Chapter Two
“On the mountainside Anzu and Ninurta met …Clouds of death rained down, an arrow flashed lightning. Whizzed the battle force roared between them.
“Anzu Epic,” tablet 2, in S. Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia (Oxford - New York, 1989), p. 21.
CHAPTER TWO
MYSTERIES OF THE COSMIC THUNDERBOLT
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If Anthony Peratt’s conclusions are correct, then only a few thousand years ago the terrestrial sky was ablaze with electrical activity.
The ramifications of this possibility will directly affect our understanding of cultural roots. What was the impact of the recorded events on the first civilizations? What was the relationship to the origins of world mythology, to the birth of the early religions, or to monumental construction in ancient times?
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The relatively sudden appearance of the rock art themes discussed in the previous chapter interrupted an earlier phase in the evolution of artistic expression. In the remote Paleolithic epoch, we see remarkable human skill in repre- senting the natural world. Many observers have marveled at the realism of primitive depictions on the walls of caves in Europe and elsewhere, showing antelope and bison and other animal and plant forms, with great attention to natural detail. Many of the most impressive examples are conven- tionally dated around twenty to thirty thousand years ago.
Later, however, in close connection to the beginnings of civilization, we observe an explosion of human energy devoted to the utterly fantastic: cosmic serpents and drag- ons, winged bulls in the sky, mountains, towers, and stair- ways reaching to the center of heaven, “sun” disks with heaven-spanning wings, cosmic “ships” sailing about the sky. In fact, most researchers have grown so used to these preposterous images that only rarely do they pause to notice
the enigma. How did it happen that human consciousness shifted from artistic accuracy and natural representation in the more “prim- itive” (Paleolithic) stage, to such bold “defiance of nature” in a later (Neolithic) stage? From any conventional vantage point, a collapse of artistic “skill” also occurred.
But now, there is reason to believe that rock art can illuminate a critical turn in human history. Before the work of Peratt, many of the petroglyphs appeared to be little more than “stick figures” with
UPPER: Paleolithic cave painting of a horse, Lascaux, France.
LOWER: Images such as these carved on stone in the southwest- ern U.S., accent the enigma: the task of chiseling such images required an immense investment of human time and energy, yet the forms appear to be little more than doodling. Plasma physics will tell us otherwise, however.
"Hercules Battling Achelous," the Louvre, Paris, France.
preposterous attributes, all easily dismissed as random “hallucina- tion” or “doodling.” Peratt’s work assures us that the basic forms have a direct explanation in plasma science.
There is also a provable connection to the evolution of mythical archetypes. Archaic rock art depictions came first, but were fol- lowed by an outpouring of conceptual elaborations, as ancient art- ists gave imaginative expression to the celestial forms and events that inspired the myth-making epoch. Both the rock artists and the myth-makers had true perils on their minds. The rock artists recorded and the myth-makers interpreted electrical events in the sky, as plasma discharge sequences moved through discrete phases, some of celestial beauty, others intensely violent and terrifying.
Our world was once a vastly different place—that is the mes- sage written on stone and concealed within the archetypes of world mythology. It is only necessary that we see past the imaginative expressions to the events behind them. What were the events that provoked an explosion of human imagination prior to the rise of civilization? All of the archetypes are, in fact, extraordinary. And not one, when traced to its roots, answers to familiar events in our sky today.
The Dragon, the Hero, and the Thunderbolt
As if speaking with a single voice, ancient cultures declare that fantastic beasts once roamed the heavens and the gods went to war. In the story’s most common form, the upheaval began when a great serpent or dragon attacked the world, bringing darkness and univer- sal devastation. A legendary warrior then set out to engage the mon- ster in direct combat. The battle raged amid earthquake, fire, wind, and falling stone, and it appeared that all would be lost. Then the hero’s magical weapon, fashioned by gods or divine assistants, flew between the combatants, turning the tide of battle and vanquishing the monster.
From this encounter, the ancestral warrior earned his title as "hero." He defeated chaos and saved the world from catastrophe. But how did the divine weapon accomplish this feat? The storytell- ers’ own words and symbols, when traced to root meanings, make clear that the hero’s weapon was no ordinary sword, arrow, or club. It was a thunderbolt—and not the familiar lightning of a regional storm, but a bolt of cosmic dimensions. Though this original iden- tity may not be apparent in many of the later versions of the story, it can be confirmed through cross-cultural comparison, with closest attention to the memory’s more archaic forms. When the great civi- lizations of the ancient world arose, the dragon, the hero, and the cosmic thunderbolt already dominated human consciousness.
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The Great Serpent Typhon
Greek poets, historians, and philosophers often spoke of the great dragon Typhon, Typhaon, or Typhoeus whose attack nearly destroyed the world.1
Our oldest source for the Typhon story is Hesiod, whose account is tentatively dated to the eighth century B.C. In his Theog- ony, "The Origins of the Gods," Hesiod sets the stage against a backdrop of cosmic turmoil in the formative phase of earth history. Typhon was the child of Gaea and Tartarus, conceived after Zeus had driven from heaven the former rulers of the sky, the Titans. At birth, the monster sprouted a hundred snake heads spitting fire and venom, their whistles, roars and bellows, and every sort of horrible sound shaking heaven to its foundations.
Without the intervention of Zeus, the poet says, the great dragon would have become the master of gods and of mortals. To meet the monster, Zeus rose with a clap of thunder. Then "the earth groaned beneath him, and the heat and blaze from both of them were on the dark-faced sea, from the thunder and lightning of Zeus and from the flame of the monster, from his blazing bolts and from the scorch and breath of his stormwinds."2
The power of Zeus lay in his lightning-weapons:
…Seizing his weapons, thunder, lightning, and the glowering thun- derbolt, he made a leap from Olympos, and struck, setting fire to all those wonderful heads set about on the dreaded monster. Then, when Zeus had put him down with his strokes, Typhon crashed crippled, and the gigantic earth groaned beneath him, and the flame from the great lord so thunder-smitten ran out… and a great part of the gigan- tic earth burned in the wonderful wind of his heat… and melted in the flash of the blazing fire.
Over the centuries scholars have wondered what natural experi- ence could have provoked tales of an earth-threatening event in which the agent of destruction is a serpent or dragon. Was the story a fabulous echo of ancestral confrontations, when early races strug-
gled to subdue creatures of the desert or swamp?3 Or did the story
capture, in the archaic language of myth, a traumatic event—per- haps an eruption from a nearby volcano, or a hurricane or tornado?4
Some have suggested that the Greek memory of Typhon points to a particularly frightful comet approaching the earth.5 The ancient
Roman scholar Pliny mentions the appearance of a "terrible comet" or a "ball of fire" during the reign of a legendary Egyptian king named Typhon.6
But these naturalistic speculations take the ancient stories one at a time, in isolation, and too frequently disregard the parallels within and between cultures. Hesiod’s version offers many clues that can be followed backward to the earlier religions of the Medi-
Greek vase painting depicts Zeus’ conquest of Typhon.
What is a Dragon?
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For several millennia dragons have occupied the minds of storytellers the world over, and modern theories, explanations, and rationaliza- tions are as abundant as the cultural variations on the theme.
Our word for "dragon" comes from the Latin draco, the Greek drakon, related to the verb derkomai, "to see." In many cultures the dragon appears as the "seer" or "watcher,"
the guardian of the sacred pre- cinct. But such concepts hold little meaning for the modern mind. To recover the fullness of the original idea, we must explore notions long forgotten or easily distorted as the myth-making epoch receded into a remote past.
For those who seek to identify the dragon zoologically, the mon- ster is forever elusive. No such biological species ever existed.
That itself is part of the mystery, since the dragon is an archetype of global distribution. The closest kin is the serpent. Although it is often impossible to distinguish between
the two symbols, much evidence suggests that it was the mythic serpent that gave the dragon its common reptilian features. Yet we find other ani- mal features attached to the monster as well, including hair, wings, or feathers, a fact that can only underscore the many dragon paradoxes.
