the techniques shall be known, we cannot expect to gauge the thought of those remote ancestors of ours, wrapped as it is in its symbols.

Their words are no more heard again Through lapse of many ages. . .

We think we have now broken part of that code. The thought behind these constructions of the high and far-off times is also lofty, even if its forms are strange. The theory about "how the world began" seems to involve the breaking asunder of a harmony, a kind of cosmogonic "original sin" whereby the circle of the ecliptic (with the zodiac) was tilted up at an angle with respect to the equator, and the cycles of change came into being.

This is not to suggest that this archaic cosmology will show any great physical discoveries, although it required prodigious feats of concentration and computing. What it did was to mark out the unity of the universe, and of man's mind, reaching out to its farthest limits. Truly, man is doing the same today.

Einstein said: "What is inconceivable about the universe, is that it should be at all conceivable." Man is not giving up. When he discovers remote galaxies by the million, and then those quasi-stellar radio sources billions of light-years away which confound his speculation, he is happy that he can reach out to those depths. But he pays a terrible price for his achievement. The science of astro­physics reaches out on a grander and grander scale without losing its footing. Man as man cannot do this. In the depths of space he loses himself and all notion of his significance. He is unable to fit himself into the concepts of today's astrophysics short of schizophrenia. Modern man is facing the nonconceivable. Archaic man, however, kept a firm grip on the conceivable by framing within his cosmos / Page 6 / an order of time and an eschatology that made sense to him and reserved a fate for his soul. Yet it was a prodigiously vast theory, with no concessions to merely human sentiments. It, too, dilated the mind beyond the bearable, although without destroying man's role in the cosmos. It was a ruthless metaphysics.

Not a forgiving universe, not a world of mercy. That surely not. Inexorable as the stars in their courses, miserationis parcissimae, the Romans used to say. Yet it was a world somehow not unmindful of man, one in which there was an accepted place for everything, rightfully and not only statistically, where no sparrow could fall unnoted, and where even what was rejected through its own error would not go down to eternal perdition; for the order of Number and Time was a total order preserving all, of which all were members, gods and men and animals, trees and crystals and even absurd errant stars, all subject to law and measure.

This is what Plato knew, who could still speak the language of archaic myth. He made myth consonant with his thought, as he built the first modern philosophy. We have trusted his clues as landmarks even on occasions when he professes to speak "not quite seriously." He gave us a first rule of thumb; he knew what he was talking about.

Behind Plato there stands the imposing body of doctrine attributed to Pythagoras, some of its formulation uncouth, but rich with the prodigious content of early mathematics, pregnant with a sci­ence and a metaphysics that were to flower in Plato's time. From it come such words as "theorem," "theory," and "philosophy." This in its turn rests on what might be called a proto-Pythagorean phase, spread all over the East but with a focus in Susa. And then there was something else again, the stark numerical computing of Babylon. From it all came that strange principle: "Things are numbers."

Once having grasped a thread going back in time, then the test of later doctrines with their own historical developments lies in their congruence with tradition preserved intact even if half under­stood. For there are seeds which propagate themselves along the jetstream of time.

Page 7

And universality is in itself a test when coupled with a firm design. When something found, say, in China turns up also in Babyionian astrological texts, then it must be assumed to be relevant, for it reveals a complex of uncommon images which nobody could claim had risen independently by spontaneous generation.

Take the origin of music. Orpheus and his harrowing death may be a poetic creation born in more than one instance in diverse places. But when characters who do not play the lyre but blow pipes get themselves flayed alive for various absurd reasons, and their identical end is rehearsed on several continents, then we feel we have got hold of something, for such stories cannot be linked by internal sequence. And when the Pied Piper turns up both in the medieval German myth of Hamelin and in Mexico long before Columbus, and is linked in both places with certain attributes like the color red, it can hardly be a coincidence. Generally, there is little that finds its way into music by chance.

Again, when one finds numbers like 108, or 9 x 13, reappearing under several multiples in the Vedas, in the temples of Angkor, in Babylon, in Heraclitus' dark utterances, and also in the Norse Valhalla, it is not accident.

There is one way of checking signals thus scattered in early data, in lore, fables and sacred texts. What we have used for sources may seem strange and disparate, but the sifting was considered, and it had its reasons. Those reasons will be given later in the chapter on method. I might call it comparative morphology. The reservoir of myth and fable is great, but there are morphological "markers" for what is not mere storytelling of the kind that comes naturally. There is also wonderfully preserved archaic material in "secondary" primitives, like American Indians and West Africans. Then there are courtly stories and annals of dynasties which look like novels: the Feng Shen Yen I, the Japanese Nihongi, the Hawaiian Kumulipo. These are not merely fantasy-ridden fables.

In hard and perilous ages, what information should a well-born man entrust to his eldest son? Lines of descent surely, but what else? The memory of an ancient nobility is the means of preserving the / Page 8 / arcana imperii, the arcana legis and the arcana mundi, just as it was in ancient Rome. This is the wisdom of a ruling class. The Polynesian chants taught in the severely restricted Whare-wananga were mostly astronomy. That is what a liberal education meant then.

Sacred texts are another great source. In our age of print one is tempted to dismiss these as religious excursions into homiletics, but originally they represented a great concentration of attention on material which had been distilled for relevancy through a long period of time and which was considered worthy of being committed to memory generation after generation. The tradition of Celtic Druidism was delivered not only in songs, but also in tree-lore which was much like a code. And in the East, out of complicated games based on astronomy, there developed a kind of shorthand which became the alphabet.

As we follow the clues-stars, numbers, colors, plants, forms, verse, music, structres-a huge framework of connections is re­vealed at many levels. One is inside an echoing manifold where everything responds and everything has a place and a time assigned to it. This is a true edifice, something like a mathematical matrix, a World-Image that fits the many levels, and all of it kept in order by strict measure. It is measure that provides the countercheck, for there is much that can be identified and redisposed from rules like the old Chinese saying about the pitch pipes and the calendar. When we speak of measures, it is always some form of Time that provides them, starting from two basic ones, the solar year and the octave, and going down from there in many periods and intervals, to actual weights and sizes. What modern man attempted in the merely conventional metric system has archaic precedents of great complexity. Down the centuries there comes an echo of Al-Biruni's wondering a thousand years ago, when that prince of scientists discovered that the Indians, by then miserable astronomers, calculated aspects and events by means of stars-and were not able to show him anyone star that he asked for. Stars had become items for them, as they were to become again for Leverrier and Adams, who never troubled to look at Neptune in their life although they had computed and discovered it in 1847. The Mayas and the Aztecs in their / Page 9 / unending calculations seem to have had similar attitudes. The connections were what counted. Ultimately so it was in the archaic universe, where all things were signs and signatures of each other, inscribed in the hologram, to be divined subtly. And Number dominated them all (appendix # I ).

This ancient world moves a little closer if one recalls two great transitional figures who were simultaneously archaic and modern in their habits of thought. The first is Johannes Kepler, who was of the old order in his unremitting calculations and his passionate devotion to the dream of rediscovering the "Harmony of the Spheres." But he was a man of his own time, and also of ours, when this dream began to prefigure the polyphony that led up to Bach. In somewhat the same way, our strictly scientific world view has its counterpart in what John Hollander, the historian of music, has described as "The Untuning of the Sky." The second transitional figure is no less a man than Sir Isaac Newton, the very inceptor of the rigorously scientific view. There is no real paradox in mentioning Newton in this connection. John Maynard Keynes, who knew Newton as well as many of our time, said of him:

Newton was not the first of the Age of Reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind which looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual world rather less than 10,000 years ago. . . Why do I call him a magician? Because he looked on the whole universe and all that is in it as a riddle, as a secret which could be read by applying pure thought to certain evidence, certain mystic clues which God had laid about the world to allow a sort of philosopher's treasure hunt to the esoteric brother­hood. He believed that these clues were to be found partly in the evidence of the heavens and in the constitution of elements (and that is what gives the false suggestion of his being an experimental natural philosopher), but also partly in certain papers and traditions handed down by the brethren in an unbroken chain back to the original cryptic revelation in Babylonia. He regarded the universe as a cryptogram set by the Almighty-just as he himself wrapt the discovery of the calculus in a cryptogram when he communicated with Leibniz. By pure thought, by concentration of mind, the riddle, he believed, would be revealed to the initiate.1

Page 10

Lord Keynes' appraisal, written ca. 1942, remains both unconventional and profound. He knew, we all know, that Newton failed. Newton was led astray by his dour sectarian preconceptions. But his undertaking was truly in the archaic spirit, as it begins to appear now after two centuries of scholarly search into many cul­tures of which he could have had no idea. To the few clues he found with rigorous method, a vast number have been added. Still, the wonder remains, the same that was expressed by his great predecessor Galileo:

But of all other stupendous inventions, what sublimity of mind must have been his who conccived how to communicate his most secret thoughts to any othcr person, though very far distant either in time or place, speaking with those who are in the In dies, speaking to those who are not yet born, nor shall be this thousand or ten thousand years) And with no greater difficulty than the various arrangement of two dozcn little signs upon paper? Let this be the seal of all the admirable inventions of man.

