Early Earth - The Reign of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects 1552466531

Citation preview

Early Earth Comprising Denis Saurat’s Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants The Reign of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Translated from the French by Linda Hilpold Foreword by John Robert Colombo Afterword by Harold Saurat

Early Earth Copyright © 2006 John Robert Colombo Cover / Bertram Brooker (1888-1955), Canadian, Allelujah, c. 1929, oil on canvas, 123 x 123.3 cm. Purchased 1969. National Gallery of Canada / Musee des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Frontispiece: Pen-and-ink drawing by “Isaac Bickerstaff’ (Don Evans) No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or trans­ mitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, re­ cording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Saurat, Denis, 1890-1958. Early earth: comprising Denis Saurat's Atlantis and the reign of the giants, The reign of the giants and the civilization of the insects / translated from the French by Linda Hilpold ; foreword by John Robert Colombo ; afterword by Harold Saurat.

Translation of Atlantide et le regne des geants and Religion des geants et la civilisation des insectes. ISBN 1-55246-653-1

1. Atlantis. I. Hilpold, Linda II. Title. III. Title: Atlantis and the reign of the giants. IV. Title: Reign of the giants and the civilization of the insects.

GN751.S312 2006

001.94

C2005-906741-1

Printed in Canada First Printing, January 2006 George A. Vanderburgh, Publisher The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box™ e-Mail: [email protected] * Far: (519) 925-3482 Website: www.batteredbox.com

P. O. Box 204 Shelburne, Ontario Canada LON ISO

P. O. Box 122 Sauk City, Wisconsin U.S.A. 53583-0122

Table of Contents Foreword by John Robert Colombo / 7 Acknowledgements / 37 Note on the Translation of Linda Hilpold / 38 Denis Saurat’s Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants/39 The Reign of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects I 175

Afterword by Harold Saurat / 299

Appendices 1. Geological Classification / 312 2. Texts of the Two Books / 315 3. Blurb and Excerpts from Reviews / 317 4. Brave Old World (Edwin Muir) / 319 5. A Study of Gurdjieff / 322 6. The Black Dwarf / 326 7. Some Passing References / 329 8. Interesting Initiative / 331 9. Two Letters from Jean Cocteau / 334 10. Some Last Thoughts / 337 11. Books by Denis Saurat / 345

Denis Saurat — Isaac Bickerstaff

Foreword 4 i\T0W’ mY own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” These are familiar words. They were written by the British geneticist J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964), although from time to time they are attributed to Sir Arthur Eddington, the British cosmologist and a contemporary, perhaps because they reflect Eddington’s sentiments as well as Haldane’s suspicions. But it was Haldane who committed them to print in his thoughtful book Possible Worldsand Other Essays (1927). The title essay of that collection addresses the relationship between public knowledge and personal conviction: This is one of the reasons why the data of the mystical consciousness can usefully supplement those of the mind in its normal state. Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I have read and heard many attempts at a systematic account of it, from materialism and theosophy to the Christian system or that of Kant, and I have always felt that they were much too simple. I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy. That is the reason why I have no philosophy myself, and must be my excuse for dreaming.

Haldane approached this subject in the same spirit that Prince Hamlet raised it with his friend Horatio, for the concluding words of this remarkable essay paraphrase the speech in Hamlet. In the absence of “any philosophy,” Haldane gives expression to his “suspicion” or his “dreaming,” and his flights of fancy or imagination bring to mind the Flying Carpet that appears in the. Arabian Nights, with its magical propulsion system which demonstrates what has been called “cartoon physics,” whereby characters in comic books and animated cartoons are able to race right off the edges of cliffs and continue to run unsupported in mid-air, until such time as they look down, when they immediately plummet to the earth below where they land with a life­ affirming thump! Like the human imagination, such systems are powerful enough to defy danger and death and transport us not only around the

7

8 | Early Earth

world but also across all space and all time to witness the genesis of the stars, the generation of the galaxies, the formation of the planets, including Earth, the evolution of forms of life...geological epochs so remote from us that whatever ideas we once entertained about the Solar System in its youth or about the planet Earth in its infancy were derived from theory and conjecture, from deduction and induction, as well as from a system of extrapolation based on the principles of the “hard sciences”—physics, chemistry, biology, paleontology, and astronomy. These in turn are augmented by the findings of the “soft sciences”-disciplines like archaeology, anthropology, ethnology, sociology, psychology, psychiatry, theology, philosophy, metaphysics, mythology, history, folklore, and literature. Elsewhere (in an essay on the questionable history of the Holy Grail in early Canada) I introduced the neologism “rehistorian” to refer to the writer or scholar who is able to assemble in unequal measure both the hard facts of science and the soft findings of those other disciplines in order to transport the human spirit and imagination and hence conjecture beyond “the fields we know.” The rehistorian is necessarily an associative thinker and a generalist, as distinct from the historian or scholar proper who is by training a systematic thinker and a specialist. The former is a “lumper,” the latter a “splitter.” Rehistorians make fresh starts; historians mark continu­ ities. Both the synthesizer and the analyst add to the sum of human knowledge: “the record of nature through countless ages” and “the arts of man through all the years” (following the inscriptions that flank the grand entranceway to the Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum). Whereas the historian sticks to the scientific record, the rehistorian has at his (or her) disposal a wealth of intuitions and insights gleaned from mythology, legend, lore, tradition, psychology, literature, and the popular imagination, to expand the imaginative inventory of nature’s actualities and man’s possibilities. It must be added that the rehistorian introduces elements that are less than scientific and barely scholarly. The rehistorian takes the popular view that “science does not know all things,” “theories come and go,” “scientists have vested interests,” “anomalies mean more than regular­ ities,” and “the establishment is engaged in a cover up” if not in “a widespread conspiracy” to suppress dissident thinking and “the truth of it

Foreword | 9

all.” Highly suspect, in his eyes, are the science and scholarship in the “mainstream.” The scepticism of the rehistorian is focussed on common or accepted knowledge that is part and parcel of the received wisdom, rather than on the abnormalities, deviations, or irregularities of the data. Novel and untested surmises are preferred to data and fact; grand designs are expected to compete with tried and true ideas from the past. The soul of man is the heart and core of “rehistory.” Such is the thinking of the rehistorian. Such is the thought that is called Forte an—a reference to Charles Fort (1896-1971), the American researcher and writer who devoted his waking hours to scouring the world’s press for accounts of acts and facts that were in their day regarded as breaking the laws, resisting the rules, and defying the odds. He called such incidents “the oddities,” “the damned,” “the excluded,” or “the datum,” and he embraced them and felt he had to do so because they were so arrogantly and arbitrarily dismissed by “dogmatic science and scientists.” Haldane, as an orthodox biologist, would probably have little or no time at all for Fort, yet had he been familiar with Forteanism, he would have been intrigued with Fort’s willingness to entertain ideas that are by their very nature implausible, when not irrational. (Indeed, administrators of The Fortean Society proposed that Haldane be an “honorary founder”; it is not recorded that he accepted the honour, if he knew of it. Had he done so, he would have been right at home in the Society, for his own writings finger the fringes of the broadcloth of Forteanism. That also is where Denis Saurat, as a thorough-going rehistorian, may be found: on the Fortean fringe.) Thorough-going Forteanism is a thing of the past, though one of Fort’s principles is that history repeats itself, or at least man does. Indeed, Fort’s ideas lurk in unlikely places, as in the otherwise baffling movie Magnolia (1999). Its title suggests (in the fashion of an anagram) the spirit of High Strangeness connected with “Magonia.” The “fall of frogs” at the end of the movie is a trope in the Fortean universe. Is it a stretch to claim that the spirit of Fort lives on in the theories of Post-modernism? Why not? Interestingly, the term “postmodernism” was introduced not by Fort but by the English critic Bernard Iddings Bell, author of Postmodernism and Other Essays (1926). Early use of the word (with a hyphen) was made by Denis Saurat in the article “French Literature of To-day” which appeared

10 | Early Earth

in the British weekly The Listener, 28 Oct. 1931. There Saurat referred to a literary work “in which the values are definitely anti-modern, post­ modern.” Indeed, postmodernism, as a philosophical and aesthetic movement, goes against the Modernist grain. As it does so, it knocks down the ten-pins of cause and effect. Fort and Saurat and even Haldane would have enjoyed this spectacle! The Postmodern movement is comfortable with the twin notions of “speculative fiction” and “speculative non-fiction.” The first term was introduced by SF author Robert A. Heinlein, who proposed it to describe­ in the words of Peter Nicholls in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993)-“a subset of sf involving extrapolation from known science and technology ‘to produce a new situation, a new framework for human action.’” The term was subsequently extensively employed by the SF author Judith Merril in place of the label “science fiction” to refer to “that kind of sociological sf which concentrates on social change without necessarily any great emphasis on science or technology.” Thereafter the term came to include “not only soft and hard sf but also fantasy as a whole.” Its companion term “speculative non-fiction” blurred the boundary between the use of prose to describe imaginary fictional narratives and the use of prose to refer to discursive, non-fictional essays, discourses, and dissertations. “Speculative non-fiction” is discursive rather than dramatic. In his early years, H.G. Wells wrote stories and novels that were later labelled “science fiction”; in his last years, he wrote reports and narratives that could be called “speculative non-fiction.” Saurat, for one, was quite at home with Wells’s free-wheeling imagination, both early and late. Saurat’s work is speculative and non-fictional, whether couched in the form of memoir, lecture, anecdote, reflection, conjecture, theorizing, or dream analysis. The results, like Haldane’s universe, are not only “queerer” than can be supposed but “queerer” than any rationally minded person-not to mention any scientifically educated person-would be prepared to admit. It is interesting to note that the term “speculative non-fiction” has been popular since the 1960s, and so has the word “queer” for gays and lesbians, though Haldane employs the word in the sense of “eccentric” or “strange,” “questionable” or “unconventional.” Certainly the ideas that are proposed

Foreword \ 11

in the two texts included in Early Earth are eccentric, strange, questionable, and unconventional. Even Haldane (not to mention Eddington) would be baffled (if not buffaloed!) by what in their pages is accepted or rejected as evidence. How did this state of affairs come about? Why would a respectable academic like Saurat take it upon himself to step outside his areas of competence and address the subject of the prehistory of the planet Earth and the early earthlings? Why would he risk his reputation by advancing unscientific conceptions at odds with those of astrophysics, geology, and biology, identifying himself with notions regarded as outlandish, bizarre, or weird? These questions are worth asking, but while there is no single reason why he travelled that road, there are a number of considerations that may be combined to shed some light on Saurat’s unconventional decision to devote much of the last decade of his life to researching and rewriting the script of the formation of the planet and its earliest forms of life. First and foremost, there is the character of the man. Denis Saurat (1890-1958) was a person of many parts, perhaps more complex than complicated. At first glance many of those parts seem unrelated to the whole. Only later do they begin to appear to cohere. For much of his public life he served as Professor and Head of the Department of French at King’s College, London. That was a demanding position. At the same time there was the commanding position as Director of the French Institute of London. In his writing and broadcasting, he was an advocate of what he called “philosophical poetry,” which he defined as the literature that gives expression to the traditions of the people and the truths of traditional wisdom. He wrote twenty-eight books and published innumerable articles in scholarly journals and the popular press. He was a poet of mystical and traditional inclination. He was a student of psychical research and he mixed socially with mediums and spiritualists. He was a popular speaker on public affairs and a broadcaster familiar to listeners of BBC radio. He was a spokesman for the Bonne Entente movement which celebrated the shared histories of England and France. He was one of the first of the Frenchmen who lived abroad to respond to Charles de Gaulle’s appeal, broadcast on the BBC on 18 June 1940, to join the forces of the Free French.

12 | Early Earth

At the same time, there are ways in which he was not well-equipped to dispatch these responsibilities. He was not a scientist; he took scant interest in the natural sciences. While he was able to identify the constellations in the night sky, he had no training in physics or astronomy. He was a literary scholar, but not a textual scholar, seldom concerned to identify the editions of texts that he consulted. He was untrained as an historian, and while he enjoyed writing about the history of ideas, especially religious ideas and ideas about religions, his notion of research consisted of wide reading and then composing provocative essays of comparison and contrast full of fruitful paradoxical expressions of opinion. He wrote the way he spoke: associatively, provocatively. He investigated the formative intellectual and psychological influences on the lives of the principal philosophical poets (Milton, Blake, Hugo), but the research he conducted into their lives and times took place between the covers of the books of others, in carrels in libraries, in addresses in the halls of learning, and before a microphone. He made no field trips and so had no expertise as an archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist, or paleontologist. At the same time, he was able to steer clear of the cults of unreason that cripple their followers as well as the cranks who championed crackpot ideas, though he was personally sympathetic to people who held pronounced views at odds with those of society in general, like Christadelphians, Theosophists, and Spiritualists. He himself entertained notions that might be described as theosophical or kabbalistic (in its Christian and not its Hebrew guise); he kept his head about him when he engaged in psychical research with spirit-mediums (the pastime of a good many of his learned and scientifically trained contemporaries), and the discoveries he made in these fields, uncertain yet suggestive, helped him to account for the weird themes and obscure motifs in the writings of the philosophical poets about whom he taught, wrote, and spoke. He was deeply interested in the interpretation of dreams (like Sigmund Freud), fascinated with psychical research (like Carl Jung), and intrigued with the lore of the folk (like Sir James Frazer, whom he once met), yet he kept these engulfing enthusiasms at bay. The one hobby horse that he did ride was the notion of “philosophical poetry,” the idea being that there are poems-like Richard Dawkins’s memes-that carry images and ideas of perennial interest and that these range from the currents and undercurrents of “old wives’ tales”

Foreword

13

to the noblest conceptions of the greatest of the world’s literary artists. He found in his own dreams and in the obscurer literatures that he so avidly read the keys to the individual wells of the subconscious as well as to the oceans of the collective unconscious. All told, Saurat was willing to receive and revive interest in novel notions, especially those that had imaginative appeal, and particularly those that “went against the grain.” Saurat took early retirement from the academic life and from the life of a public (or as the English say “private”) educator in London for two reasons: ill health and the decision of the post-war government in Paris in 1945 to exert control over the Institute that he had directed and redirected for so many years. With his well-loved wife Ella, he retired to an apartment in Nice, where he devoted many of his last eight years to researching, writing, translating, and publishing his last two books. As their titles might suggest, these are by far his most contentious publi­ cations. (They might even be described as outrageous.) The titles are L ’Atlantide et le regne des geants (1954) and La Religion des geants et la civilisation des insectes (1955). With them he pronounced finis to the study of literature and simultaneously proclaimed allons-y to new voyages of intellectual discovery. The decision to embark on a perilous voyage is one that is not made with ease. The commitment is an expression of the spirit of adventure, but also an admission of a restlessness of the spirit. He felt himself constrained by ill-health, for he had never fully recovered from wounds sustained by the explosion of a V-2 during the London blitz. Now that he was retired, both from the University of London and from the directorship of the Institut frangais, why bother to be respectable? After all, one of his neighbours on the Riviera was Jean Cocteau, who was respected-though certainly not respectable! As for scholarly consider­ ations, checking sources and citations, weighing bodies of evidence and balancing arguments pro and con...what was the point of writing yet another scholarly book? Why should he not chuck all this overboard, sail the river of speculation, and see where it takes him, the voyager that he has always been? Let scientists worry about science; let scholars worry about scholarship. Let Saurat sally forth, the conquistador of the knowledge of the ancient past! He would have been in agreement with Alice James, sister of William and Henry James, when she wondered aloud why anyone would consider settling for one scientific fact when one could entertain a

14 j Early Earth

fantasy that fitted all the facts. During the years in Nice, Saurat made a virage, an about-face. He turned from the history of literature to the literature of prehistory. It was a departure for him, one of two that he made in the last decade of his life. The other was that he began to compose poems in Occitan. He had long fancied himself a poet. In London during the Second World War, he had composed Le Soldat remain, a lengthy narrative poem that tells the story of Longinus, the Roman centurion whose sword pierced the breast of Jesus on the Cross. He wrote it in French. Now DS could return to the “unfinished business” of his real mother tongue. His first language had been Occitan, not French. He had grown up speaking that language in the Pyrenees in the South; half a century later, when he found himself again in the South of France, he began to compose poetry in that tongue. That language, Occitan, had been spoken and hauntingly sung in the courts of the Languedoc during the thirteenth century. It had served as the language of the Cathars, those pagan or Manichean Christians, and it was said to be the language of the Holy Grail. Saurat devoted the remaining years of his life to reviving those vowels and relishing those consonants, re-exper­ iencing the sensations, emotions, and notions associated with those syllables. Occitan is so primitive it seems almost barbaric and prehistoric. Hence it is the ideal vehicle for a poet’s expression of timeless truths. Saurat, with his poetry and his speculation, both works of the Muses, enjoyed a new lease on life. It is fairly easy to account for his change-ofheart, his sudden departure from the subject of literature and the strictures of scientific thought, if what comes to mind is the phrase “the mind at the end of its tether.” Indeed, Mind at the End of Its Tether is the title of H.G. Wells’s last book, published the year of his death in 1946. It is an account of the despair that he experienced with the realization that the science and technology of his heart’s desire had far outstripped man’s ability to control and contain them. Wells’s use of the phrase may well be an echo of Joseph Conrad’s use of the words in his haunting novelette “The End of the Tether” (1902), which tells the story of a sea captain who is unable to reconcile social change with family obligation in the face of his own failing powers and mortality. Was Saurat, in renouncing the “tether” (that of his failing health and his impending death) seeking to affirm the principle of life in all its forms that surpasses that of its human form?

Foreword | 15

I like to think that his last years were the most satisfying of all of the ones that had preceded them. He had reserved the best of himself for the end, “the last for which the first was made.” If that is what he did, he was in good company. Throughout history there have been men (though it seems no women) of achievement who have marked their last years with a departure from the familiar hearth for unfamiliar seas and far shores. Mention is made here of a few prominent people who left their disciplines far behind with the feeling “the devil take the hindmost”! J. Norman Emerson (1917-1978) was known as the Father of Canadian Archaeology. For many years he was the principal archaeologist at the University of Toronto, and in later years, to the dismay of his colleagues, he became a leading proponent of “intuitive archaeology.” That is, he embraced the use of psychics in the practice of his profession. “It is my conviction,” he told members of the Canadian Archaeological Association at its annual meeting in March 1973, “that I have received knowledge without archaeological artifacts and archaeological sites from a psychic informant who relates this information to me without any evidence of the conscious use of reasoning.” The psychic was George McMullen, a former carpenter, who demonstrated psychometric abilities to Emerson’s satisfaction. McMullen would tell the stories of the objects that he held in his hands. He would also locate unearthed objects on digs. There is no uncontested evidence that McMullen led Emerson to discover any previously unknown sites, but he could certainly paint verbal pictures of native lifestyles that Emerson found convincing. In the opinion of colleagues, Emerson reasoned that he had gone about as far as he could go with orthodox methods, so it was lime to test some of the unorthodox ones. Throughout his professional life, Evan V. Shute (1905-1978), an obstetrician and cardiologist, conducted a busy clinical practice in London, Ont. As early as 1933, he observed that Vitamin E was effective in the treatment of some heart conditions. With his brother, who was also a physician, he established The Shute Foundation for Medical Research, and in the last decade of his life he pulled out all the stops to promote Vitamin E therapy. In doing so he defied the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons. He was a late-blooming but early proponent of megavitamin therapy. To set the record straight about his practices and beliefs, he wrote an account of his life The Vitamin E Story, which makes for dolorous

16 | Early Earth

reading. It was published posthumously in 1985. Linus Pauling contributed the book’s foreword. Early in his career, the American chemist Linus Pauling (1901-1994) specialized in the study of molecular bonding, and for pioneering work in this field he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1954. His career took an unexpected turn when he joined the ranks of peace ad­ vocates who demonstrated against the decision of the world’s governments to continue their “tests” (that is, authorize “controlled” explosions of nuclear materials). His participation in this protest movement earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. Thereafter he coined the term “ortho­ molecular” which first appeared in print in Science in 1968 in his article “Orthomolecular Psychiatry.” Here he argued that nutrition plays a leading role in the mental and physical health, so he became an advocate of natural substances in megadoses and endorsed the use of concentrations of Vitamin C. He was also, like Dr. Shute, an advocate of Vitamin E. Throughout his life, Linus Pauling pushed the boundaries, especially during his later years. Saurat’s career bears a resemblance to the lives of these pioneers, as well as to that of J. Allen Hynek (1910-1986). A respected astronomer, with both feet in the academy, Hynek was a sceptic of the UFO pheno­ menon. It is said he turned a blind eye to the eyepiece of his telescope. He served as scientific adviser to the U.S. Air Force’s Project Grudge (194852) and its successor Project Blue Book (1952-69), projects that had been established to assemble and analyze reports of Flying Saucers and Unidentified Flying Objects. Initially Hynek was reluctant to give credence to the reality of UFOs, and on one occasion (demonstrating his talent for phrase-making) he dismissed the phenomenon as the result of “swamp gas.” With some reluctance he departed from the consensus of his fellow scientists and arrived at the conclusion that UFOs represent “an aspect or domain of the natural world not yet explored by science.” In 1973, in Chicago, he founded the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS), and thereafter became the leading scientific proponent on the reality—the extraterrestrial reality-of the phenomenon. He coined the basic termin­ ology- “close encounters of the first, second, and third kinds”-and even appeared (as himself) in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He left his scientific-minded colleagues far behind, racing ahead with theories

Foreword \ 17

about “the phenomenon.’’ The result is that his name is a most respected one in the annals of ufology, though not in the records of astronomy. Robert A. Monroe (1915-1995), a successful businessman for much of his life, had an out-of-body experience in mid-life that he could not explain. He decided to “run” with it and devote his time, energy, and resources to the study of OBEs. He came to the surprising conclusion that “the greatest illusion is that mankind has limitations.” In 1974, he established The Monroe Institute at Faber, Virginia, to explore “focused consciousness” through technological devices (such as “hemi-sync” waves). Monroe saw himself in his later years as an astronaut of “inner space.” Edgar Mitchell (b. 1930), a real-life astronaut, trained as an aeronautical engineer and jet pilot. A U.S. Air Force Captain, he commanded the lunar module of the Apollo 14 craft. He spent thirty-three hours on the surface of the Moon, Jan.-Feb. 1971. On the return voyage he experienced the sense that man and nature inhabit “a universe of consciousness.” With this overwhelming experience came the sense that his life had been unalterably changed. Two years later, in Petaluma, California, he established The Institute of Noetic Sciences, which is “an organization dedicated to understanding the human possibility of investigating aspects of mind, consciousness and spirit.” The outer astronaut became the inner astronaut. There was no “conversion experience” that led John Mack (1929-2004), Harvard-trained psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, to observe in clinical settings some two hundred men and women who claimed alien-encounter experiences. There is some question whether his role was that of the therapist with the best interests of his patients in mind or the researcher who was writing a popular book based on their accounts. Perhaps he simply wanted to explore the “way-out” reaches of reality and consciousness. In 1989, he founded the John Mack Institute to “explore consciousness and the process of individual and social transformation.” Publication of his first edition of Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens (1994) brought on an administrative review of his academic standing that was conducted by the Dean of the Harvard Medical School, and that in turn led Mack to make minor alterations to the second edition of his book. The changes were small but they offered the reader a more nuanced interpretation of the data. That book was followed by a further

18

Early Earth

investigation titled Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters (1999). Mack’s accidental death deprived his readers both critical and committed of the opportunity witness his next virage. Other instances and precedents for Saurat’s late-blooming interests are easily found, but the point has probably been made that specialists have been known to lay down the tools of their specialties and take up new ones, often to cries of dismay from colleagues, but generally to gasps of astonishment from the general public. Folklore fascinated Saurat as much as did literature. He was particularly intrigued with traditional and ancient tales of giants. Larger-than-life, human-like beings are mentioned in the world’s scriptures (think of Samson), in fairy tales and folktales (Jack and the Beanstock), and in early poetic sagas like Gilgamesh and Beowulf. Then there are the famous giants of literature (Gargantua, Gulliver), not to mention Milton’s Satan and Blake’s Albion. Saurat equated stories of such giant beings (some human, some inhuman) with the exciting tales that his mother told him when he was a child. On his mother’s knee he was moved by the rhythms and sounds of this bygone tongue in Occitan-legends told by the peasants of France in the Pyrenees and the Ardennes. Were these tales but dim memories of giant beings who walked the Earth in the distant past? Progenitors of Asterisk? Preconfigurations of culture heroes and saviours of civilizations, like the lofty Charles de Gaulle who at six-foot-five towered over Saurat’s five-foot-six? If there are giants among us today, who lead us and protect us, were there giants in the remote past who rendered similar services? If giants existed in the remote past-and Genesis (6:4) reads, “There were giants in earth in those days”-they must have had customs of their own that included religious practices and traditions well worth knowing had they not been lost forever. Well, maybe not forever. Prehistory tells us all about the extinction of the dinosaurs and the unforeseen rise of brute man, the troglodyte, the Neanderthal, the Cro-Magnon, and then Homo sapiens. The prehistoric record, like the akashic record, offers evidence of much more than that: records of giant beings and giant earthquakes, universal deluges, stupendous volcanic explosions, incredible conflagrations, and tremendous meteoric impacts. These were terrestrial and celestial events of planet­ encircling magnitude, all outlined in the psychological records of mankind,

Foreword

19

the individual subconscious, or the collective unconscious. If there were humanoid creatures to witness such events and extinctions, they must have been traumatic in the extreme. The suggestion is that events of apocalyptic dimensions result in racial trauma, cultural amnesia, and individual denial-post-traumatic disorder brought about by apocalypses. There are rich, recurring individual references in fringe, ancient, and occult literatures to civilizations anterior to our own. These civilizations are generally described as sea-faring societies with high degrees of technological expertise that in some fields surpassed our own as well as psychical attainments that beggar the imagination. Shamballah, Mu, Lemuria, Atlantis, Avalon, Arcadia, Norumbega...their names resonate with the spirit and energy of poetry of the cultures and societies that flowered in the distant past and then disappeared seemingly beneath the waters of the world, fauna and flora, edifices and animals and early human beings, seemingly without leaving a trace. Like Debussy’s “Sunken Cathedral,” the islet of Mont-Saint-Michel, the menhirs of Carnac, they resonate in the human imagination. They are like dreams come true. Here we enter the realm of dreams. Did not Plato describe art as “dreams for the waking mind”? The canvas of the earliest days of Earth is the “dream screen” of the psychoanalyst. And describing it might be what is called “true dreaming” or “dreaming true.” Dreams beget speculation and speculation begets theories which may or may not have an air of certainty about them. There is a heritage of speculation-semi-scientific, quasi-scientific-about the face of early Earth. This is the province of the independent thinker, who plays in modern times the role of the savant or bard of old, the custodian of tradition, who entertains his fellow human being with the tribal lays. In our time their

tales shine with the veneer of science. One of the most influential independent thinkers of the modern period is Hanns Hoerbiger (1860-1931), the Austrian mining engineer who proposed his once-popular Cosmic Ice Theory. Hoerbiger undertook his work in earnest; he regarded himself as a genius, or at least he regarded his findings as the work of genius. (Indeed, he had no false modesty, having once boasted that he knew he was right when “I knew that Newton was wrong.”) In 1913, he advanced his theory of the frozen cosmos with the German publication of Glazialkosmogonie written in collaboration with

20 I Early Earth

Philipp Fauthen. His book was widely reprinted, though curiously it never appeared in an English translation. There are two reasons why his work is of present-day interest. First, his philosophy is an instance of “a theory contrary to fact” (like the Flat Earth theory or the Hollow Earth theory). Second, it is an example of the occult thought that attracted the interest of the Nazi theoreticians and ideologues, especially Heinrich Himmler, who on behalf of the Third Reich incorporated the Cosmic Ice Theory into “Aryan science.” For these reasons, its influence was initially limited to the German-speaking world. Indeed, the English-speaking world kept the cosmic-ice theory at arm’s length. In postwar years it attracted the interest of a handful of dissident thinkers in England, and their interest sparked that of Saurat, who in turn kindled an interest in these ideas among the French reading public. All in all, Saurat was the most respectable and the most prominent spokesman for such thought in any language, and the only one with an independent reputation as a writer and educator. Hoerbiger’s theory of “ice cosmology” is far-ranging and far-reaching. He argues that human beings on Earth experienced two major catastrophes during the Holocene Period of the last 10,000 years. Both cataclysmic events were connected with the Moon, or, to express it more precisely, with Moon 1 and Moon 2. Earth is known to have successively attracted at least two satellites into its orbit. The early inhabitants of earth watched in horror as the orbit of Moon 1, decayed and the satellite crashed into the Earth, disintegrating upon impact. Then they marvelled at the wonders in the sky, as Earth’s gravity captured the current moon, Moon 2, named Luna, some 11,500 years ago. To support the theory of catastrophism, various forms of evidence are instanced, ranging from ruptures in the fossil record to perturbations of other bodies in the Solar System. Astrophysicists may be forgiven if there are yawns when theories like these are proposed to account for the origin of the Moon and for the genesis of mankind. Yet throughout recorded history such theories have been rife, like rumours (with attendant rumours of conspiratorial coverups), and they range in kind from accounts of shamanistic voyages to the Moon to fictional depictions of the use of “dew-power” to land on its surface to descriptions of workable propulsion systems based on the principles of ballistics or rocketry. With the emergence of modern science in the Seventeenth Century,

Foreword 21

scientists have waxed and waned about opposing theoretical accounts of creation. The principle theories are Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism; their opposition is mainly a matter of emphasis, for both describe natural forces and are subject to scientific inquiry. Uniformitarianism has been defined in these words: “In geology, doctrine holding that changes in the earth’s surface that occurred in past geologic time are referable to the same changes now being produced upon the earth’s surface.” The corresponding definition of Catastrophism goes like this: “In geology, the doctrine that at intervals in the earth’s history all living things have been destroyed by cataclysms (e.g., floods or earthquakes) and replaced by an entirely different population.” The definitions are taken from the Columbia Encyclopedia (6th edition, 2001). It means nothing that one scientist leans towards gradualism and another lists towards cataclysm, as long as they limit inference to evidence and accept as fact the passage of immense periods of time, punctuated with interventions of a physical rather than a divine nature. It is of particular interest that there is no room for super­ natural intervention or “special creation” in the theories of uniformi­ tarianism and catastrophism. If evolutionary change occurs over immense epochs of time, catastrophes are bound to occur at irregular intervals. Well-respected scientists like George Cuvier (1769-1832), one of the founders of vertebrate paleontology, argued that mass extinctions during the early epochs were the result of volcanism or large impact events, though not necessarily those of the order determined by Hoerbiger. The idea of gradual change over an immense span of time is associated with two scientists, James Hutton, author of Theory of the Earth (1785), and Sir Charles Lyell, author of Principles of Geology (1830). In later years, scientists have been busy with their own catastrophe-friendly theories. Walter and Louis Alvarez have argued in a paper published in a learned journal in 1980 that an asteroid 10 kilometres in diameter crashed into the Yucatan Plateau, turning it into the Yucatan Peninsula that we know today, eliminating 70 per cent of all species, including the dinosaurs. This event took place at the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago. Non­ scientists, perhaps attracted by the stupendous theme, have advocated the catastrophist cause. Among them are Ignatius Donnelly, H.S. Bellamy, Immanuel Velikovsky, and Cornyns Beaumont. If alien intervention is taken to be an extension of catastrophism, add to this list scientists like

22 | Early Earth

Fred Hoyle (with his theory of panspermia) and theorists like Zecharia Sitchin (the author of a series of books about god-like visitors originally described by the Prophets of Israel as the biblical Nefilim). If Charles Fort were alive today, he would comment on the ubiquity of “Hans” or “Hanns” in the catastrophist camp. There is Hanns Hoerbiger, and there is H.S. - Hans - Schindler, who considered himself a “com­ parative mythologist.” For English-speaking readers, he advanced the cause with two influential books: Moons, Myths, and Man (1936) and A Life History of the Earth (1951). They were issued in London not by an obscure publishing company but by the distinguished house of Faber & Faber. One wonders what T.S. Eliot, an editor there at the time, made of them. Some years later the same house issued Saurat’s Atlantis and the Giants (1957). Spectacular is the adjective to describe the writings of Immanuel Velikovsky (1895-1979), a Russian-Jewish physician, psychoanalyst, and planetary-science theorist. The drama of his books is not limited to their subject matter (the burst of a new satellite from the body of an old planet); or bound to a style of writing (so breathless, so cliff-hanging); or hobbled by their implications (archaeological records, cultural amnesia); or restricted to their reception (scientists pressuring their publisher to suppress them). The books abound in all of these! The best-known titles are the earliest-namely, Worlds in Collision (195£), Ages in Chaos (1952), Earth in Upheaval (1955). They were probably known to Saurat. The works of Bellamy and others were not notable sellers; they generated little or no academic controversy. Velikovsky’s works, like those of Ignatius Donnelly, the U.S. Senator who wrote on Atlantis and Ragnarok, had an immense influence in their day. The popularity of Velikovsky’s books was aided and abetted by the decision of a group of scientific authors to boycott Macmillan, their publisher, if it persisted in listing Velikovsky’s books in its catalogue. Macmillan succumbed to the pressure of censorship. Another publisher, Doubleday, eager to step in, turned these books into bestsellers. Velikovsky always maintained his critics attacked him and not his theories, which he believed were testable yet never tested. But when they were examined critically by specialists, they were found wanting. For instance, there is Carl Sagan’s notable essay “Venus and Dr. Velikovsky”

Foreword

23

in Broca’s Brain (1978). It is a masterpiece of even-handed appreciation and scientific examination. Sagan observes that Velikovsky is a writer who works on not one level but on two levels: Velikovsky has called attention to a wide range of stories and legends, held by diverse peoples, separated by great distances, which stories show remarkable similarities and concordances. I am not expert in the cultures or languages of any of these peoples, but I find the concatenation of legends Velikovsky has accumulated stunning. It is true that some experts in these cultures are less impressed. I can remember vividly discussing Worlds in Collision with a distinguished professor of Semitics at a leading university. He said something like “The Assyriology, Egyptology, Biblical scholarship and all of that Talmudic and Midrashic pilpul is, of course, nonsense; but I was impressed by the astronomy.” I had rather the opposite view.

The literary sections of these books appealed to the astronomers, while the astronomical parts appealed to the literary scholars; but the literary scholars dismissed the literary sections, just as the astronomers dismissed the astronomical parts. Sagan went on to suggest one of the reasons why in general the scientific community shied away from devoting time to discussing fringe science.

To the extent that scientists have not given Velikovsky the reasoned response his work calls for, we have ourselves been responsible for the propagation of Velikovskian confusion. But scientists cannot deal with all areas of borderline science. The thinking, calculations and preparation of this chapter, for example, took badly needed time away from my own research. But it was certainly not boring, and at the very least I had a brush with many an enjoyable legend. Sagan’s essay was first published in Donald Goldsmith’s Scientists Confront Velikovsky (1977). Velikovsky’s doctorate was an earned one in Medicine with a speciality in Psychiatry. He was awarded his one and only honorary doctorate by the newly formed University of Lethbridge, Alberta. The papers delivered at the symposium to mark the event held on May 1973, appeared in Recollections of a Fallen Sky: Velikovsky and Cultural Amnesia (1978) edited by E.R. Milton. Another consideration of his “catastrophism”

24 I Early Earth

appears in Henry H. Bauer’s Beyond Velikovsky (1984). Velikovsky’s mantle fell on the broad shoulders of Zecharia Sitchin, another Russian-born, Palestinian-Israeli thinker. In a series of vigorously written and closely argued popular books, with the general title “Earth Chronicles”—exemplary instances of semi-scholarly argument-he advances his theory that there is a tenth, undiscovered planet, which he names Nibiru and which he describes as the home of a race of super beings who about 450,000 years ago landed on Earth and created the human race to act as slaves to mine for the gold that they so desired. These human-like beings were the inspiration for the gods of ancient times and they bear such names as Marduk, Enlil, Enki, Osiris, Seth, etc. They are described in Akkadian and Sumerian texts as the Anunnaki, and they are named in Genesis the Elohim, Nefilim, “those who from heaven to earth came,” or “fallen ones, or men” in the Book of Genesis. The Egyptians knew them as “the Neterw.” Their males cohabited with female apes and through genetic engineering created the human race. It is a complex story and their presences are recorded in the ancient texts of the world’s major religions. It seems they were giants. Next to the theories of Velikovsky and Sitchkin, Saurat’s researches, based largely on the writings of Bellamy and Allan, are tame stuff. Yet they predated the works of these Russian thinkers and appeared in two books originally published in regular editions by literary house Editions Denoel in Paris and then in mass-market paperback editions issued by Editions J’ai lu. The books convey his speculations on planetary formation and the evolution of various species of early life in a style characterized by high spirits, dramatic expression, bold exaggeration, and disdain for the accepted opinions of the scientific establishment. The two titles are L’Atlantide et le regne des geants (Paris: Denoel, 1954) and La Religion des geants et la civilisation des insectes (Paris: Denoel, 1955). Readers today rarely encounter the original editions and have to make do with mass-market paperback reprint editions with bright maroon-and-gold covers. Copies were issued in the tens of thousands by Editions J’ai lu. They flooded the French-language book market and brought Saurat’s name into a sphere of controversy. Saurat wrote with equal fluency in French and English and usually translated his own books, adapting them to their respective markets as he

Foreword j 25

went along. He wrote these two books in French but found the time to translate only the first book into English. It was published under the short title Atlantis and the Giants (London: Faber & Faber, 1957). In a way this

was unfortunate because the English version misrepresents the man and the message, with the result that the only knowledge the English reader had and has of Saurat’s planetary speculations-his cosmology, so to speak-is through the Faber publication. It consists of about two-thirds of the text of the original French edition. Missing are chapters on the relevance to his argument of theosophical ruminations, dream analysis, psychoanalysis, poetry, and what he calls “le cote spirituel” the spiritual aspect of things. The English reader finds the bare bones of the argument, without the sinews and fascia that might lend it a form and face of its own. Were the editors at Faber & Faber wary of taking the argument into the psychical sphere? They were the publishers of the books by Bellamy and Allan and these books stuck to the physical side of things. Or did Saurat grow tired of rendering his forceful French sentences into snappy English sentences? It seems there might be another reason for not translating the entire work. Saurat’s attention was turning to another, possibly related subject-the study of matriarchy. In this interest he was ahead of his time by advancing in prehistory from the reign of the Giants to the matrilineal societies. Saurat argues in the early pages of L’Atlantide et le regne des geants that scientists at any one time and over the centuries offer different and differing theories and interpretations about everything from the nature of celestial bodies to the composition of atomic particles. He further argues that the human imagination is a source of knowledge that is consistent for it continues to bring forward new forms of “ancient schemes.” Among such schemes are views of Atlantis, the Deluge, and Giants. There is no discussion at this point of the nature of imagination or intuition. He states that science is what a scientist says it is, a view that came into its own two decades later-science as social construct. By failing to distinguish between science as a body of knowledge and science as the embodiment of a method, a self-correcting mode of inquiry, the notion of measurement goes out the window. This leaves the door unlocked for popular theories that seem to account for a wide array of prehistoric and ethnographic anomalies. Hoerbigerianism-the cosmogeny of the Austrian engineer

26 | Early Earth

Hanns Hoerbiger-is useful in this regard. Saurat approaches Hoerbiger’s theories through H.S. Bellamy and Peter Allan. In summary, here is his

position: Hoerbiger = lunar crashes and planetary cataclysms Hoerbiger + Bellamy & Allan = lunar crashes and planetary cataclysms + folk beliefs Hoerbiger + Bellamy & Allan + Saurat = lunar crashes and cataclysms + folk beliefs + races of giants

It seems the strength of Earth’s gravitational field is sufficient to attract smaller, wandering planetary bodies and that the present Moon is not unique as a satellite of Earth: It is the fourth moon in a series. For convenience’s sake, the earlier lunar bodies will be referred to as Luna 1, Luna 2, and Luna 3. The present lunar body will be called the Moon. Its future successors will be termed Moon 2, Moon 3, etc. The lunar bodies ancestral to our Moon are believed to be three in number, as suggested by the evidence from geological records, from archaeological remains, from ethnological reports (folk beliefs), and from the intact record of the imagination of man. There may have been more than three early lunar bodies; perhaps as many as five, six, or seven. Whatever their number, the fate of each satellite was the same. It wanders in the Solar System; it approaches the orbit of the Earth; it is captured by the Earth’s gravitation; eventually its orbit begins to decay; it orbits closer and closer to Earth; it breaks up, leaving a trail (rather like the rings of Saturn); whatever remains eventually crashes into the Earth. These crashes are cataclysmic in terms of the planet and embed evidence in the geological record. But what is unprecedented in the scenario thus described, as interpreted through Bellamy & Allan by Saurat, is that during the eons of orbital decay, the gravity of the lunar body raises the planet’s water level in a belt around the equator, reducing mountain peaks to mere islands in a near-global sea. This “tidal bulge” accounts for the features of early life-forms. After each cataclysm, the rate of Earth’s rotation around the Sun is changed, so that under tertiary conditions, under Luna 3, until its crash and the capture of the Moon, a “day” was longer than the day is now, for 290 days comprised the solar year, a detail noted by students of the ancient calendars of Tiahuanaco.

Foreword \ 27

Periods of decreased gravity accelerated species evolution as recorded by the fossil record. For instance, the primary period produced giant plants and insects. The secondary period produced giant animals. The third period produced the mammals, notably a giant race of what might be termed near-men. The tertiary period has been equated with the Pleistocene, so it concluded some 30,000 years ago. The capture of the present Moon is said to have occurred about 12,000 years ago, apparently well within the ancestral record of man. Thus creationists should be heartened to read that there was a Noahian flood, but disheartened to learn that there were at least two earlier, near-global deluges. Evidence exists wherever it may be encountered. How else is one to explain the anomalies to be found on the shores of Lake Titicaca? The Tiahuanaco civilization was that of an advanced society of early seafarers, despite the fact that their site today, located in the Andes, is one of the highest on Earth. They left behind gigantic ruins of structures that seem to have served the needs of giants. Such constructions may still be found there, also on Easter Island, at Carnac, at Stonehenge, and on some Pacific Islands. The giants that arose during the period of Luna 2 were the good giants; those that arose during Luna 3 were the bad giants. Another word for “good giant” is god; for “bad giant,” ogre. In Greek philosophy, the first are the Titans, the second the Olympians. In the dreams of the human species, the Golden Age lives on. Atlantis is the name that Plato gave to the legend of one specific sunken city, but it may well be applied to any and all the deluged places and civilizations of early men and giants, the casualties of successive creations. Is primitive man a newcomer to the planet, or is he a survivor of a previous calamity? And the giants? It seems they came from mountainous regions of the planet that enjoyed decreased gravity. They resembled human beings in most ways but stood between twelve and fifteen feet high. The earliest giants assisted mankind; the later ones thwarted man. Those beings that did not die of natural causes or from accidents were hunted down by men and killed. Samson and Goliath are the names of remembered giants of the distant past, just as the names and deeds of Cronos and Zeus are preserved in ancient myth. There is evidence of the use of advanced technologies by man in the prehistoric past, as well as evidence that leads one to infer the existence of a race of giants mingling with the race of man. Particularly suggestive are

28 | Early Earth

the gigantic stones and monoliths studied by archaeologists among the Malekula group in New Guinea and the structures of the Toltecs of present-day Mexico. We assume that science is a feature of the modern world, and it certainly is, but ancient peoples had their own forms of science, for there are many “sciences,” using the plural word in the sense of “explanations and not necessarily natural or rationalistic explanations. The sciences of earlier civilizations were of a psychical or spiritual nature, whereas ours is of the physical or material variety. Common to ancestral traditions and the beliefs of ancient peoples is the view that the civilization of the world, far from progressing, is in the state of decline, almost to the point of barbarism. The modern view is that history is the record of progress from the world dominated by superstition to one guided by rationality and science. But the traditionalist’s interpretation is that we are witnessing a disastrous decline in quality in the face of the rapid rise of quantity. Legends of senior civilizations in the past, lost technologies of great power, sunken cities of incredible beauty, and survivors of giant races, all of these and more are preserved in the traditions of the world’s ancient peoples. The existence of giants is taken for granted by the author of Genesis and other books of the Bible. The mythology of Ancient Greece offers the Four Ages of Man which could have been inspired by dim recollections of at the very least the collision of Luna 3 with the Earth. Confirmations are found in the form of artifacts and legends and the beliefs of Ancient Egypt, the Semitic peoples, Abyssinia, Rwanda, China, and Tibet. The argument is taken thus far in the ten chapters that appear in Atlantis and the Giants. Reading between the lines, it is possible to see that the arguments should be taken with a grain of salt. The author is well aware that nothing remains the same for long. As well, adept at reading literary texts and entering into the imaginary worlds of writers of poetry and fiction, he finds it easier to accept and remain within the general conceit than to step outside it and assess it. It is useful to quote the conclusions he reaches: Even if all this should prove to be wrong in twenty or thirty years’ time (which seems to be a very long lifetime for an idea in these fields) we shall remain grateful to Hoerbiger for being the first to give us a reasonable

Foreword I 29

picture—a departure platform which enabled us to travel back thirty thousand years, back to Tiahuanaco and the giants. Even if Hoerbiger, Bellamy and myself are entirely in error, other things, undreamt of, have happened on the face of the earth not so very different from our imaginings. There may have been no Hoerbigerian satellites, no Bellamy savages, and no giants-but there must have been planets most mysteriously formed, human beings full of inconceivable tricks and ideas, and monsters fifteen feet high using highly complicated tools and looking astonishingly like men. Thus far was the argument made for readers of the English-language edition. Readers of the original French edition were treated to four additional chapters. These take the argument into realms that lie “beyond the fields we know.” As well, there are minor differences between what is said in the English edition and what is said in the French edition. For instance, in the French chapter devoted to Egypt and China, Saurat goes into some detail about images of dragons in Ancient China, comparing them with human spermatozoa, even finding an opportunity to refer to the thought of Immanuel Kant! The sense and structure of the English chapters are those of a summary rather than a statement or argument. Ill-health plagued the author the last decade and a half of his life and this took its toll. As well, he probably grew tired of the task of translating the text. So he began to summarize the argument. Finally, perhaps in desperation, he simply ignored the last four chapters that appeared in the French edition; hence the short title of the English version: Atlantis and the Giants vs. L’Atlantide et le regne des geants. These missing four chapters take the argument into the realms of theosophical thought, poetic reverie and dream imagery, psychoanalysis, and spirituality. Although these chapters are less astonishing and dramatic than the eight chapters common to both editions, they are in many ways the heart and soul of Saurat’s thought. (Chapter numbers are those of the French editions.) Chapter 9. “Les theosophes.” Saurat reproduces passages from The Secret Doctrine (1888) in which H.P. Blavatsky accounts for the existence of the giants of prehistory. Saurat discusses her accounts in light of his own archaeological and ethnological evidence. Chapter 10. “Les poetes et les reves. La psychanalyse.” Although C.G. Jung is mentioned, the first part of the chapter focuses on the writings of Victor Hugo and the imaginative use made by the French author of heroes

30 | Early Earth

and giants in his heroic verse. The second part of the chapter quotes liberally from Malcolm de Chazal’s Petrusmok, a truly unusual work by a writer known in English largely for his provocative aphorisms and meditations. Saurat finds these words and works to be consistent with the findings of Hoerbiger. Chapter 11. “L’hypothese spirite integrale.” This chapter examines “the spirit hypothesis,” that is, the possibility of spiritualism as a source of knowledge of the past as well as of the present and the future. The tenets of spiritualism are agreeable to Saurat. Chapter 12. “Le cote spirituel. Conclusions.” This summing up turns on a quotation from Montaigne: “Ceci est un livre de bonne foi, lecteur.” Here Saurat sweeps across Western literature to affirm the relevance of imaginative values to the human condition and to human knowledge, and to suggest that these insights are at one with the theories of Hoerbiger, as expanded by Bellamy and Allan, and extended by Saurat himself. Readers of L’Atlantide et le regne des geants, fascinated with the author’s speculations about Atlantis, were no doubt a little surprised to be led by Saurat to consider the evidence for the existence of races of prehistoric giants. Readers of the second book, La Religion des geants et la civilisation des insectes, were likely doubly surprised to be invited to consider the author’s even weirder speculations. These are concerned with insects, specifically termites, ants, and bees. Indeed, the equation introduced earlier: “Hoerbiger + Bellamy & Allan + Saurat = lunar crashes and cataclysms + folk beliefs + races of giants” would now have to be extended in the following fashion: Hoerbiger + Bellamy & Allan + Saurat = lunar crashes and cataclysms + folk beliefs + races of giants + colonies of insects and the propagation of religious ideas. Having established the existence of at least two races of human-like giants, the “good ones” which were followed by the “bad ones,” some of whom lived co-extensively and intermingled and cohabited with early human beings, Saurat discusses even earlier life forms. These are the insects which predated the giants and Homo sapiens, and while they too were responsive to changes in levels of gravitation and water levels throughout the world, they were able to survive along with their customs and rituals. First came the termites, then the ants, then the bees, and finally

Foreword \ 31

the spiders and scorpions. These were the “intelligent” insects, well adapted to their environments, and they have survived for over 15 million years right into modern times, though Saurat is mainly interested in how their lifestyles influenced the rites of the giants and the rituals of human beings some 300,000 years ago. Indeed, through mythology, which is an exaggerated form of memory, they influenced human society and religious belief in the Tertiary Period. Saurat states that there is “a secret and universal rhythm within all cosmic life” and that “we can define one aspect of religion as the distorted memory of an extinct civilization.” The civilization is that of insects, and it is with us today in strains of what he calls “insect worship.”