Literary references to dragons often suggest that they lived far from the homes of those tell-
ing the stories. Yet for thousands of years, cul- tures the world over lived in the shadow of the dragon, fearing the return of the dragon-borne catastrophe recounted in their myths. Even in our own day, the symbols of that anxiety clutter human consciousness, visiting us in nightmares, erupting as apocalyptic visions, or dancing by as the anachronisms of our holiday celebrations.
To find the roots of the theme, we must follow it back to the earli- est recorded images. When the great civilizations emerged, ser- pents and dragons were already commonplace and the core themes well established. Of these themes, none endured more persistently than the combat between the dragon and a far-famed warrior.
The dragon, it seems, has a long ancestry indeed, one tracing to prehistoric events that became increasingly difficult for later story-tellers to comprehend. But how might our ideas about dragons change, were we to see past all later adaptations of the theme to
the core of the original human experience? Is it possible to consider the question through the eyes of human witnesses?
TOP: Greek serpent-dragon Typhon, whose attack nearly destroyed the world before he was vanquished by Zeus. CENTER: A “friendlier” Chinese dragon dis- playing lighting-like emanations.
terranean, the Near East, and beyond. By this line of investigation, we see how the cosmic serpents and dragons of archetypal mythol- ogy were progressively diminished and localized through regional storytelling.
The hero’s combat with the chaos-serpent or dragon is a global theme of the ancient cultures, and a failure to recognize this fact will doom any attempt to comprehend the Typhon story. A ludi- crous monster alien to all natural experience today, but given cos- mic proportions, is indigenous to all cultures’ mythologies. The creature is a flaming, bearded, feathered, or long-haired serpent, often embellished with multiple heads and mouths, whose writhing form appears in the sky as chaos and darkness overtake the world. The power and consistency of the images persist across millennia of human history, and the collective memory cannot be rationalized away. What human experience produced the myth of the dragon? Who was the hero? And what was the cosmic thunderbolt, the weapon that left the monster, in the poets’ words, "thunderstruck," or "lightning-scarred"?
Chaos and the Primeval Rebellion
In ancient Egypt, the serpent Apep was the archenemy of the creator Ra, and his plotting against Ra produced a tempest in the heavens. Harking back to these events, numerous Egyptian rites commemorated the victory of Ra over Apep. At the temple of Ra in Heliopolis the priests ritually trod underfoot images of Apep to rep- resent his defeat at the hands of the supreme god. At the temple of Edfu, a series of reliefs depict the warrior Horus and his followers vanquishing Apep, or his counterpart Set, cutting to pieces the mon- ster’s companions, the "fiends of darkness." It is worth noting as well that the Greeks translated Set as Typhon.
In Hindu legends the great warrior Indra, the most revered god of the Vedas, employed lightning in his combat with the monstrous Vritra or Ahi—a giant serpent who had swallowed both the cosmic
Typhon as three-headed monster with entwined serpent-tails.
Hindu vajra, the cosmic thunder- bolt.
Marduk’s dragon with serpent head, leonine front feet, avian hind feet, and scorpion's tail. Though distin- guished from Tiamat, it cannot be entirely separated from her.
"waters" and the sun, leaving the world in darkness and despair. "Indra, whose hand wielded thunder, rent piecemeal Ahi who barred up the waters…"8 "Loud roared the mighty hero’s bolt of thunder, when he, the friend of man, burnt up the monster."9 "More- over, when thou first wast born, o Indra, thou struckest terror into all the people. Thou, Maghavan, rentest with thy bolt the dragon who lay against the water floods of heaven."10
The Hebrews, too, preserved an enduring memory of Yahweh’s battle against a dragon of the deep, marked by lightning on a cos- mic scale. "The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the light- nings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook."11 Here the adversary was alternately named Rahab, Leviathan, Tannin, or Behemoth—dragon-like forms representing both the waters of chaos and the rebellion of the "evil land" vanquished by Yahweh in primeval times.12
The battle is echoed in Job 26—
The pillars of heaven shook and were astounded at his roar. By his power he stilled the sea, and by his understanding he smote Rahab
…By his wind the heavens were made fair, his hand pierced the twist- ing serpent… Lo, these are but the outskirts of his ways; and how
small a whisper do we hear of him… But the thunder of his power who can understand?"13
The Hebrew accounts reflect a connection to early Canaanite traditions in which the lightning-wielding god Baal defeated the monster Lotan, whose name is a linguistic cognate of Leviathan.14
Marduk and the Resplendent Dragon
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When the Babylonians, the world’s first astronomers, looked back to the age of the gods, they spoke incessantly of disaster. The astronomer priests recounted the events of a former time,
when the dragon Tiamat assaulted the world and it appeared that heaven itself would fall into chaos. The "resplendent dragon" spawned a horde of dark powers with "irresistible weapons"—"monster serpents, sharp-toothed, with fang unsparing," their bodies filled with poison for blood. "Fierce dragons she has draped with terror, crowned with flame and made like gods … so that whoever looks upon them shall perish with fear."15 This was not a disaster on a local scale, but a universal disaster—a catastrophe so great that the gods themselves were immobilized by fear, and even Anu, the
sovereign of the sky, fled the scene in terror.
The protagonist in this narrative is the god Marduk. When all else had failed, it was Marduk who rose to confront Tiamat and her
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companions. The god took possession of his "matchless weapons" and—
In front of him he set the lightning, With a blazing flame he filled his body.
Mounted on his storm-chariot and turbaned with a "fearsome halo," the god set his course toward the raging Tiamat. On the approach of Marduk, the dragon-goddess was "like one possessed; she took leave of her senses. In fury Tiamat cried out aloud…"
Then joined issue Tiamat and Marduk, wisest of gods, They swayed in single combat, locked in battle.
The lord spread out his net to enfold her,
The Evil Wind, which followed behind, he let loose in her face. When Tiamat opened her mouth to consume him,
He drove in the Evil Wind that she close not her lips. As the fierce winds charged her belly,
Her body was distended and her mouth was wide open. He released the arrow, it tore her belly,
It cut through her insides, splitting the heart. Having thus subdued her, he extinguished her life.
Babylonian cylinder seals depicted the subdued dragon as the vehicle or carrier of the god, a common theme in the ancient world.
In the Babylonian cylinder seals below, the thunderbolt of Marduk appears as an arrow launched against Tiamat. The “trident” form of the arrow/thunderbolt is a mys- tery yet to be resolved by special- ists.
The Kingship of Gods and Heroes
What was the kingship of the warrior-god? No one seems to know why every ancient tribe and nation revered a former generation of heroic, semi- divine conquerors. Within western cultures the pre- eminent example of the hero is the Greek Heracles (right), the Roman Hercules, whose labors to free ancient lands of destructive monsters qualified him as “king.”
The son of Zeus and the “mortal” Alcmene of Thebes, as an infant he is said to have strangled two serpents sent by the goddess Hera. Later he made a career of battling chaos powers, from the Nemean lion to the seven-headed Hydra.
The mysteries surrounding such popular heroes can only be resolved by finding the historic anteced- ents. While Greek poets celebrated Heracles as a great “man,” his feats and personality direct our attention back in time to the exploits of earlier war- rior-gods such as the Egyptian Horus (below).
In this detective work surprises will arise at every
Ancient Egypt, one of the oldest civilizations in the world, offers many clues as to the nature of the warrior-hero archetype. Standing well above all other Egyptian warrior gods is Horus (left), whose battles with the dark powers Set and Apep colored every dimension of Egyptian culture.
One fact beyond dispute is that Horus was origi- nally a cosmic power, whose victory over the destroyer Set provided every pharaoh with the celes- tial model for the warrior-king on earth.
Across the centuries, however, Egyptian story- tellers gradually reduced Horus to human dimen- sions, treating his adventures as local history. This evolutionary principle will prove to be a valuable clue as to the nature of the great heroes honored by later cultures. Indeed, in many ways, the feats of the Greek Heracles mirror those of Horus and other warrior gods of the ancient Near East.