'Way back in the 6th century A.D., Gregoire de Tours was writing: "The mind has lost its cutting edge, we hardly understand the Ancicnts." So much more today, despite our wallowing in mathematics for the million and in sophisticated technology.
It is undeniable that, notwithstanding our Classics Departments' labors, the wilting away of classical studies, the abandonment of any living familiarity with Greek and Latin has cut the ompha­loessa, the umbilical cord which connected our cultUre-at least at its top level-with Greece, in the same manner in which men of the Pythagorean and Orphic tradition were tied up through Plato and a few others with the most ancient Near East. It is beginning to appear that this destruction is leading into a very up-to-date Middle Ages, much worse than the first. People will sneer: "Stop the World, I want to get off." It cannot be changed, however; this is the way it goes when someone or other tampers with the reserved knowledge that science is, and was meant to represent.
But, as Goethe said at the very onset of the Progressive Age, "Noch ist es Tag, da ruhre sich der Mann! Die Nacht tritt ein, wo niemand wirken kann." ("It is still day, let men get up and / Page 11 / going-the night creeps in, when there is nothing doing.") There might come once more some kind of "Renaissance" out of the hopelessly condemned and trampled past, when certain ideas come to life again, and we should not deprive our grandchildren of a last chance at the heritage of the highest and farthest-off times. And if, as looks infinitely probable, even that last chance is passed up in the turmoil of progress, why then one can still think with Poliziano, who was himself a master humanist, that there will be men whose minds find a refuge in poetry and art and the holy tradition "which alone make men free from death and turn them to eternity, so long as the stars will go on, still shining over a world made for­ever silent." Right now, there is still left some daylight in which to undertake this first quick reconnaissance. It will necessarily leave out great and significant areas of material, but even so, it will in­vestigate many unexpected byways and crannies of the past."

Page 2 Note *. The indulgence of specialists is asked for the form of certain transliterations throughout the text; for example, Amlodhi instead of Amlodi, Grotte instead of Grotti, etc. (Ed.)

Page 9 Note 1 1 "Newton the Man," in The Royal Society. Newton Tercentenary Celebrations (1947), p. 29.

 

 

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CODE
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2
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18
9
9
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18
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9
9
9

 

 

HAMLET'S MILL

AN ESSAY INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

AND ITS TRANSMISSION THROUGH MYTH

Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend 1969

Page 162

"Finally, there is one remarkable and disturbing coincidence from the same direction. It is known that in the final battle of the gods, the massed legions on the side of "order" are the dead warriors, the "Einherier" who once fell in combat on earth and who have been transferred by the Valkyries to reside with Odin in Valhalla-a theme much rehearsed in heroic poetry. On the last day, they issue forth to battle in martial array. Says the Grimnismal (23): "Five hundred gates and forty more-are in the mighty building of Wal­halla-eight hundred 'Einherier' come out of each one gate-on the time they go out on defence against the Wolf."
That makes 432,000 in all, a number of significance from of old.
This number must have had a very ancient meaning, for it is also the number of syllables in the Rigveda. But it goes back to the basic figure 10,800, the number of stanzas in the Rigveda (40 syllables to a stanza) which, together with 108, occurs insistently in Indian tradition. 10,800 is also the number which has been given by Heraclitus for the duration of the Aion, according to Censorinus (De die natali 18), whereas Berossos made the Babylonian Great Year to last 432,000 years. Again, 10,800 is the number of bricks of the Indian fire-altar (Agnicayana). 32
"To quibble away such a coincidence," remarks Schroder, "or to ascribe it to chance, is in my opinion to drive skepticism beyond its limits."33 Shall one add Angkor to the list? It has five gates, and to each of them leads a road, bridging over that water ditch which surrounds the whole place. Each of these roads is bordered by a row of huge stone figures, 108 per avenue, 54 on each side, altogether 540 statues of Deva and Asura, and each row carries a huge Naga / Page 163 / serpent with nine heads. Only, they do not "carry" that serpent, they are shown to "pull" it, which indicates that these 540 statues are churning the Milky Ocean, represented (poorly, indeed) by the water ditch,34 using Mount Mandara as a churning staff, and Vasuki, the prince of the Nagas, as their drilling rope. (Just to prevent misunderstanding: Vasuki had been asked before, and had agreeably consented, and so had Vishnu's tortoise avatar, who was going to serve as the fixed base for that "incomparably mighty churn," and even the Milky Ocean itself had made it clear that it was willing to be churned.) The whole of Angkor thus turns out to be a colossal model set up for "alternative motion" with true Hindu fantasy and incongruousness to counter the idea of a continuous one-way Precession from west to east."

 

 

www.bibliotecapleyades.net/hamlets_mill/hamlet

HAMLET'S MILL

AN ESSAY INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

AND ITS TRANSMISSION THROUGH MYTH

Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend 1969

CHAPTER X

The Twilight of the Gods

 

 

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5
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
5
occurs
x
2
=
10
1+0
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
6
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
-
-
-
-
6
occurs
x
3
=
18
1+8
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
7
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
7
-
-
-
-
-
7
occurs
x
2
=
14
1+4
5
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
8
-
-
-
-
-
-
8
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
8
occurs
x
2
=
16
1+6
7
-
-
-
9
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
occurs
x
2
=
18
1+8
9
17
T
W
I
L
I
G
H
T
-
O
F
-
T
H
E
-
G
O
D
S
-
-
45
-
-
17
-
90
-
45
1+7
-
-
9
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
4+5
-
-
1+7
-
9+0
-
4+5
8
T
W
I
L
I
G
H
T
-
O
F
-
T
H
E
-
G
O
D
S
-
-
9
-
-
8
-
9
-
9

 

 

www.bibliotecapleyades.net/hamlets_mill/hamlet

HAMLET'S MILL

AN ESSAY INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

AND ITS TRANSMISSION THROUGH MYTH

Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend 1969

CHAPTER X

The Twilight of the Gods

 

"Egyptian Book of the Dead, Osiris speaking:

 

"Hail, Thot! What is it that hath happened to the divine children of Nut? They have done battle, they have upheld strife, they have made slaughter, they have caused trouble: in truth, in all their doing the mighty have worked against the weak. Grant, O might of Thot, that that which the God Atum hath decreed (may be accomplished)! And thou regardest not evil nor art thou provoked to anger when they bring their years to confusion and throng in and push to disturb their months; for in all that they have done unto thee, they have worked iniquity in secret!" [n1 Chapter 175, 1-8, W. Budge trans. The italics are ours.].

 

Thot is the god of science and wisdom; as for Atum, he precedes, so to speak, the divine hierarchy."

 

 

7
THOUGHT
99
36
9
5
OUGHT
71
26
8
6
NOUGHT
85
31
4

 

 

5
THOTH
-
-
-
3
THE
33
15
6
5
OTHER
66
30
3
8
THE OTHER
99
45
9
-
-
9+9
4+5
-
8
THE OTHER
18
9
9
2
-
1+8
-
-
8
THE OTHER
9
9
9

 

 

5
THOTH
71
26
8
3
THE
33
15
6
5
OTHER
66
30
3
3
MAN
28
10
1
16
First Total
198
81
18
1+6
Add to Reduce
1+9+8
8+1
1+8
7
Second Total
18
9
9
-
Reduce to Deduce
1+8
-
-
7
Essence of Number
9
9
9

 

 

5
THOTH
-
-
-
-
T+H
28
10
1
-
O
15
6
6
-
T+H
28
10
1
5
THOTH
71
26
8
-
-
7+1
2+6
-
5
THOTH
8
8
8

 

 

-
5
T
H
O
T
H
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
8
6
-
8
+
=
22
2+2
=
4
-
4
-
4
-
-
-
8
15
-
8
+
=
31
3+1
=
4
-
4
-
4
-
5
T
H
O
T
H
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
2
-
-
2
-
+
=
4
-
=
4
-
4
-
4
-
-
20
-
-
20
-
+
=
40
4+0
=
4
-
4
-
4
-
5
T
H
O
T
H
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
20
8
15
20
8
+
=
71
7+1
=
8
-
8
=
8
-
-
2
8
6
2
8
+
=
26
2+6
=
8
-
8
-
8
-
5
T
H
O
T
H
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
ONE
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
2
-
-
2
-
-
-
2
occurs
x
2
=
4
=
4
3
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
3
THREE
3
-
-
-
-
-
4
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
4
FOUR
4
-
-
-
-
-
5
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
5
FIVE
5
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
-
-
-
-
6
occurs
x
1
=
6
=
6
7
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
7
SEVEN
7
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
8
-
-
8
-
-
8
occurs
x
2
=
16
1+6
7
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
22
5
T
H
O
T
H
-
-
23
-
-
5
-
26
-
17
2+2
-
2
8
6
2
8
-
-
2+3
-
-
-
-
2+6
-
1+7
4
5
T
H
O
T
H
-
-
5
-
-
5
-
8
-
8

 

 

5
T
H
O
T
H
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
8
6
-
8
+
=
22
2+2
=
4
-
4
-
4
-
-
8
15
-
8
+
=
31
3+1
=
4
-
4
-
4
5
T
H
O
T
H
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
2
-
-
2
-
+
=
4
-
=
4
-
4
-
4
-
20
-
-
20
-
+
=
40
4+0
=
4
-
4
-
4
5
T
H
O
T
H
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
20
8
15
20
8
+
=
71
7+1
=
8
-
8
=
8
-
2
8
6
2
8
+
=
26
2+6
=
8
-
8
-
8
5
T
H
O
T
H
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
2
-
-
2
-
-
-
2
occurs
x
2
=
4
=
4
-
-
-
6
-
-
-
-
6
occurs
x
1
=
6
=
6
-
-
8
-
-
8
-
-
8
occurs
x
2
=
16
1+6
7
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
5
T
H
O
T
H
-
-
23
-
-
5
-
26
-
17
-
2
8
6
2
8
-
-
2+3
-
-
-
-
2+6
-
1+7
5
T
H
O
T
H
-
-
5
-
-
5
-
8
-
8