For hundreds of thousands of years the rival of man has been the termite. The enemy of the termite is the ant. Lesser forms of life are the bee and the spiders and scorpions. These early life forms have continued almost without interruption into the modern period. Their lifestyles offer lessons to us. Indeed, they have influenced us because important human rites ai e based on our ancestors’ observations of the rites of insects. Insects are intelligent in the sense that they run well-organized societies, protect their domains against intruders or aggressors, and sacrifice individual lives for the life of the community. They even practise a form of telepathy which is based on some sort of “psychical sexual tension.” Indeed, the propagation of their species depends upon the knowledge of ritual slayings. Termites allow the “insemintor” of the “queen” to live. Ants ignore the male. Bees kill the male. Spiders and scorpions eat the male. Such is the cycle of kingship, queenship, and insect life. Saurat finds some evidence of the recognition of the importance of such practices, both symbolic and practical, of kingship, queenship, ritual slaughter, virgin birth, etc., in human artifacts. These include the following: images engraved on calendric stones in Tiahuanaco (which were created not to record time but to preserve knowledge of rituals); the elongated, skeleton-like bodies of the effigies on Easter Island; the writings of G.I. Gurdjieff on the role of the moon as a regulatory element in sentient life; primitive magico-religious practices (today called shamanistic) to produce exalted states; the prevalence of “insect-god” images; references in mythology, literature, folklore, the Zohar, and The Thousand and One Nights; the adoration of the mother-figure.

32 j Early Earth

Intimations or recollections are also found in early and modern poetry, what with the parallel notions of the Mother Goddess / Virgin Mother / White Goddess in Greco-Latin-Celtic cultures and popularized at the time by Robert Graves. The humanity of man is based on his animality leavened by his instinctive knowledge of ritual learned from the insects. The only way to escape this cycle of birth and death is to remain pure and chaste, like Parisfal of the Grail legend. One must not touch the Goddess or one will become the Dying King. The age of matriarchy preceded the present age of patriarchy. Evidence for much of this is found in the Pyrenees. “The Pyrenees are, like the Welsh mountains, the land of an ancient Mediterranean civilization, a land of giants, matriarchal rule, fairies, and the Grail.” Echoes are heard in the Iliad and the Mahabharata and among the Cathars of the Pyrenees and the Languedoc. A related notion is that of parthenogenesis, the growth of the unfertilized egg, once believed to be inconceivable, now known to be theoretically possible, but long accepted in religion, myth, legend, and lore. This is perhaps the origin of the new-universal taboo on incest, for the giants were known to mate with ordinary women but with calamitous results with the deaths of both the woman and the offspring. Saurat quotes Maurice Maeterlinck, a poet as well as an authority on bees, when he says of man that “he is right to see in the insect our first teacher.” Such matters are known to us today because “popular imagination is nothing more than a degraded form of our ancestors’ imagination.” Even the notion of the resurrection of the dead is derived from the world of the insects, particularly those insects that produce larvae that cocoon and then “resurrect.” In fact, instinctive life tells us, “We will be insects.” Saurat discusses various dreams, those he recorded from others as well as his own, to find through “some kind of cosmic courtesy” the gift of knowledge of the insect / instinctive nature of ritual and inherent belief. “The insect was sapient.” “Ants also have their politicians.” “They are better Christians than we.” The fall of the tertiary moon freed man from the gigantic matriarchies and a great many sexual restrictions, but who can say that this has been for the best? “The truths revealed in religion were taught to us by observing the world of insects a very long time ago.” “We distanced ourselves from the ancient religion of the insects and from ‘intuition’ by distancing

Foreword i 33

ourselves from the Christian religion and an ‘affinity’ for other living creatures. We distanced ourselves from communion.” Thus the author advances from entomology to metaphysics to theology, concluding with the affirmation of a form of pietistic Christianity. He sees in the figure of Jesus, the son of the Virgin Mother, whose father is not a father and thus has no need to be slain, the promise of a life dedicated to the service of others (community) and to supernatural or spiritual ideals (communion) as well as to eternal life (resurrection). Then he returns to familiar notions found in earlier books by suggesting that, at least metaphorically, the world has not moved towards a revelation of this knowledge or retreated from it for the reason that it has been there from the first. Disregard the passage of time. Such knowledge is the catalyst of creation, being the point of time that was first created, with prehistory and posthistory being repercussions of this central act of creation (this incarnation), like circles of ripples radiating from a stone dropped into a pool of water. The past is symmetrical with the future, the still point being the Birth of Christ. The author’s style is aphoristic in the extreme. The development of the argument is casual to the point of seeming to be improvised for the occasion, perhaps for oral delivery. Saurat works into each chapter one or other of his favourite subjects. All in all, the book is less a “sounding out” than it is a “sounding off,” almost defying the reader to dare to differ from his animated presentation, his poetic insights, and the significance of his subject. Since the Moon is so important to Saurat’s cosmology, it is worthwhile to consider how astronomers explain its origin. Saurat has much to say about the origin of the lunar body, but his explanations are at odds with the evidence that exists and the views of scientists. Astrophysicists have theorized about the origin and orbit of Earth’s Moon. It is unlikely that any one theory will be favoured over any other until such time as more detailed information is available about satellite formation and lunar geology. Satellites are common to many but not all planets, and some planets have multiple satellites. Earth has but one-in the historical period at least. Perhaps over time it had more than one. There are four main scientific theories that focus on what might have happened some 4.5 billion years ago during the early period of planetary

34 | Early Earth

formation. There is the impact theory. A Mars-like object crashed into Earth. Its debris is cast into space and it orbits the planet before it condenses to form the lunar body. The condensation theory suggests that a cloud of primordial dust surrounded the Earth and then condensed to form the lunar body. According to the stray planet theory, a roving planet wandered into the Solar System and was attracted by Earth’s gravitation field. It swung into orbit and became the familiar lunar body. Then there is the distillation theory. At some point Earth’s rate of spin v/as suddenly increased by the migration of heavy elements into the planetary core, with the result that debris is hurled into orbit where it formed the sphere of the moon. What these four theories have in common is that they are testable and that they have nothing to do with the theories of creation proposed by the world’s scriptures, Creationism, or Intelligent Design. There was no one on Earth to witness the action that attracted or shaped the lunar body, the Moon that we know. Saurat has theories that are markedly different from the four surmises of scientists. His own speculations are at once more dynamic and dramatic, and they have had consequences for the appearance of life on Earth. In the end each reader will have to decide what weight to give to the arguments that Saurat advanced in these two texts. I feel they tell us more about “wishful thinking” (or more philosophically “as if’ conceptions) than they do about celestial mechanics. They are an attempt to place man in a context of wonder and of mystery. As Saurat wrote in Atlantis and the Giants. “And what indeed is Truth if not that which men have always believed in?” Even so, it is important to remember that the author has set aside the protocols of the scientific method, finding such forms of inquiry to be impediments to the full knowledge and understanding of the truth of the past, in favour of a direct esthetic evaluation of selected materials (some evidence, some speculation). Here Saurat is anticipating the views of social constructivists. It seems that what is pleasing and astonishing may well be true! Yet science is more than any one individual’s or a group’s preference-or social construction. It is unlikely that Saurat’s planetary speculations will ever shed much light on the evolution of the

Foreword ; 35

satellite and the planet, but his surmises do illuminate the processes of artistic thought and feeling. Had he known of them, J.B.S. Haldane would have found Saurat’s speculations to be “queer.”Yet it will never be known whether he would have considered them “queerer” than the universe itself. It is quite possible that there are factors at play in the evolution of the cosmos that would have amazed both Haldane and Saurat. Such factors would have caused them to pause and wonder. Haldane’s response to speculations leads one to Albert Einstein’s willingness to consider provocative theses. Indeed, the great physicist and theorist encouraged Immanuel Velikovsky and other independent thinkers like Charles Hapgood (who argued that ancient maps proved the existence of a global civilization prior to all those recognized by historians and archaeologists and paleogeographers). In turn, Hap­ good’s researches inspired Rand Flem-Ath who argued for pole-shifts as the causes of continental drifts on a scale unimagined by scientists meteor­ ologist Alfred Wegener and geologist J. Tuzo Wilson that occurred during the historical period! Speculative thought has its place. Sir Isaac Newton sought under­ standing in quite unlikely places, including voluminous astrological calculations,. Albert Einstein was a great believer in the power of the human imagination, including curiosity and the fabled “sense of wonder.” He affirmed the importance of “the sense of wonder” and certainly such notions and emotions are generated by speculations about “early earth.” Here is what Einstein wrote in “What I Believe” (1930), Ideas and Opinions (1954), translated by Sonja Bargmann: The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.

Harold Saurat, son of author Denis Saurat, hosts Ruth and John Robert Colombo on their visit to Croissy-sur-Seine, France. The photograph was taken by their new friend Claude Oyer on Sept. 24, 2005.

Acknowledgements Yearly Earth is a composition that consists of the contributions of many £Lminds and hands. The focal point of the inquiry is Denis Saurat, the “onlie begetter,” rather than any single theory of the early history of our solar system and the life-forms of the planet Earth. Harold Saurat, the author’s son, is the epitome of courtesy and constructive commentary. He made numerous encouraging suggestions, produced translations of a number of documents, and with the wave of a magician’s wand produced manuscripts from the bottom of the trunk in the attic of his home in Croissy-sur-Seine, outside Paris, France. His son Patrick Saurat entrusted the present editor-as well as the French and Canadian postal authorities!with his prized, leather-bound copy of the first edition of L’Atlantide. Harold and I were able to meet in Croissy-sur-Seine on September 24, 2005. Linda Hilpold of Toronto took care to translate the French texts into flowing English and in the process captured the author’s style of speaking in his writing. Researcher M. Alice Neal and special librarian Philip Singer assisted with this work as they have done with its two predecessors. All three books were printed and published in record time by George A. Vanderburgh of The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, Shelburne, Ontario. He scanned and assembled the English text and took pride in ensuring that the illustrations (covers, drawings, photographs, etc.) were properly reproduced. As in the past, Chantal Morel of the Bibliotheque Denis Saurat of LTnstitut fran^ais in London answered not a few queries. Lori N. Curtis, Special Collections and Archives, The University of Tulsa, supplied photocopies of letters from the Rebecca West Collection. On a personal note, this publication offers me the opportunity to acknowledge the generosity of spirit of the late F.C.A. Jeanneret, Principal of University College, University of Toronto, who way back in the late 1950s, did much to encourage a young student, not yet a scholar, to pursue the literature of France, if not the French language. To this end he had advertisements posted on the bulletin board in the Department of French that dr aw attention to the Centre international d’etudes frangaises, the summer school at Nice, organized by the subject of this study. Insights or services

37

38 j Early Earth

were provided by Charlotte Fielden, David A. Gotlib, Cyril Greenland, Donna Dunlop, and Claude Oyer. For the cover of this book, permission to reproduce Bertram Brooker’s painting “Alleluiah” was graciously granted by John Brooker, executor and administrator of the Estate of Bertram Brooker. (He is the grandson of the Toronto painter and author who was much influenced by theosophical thought.) Through all these undertakings, I received the encouragement of my wife Ruth, to whom I remain ever grateful.

NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION: In not every instance has it been possible to locate and reproduce the original English texts of those passages that Saurat translated into French. (This is of small moment because the discrepancies that do exist are minor in nature.) It should be noted that the ten chapters of the text of Atlantis and the Giants that were translated by its author should be regarded as free adaptations rather than as literal translations of the greater part of the original French edition of L’Atlantide et le regne des geants. (Saurat is responsible for the Prelim­ inary Note, Chapters 1 through 9, plus the Summary and the concluding Report.) Linda Hilpold, the translator of the balance of that work as well as the entirety of La Religion des geants et la civilisation des insectes, observes that in the Introduction to the latter work it was Cronos who castrated his son Uranus, not the reverse. Finally, the Saurat’s footnotes (something of a dog’s breakfast), have been treated in the same way that he dealt with his source notes by being incoiporated into the text.

Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants Contents Preliminary Note ! 40

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

The Moon and History / 41 The Solar System and the Earth: Life on Our Planet / 51 Man on Earth / 58 Tiahuanaco/ 64 Decadence in New Guinea / 81 The Toltecs / 91 The Bible and Jewish Traditions / 95 The Greeks / 114 Egypt to China / 123 The Theosophists / 129 Poets, Dreams and Psychoanalysis / 135 The Complete Spiritualist Hypothesis / 151 The Spiritual Side and Conclusion / 158 A Summary-On the Evidence / 166

A Report, by Louis Burkhalter, on Gigantic Implements found in South Morocco / 171

Preliminary Note ragments of gigantic bones, of human or pre-human form, have been found in three different places: Java, Southern China, South Africa. See: F. Weidenreith-“Giant Early Man from Java and South China,” Anthropological Papers of the American Museum ofNatural History, Vol. 40, No. 1, 1945. F. Weidenreith-Apes, Giants and Man. Chicago: Cambridge University Press, 1946. Von Koenigswald-in Natural History Magazine (Publications of the American Museum of Natural History, 1947). D. Hooijer-“Notes on the Gigantopithecus,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology, No. 1, 1949. Cf Sir Arthur Keith-A New Theory of Human Evolution. Watts, 1950, pp. 161-65. For South Africa, see: Bulletin de la Societe prehistorique de France, June 1950. Stone implements (bifaces) have been found in Syria, Moravia and Morocco (in 1953-54), weighing from 4 lb. to 8 Ib.-which means that the users must have been between 9 and 12 feet tall-see Appendix by L. Burkhalter. Both the fragments of bones and the implements confirm that human beings of this height must have existed; and the geological evidence is that they must have lived about 300,000 or 400,000 years ago.

F

40

The Moon and History NEW picture of the universe is being created by science during our own lifetime; and this picture, which we usually accept without question, is much more incomprehensible, incredible even, than that provided by any previous mythology. The astronomical universe is measured in thousands of millions of light years. The number not of stars but of galaxies (of which the Milky Way is a small one) reaches the thousand millions too. At the opposite end of the scale, the atom has become a very complicated cosmos in which exists a space, infinitesimally small to us, which is practically a vacuum, and yet is charged with forces of such explosive power that a single atom could, by its deflagration, explode the entire earth. Man too-or rather his history-has been affected by this megalomania. He is now at least 500,000 years old; perhaps a million years old according to some very sober scientists and as much as 15,000,000 years old according to less sober ones-who nevertheless may be proved right within a few decades. And man’s habitation, the earth, has become much more mysterious than it used to be. We thought, some fifty years ago, that we knew something about it but nearly all that former assurance has gone. The Central Fire, which so strangely resembled the physical Hell of various religions and so impressed us at our Jules Verne stage, has by now abated its fury; we are told that it is hardly hotter than a comfortable wood fire. Speculations about changes in the earth’s surface, drifting continents, sensational destruction of whole areas of the world, shifting poles, have degenerated, it is true, from the rank of scientific theories to the lower status of myths but are nevertheless kept in reserve as possible explanations if no better ones should be found. The idea of certainty has been dropped. Nothing is sure; anything is possible. Two centuries of scientific sobriety have somewhat inhibited the human

A

41

42 | Atlantis and die Reign of the Giants

imagination but the new possibilities opening out at the moment create exceedingly, and even excessively, favourable conditions for flights of fancy. Yet human imagination is perhaps steadier than science itself and it tends not so much to create new pictures as to bring forward again and again in new forms very ancient schemes to which man seems to be attached from his beginnings. Thus two of our most cherished traditions, Plato’s story of Atlantis and the Creation and Deluge story from the Bible, have again become scienti­ fically credible. In the first place, a new cosmogony, that of the Austrian Hoerbiger, gives an acceptable explanation both of Atlantis and of certain puzzling biblical passages, particularly those mentioning giants. It is true that Hoerbiger’s theories are not generally accepted by scientists-but what is heterodox today may easily be the purest orthodoxy tomorrow. It has happened before. Recent ethnography sometimes supports in a most unexpected way both Hoerbiger’s theories and the statements in Genesis; and the ethnographic testimony, as well as that from the earliest literary sources, becomes the more impressive, the more fully it is examined. Lastly, certain theories of present-day psychology, curiously paralleled by some recent bold concepts in biology, are oddly in harmony with some of the most ancient traditions. These different elements, placed together, present so strange and so new a picture, for all its familiar aspects, that it seems better to bring first before the reader a complete general outline and to come later to confirm­ ation or proof, the more especially since full confirmation and full proof are-let it be admitted at once-sometimes lacking. Some gaps in the picture cannot, by the very nature of things, be filled; and all we can plead for is, in Coleridge’s words, “a willing suspension of disbelief.” But it is well worth while making that effort for it will provide a perspective otherwise unattainable—and it will open the door to dreams. A most unscientific thing to do perhaps, but a very human one; and one which satisfies a very deep-rooted human desire. Megalomania has affected both astronomy and physics. How could history have escaped? If galaxies are numbered by the milliard, if one atom can create or destroy a world, cannot man be given a few more

The Moon and History I 43

million years on the earth? Here then is the picture. [Derived from H.S. Bellamy’s fascinating volumes, published by Faber & Faber from 1936 onwards: Moons, Myths and Men, Built Before the Flood, The Book of Revelation Is History, The Atlantis Myth, A Life History of our Earth, etc. I believe that Bellamy’s chief contribution to Hoerbigerianism is in the field of ethnography: folk beliefs all over the Earth confirm Hoerbiger’s theories. My own addition is the hypothesis of the civilization of the giants as the origin of our much more recent civilizations. [In 1956, H.S. Bellamy and P. Allan, published (Faber & Faber) The Calendar of Tiahuanaco (427 pp.), a thorough and most convincing explanation of the famous calendar. I find it impossible not to accept at the very least the general principles of their theory. But the possible solution of the datation problem has become very fluid.] Some thirty thousand years ago a highly developed civilization-utterly different from our own-was flourishing in the Andes, at 12,000 or 14,000 feet above the present level of the Pacific Ocean. At that period the sea there reached that height and the Tiahuanaco civilization was on a seashore. The air was at a density normal for human beings whereas now it is thin and nearly unbreathable. How did all this happen? Round the earth there revolved a satellite, in some ways comparable to our present moon (which was not then there)though smaller than the moon is-at a distance of five to six earth radii. Nowadays the tides rise and fall because our present moon is some sixty times the length of the earth’s radius, some two hundred and forty thousand miles away from us and takes a comparatively long time to revolve round the earth. But the tertiary moon, being by then much nearer, revolved much more quickly and the waters attracted by its pull had no time to recede. A permanent tide kept all the waters of the earth accumu­ lated in a great bulge right round the planet, roughly between the tropics. In the Andes this bulge was more than twelve thousand feet high-to prove it there is a line of sediment which can be followed for nearly four hundred miles. From this civilization ruins of gigantic size remain all round the lake of Titicaca and in particular at Tiahuanaco; and the earliest South American

44 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

chronicles tell us that when the Incas arrived there they discovered the ruins in very much the same state as they are today and judged them to be of immeasurable antiquity. Being superstitious, they left them untouched and founded no settlements near them. Even today there exists on the lake the remnants of an ancient people, the Urus; they live in a state of the uttermost degradation and they do not claim even to be men. But they do claim to have been there since long before “men,” properly so called, arrived; and they trace their descent to the time when the gigantic statues were erected. In this assessment the neighbouring Indian tribes concur. The dressed or sculptured blocks of stone round Titicaca are in many ways unique. One of the many monolithic statues weighs twenty tons and is twenty-five feet high. Some walls are monolithic too: Instead of the stones being arranged so as to leave openings, we find apertures-doors or windows-cut through an immense wall made from one huge stone. The builders were the masters of methods both of cutting and of transporting stone which have since been lost completely. On the cultural and intellectual achievements of these people we have some information. In 1937 the reliefs on one of the doorways were deciphered as a calendar- a calendar much better devised than ours today. It begins at a solstice and it is divided by solstice and equinox. Its twelve months and its weeks correspond to periods of the revolution of the satellite: the real, as well as the apparent, revolution. (Astronomically speaking, our own calendar begins nowhere; our months and weeks have very little to do with the phases of the moon and as a rule we do not even realize that our moon has an apparent motion in the sky which is quite different from the real one.) Artistically, the Tiahuanaco statues are superb. The finish of the work, the harmony in the proportions, the power of the expressions in the faces are evidence of aesthetic achievement on the highest level. Hoerbiger’s theories, in fact, lead on to an altogether astounding idea: The idea of a race of men of a gigantic size-some twelve to fifteen feet high-as the only possible creators of those wonders. So far as I know, neither Hoerbiger nor Bellamy has developed this hypothesis at any length but from their theories it seems an inevitable deduction. The moon is not the first satellite to go round the earth: each of the

The Moon and History I 45

geological eras has had its own. And these periods are sharply distinct one from the other because at the end of each-and that is what brought it to an end-its satellite crashed on the earth. The moon travels round the earth not in a closed ellipse but in a diminishing spiral and this decreasing orbit will in the end-some fifteen million years hence, according to Hoerbiger-cause it to crash in its turn. Thus a primary moon has already crashed; and a secondary moon and a tertiary moon. But before reaching the earth each satellite disintegrated. Solids, liquids and gases offer different resistances to gravitation and to the forces of movement and they separated, as tails separate or lag behind comets; the main body of the satellite in its excessive speed caught up with its own tail and thus became a ring round the earth, just as there are rings round Saturn now. Then, the spiral coming to its end, the ring closed on the earth and the substance of the satellite settled in a circular formation round the surface of our planet, the heavier portions digging themselves in to a considerable depth. All living beings caught in those events or the subsequent distur­ bances became fossilized. For fossils were created only during those periods and were produced by extraordinary pressures or changes: an organism, plant or animal buried normally today does not fossilize, it rots away. Thus fossils provide only very fragmentary evidence of the past and the record they present is highly incomplete. But long before the final crash, and during periods which may last for thousands of years, the satellite circles the earth at a distance of 16,000 to 24,000 miles in a fairly regular manner because the lunar month is then equal to the earthly day. The two bodies, planet and satellite, go round together, until the fall of the satellite is accelerated and it finally revolves quicker than the earth. During these long periods, before the fixation, during and after it, the weight of all objects and beings on the earth is greatly diminished, since gravitation towards the moon draws them upwards and the accelerated rotation of the earth throws them outwards. Gravitation is what gives us our height: we grow to the stature and the weight that we can carry. There­ fore during those periods of the proximity of the moon all organisms grew much taller. Giants are produced; gigantic plants, gigantic animals, gigantic men.

46 i Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

But when the moon has crashed their weight, no longer reduced by upward gravitation, becomes a heavy drag and a handicap: the giants have great difficulty in carrying their enormous bodies and they rapidly degenerate and disappear. Proofs? From the end of the primary period we find gigantic plants which, buried at the fall of the satellite, become coal. At the end of the secondary period, we find fossilized animals as much as one hundred feet long. Perhaps, too, there were gigantic mammals. Perhaps, even, some prehuman being, relieved of much of its weight, stood on its hind legs, enlarged its cranium and expanded its brains-and became a gigantic man. Other beasts learnt how to fly: gigantic insects at the end of the primary period, birds in the secondary. From the a-satellite periods, specimens survive only of such creatures as could adapt themselves to the new gravitation, or of such as could, and did, reduce their size. Let us remember, too, that smaller races from regions not under the tropical course of the satellite could then reinvade the whole earth. During the tertiary era [according to P. Allan, Hoerbiger counted the pleistocene in with the tertiary era], before the coming of the third moon, smaller men may have emerged: smaller, heavier, less intelligent: our ancestors. But the giant races from the end of the secondary period, perhaps fifteen million years ago, still lived on and the giants civilized the small men. Ancient mythology, from Egypt and Greece to Scandinavia, from Polynesia to Mexico, unanimously affirms that men have been civilized by giants and “gods.” Prometheus started “human” civilization. The Bible bears witness to the existence of giant beings ruling over the Palestinian tribes routed by the Hebrews. Hence Tiahuanaco: gigantic monoliths beyond human management yet of a size made for men to use. Giant masters helped and directed smaller men to build those monuments. The great amphitheatres are not covered over: giant beings could sit in them among small men, their subjects. This first reign of the giant beings was benevolent. All ancient records agree about a golden age under the “gods” and some of the faces of the Tiahuanaco statues are marked with superhuman intelligence and goodness.

The Moon and History | 47

Those gigantic statues are statues of the giant beings, probably life size or only slightly bigger. Why should men exhaust themselves in setting such things up? It is more likely that the giants themselves were the artists. The Bible says they were. Later on, in Egypt and in many other places, once the giants had disappeared men strained their feeble powers in trying to resuscitate the gods and the golden age. We have found recently in the islands round New Guinea unfortunate savages who still put up gigantic statues, dolmens and menhirs, without knowing why-just as our own ancestors no doubt did. For the golden age of the giants came to an end. At its appointed time the tertiary moon crashed to earth and lunar gravitation ceased. The Andes emerged from beneath the sea; the great bulge of waters round the tropics disappeared; the released seas swept the earth from one pole to the other. Everywhere men and civilizations perished until at last the waters found the level which is still more or less their level today. From this vast cataclysm what men were left? Plato tells us: only scattered pockets of refugees on high mountains, only a few isolated small tribes. In the Andes where formerly a great civilization had flourished the air became too rarified for normal human existence. With the recession of the sea a seafaring civilization was annihilated, its few survivors stranded on the marshes left by the receding waters. Their world had vanished forever; their ships, their intricate scientific instruments, their priests and their learned men. Their towns had dissolved and round Lake Titicaca there is still to be seen the evidence of hurried and panic-stricken evacuation. Civilization had to start again from the very beginning. Seen in this context mythology becomes meaningful and a key to unlock the riddles of pre-history. Some of the giant races degenerated into cannibals; there are ogres in all ancient folklores from the Odyssey onwards. Others retained some vestiges of their ancient civilization-of its intelligence and its benevolence. And in all ancient folklores there are wars between the giants and the gods-men naturally called “gods” those great figures that protected them. One of the oldest of all gods is Hercules, both in Greece and in Egypt: the good giant who is man’s protector against all evil things bigger than life size. To conquer the Titans, even Jupiter himself needed the help of Hercules.

48 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

Later, the giants degenerated physically: There was no moon now to help them carry extra flesh and bone and their brains, too, grew sluggish and weak. Against the bows and slings of ordinary men these cretinous monsters were helpless. David killed Goliath. Thus we reach the dawn of our history, some six or seven thousand years ago. The giants have disappeared and the tales told of them and of their times are already legends: how Uranus and Saturn ate their own children; how the Hebrews in Palestine found the iron bed of a king who must have been fifteen feet high; how ancient civilizations have disappeared in inconceivable cataclysms-the sinking of Atlantis. The world was littered with inexplicable and gigantic monuments: Easter Island, Karnak, Stonehenge, menhirs in the Pacific islands. Most inexplicable of all are the stubborn and recurrent dreams of the human soul. All generations of men (and especially ours) have dreamt of the great civilization that has perished, of Atlantis and the good giants; and have had nightmares of cosmic cataclysms, of unstoppable decadence and decay, of the destruction of all human aspirations. Recent research drives us to that last hypothesis which is so hard to accept but which cannot be avoided: behind all these fables is some indubitable fact. In the history of the world there are more and greater marvels than so far we have been willing to believe. Some, the most literal, think of Atlantis as a continent sunk beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Others are willing to call Atlantis any ancient country from which all human civilization may have sprung: the birthplace of civilization. This second and more elastic interpretation would allow us to maintain that this Andean culture, some thirty thousand years ago, was Atlantis. The sea, it is true, did not submerge it; instead it left it high and forsaken on an abandoned mountain-range, but it destroyed it just as thoroughly and as completely. Once the seas had grown quiet again, the barbarous men of Europe who dimly remembered the ancient mother of the nations must have tried to sail westward to find out what had happened there. Christopher Columbus was the first of them to succeed: before that, their ships were too small, their equipment insufficient, their navigation incompetent. There was a tradition and a legend that the western continent had disappeared: that the western ocean was an uninhabited desert; that however far west one sailed one found nothing unless perhaps-if the

The Moon and History ! 49

Greeks were right-the happy isles where only the dead could land. But the story Plato tells is shorter and more precise. The cataclysm he records took place only some ten or twelve thousand years ago; it was caused by a flood; his Atlantis was submerged. And this Atlantis too is explicable on the basis of Hoerbiger’s theories; indeed, at two specific points-when and where the disaster happened-they completely corro­ borate Plato’s narrative. His Atlantis was more modest than the Atlantis of the Andes but nevertheless it was a splendid and impressive one. The Andean Atlantis came to an end rather less than thirty thousand years ago. From that date onwards, until it captured our present moon, the earth had no satellite at all. Our moon was originally a small planet revolving round the sun on an orbit farther out than the earth’s. Small planets pursue their diminishing spiral more quickly than do the greater ones for their force of inertia offers less resistance to the attraction of the sun: They retain less of that force which originally threw them away from the centre. On their more rapid inward spiralling therefore they inevitably cross the paths of the larger planets circling between themselves and the sun. And sometimes a small planet, on its inward course, approaches a bigger one too closely; so closely, in fact, that the pull of the bigger planet’s gravity is stronger than that of the sun. Once that happens the small planet is deflected from its sunwards path; it begins to circle the larger planet; it becomes a satellite. Thus, according to Hoerbiger, our present moon was captured some twelve thousand years ago. Once again there was global calamity. The forces exerted by the newcomer were felt violently and immediately: The terrestrial globe acquired its tropical bulge for air, water, even the earth itself, were attracted by lunar gravitation-as they are now. The waters from the north and south moved violently towards the equator. Now, let us suppose that at some time between thirty thousand and twelve thousand years ago a great civilization was established on vast plains lying between forty and sixty degrees north of the equator. That civilization would in its turn have been destroyed, practically overnight, under the rush of waters from the north. And this hypothesis corresponds precisely with what Plato records as fact. Farther north, age-long glaciation would have set in on lands deprived of air and water by the attracting forces of the new satellite. Two different kinds of Atlantis are thus possible, the second much later

50 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

than the first and conceivably stemming from it. Indeed, to postulate the existence of both is essential if we are to explain all the fragmentary legends, dating from the remotest antiquity, which at present lie scattered all over the earth. And the echoes of other tremendous events reach us faintly from the ages: Lemuria, in the Pacific, the Hyperborean continent, perhaps another primitive civilization round the South Pole-the Hoerbigerian conception of history opens the way to staggering possibilities. We have by now jettisoned the nineteenth-century idea that history exhibits a picture of slow but steady progress, of life working its way upwards by a series of infinitely small but none the less inevitable changes. That dull though comfortable myth we have abandoned. The course of history seems more like a violent oscillation between inconceivably destructive calamities and vast creative explosions. Death and resurrection rather than a slow interminable crawl.

2.

The Solar System and the Earth: Life on Our Planet aymond Furon wrote in 1951: “In 1948 the question of whether or not the pole and the continents have become displaced was discussed at a series of meetings of the Societe de Biogeographic. All the physicists, geophysicists and astronomers who were present were unanimous in their view that there is no ground for concluding-in the light of present scientific knowledge-that any such displacement has ever taken place! [Manuel de Prehistoire general. Payot, Paris, 1951, p. 51.] Fred Hoyle, too, maintained in 1950 that the continents have always had, with very little variation, the shape which they have today. [The Nature of The Universe. Blackwell, Oxford 1950.] But in September 1956, at the Sheffield meeting of the British Association, P.S.M. Blackett, F.R.S., stated that “there had undoubtedly been large movements of the continents relative to the poles during the history of the earth. England had moved a long way northward in the past 150 million years from a previous position near the equator-the gap between Europe and America seemed to have widened by over one thousand miles...these results had come in the past three years-the possibility of them was not even mentioned at the Birmingham meeting of the Association in 1950 when they had last discussed the subject. In another six years or so we really should know quite a lot about how and when the continents have moved.” (The Times, 5th September 1956.) Similarly, F. Hoyle in his book entitled Frontiers of Astronomy (1955) abandons many ideas popularized in his Nature of the Universe (1950). H.S. Bellamy, in Built Before the Flood (1943), had proposed the date of 300,000 years ago for the Tiahuanaco ruins. In his book The Great Idol of Tiahuanaco (1957), he accepts 27,000 as the age of the Calendar,

R

51

52 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

mainly because further research by P. Allan has made it essential to connect the Calendar with the Wurm period of glaciation. The last glaciation ended with the dispersal of the girdle tide. These sudden changes of scientific theories are now accepted as inevitable since new discoveries have become so very frequent. (Thus, while G.C. Vaillant’s authoritative book on The Aztecs of Mexico was being printed for the Pelican edition, carbon dating made it imperative to change all dates for central American history by 500 years or so, even within the Christian era.) [See p. 6 of the Pelican edition of 1950.] There is, of course, nothing to assure us that these latest dates are in any way final. But a new chance is now offered to Wegener’s theories about the drift of continents-so why not to Hoerbiger’s? Science seems to progress nowadays by violent and even catastrophic changes. This is more in harmony with Hoerbiger’s theories of sudden cataclysms than with the ideas of slow progress postulated by many recent scientists. In fact Cuvier’s genius when he wrote of creations successives is more evident in out day than it was to Goethe. It has been said that the development of the science of history is really the development of the minds of the historians. That applies also to the scientists: The history of science is the history of the growth of the scientists’ minds. Of course, we learn more every day; but, chiefly, our intellect grows. Thus there is no such thing as science: there is only the contents of the minds of the scientists. That is best exemplified in matters of chronology. It is calculated in millions of years; but what was a year when there was no sun, no earth to go round it, and no mind to perceive time? Those are purely mathematical calculations relating to data in human minds now, not to facts before the human mind existed. The milliards of years before man appeared, before the earth and before the sun are merely abstract concepts. Pascal first drew attention to this position of the human mind and was consequently sceptical about the ultimate value of mathematics. Meta­ physically, his contentions have not been answered. Let us then look at Hoerbiger’s ideas a little more closely. Hoerbiger is an Austrian cosmographer who died in 1931 and he put together a theory of the formation of the solar system known as Glazialcosmogonie. This theory, as a whole, has not been generally accepted by today’s scientists

The Solar System and the Earth I 53

but in several fields it provides an explanation of numerous facts and situations otherwise inexplicable; especially, in its later developments for which H.S. Bellamy is responsible, it has proved a most valuable key to the analysis and understanding of many myths-both those recorded from the remotest antiquity and those still alive among the savages of today. It has also provided a plausible hypothesis to account for the existence of the ancient monuments of Lake Titicaca; indeed, on no other basis does it seem possible to explain them. Furon in France and Hoyle in England are both orthodox scientists and are both opposed to Hoerbiger’s general principle yet their views do not conflict in any way with some of the main features of Hoerbigerian teaching on the evolution of human civilization. In scientific speculation it often happens that theories which basically contradict each other can yet agree on certain specific points. For example, it is generally accepted nowadays that the moon is spiralling away from the earth, having started some two or three milliard years ago from quite near the earth if not from the earth itself. It is difficult to see what force could possibly have expelled such a huge mass with such power; but if, for the sake of argument, we grant that this did happen the moon postulated by Hoyle must at some period have been at a distance of only five or six earth radii; and when it was at that distance the bulge of water and of air predicated by Hoerbiger must in fact have occurred. What objection is there, then, to accepting that those cataclysmic events actually happened in the Andes? Indeed, for the purpose of this book there is no need to choose between the two hypotheses. But it is only the Hoerbigerians who give us a com­ plete and overall picture, the alternative theory provides only fragmentary and incomplete explanations. Many scientists, belonging to varying schools of thought, are at any rate agreed that our world was formed by an explosion some three or four thousand million years ago, a date recently substituted for a much more remote one. During the last thirty years there have been many theories on precisely what sort of explosion it was. Perhaps some huge body passed close-or relatively close-to the sun, attracted in its wake-a substantial part of the sun’s substance right out to the orbits of the farthest planets and then disappeared, leaving the fragments to rotate round the sun and gradually

54 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

to fall back to it. Perhaps, some three milliard years ago, our sun had a twin as far removed from it as the present planet Saturn, and the twin exploded into fragments which are the planets we know today. Or perhaps, some four milliard years ago, the whole solar cosmos-or even the whole cosmos, stars, galaxies and all-was no bigger than an atom; and the atom exploded. Even this, says Paul Couderc [[/Expansion de I’Univers. Paris, Presses Universitaires, 1950, p. 192], does not postulate an absolute beginning to the universe. It merely represents the limit of our mind’s reach.

Picture of Astral Catastrophe (Jacobi)

The Solar System and the Earth j 55

Hoerbiger, some seventy years ago, imagined the collision in space of some enormous body at a very high temperature with a dark mass of cosmic ice. One penetrated deeply into the other-it does not matter which-and this penetration produced a tremendous and explosive mass of steam. The fragments of matter hurled into space by the explosion fall into three distinct categories: some are thrown so far out that we lose sight of them completely; some remain so close at hand that they fall back to the main body; but in the middle zone something much more interesting happens. The largest fragment attracts by gravitation all the lighter fragments in its neighbourhood. The minor fragments are then submitted to two forces: the force of explosion that throws them outwards and the gravitational pull that draws them to the large body of matter near to them. The resultant interplay of forces we can represent as the diagonal of a parallelogram. Fragments thus caught travel no farther outwards into space; nor do they fall straight towards the attracting mass. They rotate at a certain distance away. The central body is the sun; the smaller fragments are the planets. But of the two forces that control the movements of each planet, one steadily decreases, the force which impels it outwards, for space is full of matter, extremely tenuous no doubt-hydrogen or gaseous water-which slows down the motion inherent in the fragment itself. But the gravitational pull towards the central body remains constant. As the force attracting to the centre, therefore, gradually becomes dominant, the planet does not move on a closed ellipse or circle; at each revolution it comes a little closer to the attracting central mass. Its path, in fact, is an inward spiral. Sooner or later, therefore, all planets will fall back into the sun. At this point an important fact emerges. The smaller fragments produced by the explosion are less powerfully charged with the force driving them outwards than are the bigger ones, since this force is in proportion to the mass of the fragment. The smaller planets, therefore, will yield more easily to the attractive power of the sun since they are less resistant than the larger masses. Thus Mars, which is smaller than the earth, goes round the sun more

56 I Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

quickly than the earth does. And any planet situated farther away from the sun than the earth but smaller than the earth spirals inwards at a greater speed. And on its inward path it must necessarily cut through the earth’s own spiral. Since planets are not positioned or distributed in accordance with size, this must have happened already, both in the case of the earth and of the other planets. When a small planet, on its speedier inward spiral, comes within the orbit of a bigger one and is at a relatively short distance away from it, the gravitational pull of the bigger planet on the smaller becomes stronger than the pull of the sun. Once this happens the smaller planet begins circling the bigger one; it turns, in fact, into a satellite. By this process the earth has, in the past, captured three satellites which were the predecessors of our present moon. A primary, a secondary and a tertiary satellite all ultimately crashed on the earth with consequences which have already been mentioned and which will be studied more fully later. Our present moon is still a very recent acquisition. We captured it some twelve thousand years ago and it revolves at some two hundred and forty thousand miles from us. In its turn, it too will spiral nearer to the earth. It will pull all the waters of the earth into a permanent bulge under its ellipse. It will submerge the land round the tropics so that only the highest mountains remain, as islands, above the level of the sea. In time it, too, will alleviate the weight of all living creatures; and no doubt it will create once again on the face of the earth gigantic plants, gigantic animals, gigantic men. Finally, coming nearer still, it will burst asunder and be transformed into an immense ring-a diminishing ring which eventually will settle on the earth. This perhaps will be the end of man. Hoerbiger’s calculations show that our present moon is very much bigger than any previous satellite and that the cataclysm produced by its fall will consequently be much more violent. Hoerbiger’s disciples maintain, indeed, that the Book of Revelation records, with some precision, descriptions of what happened last time. And next time it will be infinitely more terrifying. Should mankind survive it will witness a grand finale, stupendous and appalling beyond our dreams. For the planet Mars-a smaller planet than

The Solar System and the Earth i 57

the earth-is revolving outside the earth’s spiral, and because it is smaller than we are it is catching us up. When Mars gets nearer to us, what will happen? It is too big to be captured by the earth. It will approach the earth very closely but it will miss it for our gravitational pull will not be strong enough to deflect Mars from its path towards the sun. But our atmosphere will be pulled away from us by Mars-it is already pulled outwards by the present moon-and our air will be lost to us for ever in space. With a cosmic swirl our waters will leave us and our planet will be swept clean of all movable objects. The earth’s crust will burst. Life will be over. After that, according to the theory, earth, or what is left of it, will be overtaken by numerous small planetoids which at present revolve beyond Mars and which consist chiefly of ice. They will transform our earth into a block of ice until, in its turn, it falls into and is absorbed by the sun. Does the phrase “the expansion of the universe,” which is now so widely current, give us any grounds for hope? Perhaps this expansion will be fast enough to catch us in time and save us from our disastrous inward spiralling? But this is only an illusion. The expansion of the universe, as Paul Couderc [op.cit., p. 178] explains, takes place only in the intergalactic spaces. The Milky Way is not expanding; the solar system is not expanding. If the scientists are right-what hope we have lies in that if-our fate is ordained and inevitable.

3.

Man on Earth O certain questions about the history of the earth and the history of man, considered as part of the history of the solar system as a whole, Hoerbiger’s theory provides answers-something which no other theory does. Did real giants once walk the earth? Was there once a civilization that was the source and progenitor of all subsequent civilizations? And, if there was, how did it come to in end? What exactly are the savages we know today? Are they true primitives? Or are they degenerates? Are we ourselves at the starting point of a new civilization? Or are we the last survivors of a very ancient one? What role does the human mind play in the evolution of civilization? And why do civilizations vanish? At the end of the primary period when the first satellite was close to the earth there were giant plants and giant insects. The enormous trees of that period produced our layers of coal. We find fossil dragon-flies whose wing span exceeds three feet. But even in the case of the insects the psychological problem comes first. How is it, asks the great naturalist Fabre, that an insect with practically no brain-and thus presumably with no intelligence-can with unerring precision strike at the seven nerve centres in a caterpillar; and thereby cause not death but stupor and immobility so that several months later larvae, which will hatch out then, may have fresh food? Fabre pointed out to Darwin, in a fascinating correspondence, that no theory of evolution could account for the fact: The insect must succeed in its attempt the very first time it tries; if it does not, it will leave no posterity. There can be no period of trial and error. At this point we may turn to the theories of the French geologist,

T

58

Man on Earth j 59

Perrier. [Edmond Perrier: La Terre avant I 'histoire. Renaissance du Livre. Albin Michel. New edition, 1954, pp. 263-4.] According to him, in the primary era the sun was much larger than it is now, the earth was then perpendicular on the ecliptic, and in consequence summer was perpetual. In this unbroken sunshine the insects lived for very much longer periods than they do now; long enough, in fact, for some of them to develop sufficient intelligence to learn from their parents how to sting their prey in the necessary places. After thousands of years of practice, this knowledge at last became automatic and was transmitted hereditarily. And when winters once began, when insects had to die each year and eggs and larvae had to be protected against the cold and fed in the spring long after the death of their parents, those insects alone survived who had succeeded in converting this knowledge into an inherited instinct. Once the perpetual summer was over, the insects lost their intelligence, their size, their adaptability; these survivors were degenerate specimens of their vanished predecessors. Thus our insects of today, according to Perrier, are mostly the poor and unimpressive remnants of a race of creatures that once possessed a degree of intellect-though probably not intellect in any way comparable with human intellect; perhaps, too, they were-perhaps even, in part, they still are-gifted with certain non-human senses and feelings. Perhaps, too, in very much the same sort of way, the human savages of today are the degenerate leftovers from, ancient civilizations; perhaps their way of life-a way followed now without any rational understanding-is the blurred-and almost obliterated imprint of what was once a highly rational and highly efficient social organization. In the light of Hoerbiger’s theories, ideas can be entertained and examined which at first glance seem strange and bizarre; but which fit all the facts in a way that no other ideas do. During the periods of gigantism when the moon-helped by a speedier rotation of the earth and stronger centrifugal forces-decreases the weight of all objects and of all living creatures there come into play, too, some powerful elements, the existence of which has only very recently been discovered: cosmic rays. Paul Couderc writes [op. cit., p. 182]: “The cosmic rays of today, immensely powerful though they are, are only a small and feeble remnant of the cosmic rays which were present at the

60 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

beginning of the world, at the creation of the universe.” The combined action of cosmic rays and of the effects of the decreased gravitation on genes and chromosomes produced astonishing mutations brusques-new beings different from their immediate parents and from their distant ancestors. Hence came those gigantic and intelligent insects of the end of the primary period; hence, too, at the end of the secondary period the sudden emergence of a new being, man-gigantic and intelligent, too. Hoerbiger’s theories explain, too, the decline which always sets in. The apex is always at the moment when a near and favourable moon lightens the weight, increases the size both of body and of brain, and gives to the cosmic rays the fullest possible play. Then the moon crashes; gravitation increases; cosmic rays become less powerful. The general tendency of everything is downwards. Thus returns to us the ancient story of the Fall. During this period only those races survive which have retained something of the great period. Slowly and painfully they begin again to move upwards. Then the earth captures a new satellite; the great tides begin again; in all things there is an upward surge and a preparation for a new period of greatness. During the moonless periods small creatures flourish-rodents, reptiles, dwarfs. As the satellite draws slowly nearer to earth larger beings replace them, beings like our present human races and the animals who accompany us, the dog and the horse. Yet the moon’s influence is felt fully only in the terrestrial zones under her orbit. North and south of that orbit, as she approaches, there is a strange mixture of conditions. And after several such cycles the earth is populated by a chaos of races: decadent types or progressing species: giants; dwarfs; remnants from former periods of gigantism; first steps along the road to some new greatness. To this extraordinary mixture Hoerbiger alone gives us the key-his story of a succession of high creativity, sudden calamity, long periods of decadence. Logic and imagination both impel us to place the coming of man at the end of the secondary period. By the end of the tertiary we find cities and gigantic human beings ruling over ordinary men in a civilization which is already very highly developed.