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He cast down her carcass to stand upon it. After he had slain Tiamat, the leader,
Her band was shattered, her troupe broken up.16
In this way Marduk vanquished the dragon and her brood. Upon his victory the god established a new cosmic order, the body of the dragon providing the raw material for a great city of the gods.17
In their annual Akitu festival the Babylonians reenacted both Tiamat’s attack and the god Marduk’s subjugation of the monster. Commemorative rites such as these were, in fact, the model for ancient New Year’s celebrations throughout the Near East, with numerous counterparts amongst ancient cultures the world over, all harking back to the primeval destruction and renewal of the world.18
The Myth of the Divine Thunderbolt
A thunderstorm can be a terrifying event. The lightning flash and thunderclap may indeed awaken a primal fear, perhaps instill- ing a newfound empathy for the mythmakers of antiquity. In the presence of a thunderstorm, was it not natural for our ancestors to envisage lightning-beasts roaring in the heavens or celestial armies hurling lightning-spears across the sky?
Common suppositions have prevented investigators from exam- ining the underlying patterns of lightning symbolism. Cross-cul- tural comparison reveals numerous global images of lightning in ancient times, but these are a far cry from the phenomena we expe- rience today. The lightning of the gods altered the order of the heav- ens and the history of the world.
Ancient chroniclers employed a wide range of natural and man- made symbols to describe the cosmic "thunderbolt." The breadth of images will make no sense until we find a new vantage point, one permitting us to discern the archetype, the original form that pre- ceded the symbols and gave them their mythological context. Ter- restrial lightning was but one of many hieroglyphs used to describe the celebrated weapon of gods and heroes.
Here the distinction between archetype and symbol becomes crucial. Viewed in isolation from the archetype, the symbol presents blatant contradictions; when illuminated by the archetype, it acquires integrity. The symbol can then be seen in reference to something once visible in the sky, but no longer present. From this new vantage point, the investigator can subject the implied human experience to rational and scientific tests.
To confront the symbols under discussion is to meet the deepest fear of humanity, the Doomsday anxiety, the expectation that a prior world-threatening disaster will occur again. Doomsday arrived sud-
Statue of the god Marduk with his dragon.
The Babylonian seven-headed dragon, a familiar but enigmatic theme in ancient times.
THUNDERBOLTS OF THE GODS
Greek coins shown on this and the following page depict the thunderbolt of Zeus with many variations, Yet certain patterns stand out, and none seem to suggest the familiar form of light- ning today.
denly and without mercy, and across the millennia the memory of catastrophe haunted every culture on earth. The historic impact of the memory is, in fact, evidence for the events implied by cross-cul- tural testimony. As remarked by the Greek poet Sophocles, the thunderbolt of Zeus always meant disaster: the terrifying bolt "never shoots forth for nothing, nor without catastrophe."19
To offset this anxiety, each tribe or nation cherished its own account of the ancestral warrior, the bearer of lightning and thunder and the victor in the primeval contest. The combat story, told in thousands of variations, gave the early cultures their celestial mod- els for war and defense. Through ritual and symbolic imitation, cul- tures sought magical protection against chaos. Thus, the narratives, symbols, pictures, hymns, rites, and commemorative monuments offer countless clues as to the nature of the upheaval and the magi- cal “weapons” featured at the most critical juncture. What were the thunderbolts of the gods?
To illustrate the scale of the enigma, we list below seven of the most common lightning themes recurring from one culture to another—images too specific, too peculiar, and too widespread to be rationalized as mere exaggerations or make believe. The sym- bols direct our attention to natural phenomena far more powerful and more terrifying than anything occurring in our own time—
Motif #1: Hero’s Weapon. Lightning takes the form of a frightful sword, arrow, axe, flail or other weapon in the hands of a great warrior or divine messenger—a god whose identity merges with the lightning-weapon itself. Surprisingly, the same "weapon" turns up as an instrument of healing or resurrection as well.
Motif #2: Winged Thunderbolt/Winged Disk. Lightning appears as a radiant disk or sphere in the sky, with heaven-spanning wings. It is a great "thunderbird," or it is launched from the wings of such a bird, or bursts forth as a flash of fire from its eye.
Motif #3: Axis Mundi. Lighting streaks along the world axis, acquiring the form of a towering column that is said to have "sepa- rated heaven and earth" in primeval times. This same pillar is the hero’s staff, rod, or scepter, and through metamorphosis it passes into other, more complex forms as well.
Motif #4: Lightning Wheel and Flower. Lightning "blossoms" as radiating, symmetrical streamers—the petals of a luminous flower, the awe-inspiring "glory" of a great star, or the spokes of a cosmic wheel turning in the heavens.
Motif #5: Whirling Thunderbolt. Lightning spirals into ser- pentine coils or winds upward in a helical motion around a central, axial column. It whirls across the heavens as a celestial tornado,
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whirlwind, or whirlpool, sometimes graphically recorded as a whorl, swastika, or triskeleon.
Motif #6: Caduceus. Lightning manifests as entwined ser- pents, ribbons, or filaments whirling upward along a central axis or column. Two entwined filaments signify the lightning-form taken by cosmic twins.
Motif #7: Thunderstones. Lightning arrives with falling stones or boulders. Typically, the falling rocks are flung by warring gods who also brandish, or are, the divine thunderbolt.
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How did such images of the "thunderbolt" take root around the world? Though the global images have almost nothing in common with lightning today, the cross-cultural patterns are remarkably consistent. Hence, a solution to the mystery must be possible.
Thunderbolt as Divine Weapon in Primeval Times
Though we cannot pause here to elaborate all of the themes noted above, each will find comprehensive treatment in these monographs.
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As for the first motif on our list—the legendary hero’s weapon—most mythologists assume that the association with "lightning" is a secondary principle, not a general rule. Our conten- tion, however, is that virtually all forms of the hero’s weapon belong to the thunderbolt motif. A unified explanation of the magi- cal sword, arrow, spear, club, or axe is possible, even in instances where the explicit "lightning" identity was lost over time. At the heart of the theme lie the natural formations taken by plasma dis- charge.
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In the course of our analysis we intend to show that the essence of the divine thunderbolt was etheric—it was wind, water, and fire. It was a whirlwind or tornado, a whirling flame, a devastating flood, even a comet. If it was also a celestial serpent or winged monster, that was because the plasma discharge formations appearing above the ancient witnesses readily inspired such fabulous interpretations. It is the earlier images that illuminate the later fragments and elaborations of the thunderbolt motif. In the Babylonian narrative above, the arrow released by Marduk is the god’s thunderbolt. Else- where, the god’s bolt appears as a lance, a weapon by which the god himself was represented in Babylonian iconography. One of the texts also explains that the firebrands kindled as part of the festivi- ties represented the god’s lightning-arrows.20 On the face of it, the symbolism may seem perfectly natural in reference to familiar lightning. But enigmatic nuances of the thunderbolt stand out in both the Babylonian written narratives and the ritual reenactments
The Rites and Symbols of the Warrior-King
It is no exaggeration to say that every warrior-king who ruled in ancient times promoted himself as the incarnation of the warrior god. Just as the divine war- rior had defeated world-threatening monsters and “fiends of darkness,” the king would rid his land of demonic forces, conducting ritual “hunts” to purify the realm, and leading expeditions against the “bar- barians” beyond the gates.
It was through this identification that the king qualified himself to assume the throne. The blood of the warrior flowed through his veins. He built towers, pyramids and “heaven-reaching” monuments, just as his ancestor had done. He sacrificed victims to the gods. He “irrigated” and “cleansed” the land. And in sacred marriage rites he consorted with the “queen of heaven,” for had not the ancestor
himself taken the mother goddess as his consort or bride?
The ancient Egyptians hon- ored Narmer, the “first” pharaoh, as “the incarnation of the hawk- god Horus,” depicting him in the conqueror’s role against the “marsh dwellers,” just as the war- rior god had defeated the armies of Set in ancestral times. Thutmose III boasted of the same role in defeating the Mitanni. Amidst the enemy armies he claimed to have appeared as a “flashing star in bat- tle,” his fiery breath destroying the armies in an hour. In this devasta- tion, the adversaries were “non- existing ones”—the very Egyp- tian phrase used for the chaos fiends in the contest of warrior god and attacking dragon.