 

 

3
THE
33
15
6
5
OTHER
66
30
3
8
First Total
99
45
9
-
Add to Reduce
9+9
4+5
-
8
Second Total
18
9
9
-
Reduce to Deduce
1+8
-
-
8
Essence of Number
9
9
9

 

 

T
=
2
3
THE
33
15
6
O
=
6
5
OTHER
66
30
3
T
=
2
4
THAT
49
13
4
I
=
9
1
I
9
9
9
A
=
1
2
AM
14
5
5

 

 

4
THOT
63
18
9

 

 

-
4
T
H
O
T
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
8
6
-
+
=
14
1+4
=
5
-
5
-
-
-
8
15
-
+
=
23
2+3
=
5
-
5
-
4
T
H
O
T
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
2
-
-
2
+
=
4
-
=
4
-
4
-
-
20
-
-
20
+
=
40
4+0
=
4
-
4
-
4
T
H
O
T
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
20
8
15
20
+
=
63
6+3
=
9
-
9
-
-
2
8
6
2
+
=
18
1+8
=
9
-
9
-
4
T
H
O
T
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
ONE
1
-
-
-
-
-
2
-
-
2
-
-
2
occurs
x
2
=
4
3
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
3
THREE
3
-
-
-
4
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
4
FOUR
4
-
-
-
5
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
5
FIVE
5
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
-
-
-
6
occurs
x
1
=
6
7
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
7
SEVEN
7
-
-
-
-
-
-
8
-
-
-
-
8
occurs
x
1
=
8
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
22
4
T
H
O
T
-
-
23
-
-
4
-
18
2+2
-
2
8
6
2
-
-
2+3
-
-
-
-
1+8
4
4
T
H
O
T
-
-
5
-
-
4
-
9

 

 

4
T
H
O
T
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
8
6
-
+
=
14
1+4
=
5
-
5
-
-
8
15
-
+
=
23
2+3
=
5
-
5
4
T
H
O
T
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
2
-
-
2
+
=
4
-
=
4
-
4
-
20
-
-
20
+
=
40
4+0
=
4
-
4
4
T
H
O
T
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
20
8
15
20
+
=
63
6+3
=
9
-
9
-
2
8
6
2
+
=
18
1+8
=
9
-
9
4
T
H
O
T
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
2
-
-
2
-
-
2
occurs
x
2
=
4
-
-
-
6
-
-
-
6
occurs
x
1
=
6
-
-
8
-
-
-
-
8
occurs
x
1
=
8
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
4
T
H
O
T
-
-
23
-
-
4
-
18
-
2
8
6
2
-
-
2+3
-
-
-
-
1+8
4
T
H
O
T
-
-
5
-
-
4
-
9

 

Thot is the god of science and wisdom; as for Atum, he precedes, so to speak, the divine hierarchy."

 

-
-
-
4
-
4
-
-
-
-
-
3
-
-
-
3
-
-
-
2
-
-
-
-
-
2
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
A
T
U
M
-
M
U
T
A
1
20
21
13
-
13
21
20
1
1
2
3
4
-
4
3
2
1
A
T
U
M
-
M
U
T
A
1
2
3
4
-
4
3
2
1
A
T
U
M
-
M
U
T
A

 

 

A
T
U
M
-
R
A
-
A
R
-
M
U
T
A
1
20
21
13
-
18
1
-
1
18
-
13
21
20
1
1
2
3
4
-
9
1
-
1
9
-
4
3
2
1
A
T
U
M
-
R
A
-
A
R
-
M
U
T
A
1
-
-
-
-
-
1
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
1
-
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
2
-
-
-
3
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
3
-
-
-
-
-
4
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
4
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
A
T
U
M
-
R
A
-
A
R
-
M
U
T
A

 

 

-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
4
-
-
-
-
-
4
-
-
-
-
-
3
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
3
-
-
-
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
2
-
1
-
-
-
-
1
-
1
-
-
-
-
1
A
T
U
M
R
A
-
A
R
M
U
T
A
1
20
21
13
18
1
-
1
18
13
21
20
1
1
2
3
4
9
1
-
1
9
4
3
2
1
A
T
U
M
R
A
-
A
R
M
U
T
A
1
2
3
4
9
1
-
1
9
4
3
2
1
A
T
U
M
R
A
-
A
R
M
U
T
A

 

 

6
A
T
U
M
-
R
A
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
`-
1
20
21
13
-
18
1
+
=
74
7+4
=
11
1+1
2
-
1
2
3
4
-
9
1
+
=
20
2+0
=
2
-
2
6
A
T
U
M
-
R
A
-T
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
1
-
-
1
occurs
x
2
=
2
-
-
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
2
occurs
x
1
=
2
-
-
-
3
-
-
-
-
-
-
3
occurs
x
1
=
3
-
-
-
-
4
-
-
-
-
-
4
occurs
x
1
=
4
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
9
occurs
x
1
=
9
6
A
T
U
M
-
R
A
-
-
19
-
-
6
-
20
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
1+9
-
-
-
Q
2+0
6
A
T
U
M
-
R
A
-
-
10
-
-
6
-
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
1+0
-
-
-
Q
2+0
6
A
T
U
M
-
R
A
-
-
1
-
-
6
-
2

 

 

www.bibliotecapleyades.net/hamlets_mill/hamlet

HAMLET'S MILL

AN ESSAY INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

AND ITS TRANSMISSION THROUGH MYTH

Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend 1969

CHAPTER X

The Twilight of the Gods

 

 

THERE WAS ONCE, then, a Golden Age. Why, how, did it come to an end? This has been a deep concern of mankind over time, refracted in a hundred myths, explained in so many ways which always expressed sorrow, nostalgia, despondency. Why did man lose the Garden of Eden? The answer has always been, because of some original sin. But the idea that man alone was able to commit sin, that Adam and Eve are the guilty ones, is not very old. The authors of the Old Testament had developed a certain conceit. Christianity then had to come to rescue and restore cosmic proportions, by insisting that God alone could offer himself in atonement.

 

In archaic times, this had seemed to be self-evident. The gods alone could run or wreck the universe. It is there that we should search for the origin of evil. For evil remains a mystery. It is not in nature. The faultless and all-powerful machine of the heavens should have yielded only harmony and perfection, the reign of justice and innocence, rivers flowing with milk and honey. It did, but that time did not last. Why did history begin to happen? History is always terrible. Philosophers from Plato to Hegel have offered their own lofty answer: pure Being was confronted of a necessity with Non-Being, and the result was Becoming, which is an uninsurable business. This was substantially the original answer of archaic times, but because of the lack of abstractions, it had to be derived in terms of heavenly motions.

 

150

 

Aristotle, the Master of Those Who Know, has cleared up this matter in a most important, yet little noted passage of Book Lambda of Metaphysics (I074b) where he talks about Kronos, Zeus, Aphrodite, etc.:

 

Our forefathers in the most remote ages [archaioi kai panpalaioi] have handed down to their posterity a tradition, in; the form [schema] 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. . . ; they say that these gods are in the form of men or like some of the other animals. . . But if one were to separate the first point from these additions and take it alone--that they thought the first substances to be gods, one must regard this as an inspired utterance, and reflect that, while probably each art and each science has often been developed as far as possible and has again perished, these opinions, with others, have been preserved until the present like relics [leipsana] of the ancient treasure.

 

Aristotle, being a true Greek, cannot conceive of progress in our sense. Time proceeds for him in cycles of flowering and decay. But this absence of modern preconceptions had left his mind open to an ancient certainty. This certainty is what shines through the mist of ages and through a language dimly understood. It was attention to the events of heaven which shaped men's minds before recorded history; but since there was as yet no writing, the thoughts have receded, as astrophysicists would say, over the "event horizon." They can survive only through fragments of tale and myth because these made up the only technical language of those times.

 

Yet an enormous intellectual achievement is presupposed in this organization of heaven, in naming the constellations and in tracing the paths of the planets. Lofty and intricate theories grew to account for the motions of the cosmos. One would wonder about this obsessive concern with the stars and their motion, were it not the case that those early thinkers thought they had located the gods which rule the universe and with it also the destiny of the soul down here and after death.

 

In modern language, they had found the essential invariants where Being is. In paying respect to those forefathers, Aristotle shows himself clearly aware that his philosophical quest started with them.

 

One should pay attention to the cosmological information contained in ancient myth, information of chaos, struggle and violence.

 

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They are not mere projections of a troubled consciousness: They are attempts to portray the forces which seem to have taken part in the shaping of the cosmos. Monsters, Titans, giants locked in battle with the gods and trying to scale Olympus are functions and components of the order that is finally established.

 

A distinction is immediately clear. The fixed stars are the essence of Being, their assembly stands for the hidden counsels and the unspoken laws that rule the Whole. The planets, seen as gods, represent the Forces and the Will: all the forces there are, each of them seen as one aspect of heavenly power, each of them one aspect of the ruthless necessity and precision expressed by heaven. One might also say that while the fixed stars represent the kingly power, silent and unmoving, the planets are the executive power.