Man on Earth ' 61

Man, in fact, may have been produced by a sudden mutation, by the action of cosmic rays on the genes of some animal now extinct and inconceivable. In the Encyclical Humani generis (2th August 1950), Pius XII stated: “The Church does not forbid that the theory of evolution (be an object of research) in so far as it is confined to the investigation of whether the human body is the development of some other body already extant and alive; but the Catholic faith maintains the doctrine of the immediate creation of souls by God.” And in the next paragraph the Encyclical insists on the uniqueness of Adam as the one father of the whole human race. To the Church, Hoerbiger’s theory grants even more than Pius XII demands. “The immediate creation of souls” is teaching which harmonizes well with the idea of the sudden emergence of a being with a much higher intelligence than that of any animal. The reduction of gravitation allowed this new being to stand up on its legs and to enlarge its cranium which was now held in equilibrium. Such physical developments would have been of no importance if there had not occurred at the same time a spiritual and intellectual development which enabled man to make full use of them: the development, in other words, of the soul. Hence, all at once, man. As Genesis tells us. What of Eve? Here we must postulate-and it is the reasonable postulate-that the Bible contains the last fragments of an accurate scientific tradition-a tradition which is only just becoming intelligible to us in the light of our most recent discoveries. Eve drawn from the side of Adam, flesh of his flesh? Perhaps here there is the last trace of an earlier accurate scientific knowledge of the genesis of uni ovular twins. Such knowledge transmitted to intellectually degenerate races was transmuted into a story gross and simplified but in essence true. That such scientific knowledge should have existed in a very ancient period will be easily credible when we examine in the next chapter the state of knowledge at Tiahuanaco, thirty thousand years ago. But first comes the evidence of the Bible. Here we need only sum­ marize it as in a later chapter the texts will be given in detail. Genesis relates that after Adam the first men lived to be five hundred, six hundred and even nine hundred years old, statements which for a long time were

62 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

quoted to the discredit of the verbal inspiration of the Bible. The Scriptures do not connect the two facts of gigantism and longevity. (However, both Jewish and Mohammedan folk-lore and legends make it abundantly clear that these long-lived and remote ancestors were, in fact, of supernormal size.) And the connection is obvious. As the lessening of gravitation allows gigantic growth it allows, too, a longer life period, for physiological wearing away of tissue, the normal reason for the shortness of life, is connected with the weight of the body and its component parts. A lighter body, subject to less heavy strains, lives longer thin a heavier body of the

same volume. Thus a new lease of life is given to old ideas that had become virtually extinct: the creation from nothing of Adam and Eve. The immense longevity of the first men, the existence in ancient days of giants. Out of all this several curious points arise. Man is born too early. He comes into the world insufficiently prepared for it. A newly born animal is, as a rule, much more competent: it can swim, run, bite, adapt itself. When he became of giant size man, in fact, had to be expelled early from the maternal womb: otherwise he would have killed the mother-and probably himself, too-in the process of birth. The mother’s natural defence was premature expulsion. And man had to learn activities other than those which he could have learnt in the body of his first mother: activities that mothers did not know of-how to hold him­ self upright, how to speak, how to think more clearly. Man, at birth, gives up an animal heritage and creates for himself a human field of action. The phenomenon of maternal love is in fact the result of this premature expulsion from the womb; a compensation that the child is entitled to. The pains of childbirth, too, arise from the same ultimate cause; the mother’s love for the child tends to make her subconsciously keep it too long, and as a result it grows too big for easy expulsion. Marais, and others, have pointed out the connection between birth pains and maternal love: only in the races in which the female suffers in giving birth does the female clearly evidence affection for her offspring. The fundamental reason for these psycho-physiological events is the impulse towards gigantism: the child tends to be too big for the mother. The Bible helps us, indirectly, to place man’s creation at the end of the secondary period. According to Hoerbiger’s theories the first men must

Man on Earth । 63

have been long-lived giants. But Tiahuanaco at the end of the tertiary era shows giants living among ordinary men, since there we find megalithic buildings, presumably built by giants but adapted to the use of small men. During the tertiary period, therefore, there must have been an emergence of small men-smaller in size and shorter lived-and at the same time a survival of some of the giants. During the moonless period some races, being unfavourably situated-being driven out of Paradise-adapted themselves to harder conditions, probably in the farther parts of the earth: north and south. Cain became a wanderer. By so doing they acquired new qualities and new characteristics-which later enabled them to exterminate the giants. We shall return later to these purely physical aspects of the Fall. But both the Bible and Plato insist from the first on the moral degeneration it involved; and from our point of view, too, that is the essential element. What, in the ultimate analysis, do either Atlantis or the giants matter to us? These picturesque tales move us because they mirror in the physical history of the world the spiritual and moral history of man’s nature. Had there never been an Atlantis, had there never been any giants, the calamities and the resurrections embodied in these images are imprinted very deeply in the texture of our soul and of out innermost feelings. Our dreams are evidence of that fact. In his heart each one of us carries a lost Paradise, an Eve bereft of her Adam, a ruined universe of submerged continents. The old tales move us very deeply because we recognize in them the same nostalgic desires, as in the souls of our predecessors upon earth. And what indeed is Truth if not that which men have always believed in?

4.

Tiahuanaco [The first part of this chapter is a summary of H.S. Bellamy’s most striking book, Built Before the Flood-The Problem of Tiahuanaco, Faber, London, 1947, with dates modified as in The Calendar of Tiahuanaco, by Bellamy & Allan, 1956.]

Lake Titicaca in the Andes, at an altitude of roughly four thousand meters, are the ruins of several towns and of several civilizations piled in layers one above the other. No convincing ex­ planation of the origin of these ruins has yet been given by anyone. Some archaeologists date them no earlier than A.D. 1200; Hoerbiger and his disciples said at first as far back as three hundred thousand years but the latest view is thirty thousand years ago. As the sites have been inhabited since the first emergence of man, it may well be that every theory has got at least an element of truth. Each theory may be right for at least one part-or one layer-of the ruins. No thorough-going and comprehensive explanation has yet been put forward. But many of the conclusions which have already been established provide striking confirmation for Hoerbiger’s theories-confirmation all the more striking since those theories in no way originated in archaeology. These prehistoric finds provide corroboration for his calculations about the tertiary satellite and about the permanent tide bulge and about the satellites fall. Should Hoerbiger’s theories be found erroneous very similar ones will have to be invented in their place. Otherwise there is no accounting for Tiahuanaco. The first striking piece of evidence is geological. A line of maritime deposit can be traced continuously over a distance of about three hundred and seventy-five miles. It begins near Lake Umayo, in Peru, which is some three hundred feet higher than the level of Titicaca; it runs south of the lake at about one hundred feet above the present water ear

N

64

Tiahuanaco \ 65

level and, on a downward and southward decline, ends beyond Lake Coipusa at a height some eight hundred feet below that of its northern beginning. The line is curved, descending first twelve inches per kilometer and later twenty-five inches. A sea has been there. That sea was not horizontal. Its surface was curved; with a much more pronounced curvature than the surface of our oceans of today and of the earth generally. Some geologists have postulated a rising of the South American continent above an ocean which was where South America is now. But surely it is easier to postulate a movement not of land but of water? And how could a regular line of sediment have been kept intact while mountains so jagged and so diverse were being formed? Surely the sediment would have been scattered into unidentifiable fragments. Could the delicate curve of the line have been preserved? Cataclysms are rarely geometrical. The line must surely have been produced long after the mountains were in place. Hoerbiger’s explanation is infinitely more satisfactory. The tide bulge produced by the approaching tertiary satellite lifted the waters to this altitude and held them there for many thousands of years; and the bulge was naturally convex. The waters moved, not the mountains. And this ancient shore line would have run past the ruins of Tiahuanaco, which was a port on the pleistocene sea. Indeed, the very stones of the ruins have some completely original characteristics: traits found nowhere else in the world. This first Andean civilization resembles nothing else known to archaeologists and its peculiarities necessarily postulate a date extremely ancient. For example, we find a dressed stone weighing nearly nine tons, cut on all its six sides with curious niches and geometrical hollows, for which our architects can think of no possible use. Experts have spent weeks trying to fit tenons into these mortices and trying to find the meaning of those holes. But in vain. This monolith is ten feet high and was designed for a purpose which was forgotten by all subsequent builders. There are porticoes nine feet high by twelve feet wide, two feet thick, cut into one slab of stone, with doors and openings, chiselled out of the slab; the whole weighing over ten tons. Blocks weighing about one

66 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

hundred tons are sunk in the ground to support walls made of small stones. There are the giant statues themselves. One of these monolithic figures has been removed to the open air museum in La Paz: twenty-five feet high, three feet thick, some twenty tons in weight. There are dozens like this and as yet no methodical survey of them has been made.

Dressed Stone 8 tons

Besides human bones, there have been found in the upper ground, scorched here and there, bones of toxodons-animals which disappeared at the end of the tertiary era. This in itself would be enough evidence of the extremely ancient date of the buildings; but the calendar-deciphered in 1937 [though fully explained only in 1956]-brings us even more precise proof. Stylized heads of toxodons are also used as decorative motifs on porticoes and in the calendar itself. The simultaneous existence of the toxodon and the builders seems incontestable. All the monoliths must have been placed and cut by giants. But the openings made in them are for beings of human size. Is not the simplest implication that the buildings were made-in part, at least-by giants for men’s use? It is a universal tradition that the arts of living were taught to men by gods who were kings and who were giants. The roofless theatres

Tiahuanaco

67

may have been assembly places where these great kings addressed their human subjects. We shall mention later the activities of some degenerate savages in the western Pacific who still erect monoliths-and sometimes statues-in honour of divine “ancestors” of ancient times-their gigantic masters. We shall see, too, that the Urus, the last survivals of prehistoric faces still living on Lake Titicaca, affirm that the great Tiahuanaco statues were made by the “gods”; that is, by the giants who preceded “men” before these races were themselves created. Thus the testimony of the Bible about the giants is confirmed. Why should these gigantic statues ever have been set up had there not once been gigantic men? The savages of Malekula, even today, try to escape the excessive labour of putting up these heavy monoliths and replace them by wooden statues which are easier to carve and to transport. But in Tiahuanaco there is the harmony of a perfected civilization-the benevolent calm and the dignity of some of the sculptured faces implies an evolved community where masters and subjects worked together in harmony and peace-just as our cathedrals were built by willing hands. The giants did the giants’ share of the work. We may surmise, too, that when the Egyptians erected their colossal statues for their gods they remembered the happy times when the giant Osiris taught them the arts of sculpture; and they felt it necessary to give him a statue of proper size, into which he could with ease return to dwell. Before we attempt to assess the intellectual level of the Tiahuanaco culture, let us turn aside for a moment to one other characteristic of it. Tiahuanaco was a seaport. Titicaca is still a salt lake, although there is no salt in the surrounding land: here are the remains of water left by a vanished ocean, the last puddle of a receding sea. The quays of the port still exist here and there, not on the lake which has shrunk away, but on the line of sediment which was the tidemark of the ancient sea. Hoerbiger, by a calculation based on the volume of water on our planet and the height of the mountains, has established that five great islands must have remained above the bulge of the tertiary sea: the Andes; the highlands of Mexico; Abyssinia; the heights of New Guinea; Tibet. From all five regions there is confirmatory evidence. We can, therefore, legitimately imagine that the men of Tiahuanaco, a

68 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

seaport of the Pacific Ocean, had ships which circled the world on the ocean bulge. A highly developed culture was spread over the habitable earth and was in part unified by seaborne traffic. How else can one explain the extraordinary resemblances which occur all over the earth’s surface? The cromlechs in Malekula and in Brittany and in Great Britain? The giants on Easter Island? The resemblances between the legends of Greece and of Mexico?...They are the fragments of a great and very ancient civilization. The lapse of time between our own day and that of the Greek and Latin originators of our civilization is very small compared with the lapse of time between Tiahuanaco and Malekula. The calculation of thirty thousand years for this most ancient of all civilizations is not an excessive one if we allow for the degeneration and degradation of which we have evidence. The unified civilization which we postulate must have been in existence some time before twenty or thirty thousand years ago-which is the remotest date we can give to the beginnings of our own culture if we start at the Dordogne or Altamira caves. Of the high intellectual development attained at Tiahuanaco we have indisputable proof-the sculptured calendar over the now famous doorway of the sun. This monolithic porch is described by H.S. Bellamy: “Upon the ruined field of Tiahuanaco, half buried in hardened grey mud, riven but resolute by dint of its mass, there was found the great gateway which obviously led originally to a very important part of the Sun Temple of Kalasaya. This pylon is not only a triumph of megalithic architecture, being hewn out of one block of almost glass-hard andesite about 10 feet high, 1214 feet wide, 114 feet thick and weighing about 10 tons, it is also a marvel of sculpture, for the upper part of the front of this massive portal is encrusted with stupendously rich and beautifully executed carvings, while its back is adorned with well-balanced niches and escalinated cornices.” Posnansky, doyen of Andean archaeology-and no Hoerbigerian-first established that this was in fact a calendar and determined the solstice and equinox signs. The German scholar Kiss, who carried out field research at Tiahuanaco itself in 1928 and 1929, discovered the signs for the months and for the weeks and published his deductions in 1937. Finally, in 1949 Ashton, an English scholar, worked out some of the last intricate details. The complete explanation was published in 1956 by H.S. Bellamy and P. Allan.

Tiahuanaco | 69

Monolithic giant

70 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

Giant’s head, stylized. Tiahuanaco

Tiahuanaco | 71

A Part of the calendar

The calendar

72 j Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

Now in 1927, Hoerbiger had come to the conclusion that at the end of the tertiary period the earth went round the sun in two hundred and ninety­ eight days, each day a little longer than twenty-nine of our present hours. Hoerbiger died in 1931. In 1937 Kiss stated that the stone calendar of Tiahuanaco, divided the year into two hundred and ninety days. So far no other reading of the calendar has been proposed by any scholar. Ashton’s decipherment in 1949 entirely confirms the previous results of Posnansky and of Kiss. Bellamy and Allan in 1956 follow on their predecessors. Hoerbiger’s calculations, which were made before any detailed knowledge of the calendar was available, have been proved right by observations registered in stone towards the end of the pleistocene period. Or, to turn the argument another way, the existence of this calendar is proof that the observations were in fact made at that date. Should those scholars prove to be right who give A.D. 1200 as the date for Tiahuanaco, the two-hundred-and-ninety-day year of the calendar must be the result of knowledge and tradition going back thirty thousand years. The problem remains the same; the solution remains the same: at that infinitely remote date there must have been a highly developed civilization on the Andes. We have, of course, Mexican calendars which we know are medieval and which give approximately and sometimes almost precisely the same number of days in the year as there are now. So why should men in A.D. 1200 have built a calendar based on the two-hundred-and-ninetyday year? Now this calendar is much superior to the one we use today. Not, of course, superior to what our astronomers could produce if they were given a free hand-but superior to the calendar we do actually use. The only scientific fact-i.e., the only observed fact-recorded by our calendar is the number of days in the year. Our “months” correspond to nothing in nature-nor do our weeks. Solstices and equinoxes, turning points of the year, are ignored in our arrangement of the weeks and the months and have to be superimposed erratically when they occur. Our year does not begin on any astronomical coincidence and the first day of the year can be, and in fact has been, arbitrarily changed. Our movable feasts, like Easter, drift about the calendar almost at random. The Tiahuanaco calendar begins, logically, at the autumn equinox. It is

Tiahuanaco | 73

divided into four astronomical seasons by solstices and equinoxes. Each season is divided into three sections; hence there are twelve rational months.” At the time of the construction of the calendar the months were twenty-four days long and the satellite revolved exactly thirty-seven times round the earth in the space of one month. Thus one could tell by the calendar where the moon was at any time of the day. Were our calendar to be similarly rationalized we should be able to find the moon in the same phase on the same day of each month. But at this point comes a subtler complication. The satellite went round the earth thirty-seven times in a month, but as the earth also revolves that moon in fact rose and set only thirteen times in the month. The two motions, the real one and the apparent one, are both indicated. Here is a clear indication of the inferiority of our own present calendar. Our astro­ nomers have known for a very long time that the real motion of our present moon is not its apparent motion; since our observatory, the earth, itself revolves. But we are satisfied with a calendar which reports only the moon’s apparent movement. Can we make a guess, too, at the moral or spiritual development of this vanished civilization? Intellectually they may well have been out equals or our superiors -we cannot precisely tell-and in any case they were most certainly superior in knowledge to any of our predecessors in Europe or in Asia. Neither the Greeks, nor the Egyptians, nor the Hindus, so far as we know, could have constructed a calendar of this complexity and exactitude. Only the discoveries of the nineteenth and of the twentieth centuries have enabled us to reach a level of knowledge to equal that of these ancient Andean astronomers. And indeed it is only a guess that out knowledge is co-equal. So far as artistic achievements are concerned, I myself place them quite definitely above us-as far above us as the Egyptians were in their greatest days. Indeed, I am inclined even to put them above the Egyptians. It seems to me that not even at the apex of European cultural achievement, not even at the Italian Renaissance, could any of out artists have produced a master­ piece comparable with the face of the colossus which the Spaniards named Elfraile. The whole face is instinct with benevolent superiority and the whole statue is invested with a supreme harmony-highly stylized hands and body achieve a deeply moving equilibrium. Was this indeed one of the

74 I Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

giant kings that ruled over the people of Tiahuanaco? If it was we are reminded irresistibly of Pascal: Would that God give us rulers made directly by himself. And consider, too, this other face composed of geometrical forms and shapes: eyes as circles, the nose a pyramid, the mouth an oval, the forehead a rectangle, the profile a perfect ellipsoid curve, the back a straight line. The impression it produces surpasses anything our cubists or Post-impressionists have achieved.

One month of the calendar

Tiahuanaco

Diagram of the first month of the calendar

75

76 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

Bellamy writes: “The portrait heads show high foreheads, open faces, bold profiles, energetic chins-there is especially a head, that of a dignitary probably, because of his cap of office-it seems to force its proud face powerfully out of the rude hard stone as if impatient with the sculptor’s slow chisel, as if knowing that its likeness should not vanish, but endure for ages.” It is worth while insisting on the difference between the giant statues of Tiahuanaco and the other giant statues we know-the statues of Easter Island, for example. At Tiahuanaco we feel we are in contact with minds superior to our own. But this is far from being so in the case of the great figures of Easter Island. Though the spiritual force of their creators may have been greater than ours, their intellectual powers were most certainly inferior. But at Tiahuanaco we feel-as we feel with the statues of the first Pharaohs-that both the minds and hearts employed were greater than ours are. There is another line of evidence, too, testifying to this civilization. In all human mythology there remains the memory of a golden age-an age during which great gods conversed with men and taught them agriculture, metallurgy, science; the golden age lasted for a considerable time and under the rule of these divine beings men were profoundly happy. The Greeks remembered an age of Saturn that had preceded ferocious wars between the giants and the gods and the names of Hercules and of Prometheus were associated only with beneficent deeds. The Egyptians and the Mesopotamians, too, cherished legends about gods that had civilized men. The Pacific savages tell of their ancestors, good giants with whom the world began. Surely in this universal tradition there is a vague but reliable memory of some splendid reality which preceded the dawn of history? The ruins of Tiahuanaco permit us, too, to imagine the end; what happened between, say, twenty-five thousand years ago and some twelve thousand years ago. As the tertiary moon came dangerously close, the seas became more and more turbulent. Volcanoes became more and more destructive. Earthquakes increased in frequency and calamitousness. Round Titicaca there remain traces of three different kinds of disaster: volcanic ashes, sediments from great floods, evidence of the final disappearance of the

Tiahuanaco \ 77

sea. There is a specially impressive spot [see Bellamy, op. cit.,p. 7] where quantities of half-dressed stones have been left scattered in disorder, and tools thrown away or dropped in dried mud-as though the workmen using them had been drowned, or had had to run away in panic leaving their work half finished. The satellite then turned into a ring-like one of Saturn’s rings-and finally settled down violently in a circle round the earth, destroying whatever was beneath it. And the sea, after tremendous fluctuations from Pole to pole calmed down more or less to its present level, for the attractive force of the satellite had ceased. Air, too, receded from the heights and became distributed more or less evenly over the surface of the earth. Round Titicaca the survivors felt the air withdrawing, the cessation of the warmth they knew: they were now twelve thousand feet above sea level; their ships were destroyed; their sea had vanished. Food no longer reached them; nor could they grow it. No doubt they, like the sea, descended from the mountains-but on the lower levels they would have found only marshy plains, hardly yet entirely free of the waters. Centuries would have to pass before a useful vegetation could establish itself there and before arable land could be developed: indeed, tens of centuries. All social structure must have disappeared; tools and machines can have existed no longer; science itself must have been completely forgotten. As Plato puts it, relating what happened elsewhere at another period, but in very similar conditions: “They and their descendants were deprived for many generations of the most ordinary necessities of life and had to devote their whole minds to the exclusive task of procuring whatever was needed to satisfy immediate ‘material needs.’” At this point we may perhaps have to generalize a little. Similar events must have taken place at the five centres of civilization postulated by Hoerbiger: from Abyssinia, New Guinea, Tibet, Mexico, as well as from the Andes, must have descended men who were turning rapidly into savages and giants cut off for ever from their civilization. We have already insisted-and we shall have to do so again-on the mass of traditions telling of dreadful wars between giants and men, between different races of giants and of men, and to the holy-or diabolical-alliances that were inevitably formed. The physical fall was accompanied by a deep moral degradation.

78 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

Men, who are always quick to bring in against themselves a verdict of guilty, discovered in their own shortcomings the cause of their calamities. Plato, at the end of his fragmentary story, says that the gods had been scandalized by the activities of men and had sent the catastrophe as a punishment. But what, in fact, had human perversity to do with the fall of the tertiary moon? The fall had been inevitable for millions of years. Yet the idea that in some way it was a punishment generated considerable activity in the direction of moral and intellectual betterment. Perhaps, indeed, it helped men to emerge from the savagery of the quaternary period-perhaps it even began their eventual redemption and regeneration. It is just conceivable that, had men sufficiently developed their physical and moral adventurousness, they would have descended from the mountains, led by their giant kings, and would have conquered their new earth methodically. But is not that asking too much of human nature? At the end of Paradise Lost, Milton pictures Adam and Eve, trusting in God’s help, looking with optimism on the broader world now open to them. But the tale of what happened to them afterwards is a sorry one. And yet man may have succeeded in parts of the earth where we have not yet discovered the traces of the civilizations he established-for it is possible that some organized civilization survived through the ages. Indeed, it seems even probable, for otherwise it is very difficult to con­ ceive that absolute savages retained through so many thousands of years certain central traditions. Paleolithic communities may have existed in well-organized though simple social and material conditions. The sculp­ tures and drawings we have found in their caves testify to an advanced artistic, intellectual and moral development. In some places cities may even have been rebuilt-and if they were, the ancient knowledge would have been preserved there for long periods. [See specially G. Bataille: La Peinture Prehistorique: Lascaux (Skira, Paris, 1955) where the aesthetic values are insisted upon and analysed. Too much sociology has so far obscured the main point: the artistic and spiritual genius of the prehistoric artists.] Plato’s Atlantis, wherever it may have been, was probably one such centre of civilization. In other places, where favourable circumstances of climate and soil were found, mankind may have kept or reattained a high

Tiahuanaco

79

level of civilization and nevertheless have left no traces for us to find: under tents, with flocks, with dates and milk. [In 1956 M. Roger Grosjean, of the Recherche Scienfifique, Paris, discovered in S.W. Corsica a number of gigantic statues, some of which can be ranked artistically among the highest masterpieces of prehistoric times. He dates them about 1600 B.C. Professor Daniel Ruzo (Lima) writes in 1957: “After thirty years of research in the field I can certify that Peru is strewn over with enormous sculptures and sculptured rock, the work of prehistoric giants.” Cf. The Masma Culture, Lima, 1954.] A high spiritual and intellectual life could easily have been wedded to one of utter material simplicity-more easily, perhaps, than to our own complicated and over-urbanized civilization. Our highest ideas of God come from the deserts of Arabia, the mountains of Persia, the bare lands of Galilee, the wastes of Tibet, perhaps the waste waters of the Pacific. Who were the Fisher-Kings?

URUS On the shores of Lake Titicaca and of the River Desaguero that flows from it there still live a few dozen people in the lowest possible state of civilization. [Jehan Vellard: Dieux et parias des Andes. Paris, Emile Paul, 1954.] The race is fast dying out; the young people have disappeared and been absorbed by neighbouring tribes. In a very few years nothing will be left of the Urus, a most ancient race which the Spaniards of the sixteenth century had already remarked on as a strange remnant of an older world. But during the last twenty years the tribe has been very fully studied. Its characteristics are on record; photographs have been taken; vocabularies have been collected; a grammar of their language has been put together. Their message has been handed on to us and they can die in peace. They live on artificial islands constructed from the reeds of the lake. They build and use for fishing balsas made of reeds. Until very recently agriculture was unknown to them. They have nothing in common, ethnographically or linguistically, with their neighbours the Aymaras, a numerous and prosperous Indian nation, who are their natural competitors and enemies.

80 j Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

Both Urus and Aymaras, however, agree on one thing: that the Urus are not men. They themselves insist on this: they were there long before the Aymaras or anyone else; and have nothing in common with anyone else. They maintain that they are beings of a different genus, whom water cannot harm and who can bring bad luck to all men who do harm to them. They are the ancient gods helplessly and hopelessly degenerated. It is agreed, too, both by the Urus and the Aymaras that the Urus alone are connected with the gigantic statues of Tiahuanaco and the other places round the lake where such statues are found. They have always wor­ shipped these statues; sometimes they have looked upon them as their ancestors, sometimes as gods-gods and ancestors being for them almost identical ideas. Their traditions tell of an ancient time when the lake was infinitely larger than it is now; and they tell, too, of a time when the sun rose in the west (a characteristic which we shall come across again) and of a time when the moon was larger and when there was no sun. This is the only coherent story that can be obtained from them: “When the earth was in darkness a man called Kon-Tiki-Wirakocha came out of a lake and was accompanied by several others. “He created in this place Tiahuanaco-a number of men made of stone and a chief to govern them-when he had done, he ordered all the people who had come with him to take each one some of the men of stone leaving only two for himself-he made them learn the names he had given those men of stone-then he divided them into groups and said: ‘These will be called by such and such a name; they will come out of such and such a spring or a country and will live in it and multiply.’” [Op. cit., Vellard, pp. 16-17.] Thus were men created and the country populated. It is difficult not to play with the idea that these Urus are the last descendants of the population that had been ruled over by the benevolent giant-kings. They still remember vaguely the connection between themselves and the civilization of the great sculptures, retaining through millennia, in spite of all their degradation and humiliation, the proud feeling that they come from an older world than other tribes do; that they are not Indians; that they are not even men; and that they had powers which other men never possessed.

5.

Decadence in New Guinea OR some time it has been fashionable to believe that civilized society has evolved from primitive savagery just as men have evolved from monkeys. Thus the amazing spiritual achievements of Egyptian religion are said to be derived from the rudimentary totemistic system of which traces have, supposedly, been found in the Nile valley. This fashion is now on the wane. We are more disposed to believe that man, as man, emerged very quickly and reached almost at once a state of high intellectual and spiritual development. Then a series of calamities, both moral and physical, overwhelmed him in circumstances which we can imagine without much difficulty-as Plato could-and these calamities caused a rapid degeneration in different parts of the earth. It is probable, indeed, that almost since the beginning of humanity men have existed in a high state of civilization. Savages, far from being the remnants of civilization’s beginning, seem rather to be, as Joseph de Maistre maintains in his admirable Soirees de Saint Petersbourg, the result of various checks and failures in mankind’s long career. At every period of history there have probably been, as there are today, both highly civilized and very backward areas. When Malinowski, in his Argonauts of the Western Pacific, describes an apparently inexplicable traffic among islands covering a surface larger than that of present-day France, his findings are most easily explained on the assumption that in former ages there existed there a large empire now extinct. These savages 1 take very great trouble to organize long and often very dangerous expeditions over difficult seas to carry from one island to the other objects of no particular value-sticks, pots, tools which take years to go round the cycle of islands and in the end come back to their starting point. [I prefer to go back to the old word savages, since the modern substitute primitives implies a theory which I do not accept-that they came first. Savage in that context does not mean criminal. Our ancestors wrote

F

81

82 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

of noble savages.] The simplest explanation seems to be that in former days objects or commodities had to be brought to specified places as contributions to the finances of a central state. And once this central power disappeared—perhaps without the savages having realized it had-they went on with this systematic but now futile transportation. The useless rite is the remnant of a reasonable law. That a reasonable law should arise from a useless rite seems contrary to common sense. On this matter the Egyptians cherished a doctrine which is contrary to ours. They said-and all the ancients said-that gods and not savages had taught men arts and industries. And these Egyptians, the contemporaries of Plato and of Herodotus, had themselves been civilized for three or four thousand years at least; and were as refined, as sceptical, as decadent as we ourselves may be today. Since we got rid of our religion in one or two hundred years, what could not they have done in three thousand years? We have no reason to consider ourselves more intelligent than they were. One of the most distinguished ethnographers and psychologists of our day, John Layard, has spent years observing closely the inhabitants of a group of islands to the south-east of New Guinea. Now, according to Hoerbiger, the mountains of New Guinea were one of the refuges of civilization during the high permanent tide at the end of the tertiary period. Probably sea traffic did go from the Andes to New Guinea as to the other focal points of civilization: under the giant-kings it is more than likely that a world civilization existed. In John Layard’s findings, therefore, we shall look for supporting evidence for Hoerbiger’s hypothesis. [Neither Malinowski nor Layard, of course, is in any way responsible for the hypothesis I am building with here on their findings. I use their books solely as repositories of factual research. John Layard: Stone Men of Malekula, Chatto & Windus, London 1942.] The aborigines of the Malekula group still erect megaliths and, until very recently, gave a roughly human form to these gigantic stones. In this huge toil whole communities collaborate; it occupies years-with long intervals for rest-and is carried out with constantly diminishing skill. Layard has seen what were probably their very last efforts; and the coming of white men, there as everywhere, will before long end completely these last vestiges of an ancient culture.

Decadence in New Guinea I 83

Drawing of a menhir, a dolmen, and a wooden statue

84 j Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

The megaliths are enormous. One was thirty feet high and broke into three pieces during the transfer; the whole village had to have a long rest and then the special help of high feminine magic before the three separate stones were at last put up. Not so long ago, those huge blocks were sculptured to represent the ancestors of the race; the megaliths are the dwellings of the spirits of the dead and it is considered essential that a spirit should be able to recognize its own statue. The ancestors were, originally, giants. But the art of stone carving is disappearing fast and in many islands it has been totally lost. Therefore an unsculptured stone is put in position and in front of it is placed a tree trunk roughly and unskilfully carved to represent a human being. Together the two are the ancestor who is being commemorated. But in time the wood rots away and before long uncarved upright stones are found by the hundred in long alignments over certain plains. The wooden statue while it lasted taught the ancestor’s spirit where to go; and the spirit, having once learned the way, continues to frequent its proper dwelling. Elsewhere the decadence has gone further. The savages no longer bother about the heavy stones and plant into the ground a vaguely sculptured wooden pillar, which only too rapidly is being replaced by an ordinary tree trunk or even a simple stick. In some islands, however, the wooden implement has taken on a greater importance. It has become a vertical gong twelve to fifteen feet high, hollow and split nearly to the top, which is sculptured as a face. Whole orchestras are thus constructed and on great feast days when all the gongs are sounded, the noise is tremendous: the voices of the “ancestors” speak once more. The statues, however, whether of stone or of wood, are only one ele­ ment of a formal stage show. Normally, in front of the statue of the an­ cestor a dolmen is built up to three or four feet high. This represents the giant’s table on which pigs, specially bred for this purpose, are sacrificed: Layard discovered easily enough that not so long ago men were sacrificed instead of pigs as food for the giant. The menhir is the giant. The god kills and eats you if you do not feed him. Pigs are sacrificed to placate the “ancestor” and to prevent him from taking men. The idea is deeply rooted that the giants prefer men to pigs; and the white men and their warships

Decadence in New Guinea I 85

had much to do with the change of fare. But even without the intervention of armed forces the mere contact of the whites makes the blacks lose their psychic or moral powers. The savages lose interest. They abandon their ancient practices-they die away. Perhaps the whites are the new gods-the old gods die before them and the old peoples, too.

One part of the broken monolith, Malekula

86 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

Aztec warrior (Middle Ages?)

Even thus did the Romans suppress human sacrifices not only by the force of the legions but also by their scepticism-human sacrifices which were often offered in front of colossi made of wood, metal or stone. Gigantic size is the sign of the god: the “god” is a degenerate form of the giant. The facts reported by Layard hardly need our imagination to interpret them. Interpretation comes from the aborigines themselves. In very ancient antiquity there had been benevolent giant-kings. They taught men all the useful and the aesthetic arts; and especially the erection of statues which

Decadence in New Guinea 87

were probably connected with the rulers’ magic. Then came the evil giants, cannibals, who had to have stone tables on which to eat men. Tagaro, say the natives, was a good giant and came from the sky. Suque, who was evil, fought Tagaro but was thrown into the abyss-even as in Greece the wicked giants were thrown into the abyss by the “good” gods. Then all giants disappeared-but for how long? Men, terrified, continued to protect themselves by keeping ready the statues, the tables, the victims (men or pigs) against their return. Then the white men came and all was over. Perhaps it is as well. The evidence given by the blacks of Malekula is registered in stone-but it is also confirmed orally. So that perhaps not so very long ago civilized men still taught the savages something, since purely oral tradition among aborigines changes rapidly and dies out. Layard has gathered some curiously Hoerbigerian material. First of all, the world and all beings therein have been created by the moon. Men came down, “fell” from the moon. [Layard quotes Father Godefroy: Une tribu tombee de la Lune, Les Missions Catholiques, Lyons, 1933.] Today, even, men’s souls are created in the moon and descend from the moon into their mothers’ wombs. Cosmic rays, sudden mutations, alleviation of animal weight by the moon’s power-and creation of man’s soul. Hoerbiger or ancient science? They even say that the moon can and does fall on the earth. [Layard, op. cit., p. 213 and p. 572.] They report, too, that in the beginning there was no sea-a curious statement for a seafaring race. Land was everywhere, then all at once the sea came and occupied its present place; a Hoerbigerian account, since at the time of the bulge the waters were accumulated to the north and some of the south Pacific was dry land-all at once, on the release of the bulge water when the moon fell, the ocean spread over immense spaces of land. Layard finds also in Malekula fragments of an experimental science that was different from ours. The natives being quite incapable of inventing any science at all, their knowledge and intellectual traditions can only have come to them from men civilized in a way different from ours. After Sir James Frazer in England and Durkheim in France, the prevalent thesis was that the magic of backward races was a futile exercise, based on a puerile association of ideas and totally unconnected

88 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

with reality. But there is now some evidence that occasionally magical practices have effects which can be scientifically observed and are not simply the product of savage imaginings. Things sometimes happen which seem to show that the natives are in possession of the last fragments of scientific knowledge which formerly was a complete and methodical system; fragments now deformed, warped and debased, but nevertheless on occasion efficacious. John Layard writes [op. cit., p. 576]: “Under certain circumstances, the efficacy of weather magic may not be so illusory as is popularly thought. It has for the last few centuries in Europe been the fashion to minimize the power of the human psyche over the phenomena of external nature. Modern research, however, has gone a long way towards proving the reality of the phenomena connected with the exteriorization of psychical, energy, though there are not many among us who are now able to control them. It is, moreover, almost certain that primitive people with relatively undifferentiated egos are in touch with collective powers to a far greater extent than modern man and that native magicians and others with special gifts in that direction develop and foster them by means of a definite technique. Weather magicians exist among primitive communities throughout the world and it is well known that they undergo periods of fasting and psychic preparation of an intensive nature before attempting to practise their art. It is unlikely that so much energy should have been expended by so many natives of high standing in so many places and for such uncounted ages if no results whatever were forthcoming. I therefore suggest, not of course that all weather phenomena arc capable of being brought under human control, but that in favourable circumstances the relatively close connection between the primitive mind and natural forces may indeed be established on the lower levels of consciousness by means of which a certain measure of control may become operative.” [Dr. Layard is an M.A. of King’s College, Cambridge, and of New College, Oxford, and a Doctor honoris causa of the University of Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and a member of the medical section of the British Psychological Society. A pupil of the late Dr. A.C. Haddon, he went to Malekula with Dr. W.H.R. Rivers and later studied psychology under the personal direction of Professor C.G. Jung. [Conclusions very similar to Dr. Layard’s are found in Professor

Decadence in New Guinea | 89

Adolphe E.Jensen’s work (University of Frankfurt-on-Main): cf., Mythes et cultes chez les primitifs, Payot, Paris, 1954, in which the “primitive” is rehabilitated in the intellectual and spiritual fields. Professor Jensen’s general idea that we find in the minds of the savages degraded-though often true and efficacious-fragments of a very high theology is thoroughly in harmony with the thesis of this book.] Layard devotes a whole chapter (XXIV, pages 628-48) to a survey of techniques of magic practices, as a contribution “to an understanding of the psychic forces still under control by primitive people.” From all the surveys that have been made, however, it is clear that magic rites of this nature are very far from being efficacious all the time. They succeed only partially and only occasionally; and the sorcerers, on being examined, are found to be totally ignorant of the reasons for success or failure. They are all apprentis-sorciers', savages who have been taught to drive motor-cars and even to make simple repairs, but who have no idea of how and why the machine works. Layard and Deacon [Deacon quoted by Layard, op. cit., passim] make this quite clear: these sorcerers are the last crude and flawed repositories of a science infinitely far beyond their grasp and taught a very long time ago by masters long since forgotten. If we take seriously all the many hints tabulated in these chapters, we may perhaps allow ourselves to think that an almost unimaginably long time ago there existed a civilization with highly developed scientific knowledge. To that possibility the whole of classical antiquity bears witness; and its testimony is corroborated by the universal behaviour of savage races today. It seems possible that the essential difference between these ancient civilizations and our own lies in the fact that their science was primarily “psychical” and ours is primarily “physical.” The part played by oracles and omens in the social, political and even in the military life of the Greeks is to us incomprehensible; how, in the days of Plato, of Aristotle, of Euripides, could armies have refused to fight because the moon was not favourable? But no one questioned such behaviour then. A day may come when we shall have to admit the validity and even the necessity of both kinds of science. Perhaps, indeed, it is the historical function of the savage races to have preserved the evidence for us-to have passed on to us scattered fragments of the oldest knowledge mankind possesses, a knowledge dating from the ages before Adam fell.

90 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

Our physical knowledge and our physical power have developed so rapidly and so monstrously that some counter balance is a most vital necessity. We are in danger of being destroyed by an excess of physical science; and it is sometimes said that the civilization of Atlantis came to an end because of an excess of “psychical” science. We must find some kind of equilibrium.

6.

The Toltecs Toltecs lived in what we now call Mexico, on the territory of another of the five great islands of the tertiary period-at the antipodes of Malekula. We know little more of them than what chroniclers of the Conquest report. I quote G.C. Vaillant, the latest and best authority. [G.C. Vaillant: The Aztecs of Mexico, Pelican, London 1950, p. 67-8.] “The eastern history, written by Ixtilxochitl, began very properly with the creation of the world and the four or five suns, or eras, through which life has survived. The first era, the Water Sun, was when the supreme God Tloque Nahuaque, created the world; and after 1716 years floods and lightning destroyed it. “The second era, the Sun of the Earth, saw the world populated by giants, the Quinametzins, who almost disappeared when earthquakes obliterated the earth. “The Wind Sun came third and Olmecs and Xicalancas, human tribes, lived on earth. They destroyed the surviving giants, founded Cholula and migrated as far as Tabasco. A marvellous personage called Quetzalcoatl by some, Huemac by others, appeared in this era and brought civilization and ethics. When the people did not benefit from his teachings he returned to the East, prophesying the destruction of the world by high winds and the conversion of mankind into monkeys-all of which came to pass. “The fourth age, the present, is called the Sun of Fire and will end in a general conflagration.” [It is interesting to point out that Montaigne knew all this. He had read Lopez de Gamara. (Essays, bk. iii, chap, vi: on coaches-of all subjects!) ] Vaillant comments: “These four eras are mythological, with a small amount of historical information incorporated.” But I cannot agree. Here is a remarkable instance of the illuminating explanatory power of Hoerbiger’s ideas. This passage is practically a scientific statement-admirably condensed-of what really did happen: he

T

91

92 I Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

There is no mythology about it except perhaps in the parts which Vaillant considers “historical.” It is probably wrong about Tabasco or Huemac, as the Hebrews, telling a similar story, were probably wrong about their historical details. But on the geology it is entirely right. Even the arithmetic is right and the geological periods are numbered as we number them: the primary period, before man; the secondary, with the creation of the giants and their extermination by earthquakes; the tertiary, with ordinary men who killed most of the surviving giants, leaving a few probably to wander into our quaternary period; the quaternary, our period-giantless, on the whole.

We find here also the good giants, represented by Quetzalcoatl, and the degeneracy of men who became monkeys and, no doubt, savages. Three cataclysms have taken place; a fourth is to come. The Toltecs had a systematic account of all the main facts presented in this book. Beyond this astonishing tradition, we know little of the Toltecs. Their confirmation of Hoerbiger’s theories is very striking: there is no possible explanation of it except its own substantial veracity. The Malekula savages bore witness with “sticks and stones,” the Toltecs with an abstract scheme transmitted through thousands of years. On the highlands of Mexico there must have survived something of a high tertiary civilization among men who knew that the main body of it had perished, since they report Quetzalcoatl’s curse and the change of men into savages. Something survived until the arrival of the Spaniards. Here we meet a problem which historians as yet have never faced squarely. [Except, quite recently, Maurice Collis: in Cortes and Montezuma (Faber, 1954)-an admirable book.] How did a few hundred Spaniards conquer hundreds of thousands of Mexican soldiers? The Aztecs and their allies were brave, well trained, well armed. Not so well armed as the Spaniards perhaps, but very well armed, they killed a very high proportion of the Spanish army. In the last great battle, the Spaniards had very few horses left and practically no

The Toltecs i 93

powder-and in any case the Mexican warriors were by then used to horses and guns and Europeans. Prescott admits that the army of Tezcuco behaved admirably and should have exterminated the last Spaniards. He attributes the result to '’"the influence offortune.” [Prescott: Conquest of Mexico. Everyman, vol. ii, p. 117.] Cortes himself called it “miraculous” and the Spaniards, as usual, gave the credit to St. James. The true explanation, I think, lies on another plane. The Aztecs perished because of their “psychical” science, even as we may, one of these days, perish because of our physical science.

Montezuma and the vision of the hereafter

All the available texts-and besides the texts, the pictures of the Florentine Codex-prove that Montezuma had consulted the gods, had foreseen the future accurately, and knew beforehand that he would be

94 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

killed and that his empire would be destroyed. And it was true. Psychical “science,” by telling him the truth, destroyed him and all his armies. Why then did they fight? They looked upon themselves-and Montezuma first of all-as actors in a mighty drama arranged beforehand by the gods; a drama which they actually enjoyed though it involved the death of great numbers of themselves. They were well used to mass sacrifice at the hands of the gods. They would no more think of trying to escape their fate-because then there would be no play-than an actress playing Desdemona thinks of escaping her fate: she thinks only of accomplishing it to perfection. The story of the last siege of Mexico is infinitely pathetic. The Aztecs know they are going to die, but they continue heroically to the last disastrous curtain. At no time had they any hope of winning that war. And they were right. They were in a circle: they knew they were doomed and because they knew it, they were. They had every advantage on their side; but they knew the fate ordained for them. It would have been infinitely better for them not to have known the future. But our argument itself here goes round in a circle and becomes futile. Had they not known the future, they would have destroyed the Spaniards? Then that “future” would have been “wrong”? The seer would have been wrong? But the seer, Montezuma, was the actor. From this foreknowledge and acceptance of high doom-from this willing participation in the accomplishment of high doom-there comes into the art of Mexico and Central America, and probably of South America, that supreme power which is so totally lacking in our art: a sort of irremediable fatality met by complete acquiescence-what we should call the power of God felt and participated in to the last detail. An act of “passion” in action. Even as when Christ was crucified: He crucified Himself, of His own will. In Malekula we touched the last fringes of that tertiary science-in Mexico, at the other end of the garment, we again touch something of the same texture. But now we approach another concept from the Bible: the deadliness of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

7.