In a similar vein, the pharaoh Seti I claimed to have vanquished his enemies through the tempestuous “majesty” of the god Amon-Ra. This “majesty” was nothing else than the fiery blast the god himself had sent forth against the hordes of the dragon Apep.
The alignment of king and warrior is vividly por- trayed in accounts of the Assyrian king Assurbanipal’s
military adventures. Born as the incarnation of the warrior-hero, Assurbanipal defeated Arabian tribes in a re-enactment of the cosmic conflict. “The warrior god Irra, engaging them in battle, struck down my foes. Urta, the lance, the great warrior, pierced my enemies to the life with his sharp arrow.”
Whether such accounts speak of descending fire, of devastating “breath,” or an irresistible lance or arrow, the language cannot be sepa- rated from that of the cosmic thun- derbolt. In the Annals of MurÅ¡ili, it is, in fact, the divine warrior’s thunderbolt that brings the king’s victory, “…The mighty storm god, my lord, showed his ‘divine power’ and shot a ‘thunderbolt.’ My army saw the ‘thunderbolt’ and the land of Arzawa saw it and the ‘thunder- bolt’ went and struck the land of Arzawa.”
The thunderbolt and the rites and symbols of “holy war” thus stand together—a field of evidence rarely explored, but teeming with clues too often overlooked.
ABOVE RIGHT: A scene on the wall of the northern palace of Assurbanipal in Nineveh shows the king, armed with his arrow, engaged in the ritual hunt. CENTER: the famous Narmer palette (obverse) depicts the pharaoh subduing the “marsh dwellers.” All components in the scene were designed to accentu- ate the divine qualities of the warrior king.
of the event. Marduk’s weapon appears to overlap with the image of a whirling "cyclone" called abubu and rendered pictographically as a mace or club—images that make little sense in themselves but will take on increasing clarity in the course of our investigation.21.
Similar images occur in Sumerian accounts of the great warrior Ninurta’s victory over the monstrous “bird” Anzu who, like Typhon, had sought to usurp the powers of heaven.
On the mountainside Anzu and Ninurta met …Clouds of death rained down, an arrow flashed lightning. Whizzed the battle force roared between them.22
By his victory, Ninurta became the “strong warrior who slays with his weapon,” his lightning arrow or dart having pierced the heart of the monster.
So too, the Assyrian “storm god” Adad (Phoenician and Hebrew Hadad), an alter ego of Marduk, is shown wielding thunderbolts as arrows or spears, though elsewhere he carries a lightning mace (right).23 The great Assyrian warrior Ashur launched arrows from his bow as lightning, in the very fashion of the Babylonian Mar- duk.24
According to W. M. Muller, the spear or harpoon of the Egyp- tian Horus was a metaphor for the thunderbolt. "…Lightning is the spear of Horus, and thunder the voice of his wounded antagonist, roaring in his pain.”7
As noted by Mircea Eliade, the Hebrew Yahweh “displayed his power by means of storms; thunder is his voice and lightning is called Yahweh’s ‘fire,’ or his ‘arrows.’”25 The connection is deeply embedded in the language. The Hebrew baraq, “lightning,” is also used in the sense of “flashing arrow-head.”26 Similarly, the feared "sword of God," according to Louis Ginzberg, is the flashing light- ning.27
Various Christian traditions appear to have adapted the idea to later images of God's struggle with the "devil." In the legends of Armenian Christians, for example, "the lightning is often a sword, arrow or fiery whip which the Lord is hurling at the devil, who is fleeing, and who naturally and gradually has taken the place of the ancient dragon."28
Few scholars have found any of this to be enigmatic. The funda- mental idea may seem so natural that most translators of ancient texts give little attention to the unique attributes and associations of the thunderbolt.
Evolution of the Thunderbolt
One fact relating to the evolution of world mythology is fre- quently overlooked. The setting of later stories progressively
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The dragon of Marduk carries the symbol of his vanquisher—the lightning-weapon—on his back.
Assyrian “storm god” Adad holds in his hand a mace, a form taken by the lightning of the gods.
THUNDERBOLTS OF THE GODS
Zeus launching his thunderbolt, from a Greek vase painting.
The eagle on the U.S. one dollar bill holds in its talons an olive branch and a sheaf of arrows, the latter tracing to classical images of the eagle of Zeus (Latin Jupiter) with its lightning-arrows.
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changed as storytellers began to locate the gods on earth. In the course of Egyptian history, for example, both the creator Ra and his regent Horus, whose origi- nal domain was undeniably celestial, came to be remembered as terrestrial kings. In later time, when Greek and Roman poets, philosophers, and naturalists sought to gather knowledge from far flung cultures, Egyptian priests would relate to them many stories of the gods, declaring that the events had occurred in their own city in the time of the "ancestors."
As a bridge between the more archaic world and the fragmented and diluted myths of later times, Greek accounts offer many clues as to the evolution of thunderbolt symbolism. In the hands of the sovereign
Zeus, the nature of the divine weapon is clear. The poet Pindar speaks of Zeus "whose spear is lightning,"29 while Aristophanes invokes lightning as "the immortal fiery spear of Zeus."30 In the words of Nonnus, Zeus is "the javelin-thrower of the thunderbolt." "The spear he shook [in the battle with Typhon] was lightning." "Do thou in battle lift thy lightning-flash, Olympus’ luminous spear."31
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The connection is transparent in the Greek keraunós, “thunder- bolt,” most commonly used for Zeus’ weapon and said to stem from a Proto-Indo-European root *ker-. The same root appears to lie behind the Sanskrit sháru, ‘arrow’ and the Gothic haírus, ‘sword.’32 As in other cultures, the
Greek thunderbolt also found frequent expression as an arrow. The most familiar representations of the "eagle" of Zeus (as, of course, the eagle of the Latin Jupiter) depict the god’s lightning as arrows held in the talons of the bird—a representation well pre- served into modern times by the symbol of the eagle and its lightning-arrows on the U.S. one dollar bill. Many authorities thus acknowledge that the lightning of the gods found expression as an arrow in plastic art
of Greece, Italy, and Sicily.33
But as we descend to secondary gods and regional heroes, the connection of weapon and thunderbolt becomes more ambiguous. The Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo describes the god’s confrontation with the chaos serpent Python, whom the chroniclers identified alternately as a form of the dragon Typhon or as the nurse of Typhon.34 Significantly, we do not find in the poet’s words any explicit acknowledgment that it was a lightning-weapon that brought down the serpent. The Homeric and other accounts
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refer to the invincible "arrow" launched by Apollo, causing the monster to shudder violently and to give up its life in a torrent of blood. But was this "arrow" just an arrow, or did it really mean the thunderbolt which, in the earlier Near Eastern accounts, took the form of an arrow?
Many authorities have, in fact, recognized that the arrows or swords of Apollo cannot be separated from the language of the thunderbolt. Apollo bore the epithet chrysáoros or chrysáor— meaning “of the Golden Sword” (áor)35—and here the lightning connection shines through: according to the distinguished authority,
- H. Roscher, the Golden Sword is a Greek hieroglyph for the thunderbolt.36 Indeed, Zeus himself, the most famous wielder of the thunderbolt, was Chrysaoreús or Chrysaórios, "He of the Golden Sword."37
Cross cultural comparison makes clear that the hero’s connec- tion to the "thunderbolts of the gods" was no accident. We are not dealing simply with a poetic metaphor for ordinary lightning. Rather, ordinary lightning served as a metaphor for something once seen in the sky, but alien to ordinary experience. Lightning thus stands alongside other metaphors (arrow, sword, whirlwind, comet, etc.), all pointing to extraordinary experience. The arche- typal identity of the warrior-hero’s weapon can be brought to light only by finding the root forms expressed in a wide array of sym- bols.
What occurred in the case of Apollo is underscored by many parallels in the language and symbolism of legendary heroes. By following this evolutionary tendency across the centuries, we observe how the poets and historians placed the stories on a land- scape familiar to them, as the thunderbolt became a sword, spear, hammer or club of a celebrated warrior, now a “great man” who continued to battle chaos monsters, but no longer in the heavens. The celestial warrior lost his cosmic attributes to become the best of
The two paintings above, both depicting Apollo's defeat of Python, accent the ambiguity as to the mythic setting. The painting on the left, by J. M. W, Turner, sug- gests a terrestrial occurrence, while the painting by Eugène Dela- croix on the right has preserved many nuances of the original celestial context.
