Chariots of the Gods (8 page)

If we think in this way and ask questions like this, it need not mean that we are irreligious. I myself am quite convinced that when the last question about our past has been given a genuine and convincing answer SOMETHING, that I call GOD for want of a better name, will remain for eternity.

Yet the hypothesis that the unimaginable god needed vehicles with wheels and wings to move from place to place, mated with primitive people and dared not to let his mask fall remains an outrageous piece of presumption, as long as it is unsupported by proof. The theologians' answer that God is wise and that we cannot imagine in what way he shows himself and makes his people humble is really dodging our question and is unsatisfactory for that reason. People would like to close their eyes to new realities, too. But the future gnaws away at our past day after day. In about twelve years the first men will land on Mars. If there is a single, ancient, long abandoned edifice there, if there is a single object indicating earlier intelligence, if there is one still recognisable rock drawing to be found, then these finds will shake the foundations of our religions and throw our past into confusion. One single discovery of this kind will cause the greatest revolution and reformation in the history of mankind.

In view of the inevitable confrontation with the future, would it not be more intelligent to use new imaginative ideas when conjuring up our past? Without being unbelieving, we can no longer afford to be credulous. Every religion has an outline, a schema, of its god; it is constrained to think and believe within the framework of this outline. Meanwhile, with the space age, the intellectual Day of Judgment comes ever nearer. The theological clouds will evaporate, scattered like shreds of mist. With the decisive step into the universe we shall have to recognise that there are not two million gods, not twenty thousand sects or ten great religions, but only one.

But let us continue to build on to our hypothesis of the Utopian past of humanity. This is the picture so far:

Dim as yet undefinable ages ago an unknown space-ship discovered our planet. The crew of the space-ship soon found out that the earth had all the prerequisites for intelligent life to develop. Obviously the 'man' of those times was no homo sapiens, but something rather different. The space men artificially fertilised some female members of this species, put them into a deep sleep, so ancient legends say, and departed. Thousands of years later the space travellers returned and found scattered specimens of the genus homo sapiens. They repeated their breeding experiment several times until finally they produced a creature intelligent enough to have the rules of society imparted to it. The people of that age were still barbaric. Because there was a danger that they might retrogress and mate with animals again, the space travellers destroyed the unsuccessful specimens or took them with them to settle them on other continents. The first communities and the first skills came into being; rock faces and cave walls were painted, pottery was discovered and the first attempts at architecture made.

These first men had tremendous respect for the space travellers. Because they came from somewhere absolutely unknown and then returned there again, they were the 'gods' to them. For some mysterious reason the 'gods' were interested in passing on their intelligence. They took care of the creatures they bred; they wanted to protect them from corruption and preserve them from evil. They wanted to ensure that their community developed constructively. They wiped out the freaks and saw to it that the remainder received the basic requirements for a society capable of development.

Admittedly this speculation is still full of holes. I shall be told that proofs are lacking. The future will show how many of those holes can be filled in. This book puts forward a hypothesis made up of many speculations, therefore the hypothesis must not be 'true'. Yet when I compare it with the theories enabling many religions to live unassailed in the shelter of their taboos, I should like to attribute a minimal percentage of probability to my hypothesis.

Perhaps it will do some good to say a few words about the 'truth'. Anyone who believes in a religion and has never been under attack is convinced that he has the 'truth'. That applies not only to Christians, but also to the members of other religious communities, both large and small. Theosophists, theologists and philosophers have reflected about their teaching, about their master and his teaching; they are convinced that they have found the 'truth'. Naturally every religion has its history, its promises made by God, its covenants with God, its prophets and wise teachers who have said ... Proofs of the 'truth' always start from the centre of one's own religion and work outwards. The result is a biased way of thinking which we are brought up to accept from childhood. Nevertheless generations lived and still do live in the conviction that they possess the 'truth'.