The Bible and Jewish Tradition authentic! ty-and the inherent probability-of the biblical references to giants have never been sufficiently insisted on. From all over the world, of course, come legendary references to giants; the Greeks, for example, have left records of such beliefs that are infinitely older than literature. But in nearly every case-with the exception of the traditions of a few extremely backward tribes-these references to giants have become hopelessly interwoven with a mythology which quite clearly cannot be accepted as history. The Greek giants-Atlas, Prometheus, the Cyclops-are too closely related to the Greek gods; we cannot believe in Uranus, in Saturn eating his children, in the whole of that vast mythological ensemble which is the background against which the Greek giants exist. To understand it, indeed, explanations and keys are essential at every stage. It is only after it has been interpreted that it is, for our present purposes, in any way helpful. But in the Bible the texts referring to giants need no extraneous explanation. They state facts, provide concrete information: thus, there is that iron bed, some fifteen feet long, which could be seen at Rabbath with the children of Ammon (Deut. iii, verses 3-11). There is no “mythology,” only statements of fact. We may, indeed, refuse to accept the facts, may deem them incredible, but we cannot explain them away on the theory that they have been imagined in order to prove some thesis. The biblical giants prove nothing. They are not necessary to Jehovah, as the Greek giants are necessary to the story of Saturn or of Jupiter. No mythological or religious implications are attached to these texts. They can be suppressed without in any way impairing the theological implications, indeed, they have caused much trouble to theologians. They appear at the most diverse dates, in chapters unrelated to each other: Genesis VI, he

T

95

96 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

Numbers XIII, Deuteronomy III, Joshua XII, XIII, XV, XVII, 2nd Samuel XXI, 1st Chronicles XX, Job XXVI, Baruch II, Revelation XX. These passages present every characteristic of historical authenticity: They are precise and concrete; they are introduced by no historical or mythological thesis; they prove nothing and are stated merely as facts; they occur in passages which have no apparent connection and if they are taken away the narrative is not in any way interrupted; they are very short and apparently scattered about without any special importance or significance attached to them; they come from writers widely different from each other in both time and religious development. In short, once we can rid ourselves of our instinctive prejudice against the notion of giants ever having existed, these passages would seem simply to tell the unvarnished truth. The nature of these references springs fundamentally from a marked spiritual superiority. Hebrew writers reported exactly what they knew because they were certain of the existence of God and of the nonexistence of “gods.” The Bible, therefore, puts giants in their proper place; they are giants and nothing more. The Greeks unavoidably mix the giants with the “gods” and transfer them from the realm of history to the realm of myth. The Syrians and Hittites make gods of them straight away. In the Bible they are simply giants. They cannot be “gods.” The distinction was a simple one: A giant can be killed, a god cannot. When tablets are found at Ras Shamra relating that Baal has been killed by invaders we are entitled to conclude that Baal originally was not a god but a giant; and to conclude, too, that the Hebrews were telling the literal truth when they reported that they had killed a giant-king of a Palestinian tribe. In the lowest stage of which we have knowledge, that of the Malekula tribes, Layard finds megaliths set up to the memory-or the presence-of gigantic dead ancestors. There, the idea of “god” has not yet appeared. In late decadent periods the giants have been promoted to be gods but that promotion does not occur in Israel because the Hebrews are protected from it by a spiritually higher idea-the idea of the One True God. Thus the Hebrews have transmitted the facts to us undeformed; or at any rate with much less deformation than other civilized peoples: Greeks, Egyptians, Syrians, Hittites. Why then is this biblical evidence not accepted? Principally, I think, for two reasons: unwillingness to admit that giants ever existed at all and the

The Bible and Jewish Tradition i 97

lack of external scientific corroboration. Both these objections have been abolished by recent research. Cardinal Newman himself pointed out that very often we do not accept an idea, not because our instinct rebels against it, but because our imagination cannot compass it. About the giants we are inhibited, not by rational arguments but by the debility of our imagination. It is worth recalling here, since with the biblical statements we come to the realm of incontrovertible texts not liable to misinterpretation, some scientific facts. Gigantism is itself a fact: at the end of the primary period gigantic plants produced the coal we use today; at the end of the secondary period there were gigantic saurians; and at the end of the tertiary gigantic mammals like the mammoth. It is probable that the simian remnants described by von Koenigswald in 1946 belonged to that period of gigantism. In three regions gigantic bones-either simian or human-have been found: South Africa, Java, and Southern China. H.S. Bellamy main­ tains that the giants (or men) of those periods were far too intelligent to be caught in places-or in situations-which would lead to their fossilization. But the existence of gigantic simians allows us to accept as plausible the postulate that gigantic men existed at the same time. On another point it is not necessary to accept the whole of Hoerbiger’s theories in order to accept the existence of giants. H.C. Urey, in his book on the origin of planets, published in 1952, outlines a much less grandiose theory which for our purpose here is amply sufficient. In studying the chemical composition of the moon, Urey maintains that our present satellite is not a fragment either of the earth or of the sun but a body constituted by an accumulation of interplanetary matter. Planets are born independently in interplanetary space and when a small planet enters the gravitational field of a larger one it becomes a satellite. From that point on we may as well follow Hoerbiger. The same consequences are bound to follow. There is, therefore, no sound scientific reason for refusing belief in a great number of Hoerbiger’s ideas: only imaginative deficiency prevents us. And scientists grow more imaginative every year. From Herodotus comes another piece of evidence-and there is a recent tendency among pre-historians to give more credit than was formerly given to ancient texts. Herodotus (ii, 142) tells us that the Egyptians said that they possessed records of two very ancient historical periods when the

98

Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

sun rose in the west and set in the east. Here Hoerbiger scores. When the satellite approaches to within a distance of some sixteen thousand miles its revolution is quicker than that of the earth itself. The apparent movement of the moon ceases and is replaced by the moon’s real movement-and that, as we know, is a movement from west to east. And at that point, too, the moon’s apparent diameter is three times greater than that of the sun; it shines as brilliantly and relegates the sun to second rank-indeed, it takes the sun’s name as well as its rank. Many savage tribes go so far as to report that the sun disappears altogether. The text from Herodotus, then, is proof that the Egyptians had records of what happened not only at the end of the tertiary period but also at the end of the secondary. And those were the times when giants walked the earth. If we place together what Herodotus tells us and the theories of Hoerbiger and Urey, we arrive at an explanation of one of the most puzzling passages of the early Scriptures: Joshua arresting the course of the sun. The Book of Joshua is richer in references to giants than any other part of the Bible; and it gives us a report, dated 800 or 700 or 600 B.C., of events that had happened far earlier. A “science” could and should be constructed about the evolution of legends and date them according to the state of their degradation; it would give us workable indications as to how old any story is at the time when it is first recorded. Thus the story of Adam and Eve being halves of one being is the state-in perhaps 800 B.C.-of the knowledge, some thirty thousand years old, that a male and a female twin can emerge from the same cell and can literally be each other’s half. It would take all that vast lapse of time to alter the story so radically. Herodotus records knowledge first acquired scores of thousands of years previously but in the form it had reached about 600 B.C. or so. In both cases roughly the same amount of wear and tear is observable. And much the same amount again in the story of Joshua and the sun. There was indeed a period towards the end of the tertiary epoch, when the moon at its most resplendent was “stopped” in its zenith above Abyssinia: perhaps at that phase, some three hundred and fifty thousand years ago, when the satellite and the earth were revolving at the same speed. [See Bellamy: A Life History of Our Earth, Faber 1951, ch. iii, “The Stationary Period of the Satellites.” It will be admitted by Hoerbiger’s most determined opponents, I hope, that he and Bellamy have answers to the

The Bible and Jewish Tradition i 99

most insoluble riddles. Extraordinarily technical answers, too.] The memory of this tremendous occurrence slowly deteriorated; and it ended up as a local miracle which occurred during a battle in Palestine. The story of the waters of the Red Sea overwhelming Pharaoh’s army must be dated very much later; it must be dated, indeed, at the time of the capture of out present moon, which sucked up those seas and liberated the far ends of gulfs. All that, however, lasted only a short time and the waters soon returned again. One day, therefore, the Hebrews could pass through and the next day the Egyptians could be drowned. It all happened perhaps some twelve thousand years ago, at the time of Plato’s cataclysm.

Texts in the Bible Thus fortified by mythology, geology and astronomy, let us look more closely at the texts and all that they imply. Job xxvi, 5, has an allusion to the destruction of the giants: “Dead things are formed from under the water, and the inhabitants thereof.” (A.V. Really: “... the Rephaims, dead beings, are under the water and the ancient inhabitants of the Earth” - so it should be read.) Revelation xx, 10, about Gog and Magog, the ancient giants: “... they went up on the breadth of the earth-and fire came down from God out of Heaven and devoured them.” Genesis vi, 1-4: "... and it came to pass, when they began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them, “That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair and they took them wives of all which thy chose. “But the Lord said: my spirit shall not always strive with man for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. “There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” Numbers xiii, 33: “And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers and so were we in their sight.”

100 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

Deuteronomy iii, 3-11: “The Lord our God delivered into our hands Og also, the king of Bashan and all his people-and we smote him until none was left... and we took all their cities...and we utterly destroyed them ...for only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.” Joshua xii, 4; xiii, 12; xv, 8 (the children of Joseph complain of their share of land, and Joshua says to them: xvii, 15): “If thou be a great people then get thee up to the wood country and cut down for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the giants, if mount Ephraim be too narrow for thee. “And the tribe of Manasseh did go to the limit of the giants’ country.” Samuel and Chronicles: remnants of the giants are reported again in 2 Samuel xxi, 16, and Chronicles xx, 4, 5, with their names, and a spear as big as a weaver’s beam. Goliath is famous enough. These early men were very long lived. The Bible, as we have already stated, does not in any way connect longevity with gigantism: a symptom of the antiquity of these legends. To men whose life span had been reduced to one hundred and twenty years and later to seventy, nine hundred years and immortality were very much the same. So the “gods” were held to be “immortal.” Thus “gods,” by nature “immortal”-that is to say, very long lived-could yet be killed in battle. The Greek gods-who had degenerated still further towards absolute immortality-could still be wounded. The excavations at Ras-Shamra by Claude Schaeffer bring us the documents from the other side.[C. Schaeffer: The Cuneiform Texts ofRasShamra-Ugarit, p. 65, et passim.] The Hebrew invaders of Palestine fought the men who left at Ras-Shamra official communiques in cuneiform in which confirmation is found for the Hebrew reports. Schaeffer found there the name Terach (the father of Abraham) officially identified by the enemy as a leader of the invaders. The Syrians-a rare event in official communiques, even in antiquity-admitted that Terach and his warriors were the conquerors. In the same book is found the story of the death of Baal and his giant bodyguard to which I have referred several times. Rene Dussaud writes [The Religion of the Hittites, Hourrites,

The Bible and Jewish Tradition | 101

Phoenicians and Syrians. (Vol. ii., Mana. French. Presses Universitaires, p. 386.)]: 'Tn the texts of Ras-Shamra the Rephaims” (cf. Job, quoted above) “are the companions of the god Baal.” The name Rephaims is given in the Bible to one of the races of destroyed giants. This god giant, Baal, is obviously one of those who were killed by the invading Hebrews-a giant-king with a giant bodyguard ruling over a tribe of men. Among the Hittites [see O.R. Gurney: The Hittites, 1952, p. 181-94], we find, besides further confirmation of similar events, a curious variant of a legend that ends even more curiously in the story of Samson and Delilah. It is a tale told from highest antiquity, of the part played by women in the destruction of giants. The Bible tells us that the giants found the daughters of men, that they were fair: and they were to rue their discovery when men did not fail to use that weapon against them. They fought the giants not only with the arrows of Heracles and with the sling of David but with subtler weapons, too. The Greeks tell us-in texts usually printed as an appendix to Hesiodthat Venus and even Juno herself played an important part in the destruction of the giants. When Jupiter failed to subdue those formidable enemies, he consulted Gea; and she told him that it was men, and men alone, who could deal with the giants. Jupiter called therefore upon Hercules-who was at least half a man. But even Hercules, armed with his bow and arrows, felt himself inadequate for the task. So he hid in a cave; and Venus, and even, incredibly, Juno herself, were instructed to entice the giants, by a display of their charms, to within reach of Hercules’ arrows. The trick worked; and some at least of the giants perished. At this point we may turn to a more moral and more improving tale which comes from the Hittites. The gods, in this story, call in a human being for the same purpose. But the Hittites were more civilized than the pre-Hellenic nations who told the earlier story. (The Greeks were rather horrified by it and inclined not to believe it.) The Hittite hero refuses to allow the princess-goddess to be exposed to the lust and brutality of the giants and asks that she should be given to him as a wife. His wish granted, he exterminates the giants as a proper hero should. There is a last echo of all this in the story of Samson and Delilah. The Philistines, obviously much degenerated descendants of the Hittites, reverted to pre-Hellenic tactics against a Hebrew giant. (But how did the

102 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

Hebrews come to have a giant? One suspects previous dealings with the enemy.) We have thus historical or pre-historical confirmation of many Hebrew tales. But in every other source than the Bible-Greek, Syrian, Hittite-the evidence has been deformed by integration into a later mythology. New religions have adopted ancient tales and transposed them into the worlds of Jupiter or Baal. Far from explaining the Bible, those stories are explained by the Bible; the Hebrew narratives give us an acceptable, concrete meaning for the corrupted myths. And again, conversely, the old stories prove the truth of the Bible reports. In a judicial enquiry, variations in tales told by witnesses are the most telling of proofs; they show there has been no collusion. It is time now to sum up the biblical evidence-evidence for a story which we should be able to recognize everywhere. But-once the existence of giants is granted-the biblical narrative is the clearest and most reasonable one. At a period which Hoerbiger allows us to date between 10,000 and 13,000 B.C., there were giants, the remnants of much older races going back to some three hundred thousand years. At the time of the Mediterranean stories, the giant races were degenerate and practically extinct. In the eastern regions they had established royal dynasties, later called gods, which the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians remembered. The Hebrews, when they invaded Palestine, found themselves opposed by armies of men their own size, but led by giant-kings. These giants probably possessed knowledge which they kept secret from the masses. On many reliefs, the king or god holds a peculiar object, which might be a stylized tree, but which might equally well be an unknown weapon of an electrical nature. (Strange electrical implements have been found in ancient Egypt.) Many tales of battles which were turned from disaster to triumph by the intervention of the king god-or giant-thus become more easily understandable. The enemy was struck with awe, ran away or fell prostrate; an ordinary man intervening in a battle could not have had all that effect on a losing fight-but a giant armed with an unknown weapon would. Later an official fiction attributed to the king those powers which once had been the giant’s. The phrase “sons of god” found in the Bible seems to me an obvious

The Bible and Jewish Tradition | 103

infiltration from the enemy accounts: The Hebrew God has no sons. The giants had. A biblical narrator for once adopted the vocabulary of the heathen and used the word “god” where a more orthodox writer would have written “giant.” In a similar way, Pharaoh became a “son of God” and had to have a gigantic statue to impress on his people that he was a giant-king in the true line of his god-like predecessors. Egyptian civilization as we know it wears from the very first the aspect of decadence. The Egyptians themselves, at all periods of their history, asserted that their great period had been long before the first known dynasties. In the first texts, those on the Pyramids, there are already references to that most ancient and glorious era. And-as we have pointed out-Herodotus’s text makes sense on the assumption that it refers to the tertiary age at least.

The First Civilization of the Giants Of all unexpected places, it is in the third chapter of Baruch that we find the astonishing picture of the reign of the giants at its beginning. In a few sentences-sentences quite irrelevant in their context-Baruch depicts a state of things of which all the other texts describe only the disintegration. How those sentences came into Baruch is a problem: Probably they were regarded as too precious to be discarded and were simply put in anywhere when the canon was being collected. They are used to point the most commonplace piece of moralizing. “Men began as giants.” “These first giants were very highly developed, intellectually, artistically and physically: they had powers over birds and animals.” “They misbehaved and were abolished by God and ordinary men took their place.” This evidence refers to a much older period than that of Ishi-bi-Bench and Baal. No indication is given as to geography. The information about the artistic “cunning” puts us in mind of Tiahuanaco, where refinement reaches its peak-though of course many discoveries are still to come; some, no doubt, from nearer to the Bible countries.

104 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

The passage is none too clear in parts and has often been misinterpreted because the translators could not admit the existence of these giants. The Vulgate is the most illuminating translation: “Ibi fueront gigantes qui ab initio fueront statura magna scientes bellum. Non hos elegit Dominus neque viam disciplinae invenerunt. Propterea perierunt. “Ubi sunt principes gentium et qui dominantur super bestias quae sunt super terram? qui in avibus coeli ludunt, qui argentium thesaurisant et aurum in quo confidunt homines et non estfinis acquisitiorus eorum? qui argentum fabricant et solliciti sunt nec est inventio operum illorumexterminati sunt et ad inferos descenderunt et alii loco eorum surrexerunt.” In the Revised Version we find: “There were the giants born that were famous of old [instead of ab initio] great of stature and expert in war. These did not God choose, neither gave he the way of knowledge unto them-hence they perished. “Where are the princes of the heathen, and such as ruled the beasts that are upon the earth; they that had their pastime with the fowls of the air and they that hoarded up silver and gold, wherein men trust, and of whose getting there is no end? For they that wrought in silver and were so careful [instead of solliciti sunt] and whose works are past finding out [nec est inventio operum illorum], they are ravished and gone down to the grave and others have come up in their stead.” Now, add to this version that ab initio means from the beginning and it is clear that the Revised Version shirks the fact that the first men were giants. But the Vulgate is clear. Careful is weak: clever is meant. Past finding out is weaker. The French Catholic version in the Easter offices has it: “Et qui faisaient prendre a ces metaux tant de formes rares et precieuses”; That is: they gave the metals such rare and precious shapes (that one cannot imagine those shapes); That is: Their art was far above the comprehension of later people.

The Bible and Jewish Tradition | 105

The Cabala In fact, those passages in Baruch are out of place: They belong to a different Hebrew tradition: the Cabala. The Cabala is a compendium of legends and traditions published by the Jews about A.D. 1300 but compiled from much older documents: bringing together all that Orthodox-or simplified-Jewry had not seen fit to give to the public before. Some passages of the Zohar bear such a “primitive” imprint that they may well come from ages before those in which the Old Testament was put together. Folk-lore, ancient secrets, and the most elaborate metaphysics are jumbled together in the Zohar. It may well be that the metaphysics are the oldest part of all, for they resemble strikingly what we know of the Heliopolis doctrines in Egypt, some five thousand years ago: the doctrine of the Creation by Maat, the Word, and the Light. Cabalistic information bears out Hoerbiger’s theories practically on all main points. Here is a rough summary of Cabalistic lore on our subject. [Cf. on this my Literature and Occult Tradition. London, Bell & Sons, 1930. My quotations are from the translations of de Pauly (Paris, Leroux, 1906-11) put into English (text in French).] God has created several worlds one after the other. Before the world in which we live now, God had tried several others which were different from ours, had found them unsatisfactory and had smashed them up. The smashed fragments were chaos-tohu and bohu-from which God selected pieces with which to build yet another world. These “evil” worlds had differed from ours most markedly by having a different kind of sexual life. In the immediate predecessor to ours, men reproduced themselves without women; in another, sexual union took place between two sexes, but not face to face. The lost worlds are somehow connected with the moon and their destiny is related to the behaviour of the moon. The three great patriarchs who created the Hebrew nation represent the phases of the moon: Abraham is the waxing moon, Isaac the waning moon, Jacob, the favourite ancestor, is the full moon. The moon is, at given intervals, attacked and eaten by a monster. Men must then offer a sacrifice (a goat or a man) to the monster who lets go of the moon and starts eating the victim, so that

106 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

the moon can grow again. May we not see here a memory of the destruction of the tertiary moon linked with the present decreasing of the moon every month; a fear that it may not come back-since in ancient days, once, it did not? A tradition perhaps about the creation of men when the moon came near the earth. “The moon,” says the Zohar, “is the mother of Israel.” A remembrance, too, of the worlds previously destroyed by God? Yet the worlds remain secretly alive beneath ours, and sometimes initiates can travel to them. The extraordinary races that preceded the human race sometimes crossed with ours-because the daughters of men are fair-and strange happenings still occur today. Of course Adam-mankind as a whole-at the beginning was at the apex of perfection and knowledge; all we can ever know consists of inadequate fragments of what Adam knew completely. Paradise has been lost. Yet the truly wise can return to it. The true Adam exists still; and the saints, at an hour which is known only to them, can join him in the Lord. The real Paradise is within us. But between us and this eternal inner Paradise there exists a whole series of worlds, partly material and partly spiritual-a transposition into different dimensions of worlds past or to come. The Cabala goes far beyond Hoerbiger’s theories-but perhaps gives thus to us their real inner significance. Adam was, of course, a giant, as anybody can see who is allowed to visit his grave in a secret place in Palestine, known to the few (and to many Arabs). The giants were, of course, sons of Adam-they still live on another earth and are not quite human beings: “They are of very high stature-for they were begotten of Adam during the hundred and thirty years when he lived in sin with female demons” (vol. i, p. 606). At this point it is worth recalling the theory that Christopher Columbus had a Jewish origin, knew some cabalistic traditions on the location of Paradise, and was really looking not for the East Indies but for the Garden of Eden. A letter from him is extant in which he states that the earth is pear-shaped. This is in conformity with one of Hoerbiger’s theories, since when the satellite is in a fixed position, water, air and fluid rock are all

The Bible and Jewish Tradition | 107

attracted to one spot on the earth beneath the moon. [See Bellamy: Life History of Our Earth, chap, vi, on the “Stationary Period of the Satellite.”] Columbus, as he was sailing west, felt (he writes) the sea slanting upwards under his keel. He was going up a water mountain. [Professor S.B. Liljegren, of the University of Upsala, is bringing out a book on this subject.] Of course Paradise was just beneath the fixed moon: since there, owing to the maximum of the moon's attraction and of the earth’s centrifugal impulse, the Giant Adam had been created. It is conceivable that all this came to Columbus (he says it did) from ancient traditions that he transferred to his enterprise. It would explain his secrecy and his lack of trust in even his best subordinates, the Pinsons: He could not tell them what he was really after. He knew perhaps some parts of the Cabala that we do not know: only fragments have been published. And much of it is only transmitted orally to very few. Those Jews who put the Zohar together about A.D. 1300 had some astonishing information. ‘The stranger said to them: when the moon approaches the sun, the Holy one, blessed be his name, awakens the North and draws it unto him in love, while the South awakens of itself. Now as the sun rises in the East, it follows that he derives his strength from the two sides, both from the North and from the South, and that he silently attracts the blessings which emanate from the two sides and transmits them to the moon which becomes filled with them. The union of the sun and the moon resembles that of the male and female, for the same principles which govern the elements here below are also found in the things above, just as the arm of the sephirothic tree draws unto itself the immensity of space in love, as the arm of the male draws the female, so does the left arm draw the immensity of space in wrath. Now the serpent constitutes the left arm from which emanates the unclean spirit. It draws unto it all those who approach it. So when God does not awaken the North, the left arm draws the moon unto itself and clasps her so firmly that, in order to free her, Israel is obliged to offer it a he-goat. The serpent, rushing on the goat just offered to it, relinquishes for an instant its hold of the moon, which begins from that time to shine and wax bigger each day because she is then receiving the blessing from on high, which lights up her face that has been obscured awhile here below. So during the days of pardon, as the serpent is busy with the goat offered to it, the moon, set free, occupies herself with the

108

Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

defence and protection of Israel, as a mother protects her children, after which the Holy One, blessed be his name, blesses Israel and forgives its sins’ (vol. i, p. 374). “All these kings are on the side of Wrath, save Saul, who is RehobothLanahar, symbol of ‘Bina’; whence open the fifty ‘doors of intelligence’ in the four directions of the world.” These kings who were on the side of Wrath, were only appeased by the coming of “Hadar.” Who is Hadar? He is heavenly grace, as the Scriptures add: “His town we called Phaii,” which means that it is through God that man receives the Holy Spirit. The Scriptures further add: “And his wife was called Mehetabel, daughter of Matred, who was the daughter of Mezaab. He is the first king who is said to have had a wife. ‘Matred’ signifies that wrath was tempered with mercy.” (Vol. v, p. 366.) Those pre-human races are sometimes placed before Adam-but at other times they are the progeny of the union of Adam with female devils, before Eve was created. “Adam was composed of male and female, and the female joined to his side was also composed of male and female, so that they might be complete. Adam looked with wisdom on the world above and on that below. After his sin, the faces withered away, and wisdom was taken from him, so that he had no intelligence left save for material and bodily things. He afterwards had children modelled on the world above on the one below. But they were not the founders of the future generations. It was only Seth who was the founder of the future generations.” (Vol. v, p. 301.) So the pre-human races were destroyed-sometimes whole worlds were destroyed: “And the earth was without form and void.” The Scriptures mean that the children of the heavens and the earth were the devils called “without form.” This explains the following tradition: “The Holy One, blessed be his name, created worlds and destroyed them.” That is why the Scriptures say: “And the earth was without form and void,” now the state of being without form and void existed before the creation of the earth; but that may be explained in this way, that by the word “earth ” the Scriptures denote the previously existing earth, which God destroyed. How can we believe that the Holy One, blessed be his name, created worlds to destroy them? It would have been better not to have created them! Truly, this

The Bible and Jewish Tradition | 109

tradition contains a mystery; for how otherwise can we explain the words: “and destroyed them?” (Vol. i, p. 152) Here is now the Zohar at its most mysterious-but the points we are making are clear enough: “We learned in the Occult Book that, in creating the world, God weighed in the balance that which had not till then been weighed. Before this time, men did not look at each other face to face, that is to say, the union of man and wife did not take place as in these days. So the primitive kings perished because they did not find the nourishment they required; and the earth itself was destroyed. Then the most desirable ‘Head’ took pity on the world he was about to create. The balance was hung in a place where it had never been before. The balance weighed bodies as well as souls, and even beings which did not yet exist. As there were no beings prior to this, it was existing beings and those destined to exist later who were placed upon the balance. In this way the present world was formed; this is the Mystery of mysteries. A dew, crystal clear, fills the cavity of the ‘Head.’ The membrane which covers it is equally clear, like the air, and is mysterious. Very fine hairs hang from this balance.” (Vol. iv, p. 137) “We learned in the Occult Book that the Ancient of ancients before preparing his ornaments, set up and established kings; but these could not continue, and it was necessary to hide them and keep their existence for a future time, as it is written: ‘Such were the kings who ruled over the land of Edom before the children of Israel had a king.’ The land of Edom denotes the place of wrath. “The worlds pre-existent in the supreme Thought could not last because man was not yet corporate, man whose image is the synthesis of all. And when the face of man was formed, existence was assured to all creatures. If the Scriptures say: ‘And such a king is dead and such another king is dead,’ they mean that his existence was postponed to a later time, for every descent to a lower degree is called ‘death.’ He had fallen to a lower degree. When man was created, then came to an end the existence of those they bore before, save the being of whom the Scriptures say: ‘And his wife was called Mehetabel, daughter of Matted, who was the daughter of Mezaab.’ He was the only primitive being who could continue to exist, because he was composed of male and female, like a date palm, which flourishes only when the female is planted beside the male. Although this

110 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

being could continue to exist in the primitive worlds, because he was formed of both male and female, he could not attain perfection until after the formation of man.” (Vol. i, p. 355) ‘“Of whom Adam was the image.’ Taking this passage as a basis, the modern cabalists, among other the ‘Etzha-Hayim,’ xvi, and the Minhath Yekouda, fol. 113b, affirm that, before the creation of Adam, God had created another man, male only without female, but this did not prevent him from begetting children. As these children attached themselves of their own accord to the serpent, without even having been tempted by it, God drove them from this world and made them the guardians of hell, where they are burned up each day by the fire and reborn the next day. The cabalists designate these beings by the name of ‘dead kings,’ because of the sin against the ‘Holy Spirit’; for they call ‘sin against the Holy Spirit’ any sin committed of the sinner’s own accord, and not as the result of overwhelming temptation!” (Vol. vi, p. 383)

The Book of Revelation Perhaps the boldest effort made by the Hoerbigerian school is their explanation of the book of Revelation. That incomprehensible addition to the canon had so far resisted any kind of coherent interpretation at all. H. S. Bellamy, Hoerbiger’s bestknown disciple, writing in English, has given Revelation a meaning. His central thesis is that Revelation, in order to describe the end of the world, records traditions of what had happened at the previous destruction of the earth when the tertiary moon fell on our planet. Since the end of our world is to come when the present moon falls, the method is good: many events which happened before will be repeated. Naturally a few memories of the end of Atlantis fall into place among the records of the much more ancient catastrophe. To apply this idea to the text makes, naturally, complicated reading. As Bellamy’s book is accessible to the English reader. I shall give here only the main headings. [H.S. Bellamy: The Book of Revelation Is History. Faber & Faber, 1942.] Bellamy finds reasonable interpretations, on Hoerbigerian lines, for:

Porphyry mask. Mexico, Christian era

Colossal head (5 ft.). Mexico, Christian era

112 |

Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

Stone implement of gigantic size found in southern Morocco, 1954. To be held between thumb, forefinger and middle finger

The Bible and Jewish Tradition | 113

the seven candlesticks (i, 13); the son of Mary with a golden girdle whose face shines like the sun; the throne in the sky and the rainbow round it (iv, 2); the crystal sea and the four beasts (iv, 6); the seven seals to be opened one by one (v, i); the earthquakes and the colour of the moon (vi, 12 and xi, 13); the fall of the stars (vi, 13); the flight of the king and the lords to the mountains (vi, 15); the fall of the mountains (vi, 16); the altar before the throne (viii, 3); the seven calamities let loose by the seven angels (viii, 2, etc.); the behaviour of the beasts (ix, 3-11-19); the rain of blood (xi, 6); the destruction of the nations (xi, 15-19); the dragon in the sky, whose tail brings down one-third of the stars (xii, 3); the fight between Michael and the dragon (xii, 7); the woman and the serpent (xii, 14-17); the beast out of the sea (xii, i); the beast out of the earth (xiii, 11); the Lamb and his chosen (xiv, 1-4, 9-13); the angel and his family (xiv, 14); the last seven pests (xv, i); the opening of the temple in the heavens (xv, 5-8); the destruction of the beast (xix, 4-21-xx, 1-8); the new heaven and the new earth (xx, xxi and xxii). All those are events in the sky and on the earth translated into myths by the poet. The whole incomprehensible epic takes on a meaning. Obviously imagination has a great part to play-how could it be otherwise? But any imaginative person who has read this book so far, could himself exercise his faculties on this list. A considerable knowledge of ethnography and of mythology is necessary if we are to remain within the bounds of possibility; all details cannot be equally convincing. But we are now, probably for the first time, presented with an all-round explanation which seems reasonable in its general idea, and which clears up a vast number of hitherto incomprehensible details.

8.

The Greeks

Greeks are somewhat recalcitrant witnesses. No doubt, were it not for Plato, we should not know even the name of Atlantis. Yet obviously, Plato rationalized his story, and immediately after Plato, Aristotle declared the whole tale was only an ingenious invention. The Greeks had no true religious spirit. They are our intellectual ancestors. And they retained as little as they could of the ancient myths. Late comers from the north, as is generally believed, they found very old cultures in the lands they conquered-Crete, Mycenae, Troy-which they destroyed without understanding. They inherited from those civilizations many tales which they never believed very seriously and which no doubt they mixed up with half-savage beliefs brought from the north. But our Greeks, as we know them, from Plato to Plutarch, give evidence of two deep and distinct anti-religious feelings. First of all, the ancient legends scandalized the Greeks, scandalized their sense of logic and of justice. Their tragedy is grounded in-the feeling of horror they experienced when they were told of Oedipus who killed his father and married his mother or of the monstrous deeds committed by Clytemnestra, Medea, Pasiphae, and so many others. A civilized Greek did not behave like that. But secondly, and even more fundamentally: the Greeks were very much inclined to ridicule what they did not understand. The French expression “vieilles barbes" must have originated in a Greek feeling. Aristophanes and the Homeric hymns turned the gods into amusing characters. Peguy has pointed out, very acutely, that the Greeks despised their gods. Yet the Greeks loved a good story, and handed on to us all they could remember of the ancient beliefs. Their evidence is thereby all the more valuable. They report what was believed in the south before they arrived. he

T

114

The Greeks | 115

Plato says that the story of Atlantis comes from Egypt. He does not say that Solon, or even that he himself, accepts it. Socrates says nothing about it-a most un-Socrates-like attitude. Neither in the Timeus nor the Critias is there really anything about Atlantis, beyond what can serve to point a moral disquisition. Information is scanty; dissertations are long. Perhaps Aristotle was right, and Plato may not have taken Atlantis very seriously. This makes Plato’s evidence all the weightier: Against the grain of his belief, and in a semi-casual manner, he transmits evidence. So long as he does not invent it, his very casualness tells in its favour. His stories need external confirmation—but should it be found, they must needs be taken seriously, since they are given half-reluctantly. But long before Plato, and for periods long before the age of Atlantis, Greek mythology gives us astonishing tales, as incomprehensible to us as they were to the Greeks—unless we accept some theory such as Hoerbiger’s. The Greeks tell chiefly of the decadent period of the “gods” whom we now call the “giants.” Their stories of Uranus, Cronos and Jupiter are properly monstrous. They have heard of a golden age, but hardly insist on it except to contrast it with what came after. Hesiod himself gives only a censored version: the most horrible episodes, like the prostitution of Juno, are not in his text. Greek reasonableness was at work from the first. If we are allowed to simplify and systematize a little, this is how the “gods” behaved. It will be easy to see that the general development of their doings is in harmony with our scheme. In a first period were Gaea, the earth; and Eros, desire. From their union came Uranus, who “married” his mother Gaea. Three gigantic races sprang from them. First, the Titans-among them Cronos who had Prometheus for a son. Uranus, fearing them, threw his numerous offspring into Tartarus-a huge chasm. But Gaea, angered at the uselessness of her innumerable parturitions, incited Cronos to attack his father. Uranus was emasculated in the fight, but the blood and the semen from his wound once more fecundated the earth and this time produced the giants properly so-called: Briareus and his brothers, famous for their hundred hands each. There were only three in the earlier records-but their numbers grew in the telling. Then came the Cyclops, enormous monsters, partly of obscure origin,

116 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

partly brothers of the giants-but endowed with only one eye. We are familiar with one of them through the Odyssey. They, too, were thrown into Tartarus. After his mutilation, Uranus lived on in very diminished state. Of his divine powers, he kept the gift of foresight: it may be that he is still alive among men, making a precarious living as a fortune teller. Thus ended the first era of the gods: there is little in it to be proud of. Then Cronos assumed power. He married his sister Rhea and for some time-even perhaps for a long time-things went fairly well. The golden age was placed in this period when Cronos was “young.” Men and animals were happy and animals had the gift of speech. In the Laws Plato speaks highly of this time. But then-why ?-Cronos began to eat his own children. The cannibalistic ages began. Evil giants succeeded the good giants. Rhea imitated her mother Gaea-who advised her. Cronos, having become somewhat blind and stupid, was induced to swallow a stone instead of the baby who was to become Zeus. Rhea hid Zeus in Crete where he grew up. When he reached his full strength, Zeus began the war against his father. But victory could only be obtained by an alliance with the Titans, whom Zeus loosed from their chasm. The Titans then, of course, wished to take over and Zeus with his brothers were hard put to it to resist. Gaea again gave advice and Zeus went to deliver the Cyclops, killing the monster Kumpe who watched over them. The Cyclops had grown powerful by industry underground, they had made weapons of metal and invented the thunder: at last the gods were properly armed. The true giants, Briareus and his peers, were also delivered from captivity to help Zeus and his composite army. The giants at last conquered the Titans, who were hurled again into the deepest abysses. Thus began the period of Zeus-and at first it, too-was a good period. But there came a time when the giants in their turn rebelled. They were not immortal but they were special favourites of Gaea, whose role throughout is very dubious. The gods were in difficulties again and made the astonishing discovery that the giants could not be killed by mere Olympians. Mortal men alone could kill the mortal giants. The gods then called upon Heracles (some say Dionysos), an illegitimate son of Zeus, of gigantic size, but mortal. Then occur the shameful episodes already

The Greeks | 117

alluded to. Hera (Juno), Zeus’s wife and Aphrodite (Venus) were prostituted to the giants who were lured one by one within reach of the cave where Heracles lay in wait ready with bow and arrows. So the gods triumphed, until the last giant Typheus was buried under Mount Etna: he is not dead yet, for the volcano still heaves with his struggles. Then Zeus could reign more or less in peace. He even forgave one of the Titans, Prometheus, who had rendered mankind great services before being chained on the Caucasus to be eaten alive by a vulture. Zeus allowed Heracles to deliver him. Let us note whatever useful clues we can find in this chaotic-though fascinating-story. First, a memory of three successive calamities: the fall of Uranus, the fall of Cronos, the war of Zeus and the giants. With some good-will, this can be equated with the Toltec records of the three destructions. The curious role of men in the extermination of the giants is again a general feature. Heracles is armed with arrows and kills from a distance, like David. The Toltecs also insisted on the fact that men had destroyed the last of the giants. The relationship between all those monsters is not clear: gods, Titans, giants, are relatives. The “good” giants are the teachers of mankind. Prometheus gives men fire. The Cyclops invent metallurgy. But on the whole, horror is the predominant note. Decadence, cannibalism, world destruction. The annihilation of the giants was a good thing and the Greek mind will lead on to Lucretius-and come to feel that the disappearance of the gods is also a good thing. Swinburne will go so far as to write of “the supreme evil, God”: a most irreligious feeling, but on the whole a Greek one. Thus summarized, Greek mythology takes a modest though not negligible rank in the evidence we are listing. Hoerbiger’s ideas give meaning to an otherwise incomprehensible set of ancient myths. The whole abominable saga can be interpreted as a set of memories from very ancient days-memories mixed with many errors and many fantasies by a race that could no longer see any sense in it. Just because the Greeks hardly believed in all this, we may be justified in thinking that they inherited a tradition that was so powerful among Mediterranean peoples that they, the Greeks, could not but re-tell it.

118 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

The giants are found all round the Mediterranean. In North Africa, in Spain and the Pyrenees, in Syria, in Egypt. The Greeks broke the circle by coming down to the Aegean Sea and Crete and Asia Minor—and found the giants there, as the Hittite evidence proves. The Greek tale sins through vagueness and confusion. As an unwelcome compensation, Plato’s stories obviously err through too much precision. We had to try to make theogony clearer and as concrete as possible. Uranus became a cannibalistic giantking, much like Baal in Syria-but what are we to make of the precise figures of the ships in the Atlantis navy? In both cases we can say that the Greeks would not have invented those events out of nothing. They would have had no inner incentive to do so, for those stories were not at all attuned to their mentality. Plato would invent precise details about the Constitution of Atlantis to exemplify his own political theories but he would not invent Atlantis or the sinking of it, since that exemplifies nothing-and he probably does not believe much of it: he repeats, for pleasure, a picturesque tale he has heard. In Timaeus we find a rapid narrative of the Atlantis saga. In Critias we find only the beginning of a tale that was to be much longer, but of which apparently much the larger part is missing. [On this point again, H.S. Bellamy has gone into details in his book The Atlantis Myth, Faber & Faber, 1948.1 quote from his translation.] Solon, the law­ giver, is reported by Critias to have narrated his journey to Egypt: “Thereupon one of the oldest priests spoke up, saying: Ah, Solon, Solon! You Greeks...are like children. You know nothing of ancient things handed down hy long tradition and you have no learning which is hoary with age. I will tell you why. There have been, and will again be hereafter, many diverse destructions of mankind. The greatest of these have been caused by fire and by water, while the lesser ones were due to many other causes. Take, for instance, the story, current also among you, of how once upon a time Phaethon, the son of Helios, attempted to drive his father’s chariot, but was not able to keep it to the wonted track and so set fire to everything on the face of the earth, till he was annihilated by a thunderbolt. This sounds very much like a mere fable, but as a matter of fact it describes a deviation from their courses of the heavenly bodies which revolve round the earth, such as occurs after certain long intervals and causes destruction upon the earth through a great conflagration. At such

The Greeks | 119

occasions those who live up in the mountains and in elevated dry regions, are more liable to extermination than those who dwell by rivers, or at the seashore....On the other hand, when the gods purge the earth with a deluge, the herdsmen and the shepherds in your mountains survive, while the inhabitants of the cities in your part of the world are swept away by the (waters)....(There follows an obscurely worded passage whose gist obvious is: Now, while you are subject to such dangers we Egyptians are not only immune from the former calamity, living as we do in low-lying land, but we are also secure from the latter because the floods of our River Nile are always exactly predictable.) That is why the traditions preserved in our records are the most ancient which exist.... Any noble, or great, or otherwise distinguished achievement that has come to pass either in your country, or in ours, or in any part of the world of which we have knowledge, has for ages past been recorded in the archives of our temples. You, however, and other nations have had your records, and indeed all your civilization, destroyed at certain intervals by waters descending from heaven like a visitation, and only the rude and unlettered survived. Then you had to begin all over again, for you had become like children who know nothing of what happened in the olden days either in your own country or anywhere else. As for the genealogies which you have just recounted, Solon, they are little better than nursery-tales. For instance, you remember only one deluge, whereas there were many before that. “It is related in our archives how once your city quelled a mighty host which had landed on the Atlantic coast and launched a violent invasion against all Europe and Asia. “(That host came from) an Island situated in the ocean to the west of the strait which you call the Pillars of Hercules. This island was larger than Libya and Asia put together. From this island the navigators of those days could reach other islands, and from those islands it was possible to sail to the great continent on the other side of the wide Atlantic....This island, which was called Atlantis, was the centre of a great and magnificent empire the rule of whose kings extended over many other islands, and also to parts of that continent; (on this side of the Atlantic) Libya as far as Egypt, and Europe as far as Tyrrhenia, were in their sphere of influence. “Now this great empire sent its host forward, desirous of occupying at one swoop your country, as well as ours, and the whole region within the

120 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

strait. Then, Solon, the mettle of your state became manifest. It was second to none upon earth in daring and military skill, at first leading the Hellene Confederation, and finally fighting on single-handed when all its allies fell off. After it had boldly faced the supreme peril the invaders were vanquished and the turning point came....But just then there happened exceedingly violent earthquakes and great floods. “In one terrible day and night all your warriors in a body were swallowed up...and in a like manner the Island of Atlantis sank into the sea, and vanished. Even now the ocean at its former location cannot be crossed or explored as there is a great shoal of mud in the way in consequence of the foundering of the island.” In Critias, Plato begins what was to be a more complete story, but only a first fragment has been left to us; some details, however, are useful: “The only survivors (of the cataclysm) were the mountain-dwellers who were ignorant of the art of writing. For they and their descendants were for many generations in want of the common necessities of life, and bad to turn their minds solely to the supply of their material needs. That was their one and only topic of conversation, and so it is little wonder that they forgot the story of the events in bygone ages. Communities of people only take an interest in mythology and ancient history when they enjoy a certain amount of leisure, that is, when all the necessities of life are already in ample supply, but not before. This, then, explains why the names of our distant forbears have come down to us while their deeds are forgotten. “I am led to this conclusion because, according to Solon, the priests mentioned in their report of that war of long ago, many masculine names which were already current in our country before the time of Theseus, as, for instance, Cecrops and Erechtheus, and Erichthonius, and Erysichthon; and feminine names likewise. In those distant days both men and women engaged in fighting. That is also why our forefathers...set up the image of the goddess in full armour....” Some of the statements put into the mouth of the Sais priest must be looked at more closely. They bear out Hoerbiger’s theories and therefore prove also the knowledge of the Egyptians. The myth of Phaeton is scientifically explained: “A deviation from their courses of the heavenly bodies which revolve round the earth, such as occurs after certain long interval and causes

The Greeks | 121

destruction upon the earth through a great conflagration.” The Phaeton myth looks like a transposition of the fall of the tertiary moon. A celestial body, son of the sun but not the sun, comes to wreck itself on the earth. All is not destroyed, but Phaeton is destroyed: No moon is left in the sky. Helios himself, the sun, is not affected by the event. Hoerbiger covers the myth at all points: even the fact that Phaeton drives the horses of the sun: since the approaching moon, as we have seen, is so large that it often, with many people, takes the name “Sun.” The myth is, therefore, evidence in favour of Hoerbiger; and this passage, taken as history and a record of a real event, is a reference to the oldest fact known thus to history. Of this moonless period, after Phaeton was dead, we have another piece of evidence. A fragment of Aristotle, preserved by a commentator on Apollonius (of Rhodes) states that the inhabitants of Arcadia held it as their principal title to their country that they lived there already before there was a moon in the sky. Before Hoerbiger that statement had no meaning. But the priest’s general theory is applied to the destruction of Atlantis by water, not by fire. Two catastrophes are on record. Both are caused by the deviation of satellites: but the fall of a satellite, as in the Phaeton story, causes conflagration; the capture of a new satellite causes mainly flooding. The waters which had spread out towards the poles before the moon was captured now become attracted to those parts of the earth that are more directly under the cycle of the moon, in a very short time, as the capture takes place brutally at one given moment. Hoerbiger thinks that at the moment of capture the moon came much nearer to the earth than she was later, the respective gravitations only reaching a state of equilibrium after great oscillations. Other lands in the southern hemisphere were also probably flooded-as reported in New Guinea. The date given in Plato, some ten thousand years before Christ, also coincides sufficiently with the Hoerbiger calculations. We are now able, therefore, to take Plato’s text seriously-perhaps for the first time since it was written. Can we also accept Plato’s report that Atlantis was a highly civilized continent? On Hoerbiger’s theories this, as we have seen, becomes extremely probable, since civilization must have begun at least thirty

122 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

thousand years ago in the Andes and it is natural to suppose that after the smash some of it migrated eastwards to the new lands left free by the sea. Plato and his hypothetical Egyptian must then be considered partly as historians. The possibilities are there; the document is precise. A priori, we have no right to ignore it. Plato has admirably analysed the decadence after the catastrophe-he has even anticipated one of Bellamy’s precise studies of why Egypt was spared when a large part of Europe was submerged. [See Bellamy: The Atlantis Myth, p. 94.] The priest also knows that there have been in the past many such calamities. Last of all the passage proves that the Egyptians knew about America. (Or else Plato did, which is much less likely: he would have advertised his knowledge.) The priest says: “From this island (Atlantis) the navigators of those days could reach other islands, and from those islands it was possible to sail to the great continent on the other side of the wide Atlantic.” I do not see how this can have been invented. And it proves the whole story to be true in its main lines. Since the Egyptians knew of America and had a clear idea of its place in relation to the islands of the Atlantic and to Europe and Africa, there is now, since Hoerbiger, no reason at all to doubt the fundamental truth of Plato’s report. Who would, in 400 B.C., have “invented’”America? If the Egyptians knew and told the truth about America, why should they have “invented” the large islands in the Atlantic? America would have done quite well as the starting point of the eastward invasion. The two truths, about America and about Atlantis, hold together. Plato may have imagined all the details, but he imagined neither Atlantis nor America. When all has been stated for and against, Plato’s evidence is decisive.

9.

Egypt to China from the Titicaca civilizations, Egypt remains perhaps the most difficult of all historical problems. During the first three dynasties there appears the most impressive art we know-out of nothing apparently; and why is it followed by changes, sometimes of the highest refinement, but which are on the whole decadent? The Egyptians themselves always looked back to their earliest days-to the first dynasties and the period preceding them-as their great period whence all their knowledge had come. Etienne Drioton, the most up-to-date French specialist, in his preface to the album of the Cairo Museum, 1949, writes of “a reawakening of that artistic sense which had been dormant since the paleolithic age-a passing from a wandering stage of barbarism to a sedentary civilization.” At the courts of the numerous little “kings” of prehistoric times Egyptian art acquired “the aesthetic principles it never departed from afterwards.” This “explains the shooting upwards in one jet towards the maximum, attained under Zoser (Hird dynasty); never has Egyptian art produced anything so powerful again.” “The age of the Pyramids (Illrd and IVth dynasties) is the golden age of Egyptian civilization.” There is no explanation here. At the courts (but had they courts?) of some barbarian chieftains (perhaps non-existent) the supreme principles of art were mastered. Surely that is what needs explaining? The great architecture of India cannot be explained by what happened at the courts of small chieftains in Malekula-where there were practically no chiefs and certainly no courts. When the sociological school derived from Durkheim tries to prove that pre-dynastic Egypt was peopled by savages dancing round the most primitive of totem poles, are we convinced? Was there ever any totemism in Egypt? Or even any savages? And all at once the totem poles are gathered together and become the most formidable statues of preclassical mankind? It does not seem very likely. part

A

123

124 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

Dancing giant. Ruanda, twentieth century. Height 7 ft. 6 in. to 8 ft.