Scene on a Greek coin illustrates Apollo’s confrontation with the ser- pent Python.
Achilles: “The Best of the Achaeans”
By following the evolution of the hero archetype across the centuries, the researcher can observe how the cosmic thunderbolt, a centerpiece in innumerable tales of celestial combat, emerged as the magical weapon of a legendary warrior. It became the sword, spear, hammer, or club of a hero who continued to battle chaos monsters, but no longer in the sky.
The diminished hero typically reveals an enig- matic mix of god and man, as in the accounts of the Sumerian and Babylonian hero Gilgamesh, destroyer of the monster Huwawa. Once reduced to human dimensions, the hero could no longer hold onto his original weapon, a weapon claimed to have altered the destiny of heaven and earth.
Localization of the celestial drama had a huge impact on Greek imagination, as can be seen in virtu- ally all Greek epic literature. In the most popular tale of all, Homer's Iliad, the ideal warrior is Achilles, whose story provided the fulcrum upon which
the poet integrated different tribal memo- ries, bringing together dozens of
regional heroes upon the battlefields of a legendary, and entirely mytho- logical, Trojan War. But the more archaic themes, though subdued, are still present.
Achilles' father was the mythic king Peleus and his mother the "sea" goddess Thetis, daughter of Oceanus, for whose affections both Zeus and Poseidon had con-
tended. Bathed by his mother in the river Styx, the river that "joins the earth
and Hades,” he was tutored by the Centaur Chiron. His armor was fashioned by the god
Hephaestus, the very god who fashioned the thunder- bolts of Zeus.
The actual terrestrial city of Troy is the modern Hissarlik in Turkey, the site of a fortified palace from the Bronze Age onward. Neither this palace, nor any- thing uncovered by archaeologists in the region could have inspired the city of which the poets spoke! In the cultures of the Near East and Mediterranean, hun- dreds of historic kings left unmistakable proof of their lives and their cultural influence. But of the countless kings, warriors, princesses and seers in the Iliad, not
one finds historic validity. The reason for this is that the claimed events did not occur on earth. The origi- nal subject was a cosmic drama, whose episodes pro- gressively masqueraded as terrestrial history.
In the illustration on the left, from a Greek drinking vessel, Achilles con-
fronts the serpent-guardian of a Trojan fountain. Our question
must be: what is the relationship of this image to the archaic con- tests between warrior gods and
chaos serpents?
The similarities shared by mythic heroes are vast, direct- ing our attention to ancient themes that can only appear incomprehensible to the modern
world. The poets spoke of Achilles' spear as forked, or possessing a "dou-
ble tongue", as when Aeschylus, in his
Nereids, writes, "The shaft, the shaft, with its double tongue, will come." Practically speaking, a forked spear-point would likely have doomed an ancient warrior using it. But the image was not rooted in practicality. It comes directly from the well docu- mented forked configuration of the thunderbolt wielded by Zeus. Of Achilles' spear, the poet Lesches of Lesbos (author of the Little Iliad), wrote:
"The ring of gold flashed lightning round, and o'er it the forked blade."
The ancestral warrior, bearing the lightning- weapon in battle, was but an echo of the warrior god.
heroes, the esteemed ancestor of the tribe or nation telling the story. Once reduced to human dimensions, the hero could no longer hold onto his original weapon, a weapon claimed to have shaken and for- ever changed both heaven and earth.
The Lightning-Weapon in Later Times
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The evolution of the myth presented an enigma. How would later poets and historians, after localizing the stories, describe the cosmic weapon with which, in the more archaic tales, the warrior- god vanquished heaven-spanning serpents, dragons, and chaos monsters?
Of course, mythologists will not normally think of the sword of Perseus (right) or the club of Hera- cles—much less the healing "staff" of Hermes—as symbols of the cosmic "thunderbolt." World mythol- ogy presents such figures by the thousands, and in most instances the original identity of the magical weapon has slipped into the background. Yet only rarely could it be hidden entirely. In most cases, the localized weapon still retained glimpses of the origi- nal: it was a "gift" from gods or goddesses, could strike like lighting, or was constructed from "flash- ing" gold or some indestructible material, had the miraculous ability to expand to cosmic dimensions when wielded in combat, or its magical powers traced to an age of gods or semi-divine ancestors. Neverthe-
less, what we usually see is just a shadow of the cosmic thunderbolt so vividly described in early Near Eastern narratives of primeval order and chaos.
The “shadow,” however, is sufficient to establish the original identity of thunderbolt and hero’s weapon in other bodies of myth. In the Grail cycle of myths, lightning receives the name Lanceor, or "Golden Lance," an archaic name of Lancelot. Lightning is also linked to the sword Excalibur, which Geoffrey of Monmouth called Caliburn, from the Welsh Caledvwich, Irish Caladbolg, traceable to the archaic Celtic language of lightning.38
The most famous Celtic hero, Cúchulainn, victor over chaos powers, held a weapon granted him by the lightning god Bolga, "the inventor of the missile spear." By acquiring this weapon,
"Cúchulainn was greatly strengthened in battle."39 Gaé Bolga is translated as “Bolga’s spear” or “a harpoon-like javelin.” Some- times referred to as a “lightning weapon,” it had its origin in the Otherworld where it was forged by the divine smith. Its lightning stroke was always fatal.40
Perseus, the hero who slew the monstrous Medusa, was cele- brated in later times as a constel- lation. The scene here is from the masterful work painted on the ceil- ing fresco of the Villa Farnese in Caprarola, Italy.
THUNDERBOLTS OF THE GODS
Sagittarius. From Hyginus, Poetica astronomica (1485 edition).