 

Are they in total harmony? This is the dream that the contemplative mind has expressed again and again, that Kepler tried to fix by writing down the notes of his "Harmony of the Spheres," and that was consecrated in the "turning over" of the sky. This is the faith expressed by ancient thinkers in a Great Year, in which all the motions brought back all the planets to the same original configuration. But the computations created doubt very early and with it anxiety. Only rarely is there an explicit technical statement of those views. Here is one from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Osiris speaking:

 

"Hail, Thot! What is it that hath happened to the divine children of Nut? They have done battle, they have upheld strife, they have made slaughter, they have caused trouble: in truth, in all their doing the mighty have worked against the weak. Grant, O might of Thot, that that which the God Atum hath decreed (may be accomplished)! And thou regardest not evil nor art thou provoked to anger when they bring their years to confusion and throng in and push to disturb their months; for in all that they have done unto thee, they have worked iniquity in secret!" [n1 Chapter 175, 1-8, W. Budge trans. The italics are ours.].

 

Thot is the god of science and wisdom; as for Atum, he precedes, so to speak, the divine hierarchy.

 

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Described only in metaphysical terms, he is the mysterious entity from which the All sprang: his name might be Beginning-and-End. He is thus the Presence and the secret Counsel whom one feels tempted to equate with the starry sky itself. His decree must be of immutable perfection. But here it appears that there are forces which have worked iniquity in secret. They appear everywhere, these forces, and regularly they are denounced as "overbearing," or "iniquitous," or both. But these "forces" are not iniquitous right from the beginning: they turn out to be, they become overbearing in the course of time. Time alone turns the Titans, who once ruled the Golden Age, into "workers of iniquity" (compare appendix 12).

 

The idea of measure stated or implied will show the basic crime of these "sinners": it is the over­reaching, overstepping of the ordained degree, and this is meant literally [n2 It is only the careless manner in which we usually deal with precise terms that blocks the understanding: e.g., Greek moira, also written moros, is translated as "fate," "destiny," sometimes as "doom"; moira is one degree of the 360° of the circle; when we keep this in mind we understand better such lines as Od. I.34-35, where Aegisthus is accused twice of having done deeds "hyper moron," beyond degree. How could one overstep one's destiny? How could one be overmeasured against fate? This would invalidate the very concept of "destiny."].  Says the Mahabharata about the Indian Titans, the Asura: "assuredly were the Asura originally just, good and charitable, knew the Dharma and sacrificed, and were possessed of many other virtues. . . But afterwards as they multiplied in number, they became proud, vain, quarrelsome. . . they made confusion in everything. Thereupon in the course of time. . ." they were doomed [n3 V. Fausboll, Indian Mythology according to the Mahabharata (1902), pp. 40f.].

 

Thus severe consequences must be expected when Gen. vi. I commences with the formula, "when men began to multiply on the face of the earth. . ." And sure enough, ten verses later, Gen. vi. 11, the time for grave decisions has come: "And God said to Noah, 'I have determined to make an end of all flesh!' " More outspoken is the 18th chapter of the Book of Enoch, where an Angel acts as Enoch's guide through the celestial landscape. In showing him the quarters destined for iniquitous  personalities, the Angel tells Enoch: "These stars which roll around over the fire are those who, at rising time, overstepped the orders of God: they did not rise at their appointed time.

 

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And He was wroth with them, and He bound them for 10,000 years until the time when their sin shall be fulfilled." [n4 E. Kautzsch, ed., Die Apokryphen una Pseudoepigraphen des Alten Testaments (1900), vol. 2, pp. 249f.]

 

Yet one must beware of simplifications. The wording, "assuredly were the Asura originally just, good and charitable," goes for the Titans, too, the forces of the first age of the world. But seen through the "eyeglasses" of the preceding state of things, Titans, Asura and their like had committed atrocities first. And so did Saturn, the "originator of times," and in the drastic measure he took to accomplish the "separation of the parents of the world," which stands for the falling apart of the axes of equator and ecliptic. Before this separation time did not exist. These "united parents"--heartlessly called "chaos" by Macrobius--resented the breaking up of the original eternity by the forces which worked iniquity in secret [n5 There is no complete unanimity among mythographers, though; in Hesiod's Theogony, Gaia "rejoiced greatly in spirit" (173) when Kronos promised to do away with Father Ouranos according to Gaia's very own plan and advice.]. These forces as they appear in the Enuma elish, the so-called Babylonian Creation Epic, are the children of Apsu and Tiamat and they crowded in between their parents. "They disturbed Tiamat as they surged back and forth; yea, they troubled the mood of Tiamat. Apsu could not lessen their clamor . . . Unsavory were their ways, they were overbearing." [n6 EE Tabl. 1.22-28 (E. Speiser trans.), ANET, p. 61.].

 

Not having "multiplied" yet, this first generation of the world established the Golden Age under the rule of Him of many names--Enki, Yima, Freyr and many more. "But these sons whom he begot himself, great Heaven [megas Ouranos] used to call Titans [Strainers] in reproach, for he said that they strained and did presumptuously a fearful deed, and that vengeance for it would come afterwards," as Hesiod has it (Theogony 207-10) [n7 This translation by H. G. Evelyn-White (LCL) pays no tregard to a "pun," a rather essential one, indeed. Hesiod makes use, side by side in these few lines, of both radicals from which "Titan" was supposed to have been derived: titaino, "to strain," and tisis, "vengeance."].

 

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And so it would, after their "multiplication," when they overstrained the measure. And it was bound to happen again when future generations would construct "forbidden ways to the sky [n8 Claudianus 26.69-71, speaking of the Aloads, who piled Ossa upon Olympus.], or build a tower which happened to be too high. The one secure measure, the "golden rope" of the solar year [n9 See e.g., RV 5.85.5: "This great feat of the famous Asurian Varuna I shall proclaim who, standing in the air, using the Sun as an inch scale, measured the earth."], is stretched beyond repair. The equinoctial sun had been gradually pushed out of its Golden Age "sign," it had started on the way to new conditions, new configurations. This is the frightful event, the unexpiable crime that was ascribed to the Children of Heaven. They had nudged the sun out of place, and now it was on the move, the universe was out of kilter and nothing, nothing--days, months or years, the rising or setting of stars--was going to fall into its rightful place any more. The equinoctial point had nudged and nuzzled its way forward, in the very same way as a car with automatic gearshift will nuzzle its way forward unless we put it in neutral-and there was no way of putting the equinox in neutral. The infernal pushing and squeezing of the Children of Heaven had separated the parents, and now the time machine had been set rolling forever, bringing forth at every new age "a new heaven and a new earth," in the words of Scripture. As Hesiod says, the world had entered now the second stage, that of the giants., who were to wage a decisive battle with the restraining forces before their downfall.

 

The vision of a whole world-age with its downfall is given by the Edda. It comes in the very first poem, the Song of the Sibyl, the Voluspa, in which the prophetess Vala embraces past and future in adequately strange and obscure language. At the beginning of the Age of the Aesir, the gods gather in council, and give; names to sun and mon, days and nights and seasons. They order the years and assign to the stars their places. On Idavollr (the "whiirl-field"; ida = eddy), they establish their seat "in the Golden Age " and play checkers with golden pieces, and all is happiness until "the three awful maidens" come (this is another mystery) [n10 The three maidens from Jotunheimr are not the Norns, this much can be safely said, but should be Gulveig the "thrice born," whom the Aesir killed, "thrice, and still she is Jiving" (Voluspa 8): one more "iniquity" asking for vengeance,].

 

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But once before, it is hinted, there has been a "world war" between Aesir and Vanir, which was terminated by a sharing of power. In a vision in which past and future blend in a flash, Vala sees the outcome and announces it to the "high and low children of Heimdal," that is, to all men. She asks them to open their eyes, to understand what the gods had to know: the breaking of the peace, the murder of Thjassi, Odin himself abetting the crime and nailing Thjassi's eyes to heaven. With this a curtain is lifted briefly over a phase of the past. For Thjassi belongs to the powers that preceded the Aesir. In Greek terms, the Titans came before the gods. The main Vana or Titanic powers (in Rydberg's thoughtful reconstruction) are the three brothers, Thjassi/Volund, Orvandil/Eigil, and Slagfin: the Maker, the Archer, and the Musician. This finally locates Orvandil the Archer, the father of Amlethus. He is one of the three "sons of Ivalde," just as their counterparts in the Finnish epic are the "sons of Kaleva." [n11 Strange to say, the three brothers, Volund, Eigil and Slagfin, are called "synir Finnakonungs," i.e., "sons of a Finnish king" (J. Grimm, TM, p. 380)], And Ivalde, like Kaleva, is barely mentioned, never described, at least not under the name Ivalde: there is a glimpse at him under his other name, Wate. Like Kaleva, he is a meaningful void. But all this is of the past. The Sibyl's vision is projected toward the onrushing end. True, Loke has been chained in Hell since he brought about the death of Balder, the great Fenrir wolf is still fettered with chains, once cunningly devised by Loke himself, and they are made up of such unsubstantial things as the footfall of a cat, the roots of a rock, the breath of a fish, the spittle of a bird [n12 Again, strange to say, this very kind of "un-substance"--including the milk of Mother Eagle, and the tears of the fledglings--had to be provided for by Tibetan Bogda Gesser Khan, who also snared the sun.].

 

Now the powers of the Abyss are beginning to rise, the world is coming apart. At this point Heimdal comes to the fore. He is the Warner of Asgard, the guardian of the Bridge between heaven and earth, the "Whitest of the Aesir," but his role, his freedom of action, is severely limited. He has many gifts--he can hear grass grow, he can see a hundred miles away-but these powers seem to

 

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remain ineffectual. He owns the Gjallarhorn, the great battle horn of the gods; he is the only one able to sound it, but he'll blow it only once, when he summons the gods and heroes to Asgard to their last fight.