Egypt to China | 125

What seems much more likely is that the disciples of Durkheim postulated those historical improbabilities simply to support their master’s theories. I shall try to be more prudent and not to search too strenuously for proofs of the Hoerbigerian theories in ancient Egypt. But a few remarks are unavoidable. The ancient Egyptians have left us no reasoned statement of their beliefs-their works are very difficult to interpret. The high degree of intellectual and spiritual development evidenced by early Egyptian art as well as by the Heliopolis theologians seems incompatible with the ordinary theory advanced to explain the importance of keeping the mummified body of Pharaoh-a feat which in any case practically never succeeded. Whatever official belief may have been, the people, from whom thieves inevitably come, were quite undeterred, and sacked and plundered every tomb they could get at. The later Egyptians continued these attempts to preserve corpses, but they always admitted that they had lapsed from the high intellectual level of their ancestors and imitated them without understanding them. Even this phenomenon of initiation down millennaries-not only centuries-is in itself inexplicable. Great attempts to escape-like the attempt made by AkhounAton-failed. Finally the Persians, the Greeks and the Arabs, annihilated any possibility-or so it seems-of our ever discovering the real key to the great Egyptian epic which had lasted for some four thousand years. Herodotus says he was shown (ii, 143) three hundred and forty-five statues of high priests in lineal succession up to eleven thousand three hundred and forty years before-and “gods” had ruled Egypt before that. The giant Hercules had been among the first of those ‘gods’: a completely non-Greek Hercules. But Herodotus comes very late and Plutarch later

still. E.S. Edwards writes [The Pyramids of Egypt. Pelican, p. 151-2]: “For the most part, the Pyramid texts were certainly not inventions of the Vth or Vlth dynasties, but had originated in extreme antiquity...a relic of even more ancient times is contained in a passage (Spells 273-274) which describes the dead king as a hunter who catches and devours the gods so that he may appropriate their qualities to himself.” It is difficult for a Hoerbigerian not to see here a memory of those times when the giants fought the gods, and men helped the “good” giants against

126 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

the “bad” ones. The dead king had to become a giant for that fight. Hence perhaps the colossal statues which, after death, gave the king a body equal to that of his adversaries-on the spiritual plane, of course; there were no more giants in Egypt. But after death you had to fight gods and demons and the spirit of the dead king put on not the feeble form of his mummy, but the powerful form of his statue. The statue was to have the exact features of the dead king; not only that he should know it when he came back, but that his enemies also should know him. The pyramid was to help the king to climb to heaven. Perhaps, too, it helped him and the favourable powers to come back to the aid of men. [See J.P. Lauer: Le Probleme des Pyramides d’Egypte. Payot, Paris, p. 93.] The association between giants and mountains has often been insisted upon. The giants had come from the mountains; they took refuge in them when attacked and returned when it was safe to do so. Pharaoh imitated the ancient giant gods. When no mountain was at hand, he had one built. Later, the “mountain” of Thebes served and was considered adequate. The Scandinavian gods and giants help us but little, although they resemble much of what we have seen already. Another area of a possible ancient culture of which we know nothing, is Abyssinia: a very important country to Hoerbiger, because at one period of its descending spiral, the tertiary moon became stationary over Abyssinia. When the moon revolves at the*same rate as the earth, it remains at the zenith over one point-and very near; at perhaps only some twenty thousand miles from us. It attracts then a huge underground tide of molten rock and builds up an enormous region of mountains. Then, after some thousands of years, the gravitation of the earth wins, the moon escapes and begins to revolve more quickly than the planet. In theory, then, Mediterranean giants, Heracles, Atlas, Prometheus and others, might all have come from Abyssinia. In fact, there are only a few Semitic legends reporting that the Hebrews came from that country. The Queen of Sheba may have come from it: As a transposition into an historical period of a very ancient legend that gave the Hebrews some Abyssinian blood—she was in possession of all science and all magic: left over from Adam’s total knowledge. Paradise Lost might have been in Abyssinia. The four rivers of Genesis are not to be found in western Asia, whereas in the huge Ethiopian ranges commentators have a choice of

Egypt to China | 127

several groups of four rivers. But that species of argument-or speculations-is seldom profitable. The survival of a race of giants in Ruanda, west of Like Victoria, is worth noticing. They are only eight or nine feet tall, but after three hundred thousand years of adaptation to our smaller milieu, that is understandable. They constituted, until lately, a tyrannical aristocracy, ruling over ordinary Bantu negroes. Their civilization is very “advanced” but very different from ours: being officially and openly based on cruelty. A normal-sized breed of cattle, adorned however with gigantic horns, is their main wealth, and they are like Egyptian cattle of the most ancient figurations. The enormous horns, often in the shape of a lyre, are identical. Dancing, sports (especially high jumping) and complicated princely marriages play in that culture a part altogether different from the part they play in ours. It is reasonable to see here a survival of very ancient things, but the coming of the Europeans, by suppressing, officially anyhow, cruelty, has suppressed the old customs and will probably abolish the race which was maintained only, in its small numbers, by aristocratic ferocity. The official Belgian guide reports, with some regret: “Old Ruanda-cruel, inhuman-has had its day.” [Dupriez, Brussels, 1949.] Nearly every Hoerbigerian detail is observable here: high mountains, giants, giant cattle, an aristocracy ruling over small men. A theory has been put forward that these men are a remnant of the races that civilized Egypt some ten thousand years ago: they still have the same cattle, recognizable by their peculiar horns. Gigantism gradually disappears, but more quickly in the body than in the horns. The incredible giraffe comes from a similar evolution of giant forms diminishing at varying rates in different parts of the body. It is now believed that those giants occupied Ruanda only in the fifteenth century. Did they come perhaps from the north-east? From Abyssinia? The worship of the moon in Africa is apposite here. Why worship our present moon? But another kind of moon might have been worth worshipping: one that went through its phases seventeen times in a month, outshone the sun, being much larger, and later circled the earth several times a day-and later still crashed on the earth and destroyed all nations.

128 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

That was a moon that inspired fear and deserved sacrifices a moon that was referred to in the masculine gender-as it still is in German and in many languages—the matriarchal sun being feminine. We could go on, country after country, round the whole world and find confirmatory evidence everywhere. But the method is too easy and too loose. It would be better to proceed, if we could, in the opposite way: if we did know what happened, we could find confirmation easily enough nearly everywhere. We preferred therefore to begin with the massive evidence of Tiahuanaco. China ought to give us much to think about: it abuts on Tibet-according to Hoerbiger one of the great tertiary highlands. But everything that comes out of China is capable of several interpretations. Thus the Chinese dragon found on innumerable vases-surrounding the image of the earth-about to crush or swallow the moon-might be the satellite in the act of falling in a spiral on the planet and about to disintegrate. The moon disappears in that very event-the dragon limbs represent well enough the ragged jets of matter of the subsidiary explosions. But probably here we touch the borders of fantasy. About Tibet we know still less. No doubt both China and Tibet will be rich fields of research for the future.

10.

The Theosophists and her disciples were the object of many jokes and even fairly serious accusations. I do not want to add to the denigration because, around 1880, H.P. Blavatsky, writing in The Secret Doctrine, asserted that there existed in the mountains of southern Mongolia and far north-western China, giant libraries collected by the Buddhist monks and stored in secret caves known only to the initiated. In the early years of the 20th century, Paul Pelliot found some of these caves, which had been walled in and abandoned by the monks who had been warned of the threatening invasion of the Mongols. These caves had remained intact since the 13th century. Blavatsky was right, and had not exaggerated the wealth or the importance of these Buddhist manuscript collections containing books in several languages, many of which had not yet been deciphered. Moreover, she had identified the region in which the secret libraries could be found. This proved that Blavatsky had received accurate information from monks authorized to give it. Therefore, it is also possible that she was well informed regarding many unverifiable points. But we cannot know at what point her imagination intervened, and we cannot know if her informants were not themselves mistaken. The intellectual adventure of Bailly, the mayor of Paris who was decapitated in 1793 (the same one who, on his way to the guillotine, trembled, but only because of the cold, not out of fear), is of the type that gives us pause to think. In 1778, after missionaries brought back from India what appeared to be ancient astronomical tables, of which the Brahmans were very proud, believing they were superior to Europeans in astronomy, Bailly, who was the king’s astronomer, began to examine these tables and do the necessary calculations. He arrived at the unexpected conclusion that the tables bore a constant error in their observations and that these observations were adame Blavatsky

M

129

130 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

never made in India. But if we suppose that they were made below the northern 49th parallel, then the calculations are correct. Therefore, Bailly concluded that the Brahmans had inherited these tables from another civilization that lived near the northern 49th parallel. Bailly called this civilization Atlantis and placed it in the area where the Gobi Desert is located today. In effect, diligent geologists discovered that this desert had previously been a sea, and that the living conditions around this sea could have favoured civilization. Voltaire entered into the fray, and the famous Lettres sur l’Atlantide (Letters on Atlantis) by Bailly and Voltaire, published in 1778, rivaled the Lettres persanes (Persian Letters) in popularity. In other words, we can hardly trust what the Brahmans said about their own history. Moreover, we cannot always trust H.P. Blavatsky. Lastly, she is talking more about Tibet than India. With all this in mind, we need to remember the principle theses of the theosophists, and it is fairly reasonable to think that we can find among their beliefs traces of ancient Hindu or Tibetan traditions. According to Hoerbiger, this is what we have for the moment that comes closest to Tibet, the fifth of the great islands of the tertiary era. Thus, we will have touched on them all, albeit from afar: the Andes, Mexico, New Guinea, Abyssinia and Tibet. All along the chain of human refuges, during the great permanent wave, we will have seen something that varies from one to the other, but which maintains a certain coherence: in the Andes, unexplained ruins; in Mexico, a tradition that almost looks scientific; near New Guinea, the cult of the great stones; near Abyssinia, the remains of a giant race and giant cattle; lastly, in India and near Tibet, grand theories. Perhaps that which is the most striking and the most ancient among theosophists is the role they attribute to the moon. Like the men of Malekula who inspired H.P. Blavatsky, Tibetans and Hindus consider the moon the mother of earthly races, once again the “Mother of Israel.” But there is one essential difference between the savages of the Pacific and Indo-Tibetans. In Malekula, we found some­ thing that could be nothing but a decline that would end in nothingness and in the incomprehension of greatly diminished human beings. We noted the existence of the remains of an old civilization, but in conditions where the intelligence of the builders was no longer at the level of the surviving

The Theosophists | 131

institutions. On the contrary, in India and among theosophists, we note a super-intellectualism. To the Western mind, theosophy is too complicated, and we suspect, a priori, these complications cannot continue to parallel reality. Without a doubt, reality is very complicated, but the more the theory is complicated, and the greater the chances that two complications will diverge, and that this occurs at the end of the logical and imaginative process constructed by our intelligence, the more we find ourselves far removed from the things themselves. In short, Europe learned better than India to distrust intelligence and imagination, and to require that there be a constant reference to verifiable facts, or at least imaginable as being facts, no longer only as theories. Thus the natives of Malekula are happy to say that the human races are created on the moon, and that the souls of future children descend from the moon in the breasts of their mothers. The theosophists maintain that there are seven moons, of which only one can be perceived by our current human senses, moreover, that there are seven planet Earths, of which six are invisible to us. These seven astral chains correspond to the seven divisions of the human “soul,” with one of each materializing on the corresponding star. From a logical standpoint, this theory is admirably conceived, and all that remains is to prove experimentally that it is true: proving it is, naturally, extremely difficult. Education of the souls on the moon before they descend to Earth, a fundamental idea common to both Malekula and H.P. Blavatsky, is, therefore, unavoidably much more complicated among theosophists. It is hardly appropriate to report the details here. A few quotations on the lunar ancestors of human races, the lunar “Pitris,” should suffice, given that the general thesis is very clear and the systems very attractive. Let us note in passing that we found in the Zohar spiritual worlds that parallel our own, but are hidden from our senses, entirely similar to

Blavatsky’s subtle universes. Let us insist also on the convincing nature of these coincidences in the way in which they diverge. If a simple man and an excessively compli­ cated intellectual report the same things, observed by such divergent minds, there is every chance that their combined testimony will refer back to reality. Indeed, to think that the savage and the intellectual influenced one another-whatever the direction of this influence, whether from one to

132 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

the other or vice-versa-comes back to postulating a relationship that is so old that it is tantamount to proving our argument. A particularly civilized community in an extraordinarily ancient past becomes believable, since a super-intellectualized civilization needs time to develop and a state of

degeneration needs time to advance to any great degree. This is what we are postulating here, and not only between India and the Pacific, but between all five hypothetical centres of the tertiary civilization. If 300,000 years ago the ships that left for Tiahuanaco crossed the ocean, which bulged due to the lunar attraction, and headed for New Guinea and Tibet as well as Mexico and Abyssinia, it is no longer surprising that in one of these centres thus separated, science degenerated, while in another it may have became increasingly systematized and complicated. Therefore, in this respect, the evidence of the theosophists is admissible. “Without venturing onto the forbidden ground of the 8th sphere,” writes H.P. Blavatsky, “we must report here a few facts regarding the ancient monads of the lunar chain-the lunar ancestors-that play the primary role in our anthropogenesis.”

“The first fundamental race, the earliest ‘men’ on earth, were the offspring of the ‘celestial men,’ properly referred to in Hindu philosophy as the lunar ancestors, the Pitris, of which there are seven categories organized to form a hierarchy. “Therefore, it is the moon that plays the greatest and most important role, both in the creation of the Earth itself and in the creation of the human beings that populate the Earth. Tlie lunar monads, or Pitris, man’s ancestors, became, in reality, man himself. It is the monads of the evolutionary cycle on the first of the globes who, passing through the entire chain of globes, built the human form-their astral doubles, in a more subtle, refined form, serve as the models upon which nature built physical man. These monads, or divine sparks, are the lunar ancestors, the Pitris themselves, for these lunar spirits must become ‘men’ to allow their monads to reach a higher level of activity and self-awareness.” On the role of the moon in the evolution of the Earth and the human race, H.P. Blavatsky develops, well before Hoerbiger, various unscientific ideas, but which are more evolved than those of the Viennese scholar. On the geological dates, she also provides, for her time (1880),

The Theosophists | 133

surprising details that agree with the Hoerbigerian hypotheses. She claims the cosmos is 2 billion years old (vol. II, p. 72). She places the creation of man at 18 million years ago, at the end of the secondary period (II, 9,49). The geologist, Baron, places the end of the secondary era at 25 million years. And theosophy believes these early people were civilized. “Secondary man will be discovered and with him his long-forgotten civilizations.” (II, 279) Blavatsky knows that Abyssinia was an island (II, 385). She knows that men were present during the raising of the Andes, and she quotes Father Brassen of Bomburg, who had courageously said: “Traces of traditions found in Mexico, Central America and Peru give rise to the idea that man existed in these countries at the time of the gigantic raising of the Andes and retained a memory of this.” (II, 787). Naturally, H.P. Blavatsky did not know the Hoerbigerian theory of gigantism, but her information on the giants must have come from a good source if Hoerbiger’s and her own information are both right. According to theosophy, early man was not only a giant, but he also had a much lighter body than his successors (one might even consider it too light). “Races other than our own existed in very distant geological periods: ethereal races, which had succeeded the men of no corporal substance (the Arupas) who, however, had a shape; dynasties of divine beings, these kings and educators of the third race in arts and science, compared to which of our present-day small science resembles arithmetic before geometry.” (II, 204) “Giants that preceded us, pygmies. “The freebooters who seized the promised Earth found a race that was much taller than they and called the race giants. But the truly gigantic races disappeared long before Moses-40,000 years before the Hebrews, the ancestors of these ‘giants’ were much taller, and 400,000 years before that, they were, compared to us, like the men of Brobdingnag compared to the Lilliputians. The Atlantes of the intervening years were called the great dragons (II, 798).” Therefore, the degeneration is obvious to H.P. Blavatsky, and she also knows about the battles between the good and bad giants-battles of which the Greeks seem to have very bad memories.

134 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

“The antediluvian giants were not all bad, as theology would have us believe. There were good giants in those ancient days, and these are not myths. Anyone who wants to make fun of Briareus and Orion should abstain from seeing Carnac or Stonehenge, and even from talking about them (II, 74).” It was the giants who built the great megalithic monuments for the good of man (we came upon this idea at Tiahuanaco). “There is no reason to believe that these gigantic statues were built stone upon stone using scaffolding (we saw that they were monolithic). They could not have been built otherwise, except by the giants who were the same size as the statues (II, 352). “The wars of the Titans are nothing but legends that originated in the civil war that took place in the Himalayan Kailasa-these are all that is left of the story of the terrible battle between the Son of God and the Son of Darkness of the fourth and fifth races (II, 525).” Thus, we find, in this astonishing mixture that H.P. Blavatsky offers of mythology, philosophy, folklore and poetry, three Hoerbigerian characteristics of great importance: the influence of the moon, the principal dates of human history, and the gigantism with its degenerations. We cannot completely refuse to take into account what she says about these Tibetan and Hindu sources that go back to antiquity. Her evidence, added to all the other pieces, reinforces them and, at the same time, takes on a value that we may not want to give it-as in the case of Plato.

11.

Poets, Dreams and Psychoanalysis ITH Helena Blavatsky, at least we touched on poetry; we may have even fully entered the poetic realm. A few years ago, no one would have thought of calling on poets to testify before scientists during a trial. But we are moving towards a very different attitude. Freud and Jung taught us that human dreams are not made of useless vapours, but are often nothing less than very real facts in disguise. These facts were first discovered in physiology. Then they were sought after, and found, in an individual’s history in such a way that something that happened to a little girl less than 3 years old sometimes explained an illness or a crisis that happened to her at age 30. Finally, the disciples of C.G. Jung, in particular, following their master’s lead, taught us that certain cosmic memories were passed on through countless generations and continue to influence men’s dreams. Of all these dreams, those that most deserve our attention are the dreams of poets. For, these dreams are chosen, arranged and reviewed with an aesthetically critical eye. Only the poet can distinguish a kind of truth that no other intelligence can see; only he can say to others that which is worthy of the soul. Poets possess a choice of imagery that is both conscious and based on a semi-divine instinct, since ordinary men do not have this choice. The amount of poetry that is an integral part of all the holy books shows that man often completely trusted the poets, and that their testimony, in some way, is accepted by God himself with respect to the divine. And, more recent thinkers studying the psyche are less and less inclined to brush off that which the holy books of all religions say, or that which the poets are saying. Let us look first at the greatest of the French poets, Victor Hugo. Victor Hugo never failed to practise gigantism. Jung tells us now that

W

135

136 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

archetypes, the great images that pass through our dreams are, in reality, fundamental memories common to all and buried deep within the human race itself. If someone ever looked deep within himself to find this very source, it was Hugo. At the beginning of La Legende des siecles (The Legend of the Centuries), in piece IV entitled Les Lions (The Lions), we meet the giant Og who, as explained in a note from the publisher La Pleiade, had been saved from the Deluge by Noah. Without a doubt, this meant that the sleeping Booz:

[...] saw the footprints of giants.

Next, there is a whole section in La Legende called Entre Geants et Dieux (Between Giants and Gods), which we cannot really include among Hugo’s greatest works. There are a certain number of interesting, and even funny, poems, because it is only too obvious in the political-philosophical thinking of Hugo that the giants represent the people and the gods represent the kings. Yet, from time to time, there are half-understood, but noble, speeches that are often found within Hugo’s works, so that we cannot ignore anything in these readings. For example: Les Temps paniques (The Time of Panic) begins:

The gods said amongst themselves: We are material, we are gods. We inhabit the unfathomable frontier Beyond which there is nothing.

In La Ville disparue (The Vanished City), there is another allusion:

When the giants were still living among men, During the time no one spoke about. Let us leave behind, for a moment, La Legende, and recall a famous poem, which, in essence, should have been included in La Legende. The nature of Hugo’s thinking is most evident in his description of Le Pdtre Promontoire (The Headland Shepherd). Layard (Stone Men of Malekula, p. 205) found in the islands of the Pacific a headland god called Tsiingon Ta-har, who reaches out into the

Poets, Dreams and Psychoanalysis | 137

sea between Atchin and Vac. This one is even more important than the one described by Victor Hugo, and it plays a central role in creation, as it is identical to the god that created the heavens, undoubtedly using its cloud hat. We cannot suspect that the Polynesians read Hugo, or that Hugo knew these Polynesians. But the same dreams haunt both the poet and the savages. Today, although more distant from us, Malcolm de Chazal, in a strange book entitled Petrusmok, which he was forced to publish himself because no one else wanted to, describes the promontories and mountains of Mauritius Island. This book also talks about the gods sculpted by unima­ ginable giants in prehistoric times. But I think that a more original and still more primitive characteristic of Victor Hugo is that he imagined, and I think he is the only one to have done this, beings in the process of becoming giants. Rabelais and Swift presented existing giants, and without a doubt both Goliath and Hercules are giants from the start (except that they had to be born like all babies). But Hugo shows us first, in an admirable and child-like story, two childhood heroes: Roland and Oliver as they become giants. It is the Le Manage de Roland (The Marriage of Roland), well known yet insuf­ ficiently studied.

I saw two blond pages, rosy-cheeked like girls Yesterday, they were two children smiling at their families.

Initially, they fought like well-armed men, yet, in the end, they were but young men. It is really about Durandal and Closamont. But, little by little, they grew up, all around them only illusions, the boatmen fleeing as the two children become increasingly fearsome. The traveller believes that he sees in the fog “strange loggers working in the night.”

Then, on the fourth day, we see that: The sabre of the giant Sinagog is in Vienna. The children grew disproportionately large. Roland smiles:

138 | Atlantis and the Reign of tlie Giants

With this stick He says and uproots an oak. Sir Oliver tears out an elm on the plain.

And this time, they are truly giants. Their immediate successor, Aymerillot, “the little companion,” certainly must have grown too, as he took the city on the following day. But these are nothing but child’s play, and the great vision of the giant is the satyr. This is where Hugo puts all his energy into the dream. In the beginning, it is a fairly light-weight satyr, since:

Hercules went to get him deep within his burrow, And brought him before Jupiter, dragging him by the ear. He could not have been very heavy in the arms of Hercules. But,

The satyr sang of the monstrous land And by singing about the monstrous land, he became the monstrous land. Jupiter is dumbfounded. As the song continues, the satyr grows unusually large; in one of the most beautiful passages in all poetry, Hugo describes how the poor fawn becomes a cosmic giant.

Then, bigger than a titan; then bigger than Athos; The enormous space entered into this black shape And like a sailor sees the headland grow. (Let us note again the promontory.) His hair was a forest.

The animals attracted by his chords, Deer and tigers climbed the length of his body. But he grows even bigger:

Poets, Dreams and Psychoanalysis | 139

And wandering people asked their way, Lost at the crossroads of the five fingers of his hand.

And he becomes the final humanity, Adam at the end, the communion of the saints in which: The azure of the sky will appease the wolves.

The gods disappear and Man-God appears. Not the same as the Christian one, but also not very different in the end. And finally, after countless allusions to all the giants possible, Hugo’s definitive effort in La Legende is the ageless trumpet of judgment: Without a doubt, some archangel or seraph, Motionless, waiting for the sign of the end Dove deeply, under dark veils, Its feet in hell, its head in the stars!

La Legende des siecles, begun under the sign of the giants before the Deluge, ends before the gigantic trumpet that crosses all time and space, but is nothing more than an instrument within the grasp of an evil hand. In the dark, the eye could only see clearly The five spread fingers of this terrible hand. In La Fin de Satan (The End of Satan), under the title La Poutre (The Beam), (II,II,I), Rosmophim, looking at a gloomy and ominous piece of wood, asks the Zoroastrian: Would this be the walking stick of a giant? -Lord, indeed, it is, says the idolater. .. .The giants of the race Enacim, who first inhabited the ancient land... With their feet, they crushed the river elephants... The world began with the huge family. The group of giants gave birth to humans -A giant first holds the place of a crowd

140 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

Then, like the cloud of drops of water flows From generation to generation He grows weaker, multiplies and becomes a nation And God created the giant before he created the anthill. In less than one page of verse, the visionary genius mentioned, fifty years before Hoerbiger, the essence of all the theories analyzed here. Victor Hugo’s more or less external dream-external because it is externalized by the poet projecting the gigantic image outside of himself-this external dream corresponds to an internal vision infinitely more powerful than all the paintings inscribed on the sea or on the fog like promontories or giants. It is Hugo himself who, in his inner enthusiasm, felt himself becoming a giant, which is why he has this feeling of what it is like to become a giant, which he alone expressed. Here is Hugo becoming one with the universe:

At your breaths of fog or clearing I quiver, Heaven, as if I had been pierced through by the fibre of Creation! As if all the invisible threads of the being Criss-crossed in my breast that the universe enters! As if, from time to time, In me, from head to toe, myself melding with the problem, The dark, infinite axis that goes through God himself Trembled confusedly! So that I am Nature’s magnet May God flow through my blood! So that, oh Heaven, the irrepressible zenith may Flow into my skull and the nadir touch my trembling heel!

While Hoerbiger, geologists and ethnographers have only told us of what is external to events, with Victor Hugo we can believe that we have penetrated the soul of one of these giant-gods of early times, during the act itself of man’s creation. If Hugo takes us outside humanity, his immediate and somewhat degenerate disciple, Baudelaire, teaches us about human feelings during

Poets, Dreams and Psychoanalysis | 141

encounters with giants:

From the time Nature, with her powerful vigour Each day conceived her monstrous children I would have liked to live with a young giantess, Like a voluptuous cat at the feet of a queen. I would have liked to see her body blossom with her soul And grow freely in her terrible games: To guess if a dark flame smoulders in her breast In the mist that floats in her eyes,

To travel at leisure over her magnificent shapes; To crawl on the slopes of her large knees, And sometimes, in summer, when the unhealthy suns Cause her to stretch out, tired, upon the land, To sleep nonchalantly in the shadow of her breasts Like a peaceful human at the foot of a mountain. Just as Hugo helped us understand the essential feelings of the giant man, Baudelaire shows us the formidable desires existing in human psychology that nature our size cannot satisfy. We could almost speak of “memories” on the part of the poet who said:

I have more memories than if I was a thousand years old.

and who sang the praises of Atlantis found in every dreamer’s soul-and almost Tiahuanaco. I lived for a long time under vast porticoes, That the maritime suns tinted with a thousand fires, And that their great pillars, straight and majestic Made them resemble, in the evening, basaltic caves.

In any event, it is moving testimony to the desire that still lives within

142 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

the human soul, that there were, and continue to exist, giants and gods. The splendid descriptions of giants in Milton have no evocative value except in English-for these demons and angels are giants, and so impressive that H.P. Blavatsky writes (II, 532): “Milton’s grandiose description of the three days of battle in Heaven between the Angels of Light and the Angels of Darkness almost justifies the assumption that the poet had access to the distant traditions of the Orient on this subject-but it is impossible to say for certain.” But the most famous giant-or the one who should be the most famous in poetry-is Adamastor in The Lusiads. Blavatksy said that there were good giants; the Greeks knew some of them. But no one has penetrated the soul of a good giant confronted with the audaciousness of small men like Camdes. The Portuguese who, after so many disasters, arrived at the Cape of Good Hope and saw before them:

Rising through the air, strong and formidable, A phantom, standing upright, shapeless and monstrous, Its face worn, its beard unkempt, Its eyes buried in its forehead, and its stance Threatening, and its skin pale and the colour of clay; Its hair covered in dirt, its mouth Black and yellowed with the age of its teeth. The giant tries in vain to stop the sailors by revealing the disasters that await them. But nothing stops the heroes, who ask him only who he is.

I am this hidden and formidable cape And that which you call the Cape of Storms I was one of these Terrible Sons of the Earth Like Enceladus, like Aegeus and Briareus And my name is Adamastor and I took part In the battles against Vulcan’s thunder Not that I placed the mountains on mountains But I conquered the sea and I was the one Who wanted to confront Neptune’s fleets.

Poets, Dreams and Psychoanalysis | 143

Alas, the love of Thetis led to the downfall of the good giant:

Believing that I held at last the worshipped goddess I found myself the lover of a hard mountain Covered in harsh scrub and poor wood I was no longer a man; motionless and mute I was a mountain embracing another mountain. And I felt my clay-like flesh change And my bones become impassable rocks. And Thetis became again the sea surrounding me.

Let us recall the link between the giant and the mountain; a noble Mauritian poet extended it even further: for this is part of the great tradition. Ariosto offers very curious connections. Poetic imagination allows us, of course, to go well beyond what we believe to be true. But there is, in serious poetry, a kind of gravity that holds us back. Humourous poetry is not bound by all the rules and builds a fantastical logic that goes well beyond all philosophy. In psychology, it is a recognized fact that many ideas regarding images that the soul desires can only be admitted into the consciousness in a humourous form, and comedy or humour is a great release. We want the event to happen-but it appears to us to be reprehensible, monstrous and impossible. Depicted as a form of joke, it works. Often, even in ordinary social relationships, a foolhardy individual says something that scandalizes his listeners, and then some charitable soul intervenes: Are you joking? And the fool, who was completely serious, beats a hasty retreat and claims that it was a joke, moreover, in poor taste. In humour it is thus possible for tendencies to occur that would otherwise be strictly held in check elsewhere. Therefore, Ariosto is very useful to us. Not that he wanted to believe in his jokes. But in his great poem, mankind is presented in the sarcastic form of very old beliefs it no longer accepts intellectually. Presenting them under cover of humour is proof of their extreme age and their psychological depth. We saw among the savages of Malekula, on the one hand, and the

144 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

theosophists, on Ihe other, this idea that men’s souls are shaped on the moon and then descend to Earth. Ariosto, whom we cannot suspect of knowing one or the other of these ways of thinking, speaks of the same thing. Men’s minds are on the moon. Roland lost his on Earth. You have to go to the moon to find it and bring it back to Earth. How can we go to the moon, how can we climb up into the heavens? In the same way the pharaoh who climbed the pyramid or the giants did: you climb to the top of a high mountain, then, from there, you enter the heavens. XLVIII- “Then, he mounts his winged horse and rises into the sky, wanting to reach the top of the mountain that is presumed to touch the circle of the moon with its topmost point. He wants to see new things, and his desire is such that he disdains the earth and aspires only to rise to the heavenly spheres. He climbs higher and higher into the air until he reaches the top of the mountain.” On the moon, St. John graciously receives Astolphus and leads him to the place where men’s minds are kept. It is there that Astolphus finds not only the wits of mad men, but also those of men considered to be sane and, in particular, his own: LXXXlIl.-“It is a liqueur so subtle and so fluid that it would evaporate easily if it was not carefully sealed in vials of all sizes and made for this purpose. The largest of them all contained the great mind of the Count of Angers. It was different from all the others, for it bore these words that could still be read: ‘The good sense of Roland.’” LXXX1V. -“On all the others could be seen the names of those whose good sense was sealed within. One of them contained, to the great surprise of Astolphus, a large part of his own mind yet, what surprised him even more was to see that many people he knew, whose minds seemed to him to never miss a thing, must not have had much left since the vials that belonged to them were almost full to the brim.” LXXXVl. -“Astolphus, with the consent of the author of the obscure book of the Apocalypse, grabbed the vial that contained his good sense; he held it under his nose and it seemed that the liqueur that he inhaled returned, on its own, to its rightful place. At least, Turpin admits that, from that moment on, Astolphus led a more sensible life for a long time: unfortunately, a new foolishness committed by him afterwards cost him

Poets, Dreams and Psychoanalysis | 145

his mind again.” LXXXVII. -“He took the larger vial that was fuller than all the others and contained the good sense that long distinguished the Count of Angers. It was not as light as he thought after seeing it among the others....” The extraordinary contemporary poet Malcolm de Chazal of Mauritius Island takes the theme of the divine mountain by which it is possible to climb skywards one step farther. A long, intimate relationship with the mountains of his island revealed to him that these mountains are, in fact, superhuman statues, sculpted long ago by an unimaginable race of giants. Moreover, these statues are not the images of gods, but rather the gods themselves. Thus the Greeks, when they invaded the peninsula, found the gods on Olympus-later, rationalizing, they said that the gods lived on Olympusbut no: the great rocks of Olympus were the gods. Gods of stone much larger than anything imaginable, and replaced much later by statues that appear to us to be gigantic, but which are nothing but smaller versions that could be transported from the true god-mountains. In real antiquity, men went to the sculpted mountain to worship the god, and would not have dared commit the sacrilege of moving the god somewhere that was convenient for man. Worship of the mountain preceded worship of the giant statue (Petrusmok, p. 22,122,137-138,301, 329, 390, 526). “The mountains on Mauritius Island-lunar, ghostly, like cardboard cutouts arranged on the plains, one-dimensional masses in the distance, carved with a saw blade and hieratic-these hills and these low mountains would have been sculpted by the hand of man, carved by a giant people, inhabitants of the Great Lemurian Crescent. “On the summit of Mount Sinai is Moses. He watches and waits. A friend crouches behind him, watching Moses as he moves closer to the edge of the rock like someone who wants to jump. The man behind him observes and remains silent: he sees Moses see the Eternal One. “And the fingers of fire speak, not from Heaven, but from the rock itself: the rock rises from its bed like a body, like an earlier Lazarus rising from the dead. “Moses does not see God in the heavens, but he sees him in the stone

146 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

of the Sinai: as proof, he does not bring back the lightning, but the Tablets of the Commandments:, the stone had spoken.

Drawing psychoanalyzed: caverns (Adler)

“A time will come when the churches will be made of carved stone, large caves built on the surface of the Earth, with windows open to the heavens. Men will rush through them like termites into a nest. Far from the sun, they will pray. “The statues will be spread throughout the caverns, and will act as symbols, from which the inner sense will have disappeared. From living statues-all symbolic life-man will move to dead statues. The Church will be closed, both morally and physically. Religion will be limited. And the pillow of Jacob-the natural rock-will no longer be there to allow the Descent of the Angels. The Church of Symbols will yield to the Church of Statues. Idolatry will be in every heart. “Yesterday, I saw on the mountain, to the left of the Pouce, a strange allegory in stone. A stretched-out woman-the positive image of a negative lying further to the right-stared at the Pouce. She had no breast, her legs were tucked up underneath her and her thighs placed at 15 degrees. The negative, the other invisible woman, had left no more than an impression in the stone. The two were ‘entwined’ in the distance, for the leg of the one

Poets, Dreams and Psychoanalysis | 147

was the thigh of the other, and the thigh of the one, was the leg of the other - Siamese twins below the waist. “And I began to dream about this ‘curiosity.’ “This morning, in going down to Port Louis, I saw the same woman, but considerably fatter, on another slope of the Pouce called Anse Courtois. The woman had, without a doubt, given birth, for her chest formed one enormous breast, a true mountain within the Mountain. “The Mountain is the highest recorded gesture-higher than the flower, higher even than fire, for it holds the former and the latter; it is the absolute Jacob’s Ladder, Stairway of Myth that is Religion in Essence, the Myth composed of a thousand myths, but which combines them all in the Absolute Myth, the Only Real Sum Total: God. “The poetry of the Mountains leads to the Religion of the Mountains, and from there is born the Revelation. “It is the only revelation that I experienced. I did nothing but read and decipher the Bible of Stone. I was nothing more than king of the symbols for a certain time, through the illuminated vision. “The Mountain dazzled me with its clarity, through the sun that hangs over it. I sit in the shadow of a thicket. The Mountain leans towards me like the Tower of Pisa, thanks to the clouds that pass over and throw the Mountain into my eyes. I regain my self-control and watch. “And, the King of the World rises from the stone. He is leaning against the Mountain. He looks at the Universe at 60 degrees from his Power. “His member is pointing, or would it be his hand? “His billowing hair bulges at his neck. No more pshent this time: A square bonnet is his crown. The crown is a curve aiming and extending forward, and in the back, a pompom, knotted to form a glorious ribbon. “The mount, the mountain crest, the needle of rock, whatever the rock, it always shows where there is nothing, an emptiness, a flatness, neutral places, where no embossed image is recorded. This mechanical, ordered aspect is, therefore, not a natural gesture. “Therefore, the Mount was carved. “The Mountain was carved. Man gave it a neck, created a whole body from the stone. The body of Pieter Both seems to be placed on the high plateau, like a cake on a table. “Having cleared it, the Lemurians carved figures all around-just as

148 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

many images of gods, no doubt, as corresponding altars lower down. Like Mount Olympus entirely among the nudes, a particular mythology of their mythic religion-that the Hindus from here imitated by instinctively returning to the past, by the Hanuman cult in the west, and by that of the Mooreeababa in the east. “The Lemurians who did the carving were those of the Fall.” Popular tales correspond to the imagination of the great poets. We only need to allude to them here: Tom Thumb and the Ogres, Jack the Giant Killer, and so many others, are versions that have become charming by dint of degenerating into human terms, which we have summarized here. What we said about Ariosto still applies. No one is obliged to believe in fairy tales. As a result, all desires are possible in tales. For what does all this prove, whether in Hugo, Tom Thumb, Baudelaire, Ariosto or Chazal? The desire within the human soul, from brilliant poets to little children, that somewhere behind us exists a marvellous past full of adventure. That this desire is universal and deep, the most modern psychology will now assure us, and under conditions that make it impossible to think that this need in man can remain unfulfilled. There is something in reality that corresponds to this desire. If not, says the analyst, humanity is nothing but a mental illness. Gerhard Adler writes [Studies in Analytical Psychology by Gerhard Adler, Senior Psycho­ therapist at the Clinic of the Society for Analytical Psychology, p. 100101, London, 1948]: “What does this world of the Beyond mean, in psychological terms, from which the soul derives its origins? “The Beyond is the reservoir of the ultimate secrets of heaven and hell, of light and darkness, of high and low, of positive and negative. In other words, it is the world of the collective unconscious from which we all originate. It is not unreasonable that the fairy tale of the stork that seeks her offspring in the lake has lasted so long-for it is nothing but another way of expressing the same psychical experience, the fact that we all came from the oceans. Man is not born a blank page or a blank slate. On the contrary, he carries, hidden in the depths of his very being, memories of events he witnessed in the earliest times and the traces of countless actions and reactions that greatly extended the boundaries of his personal existence, just as certain individual possibilities are visible in him,

Poets, Dreams and Psychoanalysis | 149

indicating a very long future. In particular, the child is still completely immersed in the world of the images of the collective unconscious, of man’s mythological past, a past not yet obsessed with the concrete realities of the present.” We will only choose a few of these perceptions that exist in the soul, “of events he witnessed in the earliest times” despite the fact that there are thousands. It is time to look at the images, paintings of dreams or half­ hypnotic states used by analysts. The serpent that crushes the world corresponds to the lunar ring that crashed into the Earth, wrapped itself around it, and destroyed a large part of it. (Adler, p. 120)

Goddess of the Moon (Layra)

150 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

The moon goddess who cherishes the little animal (Layard, The Lady of the Hare, p. 134) represents the beneficial moon in its previous state when it was the benefactor of all living beings. The half-fish, half-human beings that support the star above the waters where they dive correspond to the state of the universal deluge, upon which men-and one sun-floated and survived [The Psychology of C.G. Jung, Nolan Jacobi, London, Kegan Paul, 1946, p. 114 and 95]. The apocalyptic drawing represents the Moon and the Sun revolving around the Earth as the lunar catastrophe approaches. The giant tree and the historical and civilized landscapes are the dreamed remains of the Andes and Atlantis, without these names being used in connection with them (Adler, plates 14, 16, 17). Obviously, we must expand the Hoerbigerian thesis; that which is indicated in all these dreams is not this or that event as defined by Hoerbiger, but the whole past complete with catastrophes and rebirths like those we mentioned according to the facts of glacial cosmology.

12.

The Complete Spiritualist Hypothesis

I

draw this account from documents placed at my disposal by Mr. Arnold, at the time director of the Psychic Times of London, and who

had already provided me with very interesting pieces presented in Victor Hugo et les Dieux du Peuple (Victor Hugo and the Gods of the People) (LaColombe, Paris, 1948). I believe that it is useful to present a hypothesis in its entirety. It is only when considered in its fullest extent that a hypothesis best reveals its explanatory powers and its weaknesses, and to judge it, both sides have to be examined closely. This is what we did with Hoerbiger’s ideas. 1 have not found elsewhere spiritualist documents as developed and coherent as far as a doctrine is concerned. (It is important to note the dates; the docu­ ments were collected orally between 1938 and 1948.) First, regarding the Aztecs: the word Aztec seems to me to be used to designate a set of very distant, prehistoric civilizations throughout the Americas, both North and South. In the following text, in effect, examples taken from South American flora are provided. The implications-or, more important, the definitions-can only belong to the secondary era; even the end of the tertiary is too recent for giant and petrified plants to have existed. It is a curious coincidence shared with the theosophist doctrine, for, in general, these two schools-theosophist and spiritualist-are determinedly opposites. To cite but one proof-which has nothing to do with the subjectthe theosophists base their entire doctrine regarding human destiny on reincarnation, which English spiritualists generally refuse to accept. (“Generally” because there is no single spiritualist doctrine as no one is qualified, spiritualists believe, to proclaim one. In reality, each spiritualist thinks that he or she alone would be able to do it.)

151

152 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

Here are a few essential facts on the first human civilizations: “The Aztecs and some trees disappeared together: the real trees. “Today’s trees are more like branches than trees of the spiritual world; a true tree would resemble a wall because it would be so big. “The Aztecs knew how to see them at this great height, as the trees really are. “In some coastal regions of South America, under the ocean floor, there is a kind of red rock that is not made of stone, but of tree bark swallowed up or buried to the east and the west of the gulfs. Under the ice, more towards the south, the same rock can be found, but in a lighter shade of green, in the bark visible through the ice. This colour is also visible radiating throughout the sky. “All this is in relation to the ancient vegetation, when you were closer to the sun. The sun was much bigger. “These trees that the Aztecs knew grew straight as a column; the triangular tree came much later.” This seems to provide information on periods that may have preceded mankind—on what was happening during the time of the giant insects of the primary and secondary eras-eras to which geologists have allowed us to allude. The relationships between plants, insects and men are interpreted according to sciences that are now lost. “The sphere of scents includes flowers, trees, beneficial insect wings, and other healing substances. “In cases of instant healing, which appear to be a miracle, those which have ten different kinds of sciences are present in the spirit. But I cannot define the ten. One is enough: in this instance, healing cannot be instan­ taneous. “Therefore, through one of these sciences, two spirits from the sphere of scents create a cone in which there is air whirling at 100,000 million kilometres per second. To give you an idea of these forces, the speed between the Sun and the Earth is 300 to 400 kilometres per second. “This creates, for you, a vacuum, but, for the spirits, it creates a scent cone so high, spinning at such a speed that the spirit of this sick body can act instantly and heal. “This often happens after death. There is even a scent noticeable to witnesses of a death. The spirit returns for a moment or two to give back

The Complete Spiritualist Hypothesis | 153

strength to the body, so that the body is left in a unified state and not in a state of disintegration. Then, the body is sometimes cured instead of dying. In this case, there is another scent, stronger, not of the lily, but comparable to the normal scent that binds the spirit to the body. “Some fragrances are useful in the case of illness, even in the weaker and diluted form that you know. “But insects have to be added to the plants. Butterflies, dragonflies, wasps, bees are beneficial in spirit-although less so than the fly-without which you would not be able to live. “When insects travel through space-real space, not ours, there are reflections of colour and light that combine to form a fragrance. “The insect that produces this scent loses nothing in the process. It is not injured. A perfume emerges from the brown spots on the middle wings of some insects. This perfume is extracted from the light. “Two strips of light, one coloured, the other crystalline, are transformed into a fragrance through the insect’s movements forward along a line that follows the direction of the light. The light’s vibrations and colour on the insect’s wings produce the scent. “The flowers directly produce the fragrance. “The insect produces the scent in a secondary operation-for the insect first produces colour and speed - and the scent follows from the combina­ tion of colour and speed. “There are fragrances we cannot perceive like very high notes, such as those of the guitar. “Scents, animal cries, music, the cries of children suffering on earthcertainly not mentally, but physically only-the noises made by insects, a wave emanating from the lily of the valley-each of these things plays a role like each member of a perfect orchestra. Thus, the cackling of a parrot in a forest harmonizes with the hissing of a serpent, and the two together share one spiritual value, which constitutes a spiritual act. “The sound made by an animal that terrifies man is working for the spirit. There are men who, terrified by animal sounds, have used them to impress other men, as if these sounds came from the gods. In Egypt and in India, these imposters exploited the fear of the bull, the cat, the serpent, and even the fear inspired by the absence of sound among some animals,

154 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

for there are some animals or insects, although few in number, who make no sound at all. “From the harmony of the spiritual worlds, man created wicked divin­ ities on earth by separating the elements that, together, are good. Thus, in chemistry, salt is good for you, but chlorine and soda can be bad for you. “To learn this in depth, you would need at least two hundred years. We will continue this study once we have left the Earth. “The secrets of the scents used to be taught in warm countries, where some elements of the ancient science still remain, but in a degraded state. But as you can see, abuses were committed and these sciences had to be suppressed. They will return, not to serve the vanities of ornamentation, like today, but for the good of the people.” With respect to Egypt, and more generally, the origin of the religions, the hypothesis presented as fact, of course, in these spiritualist texts of the 20th century is as follows: Egyptian civilization-as with all civilizations, current or primitive-was based on a revelation. For example—even though this is not part of our subject-our current European civilization was based on revelations of the 10th, 11th and 12tn centuries. Moreover, these were nothing more than sub-revelations, a special part of the Christian revelation of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries. The revelations that led to the founding of the religion of the Nile came from spirits that had lived in the west and the south. The sacred oasis of Siva, which, in the words of the Greeks themselves, is very ancient, could have been one of the origins of Egypt. Allusions to this have already been found in Abyssinia. Therefore, perhaps 10,000 or 12,000 years before Jesus Christ, there existed, in southern and western Egypt, civilizations that were advanced spiritually, yet materially remained very simple: tents, natural fruit, herds, and, therefore, left no archeological traces. The spirits of the highest order, fed and exercised in these clearly “golden-age” civilizations, are the civil­ izing “gods” or “giants” mentioned in all the mythologies. They are the ones who came and attached themselves, like invisible counselors, to the great potentates from Menes to Zoser-and, in fact, almost identified with the spirit of each pharaoh. This is why the pharaohs were called “Horus,” for example, or “Osiris,” or other names. But these great, protecting spirits not only guided the pharaoh: this would not have been enough. They came

The Complete Spiritualist Hypothesis | 155

and placed themselves at the disposal of each human group, large or small, whence the origin of the countless gods in villages, cities and districts that create so many problems for historians. They were all real. They all truly cared for family, civic and political society for which they were responsible, acting both on the intelligence and the emotions of men and on external events. The freedom of each one was not, however, invalidated, for the spirits could only help the good by their very nature, and never forced anyone. From this freedom of man comes degeneration. First, among the pharaohs: megalomania caught hold of them, and also the mistake of believing that preservation of the body, or its colossal representation in stone, was necessary for the life of the soul. The enormous work of the first dynasties was, in large part, useless; however, it gave the pharaohs such a sublime idea of their importance that justice, good governance and, therefore, the welfare of the people benefitted enormously. If the king was Horus, he would have behaved like Horus, and the fact of having pyramids, temples and statues conditioned him to behave like Horus during his earthly reign: fairly and kindly. As for the people, they liked (and still like) terrifying images. They saw a deep need: love of the gods was accompanied by fear. Without fear, most men would have done nothing. Benevolent spirits could not-because of the essential freedom of each one-pre vent men from making terrifying images of the gods. This led to countless superstitions among Egyptians, their trips to hell told in great detail, the animal complexities of the statues, the gods, all the terrible paraphernalia of religious fear, which is based on nothing more than human stupidity. From here came too, in the end, after several millennia, the need for the fall of Egyptian civilization. Men ended up going too far. In short, the Persians and the Greeks, followed by the Arabs, came to purge an Egypt in great spiritual decline. A lot can be said about this decline. As in orthodox Christianity, a complete primitive revelation made to “Adam” by God is claimed. Since then, the pace of revelations quickens and slows, and quickens again, only to slow again. This is necessary because it is a question of educating souls and races in advanced decline, which require that truths be within their grasp, that is, full of errors. Sometimes, this succeeds magnificently. Only,

156 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

human strength always tires at the end of an ever-changing period of time, the perfected race declines or disappears, and everything starts again, but

differently. Some examples are very strange. If we compare the Zohar of the Jews with Thousand and One Nights of the Arabs, formal similarities paralleling some fundamental contradictions are evident. Here is one among many. Princess Badroulboudour finds a young prince asleep and, through some ploy that teaches him “nature,” according to the Arab storyteller, she has her way with him and becomes pregnant-with hilarious and, moreover, happy consequences. The Zohar, closer to its origins, relates that the Matron, dressed in her finest clothes, arouses the desires of the Perfect One (blessed be he) in his latent and sleeping state, and thus gives birth to creation. Then God, like the Arab prince, recognizes this creation as his own, because God does not really exist except when the world exists. Thus we have two versions of the same ancient story, the one lewd and allegorical for the Arabs, the other serious and philosophic for the Jews. A third version is Egyptian: Osiris is dead, yet through some magical trick, he physically impregnates Isis stretched out over the regenerated corpse, who, in turn, produces Horus. This assumes an even older tradition as the source of all three. In the time of the first Adam, the truth was known. Each human race corrupted it according to its needs. The Arab game played on the Princess Badroulboudour parallels other games. In early times in the Americas, the initiated played with rackets and balls in a sacred ceremony: the balls described the course of the stars through the air. If someone clumsily dropped the ball or lost the ball, he caused astronomical catastrophes to occur. As a result, the player was killed and his heart removed. Today, we play tennis and golf. Mysteries upon which the fate of the world depended, and to which men devoted and risked their whole lives and their souls, have become harmless distractions. Our theatre shares the same origins: sacred representation was the life and passion of God, and human participation fulfilled a cosmic function. Now we have light comedies. And Atlantis? A fairly surprising outcome resulted. I found the text:

The Complete Spiritualist Hypothesis | 157

“To tell you the truth, this story did not happen on earth” and nothing else. With the origins of civilization situated in the tertiary or even secondary eras by these spiritualist claims, the myth of Atlantis is no longer necessary. The collapse is nothing but an episode. It could have happened elsewhere and been associated with Earth in error. But where? On one of the seven planets or one of the seven moons, invisible from here and which the Zohar, like theosophy, told us about. Not only men would have originated on the moon or elsewhere: they would have brought with them to the Earth the memory of catastrophes that occurred on other planets and, in their ignorance, would have created an earthly legend from them. This is the ultimate hypothesis, but which surpasses the preceding explanations in its poetic power.