In the form of a sword, the lighting weapon bestowed upon Fer- gus, one of the two sons of Fionn, offered a great advantage in war- fare, enabling him (like so many mythic heroes) to single-handedly slay hundreds on the battle field. "This sword was named In Calad- bolg, a two-handed lightning sword."41
Again and again, Germanic tribes placed a lightning weapon in the hands of their celebrated heroes. The diverse mythic forms of the thunderbolt, according to H. Bächtold-Stäubli, include "the glowing missiles; as such they are present in all stages of human cultural history, from the rough stone and club of primitive times through the hammer, axe, and spear, to the golden sword wielded by the Hero."42
Gertrude Jobes, a diligent investigator of symbolic themes, affirms that, among the Altaic Tatars, lightning was the "arrow of a mighty hero."43 A common Slavic name for the weapon of the celestial warrior Perun is strela, "arrow."44 The lightning of the Finnish Ukko appears as "fire arrows" or "copper arrows."45 Simi- larly, the Finnish warrior-hero Jumala, is said to have "wielded thunderbolts in the shape of jagged lightning-spears."46
In several parts of Italy saetta or arrow is the name for the light- ning. In Slavonia the “thunderstone” is called strelica (i. e., arrow), on Swedish soil in some places åskpil (thunder-arrow), in Mecklen- burg dunnerpil, etc.47
The same language appears in the British Isles. Irish saign_n, “lightning,” is derived from saigit, “arrow,” and both this word and seah, “thunderbolt,” in Breton dialects are based on Latin sagitta, “arrow.”48 Thus our familiar images of Sagittarius, the divine "Archer" of constellation symbolism, clearly belong to an ancient tradition equating the hero’s arrow and the divine thunderbolt. Less known is the much smaller constellation Sagitta, "the Arrow," close to the center of the Milky Way. Here the constellation symbol, according to Eratosthenes, harked back to "the arrow shot by Apollo against the Cyclops, who forged the lightning with which Zeus had cut off the life of his son Asclepius."49
Among the Tibetans and Mongols lightning is seen as the arrow of a dragon-riding god, and thunder as the voice of the dragon.48 So too, the warrior Raiden, in Japanese myth, wielded "fire- arrows"—acknowledged to be lightning—in his battle against the chaos power, Raiju, the "Thunder-beast."50
Among the Zulu tribes of Africa, lightning takes the form of a dazzling spear hurled through the air.51 The African Kikuyu say that God clears his path with a weapon, often described as a sword, and identified as the lightning.52
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Numerous equations of hero’s weapon and thunderbolts occur in the Americas as well. An Iroquois account tells of a warrior Hé- no, whose thunderbolt vanquished a chaos monster—
Hé-no's name means ‘thunder.’ A monstrous serpent dwelt under the village, and made his annual repast upon the bodies of the dead which were buried by its side … he went forth once a year, and poi- soned the waters of the Niagara, and also of the Cayuga creek, whereby the pestilence was created … Hé-no discharged upon the monster a terrific thunderbolt which inflicted a mortal wound.54
Essentially the same notions prevailed throughout the Americas. The Navaho say that, long ago, the arrows that defeated the devour- ing powers of chaos were the lightning.55 Zuñi tradition identifies the lightning as "as the arrows of celestial Archers."56 The Pawnee and their neighbors recall the great warrior, named Black Lightning Arrow.57 Thus, Von del Chamberlain, who ranks among the most informed authorities on Plains Indian mythology, tells us that "the flint-tipped arrows of the Indian correspond to the lightning arrows shot to earth by higher powers …Pueblo Indian designs also show the lightning, tipped with arrow-heads."58
Thunderbolt as Club, Hammer, and Axe
The warrior and his thunder-weapon find explicit illustration in the Germanic Thor, whose name is given to a day of the week— Donnerstag, the day of Thunder, our Thursday. He was the stron- gest of men and of gods, the victor over giants, dragons and a host of dark or destructive powers. Thor was the "Hurler" (Vingnir) and his weapon was the thunderbolt, with which the great warrior him- self seems to have been inseparably identified. "The god is, etymo- logically, thunder, and his hammer, Mjöllnir (Crusher), represents lightning."59
As we should expect, it was Thor who vanquished the terrible Midgard serpent or Jörmungand ("wolf-serpent"), seen thrashing about in the sky while the world reeled under the catastrophe of Ragnarök, the rain of fire and gravel. In confronting the monster, Thor hurled his great stone hammer or mallet Mjöllnir, fashioned by dwarves in much the same way that the Cyclopes fashioned the thunderbolt of Zeus. The power of the blow was sufficient to send the Midgard serpent plummeting into the sea.
Again, both the symbolic associations and the linguistic roots bear out the overlapping identities of hero, hero’s weapon, and lightning. It is generally recognized that Thor’s "lightning weapon" was originally an independent warrior-god. Amulets dated to the tenth century and presenting the lightning-weapon in human-like
In a field at Cerne Abbas, England, the Celtic hero god Dagda is inscribed in chalk. Wielding a giant club, the figure is almost 220 feet tall.
The Good and Evil Warrior
As cross-cultural investigation exposes the underlying patterns of world mythology and sym- bolism, we discover ironies that would not be expected from the study of a single culture alone. Despite the overwhelming evidence that the dif- ferent cultures were describing the same events, comparative inquiry reveals surprising paradoxes and role reversals arising from tribal and national- istic loyalties.
Most surprising is the warrior-hero’s hidden identification with the masculine chaos monster he battles. The one turns out to be the alter ego of the other, and all that distinguishes them is the interpretation of events. Though the situation is more complex than this due to the role of another archetypal figure (see discussion of the mother goddess, Chapter 3, p. ), the evidence is suffi- ciently clear to allow this generalization: the hero and his masculine “enemy” stand side by side, each a mirror image of the other.
In Sumerian and Babylonian traditions, the god Ninurta was said to have battled a “usurper,” Anzu. But archaically, in the city of Lagash, the lion-headed Anzu was the symbol of divine rule.
The prototypical power of chaos and dark- ness in Egypt is the god Set, but in one tradition, it was Set who harpooned the chaos powers.
Indeed, it is well known that the Hyksos, who ruled Egypt for a time, revered Set as the model of the heroic warrior.
We see the same ambiguities in Hinduism.
Ravana, the leader of the Rakshasas, was a prince of great beauty, favored by Brahma. But in the Ramayana epic Ravana is the great demon brought down by the warrior Rama.
The Hindus feared and hated Ahi, the demon whom their hero Indra vanquished. And yet, Ahi's Iranian counterpart, Azhi Dahaka or Zohak, appears as an exemplary king, who heroically ousts the usurper Yima Xaeta or Jamshid. In Tibetan traditions the god Indra is not a hero, but a demon.
We meet the same paradox in New Zealand where Maui is the prototypical hero, but Maui- Tiki, his Tahitian counterpart, was a maleficent fiend, the slayer of men.
ABOVE: Archaic Sumerian cylinder, showing the lion-headed eagle of Lagash. This “eagle”-god, revered by priests and poets in Lagash, is in fact Anzu, who appears as the enemy in the story of the warrior Ninurta’s confrontation with Anzu.
LEFT: The ancient Egyptian god Horus stood in intimate relationship to his constant enemy Set, a relationship symbolized here by the heads of the two gods on a single body. RIGHT: The Hindu Ravana was both a good king and a demon.
There is more to the paradox, but for now it is sufficient to note that it was not reverence alone that inspired the ancient devotion to the warrior, but terror as well. The warrior’s “heroism” stood in balance with his terrible aspect as usurper, murderer, and madman, the bringer of pestilence. The archetype of the warrior-hero and of the destroyer ultimately meet in the same figure.
form, sometimes show the lightning god’s beard taking the place of the hammer head.60
Numerous authorities, including Jacob Grimm, assure us that the hammer of Thor means the "crushing thunderbolt." Grimm compares the Teutonic Mjöllnir with Slavic molnija, "lightning."61 In fact, the widespread linguistic relationship of the stone hammer- head to lightning is now well-established. Welsh mellt, Church Slavonic mluniji, Serbo-Croatian munja, Russian molnija and Old Prussian mealde, all meaning "lightning," are derived from the same root. So too, the Old Norse myln, "fire," and especially Latvian milna, are invoked as the "hammer" of the warrior Perkun and acknowledged to be the lightning.62 Scholars such as Christo- pher Blinkenberg who have investigated the general theme. find that the identification of the warrior’s “hammer” with lightning is so pervasive as to constitute a bedrock principle.
Also of interest here is the Hindu vajra, the illustrious thunder- bolt of the warrior Indra, called a "whizzing club" in the sacred texts of the Rig Veda.63 Such images of the lighting-weapon invari- ably lead us backward to the lightning-mace held in the hands of the Near Eastern storm gods noted above.
To these symbols of the divine thunderbolt we must add the axe wielded by gods and heroes—a subject already well explored in scholarly studies.
As noted by B Schmidt, the word for the thunderbolt in modern Greek tales of primordial warfare in the heavens is astropeléki, the "sky axe,"64 though perhaps “star axe” or “stellar axe” comes closer. This is the very term which, to this day, native populations use for Neolithic stone fragments and implements that, when recov- ered, are venerated as the lightning weapons of the gods.
Authorities who have examined the symbolism of the lightning- axe trace it back to Minoan civilization and farther still to Babylo- nian cosmology.65 But the lightning-axe is not limited to a particu- lar region of the world. It appears as the weapon of the Aztec Tlaloc, the Maya Chac, and numerous legendary warriors of Afri- can mythology, finding equally vivid expression in the South Pacific and throughout eastern and southeastern Asia.66
The Club of Heracles
Of all the ancient Greek heroes, none achieved greater popular- ity than the club-wielding warrior Heracles, whose far-famed “Twelve Labors,” together with many other adventures, compressed diverse tribal lore into the ordeals of a single hero.
The vase painting on the following page depicts Heracles’ defeat of the giant sea serpent Triton. Such exploits typified the
Norse warrior god Thor, wielder of the thunderbolt in battle.
In this scene on a Greek coin, Hera- cles wears a lion skin over his left arm while his right hand rests on a club; in the field to the left, a thun- derbolt.
Heracles vanquishes the sea- dragon Triton.