 

Nordic speculation down to Richard Wagner has dwelt with gloomy satisfaction on Ragnarok [n13 For the etymology of ragnarok, see Cleasby- Vigfusson, An Icelandic-English Dictionary, in which regin (whence ragna) is defined as "the gods as the makers and rulers of the universe"; rok as "reason, ground, origin" or "a wonder, sign, marvel"; and ragna rok as "the history of the gods and the world, but especially with reference to the last act, the last judgment." The word rokr, a possible alternate to rok, is defined as "the twilight. . . seldom of the morning twilight," and "the mythological phrase, ragna rokr, the twilight of gods, which occurs in the prose Edda (by Snorri), and has since been received into modern works, is no doubt merely a corruption from rok, a word quite different from rokr." Taking into consideration that the whole war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, as told in the Mahabharata, takes place in the "twilght" between Dvapara and Kali Yuga, there is no cogent reason to dismiss Snorri's ragna rokr as a "corruption." But then, the experts also condemned Snorri's comparison between Ragnarok and the Fall of Troy: the logical outcome of their conviction that "poetry" is some kind of creatio ex nihilo, whence the one question never raised is whether the poets might not be dealing with hard scientific facts.], the Twilight of the Gods, which will destroy the world. There is the prediction in the Song of the Sibyl, and also in Snorri's Gylfaginning: when the great dog Garm barks in front of the Gnipa cave, when the Fenrir wolf breaks his fetters and comes from "the mouth of the river," [n14 Lokasenna 41; see also V. Rydberg, Teutonic Mythology (1907), p. 563.] his jaws snatching from heaven to earth, and is joined by the Midgard Serpent, then Heimdal will blow the Gjallarhorn, the sound of which reaches through all the worlds: the battle is on. But it is written that the forces of order will go down fighting to atone for the initial wrong done by the gods. The world will be lost, good and bad together. Naglfar, the ship of the dead, built with the nail parings of the living, will sail through the dark waters and bring the enemy to the fray. Then, adds Snorri:

 

The heavens are suddenly rent in twain, and. out ride in shining squadrons Muspel's sons, and Surt with his flaming sword, at the head of the fylkings [15 Gylf. 51.].

 

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All-engulfing flames come out with Surt "the Black," who kills Freyr, the Lord of the Mill. Snorri makes Surt "Lord of Gimle" and likewise the king of eternal bliss "at the southern end of the sky." [n16 Gylf. 17; cf.. R. B. Anderson, The Younger Edda. (1880), p. 249. That Surt is Lord of Gimle is a particularly important statement; it will not be found in the current translations of Snorri, but only in the Uppsala Code: "there are many good abodes and many bad; best it is to be in Gimle with Surt” (Rydberg, p. 651).]. He must be some timeless force which brings destructive fire to the world; but of this later.

 

Hitherto all has been luridly and catastrophically and murkily confused as it should be. But the character of Heimdal raises a number of sharp questions. He has appeared upon the scene as "the son of nine mothers"; to be the son of several mothers is a rare distinction even in mythology, and one which Heimdal shares only with Agni in the Rigveda [n17 RV 10.45.2 points to nine births, or mothers; 1.141.2 tells of the seven mothers of Agni's second birth. Most frequently, however, Agni has three "mothers," corresponding to his three birthplaces: in the sky, on the earth, in the waters.] and with Agni's son Skanda in the Mahabharata. Skanda (literally "the jumping one" or "the hopping one") is the planet Mars, also called Kartikeya, inasmuch as he was borne by the Krittika, the Pleiades. The Mahabharata [n18 Mbh. 9-44-46 (Roy trans. vol. 7, pp. 130-43). It should be emphasized, aloud and strongly, that in Babylonian astronomy Mars is the only planetary representative of the Pleiades. See P. F. Gassmann, Planetarium Babylonicum (1950), p. 279: "In der Planetenvertretung kommt fur die Plejaden nur Mars in Frage."] insists on six as the number of the Pleiades as well as of the mothers of Skanda and gives a very broad and wild description of the birth and the installation of Kartikeya "by the assembled gods. . . as their generalissimo," which is shattering, somehow, driving home how little one understands as yet [n19 The least which can be said, assuredly: Mars was "installed" during a more or less close conjunction of all planets; in Mbh. 945 (p. 133) it is stressed that the powerful gods assembled "all poured water upon Skanda, even as the gods had poured water on the head of Varuna, the lord of waters, for investing him with dominion." And this "investiture" took place at the beginning of the Krita Yuga. the Golden Age.].

 

The nine mothers of Heimdal bring to mind inevitably the nine goddesses who turn the mill. The suspicion is not unfounded. Two of these "mothers," Gjalp and Greip, seem to appear with changed

 

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names or generations as Fenja and Menja [n20 For the names of these mothers, see Hyndluljod 38; for Gjalp and Greip, daughters of the giant Geirroed, see Snorri's Skaldskaparmal 2, and Thorsdrapa, broadly discussed by Rydberg (pp. 932-52), who established Greip as the mother of the "Sons of Ivalde." R. Much claims the identity of Geirroed with Surt ("Der germanische Himmelsgott," in Ablandlungen zur germanische Philologie [1898], p. 221). The turning up of a plurality of mothers in the ancient North, and in India (see also J. Pokorny, "Ein neun-monatiges Jahr im Keltischen," OLZ 21 [1918], pp. 130-33) might induce the experts eventually to reopen the trial of those perfectly nonsensical seven or nine, even fourteen, "motherwombs" which haunt the Babylonian account of the creation of man. (Cf. E. Ebeling, Tod und Leben [1931], pp. ] 72-77; E. A. Speiser (trans.), "Akkadian Myths and Epics," ANET, pp. 99f.; W. von Soden, Or. 26, pp. 309ff.)]. Rydberg claims Heimdal to be the son of Mundilfoeri. The story is then astronomical. Where does it lead? Thanks to the clues provided by Jacob Grimm, Rydberg and O. S. Reuter, and thanks to many hints hidden in the Rigveda, Atharva Veda and at other unexpected places, one can offer a probable conclusion: Heimdal stands for the world axis, the skambha. His head is the "measurer" (mjotudr) of the same measures that the Sibyl claims to understand: "Nine worlds I know, nine spaces of the measure-tree which is beyond (fyr) the earth." "Measure.-tree" is the translation of mjotvidr [n21 O. S. Reuter, Germanische Himmelskunde (1934), pp. 236, 319. As concerns mjotudr (measurer) and its connection with Sanskrit matar and with meter, mensar, etc., see Grimm, TM, pp. 22, 1290. Reuter (p. 236) quotes Lex. Poet. Boreale 408, where mjotudr = fate.] which so-called poetic versions usually render as "world tree." The word fyr appears here again; it connotes priority; in this verse 2 of Voluspa it is translated as "below" in most of the cases. The question "who measures what?" would require an extensive analysis; here, with no need for so many   details, it is important only to learn that Heimdal is honored by a second name, Hallinskidi (appenpix #16). This name is said to mean a bent, bowed or slanted stake or post. To be bent or inclined befits the world axis and all that belongs to it, with the one exception of the observer who stands exactly at the terrestrial North Pole. Why not call it "oblique" or slanting right away [n22 We have more of this mythological species of oblique posts or trees—e.g., the Rigvedic "sacrificial post"—and even Bears are not afraid to inhabit the one or the other. See F. G. Speck and J. Moses, The Celestial Bear Comes Down to Earth: The Bear Sacrifice Ceremony of the Munsee-Mohican in Canada (1945).]?

 

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Whether bent or oblique, Grimm rightly says that it is "worthy of remark that Hallinskidi and Heimdal are quoted among the names for the ram [n23 TM, p. 234. Rydberg (p. 593) spells it: "In the old Norse Poetry Vedr (wether, ram) Heimdal and the Heimdal epithet hallinskidi, are synonymous."]. Heimdal is the "watcher" of the much-trodden Bridge of the gods which finally breaks down at Ragnarok; his "head" measures the crossroads of ecliptic and equator at the vernal equinox in Aries [n24 A. Ohlmarks, Heimdalls Horn und Odins Auge (1937), p. 144, makes the god a he-goat. That would not be bad, either, if he is right, since Capella, alpha Aurigae, "capricious" all over, whether male or female, has the name "asar bar­dagi = Fight of the Aesir" (Reuter, p. 279). Of Auriga-Erichthonios we shall hear more in the future.], a constellation which is called "head" also by Cleomedes [n25 Instead of "head" (kephalos), Nonnos calls Aries mesomphalos, "midnavel," of Olympus.], and countless astromedical illustrations show the Ram ruling the head (Pisces the feet). Accordingly, one might say that the Sibyl addresses herself to "the high and low children of Aries."

 

Recalling Rigvedic Agni, son of seven to nine mothers like Heimdal, and remembering what has been said of "fire" that it means more understandable. Heimdal stands for the equinoctial colure

which "accompanies" the slowly turning, wholly abstract and invisible axis along the surface of the sphere. It will emerge presently that "axis" always means the whole "frame" of a world-age, given by the equinoctial and solstitial colures [n26 It should be remarked, that Snorri's identification (Gylf. 13) of the bridge Bifroest with the rainbow made scholars rush to rescue a definitely regular phenomenon from the hazardous existence which is allotted to a rainbow; they voted for the Milky Way instead. With this we are not likely to agree. See A. Ohlmarks, "Stellt die mythische Bifroest den Regenbogen oder die Milchstrasse dar?" Medd. Lunds Astron. Observ. (1941), ser. II, no. 110, and Reuter, p. 284, quoting additional literature.]. More understandable also becomes another epithet of Heimdal, namely, Vindler, of which Rydberg states (p. 595): "The name is a subform of vindill and comes from vinda, to twist or turn, wind, to turn anything around rapidly. As the epithet 'the turner' is given to that god who brought friction-fire (bore-fire) to man, and who is himself the personification of this fire, then it must be synonymous with 'the borer.'"