13.

The Spiritual Side and Conclusion say, as Montaigne did, “This is a book of good faith, reader,” because this book is too scientific. I was happy to place before the reader a few theories and dreams without expressing my own opinion. In compensation, I quote a summary by Bessmertney (L ’Atlantide [Atlantis]), p. 120, Payot, 1949), on the opinion of men of science: “The glacial cosmogony of Hoerbiger rests on the hypothesis that interstellar space is filled with extremely rarefied hydrogen-admittedly in contrast to Kant and Laplace’s system. Today, Hoerbiger and Fauth's doctrine is meeting resistance from astronomers, physicists and geologists alike who are generally not only fighting it, but also consider it to be non­ existent and ignore it.” I am not very impressed with men of science. First, on one essential point, they have already changed their minds, and in great numbers: today, many admit that hydrogen is extremely rarefied. This includes Hoyle and Jeffreys from Cambridge, who have already been quoted. Despite this, they have not adopted Hoerbiger’s theory. Next, it is too soon to have forgotten that the first discoveries made regarding prehistoric man were qualified as crazy by all the men of science of the time, and we have no more reason to trust them today than we did in 1840, when all rejected Boucher de Perthes and the Neolithic periods. The Paleolithic ages were not officially recognized until 1863. Finally, after a long life spent among men of science, I have lost a little of my confidence in them. Without a doubt, they would not deceive any­ one even one millionth of a millimetre in their observation of the facts, but they are very shaky in all their theories, and completely unsure regarding the principles. Science, like our civilization, suffers from the absence of a general philosophy, which should provide us with all theories and prin-

I

CANNOT

158

The Spiritual Side and Conclusion | 159

ciples, and cannot—therefore, each expert quickly produces some general ideas, inevitably increasingly vague, and less and less grounded as they rise to the highest abstractions. Therefore, cultured man has the privilege of not taking science seriously except in the observation of facts. When it comes to religious, political or social issues, an ordinary man endowed with some good sense is just a good a judge as any man of science. From the beginning, the account of cosmic catastrophes was accom­ panied by moral judgments. Let us consider the spiritual side of the myths surrounding Atlantis. Plato was the first to explain the catastrophe of Atlantis through moral causes. The men became perverted, the gods became angry and sent the disaster: “They fell into impropriety-they appeared ugly-and the god of gods, Zeus, who rules over the laws, understood what miserable moods gripped this race with such an excellent primitive nature. He wanted to apply a punishment that would make them reflect and return to some degree of moderation” (Critias). In the Bible, the two calamities were brought on by human perversity. The expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise can be placed in the Hoerbigerian tertiary, if not secondary era, and we know the cause. Noah’s Deluge would have been the flood of the tertiary if Adam and Eve were placed in the preceding era, that of the disaster of Atlantis: once again, it is men’s crimes that unleashed the anger of God and the elements. The theosophists, I believe, without providing too many details, also admit that a degeneration of races and civilizations accompanied cyclical cataclysms. But in what we know from the Babylonian myths, there is no moral pattern; in the battles between the Greek gods and the giants and monsters, there is hardly any ethical sense; the Toltecs only introduce a kind of moral later on: only before the third calamity, when men reject Quetzal­ coatl’s warning and, as punishment, become monkeys. Victor Hugo appears to be the first to reverse the roles; it is the gods who behaved badly; the Satyr sings before the Olympians: He spoke of the earliest time, the happiness, Atlantis; How freedom became a yoke, and how Silence covered a tamed land.

160 ] Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

He did not speak the name of Prometheus; But he had in his eye the lightning of the stolen fire; He said humanity was locked away; He spoke of all the crimes and all the miseries; From bad kings to insincere gods Sad men, they saw heaven close. In vain, pious, they began by loving each other.

In La Fin de Satan (The End of Satan), Hugo has a somewhat different explanation, but the fundamental reason always remains a moral one, and even more a metaphysical rather than a moral one:

Black stars of the past, entrances to the duration Without dates, without rays, dark and vast, Cycles that precede man, chaos, heavens, A terrible world and full of phenomenal beings O terrible mist where the pre-Adamites Appear-the magus Digs and seeks beyond the colossi, further Than the facts of which heaven is presently witness(it almost seems like Hugo knows Hoerbiger).

The monstrous dead centuries under the giant centuries

(all this before man; then, after other human centuries). Evil had filtered into man. From where? Through the idol; through the bitter opening dug Into the dark human soul by a terrible cult These dark ages worshipped the specter of Isis Lilith. Then Noah, followed by his family, entered the Ark, And a thoughtful God slid across the bolt from the outside.

Bellamy, Hoerbiger’s principal English disciple, maintains that the

The Spiritual Side and Conclusion | 161

degeneration, far from having caused the catastrophe, in fact followed it. Men became evil and cannibalistic because the destruction of their civilization plunged them into fear and need. Plato had already said that the concern for material necessities destroyed sophistication. But behind the fairly questionable moral side there exists a much deeper desire in man. Divine vengeance in response to crime can serve, if need be, as a fairly basic cause. But what man especially wants is the certainty that a different world will intervene in his world. Man wants there to be a “spiritual” world, and that this world of the gods intervene here on earth. Man alone is not happy with himself or earth. He wants beings superior to himself, gods, God, and that these gods, or God, govern the Earth, even if it means severely punishing it. He does not want to be alone on a small, unknown planet. This explains Montezuma’s state of mind. The gods told him that he was going to die; neither he nor the Aztecs behaved badly; there was no sin to atone for. The empire is prosperous, the people happy: they would fight heroically for their chief. But the gods had spoken. Montezuma would not defend himself. He would let his people die. Obedience to the gods was greater than life and victory. Man needs the existence of the gods more than his own life. And, this is the most decisive proof that the gods existed: the gods destroy empires and men. Bossuet would use this proof throughout his history, and would consider it optimistic. Man’s greatest desire is there exist a spiritual world that is greater than he. Thus, the Zohar created seven spiritual worlds that can all have an impact on our own. Thus, H.P. Blavatsky constructed (or described, since she learned about them) six invisible worlds in addition to our own. Thus, we saw men shaped on Earth by the influence of the moon and sudden mutations caused by its proximity. But this is not enough: men’s minds also have to come from the moon. The savages of Malekula as well as H.P. Blavatsky accept and confirm the lunar origins of our ancestors. Victor Hugo goes even further: he discovers solar souls that come not only from the moon, but also from the planets of our system-and why not farther away?

162 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

“Why would not the astral atom exist? “Complete one universe with another. Bring the central fire to the planet-does this mysterious function not exist? “What is a genius? Would it not be a cosmic soul?” (William Shakespeare)

“The sun is both the beginning and the end of all the great geniuses who came one after the other to inhabit inferior spheres for a certain period of time. The Moon, the Earth, Saturn, Venus, etc.” (Uzanne, Propos) For Hugo, children came directly from these superior worlds to live among us:

The child wishes to see again Cherubim, Ariel, His friends, Puck, Titiana, the fairies This earth is so ugly when one has come from heaven, Jeanne sleeps, she lets, oh poor banished angel, Her small, sweet soul go on in infinityShe is looking elsewhere besides on earthThese paradises, open in darkness and this Passing of the stars that motion to the children to be good.

Lamartine says the same: Man is a fallen god who remembers the heavens. and:

My soul is a ray of light and love Which escaped from its divine home for a day, Aspires to rise once again to its sacred origins. This aspiration, expressed so purely by the poets, is that which gives life to all the legends about Atlantis. Men and women want to be persuaded of the existence of a spiritual world because they wish to be a

The Spiritual Side and Conclusion | 163

part of it. The certainty of divine intervention in past catastrophes is a gauge of the certainty of eternal life. It is not a price too high to pay to submit to countless calamities. Therefore, man deeply needs to extend human existence: into the past to convince himself; into the future to open doors; into parallel worlds that he calls spiritual; into adventure. He seeks all this in the legends of Atlantis, as elsewhere. Thus we find ourselves before the ultimate problem: What does desire prove? What does human need prove? Our desire that something be true, is it proof that this thing is not true? On the contrary, it is easier to imagine that a need exists within us only because there exists outside of ourselves something that satisfies this need. Why would we be hungry if there was nothing in the world such as it is that would satisfy our hunger? In evolutionary terms, we would have lost this desire or hunger a long time ago if it did not correspond to anything. Sexual needs, are they not dependent on the existence of another sex? Why would we have spiritual needs if they did not correspond to anything? This does not mean that the image created in us to accompany or guide the desire is necessarily right. We know only too well the frequent falseness of our imaginings. But the mistake we are making in no way invalidates the reality targeted by desire. We could say that need would not exist if nothing in the world corresponded to it. The experience gained from repeating the same mistake too often has caused some overly eager minds to conclude prematurely and with certainty that “the spiritual world” does not exist. On the contrary, we can see that an error in imagination very often diminishes reality and does not exaggerate it. For example, in seeking the imaginary Indies, Columbus discovered America and quadrupled the size of the earth-through error and desire. Because an idea is originally “psychological,” because we can see its

164 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

source in human desire, is it wrong? On the contrary. Because a fact is legendary, is it wrong? On the contrary. On the contrary, we need to learn how to recognize, behind all these errors and all these imaginings, the door that leads to realities that are more beautiful than our illusions. Therefore, it seems to me to be reasonable to accept as being real, in the first instance, the facts to which the evolution of the myth that we examined offers a lasting permanence. And, these are spiritual facts. I will summarize this in the most abstract form possible. Human existence on earth is much older than current evidence can prove. The period in which we live and that we know somewhat is unima­ ginable except as part of a whole that stretches much further than we can see into the future as well as into the past. An explanation of our existence begins to seem possible only if we introduce a moral or “spiritual” element. Therefore, the world is infinitely more complex, in both past and future, in all spatial directions, and emotionally, morally and spiritually, than the image our intelligence is able to produce. However, we can only accept as valid the images that our critical intelligence recognizes as reasonable. If we apply these principles to the problems and desires created in us by the myths of Atlantis, where would that leave us? For my part (each one of us can only speak for himself), I am now reasonably and, moderately, convinced of the following points:

-that civilization is older than we can scientifically confirm; and was often linked to simple, material conditions that have left no trace, for civilization is, above all, spiritual. -that several moons existed before our own and they crashed into the Earth, and that our own will do the same; -that there were periods of gigantism on Earth, whether plant, animal or human; and that physical evolution, like civilization, has had its ups and downs-moreover, not simultaneously, over the entire Earth; -that in the Andes and in several other places around the globe, there were civilized centres that were extremely old; and that the phenomena of the Paleolithic age are more declines than beginnings;

The Spiritual Side and Conclusion | 165

-that the legends about Atlantis and earlier human worlds correspond to realities not yet completely forgotten; -that the human mind-or soul-whichever you prefer-extends much further than we know, in time, in space, and in the “imaginary” worlds that we can only glimpse, and that neither the theosophist nor the ideas of the spiritualists should be completely rejected. But I also believe that those who want to go too far into detail risk making considerable mistakes. Man must know how to enjoy his dreams, never to repudiate them, but also never to expect a reality that expresses them entirely as they are. My deepest belief is that reality, known, will be more beautiful than a dream. Bergson told us that the universe was a god-making machine. The impulses that support all the ideas surrounding Atlantis, from Plato to Hoerbiger, attest to man’s desire to become a god.

14.

A SummaryOn the Evidence hat can an ordinary, intelligent man think? On no one question of fundamental interest do the specialists give an unequivocal answer.

W

Despite all the evidence marshalled in this book, at no point can we say that we are absolutely sure. Satellites may have been formed as Hoerbiger says-or as Urey says-or in some other way. The giant bones discovered may have been human-or they may have been simian. The universal legends about giants may have some other origin. The biblical texts are in a special category: I cannot think of any other way in which they can be explained. Or the calendar of Tiahuanaco. Or the gigantic implements described hereafter. We can, therefore-and must-weigh probability and come to conclus­ ions, each thinker for himself. Some thirty years ago, the chief argument against Hoerbiger’s theory was that space was then thought to be absolutely empty. Alexander Bessmertny, in his French edition [1949. L’Atlantide, Payot. I translate from the French] still writes: “Hoerbiger’s theory rests on the hypothesis that interstellar space is filled with hydrogen in an extremely rarefied state. This theory is, therefore, irreconcilable with the astrophysics now in vogue. Hoerbiger’s and Fauth’s doctrine is rejected by astrophysicists and geologists, who sometimes attack it, but more usually simply ignore it.” But Bessmertny’s book is now out of date on the main point:

166

A Summary — On the Evidence | 167

It is nowadays admitted by most astrophysicists that interstellar space is full of rarefied matter-hydrogen or something else. Fred Hoyle of Cambridge goes so far as to speak of the planets “tunnelling” through it. [F. Hoyle: The Nature of the Universe. Blackwell, Oxford, 1950.] Harold C. Urey in his most impressive book on the origins of the planets speaks of “dust clouds” more or less filling space, of “planetesimals” and planets [The Planets, Their Origin and Development. Oxford University Press, 1952] formed out of these dust clouds, and asks, for example (p. 11): “What state have these stars been in during the nearly entire 3 x 108 years? Perhaps they have been highly dispersed dust clouds of low luminosity at such low temperatures that the carbon cycle is inoperative.” “The solar globule of dust and gas starting with a diameter of a light year contracted....” (p. 105) The theory that the moon “was formed from the earth has been very appealing to many people” (p. 25), but owing to Professor Jeffreys’ work has now become untenable (p. 94). “Jeffreys showed that Sir George Darwin’s theory was physically impossible! The old objections against Hoerbiger’s idea that outer space is not empty are therefore abandoned nowadays. It is time for some up-to-date scientist to reopen the subject. In Urey’s view, the origin of planets is non-solar and non-earthly-which is exactly what Hoerbiger maintained. In Hoyle’s view (which is, I believe, generally accepted) the moon spirals away from the earth, not towards it. I admit to not understanding how or why and I am told that higher mathematics are necessary. But it appears that this movement away from the earth will cease at a certain point and that the moon will then spiral inwards-so all may be as Hoerbiger predicts. On such points we can only await the further fiats of science, but the overall picture Hoerbiger gives remains the only comprehensible one. Even if all this should prove to be wrong in twenty or thirty years’ time (which seems to be a very long lifetime for an idea in these fields) we shall remain grateful to Hoerbiger for being the first to give us a reasonable picture-a departure platform which enabled us to travel back thirty thousand years, back to Tiahuanaco and the giants. On Tiahuanaco, too, modern science is not helpful. The new methods of dating archeological remnants are inapplicable; neither the study of

168 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

radiation nor the fluorine treatment are of any use. [See on these methods: R. Moore, Man, Time and Fossils, Cape, 1954.] Fluorine gives only a relative age and here we have nothing to relate any one object to; it does not operate in tropical regions-or in regions that have been tropical. Necessary radiations appear to last only for a time; Carbon 14 is most helpful for dating within even twenty or forty years, but for no earlier period than eleven thousand years ago. Also, as we have pointed out, it seems beyond question that the site at Tiahuanaco has been occupied by human beings, in any case, for two thousand or so years before Christ. And therefore many objects may yet be found there and dated with more recent connotations without proving anything about all the earlier, undated evidence. We have, therefore, many theories on the Titicaca dates. Vaillant [Vaillant: op. cit.] at first gave A.D. 300, but while his book was printing a new theory put the date back to roughly 500 B.C. H.U. Doering gives A.D. 700 to 800. [Heinrich U. Doering: The Art of Ancient Peru. Zwemmer, London, 1952.] W.C. Bennett puts Chavin, the oldest culture in the Andes, between 1200 B.C. and 400 B.C., but speaks of a “...Peruvian complex of the Tiahuanaco styles from one thousand to one thousand three hundred A.D.” [Wendell C. Bennett: Ancient Art of the Andes, New York Museum of Modern Art, 1954.] But this is contradicted by the oldest records we have from the natives at the time of the conquest; and even by the natives of today. It does not explain the unique features in the architecture, as described by Bellamy,

nor the gigantism of the statues; nor an aesthetic approach quite different from all others in South America; nor the calendar dates and the cycle of two hundred and eighty-nine days; nor the symbolism which is utterly different from other symbolisms known to us-and may be based on insectolatry. [See on this D. Saurat: La Religion des geants et la civilisation des insectes, Denoel, Paris, 1955-in which I bring forward a complementary interpretation of the calendar as a magic instrument utilizing the power of

A Summary — On the Evidence | 169

the insect world for regulating the course of the stars. In their latest book, Bellamy and Allan study the use of animal forms or bird forms as symbols.] In fact, it solves none of the problems we have been considering here.

In Tiahuanaco, we have evidence of a mentality to be found nowhere else (except in a degraded form) and that is the main problem. An enormous gap of time must be postulated to make any explanation con­ ceivable. Should it be absolutely proved that Tiahuanaco flourished about the Christian era, we should then be presented with a worse problem than the archaeological: the psychological one: how could such a people have flourished at that time among other South American cultures whose dating is fairly well established. How shall we explain the calendar-out of gear as it is with all other calendars-but adequate for thirty thousand years ago? And how shall we explain the gigantic statues and the expression on their faces? So we are not satisfied with the present conclusions of orthodox astro­ nomical science; and we are not satisfied with South American archaeo­ logy. In both cases we prefer Hoerbiger and Bellamy-allowing for all necessary and reasonable corrections. Moreover, Hoerbiger’s and Bellamy’s work has produced a general theory of the origin of folk-lore-and legends. Hoerbiger had given mainly-the astronomical and geological foundation; Bellamy’s original and valuable contribution is mainly ethnographical; and in this book we have specially brought forward the theory of the giants. We have adduced as evidence:

the Bible-and Near East archaeology; the Greeks and the Egyptians; Mexico; Malekula; savages everywhere and even in Europe. The demonstration may be proved weak on this or that particular

170 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

point, but I fail to see how such an array of evidence can be altogether unconnected with reality. Lastly there is the archaeological evidence, or rather the fossil and historical remnants; and the existence of giants today. The findings of Koenigswald and Weidenreich listed in our preliminary note are not contested. There is again a tendency to ignore them. For instance, Professor W.E. Ie Gros Clark of Oxford, writes in a footnote (p. 105) [The Fossil Evidence for Human Evolution. University of Chicago Press, 1955.]: “A brief reference should be made to the few isolated teeth referred by von Koenigswald to the genus gigantopithecus. This author regards the genus as probably the latest survivor of an Asiatic stock which more or less parallels the human line, while Weidenreich took the view that it represents a giant hominid. Through the kindness of my friend Professor von Koenigswald, I have been able to examine these interesting speci­ mens. But while recognizing that the molars show certain morphological characters, suggestive of the Hominidae as a whole, it seems to me that they present so many aberrant features that their precise nature is for the present indeterminate.” Such is the latest verdict of science-“indeterminate.” Singularly incon­ clusive. We must then risk the ironical look in the scholar’s as well as in the scientist’s eye-remembering that scholars and scientists often change their minds, and love nothing better than the pulverization of previous theories. Now we come to our last piece of evidence-evidence which, let me naively confess, seems to me to clinch the matter. The giant implements recently discovered in Syria, in Morocco and elsewhere, seem inexplicable except on the theory that gigantic human beings made and used them some three hundred thousand years ago. Even if Hoerbiger, Bellamy and myself are entirely in error, other things, undreamt of, have happened on the face of the earth not so very different from our imaginings. There may have been no Hoerbigerian satellites, no Bellamy savages, and no giants-but there must have been planets most mysteriously formed, human beings full of inconceivable tricks and ideas, and monsters fifteen feet high using highly complicated tools and looking astonishingly like men.

A Report on Gigantic Implements Found in South Morocco Louis Burkhalter

[Formerly delegate of the Societe de Prehistoire Frangaise in the Near East (cf. Inventaire des stations prehistoriques du Proche Orient, 1950, Revue du Musee de Beyrouth.)] uring the last few years, the attention of prehistorians has been drawn to the discovery here and there of prehistoric implements of enormous or “gigantic” size. Astonishment has been aroused, but as yet no general study of these implements has been made. No proper classification has been put forward. What, in this context, does the word “gigantic” mean? “Any given tool, whose large dimensions or extraordinarily heavy weight makes its use or even handling difficult or impossible by ordinary men.” Can such implements serve the needs of normal men, or must we suppose that only men of a “gigantic” size could use them? Let us state first that we find it impossible to accept the “easy” explan­ ations: chance, unknown function, votive offerings, etc. It is not conceiv­ able that men of the paleolithic age shaped such tools by pure chance. The difficulties in the cutting, and the finish of the work allow of no doubt: The gigantic tools have been prepared as tools. We do not need to consider, either, the votive or symbolic value of such tools, because it goes against our most elementary ideas on the behaviour of Paleolithic men to attribute to them a tendency to symbolism, which is a characteristic of decadent periods. As for “an unknown use,” this formula is merely an evasion. Why should then those implements have exactly the same shape and be meant quite obviously for the same use, as innumerable others whose use is

D

171

172 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

perfectly well understood? To this day, as far as our knowledge goes, all such gigantic tools belong to the Acheulean period, and are found in the Mediterranean area. We have found: 1. A site rich in gigantic tools at Sasnych (Syria) some five miles from Safitah in the alluvial grounds of Nohr Abrache. Bifaces of abnormal dimensions (30 cm. long) weighing 2 kg. 5 to 3 kg. 5, not designed to be handled by the ordinary person because of their dimensions and weightwhich is far too great for the hand. They hardly seem capable of use by the men who, a few miles from the same site, used Acheulean bifaces 10 to 12 cm. long. This was the discovery that started us on our present researches. Other similar implements were found in Syria, in both public and private collections. Recently, Captain R. Lafanechere has reported similar discoveries in Morocco: bifaces of Acheulean manufacture, of which the dimensions and weight were, in an average case: 4 kg. 150, length 32 cm., width 22, thickness max. 7 cm. See R. Lafanechere-Becherches de prehistoire dans la region du Bani-DraaBulletin de la Societe de prehistoire du Maroc, 5 and 6, 1952, et 2 semestre 1954: biface gigantesque de Ain Fritissa et gisement de Tasateft. In one case, the weight was over 8 kg. Only giants of nine to twelve feet high could handle such tools. In one site, three hundred and fifty pieces of similar sizes were found. I wish to thank Professor Saurat for allowing me to publish this information at the end of his book: There is no doubt in my mind of the high probability, practically the certainty of the existence of gigantic human beings during the Acheulean period, some three hundred thousand years ago. This opens up many problems. I personally do not accept Hoerbiger’s other theories. But if these gigantic tools were used at all we must postulate the existence of giants. Several other hypotheses exist as to the existence in the past of giant races-M.P. Millet, starting from the idea of polygenesis, admits as likely the existence of several humanoid phyllums: two out of Africa, one of which migrated to the Far East, related to the Pithecanthropus and the Sinanthropus (Africanthropus of Nia-Ryansa), Pithecanthropus of

Gigantic Implements Found in South Morocco | 173

Ngoudong (1 m 95) Meganthropus of Java (2 m 25) Giganthropus (2 m 75), etc. This phyllum has totally disappeared. The second phyllum remains in Africa, in a process of evolution towards homo sapiens; at the start we find the group Parenthropus and now specially Plesianthropus-this went all over the world, but much mixed (2 m 60 to 3 m 50). This theory admits within each formal type three mutations:

1. Dwarfs near the point of origin of the race. 2. Giants which appear late and disappear early. 3. Medium height mutations which have the greatest survival chances. Another hypothesis, which is also very attractive, is based on biological mutations related to both quantitative and qualitative variations in the solar emission of infrared rays-and connected with biochemical variations (say endocrinian or neuro-endocrinian) and biophysical variations in the human body: specially the secretion of thyreotype hormone, which causes a tendency to gigantism. A detailed study of this is in preparation. There is no room here for a full presentation of these theories which deserve a detailed explanation, but we wanted to state that the existence of gigantic human races at the Acheulean period may be considered as scientifically established. (The preliminary note to this volume gives a list of remains at present discovered.) We wish to congratulate Professor Saurat who has put the problem before the public-avowedly from a special angle-allowing thus a broader discussion to begin which will lead perhaps to some new advance in our knowledge of primeval humanity. [Add to this: In the museum at Libourne (Gironde) can be seen an Acheulean biface coming from St-Germain la Riviere and weighing 7 kg. 500. In many museums in many countries, additional evidence could easily be found, cf. Anthropologic, tome 51, no. 3-4, 1947. In Science et Vie (Dec. 1956) it is reported that: “Dr. Pei Wen Chung, of the Academy of Sciences of Pekin, has published the result of excavations in the provinces of Kwangsi and Canton: 40 teeth of Giganthropus have been discovered

174 | Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants

in geological formations 400,000 to 600,000 years old. These men-apes or apes only, of a height of 2.4 metres, belong roughly to the period of the Sinanthropus and the Java-man, or perhaps to an earlier one.]

The Religion of the Giants and The Civilization of the Insects Table of Contents Introduction/ 177

1. The Pre-eminence of the Termites / 181 2. The Termites of Tiahuanaco-Astral Governance / 186 3. The Transformation of Man into Insect-Easter Island / 197 4. The Death of the Inseminator / 205 5. Memories of the White Goddess / 218 6. The Virgin Mother / 225 7. The Mother’s Suffering / 229 8. Chastity and Mysticism / 231 9. Telepathy / 236 10. Pyrenean Catharism and Folklore / 240 11. Metamorphoses-Life Under the Earth, etc. / 245 12. Dreams / 249 13. Mythology and Poetry / 255 14. Falling and Surpassing-The Resurrection / 259 15. The City and the Nation-Ant Democracy-Parallels / 264 16. From “Homo sapiens” to “Homo faber” / 273 17. Discourse on the Method-St. Paul and the Men of Science-Finalism / 278 Conclusion / 285

Appendix I / 294 Appendix II / 296

Introduction hundred thousand years before Jesus Christ, the giants built temples in which they worshipped insects and, without knowing it, the great religions of Antiquity inherited the beliefs and rites thus established. Through a long, slow decline, only fragments of the religion of the giants were thus able to reach us. At the same time, a spirituality that we called Christian exerted its dominating influence, from the Gospels to the very instincts of insects, radiating action, feelings and ideas, and constructing the entire cosmos from within. Through a gradual deterioration, the religion of Christ reaches the most distant parts of the world, whether in time or space. These two currents are nothing more than the ebb and flow of the same essential force, polarizing the history of the world. pproximately three

A

*

The first human societies formed amidst highly and intelligently organized insect societies. Africa, where History finds in Egypt its first coherent facts, was almost entirely occupied by termites for three hundred million years. In the beginning, there were, without a doubt, thousands more termite cities than there were thousands of men at a time when human beings were not yet numerous. In addition, it was much easier to study apian societies useful to man out in the open every day than the underground cities of the imperialist insects. It is not so much the animals that man needed to fear: He fought them armed with his sword, his spear, his arrow, and his courage. However, man was largely defenceless against the termite, the ant, and the grasshopper. These plagues attacked his means of survival, his food, his shelter and his land, more than they attacked him. It was a much more difficult war to fight and win. The Bible tells of the grasshoppers which occupied Egypt; no vegetation remained. Initially, man had to retake from

177

178

The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

the insects a small parcel of land that would belong to him. Under these circumstances, it is reasonable to research what influences were exerted, how men mimicked nature while trying to organize human society, and what ideas were present in the human mind trying to understand the world.

We must, naturally, avoid generalizing. There are five or six thousand species of termites. More than fifteen thousand species of ants. More than one hundred and eighty thousand known species of bees, of which only five hundred live in societies, and each species has a different culture, a different organization, a different body. There are four to five million species of insects known to man. There are insects that do not metamorphose, others that only partially metamorphose. But we are interested here not so much in entomology, but rather in understanding human ideas-how insects and humans resemble one another-and what contacts took place or influences were exerted, especially with respect to early human civilizations. We can only guess what man could have known or thought during five hundred thousand years, another five hundred thousand years separating the last of those years from us today. And these dates are conservative-according to some theories, we need to go back fifteen million years to find the first contact between man and insect-to a time when early man found himself confronted by giant, intelligent insects [see Appendix: Edmond Perrier. La Terre avant Thistoire (Earth Before History), Albin Michel, 1954, edited by Jean Pivoteau], organized in cities and masters of the world. It was only thirty years ago that the idea of establishing a relationship between insect behaviour and human phenomena, in particular religion, was judged by many to be preposterous, even blasphemous. But ideas have greatly changed. The greatest of the English experts in the study of ants, Derek Wragge Morley, was invited to speak at the Institute for Social Anthropology at Oxford, and he writes in conclusion to his latest work [Derek Wragge Morley. The Evolution ofan Insect Society, Allen, Unwin, London, 1954]: “It is clear that the same elements can be found in our own behaviour

Introduction | 179

and in that of ants. They are different in form and overcoated with a thick and complex veneer of behaviour and instinct resulting from an evolutionary history different from our own mental development. “Yet, the very existence in both ants and men of these common ele­ ments seems to indicate their significance and their importance as basic functions of the mechanism of social life. “There is, it seems, an essential mechanism in every society, whatever the differences between the individuals that make up one society or another (human society and insect societies), however diverse their origin or divergent their evolution. It would, therefore, be advantageous to reconsider our own behaviour, not in terms of an association of individuals, but rather as a society organized according to social mechan­ isms that are operated, changed, and differentiated by certain qualities within individuals.” I will take the liberty later of citing a few passages written by contemporary experts to prove that all, whether consciously or not, frequently use obvious anthropomorphisms to explain insect behaviour. To do the opposite is only fair.

*

We will see, moreover, that there remain in ancient mythology many signs of a very advanced insect science that existed a very long time ago, and even memories of the time when insects, themselves intelligent giants, had civilizations that, in many ways, resembled our own. Deteriorated or mechanized remains of these insect civilizations are still evident today. If the giants themselves possessed an advanced science during the Tertiary period, since they were certainly in contact with at least the remains of the civilizations of the secondary period, then the fragments of this science, badly interpreted, inevitably, must have been transmitted to man, successor to the giants. Thus, we can define one aspect of religion as the distorted memory of an extinct civilization. The ancient world, in the Egyptian, Mesopotamian or Greek religions, and also, without a doubt, in the religions of India and ancient America, will present us with obvious fragments of memories of the age of the insects.

180 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

For example, the Greeks tell of the emasculated Cronos and how giants were born of the soil fertilized by drops of his blood. This makes no sense if we think of man, however, the male bee is emasculated during fertilization and, from the drops of its sperm preserved by the female bee, are born thousands of insects, and from which millions could be born. Why is it that giants are thus born and not men? Because this fact was discovered and transmitted by the giants. It was only later that men (all the more so because they were Greek) saw that this tale did not apply to them, that man is not created in this way. They attributed it to the giants, to those giants in which Greek men, in all probability, no longer believed. Thus Ra in Egypt, Rama in India, and Marduk in Babylonia, the giants and the white queen of Welsh folklore, and the cycle of the Grail will confirm the theory of the science of the giants and of even older insect civilizations. Thus we will see that a lot of things in human civilization of which we are proud were based on insect societies that existed three hundred million years ago. For example, the cult of the city, which may be destroying us in the form of the cult of the state, was, no doubt, communicated to us by giants who imitated insect societies and who may themselves have been destroyed, one by one, in this same way. But we will also see that there is a secret and universal rhythm within all of cosmic life. The redemptive religions open their doors not only on the distant past, but also on the future of the human race. And beyond the human race itself, the fundamental rhythm expressed in the earthly life of Jesus Christ governs the permanent and spiritual life. Thus can we still be “saved.”

1.

The Pre-Eminence of the Termites ean Feytaud writes [Le Peuple des Termites (People of the Termites'), Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1945]: “With the appearance of man on Earth, dating as it does from a far more recent time than that of his rival, the termite, the very curious analogies that can be drawn between them, from a social standpoint, have led some writers to foresee in Isoptera the direction in which humanity is heading.” “Man and his rival, the termite,” this phrase from a man of science ex­ presses the central theme of this book. However, it may be some consolation to those left depressed by the end of Jean Feytaud’s remark to find discussed here the idea that imitation of the termite took place in the past, and that animality and humanity are, on the contrary, an attempt to escape the (apparent) destiny of the termite. I say “apparent” for we know nothing about the soul of the termite, and it is possible that, from its perspective, it achieved complete success. In any event, it completely achieved the great rule of Pascal: "Le moi est haissable” (The self is detestable). We will come back to this point. But, let us return to man’s appearance on earth. At that moment, the termite had already dominated the earth for about 300 million years. You could say that it owned the earth and, in particular, Africa, which it continues to dominate today. Man is simply tolerated by the termite and has settled in places in which the termite appears to have no interest. Lucien Berland says, “Insects are our fiercest enemies” [Les Insectes et THomme (Insects and Man), Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1948], Moreover, these enemies of man-or these early inhabitants who moved from certain corners of the world that man needed-were, and still are, much better organized than he.

J

181

182 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Even from a spiritual standpoint. From an individual, intellectual perspective, we are not as yet in a position to judge. Politically, termites are much better organized than we; their society would appear to operate in perfect harmony. They submit themselves to an absolute matriarchal monarch. Absolutist regimes are not popular today, but this is because, throughout history, these regimes were unable to make people definitively happy. The Roman Empire was, at times, a complete success; but sooner or later, terrible emperors cause catastrophes and rebellious soldiers destroy the power structure. If we could have a non-belligerent Napoleon who could live forever, or an immortal Augustus or Anthony, or even a simple Marcus Aurelius, we would all be absolutists. Termites solved this problem: their queen lives for many years, over several generations of termites; when she dies, another queen-even another termitary-carries on functioning perfectly. Water, food, the raising of the young, agriculture, defence, all are guaranteed. Regarding internal politics, termites do not have any of our problems. The queen, says Marais, the termite historian who has the greatest compassion for them, governs telepathically and actively for the benefit of all. Regarding external politics, we have a striking example of develop­ ment. Their great enemies are the ants. With the arrival of ants some 150 million years ago, the termites, kings of the earth, suddenly had an extremely aggressive and fearsome rival formidably armed for battle. Termites, peaceful by nature (they do not attack anyone), had to adapt to this new state of affairs. And adapt they did. They even succeeded in carrying out a ploy that the Roman emperors tried, but in vain: after a few successful attempts, the German mercenaries of the Empire could no longer be used against the German enemies of the Empire. The Empire collapsed under the barbaric attacks, mostly because of its German mercenaries. But termites were able to defend themselves, thanks to warrior ants that were especially effective. Indeed, ants live in democracies and normally fight one species against another; while a termite separated from its queen will die, an ant has no

The Pre-Eminence of the Termites | 183

queen. There was no reason for the ants not to fight on behalf of the termites. Therefore, there are termitaries being defended against ant attacks by ant mercenaries in the employ of the termites. These Germanic legions of the Roman Empire are composed of formidable warriors who do not know how to feed, shelter or govern themselves. They only know how to fight. The termites feed, house, and govern them. These good mercenaries adopt the smell of the termitary, which constitutes their “patriotic homeland”; they instantly recognize as being an enemy anything that does not bear the scent of “their” termitary, and set out to exterminate any enemy, especially the other ants that would like to seize the adopted homeland. As a political success, this termite institution exceeds anything that man has ever done, and there is no example of these legions revolting against their hosts. Why call them “masters”? Both sides, legionnaires and termites, are equally content. If they had the mentality of humans (which is not the case), the warriors would think that they are the kings of the termites, and that they are protecting them as part of their sovereign duty. It was, in essence, the situation of the lords and peasants of the Middle Ages. Also, from a moral standpoint, the termite is superior to man. If the great human politicians were right to admire and imitate the termites, the philosophers and priests also saw in the termitary an ideal that exceeded their grasp. First, the individual termite sacrifices itself for the good of the city without hesitating. Workers repair a breach in the wall of the termitary, while, outside, termite warriors risk their lives to protect this work. And, they will fight to the last termite, since behind them a wall is being built that will prevent them from retreating, forcing them to remain outside to face an unavoidable death: ants attack by the thousands, despite their losses, and massacre without fail all the warriors left outside. If need be, man knows how to do this sometimes, but rarely: for the termite, this is normal behaviour. No termite has ever been seen escaping and trying to re-enter the city. But there is much more; so much perhaps that earliest man failed to understand; we cannot say. There may have existed, at the beginning of our time, wise humans who were wiser than those of today.

184 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Once in a season, the entire termitary is offered up, and sometimes lost, as a sacrifice to the termite species. This happens when the male and female termites must leave the city and establish new ones. Insemination can only occur outside. Thus the workers, whose sacred need it is to maintain intact the sealed defences of the city so that no enemy can enter, create themselves the very breaches in the walls that will allow the young to leave to reproduce. The city is delivered to the enemy. This would be the same as if we were inclined to sacrificing our homeland for the good of mankind. We are far from even contemplating this thought. And, finally (what a lesson for theorists of matriarchal theocracies that we are obliged to postulate at the start) the termite only exists as part of the queen’s mind. “The individual worker or soldier does not possess an individual instinct. It forms a part of the organism separate from itself, of which the queen is the psychological centre. The queen has the power, call it instinct if you will, to influence the soldiers and the workers in such a way that it renders them capable of carrying out their collective duties; as soon as the queen is destroyed, all the “instincts” of the soldiers and workers immed­ iately cease. “Millions of subjects never have any contact with her. They never see her. But as soon as she is destroyed, the community is destroyed.” [E.N. Marais, The Soul of the White Ant, London, Methuen, 1937] “The individual termite has no feelings. It does not know suffering, hunger or thirst. If there is a famine or if there is a shortage of water, only in the queen’s cell is any suffering felt. “The most powerful drive of all, sexual drive, does not exist in the individual. The only remnant of independence that seems to exist in termites is in the signals sent by the soldiers and to which the workers respond when the termitary is in danger, has suffered damage or is in need of food. But this does not prove the existence of an individual psyche. Except in the ability to move, there is no trace of psyche. All activity is directed by the signals emanating from the queen’s cell.” Thus, the queen rules the immense city by way of telepathic means; Marais compares her to the human brain, but while the brain is connected to other parts of the body through the nerves, it is only through psychical means that the queen directs the most distant workers.

The Pre-Eminence of the Termites | 185

The oldest known civilizations are all, certainly in theory and in practice, as far as is possible, based on moral and spiritual facts. The pharaoh, the kings of Mesopotamia, the Persian potentates and, without a doubt, the chiefs who drew and sculpted in the caves of Cantabres, Ariege and Perigord, used, or believed they were using, telepathy and coercive magic. They carried out or believed they were carrying out remotely, without physical communication, actions conceived and desired by them in their supreme solitude. Was this a desperate attempt to imitate the queen of the termitary? Or a remnant of an old tradition, an ancient science that man possessed long ago and may still possess in fragments? In any event, it was an undertaking similar to the effective actions of the queen who rules from a distance. The ideal of human sovereigns remains the inconceivable power of the white goddess of the termitary. And in all the traditions still maintained among the Chinese, Welsh, Inuit and South Africans, we still find traces and memories of, as well as a longing for, the reign of the white goddess, queen of the termites.

2.

The Termites of Tiahuanaco Astral Governance giant calendar of Tiahuanaco, described in Atlantis and the Giants [Editions J’ai lu, no. 187, from the collection “LAventure Mysterieuse"] offers proof of the “giant” phase in the evolution of insect worship. Obviously, our immediate ancestors of the European Paleolithic age of 45,000 years ago did not discover insects. Since among the Greeks and Egyptians we find nothing more than deformed and degenerate parallels of insect behaviour, we need to seek among more intelligent and betterinformed beings to find the source or, at least, the way in which these beliefs were communicated. Kiss and Ashton discovered how the calendar is organized, but at least at the time Bellamy described it, no one had yet found a way to explain the symbols themselves. The theory of insect worship provides this explanation. The primary symbol representing the month is a frontal view of the head of the queen termite; the symbol reappears for each month and is surrounded by an image of the termitary. The image for the tenth month also depicts a giant standing on top of the termitary. The picture for the seventh month shows the male termite (the king, if you will) touring the queen’s chamber. The principal features in the central image for each month differ from those of the human face because of two organs located on each side of the “nose,” and which are longer than this nose. On the outer side of each one of these organs is a clearly defined, truncated figure with wings or palps. With the addition of these appendices, the figure tends to resemble the human face stylistically. The nose, eyes and mouth are clearly defined. But the somewhat human stylization begins with the face of the queen he

T

186

The Termites of Tiahuanaco | 187

termite. The two lateral organs represent the mandibles; what appear to be winged organs are the palps (or perhaps the frontal view of the forelegs). The diagrams borrowed from Marais (The Soul of the White Ant) are convincing. Another characteristic is the indentation at the highest point on the forehead, which is the piping of the corselet on the head of the insect.

The description that Marais provides of the royal cell of the termitary is also the description of the month illustrated on the Tiahuanaco calendar:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Queen (Marais, p.84) Indentation : corselet on the head Eyes (queen) Trunk and mouth Mandibles Legs viewed from the front

188 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Soldier (more frequently sighted) The 2 mandibles are more developed. The nose-mouth is longer among some species. The mouth is sometimes a long syringe.

(Marais, p. 127)

Marais, p. 91 6. May be the drop of food brought to the queen by each worker. Everything is stylized to look more human. There are two eyes, a nose, a mouth and two ears. This does not explain, however, the 2 mandibles (4).

“The queen was enormous; the king, who was naturally the size of the winged termite, was constantly on the gigantic body of the queen or close by.” Let us note that on the calendar, this king is the only winged representative, for only he is winged outside, in nature, as the regular termites do not have any wings, and the king and queen lose theirs during mating. Therefore, the king can be seen to be winged in the outside world, and to distinguish him from the other insects in the royal palace, he is

The Termites of Tiahuanaco | 189

portrayed as having wings and also as being larger than the soldiers, and even bigger than the workers. Marais’s photographs show the king on the body of the queen; but he is also seen, as depicted on the calendar, touring the queen’s chamber. “Nothing in the king’s behaviour explained what he was doing, although I took detailed notes of all his movements.” (Indeed, the reproductive function is accomplished on the first day and does not need to be repeated. The king is there to create a psychical sexual tension, the telepathic source, to which we will return later in this book.) “A multitude of workers of the lowest class were constantly moving on top and around the queen.” (This mass is represented by the lines of a labyrinth that surround the queen, enter her body, and protect her from the soldier termites.) “Immediately in front of the head was a small opening that served as an entrance and exit for the workers, too narrow, of course, for the queen.” (We will return to this entrance in a childhood dream, discussed below; the child was one of the worker termites that fed the queen.) Lastly, “the queen’s cell was surrounded, inside, by a circle consisting of the biggest soldiers [...], the members of this bodyguard were, most of the time, completely immobile. “What could be the purpose of these bodyguards? No enemy could have reached this point without being arrested by them, for it would have had to travel along kilometres of passageways in which it would have met with countless soldiers of the same class, who would have fought excessively hard and using all means available to defend every centimetre of the territory. If the intruder had succeeded in getting to this point, this circle of guards would have been completely useless. I add that I never succeeded in provoking these guards into attacking me. I touched them with my finger, moved them around without any of them biting me, while any soldier, situated anywhere else in the termitary would have bitten me immediately.” As on the calendar, the soldiers face outwards. Marais then goes on to describe an incident that caused a piece of hardened clay to fall on top of the queen. “Immediately, in the remotest areas of the termitary (which can be found 40,50 and 100 metres from the royal centre), the work stopped. The big soldiers and the workers gathered together in different locations.