LEFT: Thunderbolt in the hands of Ninurta, as he battled the monster Anzu.
RIGHT: Idealization of a bipolar plasma discharge formation, illus- trating the three-dimensional struc- ture accounting for the Babylonian image.
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biography of the hero, with its variations on a single underlying theme, all harking back to the mythic warrior’s contests with
chaos monsters.
Heracles’ own relationship to the thunderbolt may not be obvious, but neither was it forgotten. As seen on the previ- ous page, a Greek coin depicts Heracles standing with a club in his right hand. In the field behind him is the thun- derbolt of Zeus. Just as the spear of the celebrated war- rior Achilles retained the connection to the thunderbolt of Zeus (it "flashed lightning round”; see sidebar on page 46),
the poet Hesiod describes Heracles leaping into battle "like the lightning of his father Zeus.”
In view of Heracles’ acknowledged links to Thor and Indra,67 it would make no sense to ignore the cross-cultural implication, that Heracles’ giant-slaying club is a Greek variant of the lightning weapon carried by heroes around the world. Of course, most spe- cialists in Greek literature and religion give little attention to cross- cultural comparison. But the lightning-clubs of other heroes glo- bally can hardly be ignored. Even the Dinka of Sudan honored a great ancestor-god Deng, whose club was the thunderbolt.68
Cosmic Thunderbolt and Plasma Discharge
The mythic traditions reviewed above pose a question vital to our investigation. What is the cosmic thunderbolt’s connection to the plasma discharge forms documented in the laboratory and found in rock art by Anthony Peratt?
The evidence suggests that before the monumental civilizations arose, intense electrical activity in the sky was the overriding con- cern of humanity. The events that inspired the myth-making epoch, with its pervasive themes of order and chaos, also provoked a mas- sive collective response within all of the emerging civilizations. Both the natural events and the commemorative symbols they inspired bear a direct relationship to the vast pictographic record carved on stone, pointing back to a time when all of humanity wit- nessed prodigious plasma formations in the heavens.
The illustration on page 30 shows the Sumerian Ninurta wield- ing the thunderbolt in his battle with the monster Anzu. For our pur- pose here, the key is the form of Ninurta’s thunderbolt (far left). We present alongside this image a three-dimensional representation of the corresponding discharge form suggested by the archaic symbol. It is a variation on the “hourglass” configuration discussed in Chap- ter One. We offer this idealized configuration to emphasize that, in the plasma interpretation of the thunderbolt, the two outer “prongs” belong to the same transparent, cylindrical current sheet. The
“warped” look of the cylindrical component of the “hourglass” con- figuration can be compared to many variations in archaic rock art.
Of all the ancient cultures it seems that the Greeks preserved the most voluminous artistic renderings of the thunderbolt. It is instruc- tive, therefore, to compare the core Greek images to similar varia- tions in laboratory discharge configurations.
The examples above represent several common thunderbolt forms in Greek art. But it is the three dimensional nuances of the plasma discharge interpretation that enable us to see past the limita- tions of the ancient media and to envision the energetic patterns represented. The Greek themes then fall into place.
In art and literature, the Greek thunderbolt repeatedly shows a central “corkscrew” column, answering to Birkeland Currents entwined around a central axis (see illustration on page 24). In Greek representations this corkscrew column persists through many variations of the thunderbolt, just as it does in similar laboratory discharge configurations.
As the entwined currents in a linear discharge become more tightly bound they may appear as a single glowing column, a princi- ple evident in many Greek illustrations. Indeed, the Greek examples leave no doubt that this axial column is the thunderbolt as sword,
ABOVE: Recurring Greek images of the thunderbolt of Zeus.
BELOW: Greek thunderbolt as sword, spear, missile, or arrow.
Laboratory discharge photograph published by Anthony Peratt.
The illustrations above interpret the Greek thunderbolt images as plasma discharge, emphasizing the three dimensional contribution of current sheets and cylinders.
spear, missile, or arrow (examples below).
From any conventional vantage point, the Greek thunderbolt images can only appear to be disconnected from all natural experi- ence. A hallmark of the Greek images is the role of symmetry, both along the axis and to the left and right of the axis—not a feature of familiar lightning, but a feature remarkably consistent with the pat- terns of plasma discharge.
Greek artists repeatedly show the twisted column sending forth the sepals or leaves of a “lotus”-blossom, these evolving into sym- metrically displayed, outstretched horns or wings. Hence, the gen- eral accord with plasma discharge configurations is all the more telling (example on left).
Typically, the Greek images depict either the lotus-form or its evolution into horns or wings in bipolar pairs—much like many rock art images associated with the hourglass form (the “squatter man,” etc.). Greek examples of the thunderbolts are dominated by patterns of bipolarity, often with perfect symmetry. But the artists also employed frequent variations between the upward- and down- ward-pointing components, while only rarely varying the symmetry to the left and right of the axis. We have already noted similar varia- tions in the vertical components of the hourglass or “squatter man” in worldwide rock art. (See discussion of bipolar symmetry in Chapter One.)
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The laboratory counterpart of form (3) above was published by Anthony Peratt in his first article on plasma discharge in relation to ancient rock art. The idealized form of the discharge, given for the purpose of illustrating three-dimensional structure and plasma dynamics, is formation (A) below. In this “brandy glass” formation,
the upper termination of the axial discharge column appears as a central spike enclosed within “horns” or outstretched “wings.”
Plasma discharge generates magnetic fields that, in turn, influ- ence the discharge structure and evolution. Current filaments and
sheets can attract each other at larger distances but repel at shorter distances, leading to various forms of equilibrium, all contributing to the non-random or “organized” look of the configurations.
The forms noted here graphically idealize the plasma discharge formations implied by the Greek images. Along the axial column, “pinching” of the entwined Birkeland Currents by the induced mag- netic fields will typically produce a spheroid, which then begins to flatten into a disk. As the disk expands, its edges will begin bending upward or downward to form a “saucepan” or “bowl” shape. It is this spheroid-to-disk and disk-to-cylinder evolution that gives rise to the “brandy glass” forms (A) and (B) above.
A discharge column can produce multiple disks or toruses stacked along the column. Where conditions foster bipolar symme- try, it is not uncommon for one disk above the pinch point to bend upwards while the disk forming beneath the pinch bends down- wards, creating the hourglass form discussed in Chapter One. In high energy discharge an entire stack of disks or toruses may be bent in either direction, a form also noted in Chapter One.
It is important to see the discharge configuration in its three- dimensional aspects. An observer walking around the configuration would continue to see essentially the same form. And while the configuration displays three prongs (a “trident” form), the central column, composed of bound currents, is of a fundamentally differ- ent dynamic than the two “horns” of the right and left, which belong to a single rotating (cylindrical) current sheet.
In the second illustrated configuration (B), the spheroid-in-for- mation of (A) has begun to flatten into a disk, and the central col- umn of the discharge has extended farther upward into the “brandy glass” form of the current sheet.
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In image (C) the disk in the discharge column has moved upward and its edges have folded upward as
well, to influence—and be influenced by—the magnetic fields configuring the upper “horns.” The “horns” have become more angular, a com- mon occurrence in the evolution of Peratt Insta- bilities.
Image (D) illustrates the interaction of embedded cylindrical currents held in equilib- rium (attraction and repulsion) parallel to the discharge axis. This “pitchfork” appearance answers to the Greek form (6) and to the labora-
This later image of the Greek thun- derbolt integrates key design ele- ments from the more archaic designs, retaining the principles of bipolar symmetry and symmetry to the left and right of the axis. The respective elements are entirely alien to those of a terrestrial light- ning bolt.
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tory discharge configuration given on the right. Laboratory discharge, in artificial
configuration, constituted of cylin- drical current sheets in a plasma pinch.
The Hourglass Nebula illustrates the powerful effects of the plasma pinch along the axis of a dis- charge.
In image (E) the cylinders of (D) are magnetically pinched at their base to form embedded conical cylinders. This is the basis for the discharge interpretation of the Greek form (7).