 

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The Sibyl's prophecy does not end with the catastrophes, but it moves from the tragic to the lydic mode, to sing of the dawning of the new age:

 

Now do I see

the Earth anew

Rise all green

from the waves again. . .

Then fields unsowed

bear ripened fruit

All ills grow better.

 

Even if that generation of gods has perished, the younger ones remain: Balder and Hoder, also the  two sons of Thor, and Vidar the son of Odin. The House of the Wise Vanir is not affected as a whole, even if Freyr fell in battle. As the Vanir belong to a past age, this crisis apparently does not concern them. There is in fact a certain perversely nightmarish or neurotic unreality about the tragedy as a whole. The Wolf's fetters were made of nothing but he was able to snap them only when the time came, when Odin and the Sun had to be devoured. The next instant, young Vidar kills the monster simply by thrusting his shoe down his throat (he has one shoe only, just like Jason). It is guilt and the ensuing chaos, more than actual forces, which dragged down the Establishment once the appointed time came, as decreed by fate and sounded on the Gjallarhorn.

 

What happens after (or happened, or will happen sometime, for this myth is written in the future tense), is told in the Voluspa, but it is also amplified in Snorri's Gylfaginning (53), a tale of a strange encounter of King Gylfi with the Aesir themselves disguised as men, who do not reveal their identity but are willing to answer questions: "What happens when the whole world has burned up, the gods are dead, and all of mankind is gone? You have said earlier, that each human being would go on living in this or that world." So it is, goes the answer, there are several worlds for the good and the bad. Then Gylfi asks: "Shall any gods be alive, and shall there be something of earth and heaven?" And the answer is::

 

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"The earth rises up from the sea again, and is green and beautiful and things grow without sowing. Vidar and Vali are alive, for neither the sea nor the flames of Surt have hurt them and they dwell on the Eddyfield, where once stood Asgard. There come also the sons of Thor, Modi and Magni, and bring along his hammer. There come also Balder and Hoder from the other world. All sit down and converse together. They rehearse their runes and talk of events of old days. Then they find in the grass the golden tablets that the Aesir once played with. Two children of men will also be found safe from the great flames of Surt. Their names, Lif and Lifthrasr, and they feed on the morning dew and from this human pair will come a great population which will fill the earth. And strange to say, the sun, before being devoured by Fenrir, will have borne a daughter, no less beautiful and going the same ways as her mother."

 

Then, all at once, concludes Snorri's tale wryly, a thunderous cracking was heard from all sides, and when the King looked again, he found himself on the open plain and the great hall had vanished.

 

The times and tenses are deliberately scrambled, but the statements, even if elliptical, are pregnant with ancient meaning. The rediscovery of the pieces of the game lying around in the grass, already told in the Voluspa, becomes clearer if one thinks of the Rigveda, where the gods themselves are said to go around like ayas, that is, casts of dice [27 RV 10.116.9; in 10,34.8, the dice are called vrata, i.e., an organized "gang" under a king; the king is Rudra.]. It becomes more understandable still when one considers that the name of the Indian world-ages (Yuga) has been taken from the idiom of dicing [n28 Krita, Treta, Dvapara, Kali, this last one being the worst cast (which the Greeks termed "dog"). See H. Luders, Das Wurfelspiel im alten Indien (1907), pp. 41, 63f.]. But both data could be dismissed as unrevealing were it forgotten that in several kinds of "proto-chess" –to use an expression of J. Needham—board games and dicing were combined: the number of eyes thrown by the dice determined the figure which was to be moved [n29 H. Luders, p. 69; see also S. Culin, Chess and Playing Cards (1898), p. 857.]. That this very rule was also valid for all the board games mentioned in the Voluspa, has been shown by A. G. van Hamel [n30 "The Game of the Gods," Arkiv fur Nordisk Filologi 50 _1934), p. 230.]. Thus, the dice forced the hands of the chess player—a 30 "The Game of the Gods," Arkiv fur Nordisk Filologi 50 _1934), p. 230.]. A game called "planetary battles" by the Indians, and in 16th-century Europe still termed "Celestial War, or

 

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Astrologer's Game," [n31 A. Bernhardi, "Vier Konige," BA 19 (1936), pp. 17If. See J. Needham, Science and Civilization in China, vol. 4, Pt. I: Physics (1962), p. 325, about a book on chess published in 1571 under the title Uranomachia seu Astrologorum Ludus.] whereas the Chinese chessboard shows the Milky Way dividing the two camps. Which goes to show that the Icelanders knew what they were talking about.

 

Finally, there is one remarkable and disturbing coincidence from the same direction. It is known that in the final battle of the gods, the massed legions on the side of "order" are the dead warriors, the "Einherier" who once fell in combat on earth and who have been transferred by the Valkyries to reside with Odin in Valhalla—a theme much rehearsed in heroic poetry. On the last day they issue forth to battle in martial array. Says the Grimnismal (23): "Five hundred gates and forty more are in the mighty building of Walhalla—eight hundred 'Einherier' come out of each one gate—on the time they go out on defence against the Wolf."

 

That makes 432,000 in all, a number of significance from of old. This number must have had a very ancient meaning, for it is also the number of syllables in the Rigveda. But it goes back to the basic figure 10,800, the number of stanzas in the Rigveda (40 syllables to a stanza) which, together with 108, occurs insistently in Indian tradition. 10,800 is also the number which has been given by Heraclitus for the duration of the Aion, according to Censorius (De die natali 18), whereas Berossos made. the Babylonian Great Year to last 432,000 years. Again, 10,800 is the number of bricks of the Indian fire-altar (Agnicayana) [n32 See J. Filliozat, "L'Inde et les echanges scientifiques dans l'antiqite," Cahiers d'histoire mondiale 1 (1953), pp. 358f.].

 

"To quibble away such a coincidence," remarks Schroder, "or to ascribe it to chance, is in my opinion to drive skepticism beyond its limits." [n33 F. R. Schroder, Altgermanische Kulturprobleme (1929), pp. 80f.]. Shall one add Angkor to the list? It has five gates, and to each of them leads a road, bridging over that water ditch which surrounds the whole place. Each of these roads is bordered by a row of huge stone figures, 108 per avenue, 54 on each side,: altogether 540 statues of Deva and Asura, and each row carries a huge Naga / 163 / serpent with nine heads. Only, they do not "carry" that serpent, they are shown to "pull" it, which indicates that these 540 statues are churning the Milky Ocean, represented (poorly, indeed) by the water ditch [n34 R. von Heine-Geldern, "Weltbild und Bauform in Siidostasien," in Wiener Beitriige zur Kunst- und Kulturgeschicte 4 (1930), pp. 41f.], using Mount Mandara as a churning staff, and Vasuki, the prince of the Nagas, as their drilling rope. (Just to prevent misunderstanding: Vasuki had been asked before, and had agreeably consented, and so had Vishnu's tortoise avatar, who "was going to serve as the fixed base for that "incomparably mighty churn," and even the Milky Ocean itself had made it clear that it was willing to be churned.) The whole of Angkor thus turns out to be a colossal model set up for "alternative motion" with true Hindu fantasy and incongruousness to counter the idea of a continuous one-way Precession from west to east.

 

Now there is a last paragraph in the Gylfaginning, which is usually considered an afterword, and its authorship is in doubt, for it is supposed that Snorri's Edda was completed by Olaf Hvitaskald (d. 1259), Snorri's nephew. In any case, this addition is somewhat out of the previous context, but it reinforces it:

 

The Aesir now sat down to talk, and held their counsel, and remembered all the tales that were told to Gylfi. They gave the very same names that had been named before to the men and places that were there. This they did for the reason that, when a long time had elapsed, men should not doubt that those to whom the same names were given, were all identical. There was one who is called Thor, and he is Asa-Thor, the old. He is Oeku-Thor (Chariot-Thor) and to him are ascribed the great deeds by Hektor in Troy.

 

As for the rebirth of the world, another "Twilight" comes to mind. It is in the Kumulipo, a Polynesian cosmogonic myth from Hawaii. "Although we have the source of all things from chaos, it is a chaos which is simply the wreck and ruin of an earlier world." [n35 R. B. Dixon, Oceanic Mythology (1910), p. 15.].

 

Now turns the swinging of time over on the burnt-out world

Back goes the great turning of things upwards again

As yet sunless the time of shrouded light; / 164 /

Unsteady, as in dim moon-shimmer,

From out Makalii's night-dark veil of cloud

Thrills, shadow-like, the prefiguration of the world to be.