Somewhat more modestly, I claim that we cannot possess the 'truth'. At best we can believe in it. Anyone who really seeks the truth cannot and ought not to seek it under the aegis and within the confines of his own religion. If he does so, is not insincerity godfather to a matter which demands the greatest integrity? What is the purpose and goal of life after all? To believe in the 'truth' or to seek it?

Even if Old Testament facts can be proved archaeologically in Mesopotamia, those varified facts are still no proof of the religion concerned. If ancient cities, villages, wells and inscriptions are dug up in a particular area, the finds show that the history of the people lived there is an actual fact. But they do not prove that the God of that people was the one and only god (and not a space traveller).

Today excavations all over the world show that traditions tally with the facts. But would it occur to a single Christian to recognise the god of the pre-Inca culture as the genuine god as the results of excavations in Peru? Quite simply what I mean is that everything, both myth and actual experience, makes up the history of a people. No more. But even that, I claim, is quite a lot.

So anyone who really seeks truth cannot ignore new and bold and as yet unproved points of view simply because they do not fit into his scheme of thought (or belief). Since the question of space travel did not arise a hundred years ago, our fathers and grandfathers could not reasonably have had thoughts about whether our ancestors had visits from the universe. Let us just venture the frightful, but unfortunately possible idea that our present-day civilisation was entirely destroyed in an H-bomb war. Five thousand years later archaeologists would find fragments of the Statue of Liberty in New York. According to our present-day way of thinking they would be bound to assert that they were dealing with an unknown divinity, probably a fire god (because of the torch) or a sun god (because of the rays round the statue's head). They would never dare to say that it was a perfectly simple artefact, namely a statue of liberty.

It is no longer possible to block the roads to the past with dogmas.

If we want to set out on the arduous search for the truth, we must all summon up the courage to leave the lines along which we have thought until now and as the first step begin to doubt everything that we previously accepted as correct and true. Can we still afford to close our eyes and stop up our ears because new ideas are supposed to be heretical and absurd?

After all, the idea of a landing on the moon was absurd fifty years ago.

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According to my previous observations there were things in antiquity that should not have existed according to current ideas. But my collector's zeal is by no means exhausted with the finds already accumulated.

Why? Because the mythology of the Eskimos also says that the first tribes were brought to the north by 'gods' with brazen wings! And the oldest Red Indian sagas mentioned a thunderbird who introduced fire and fruit to them. Lastly, the Mayan legend, the Popol Vuh, tells us that the 'gods' were able to recognise everything: the universe, the four cardinal points of the compass and even the round shape of the earth.

What are the Eskimos doing talking about metal birds? Why do the Red Indians mention a thunderbird? How are the ancestors of the Mayas supposed to have known that the earth is round?

The Mayas were intelligent; they had a highly developed culture. They left behind not only a fabulous calendar, but also incredible calculations. They knew the Venusian year of 584 days and estimated the duration of the terrestrial years at 365.2420 days. (The exact calculation today: 365.2422!) The Mayas left behind them calculations to last for 64 million years. Later inscriptions dealt in units which probably approach 400 million years. The famous Venusian formula could quite plausibly have been calculated by an electronic brain. At all events, it is difficult to believe that it originated from a jungle people. The Venusian formula of the Mayas runs as follows:

The Tzolkin has 260, the terrestrial year 365 and the Venusian year 584 days. These figures conceal the possibility of an astonishing division sum. 365 is divisible by 73 five rimes, and 584 eight times. So the incredible formula takes this form:

(Moon)-20 x 13 x 2 x 73 = 260 x 2 x 73 = 37,960

(Sun)-8x13x5x73=104x5x73=37,960

(Venus)-5x13x8x73= 65x8x73 = 37,960

In other words all the cycles coincide after 37,960 days. Mayan mythology claimed that then the 'gods' would come to the great resting place.