190 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Without a doubt, within a few minutes the shock to the queen had been felt as far away as the furthest points from the centre (while an insect would have needed hours to reach the point). Then the queen recovered. “Just as quickly,” explains Marais, “I could hardly follow, normal activity resumed everywhere.” Thus, through repeated experiments of this type, Marais established the existence of telepathic communications between the queen and the most distant termites, sometimes hundreds of meters away. This is the key to the behaviour of the male and the guards. The male is not there to fertilize. The soldiers of the queen’s guard are not there to fight. The whole system, including the motionless queen, the king wandering on top of the queen or around her and the guards, a swarming mass of workers busy feeding and caring for the queen with their weapons turned outwards, is a complicated telepathic apparatus. It is a kind of transmitter of waves that makes even the remotest individual elements of the termitary function as they should. The king embodies for the queen the sexual forces used on a plane other than sexual: a psychical plane. The soldiers standing in a circle embody the combative forces used for something other than fighting. Marais compares the termitary to the body of a huge animal of which we see nothing, not the bones, not the muscles or the nerves, because it is an invisible telepathic wave that offers coherence and organization to the whole termitary. The queen is the central substance of the brain. The king and the soldiers represent the peripheral organs, the cortex, etc., which are essential to the termitary’s proper operation. Marais, who only thinks about the physiological, wonders what purpose the king and soldiers serve, and finds no answer. In effect, the answer lies in the psychical: we have said, and we will see again, that the unused physical forces, sexual or combative, are transformed into psychical forces and produce verifiable phenomena. With thanks to Marais and his valuable findings, and to Kiss and Ashton for the indispensable deciphering of the calendar, we still need to examine, besides all they have studied, the role of the calendar; much more than a calendar, it is an act of cosmic magic.

The Termites of Tiahuanaco | 191

From what we know about the Aztecs, without a doubt the degenerate representatives of an ancient civilization, but who were much more in touch with the great traditions than we are, we can be sure of an attempt (and who knows? perhaps a successful attempt) by the great races to use psychical forces that we are just beginning to guess at today. Or rather, of which we are once again aware, since our predecessors-the ancients, the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians, the Indians, the Greeks, and the Europeans of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance-always knew they existed. It was only starting in the 17th and 18th centuries that our required research in the physical sciences prevented us from recognizing other areas of activity. The ancients, the Aztecs and the giants used psychical forces. No other insect can compare to the termite in this respect. Ants do not have a queen. Bees do not keep the male. The complex: sexual excitement plus combative excitement only exist among termites. No other insect has this kind of force and this kind of organization. Add the accumulation of the centuries: termites have possessed this force for 300 million years. Ants have evolved over 50 million years. Therefore, from the time of the giants of Tiahuanaco, the termite has been the greatest producer of psychical forces. The calendar is a magical work through which the strength of the termitary is captured and used by the giants. This is what the giant standing atop the termitary in the two solstice months represents. In his hand he is holding a human head-symbol of the captured force-as man’s weakness, without a doubt, is that he always believes that he is intelligent and, therefore, gives a human face to intelligent creatures such as the sphinx, centaurs, winged bulls, and so on. The giant captured the force of the termitary and, with the help of what appears to be a trumpet held in his other hand, summons his people-or probably, directs outwards the captured force that is coursing through him. But outwards to where? The answer is simple, since the whole monument is a calendar. Man, the king-god, the giant-magus, must keep the stars moving that rule the Earth. Just like the pharaoh made the waters of the Nile rise every year by using his magical force. Just like the African or Polynesian sorcerers still

192 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

make the rains fall. This function of the priests was so important that any who missed a ball during their ritual games and dropped one of the globes tossed around in the air during a game was put to death. This is based on Spanish eyewitness accounts. Indeed, he who was clumsy risked disturbing a star on its course. Therefore, it is easy to see that the forces of the twelve termitaries captured by the giants were used regularly to move the stars in the heavens. All our different astrologies since are silly children’s games compared to this active science that made man responsible for the destiny of the stars and, therefore, the destiny of all creatures. The calendar was not made to record time and the movement of the stars, but to create time and govern the movement of the stars. Man assumed his responsibilities. Above each termitary is a series of three winged figures, which represent the phases of the sun or moon, the night or day. These figures are winged because the stars fly across the sky. There are three of them per month to indicate the variations of that time. Thus, it becomes evident that the psychical force captured by the giant with the trumpet is directed upwards to regulate the course of the satellites and the sun. It was, in effect, highly necessary to regulate in particular the course of the moon, since it was possible to calculate when it would fall to the earth. But, before falling, there would be a time when the moon would be stationary, at which point it would revolve at the same rate as the earth, providing man with a time limit. Therefore, in all likelihood, the psychical force served to maintain the moon at this fortunate distance, delaying the catastrophe as long as possible. The symbols of the calendar are thus all explained: The great central termitary with an almost human face embodies all the forces; The twelve termitaries, which represent the months, are twelve months of production; The giants with trumpets represent man’s ability to capture the forces directed upwards, in the same way the orchestra conductor can direct the sound;

The Termites of Tiahuanaco | 193

The winged figures represent the moon and the sun in their monthly and daily phases. It is also likely that the entire temple, of which the calendar is nothing more than the gate, represented the termitary. The photograph showing the whole calendar with the elongated mound in the middle and the pillars standing like soldiers posted around it, surprisingly resembles the photograph of the termitary, with the queen, immense, in the centre and surrounded by soldiers. This large-scale representation laid out in a magical pattern is in harmony with everything that we know about the workings of black magic or white. First, a model is made of the object or the being to be controlled. Then the ceremonies representing the action to be carried out on the object are performed. Thus, the sorcerers continue to make human figurines for bewitching and insert pins to kill the victim. Inversely, the gigantic image of the termitary built to resemble a temple must have been a sacred place where ceremonies conducted by priests and the people increased the magical force captured from the insects. It is easy to visualize the crowds of the faithful moving around the central mount, bearing offerings, just like the worker termites do for their queen, the soldier priests posted on the pillars around the periphery and maintaining order like the warriors of the royal guard; and some great priest repre­ senting the king ritually walking on the mound. Thus, human rites reproduced, on a giant scale, insect rites. Fortunately, irrefutable proof in support of this interpretation is provided by an unexpected source. The famous Gurdjieff [See Louis Pauwels, Monsieur Gurdjieff (Mr. Gurdjieff), Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1954] had, it is said, drawn his conclusions mostly from Tibet, at the opposite ends of the earth from Tiahuanaco. According to Hoerbiger, Tibet was one of the five great islands of civilization at the end of the tertiary period. Gurdjieff’s Tibetan evidence is, therefore, very persuasive. It is perhaps this message that is the most important part of what Gurdjieff had to offer. He reports (p. 83) [G.I. Gurdjieff, All and Everything, Harcourt, New York, 1950]: “This commission (architect angels, creators of the solar system) having calculated all the known facts, came to the conclusion that, although

194 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

fragments projected far from the planet Earth could maintain their current positions for a time, in the future, because of what we call ‘Tastartoonarian’ movements, these satellite fragments may deviate from their position and cause a great number of irreparable disasters. “[...] the Most High Commission, having then calculated all the facts at hand, and also all that might happen in the future, came to the conclusion that although the fragments of the planet Earth might maintain themselves for the time being in their existing positions, yet in view of certain so-called ‘Tastartoonarian displacements’ conjectured by the Commission, they might in the future leave their position and bring about a large number of irreparable calamities both for this system ‘Ors’ and for other neighboring solar systems.” “Therefore, the high commissioners decided to take certain measures to ward off this eventuality. “The most effective measure, they decided, would be to transmit constantly to these wayward fragments (satellites) from the planet Earth sacred vibrations called ‘askokin’ to keep them in their place. “There were two fragments, two satellites, and this would explain why there are three figures above each termitary on the Tiahuanaco calendar: two moons and a sun. “The largest fragment was called Loonderperzo and the smallest Anulios, and more recently, the largest adopted the name moon and the name of the smallest was gradually forgotten (it was, moreover, invisible to man).” [Notice that Gurdjieff is not a Hoerbigerian; he believes that the moon has a tendency to move away from the earth-and this is the orthodox theory put forth today by, among others, Hoyle at Cambridge. But the orthodox theory also admits that a time will come when the moon, having exhausted its centrifugal force, will, once again, under the influence of the centripetal force, begin to fall to earth. Therefore, the contradiction contained in our opinion is insignificant. The tertiary moon on which we are concentrating was in its second phase: the return to earth. Gurdjieff s evidence is all the more valuable because it relates to a theory different from Hoerbiger’s.] For Gurdjieff as for the Hoerbigerians, the “facts” relate to Atlantis and the giants, but I would not like to assemble too many signs of proof and

The Termites of Tiahuanaco | 195

expose myself to the same reproach made by Peguy to the theologians: too many indications that God exists were found. According to Gurdjieff, the engineers of the Cosmos, therefore, im­ posed on man a new organ that emitted psychical forces, which, when directed at the moon, kept it in its place. “They implanted in the normal bodies of these beings that populated the earth, a special organ” that produced the desired effects, but this had very unfortunate consequences that have nothing to do with our thesis. Let us recall, therefore, that through Gurdjieff, we learn of a Tibetan tradition: (1) that the moon was deviating from its path and was going to cause a catastrophe; (2) that man, by directing his psychical forces, could influence the movement of the moon in a way that was beneficial for both the Earth and the Cosmos.

The Tibetan evidence is not a fragment of the same civilization complex as the Tiahuanaco calendar. These are two different civilizations: American and Chinese, moreover, as they are today. But the result is, logically, that the points on which the two coincide go very far back in time. The idea of collusion, conscious or unconscious, is unacceptable from a purely logical standpoint. Thus, the Tiahuanaco calendar is almost completely explained and serves as a document for solving our future problems.

Insect-Men

3.

The Transformation of Man into Insect Easter Island man tried to capture the psychical force created by the termitary for his own use and to ensure the proper functioning of the world. On Easter Island, man tried to transform his bodily self into that of an insect. We have the imitation of Jesus Christ in spirit. Man experienced the physical imitation of the insect within his own body. Here, we seem to be entering into the realm of the unreal-but, in fact, we would say, at first glance, that it is our limited imagination that is unable to match reality in the race towards absurdity, but who knows? If the insects were so powerful, so organized, so threatening to man, or so beneficial, why not explore the possibility of becoming an insect? What is the essential physical difference between an insect (or even a crustacean) and man? It is that man’s skeleton is internal and covered with flesh, while the insect skeleton is external and serves as armour, a weapon or a tool. In a sort of insect worship pushed to the point of being absurd or to the limits of logic, but still within reason, man appears to have tried this method, while, as we shall see throughout this book, humanity, our mankind, and even animality, are ways to free ourselves from the world of insects. I say, “appears to,” for we are obviously entering the realm of the unreal become real (or at least attempting to), the hypothetical. But the hypothesis is too beautiful to resist. In 1935, Dr. Stephen Chauvet, encouraged by Dr. E. Loppe, chief curator of the Lafaille Museum in La Rochelle, published an album titled L’fle de Paques et ses mysteres (Easter Island and Its Mysteries). t Tiahuanaco,

A

197

198 I

The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Insect-Men

The Transformation of Man into Insect | 199

Insect-Men

200 | The Religion of tlie Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Insect-Men

The Transformation of Man into Insect | 201

Insect-Men

202 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Why these doctors? Because the most troubling mystery about Easter Island does not lie in the stunning statues we all recognize. It lies in the many statuettes carved out of a special wood (toromuro) that were originally thought to represent the dead or skeletons. But a very precise medical examination based on an in-depth analysis of how the endocrine glands work showed that these statuettes represented living human beings, but in conditions that man does not seem to have experienced or practised elsewhere. Moreover, living human specimens were found that still had some of the characteristics of their ancestors who were submitted to this treatment. If v/e remember what the ancient Americans did to their children’s skulls, giving them the most surprising shapes, probably to develop certain faculties, it is less surprising to note that the ancient Easter Islanders did amazing things to their whole body for similar reasons. “The Easter Islanders were dehydrated and bore the same appearance as that of someone who had been suffering from cholera for several days; but their dehydration resulting from a chronic state that manifested itself gradually and to which the organism was able to adapt, was, nonetheless, compatible with their existence; they were able to consume a certain amount of sea water, which placed them in a state of ‘hyperchlorination.’ “A particular congenital disability, a certain permanent state of starvation, a certain degree of hyperchlorination, and finally, a pronounced state of dehydration.” This is the diagnosis of medical science. But the doctors do not offer any reasons for any of this, reasons that, according to methods that are both modern and outdated, they attribute to random circumstances. Our general theory of insect worship in an ancient civilization allows us to discover the reason^. Even Dr. Chauvet com­ pletely misses the point, which he disdainfully rejects without recognizing its importance in a note on page 66 of his book. “As soon as the hyper- and dysthyroidism is moderately pronounced, for example in the ophthalmic goitre, then tachycardia, trembling, profuse sweating, insomnia, psychical disorders, and so on, are observed.” Later we will quote Bergson regarding the nature of psychical and intuitive spirituality in an insect, which perceives life from the inside out, while the human mind perceives external phenomena. It was to acquire

The Transformation of Man into Insect | 203

these psychical “disorders,” let us say, these psychical “faculties” that the ancient Easter Islanders voluntarily submitted to these devastating diets. Similarly, the Cathars practised chastity to achieve insomnia, have visions and psychical experiences. This also explains why, in all ethnographies, wizard candidates assiduously practised various types of asceticism. The ancients have always provided proof: our classics are filled with descriptions of these methods, and today we find the same methods used among all primitive sorcerers. The race [This race was called the “long-ears,” a white race much older than the Polynesian race from which current Easter Islanders descend.Editor’s note] that produced these statuettes that are so medically accurate, as well as the giant statues on the same island, was obviously equipped with a powerful intellect and it would not have allowed conditions to be imposed that would have deprived it of its water. All the Islanders had to do was go elsewhere, and these sailors of the Pacific did not fear long voyages. They submitted expressly to a divine discipline by seeking to resemble insects as much as was humanly possible to acquire a soul as close as was humanly possible to the insect-god. And what do we know of the results of this experiment? Perhaps they were such that we could consider this effort a success? The flying sorcerers of Malekula and the countless legends about magical powers acquired by the head sorcerers of numerous “savage” tribes are the most striking proof that for thousands of years, man thought these great successes were possible, that they were worth every effort and that they compensated for every sacrifice. Even today, in India, for example, are there not, as in the Orient and Africa, human beings who are highly developed intellectually and who practise parallel methods? Who are using the magical powers of passive resistance to counter the atomic bomb? Once it becomes possible to look at these statuettes without being shocked, you notice a beauty in the lines, and the traces of suffering and its domination in their faces. It is not an ideal lacking in grace or greatness that these strange men imposed upon themselves. The insect-god had also shaped man in its image. But we cannot silence yet another hypothesis. We have often mentioned the degenerate giants who, after their fall, became anthropophagi as well as tormentors of men. Ulysses’s Cyclopes were evil shepherds who herded small men. Were there giant-kings who

204 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

ruled so easily over men and who deliberately reduced them to insects? The terrible giant statues of Easter Island, are they representations of the giant-king-gods, implacable and fierce, who raised men by trying to transform them into insects only to exploit their psychical powers thus liberated? This unfortunate hypothesis does not exclude the other one-in some places, at certain times, one or the other eventuality could have existedand just as much ethnographic evidence supports the terror experienced as well as the voluntary heroism. Moreover, these two are not that far apart.

4.

The Death of the Inseminator ut the termites

B

are much more civilized than the men of the quaternary

period. The great science of the wise psychics of Tiahuanaco was the first to be lost as it was incomprehensible to subsequent savages. Other parts of this knowledge are germane to human concerns. The great art was lost that operated the transmutation of physical powers into moral, intellectual or psychical strengths. After imitating termite civilization, decadent man began to imitate the lowest of the insect civilizations, that of the bee. The old religions undoubtedly know the three states: The termites that keep the male as instigator of strengths in a perfect autocracy. The ants that ignored the male to create a democracy [See Raignier, Vie et moeurs des fourmis (Life and Customs of Ants), Payot, 1952 : “Psychically underdeveloped, (the male) is incapable of finding his nest, of distinguishing a friend from foe, or of looking for food; normally, he disappears fairly quickly.”] The bees that killed the male and became completely mechanized. Further down are the spiders and scorpions that eat the male. But, of these traditions, after the fall, the fall of the tertiary moon and the fall of the great civilization, the most active remained the tradition of the bees: execution of the male. Not that mankind adopted this tradition and practised it wholly or in part; but man continued to uphold the old myths and, in their smallest aggregate, under the control of an insect-worshipping mind, has continued to practise to our day the sacrifice of the impregnator. Here is Maeterlinck’s description of the sexual union of the male and the queen bee: “She demands a last effort from her wings and then the momentum of

205

206 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

incomprehensible forces takes hold of her, seizes her, enters her and, carried along at twice the momentum in the ascending spiral of their entwined flight, they turn for a second in the hostile delirium of love. “As soon as mating is achieved, the stomach of the male opens, the organ detaches itself, taking along a mass of entrails, the wings extend and, struck by the nuptial bolt of lightning, the emptied body turns and falls into the abyss. “When the panting queen arrives on the alighting board, she has only one concern and that is to rid herself as quickly as possible of the troublesome memories of her spouse that hinder her next move. She sits on the threshold and carefully removes the useless organs that the workers regularly carry away and dispose of at some distance from the queen. All she keeps in her spermatheca is the seminal fluid containing millions of swimming seeds, which, right up to the end, will come forward one by one as the eggs pass to accomplish, in the darkness of her body, the mysterious union of male and female elements from which worker bees will be born. “From that moment on, equipped with a dual sexuality, embodying an inexhaustible male, she begins her true life.” [La vie des abeilles)(The Life of the Bee] We will come back to this point: the queen places a tiny drop of semen on those eggs that will eventually become workers or queens as they pass through the spermatheca. The eggs that will become males are not fertilized: they are laid without having been touched by the sperm. The males are born of a virginal birth. But this mystery was only recently solved: it took the modern microscope and modern genetics. The obvious fact is that the inseminating male is killed during the very act of fertilization. Now bees, of all the insects, are not classified as the most civilized since, for example, termites, no more than others, do not kill the male, who is often active in conjugal life. But bees are not at the bottom of the moral ladder on this point, if we can permit a compliment (as an exception and knowing that it is unwarranted, for we should not judge insects by our own standards). It is well known that, among many species, scorpions and spiders often not only kill the male, they also eat him. Spiders must have been feared since earliest times and, as for scorpions, we tend to reject these brutes as

The Death of the Inseminator 207

being outside the true kingdom of insects. On the other hand, the bee, a noble creature long affiliated with man and with providing him with the sweetness of honey, has been looked upon with compassion and admiration since being observed by man. However, men must have looked on in horror at the death of the male during mating, on which Maeterlinck comments: “A kind of transparent membrane, a very precarious danger, separates love from death; nature’s most profound idea is that death occurs at the very moment at which life is created. It is probably this inherited fear that makes love so important.” The Greeks must have been deeply impressed-or rather, the pre­ decessors of the Greeks. For, once again, the Greeks give us pause to think that they do not believe what they are reporting and that it is to set their own minds at ease that they transmit to us the ancient writings from the time of the giants. Indeed, they said that the giant-god, Cronos, fearing what his grown children would do to him, exiled them to the abysses of the underworld. But his divine wife, Gaia, the Earth, was tired of these incessant preg­ nancies that failed to provide her with a family. She encouraged one of her adolescent sons to attack his father. Armed with a golden thread-the story has many variations-Uranus, or Saturn, with one terrible blow and unseen consequences, cuts off the genitals of his father, who, thus diminished, faded away, disappeared, and left the kingdom to his sons. This, in turn, brought them only misfortune. But the Greeks said that this blood of the first god fertilized the earth as it fell, and that the giants sprang from this strange hymen. This is what happens during the mating of bees, translated to the divine world. The blood is the semen, and the male’s fertilizing potency continues to have an effect once the male has disappeared. Thus, the first echoes of a very old religion, which taught men how some insects reproduce, can be found in the oldest myths transmitted by the Greeks. The same theme is found in Egypt, but changed in other ways: we all know that Osiris was killed, cut into pieces and scattered over the entire earth, a crime committed by his evil brother. We also know that his grieving wife, Isis, set out to find all the pieces of the assassinated god and reunite them. But the genital organs remained missing for a long time, and

208 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

it is only at the end of her painful search that Isis finds these essential parts. Isis wanted to become pregnant to give birth to an avenger for Osiris. At last she succeeds, and through her magic, resuscitates Osiris just long enough to beget Horus before Osiris definitively dies. Horus grew up and succeeded his father. We still find the theme of the bee in Egypt: the male cut into pieces and the impregnation of the spouse after the male’s death. As well, there is the theme of the scorpion, which is even more violent. In the beginning, Osiris was the local god of the name of the bee. One of his first homes, in the Delta, bore this symbol and this name. This time, the ancient wisdom was transmitted almost consciously to us. Osiris must have first been a male bee who had to be cut into pieces before being able to inseminate the queen. Robert Graves writes about how the Greek myths were derived, the beginning of which reproduces the customs of the bee culture [The White Goddess, Faber, London, 1948]: “Initially, the king died violently as soon as he had mated with the queen, just as the drone dies after mating. Later, the emasculation and breaking of the leg or limbs replaced death; later still, circumcision and the wearing of false feet that caused limping were substituted.” If we pass from Classical mythologies to ethnography, we find count­ less traces of this ancient knowledge, of the immemorial practice of the scorpions, spiders and bees. Once again, South America provides the most accurate information. This ancient land of the giants, in effect, continues to this day to sustain an extremely degraded tribe. It is a tribe devoted to honey and, therefore, in direct contact with bees. Unfortunately, this tribe, at the end of its decline, delivered nothing of ancient times, similar to this legendary and undoubtedly fictitious parrot from the same land that continued to repeat a few incomprehensible words of an extinct language. Likewise, we know that this tribe was (and may still be, if it has not already disappeared) a parasitic people of bees, living off them and on them [Jehan Vellard, Une civilisation du miel (A Honey Civilization), N.R.F.]. But the Amazon is crawling with other witnesses, also greatly degraded, therefore, very “primitive,” that is, as distant as possible from an ancient state of civilization, diminished perhaps by

The Death of the Inseminator | 209

300,000 thousand years of degradation to almost complete stupidity. An explorer, equipped with both an extraordinary imagination and evidence accumulated over more than thirty years, Harold T. Wilkins collected everything there is to know about the Amazons of South America and provides us with all the necessary proof of “primitive” man’s transmission of the most terrible morals, to our eyes, of the insects. [H.T. Wilkins, Secret Cities of South America, Library Publishers, New York, 1952. Without wholly adopting the theories of Mr. Wilkins, often exaggerated under the influence of his own enthusiasm, we can trust his evidence as well as his personal observations.] First, regarding the giants, H.T. Wilkins has assembled information on South American folklore and confirms all that I maintained in Atlantis and the Giants. The subtitle of his book is Atlantis Unveiled: The Discovery of Atlantis. [Regarding the issue of South American folklore, Jorge Carrera Andrade, Equatorian diplomat and famous poet, stated to the reporter from Information who interviewed him regarding my book (July 13, 1954): “The giant columns found near Lake Titicaca and the oral tradition of a golden age populated by giants, a tradition shared by all our SpanishAmerican countries, appear to me to be convincing.”] However, on the issue of the male impregnator, Wilkins’s testimony is entirely convincing. If you take the evolution of the savages as an evo­ lution of humanity in general, then men, until very recently (until a few thousand years ago), imitated insects and were eaters or destroyers of the male. I explained in my last book that I, in no way, accept this theory and, at the risk of repeating myself, express once again the opinion that savages are degenerate and not primitive. Therefore, I see in the current folklore the remains of great doctrines interpreted increasingly simply by some races over thousands of years, but not everywhere, since these same traditions hark back to the highest spiritualization among other races. But the facts gathered by Wilkins show that, in various places and at various times, in “human” and “savage” tribes: (1) the male is eaten after mating; (2) the male is killed after his semen is taken; (3) males of a tribe or neighbouring tribe are massacred; Up to that point, we can consider a striking parallelism between man

210 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

and insect, but then man’s evolution seems to have progressed separately and ended in: (4) the revolt or reaction of the males; (5) wars led by women to exterminate men, sometimes leading to the extermination of the Amazons; but sometimes also a reduction in the enslavement of conquered men; (6) a matriarchy; (7) a matriarchy by delegation to the male (as in Egypt in the time of the pharaohs); (8) the slavery of women; (9) the equality of the sexes?

Around 1660, the English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh wrote in his Discoveries of Guiana: “On the Caroli River live the Canuri, governed by a woman who came from far away to see our nation (the English in the expedition), and to ask us questions about ‘Her Majesty, our Virgin Queen, Elizabeth.’ (In their wars against neighbouring tribes), “the men taken prisoner were first used to impregnate the women, then killed” (Wilkins). The objective of war was to take prisoners. That they were often not only killed, but also eaten, is evident in other accounts. Pierre d’Anghierra (Peter the Martyr) reports that, around 1500, these women and their occasional “husbands” were cannibals and that they ate either gender. The women of an island in Lake Titicaca are cannibals who practise human sacrifice and drink the blood of their victims. Sometimes, the honour of being eaten by the women was considered too great for the men, and the males, once they had served their purpose, were fed to the cattle of their wives and their queens. Before 1510, Vasco de Lobeira reports that in southern California: “These women...only keep the baby girls, kill the boys, and keep in a small boat five hundred beasts of burden (griffon vultures?) fed and fattened on human flesh.” (Used by Garci-Ordonex de Montalvo in Esplandian.) These Amazons were armed with golden clubs. The use of gold to make weapons dates from ancient times when copper was not yet known, even less bronze or iron. “The Golden Age” in this pejorative sense precedes the

The Death of the Inseminator | 211

Bronze Age and perhaps the Stone Age, as pure gold found out in the open was more malleable than stone. This use of men included using them as mounts. Gonzalo de Oviedo reports: “There are women who are carried into battle on the backs of men, which is what some caciques also do.” All this throws light on the origins of cannibalism. In the first place, it was the women who ate the men to help with the work of impregnation, exactly as the scorpion or the female spider eats the male during mating, the male’s body being the concentrated and digested food that facilitates the considerable physical effort required to produce eggs and offspring. It is possible that the cannibalism of males, of which we find traces in primitive tribes, may essentially be nothing more than the goal of a religious ritual based on the imitation of cannibalistic women. Il is, in effect, reported elsewhere that it is often to assimilate the fighting qualities of the enemy, or the chief, that they are eaten. It is a ritual that dates back to time immemorial when women devoured males after copulation, a practice learned from spiders. These practices seem to us to be especially horrible because, in the human mind, our sense of self-worth has developed in a special way: it was perhaps to develop this sense of self that humanity was finally created. Perhaps by saying, “the self is detestable,” Pascal does nothing more than transfer to the spiritual world an event that first occurred in the physical world. If the individual insect does not have a self, as Marais claims, it has no sense of death. It is like a cell in our human body, and a cell in our blood, for example, has no feeling of horror and sacrifice when it is used to replace a cell killed through an injury or to accelerate any physiological process by disappearing. If we count the male scorpion, or the male bee, as an individual con­ scious of the self, his fate is terrible. If he is nothing more than a cell that plays its role, our sentimental point of view is wrong. We need to look elsewhere, to the female concentrating on her role, the awareness, and perhaps the pleasure, that extends to the whole society. Thus, the termite queen feels and thinks for her entire tribe, and all rejoice through her. In the same way, our whole body rejoices when its physiology is working by

212 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

sacrificing countless cells that feel nothing, not having any sense of self. Thus, man would have acquired a universal conscience, an intelligence and a self by separating himself from the almost universal process, and by moving towards a goal that is supernatural. This is what we find in the history of religion. Thus, the Amazonian women, eaters of men, still behaving under the influence of 300 million years of insect life, fall directly within the material cosmos and suffer no guilty conscience. It is even likely that at this psychical stage, the men offer themselves willingly and happily to pleasure and to death. The Aztec god that was raised and killed every year would spend the year before his death blissfully living with his four wives; the culminating joy was his death. We see there, perhaps, the last civilized phase of the process; but it is more likely that it was the initial and greatest phase and that the Amazons are, or were until the Christian era, the degraded representatives of a great ritual. We notice, in effect, a fundamental contradiction in our feelings relative to the physical act of sexual union. The sense of what is obscene, of obscenity itself, was recently acquired by humanity. At that moment where one becomes drunk upon the lips of a woman, From what one believes is love, from what one takes to be the soul, We make some heavenly passerby blush. Hugo, Contemplations, VI, 17.

Why blush? Why is laughter unleashed through the allusion to the act of life? Why are we ashamed? An animal has no shame, an insect has no shame, “savages,” acting according to ancient impulses, have no shame. Thus the soldier of today feels no shame for the pride and joy that he experiences as he enters into battle because he knows that he will lose his life in the process. It is death that gives us dignity. If Christ had not died, he would not have become God. Peguy admirably noted that the Greeks despised their gods because these gods could not die. Therefore, men were of greater worth, since men

The Death of the Inseminator | 213

took risks and, sooner or later, paid the price with their lives. Thus obscenity appeared when the male was no longer killed. The solemn act, at once fertile and fatal, became cowardly and degrading. This is only the beginning of the psychological impact. Obviously, man once again ennobled love, through other means, but we are trying to establish here the grounds for the feeling of sexual shame, which is a constant feature, even when conquered, of our civilizations. That these facts are not unique to South America, but could, at certain times, be found throughout the world, was proven in two ways. First, ethnography provides evidence of this mentality among contemporary societies in “savage” as well as “civilized” lands. Next, the Greeks passed down stories to us that attest to the state of things that occurred during ancient times. Malinowski reports that in some parts of the islands to the southwest of New Guinea, in regions considered “backward” and terrible by the natives living on neighbouring islands, it is a recognized custom to rape or kill any man who wanders into “sacred” territory. Women rule this territory. These young women are organized in armed groups that roam the countryside, and when they meet a man who is either lost or has risked entering the area, they capture him, lay him on the ground, overpower him, take from him his seminal fluid, then either kill him or let him escape, as the case may be. Malinowski adds that the savages living in neighbouring lands sometimes cannot resist the allure of adventure and deliberately go to be raped and/or killed. In this way, they reproduce, I might add, the behaviour of the male scorpion or spider. “A female spider, much bigger than the male, advanced slowly and began to vibrate the threads of the web...the male suddenly began to walk around the web. Apparently, the male was unsure as to what reception he would receive and hastily retreated twice as the female approached.... The male returned to the entrance of the funnel (where mating takes place), to take up his position once again approximately five centimetres from the entrance to the funnel where the female remained motionless. An hour later, he was still in the same position. The next day, he had disappeared, but two nights later, the remains of a newly devoured male rested on the web. The body was reduced to its shell.” [K.C. McKeown, Vie et moeurs

214 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

des araignees d’Australie (Australian Spiders), Payot, 1954] The story, atrocious to us, leaves no doubt: the male, like man, alternatively fears and desires being devoured. But desire takes over. The human male is nothing but a coward compared to the male spider. That is why man is ashamed. Malinowski? Pacific? Savages? The Pyrenees, circa 1900. It was customary (I hope it no longer is) in the Haute Ariege for girls to wander in the mountains in groups of eight or ten. They hoped to meet a young man alone. Married men were left in peace. Even the young men of the village were spared, especially the ''fiances" of the girls. In short, they practised endogamy. But if a stranger found himself in a lonely spot, the girls threw themselves at him and behaved like the girls of the Pacific, except that they never killed him; and his brief shame was, moreover, carefully hidden, as was his identity and that of the girls involved. It was a secret of the female caste, and in all tribes, women have secrets. Therefore, the customs of the Amazons left traces around the world. In addition, the Greeks, a rational people and great lovers of morality, taught us about life as it existed between 1000 and 300 before Christ in their part of the world. x Diodorus of Sicily reports that, during battle, the Amazons “struck down with their swords all males who were no longer children. In punish­ ment, they were exterminated by Hercules...unable to accept that a nation be governed by women.” The male counter-attack was obviously violent in subsequent eras. Let us note that this takes place in the West and that it relates to the stories about Atlantis and the legend of the giants, like many events of the Hercules cycle. A symptom of the time of the giants. Killing the male quickly became akin to killing the god, the king or the priest. Frazer collected volumes of evidence without every daring to seek an explanation. [R. Graves explains in The White Goddess (Faber, London, 1948): “Until his death, he (Sir James Frazer) carefully and methodically sailed around this dangerous subject as if he could see the outline of an island whose existence he never wanted to confirm.”] Atlantis, the killing of the male, the sacrifice of the god, the giants, all

The Death of the Inseminator

215

these themes are part of the same religion passed down in fragments before the arrival of the Greeks, and which continue to survive in fragments today. In addition, the bacchantes tore the man (or god) they had met into pieces. In the same way, Medusa cut her father into pieces to give life to her children: a striking parallel with the spider’s behaviour. And, without a doubt, in the Zohar of the Jewish Cabbala, it is part of the same ancient mythology that has the devil (death) hiding among the women in a funeral procession, carefully separated from that of the men. Let us end this chapter on a happier note offered by the cousins of the Jews, the Arabs, in Thousand and One Nights. Not yet fully recognized is the similarity between Thousand and One Nights of the Arabs and the Zohar of the Jews. Perhaps in our superficial thinking, the two appear to be too dissimilar. Thousand and One Nights is, on the surface, a collection of erotic stories, funny and fantastic. The Zohar is an almost illegible encyclopedia of the occult doctrine of the Jews. And yet: the two date, in general, from the same period when the two races collaborated closely in all areas, and in particular, in the area of culture (the Jews of Baghdad helped to translate the Greek classics into Arabic); the two works unite countless and varied traditions, have no internal cohesion, and are similar in length. It is a somewhat sad and also somewhat reassuring human fact that among us weak mortals, the old, abandoned religions become farcical and remain useful as a source of humour. Is it not obvious that Thousand and One Nights is at the extreme end of a decline? The behaviour of the two princesses and their entourage is absurd beyond anything and truly contrary to the solemn Koran. Who is this prince, who was extremely civilized by the way, who wants to kill his wife every morning, and who allows her to live only so that she can continue to tell him this never-ending story? And this Princess Badroulboudour-now that girl was properly raised! Her behaviour with the sleeping prince cannot be told in a modest account-what shame for the noble women of Islam! And yet, what an adorable princess, and who would dare to condemn her? Not the author, nor the reader. The Jews, an earnest people, have told us the truth.

216 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Princess Scheherazade never existed. But each night, the soul appeared before the same saint-blessed be he!-to be judged; each night, sinners that we are, we deserve the death penalty; but the saint-blessed be he!-in his infinite mercy, allows us to live another day to continue the story, for God knows that we will end up mending our ways. These degenerates who lived in Babylon and then Baghdad, this is what they did with the holy story. They were not Arabs exactly, but a collection of degenerates who wanted to have fun. The true Arabs, the horsemen of Allah, would have killed them, these slanderers of God. Thus, the humour served to cloak the blasphemy. And this Princess Badroulboudour, who takes advantage of the young sleeping prince and becomes pregnant, the Jews would say that it was not initially, when God created the heavens and the earth, a gracious

obscenity. It was, in truth, the Holy Matron, the splendid Schekina, who came to ask God to create the world of which she is the mother. She had adorned herself with her most beautiful jewels: the future community of the Righteous, and for love of them, God, despite all the foreseeable catastrophes, agreed to Creation. And, it is true that God was sleeping. Because God, like the prince in the mischievous Arab tale, does not truly awaken until he becomes a father. He sleeps, unaware, as long as the world is not created. This is the real, profound reason for Creation: to give life, which is paternal, to God. The prophets of the desert, simple men, said that it was well known that God did not have a wife, so how could he have had a son? But the Jews knew the truth. Thus, the Arabs had to produce a licentious song; otherwise the horsemen of Allah would have killed the narrator. But during the dark centuries after the fall of Rome, the Jews explained everything, hiding the dangerous truth in unending comments. Moses of Leon, in northern Spain, published the Zohar around 1300. Here is the true version of what we call, wrongly, the Arab tales; this is the ancient story that the mischievous-and charming-rascals of Baghdad told us later, in their inimitable and perverse way, turned completely on its head. This is the truth about that which became false. Here where the infinite mercy of God is visible and not the whims of a likeable and degenerate potentate. Whether it is the Supreme Being or the prince husband of

The Death of the Inseminator | 217

Badroulboudour, it is when he is asleep, that is, dead, that the male becomes the impregnator. The final refined echoes ranging from the metaphysical, on the one hand, to a kind of sauciness, on the other, of a great doctrine descended from the tertiary era. The direct relationship with the giants is provided by a strange discovery described by Harold Wilkins: “In August of 1889, we found on the banks of the Lago de Jampa, near a farm called Boa Vista de Santa Ana, which is located near Rio Trombetas (one of the regions where, during the Spanish Conquest, a kingdom of white warriors, the Amazons of Brazil and Paraguay, was found), a stone statue, horribly but admirably sculpted. It represented an anthroposaur (half man, half lizard) with the legs and body of a giant wrapped around a naked woman. The woman’s arms, pressed against those of the monster, show that she is trying to prevent unnatural coitus from happening. The woman’s eyes and her facial features express agony. The idol was sculpted in pink granite and the holes located in the base seem to be there to allow a rope to pass through them.” [A director of the botanical garden in Rio de Janeiro, J. Barbosa Rodriguez, is quoted as a witness. Two large stone axes were found near the idol. This is similar to the enormous biface-weighing 4 to 5 kilos while the usual weight is five to six hundred grams-noted by Burkhalter and Lafenechere in Syria and Morocco: a Paleolithic tool of the giants.]

5.

Memories of the White Goddess E have retained from this first religion of the insect-worshipping giants, the use of the termitary, which comes closest to communion with the saints from a physical standpoint, followed by the great tradition, which goes back to the bees and the death of the male inseminator. Let us now look at the first step in adoration of the mother, which originates in the service to the queen termite and, to a lesser degree, in the imitation of the beehive built around the mother bee. The mother bee was not really found to have the same powers as the termite goddess. Bees, as was just proven [K. von Frisch, The Dancing Bees, Methuen, London, 1954], communicate amongst themselves as individuals using a dancing language, and are not telepathically guided by their queen, as termites are. Less advanced than ants in the art of democracy, termites are, however, politically active, both collectively and individually, but lastly, they have a queen who may serve no other purpose than the laying of eggs. To primitive man who observed the beehives, the queen bee must have corresponded to the termite goddess. After the fall, all that remained of the primitive matriarchy implemented by the giants imitating the insect democracies were, without a doubt, countless traces within all degenerate men of the legends of the power and majesty of a divine female force:

W

Das ewig Weibliche Zieht uns hinan. The eternal feminine guides us, said Goethe in the 19th century. Without a doubt, in what we now refer to as the subconscious of many men, the memory of ancient teachings relative to the goddess queen and

218

Memories of the White Goddess | 219

mother is made powerful and given life through the physical desire for the giantess, a desire, which many poets have revealed. Byron defines his ideal as being gigantic in size and divine: A daughter of the gods, divinely fair And most divinely tall.

Baudelaire adores his giantess, wishing to

To travel at leisure over her magnificent shapes To crawl over the slopes of her enormous knees, resembling in his waking dream, the king termite shown in our photo (thus confirming another dream about a termitary, mentioned below and showing a direct relationship, soul to soul. The telepathic goddess once again casts her spell on us). In a magnificent novel about Wales at the time of King Arthur, the greatest of the English novelists of the 20th century, John Cowper Powys, takes as his subject (Porius) the desire present in the soul of a young Herculean half-chieftain to physically possess the giantess: “This deep wound in the psyche of the race, this very personal, very secret, and very private reluctance to confess his feelings regarding the giants of Cader Idris, his strange obsession of wishing for the winds from the south-west (which carried the distant scent of the giantess), and above all, his powerful, nostalgic desire to possess an unknown female creature who lived in the mountains and that he associates with his great ancestor Creiddylad, the giantess, his great-grandmother.” It is to Wales, in effect, that we look to provide an example of the ancient cult: in his surprising book, The White Goddess, Robert Graves studies in detail the survival of the cult in two Gallic poems of the 13th and 14th centuries. Why Wales? Ireland and Wales (so intimately linked) are home to fairies. And what are fairies? Small, flying men and tiny, winged women who live in hollow trees, holes in rocks, and in caves; they are intelligent, good and gracious.

220 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Oberon, Titania? Is this all that remains in the imagination (perhaps in memory, perhaps in the perception of men and women, or, especially of children) of the age of the wise, giant insects? It is in these countries that the giants lived the longest, until the 4th century, says Powys, until the 18th century, says Blake. These countries, referred to as Celtic, are populated with people from the Mediterranean who predate the Celts and who preserved the traditions of the giants that the Greeks found among the natives as they made their way down from the north to the shores of their sea. Everywhere else, the Greco-Latin civilization and its progeny, Christian civilization, obliterated the giants and the insects. But these extremities of the continent kept alive fragments of the ancient wisdom. The magical powers of the bee survive and are used in Gallic witchcraft [Graves, Minutes of the Witchcraft Trial in 1073]. The charm says: I will turn my body into that of a bee Very horribly And I will go into the hive on behalf of the Devil. -Careful bee, the hen will eat you For I come here on behalf of Our Lady To take you home. Home is the hive, and the human soul called back by the queen is the bee. Graves says that the only poetic theme is the invocation of the White Goddess

who reigns from the Caucasus to the British Isles: (which is confirmed in Lahovary: this was the home of the Mediter­ ranean race around 10,000 or 5,000 before Christ).

“No true poet since Homer has failed to sing his vision of the queen. The reason for which the hair stands on end, the skin trembles, and a shiver runs down the spine when we write or read a true poem is necessarily the invocation of the White Goddess, the Muse, the Mother of all Living Beings, the ancient power of fear and lust, the female spider or the queen bee that can only be possessed through death.” And Hugo writes (Dieu; le Vautour) (God; the Vulture):

Memories of the White Goddess ) 221

Vanquished, from all points on the earth at the same time Shepherds, dreamers, seers, giants, The doleful gods of India with their large canine heads, The heavy typhoons from below, the giant hydra people, Swarming, fertilizing, multiplying, creating, Trembling as they perhaps approach their mother, Staring with their doe-eyes on the obscene illusion! And the foam embracing the savage, raw rock, The kiss of the storm and the rutting waves Surround her, and her breath rouses the unclean beast, And incessantly, forever, in the air, the flame and the wave Across the eternal and livid vapour, The eye of the night watches in stupor, And the hurricane whips and the wave caresses The prostitution of the dark goddess.

The mother kills the male; the desire of the male to be killed at the height of pleasure. Once again, the poets echo the tragedy and the temptation, such as Keats in La Belle Dame Sans Merci. But, already in the human legend, a higher note can be heard: the appearance of the sacrifice of the self to the spiritual, which reaches its apex in Christianity. Man seeks to translate into the spiritual the myth of the bee, where the male is killed, and the myth of the termitary, where the male assumes a chaste, but eternal role. In this way, humanity, and even animality, represents an increasingly conscious attempt to escape the fate of mechanized insects, whether bees, ants or termites. By introducing more and more intelligence, freedom and individuality, animals, followed by man, transfer to a spiritual level, the physical process of Earth’s beginnings. The cycle of the Holy Grail is one degree of this transmutation. Parsifal, because he is chaste, will escape death and complete the work on a religious level. On the other hand, the ailing king, because he touched the White Goddess, must die. In the Pyrenees, fountains called grasales still exist; [I know of one on the mountain separating Serres-sur-Arget from Alzen (the canton of

222 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Foix)]; the fountains were maintained by fairies offering refreshment in a grasal to passersby. But those who wanted to touch the fairy perished, and the fairy disappeared. The name remains to describe the fountains. The Pyrenees are, like the Welsh mountains, the land of an ancient Mediter­ ranean civilization, a land of giants, matriarchal rule, fairies, and the Grail. Thus, we find countless Pyrenean examples. The giant Bebryx, his daughter Pyrenee, who was the unhappy lover of Hercules, the Grail and cathartic chastity are all part of the same ancient cycle, which extends from the Caucasus to the Hebrides, all along the coast. Graves explains the role of the Druids in transmitting the myth of the bee, which ends with the Grail cycle: “The myth of the emasculation of Cronos (is repeated) in the act of cutting mistletoe from the oak: this act by the Druids repeated the emasculation of the old king. The mistletoe was initially a phallic symbol. The king himself was eaten eucharistically following castration, as revealed in several legends of the Pelopid dynasty.” It is the death of the male bee, the cannibalism of the spider; it is the practice of the Amazons and the girls of the Pacific; it is the crudest form of Christian communion. Throughout the Middle Ages, therefore, the Welsh hid from the Church fragments of their great heresies, remnants of the heresies from the end of the Empire. The Church guessed at their existence and fought them, and never looked favourably upon the stories of the Grail. [Jean Marx insisted heavily on this point. The Grail covered all the heresies: Pelagianism, Manicheism and Catharism. Its story seems to have reached the Midi region of France through Welsh storytellers at the English court at Poitou.] For the Welsh, Jesus was Mithra, the dead impregnating god, shared in small pieces. Mary was too much like the White Goddess, and the three Marys resembled too closely the three goddesses of ancient times; the dogmas paralleled each other too much; it was a case of substituting white for black “escarni Jesu" according to a Pyrenean saying, whence the Welsh poems. Poetry in a language unknown to the persecutors serves as protection, as the old poetry of the dialects did elsewhere, for example, the langue d’oc for the Cathars. Hawthorn was the leader of the bad giants. During the month of the hawthorn, you could not marry. The chief giant imposed chastity. Then,

Memories of the White Goddess | 223

at great risk, you cut the hawthorn, as was done earlier for Cronos. Then, the White Queen, her royal consort dead, was delivered to the men. The giantess belonged to whoever could grab hold of her. It was a dark side to the Grail cycle, and a modest beginning in the Far East of courtly and chivalrous love (Graves). “The case of Thomas the Rhymer, or Thomas of Erceldoune, is remarkable. He was the 13th-century poet who claimed to have received his gifts from the Queen of Elphame, who had made him her lover. “In all likelihood, this ‘queen’ was a woman ritually chosen to incarnate Hecate, queen of the witches. She made him renounce the Christian religion and initiated him in the ways of sorcery under the name of ‘True Thomas.’ “The Scottish witchcraft trials prove that this type of adventure per­ sisted until 1597 (in any case) in Aberdeen and until 1655 in Kilshaton.” Thus perished (let us hope), in the most degrading superstitions and the most humiliating judicial procedures, the great tradition that may have begun 150 million years ago among bees: the physical consumption of a mystery that man had to transfer to a spiritual level. Let us remember our surprise as children when, for the first time, someone explained that the Greeks and Trojans fought over a woman for 10 years. We have since become used to this absurd idea, contrary to all that history teaches us: Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Louis XIV and Napoleon never fought over women; the Persian Wars, the 100 Years’ War, the French Revolution, Bismarck? But the child who approaches Homer must first begin by accepting this fact. If we think of the Mahabharata, another initial absurdity is forced upon us. The story begins with a woman, Draupadi, who had seven husbands; and the whole war, told over 200,000 lines, is caused by the possession of this woman. A woman has seven husbands? Two hundred thousand lines about war over a woman? Are these not, these earliest times of our races, the transformation of very old traditions of the tertiary religion: where a female queen-goddess was more important than a termitary or a beehive. Insects hardly have to fight over their queens: they are far too organized for this to happen,

224 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

excluding perhaps some very big exceptions. But if you transfer this fact to mankind, fighting for possession of the Goddess-Mother becomes normal once again, and the lines of Tennyson make sense.