 

[n36 A. Bastian, Die Heilige Sage der Polynesier (1881), pp. 69-121. Along with Roland B. Dixon, who translated the last three lines above, we have relied on the German of Bastian, who was an outstanding authority on Polynesian culture and language. Modern experts have their own way. M. Beckwith (Hawaiian Mythology [1940], p. 58) translates these lines thus: "At the time when the earth became hot/ At the time when the heavens turned about/At the time when the earth was darkened/To cause the moon to shine/The time of the rise of the Pleiades." As concerns Makalii (Maori: Matariki; Micronesian and Melaesian dialects spell it Makarika, and the like), it is the name for the Pleiades, although more often we come across the phrase "the net of Makalii" (the correct fom: Huihui-o­Matariki, i.e., the cluster of M.). The "person" Makalii, to whom, this net belongs, as well as a second one (see p. 175) which we have reason to take for the Hyades, remains in the dark. See E. Tregear, The Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary (1891) s.v. Matariki; N. B. Emerson, Unwritten Literature of Hawaii (1909), p. 17; M. W. Makemson, The Morning Star Rises: An Account of Polynesian Astronomy (1941), nos. 327, 380; Beckwith, p. 368; K. P. Emory, Tuamotuan Religious Structures and Ceremonies (1947), p. 61. For the Hyades and Pleiades as "celestial hunting nets" of the Chinese sphere, see G. Schlegel, L'Uranographie Chinoise (1875; repro 1967), pp. 365-70.]

 

So sang an Oceanian Empedocles long ago. The poem was drawn from very old royal tradition, just as Virgil had drawn his from the story of the Gens Julia, for the true original line of Hawaiian kings was supposed to come from Kane, the Demiurge God of the Pacific

 

 

CITY OF REVELATION

John Michell 1972

Page 77

CHAPTER SEVEN

3168, The Perimeter of the Temple

"If the numbers of the sacred principles, mentioned by St John in connection with the New Jerusalem, are obtained from the Greek text by the cabalistic method of gematria, it is found that they correspond to the dimensions of the city, set out in Fig 16. (Figure omitted) For example, the perimeter of a hexagon contained within the circle representing the earth, 7920 feet in diameter, measures 2376 feet, and 2376 is the number of (Greek text omitted), the twelve apostles of the Lamb (Revelation 21.14). 2376 x 2 feet is equal to 1746 MY, and 1745 = (Greek text omitted), the twelve apostles. The names of the apostles are said to be in the twelve foundations of the wall of the city. The wall is the circle of diameter 7920 feet and 14,400 cubits in circumference, and the foundations are the twelve corners of the double hexagon inscribed within it, fonowing the customary pattern of an astrological chart. The position of the twelve apostles in the scheme is thus clearly defined.
Of all the canonical numbers the most notable is 3168. The New Jerusalem measures 48,000 furlongs or 31,680,000 feet round the perimeter of its four sides; the mean perimeter of the Stonehenge sarsen circle is 316.8 feet; the perimeter of the square 12 hides of Glastonbury is 31,680 feet; the significance of 31,680 in the canon of cosmology is illustrated in Fig.11, and we shall also find this number set round the border of Plato's mystical city, described in Laws.
Obviously the number 3168 had an important symbolic meaning, the Christian interpretation of which is provided in New Testament
gematria. The most sacred name of Christianity is (Greek text omitted);
(Greek text omitted), Lord Jesus Christ, and the number of these three words together is 3168. (Greek text omitted) is an astrological term meaning the ruler or dominant influence.
Another sacred phrase from the New Testament, (Greek text omitted) the Power of Christ (2 Corinthians 12.9) has the value 3168 if the alternative spelling of Christos, (Greek text omitted) is adopted.

Page 78

The perimeter of the temple is 3168, Lord Jesus Christ, when the temple is measured by the foot, the most sacred unit of ancient metrology. In terms of the megalithic yard (2.72 feet), however, the perimeter measures 1164, because 3168 feet = 1164 MY. Yet this makes no difference to the symbolic interpretation by gematria, for 1164 is the number of another name of Christ, (Greek text omitted) Son of God.

As a geodetic or earth-measuring number, 3168 also demonstrates the antiquity and sacred origin of British metrology, for
31,680 inches = half a mile

31,680 ft. = 6 miles.

31,680 furlongs = 3960 miles = radius of the earth.

31,680 miles = perimeter of square containing the terrestrial sphere.

31,680 miles = circumference of circle drawn on the combined diameters of the earth and moon (10,080 miles)

Other cosmological correspondences of 3168 are given on page 109.

The Stonehenge sarsen circle with circumference of 316.8 feet
contains an area of 888 square yards, 888 being the number of Jesus, which is equal to 1080 square MY. The circle contained within a square of perimeter 316.8 feet, corresponding to the bluestone circle at Stonehenge, has an area of 666 square MY. Thus the two stone circles at Stonehenge have areas of 1080 and 666 square MY, these two numbers representing the opposite poles of lunar and solar or negative and positive energy.
The number 144 or 122 is characteristic of the New Jerusalem scheme, and 3168 demonstrates the value of (pi symbol 22/7 omitted) in terms of this number, for 144 x 7 = 1008 and 144 x 22 = 3168.

3168 in Plato's city
A remarkable use of the number 3168 occurs in Plato's account in Book V of.Laws of the mystical dimensions of the perfect city. Throughout his work Plato makes guarded reference to a secret canon of numbers that applies universally to every aspect of human life and activity, including government, astronomy, acoustics, kinetics, plane and solid geometry and divination. Linear measurements, areas and volumes are obviously incommensurable, but Plato declares that there are certain numbers that link these with each other and with all phenomena capable of being measured. As an example of these numbers, the study of which Plato recommends as the most sanctifying of all pursuits, he gives 5040. This is the ideal number of citizens in the state and serves other purposes in con­/ Page 79 / nection with the framing of laws and standards. The reason why it is most suitable for all matters of division is that for its size it has the greatest number of divisors, 60 in all, including the entire decad, the numbers 1 - 10. Another property of the number 5040 is that it is the radius of a circle with circumference 31,680. Further examina­tion of the numerical foundations of Plato's state shows that the scheme to which he refers is the ancient plan of the cosmic temple.
The lawgivers in Plato's state are reminded that the perfect human society would be one in which all possessions, wives, children, land and chattels were held in common, where all the citizens were of one mind and acted together so harmoniously that it were as if eyes, ears and hands were also common property. To keep this ideal alive is the function of the prophet. Human nature and conditioning, however, demand a more practical alternative, 'very near to the first in immortality and second to it in merit'. This is provided in Laws V.
Plato's state is arranged in a manner that can scarcely be under­stood literally, and is obviously intended, like the New Jerusalem, as a geometer's allegory. The land is all divided into twelve parts, each dedicated to one of the twelve gods and populated by one of the twelve tribes of the 5040 households. The city is similarly divided, forming a microcosm of the state as a whole. In the centre of the city is the acropolis and 'from this centre he must divide up the city itself and the whole country into twelve parts. The twelve parts must be equalised by making those of good land small and those of inferior land greater. He must mark off 5040 allotments, and each of these he must cut in two and join two pieces to form the allotments, so that each contains a near piece and a distant piece - joining the piece next to the city with the piece furthest off, the second nearest with the second furthest, and so on with the rest.'
The only way in which this division can be represented is by a circle of radius 5040, a hundred times larger than that of Stonehenge measured in feet; the perimeter of this circle is 31 ,680. In Fig. 24 (Figure 24 omitted) the radius of the circle should be divided equally into 5040 parts to produce 5040 concentric circles. These are bisected into 10,080 semi­circles by the diameter and positioned out in Plato's manner into 5040 double allotments, each of equal area.
In this scheme 31,680 is not only the circumference of the circular state, but also the area of each of its 2520 pairs of rings, proving Plato's assertion that linear and area pleasurements can be made / Page 80 / (Figure 24 omitted) commensurable by number. The entire circle is divided into two halves, each containing 39,916,800 square units of land. These numbers, which are inherent in the New Jerusalem scheme, have the following significance:
31,680 is divisible by all the numbers1-12 with the exception of 7

5040 = 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7

39,916,800 = 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 x.10 x 11

5040, the radius of the circular city, is the product of the numbers1 - 7; 7920, the side of the square city, is the product of numbers 8 - 11. In each case the perimeter of the city is 31,680. In Plato's Republic is the famous, cryptic reference to the 'marriage number', which should be consulted by the guardians of the state in all matters relating to the seasonal union of male and female. There appear to be two numbers involved, adding up to a third, but the riddle is so obscure that no firm solution has been reached despite the vast literature on the subject. For various reasons the number 12,960,000 or 36002 is most commonly proposed, and this would seem appropriate, for 12,960 = 5040 + 7920. 12,960 therefore represents the union of square and circle, symbol of the sacred marriage, and the gematria is also appropriate, for 1296 = (Greek text omitted) Mary mother of Jesus.

FIGURE 24 (Figure omitted) Plato's city divided into 5040 rings, Perimeter = 31,680, Areas: A + a = B + b = C + c = 31,680.

 

-
FIFTY FOUR
-
-
-
1
F
6
6
6
1
I
9
9
9
1
F
6
6
6
2
TY
45
9
9
1
F
6
6
6
2
OUR
54
18
9
9
FIFTY FOUR
126
54
45
-
-
1+2+6
5+4
4+5
9
FIFTY FOUR
9
9
9

Page 78

Plato declares that there are certain numbers that link these with each other and with all phenomena capable of being measured. As an example of these numbers, the study of which Plato recommends as the most sanctifying of all pursuits, he gives 5040.