The religious legends of the pre-Inca peoples say that the stars were inhabited and that the 'gods' came down to them from the constellation of the Pleiades. Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Egyptian cuneiform inscriptions constantly present the same picture: 'gods' came from the stars and went back to them, they travelled through the heavens in fireships or boats, possessed terrifying weapons and promised immortality to individual men.

It was, of course, perfectly natural for the ancient peoples to seek their gods in the sky and also to give their imagination full rein when describing the magnificence of these incomprehensible apparitions. Yet even if all that is accepted, there are still too many anomalies left.

For example, how did the chronicler of the Mahabharata know that a weapon capable of punishing a country with a twelve years' drought could exist? And powerful enough to kill the unborn in their mothers' wombs? This ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata, is more comprehensive than the Bible and even at a conservative estimate its original core is at least 5,000 years old. It is well worthwhile reading this epic in the light of present-day knowledge.

We shall not be very surprised when we learn in the Ramayana that Vimanas, i.e. flying machines, navigated at great heights with the aid of quicksilver and a great propulsive wind. The Vimanas could cover vast distances and could travel forwards, upwards and downwards. Enviably manoeuvrable space vehicles! This quotation comes from the translation by N. Dutt, 1891:

'At Rama's behest the magnificent chariot rose up to a mountain of cloud with a tremendous din ...'

We cannot help noticing that not only is a flying object mentioned again, but also that the chronicler talks of a tremendous din. Here is another passage from the Mahabharata:

'Bhima flew with his Vimana on an enormous ray which was as brilliant as the sun and made a noise like the thunder of a storm.' (C. Roy, 1889.)

Even imagination needs something to start it off. How can the chronicler give descriptions that presuppose at least some idea of rockets and the knowledge that such a vehicle can ride on a ray and cause a terrifying thunder?

In the Samsaptakabadha a distinction is made between chariots that fly and those that cannot fly. The first book of the Mahabharata reveals the intimate history of the unmarried Kunti, who not only received a visit from the Sun God, but also had a son by him, a son who is supposed to have been as radiant as the sun itself. As Kunti was afraid—even in those days—of falling into disgrace, she laid the child in a little basket and put it in a river. Adhirata, a worthy man of the Suta cast, fished basket and child out of the water and brought up the infant

Really a story that is hardly worth mentioning if it were not so remarkably like the story of Moses! And, of course, there is yet another reference to the fertilisation of humans by gods. Like Gilgamesh, Aryuna, the hero of the Mahabharata, undertakes a long journey in order to seek the gods and ask them for weapons. And when Aryuna has found the gods after many perils, Indra, the lord of heaven, with his wife Sachi beside him, grants him a very exclusive audience. The two of them do not meet the valiant Aryuna just anywhere. They meet him in a heavenly war-chariot and even invite him to travel in the sky with them.

There are numerical data in the Mahabharata that are so precise that one gets the impression that the author was writing from first-hand knowledge. Full of repulsion, he describes a weapon that could kill all warriors who wore metal on their bodies. If the warriors learnt about the effect of this weapon in time, they tore off all the metal equipment they were wearing, jumped into a river and washed themselves and everything that they had come into contact with very thoroughly. Not without reason, as the author explains, for the weapon made the hair and nails fall out. Everything living, he bemoaned, became pale and weak.

In the eighth book we meet Indra in his heavenly jet chariot again. Out of the whole of mankind he has chosen Yudhisthira as the only one who may enter heaven in his mortal frame. Here, too, the parallel with the stories of Enoch and Elijah cannot be overlooked.

In the same book, in what is perhaps the first account of the dropping of an H bomb, it says that Gurkha loosed a single projectile on the triple city from a mighty Vimana. The narrative uses words which linger in our memories from eye-witness accounts of the detonation of the first hydrogen bomb at Bikini: white-hot smoke, a thousand times brighter than the sun, rose up in infinite brilliance and reduced the city to ashes. When Gurkha landed again, his vehicle was like a flashing block of antimony. And for the benefit of the philosophers I should mention that the Mahabharata says that time is the seed of the universe.