All of these configurations have one attribute in common. Turn them on their axes, and they would continue to present essentially the same form. The distinctive appearance is due to the luminosity of excited particles along the observer’s lines of sight. In the cylin- drical components, for example, the greatest brightness occurs on the limbs, where the line of sight passes through the largest volume of excited particles, whereas the more transparent or darker regions are those where the line of sight passes through the lowest volume (the portion of the cylinder perpendicular to the viewer).
Analogs in Space
It is not in the laboratory alone that we observe the unique fea- tures of plasma discharge discussed here. The same formations can now be seen in space, though most astronomers remain unaware that electrified plasma generates these observed forms. Of course, the electrical interpretation of the nebulas noted here is not the com- monly accepted view among astronomers. Thus, as new telescopes further our ability to see deeply into space, a continuing stream of surprises seems certain.
The “hourglass” discharge configuration has one of its more obvious counterparts in the Hourglass Nebula on the left, and astronomers concede that it is forcing a reconsideration of the phys- ics of nebula formation. According to Raghvendra Sahai, an astron- omer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, "What we thought we understood of planetary nebulae we no longer do. Something different and dramatic is going on."74 Astrophysicists offer various guesses as to how a belt of “gas and dust” might form around the equator of a dying star. They imagine that a stellar “wind”—exploding in all directions—is somehow “constricted” to create bipolar jets. In some discussions of late, they even use the term "pinch," but in contexts that are more gravi- tational and mechanical than electrical. No mention is made of the far simpler plasma discharge pinch, because that requires a source of electrical energy external to the star. Yet in plasma laboratory experiments, the observed effect is commonplace—not just the pinch but all of the features of "hourglass" formations now seen in space.
A similar mystery is posed by the Butterfly Nebula (or M2-9), and higher resolution Hubble Telescope images have only under- scored the unanswered questions. Inside the "hourglass" of both the Hourglass and Butterfly nebulas is a second hourglass form. "It's
very hard to see how you get it," Sahai states.69 But again, glowing coaxial cylinders and cones are not a surprise to experts in plasma discharge phenomena.
Responding to the surprising details of the Hubble image, Lars Christensen of the European Space Agency states: "It's a big mys- tery to us all—how a round star like our own sun can create this effect, which is so symmetrical. It's amazing."70
Struggling to comprehend things never anticipated by prior the- oretical models, astronomers have resorted to improbable guesses based on gravitational and mechanical, non-electric forces with no reference to the electrical circuits necessary to generate the observed magnetic fields. Some imagine a binary star system with two stars in extremely close proximity exchanging mass. Matter drawn from one of the stars, they suppose, generates a giant disk around the other. Then, the “high-speed wind from one of the stars rams into the surrounding disk, which serves as a nozzle. The wind is deflected in a perpendicular direction and forms the pair of jets seen in the nebula’s image.”71
This scenario, using a “jet engine” as its analogy, lacks any plausible mechanism to generate the high-speed wind in the first place. Moreover, the claimed “wind” should generate highly visible effects on the disk, causing it to quickly dissipate. Both the “hour- glass” and “pitchfork” components of the nebula are, in fact, repli- cable in high-energy electric discharges. Illuminated by direct experimental evidence, the Butterfly Nebula can be seen as a “thun-
Hubble Telescope image of the The Butterfly Nebula, one of the most striking examples of a bipo- lar formation in space, with colli- mated jets and embedded cylinders extending distances greater than the diameter of our solar system.
This image produced by the Very Large Telescope, focused on the pinch point at the hourglass “neck” of the Butterfly Nebula. It shows a toroidal band of dusty plasma occluding the star at the center of a high energy discharge. A torus of this sort, whether visible or not, is predicted by the science of plasma discharge.
ABOVE LEFT: Ant Nebula.
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ABOVE RIGHT: the “exploding” star Eta Carinae.
The “planetary nebula” NGC 2346, revealing the telltale hour- glass form.
derbolt” form in space, with powerful electromagnetic forces main- taining its integrity across trillions of miles. That is not the way a mere cloud of electrically neutral “gas and dust” will behave in the vacuum of space!
Bipolar formations of this type, arising from the plasma pinch, are also well illustrated by the Ant Nebula (above left). Seen in the constellation Norma, its outflow speeds—3.5 million km/hour— surpass those of any other known object of its type. Though similar in appearance to the Butterfly Nebula, its outflow pattern resembles that of the bizarre, “unstable” star Eta Carinae (above right).
The lobes of Eta Carinae are as wide as our solar system and are observed to be expanding in opposite directions away from a cen- tral bright disk at speeds in excess of 1 million km/h (600,000 mph). Many astronomers now accept that the odd
shape is due to the star's intense magnetic field channeling plasma. But still the electric source of magnetic fields receives no mention. To explain 3 million degree temperatures and x-rays from gas more than a light-year from the central star, they resort to purely mechanical "shock waves," a con- cept that is completely unnecessary in an electric universe.
As long ago as 1968, Dr Charles Bruce of the UK Electrical Research Association identified plan- etary nebulae as bipolar electrical discharges from a central star. The nebula of Eta Carinae certainly belongs in that category. If the nebula is a plasma
heated by electric currents feeding into the star of Eta Carinae then, just as with our own sun, the highest "temperatures" are encoun- tered beyond the star. That is why there is relatively little radiation
from the star at the center. Most of the electrical power focused on the hapless star is being intercepted by gas and dust in the nebula and radiated energetically into space. Thus, Dr. Fred Seward of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics expressed great sur- prise at what he saw: "I expected to see a strong point source with a little diffuse emission cloud around it. Instead we see just the oppo- site—a bright cloud of diffuse emission, and much less radiation from the center.”78
Though a lot is happening close to the highly energetic pinch point, the hourglass form can be discerned in relation to the pinch, and stands in a predictable relationship to the “pitchfork” configu- ration of cylindrical current sheets.
These are by no means the only “hourglass” formations exhib- ited by nebula. In the Bug Nebula above, for example, many indica- tions of electrical activity are evident. The central star is hidden by a dark dust torus. And the shapes within the nebula mimic the twisted filaments, spirals and pillars typical of electrical discharge in plasmas.
ABOVE LEFT: The Bug Nebula, spanning about one third of a light year, but retaining the hourglass form of the plasma pinch. The light of the star is rich in ultraviolet, one of the signatures of electric dis- charge.
ABOVE RIGHT: A higher resolution Hubble Telescope image of the Bug Nebula.
Conclusion
In this investigation, converging paths of inquiry demand a reconsideration of popular beliefs in the sciences and social sci- ences. We can no longer view the history of human conscious- ness—or the history of our planet—through the lens of twentieth century cosmology.
The myths and symbols of antiquity will have a central place in this reconsideration. Though presented in the language of myth and symbol, ancient accounts of the warrior, the dragon, and cosmic combat are filled with images of electricity. The "thunderbolts of the gods" defy every effort to understand them as references to
familiar lightning. They spiral and whirl and entwine. They blos- som as a flower, or stand as a great pillar supporting the sky. Their forms are not the forms of regional lightning, but of plasma dis- charge in plasma laboratory experiments.
The ancient “lightning gods,” such as the Greek Zeus or Apollo, move about as fierce and towering forms in the heavens. In their appearance, these gods answer to no recognizable entity or force of nature, and the chroniclers’ descriptions will tempt us to regard the myth-makers themselves as relentless liars. But a much different understanding of ancient accounts is possible, if we grant to the original witnesses a certain integrity. We do not need to regard their testimony as "scientifically accurate." We need only acknowledge that the core themes of mythology may have originated in extraor- dinary natural events, for which ancient races had no cultural prep- aration.
If this was the case, the stories are a form of historic testimony in the only languages that were available to the eyewitnesses them- selves. It then becomes clear that around the world many different hieroglyphs and symbols actually described identical celestial phe- nomena. This discovery, in turn, requires that we follow the logical rules for dealing with converging testimony. How do we uncover the forgotten events now hidden behind the symbols they inspired? As discoveries in plasma science continue, we can be confident that a comparative analysis of ancient sources can stand alongside other fields of evidence. The testimony of ancient witnesses will find many corollaries in laboratory research and in new vistas in
space.