 

-
FIFTY FOUR
-
-
-
1
F
6
6
6
1
I
9
9
9
1
F
6
6
6
2
TY
45
9
9
1
F
6
6
6
2
OU
36
9
9
1
R
18
9
9
9
FIFTY FOUR
126
54
45
-
-
1+2+6
5+4
4+5
9
FIFTY FOUR
9
9
9

 

 

--
9
F
I
F
T
Y
--
F
O
U
R
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
6
-
-
+
=
15
1+5
=
6
=
6
=
6
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
15
-
-
+
=
24
2+4
=
6
-
6
=
6
--
9
F
I
F
T
Y
--
F
O
U
R
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
-
6
2
7
-
6
-
3
9
+
=
39
3+9
=
12
1+2
3
=
3
-
-
6
-
6
20
25
-
6
-
21
18
+
=
102
1+0+2
=
3
-
3
=
3
--
9
F
I
F
T
Y
--
F
O
U
R
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
9
6
20
25
-
6
15
21
18
+
=
126
1+2+6
=
9
=
9
=
9
-
-
6
9
6
2
7
-
6
6
3
9
+
=
54
5+4
=
9
=
9
=
9
-
9
F
I
F
T
Y
-
F
O
U
R
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
ONE
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
2
-
--
-
--
 
-
-
-
2
occurs
x
1
=
2
=
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
3
-
-
-
3
occurs
x
1
=
3
=
3
4
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
4
FOUR
4
-
-
-
-
-
5
-
-
-
-
-
-
--
-
--
-
-
-
-
5
FIVE
5
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
-
6
-
-
-
6
6
-
-
-
-
6
occurs
x
4
=
24
2+4
6
-
-
-
-
-
-
7
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
7
occurs
x
1
=
7
=
7
8
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
8
EIGHT
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
9
occurs
x
2
=
18
1+8
9
18
9
F
I
F
T
Y
-
F
O
U
R
-
-
27
-
-
9
-
54
-
27
1+8
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
2+7
-
-
-
-
5+4
-
2+7
9
9
F
I
F
T
Y
-
F
O
U
R
-
-
9
-
-
9
-
9
-
9
-
-
6
9
6
2
7
-
6
6
3
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
9
F
I
F
T
Y
-
F
O
U
R
-
-
9
-
-
9
-
9
-
9

 

 

9
F
I
F
T
Y
--
F
O
U
R
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
6
-
-
+
=
15
1+5
=
6
=
6
=
6
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
15
-
-
+
=
24
2+4
=
6
-
6
=
6
9
F
I
F
T
Y
--
F
O
U
R
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
-
6
2
7
-
6
-
3
9
+
=
39
3+9
=
12
1+2
3
=
3
-
6
-
6
20
25
-
6
-
21
18
+
=
102
1+0+2
=
3
-
3
=
3
9
F
I
F
T
Y
--
F
O
U
R
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
9
6
20
25
-
6
15
21
18
+
=
126
1+2+6
=
9
=
9
=
9
-
6
9
6
2
7
-
6
6
3
9
+
=
54
5+4
=
9
=
9
=
9
9
F
I
F
T
Y
-
F
O
U
R
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
2
-
--
-
--
 
-
-
-
2
occurs
x
1
=
2
=
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
3
-
-
-
3
occurs
x
1
=
3
=
3
-
6
-
6
-
-
-
6
6
-
-
-
-
6
occurs
x
4
=
24
2+4
6
-
-
-
-
-
7
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
7
occurs
x
1
=
7
=
7
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
9
occurs
x
2
=
18
1+8
9
9
F
I
F
T
Y
-
F
O
U
R
-
-
27
-
-
9
-
54
-
27
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
2+7
-
-
-
-
5+4
-
2+7
9
F
I
F
T
Y
-
F
O
U
R
-
-
9
-
-
9
-
9
-
9
-
6
9
6
2
7
-
6
6
3
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
F
I
F
T
Y
-
F
O
U
R
-
-
9
-
-
9
-
9
-
9

 

 

2
FIFTY FOUR
126
54
9
1
FORTYFIVE
126
54
9

 

 

1
I
9
9
9
4
PLAY
54
18
9
5
PLATO
64
19
1
5
CHESS
54
18
9

 

 

9
FIFTY FOUR
126
54
9

 

 

2
FIFTY FOUR
126
54
9
1
FORTYFIVE
126
54
9

 

 

-
FIVE FOUR NINE
-
-
-
1
F
6
6
6
1
I
9
9
9
2
VE
9
9
9
1
F
6
6
6
2
OU
36
9
9
1
R
18
9
9
1
N
14
5
5
1
I
9
9
9
1
N
14
5
5
1
E
5
5
5
12
FIVE FOUR NINE
144
72
72
1+2
-
1+4+4
7+2
7+2
3
FIVE FOUR NINE
9
9
9

 

 

-
FIVE FOUR NINE
-
-
-
1
F
6
6
6
1
I
9
9
9
2
VE
9
9
9
1
F
6
6
6
2
OU
36
9
9
1
R
18
9
9
1
NINE
42
24
6
12
FIVE FOUR NINE
144
72
72
1+2
-
1+4+4
7+2
7+2
3
FIVE FOUR NINE
9
9
9

 

 

-
FIVE FOUR NINE
-
-
-
1
F
6
6
6
2
IVE
36
18
9
1
F
6
6
6
2
OUR
54
18
9
1
NINE
42
24
6
12
FIVE FOUR NINE
144
72
72
1+2
-
1+4+4
7+2
7+2
3
FIVE FOUR NINE
9
9
9

 

 

-
FIVE FOUR NINE
-
-
-
1
FIVE
42
24
6
1
FOUR
60
24
6
1
NINE
42
24
6
12
FIVE FOUR NINE
144
72
72
1+2
-
1+4+4
7+2
7+2
3
FIVE FOUR NINE
9
9
9

 

 

-
12
F
I
V
E
-
F
O
U
R
-
N
I
N
E
-
-
-
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
6
-
-
-
5
9
5
-
+
=
34
3+4
=
7
=
7
=
7
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
15
-
-
-
14
9
14
-
+
=
61
6+1
=
7
=
7
=
7
-
12
F
I
V
E
-
F
O
U
R
-
N
I
N
E
-
-
-
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
-
4
5
-
6
-
3
9
-
-
-
-
5
+
=
38
3+8
=
11
1+1
2
=
2
-
-`
6
-
22
5
-
6
-
21
18
-
-
-
-
5
+
=
83
8+3
=
11
1+1
2
=
2
-
12
F
I
V
E
-
F
O
U
R
-
N
I
N
E
-
-
-
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
9
22
5
-
6
6
21
18
-
14
9
14
5
+
=
144
1+4+4
=
9
=
9
=
9
-
-
6
9
4
5
-
6
6
3
9
-
5
9
5
5
+
=
72
7+2
=
9
=
9
=
9
-
12
F
I
V
E
-
F
O
U
R
-
N
I
N
E
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
ONE
1
-
-
-
-
-
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
2
TWO
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
3
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
3
occurs
x
1
=
3
=
3
-
--
-
-
4
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
4
occurs
x
1
=
4
=
4
-
-
-
-
-
5
-
-
-
-
-
-
5
-
5
5
-
-
5
occurs
x
4
=
20
2+0
2
-
-
6
-
-
-
-
6
6
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
occurs
x
3
=
18
1+8
9
7
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
7
SEVEN
7
-
-
-
-
-
8
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
8
EIGHT
7
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
9
occurs
x
3
=
27
2+7
9
18
12
F
I
V
E
-
F
O
U
R
-
N
I
N
E
-
-
27
-
-
12
-
72
-
27
1+8
1+2
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
2+7
-
-
1+2
-
7+2
-
2+7
9
3
F
I
V
E
-
F
O
U
R
-
N
I
N
E
-
-
9
-
-
3
-
9
-
9

 

 

12
F
I
V
E
-
F
O
U
R
-
N
I
N
E
-
-
-
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
6
-
-
-
5
9
5
-
+
=
34
3+4
=
7
=
7
=
7
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
15
-
-
-
14
9
14
-
+
=
61
6+1
=
7
=
7
=
7
12
F
I
V
E
-
F
O
U
R
-
N
I
N
E
-
-
-
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
6
-
4
5
-
6
-
3
9
-
-
-
-
5
+
=
38
3+8
=
11
1+1
2
=
2
-`
6
-
22
5
-
6
-
21
18
-
-
-
-
5
+
=
83
8+3
=
11
1+1
2
=
2
12
F
I
V
E
-
F
O
U
R
-
N
I
N
E
-
-
-
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
6
9
22
5
-
6
6
21
18
-
14
9
14
5
+
=
144
1+4+4
=
9
=
9
=
9
-
6
9
4
5
-
6
6
3
9
-
5
9
5
5
+
=
72
7+2
=
9
=
9
=
9
12
F
I
V
E
-
F
O
U
R
-
N
I
N
E
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
3
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
3
occurs
x
1
=
3
=
3
--
-
-
4
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
4
occurs
x
1
=
4
=
4
-
-
-
-
5
-
-
-
-
-
-
5
-
5
5
-
-
5
occurs
x
4
=
20
2+0
2
-
6
-
-
-
-
6
6
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
occurs
x
3
=
18
1+8
9
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
9
occurs
x
3
=
27
2+7
9
12
F
I
V
E
-
F
O
U
R
-
N
I
N
E
-
-
27
-
-
12
-
72
-
27
1+2
-
9
-
-
-
-
-
-
9
-
-
9
-
-
-
-
2+7
-
-
1+2
-
7+2
-
2+7
3
F
I
V
E
-
F
O
U
R
-
N
I
N
E
-
-
9
-
-
3
-
9
-
9

 

 

DOES GOD PLAY DICE

THE NEW MATHEMATICS OF CHAOS

Ian Stewart 1989

Page 1

PROLOGUE

CLOCKWORK OR CHAOS?

"YOU BELIEVE IN A GOD WHO PLAYS DICE, AND I IN COMPLETE LAW AND ORDER."

Albert Einstein, Letter to Max Born

 

 

 

 

.

 
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