We saw two cities in a thousand boats All fighting for a woman on the sea. Brief memories of the Mother-Giantesses occur in early literature. And the great tradition of the Middle Ages, from William of Aquitaine to Dante and Petrarch, is a sort of hopeless and chivalrous attempt to grant once again to the domna, to the idealized woman, the importance and influence possessed by the queen of the termites or the queen bee in the souls of the chaste workers and chaste warriors.

6.

The Virgin Mother the White Goddess as mother of an entire people and exterminator of the male gender, there exists a huge void until we arrive at the virgin mother. It is a surprising concept and almost impossible for mankind, but sometimes achieved-fairly often-among insects. However, it is a problem that arose as soon as man began to think. Any theory begins with the First, the One. That there may have been in the very beginning a being or a thing, is a natural idea for man. An undifferentiated material for the materialists, one God for the deists: logically, it is the same thing. The First One is the One. But how to spring from the One? Many religions have tried, in vain, to have two in the beginning, male and female. Human logic works in such a way that behind the couple, we seek the One who made them. We willingly admit that the One may have always existed. We suspect Two as being unthinkable at the beginning. The idea that the One may have produced a second One always ends up being our ultimate logical recourse. Then, the relationship between the One and the second One, between the One and the Other, can begin. On this point, Plato wrote one of his most discouraging dialogues. The Chinese have yet to resolve this point, with their yin and yang. The Egyptians, from their earliest known beginnings, had invented the story that Ra created the husband in his fist. Ra, the One, impregnated a part of himself using another part of himself and thus produced the Two. Plato observed some five thousand years later that, if Ra consisted of parts, he was no longer uniquely One. It is possible that man would have forgotten this unsolvable problem peculiar to the human mind if it were not for the insects, for the insects do, in concrete terms, what man does in the abstract, or at least in spiritual terms. And the concrete always maintains a sort of inevitable primacy. Thus the insects invented the virgin mother. That this virgin mother etween

B

225

226

The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

may have received, inherited, some ancestral masculine seed from the earliest time, we cannot know; we can say it, but nothing within our means of observation allows us to state it categorically. What we have discovered, and what the civilization of the tertiary period could discover, preoccupied as it was with insects, and especially (like us) with the reproductive processes of insects that are so important for us to understand since their ability to multiply is their primary advantage over us, is that parthenogenesis truly exists and occurs often among many insects. The easiest to observe were, and remain, the bees. Ants and termites, inhabitants of subterranean colonies, are better able to keep their secrets. Earliest man must have studied and raised bees, observing them closely. And, it is in bees that parthenogenesis is most easily observed, and man had a direct interest in observing it. He needed honey, hence beehives. It is the accidental disappearance of the queen bee that is one of the visible causes of the decline and death of a beehive. By trying to see what happens to these suppliers of honey, man was able to observe numerous instances where, the queen being dead, the female worker bees that were not fertilized and had no chance of being fertilized began to lay eggs. And these virgin mothers invariably gave birth to males, a fact, which in no way helped the hive because it needed females. This fact is clearly visible. Another invisible fact, which we may have been the first to discover in all of mankind, is even more curious. The male bee, even if he is born to a fertilized mother, always hatches from an unfertilized egg. In effect, during mating, the queen bee receives the sperm in a special organ, in which it is preserved. Once she returns to her chamber and has permanently disposed of the male, the queen begins to lay her eggs; the eggs leave the ovaries and pass in front of an opening in the spermatheca, where the sperm is stored. As each egg passes, the queen allows, or does not allow as she wishes, a drop of sperm to land on each egg. The eggs thus fertilized become female worker bees. The eggs that do not receive a drop of sperm become males, so that the male, even if he is not born to a virgin, does hatch from a virgin egg. The Son is always born of a virgin birth.

The Virgin Mother | 227

The Atlas d’entomologie (Entomological atlas) [Boublee, Part II [Dr. Jeannel, 1946] remains scientifically astounded at this event. “A third type of parthenogenesis,” it states, “is referred to as arrhenotic, that is, a producer of males. This is especially evident among bees. The unfertilized egg gives birth to a drone. With bees resembling humans, it is unclear how an unfertilized egg (therefore, haploid: A + X) can give rise to a male, i.e., an individual carrier of 2 A + X: we have not yet discovered the means through which a part of the X chromotin must be eliminated.” In 1938,1 once saw the famous English geneticist and botanist, Ruggles Gates, debate this point with a dogmatic professor of theology at King’s College, London. We were dining together. Ruggles Gates was saying that Jesus Christ, if he had been born to the Virgin Mary, would not have survived from birth because his cells would have been missing half of the necessary chromosomes. Unfortunately, neither the theology professor nor I had yet read Jeannel’s entomological atlas, printed in 1946. Otherwise, we would have responded to Ruggles Gates that, since the unfertilized egg (therefore, haploid A + X) can produce a male, i.e., an individual carrier of 2 A + X, without knowing what mechanism allows a part of the X chromatin to be eliminated, Christian theological dogma no longer presents any problem regarding this point. For the strongest believers, it would be a source of wonder that the central fact of Catholic Christianity, the pivotal event of the entire religion, would have repercussions on the utmost limits of cosmic life, all the way to the world of insects. We can follow the ripples even further. I refer again to the same atlas (P- 34). “The development of an unfertilized egg occurs fairly often among insects. Generations upon generations have thus followed without any male intervention for extended periods of time. “We know that this is some type of accidental parthenogenesis by which the development of the egg only rarely achieves that of images. “The more frequently observed case is the one where the unfertilized eggs give birth to females (thelytoc parthenogenesis). Species are thus able to perpetuate themselves indefinitely.” The observation needs to be made that among the Cathars of the

228 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Pyrenees and Languedoc (I do not have any literature relating to other areas) there was the widespread belief (which persists to this day) that the Virgin Mary was not the only virgin mother in the history of mankind. In their opinion, she is the Mother of God, but there were mothers of saints who also experienced virginal births. Is it going too far to see in these births the last traces of ancient beliefs from the time when the wise men had observed not only the bees, but also the world of insects? From the Pyrenees come rumours of a time of the giants, and variations on the theme of the Grail, and the degenerate yet typical practices of the dark ages when women tried to live without men. I am not reviewing the different folklores: everyone has read stories or descriptions based on religions where virgins are mothers; the mothers of Buddha and Zoroaster are considered as such among certain sects. Far from seeing in these the origins of Christian dogma, I see the faint echoes of this dogma, reverberating in time and space, and reaching the daughters of the kings of Mesopotamia who were made to sleep at the top of high, pyramidal towers, as described by the incredulous Herodotus, so that they could be impregnated by a god; echoes reverberating off the circular walls of the cosmic globe, and as far as the eye can see: in the surprising world of insects.

7.

Maternal Pain and Suffering are by far the most civilized of all insects: the most “human,” as we like to say. First, they do not exterminate males as bees do, as the king of the termitary continues to live and to play a role alongside his queen; this must indicate a special temperament because ants, who pay not the slightest attention to the male after fertilization, and who leave him to die in the outside jungle, are warriors, and even have, like us, organized armies equipped with tanks and artilleries to fight civil wars or foreign campaigns. Termites are not warriors; they have soldiers to defend them, especially against ants, but they do not attack others. Lastly, it is termites that invented maternal love. They see their offspring as baby termites, while ants and bees see only larvae or eggs. Marais describes at length the first delivery (for it is a birth rather than a laying) of the termite queen and finds symptoms of suffering. He then discovers signs of maternal love for a little being resembling its mother, which other insects do not experience. “When she starts to lay her eggs, the contractions in her body become extraordinary. When the first litter is out, she turns and examines it carefully and at some length. She touches it with her mandibles and her forelegs, and then lies down beside it, completely motionless. What does this behaviour mean? “What we are seeing here is one of those marvels that we do not find among any other winged insect at the same level. If we did not see these facts in an animal situated a little higher on the evolutionary scale, it would be incomprehensible. This is the appearance of a complex that plays a very important role in the decadent and unnatural condition of the human race today. “We see here the first sign in nature of labour pains.” Marais then goes on to explain that insects usually lay eggs with as ermites

T

229

230 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

much ease as they eat or drink. “Insects do not have a ‘baby,’ they have larvae. The female insect never sees her “children.” She would not be able to recognize them if she saw them. How could a pretty winged creature recognize these strange larvae, these stumpy worms as being hers?” But the termite queen has babies: little beings that resemble her, that are no longer subjected to metamorphosis, and that grow up slowly, like human babies. It is the only example of this type in the world of insects; only among South African scorpions does something similar occur. Marais then examines the pain of parturition in the animal world and arrives at this same conclusion that, although pain, in general, protects the sufferer against a possible death, the pains of childbirth are different: “The suffering from parturition opens the door to maternal love. Where there are no pains, there is no maternal love. Ten years of observation have not shown any exception. There where suffering is negligible, there is little maternal love and care. Where there is no suffering, maternal love is non­ existent.” Marais then describes the care provided by the termite mother for her offspring during the first laying, until the moment when the female workers are trained, and maternal love, overwhelmed by the thousands of births that then occur, is transferred to the. whole termitary, while remaining under the telepathic governance of the Queen Mother.

8.

Chastity and Mysticism did men learn to be chaste? (Insofar as they learned it, of course). Moreover, where did they obtain the idea of chastity? Chastity is first and foremost a practice and an idea that runs counter to nature. Certainly, they did not learn it from animals or from the Greek gods, in any case. The only answer: insects. The primitive insect-worshipping religion provided the first lessons in chastity, the use of sexual force for anything other than reproduction. We return to our fundamental hypothesis, that of an advanced civilization of giants living at the time of Tiahuanaco 300,000 or 500,000 years ago. For no one since has observed insects enough to know all their secrets. And no civilization adored, imitated or fought them as much as the civilization that reproduced magical termitaries on their calendars. Termites, ants and bees have castes made up of neuters-workers, warriors, the overwhelming majority of the population; often all but one member of the nation are chaste or “asexual.” Where did men learn to create sheep and oxen? Even the bull is an almost useless animal. The ram is difficult. Oxen and sheep are asexual workers, like the bee, the ant, and ordinary termites. Men even created human eunuchs. Then Christ came to talk to us about those who castrate themselves out of love for the kingdom of God, and Paul added these mysterious words, that the body is not made for fornicating, but for the Lord. But the insect queens: the bee, the ant and the termite knew how to suppress their gender from birth onwards and, in this way, create the workers and soldiers of the city, and not as the exception, like humans, but here

W

as the rule. Let us note that these miraculous or infrequent events among humansthe virginal conception, castration, and adaptation of the body to the task-

231

232 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

normally occur among insects and in vast numbers. For, asexual insects, such as Hugo’s bees,

Chaste drinkers of dew neuter termites or ants are not genderless in principle; they could be male or female. The neuter bees come from fertilized eggs and could develop into queens; it is a question of food, of how they are raised and of education. Likewise, neuter ants and termites retain traces of sexual

organs. Feytaud writes that the highest authorities feel that “if newborns are similar in appearance, an examination of the brain, eyes and genital organs allows immediate identification of those who will go on to reproduce and those who will be castrated and whose future will be decided at the time the egg is fertilized. “The so-called future, sexed insects could well be nothing more than larvae from the first stage who are slightly older than so-called future neuters.” For others: “All the freshly laid eggs are identical, each one capable of supplying indiscriminately one gender-specific insect, one worker or one soldier. The stimulating actions of the workers who care for and feed them influence the change at different times. “The fate of each individual can be changed as long as it has not reached the adult stage.” Insects provide ample proof of learned conditioning, of which our “castrations” are nothing more than vulgar and crude imitations. Our “chastity,” so rarely acquired and with such great effort, is nothing more than a random rehearsal of a normal state of life for a significant majority of insects that live in colonies. Thus the ability of worker insects to work and soldier insects to fight arises from a redirecting of sexual powers towards other activities unrelated to reproduction. It is towards serving the city that an insect directs its sexual strength, captured and shaped at will. Man will try to direct his towards serving God.

Chastity and Mysticism | 233

We will see the moral superiority of insects on numerous occasions: the insect, at its most developed stage, knows better than man how to sacrifice itself for its homeland; it even knows how to do something which man does not and that is risk the entire city or nation for the good of the species in the event of dangerous swarming.

But does the insect know how to sacrifice itself for an abstract idea, as man occasionally knows how to sacrifice himself for God? We cannot say, since we know nothing of an insect’s inner thoughts or feelings. In any event, we can say, even if it is from insects that, at the dawn of the tertiary period, we learned about devotion to the city; we did not learn from them how to sacrifice ourselves for God. Man travelled this road alone. We have already mentioned that mankind may be an attempt to escape, through individual conscience and freedom, 300,000 million years of termites. Without a doubt, it is an escape towards God. Parsifal is chaste; first because he builds the strength he will need to conquer the Grail by remaining chaste. But the Grail represents the love of God, far superior to love for the city. However, we received an initial lesson in the abolition of egoism from insects. Destruction of the self of the termite before the queen, Marais explains, is Pascalian and complete. If the termite experiences happiness, it is the happiness of the queen, in which he participates on her behalf. But, in abolishing egoism, the termite also abolishes the self. Man is seeking to do better: to abolish egoism, but keep and even develop his own conscience and own freedom as a man. Thus, man claims to have surpassed the insect by transferring to the spiritual plane that which is nothing more than a mechanical, perhaps even unconscious, response on the part of the termite. Yet, it is among the social insects, whether the termite, the ant or the bee, that man saw the first examples of devotion to the city, perhaps the first step in man’s integration with God. It was the first step, which the ancient Hebrews preserved for us because they did not believe that the soul survives. They could only follow Jehovah’s will by identifying themselves with the holy people. God had chosen the people, even the race; the individual could only gain access to God by becoming one with the people. The sublime and first act of heroism; with no reward for himself, except in his own idea of self and his

234 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

pride, man sacrificed himself and became one of the holy people. Then Christ came bringing hope of a second step to be taken; that the sacrifice could be transferred to eternity, and that man could eternally enjoy the abandonment of the self before God. Whoever offers up his life will keep it forever. I like to quote Maeterlinck who applied his thinking to insects with the utmost rigour and effectiveness to prove recent dictionaries wrong that said [Cassel’s Encyclopedia of Literature, London, 1953]: “The philosophy lacking head or tail, which emerges from his studies of natural history, is now almost completely and utterly discredited.” This book is proof that this is not true. Maeterlinck had the intuition and expressiveness of a great poet. Here is what he says about ants and their mysticism, predecessor of human mysticism. And he is entirely correct [La Vie desfourmis (The Life of the Ant), 1930 edition], except perhaps for his overly enthusiastic anthropomorphism: he forgets that he is not an ant. “The ant lives happily because it lives amidst all that surrounds it, and all who live around it and for it, as the ant lives in and for all. It is almost immortal because it is part of a whole that nothing can destroy. “However strange this assertion may appear at first glance, the ant is a profoundly mystical being that exists only for its God and cannot imagine a different happiness or reason for living than tQserve, to forget itself, and to lose itself in its God. “It is completely imbued with the great primitive religion, the oldest, the most charged for thousands of years, the greatest that man has practised.” Let us interrupt Maeterlinck to say that the ant practised this religion (which he refers to using the outdated term totemism) 150 million years before the arrival of man, and that it must have been man who imitated the ant, and not the ant who imitated man. Maeterlinck also quotes the great Egyptologist Moret and has him attest (somewhat indirectly) to Egyptian totemism. The Egyptians, in effect, became civilized upon contact with termites (called “white ants” to this day, despite the efforts of scholars). “Primitive man had a sense of clan. Instead of this, all that remains are a few ghosts that will soon disappear. All that will remain will be our existence of one hour, and we will feel increasingly isolated, less protected from death.”

Chastity and Mysticism | 235

Maeterlinck did not want to move from insect mysticism to human mysticism. Believing that insects are superior to humans on several fronts, he did not see that on one essential point we are superior to the insect. But he is right to see in the insect our first teacher. However, let us reread McKeown: “A female spider, much bigger than the male, advanced slowly and began to vibrate the threads of the web.. .the male suddenly began to walk around the web. Apparently, the male was unsure as to what reception he would receive and hastily retreated twice as the female approached....The male returned to the entrance of the funnel (where mating takes place), to take up his position once again approximately five centimetres from the entrance to the funnel where the female remained motionless. An hour later, he was still in the same position. The next day, he had disappeared, but two nights later, the remains of a newly devoured male rested on the web. The body was reduced to its shell.” What a living parable in nature that has existed for hundreds of millions of years! It is the dance of the soul that moves closer to God, fears death and recoils, then returns, but which knows well that it is only in death that supreme love, the love of God, is possible. This is the most remote image of living matter, of the final ecstasy of the saints.

9.

Telepathy is the art of communicating ideas, feelings, and even actions, from a distance, without any visible or invisible means of communicating, and beyond the reach of our senses, of our eyes, ears and nose. Our dear old friend Fabre wrote extensively on telepathy among insects. Modern scholars appear not to have liked Fabre; but deep down they, as we, had an affectionate and boundless admiration for him. The English prominently displayed his statue right in the middle of their most magni­ ficent museum of natural history. I would have liked to quote him in this book, and I deserve a lot of credit for having abstained in an attempt to please modern scholars. Yet, eventually it always comes down to quoting Fabre [Souvenirs entomologiques (Entomological Memories), Series VII, XXIII, “The Emperor Moth”]: The history of the emperor moth must be read in its entirety. The males move by the dozens through tangles of branches4owards the female during the night. Fabre’s experiments eliminate, as a means of gaining inform­ ation, all light, even obscure, sounds and smells. Memories of the place do not play a role. “Across the distance, despite the darkness and the obstacles, they know how to find the one they ‘desire.’” One hundred and fifty arrive from several kilometres distant to visit the imprisoned female. Many return several times: if the prisoner is moved, they go straight to her new prison, without recognizing the old one. “Today, physics is preparing the way,” explains Fabre, “for wireless telegraphy and Hertzian waves. Did the emperor moth precede us in this regard? To stir up those around her, to warn the suitors located several kilometres away, could it be that the newly hatched nubile knowingly or unknowingly possesses magnetic waves? Does she use a sort of wireless telegraph? I do not consider any of this impossible; an insect is used to elepathy

T

236

Telepathy | 237

inventions just as wonderful.” The little diurnal peacock butterfly is perhaps even more astonishing. He approaches the female, arriving from the north when the mistral is blowing, which prevents any smell from reaching him across kilometres and kilometres. “The flow of the scent molecules against the air current does not seem to me to be possible.” Fabre went so far as to cut the antennae off these butterflies in case these could be used to communicate, but the peacock butterfly or emperor moth can locate the female without its antennae. We note again the close relationship between telepathy and sexual forces. The procedure later becomes the use of sexual strength for something other than reproduction. For termites, it is to communicate with others within the city; for the Cathars, it was to communicate with God. Marais writes: “The way in which the community of the psychic group works within the termitary is just as marvellous and mysterious for a human being, who has a different psyche, as telepathy or these other functions of the mind which touch on the supernatural.” He describes at length communications between the queen and the other insects and compares, in detail, the termitary to an organism with the queen as its brain and the termites as its organs. But there is no trace of nerves or pathways, or of any communication system between the queen and the termites. 1. All termite movements are controlled remotely. 2. Termite behaviour is linked to something that emanates from the queen. 3. This influence prevails as the distance grows. 4. The death of the queen destroys this influence. The injuries of the queen reduce her powers in relation to their severity. Therefore, the telepathy used by the queen, goddess of the termites, is absolute; it imposes from a distance a predetermined behaviour on her subjects (up to twenty, thirty and forty metres). Telepathy can be considered the common factor in ancient and modern

238 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

magic. Whether it is to kill someone from a distance or to transmit a thought, the principle is the same: you project from one point to another, outside of human reach, some kind of force, idea, or influence. All the religions of Antiquity, or all the witchcraft of our decadences, share this same goal: to act from a distance. The greatest object of admiration of the early scholars was, therefore, this power among insects. Imitation of the insect, or at least the search for this envied power, is consistent in the Tiahuanaco calendar and the Egyptian pyramids. I willingly offer this idea to Egyptologists: the pyramids mimic the termitary. [Known probably thousands of years before the dynasties and far, far away from Egypt, the similarities being at once essential and distant.] This is not about preserving the dead body of the pharaoh; little remains of this body because it was emptied and submitted to many chemical transformations. Rather, it is about having the dead pharaoh play the role that he played before, and this is the role of the queen of the termites: to govern the termitary psychically. Just as the men of Tiahuanaco conceived and built their calendar to capture the psychical force of the termitaries, the men of Egypt surpassed them (or so they would have believed). They built the pyramids, which are enormous termitaries, imitating those of the insects that ruled over Africa. They placed their king in the centre. They constructed complicated galleries that led to the royal cell. They did everything they could to feed, please and entertain the soul of the sovereign, in a mysterious relationship with the remains of his body. An entire government consisting of priests corresponded to the organization of termites surrounding the queen. Why? So that the king-god’s influence (his death was nothing more than an insignificant incident) continues to raise the Nile at the right time and to ensure that everything is working as it should throughout Egypt. What better than to imitate as closely as possible the marvellous con­ querors of the African continent who govern themselves so admirably using telepathic means? It is possible that, in the mind of the Egyptians of the first dynasties, the taller the pyramid, the greater the power. In the same way, we build bigger and bigger telescopes or atomic power plants.

Telepathy | 239

Queen, chamber, guard, king. Giant calendar of Tiahuanaco. (Drawing from Bellamy)

We are not even in a position to state definitively that the Egyptians were wrong. In all likelihood, their ways of doing things produced some results, since they continued along the same route for thousands of years. In any event, the similarity between their behaviour and that of termites is striking. I know no other satisfactory explanation for the incomprehensible and superhuman effort that built so many pyramids. In the minds of the builders, they must have served some purpose, and the idea of preserving and feeding a completely useless (except perhaps to the dead pharaoh) ca­ daver does not seem enough to justify the huge amount of work involved. Insect worship of the tertiary continued in Egypt, just as it continued for a long time in the adoration of kings and in magical practices throughout the world.

10.

Pyrenean Catharism and Folklore of the most persuasive efflorescences in all folklore is the development of Pyrenean Catharism. Catharism in the Midi region of France has, as do all religions (and as do all rivers) several sources, even if there is only one main one. A river rarely becomes a river without the support of several tributaries. Luchaire protested earlier (in Lavisse, Histoire de France [History of France]), 1911, vol. II, Part 2, p. 198) against the idea that the Catharism practised in the Midi arrived straight from the Orient. Today, enough Pyrenean folklore is known that we can say that the most distant source of this religion lies in the land of the giants, a land that stretched from Corbieres to the Cantabre mountains where the most wonderful examples of primitive art by our race were found. The Basques and the mountain dwellers of the Haute Ariege offer highly evocative and almost persuasive proof. [See Lahovary, Le Sang des peuples (The Blood of the Peoples). The facts mentioned here are confirmed in folkloric documents from Wales, Ireland and the Hebrides, lands that were once inhabited by the same Mediterranean race that lived in the Pyrenees.] The general picture thus enters our imagination (since popular imagina­ tion is nothing more than a degraded form of our ancestors’ imagination, we have the right to exaggerate this scene to a reasonable extent in this part of the mind). A long, long time ago, perhaps about 300,000 years ago, the Pyrenees were inhabited by giants, albeit not many, who reigned benevolently over men of our size, and who, in the absence of any extreme political organization, lived according to a matriarchal system; female domination was acquired sentimentally and psychologically, and it formed a peaceful ne

O

240

Pyrenean Catharism and Folklore | 241

people, communistic and very liberal, especially from a sexual perspective. Scientific knowledge was very advanced in some areas, especially in astronomy. We would likely call this “science” astrology, for it was both mathematical and psychical, and it dealt primarily with the influence of the stars on events and human emotions. This science allowed a foretelling of the catastrophe that was to be caused by the fall of the tertiary moon, described in Atlantis and the Giants. The reaction of the leaders was well thought-out and reasonable. The existence of giant races was going to become impossible: until then, the attraction of the moon, which revolved at a distance approximately five times the radius of the earth (instead of sixty times the earth’s radius in the 20th century) greatly alleviated the effect of the earth’s gravitation, thus helping the giants to carry their weight and to perform their tasks: everything was lighter for bigger and more muscular men. But once the moon had fallen, a new order had to be established. First, the sea, which rose 2,000 metres above the coastline compared to today, would drop to that of the Common Era. Thus, the means of transportation and the foods of ichthyophagous animals would disappear. Islands that were really the highest peaks of the Pyrenees would become part of an entire continent. Next, the giants would be handicapped by their weight, which would have become too much for their muscles, and their brain activity would have become extremely diminished. A physical, intellectual and moral decadence was anticipated. In contrast, the small men, then subjects of the giant-king, would gradually become the superior beings, as they were better adapted to the new gravitation. Relations between the two races would become reversed, and soon the small men would be more intelligent, quicker and more formidable than the giants. But in their religion, the oldest, which they followed since the end of the secondary period, perhaps 15 million years ago, the giants found the solution to the problems of their race. Their religion, established following contact with insects, taught them two rites that had rarely been used during this time at the end of the tertiary period: exogamy and male chastity. During the entire tertiary era, these two rites, learned from insects at the end of the secondary following the catastrophe of the secondary moon, had

242 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

hardly ever been used: in times of prosperity, the civilized giants, like ordinary men in the beginning, could do what they wanted; this was of little importance to the races, which openly flourished in a time of plenty. However, the end of the tertiary period saw the same living conditions as those at the end of the secondary, since, once again, the moon was going to crash down on us. Therefore, a return to the religion of the secondary period, the religion of the insects, became necessary. The race of giants had to stop reproducing itself, since the offspring would become fatally degenerate to the point of cannibalism and idiocy; from which the first law sprang: the daughters of giants could only mate with small men, a practice to which they were already accustomed. Thus, the small male of the enormous queen of the termitary became once again the norm. The offspring of these couples became smaller and smaller over several generations and, by keeping something of the intelligence and generosity of the giants passed on through their mothers, they were able to survive and help to civilize the small men. The Pyrenean Hercules, a descendant of a giant (or a god), and still superhuman in strength, is one example of this product of mandatory exogamy. Marrying off the daughters within the clan of giants was strictly prohibited. ^ From this, incest became the greatest of crimes. To marry one’s sister became the basest disgrace. This led to the establishment of the law, which can be found among all savage tribes, and the origin of which is inexplicable otherwise. Much later, people who remembered this wanted to turn back the clock and lead mankind to produce once again giants who would reign over men. Thus the Persians, as well as the pharaohs of Egypt and many of their subjects, began to marry their sisters. In Egypt, in particular, specific results, at least psychological ones, were obtained, and Egypt had long and remarkable periods of prosperity. However, for the threatened giants of the Pyrenees 300,000 years ago, incest became a major taboo. In a matriarchy, the “sisters” represent all the women of the clan. Therefore, what remained for the giant males to do? They could hardly mate with the daughters of men, although the Bible does speak of several

Pyrenean Catharism and Folklore | 243

attempts, when the sons of the gods (plural, therefore, the sons of the giants) found that the daughters of men (ordinary) were beautiful. But this did not produce much, as the daughters died giving birth, in general, killed by the child that tended towards gigantism. The religion of the insects provided a second commandment: male chastity. The workers of the anthill and the termitary are, in effect, males whose male organs are not developed: they represent those who were not allowed to become inseminators. They have active roles, in particular, among ants: the untapped sexual force is transformed into energy for working. Naturally, it is on a psychical level that the chastity of the male giant has the greatest effect. Without a doubt, the forces thus transformed also must often produce physical strength: the savage giant Cacus, who lived at the time of the Greeks, did not have a mate. But the civilized giants created what men later called Platonism: the chaste love of a woman who became the spiritual model and who was not to be touched. As a result, both telepathy and supernatural powers developed. Today, throughout the world, there are primitive or civilized sorcerers who continue to practise this method with uncertain results. But the tradition is consistent in earthly folklore. Learned from the termites, ants and bees, the psychical science, based on the cult of chastity as a source of strength, endures to this day. In the Midi region of France, Cathartic chastity, a source of spiritual powers, is still practised-more than we might think-in a number of unconsummated marriages, which demonstrate an extremely intense love but on a spiritual level. While, in principle, the Christian saint is chaste, alone, before God, to whom he offers up all his strengths, the Cathartic saint, in principle, is chaste in the company of a soul sister, and it is as a couple that they raise their love to a spiritual level (Roche, p. 158). This science also gave rise to the often-recalcitrant troubadours, to Dante and Beatrice, and later, the Petrarchan sonneteers, who were already degenerate. The daughters of the giants had taught their descendants the religion of the insects. Whence, finally, in the Midi area of France, the Cathartic system of the two laws, which flourished in the 13th century but is in decline today,

244 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

appears illogical, but becomes perfectly reasonable. If chastity is good, even necessary for the chosen ones, for the perfect ones, why is there a different law for simple believers, for the people who are allowed to do as they wish and who never deprive themselves of anything? Because the chosen ones continue the tradition of the fallen giants who are, in principle, the descendants of the daughters of the giants and who received from them the tradition of the perfect ones, while people descend from ordinary men who had no need to be chaste. The objective of chastity was to prevent giants from reproducing. In reality, the Cathartic horror of reproduction applies only to the reproduction of the chosen ones; reproduction of ordinary men and the sexual union of believers are not prohibited. Deodat Roche provides valuable evidence of these traditions concerning the giants living among the Cathars: “There are specific examples of the agreement that exists between Manicheism and Catharism in the explanations of the generation of giants that were arrived at during a period of change that preceded that of the current earth.” I would have preferred saying (and I would not want to push Deodat Roche into following the same tack as me against his will): These traditions arose during the tertiary era, a period of change undoubtedly different from our own, but still of this earth. Deodat Roche places, as do I, the essential centres of Pyrenean Catharism in the Haute Ariege: Ussat, Montsegur, Vicdessos, Montreal de Sos, and the Mithraic cave of Bethlehem are its holy sites.

11.

Metamorphoses Life Under the Earth Feeding the Buried Resurrection Ascension Communion ittle in the universe is as unbelievable as the metamorphosis of insects. A larva hatches from an egg. The larva is buried and lives a diminished and apparently miserable life, among many species it never sees any light; in others, it crawls lamentably (to our eyes) over leaves. Then, the larva, this despised, little worm, wraps itself inside a shroud and goes to its tomb. It appears to be dead. But inside the shroud, a miraculous change is taking place; a splendid creature is forming, for example, a butterfly, with wonderful colours and shapes. Then, the moment arrives: the resurrection takes place; from the shroud emerges an angel. The angel flies towards heaven. Primitive man, who would have witnessed this, must have wondered

L

enviously: why not me? Until, one day, he said: me, too. We will wrap ourselves in a shroud; buried in the ground, we will become glorious, we will be resurrected from the dead and ascend to 245

246 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

heaven. Like the insects. We want to be like the insects. We will be insects. Insect worship from the time of the giants of the tertiary era. At the height of human history, Christ will do all this. Not in spirit, but in the flesh. Truly, concretely, like the insects. And spiritually, as a man. Yet, how many attempts occurred between the insects who ruled for 300 million years and Christ who reigned for a day? How many oversights, failures, declines, revivals and triumphs occurred during the great civilizations? How many falls and new beginnings over 15 million years, if we accept that giant man lived at the end of the secondary period, a million years if we are talking about man since the quaternary? It is almost pointless to show that life underground, whether that of the larva or the chrysalis, is the principle concern of the perfect insect. All we need to do is read all of Fabre, or the books on insects by Maeterlinck, to see, with joy and amazement, how the beetle, ant, bee and termite spend their lives doing the most ingenious things about food, shelter, and the well-being of small creatures, namely the larvae or the pupae who appear so helpless. x Blake expresses his wonder in the Book ofThel. Thel says: Alas! I knew not this, and therefore did I weep. That God would love a Worm I knew, and punish the evil foot that wilful bruised its helpless form, But that he cherished it with milk and oil, I never knew, and therefore did I weep; And I complain’d in the mild air, because I fade away, And lay me down in thy cold bed, and leave my shining lot.

“Queen of the vales,” the matron Clay answer’d, “I heard thy sighs, And all thy moans flew o’er my roof, but I have call’d them down. Wilt thou, O Queen, enter my house? ‘Tis given thee to enter And to return; fear nothing; enter with thy virgin feet.” The eternal gates’ terrific porter lifted the northern bar. Thel enter’d in & saw the secrets of the land unknown.

Metamorphoses Life Under the Earth | 247

She saw the couches of the dead, & where the fibrous roots Of every heart on earth infixes deep its restless twists: A land of sorrow and of tears where never smile was seen.

She wander’d in the land of clouds thro’ valleys dark, list’ning Dolours and lamentations; waiting oft beside a dewy grave She stood in silence, list’ning to the voices of the ground, Till to her own grave plot she came, & there she sat down, And heard this voice of sorrow breathed from the hollow pit: “Why cannot the Ear be closed to its own destruction? Or the glist’ning Eye to the poison of a smile? Why are Eyelids stor’d with arrows ready drawn, “Where a thousand fighting men in ambush lie? Or an Eye of gifts & graces, show’ring fruits and coined gold? Why a Tongue impress’d with honey from every wind? Why an Ear a whirlpool fierce to draw creations in? Why a Nostril wide inhaling terror, trembling & affright? Why a tender curb upon the youthful burning boy? Why a little curtain of flesh on the ‘bed of our desire’?”

The Virgin started from her seat, and with a shriek Fled back unhinder’d till she came into the vales of Har. The entire eternal myth resides in these worms. God loves the worm and gives it oil and milk. The whole insect world works to feed and to care for the worm under the earth. Then, Thel goes underground, just as Christ goes underground to raise the worms, the dead. And then, like Christ, she rips open the little curtain of flesh on the bed of desire, rises unimpeded, and flies off to the happy vales of heaven. Certainly, the pharaoh had to be fed in his tomb so that he could undergo his metamorphosis and fly to heaven. Absurd, feeding the dead? The larva has to be fed. Thus, before everyone’s eyes, insects die at the beginning of winter, and then, before everyone’s eyes, they leave the earth, rising in the spring. Moreover, there is a direct parallel between the Eucharist and the life of bees. The Male, the Christ, leaves, upon his death, in the hands of the

248 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Church, the Mother, impregnated, through death, by the fragments, of which he says: “Take this and eat it, for this is my body.” The dying male bee leaves, in the breast of the mother, the queen, infinitesimal fragments of his body and blood, and the mother will be able to distribute these by the millions to the eggs that are the offspring, and thus give them life. To live, to be able to reproduce, each must receive a drop of sperm after the death of the male. The Eucharist, taken from the body of Jesus Christ, offers this drop to each of the children of Mother Church, and thus gives them immortality. And this immortality strictly follows the rhythm of the insect. The dead body is placed in a hole, wrapped in a shroud like a chrysalis; and it leaves the tomb upon judgment, and the transformed flesh becomes winged and ascends towards heaven as Christ did, as insects do every year in front of our very eyes. For early Christians, Christianity was, above all, about the resurrection of the dead: gaining the status of insect.

Heavenly Body and the Flood (Jacobi)

12.

Dreams N Atlantis and the Giants, I used dreams as proof of the survival in the Jungian subconscious of very old visions that did not originate in the individual dreamer. Critics have not contested the legitimacy of the evidence. Below are two dreams about insect worship that appear to me to be very convincing. Without a doubt, dream experts will find others.

I

The first one, of which I have a transcript, comes to us from an eight-yearold girl who reported the experience of a termite going to feed its queen; everything is there: the long tunnels that lead to the royal cell, the hole in the wall that marks the entrance to the cell, the queen within her walls, the act of feeding her, the relief of the insect that accomplished its task, the hurried departure. Vaillant explains: “Immediately in front of the head of the queen, there was a small opening through which the female workers could enter and leave, but too small for the queen to pass through. “A row of workers was busy feeding the queen. Each insect stopped in front of the head and lowered itself to reach the mouth. As soon as the termite had given its piece to the queen, it quickly retreated to the exit located at the opposite end of the underground passage. “The work continued as quickly as possible without the workers disturbing or interfering with each other.” In the dream, the girl believes she is alone, and the whole thing is transposed to the human realm in such a way that the horror resides in the translation into human terms of a normal event in the termite world. I made certain that there were no books on insects in the girl’s home and that the child had never read anything on this subject. In her mind, there was no connection between her dream and an insect, 249

250 The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

and she had never heard of termites. I myself had not thought of linking this dream to the termitary until 1954, when I began writing this book. The girl’s story was written on September 4, 1936, when the girl was fourteen years old. (She dreamt this dream regularly and often between

ages eight and ten.) “A long tunnel with frequent detours, becomes narrower and narrower. Something tells me I should go. “I am very scared, but I know that once I enter I will not be able to go back. “In my pocket and in my hands, I am carrying cookies, cakes and other

foods. “I know that I will suddenly see. A disembodied face stands before me. “Only a face, surrounded by terrifying shadows. “I feed the greedy but silent mouth. The eyes are big, cold, dark and staring. “When it is over, I begin to run along the rest of the tunnel and end up at the same spot where I had stood before entering, I am happy that it is over, at least for that day. “I was frightened and tense as I walked towards the place where the vision awaited me. The tunnel is so narrow at a certain point that I am forced to go on hands and knees. But, once the vision was fed, I could freely run to the place from which I had started.” Marais’s findings are confirmed. The insect is directed using telepathy: “Something tells me I should go,” says the girl, and “I know that I will suddenly see.”

The second dream was published in La Mort et le reveur (Death and the Dreamer) [La Colombe, Paris, 1947]. It is taken from my dream journal. I regret having to present my own evidence here, but the dream is too “insect-like” for me not to mention it. Obviously, the dream deals with giant, intelligent insects that come to explore mankind, perhaps arriving from another world, separated from us by a “wall of flames.” Perhaps from the tertiary or secondary era: the curtain of flames may be a representation of the flaming descent of a satellite hitting the earth. The giant insects would come during earlier

Dreams | 251

periods and return there.

At any rate, it is a second curious example of insect worship in our time. It is November 11, 1941, a day on which I was far from studying entomology, and it relates to nothing: neither other dreams about insects, nor scientific or philosophical research, readings, conferences, or interplanetary novels, which I did not read at that time. On that day in London, we were busy with other things. But it is possible that the violent emotions of war stir within us parts of our very being that we would never know otherwise. The man watched. In the nothingness that obscured his view, a surprising creature gradually appeared. It was perhaps a metre high and a metre wide; its thickness could not be determined; perhaps half a centimetre. Composed of five large valves joined in the centre, the creature was like an insect on whose back several large elytrons came together. Not in pairs, but five joined at their centres, without a membrane or any logical link; they were very solidly connected, however, with some overlapping in the centre. Hard shells without a body; an immense insect made up of only five, hard elytrons, with no wings, no body, no legs, and no head, its thickness that of the almost imaginary, extremely hard elytron. The creature drew closer to the man without seeming to use any means of locomotion, without legs, without moving its five elytrons; it approached simply using an abstract motion; it was 10 metres away, then five, then two. It looked at the man. The man looked at it with his two eyes and his brain. The elytron-bearing insect watched the man with its hard, black, shiny substance, without eyes, without antennae, without legs, without filaments, without a body. With its thickness of half a centimetre at least, with the supremely elegant curves of its valves that extended 50 centimetres or more from its centre, in ovals 30 centimetres in diameter at their widest point. The man clearly saw the five linked valves in the centre of this creature curved towards the back, resembling huge oyster shells of which the hollow would have faced the man, but black inside as well as outside. Not very hollow. Black, gleaming, glossy. There was a living quality to this glossy sheen;

252 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

perhaps the creature could feel, see and think through the glossy coating that covered its valves? The man could not see how, but he knew that the elytron-bearing creature was observing him with the greatest interest; and he felt that he, the man, was just as incomprehensible to the creature as it was to the human mind. Suddenly, behind the glossy blackness of the creature, a great wall of flames appeared, extending three or four metres high and three or four metres across, and from which a rather gentle and, in no way, threatening heat reached the man. The elytron-bearing creature appeared to collect itself in its immobility, its hard blackness silhouetted against the wall of flames; then, just as quickly, without hesitation, it entered the fire, as if it was going home; its black substance became transparent, then pink, then red against the yellow flame, then golden, then silvery, and the yellow flame became silvery, and the elytron-bearing creature dissolved, silver in silver, before fading, then disappearing altogether. The man looked again, but in vain; there was nothing within sight. Some time passed: the man lived, came and went, worked, looked after his wife, his children; then, later, one day, at a certain moment, he found himself in the same place, perhaps even at the same moment when he had seen the elytron-bearing creature. As in the first instance, he saw nothing before him. Then, gradually, a new being appeared, obviously of the same race as the first, but completely different. The elytron-bearing creature must have gone to notify it, to warn it, to explain to it its mission, to tell it how it had seen a man or, at least, found a man, and could not figure him out; and then send it, the second inhabitant of this inconceivable universe, better equipped for the search. Indeed, this one had very long legs, perhaps a metre long and very flexible, each one consisting of eight or ten articulated sections; eight or ten legs, perhaps; the man could not count them as the creature kept moving. A large, black middle, an elytron; a curved, lacquered valve as big as an open hand, without any definable shape, partly round, partly rectangular or trapezoidal, a mixture of several geometries. The creature remained motionless for a moment in front of the man and a sort of communication took place. The man thought; it knows it perceives less of

Dreams | 253

me than I perceive of it; it has come to gather information, to inform the others; let us leave the creature to it. Suddenly, the elytron-bearing, legged creature, as if it had understood the man's acceptance, leapt upon the man. It weighed nothing; the man did not move, remaining perfectly still in his heart, his mind, his body. With infinite care, the long legs began to explore the man’s body, gently stroking his face, bending to touch the back of his head, moving within a millimetre of his eyes, penetrating his ears at length without tickling him, without disturbing him, reaching under his clothes without pulling one single hair, tracing his body’s topography in great detail; wrapping around his fingers and his toes, even pushing an antenna barely felt between the sole of his foot and the insole of his shoe. The man sensed directly the infinite care of this being, which did not want to hurt him or annoy him in the least; and the man admired the extraordinary intelligence of the elytron-bearing creature, an intelligence that surpassed human intelligence, since it took the most precise and meticulous measurements without offending the earthly being in the least, while the man dared not move his hand for fear of bruising or disturbing one of the articulations of the large insect. “It understands my body better than I can understand its body,” thought the man. “Therefore, it is better able to understand me than I to understand it.” Then, as a gesture of some kind of inter-cosmic courtesy, the elytron­ bearing creature with the long legs stood up before the man as it retreated and extended as far as possible its eight or ten or twelve legs. The man did not know how to count them, and felt inferior intellectually. The creature standing before him on two of its legs, radiating out in all directions, moved all its articulations in front of the man, obviously to allow him to understand how an elytron-bearing creature, like it, is organized, just as it had grasped how humans are organized. And, as a kind of supreme salute, it raised the two legs that seemed to be holding it upright and remained suspended, apparently in mid-air; then it gathered together all its legs around its middle and suddenly disap­ peared. But the man remembered the first elytron-bearing creature that had neither tentacles, nor legs, nor body, and which had disappeared in a wall of flames.

254 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

And the man understood nothing of these two creatures, except on a purely spiritual level; they had come willingly, and he had received them willingly. And the man was very happy with all this. What better basis for intelli­ gence could this goodwill have found for an unimaginable future?

13.

Mythology and Poetry Greeks told of Hercules, the mysterious giant whose adventures they never fully understood, and how he had wandered towards the Far East in completing one of his labours. Now, somewhere on the Guadalquivir or in the Azores, or even further away (in the Americas? in Atlantis?) he had met the surprising monster whose name was Geryon. This monster had three bodies joined one to the other by some sort of coarse rope, and he had powerful wings. What is even more surprising is that he possessed tame and productive cattle. Hercules killed Geryon using several arrows and took away the cattle. It is obvious, from where we stand, that Hercules, one of the first human giants, had met a giant insect; only insects have three bodies connected by a cable: the head, the corselet and the abdomen. Look at the bee. And, they have powerful wings. And, some insects, including ants and termites, raise cattle today. Therefore, some very ancient tradition concerning giants that were enemies of gigantic insects reached the Greeks, for the giants must have rid the earth of the monstrous insects who possessed it before them, just as we had to cleanse the earth of the monstrous giants who possessed it before us. Hercules killing Geryon in the tertiary era parallels David killing Goliath in the quaternary period. In both instances, the heroes used an arrow or a stone as their weapon, for their adversary was too formidable for hand-to-hand combat. In a recent and famous English novel, the hero, during an underground adventure, meets a terrifying monster in a cave. The monster closely resembles Geryon. Given that C.S. Lewis did not establish any kind of link between his story and that of Hercules, I quote the passage as the he

T

255

256 The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

expression of a dream that took place in the imagination of one our contemporaries, reinforcing the dream of the little girl who belongs to the

world of termites: “Initially, something resembling the branch of a tree appeared, then seven or eight points of light, grouped together irregularly like a constellation, then a tubular mass that reflected the red light like a polished surface. The heart of our hero leapt in his chest when he suddenly saw that the branches were long, metallic-looking antennae and that the points of light were the numerous eyes of a head covered in scales; the mass that followed this head was a wide, almost cylindrical body. Horrible things followed, legs bent in several places. Then, while he was thinking that the whole body was now visible, a second body followed and, after that, a third. The monster consisted of three parts joined together one to the other with a sort of structure similar to the link joining the different parts of a wasp. These three parts did not seem to be truly aligned, and it appeared that someone had crushed this creature. It was a huge, misshapen monster, whose body was in a state of perpetual trembling.” [C.S. Lewis, Voyage a Venus (Voyage to Venus), Club du Livre d’Anticipation.] Graves wrote: “The word ‘Hercules’ means several things.” Cicero distinguishes six different individuals named Heracles (The White Goddess)', Varro knows of forty-four. In Greek, his name means glory of Hera (Heracles), Hera being the goddess of death. “He is the most embarrassing character in Classical mythology. “This makes him the most perplexing character in Classical mytho­ logy-” “Hercules first appears in legend as a pastoral sacred king and, perhaps because shepherds welcome the birth of twin lambs, is a twin himself. His characteristics and history can be deduced from a mass of legends, folk­ customs and megalithic monuments. He is the rain-maker of his tribe, and a sort of human thunder-storm. Legends connect him with Libya and the Atlas Mountains; he may well have originated thereabouts in Paleolithic times.” (Let us recall his Pyrenean adventure with the giant Bebryx and the young Pyrenee.) “The priests of Egyptian Thebes, who called him ‘Shu,’ dated this origin as 17,000 years before the reign of King Amasis.” Perhaps in reference to this Egyptian Hercules, an Egyptian text

Mythology and Poetry | 257

appearing in the pyramids that is said to date back to an even earlier period, states: “The dead king is a hunter who catches and devours the gods to gain their attributes.” The dead pharaoh becomes once again a giant. For the giants, the “gods” were the great insects in the same way that the giants would become for men the “gods.” They are eaten for the same reason, to possess their attributes. This was not the only trace of a link between giants and insects in Greece. Achilles, the invincible giant, was king of the Myrmidons; the Myrmidons descended from ants. In the earliest times, a son of Jupiter (who had many sons with different mothers) had fallen in love with a marvellous female creature, Eurymedusa, the mother of the three Graces. But she wanted nothing to do with him. So, to prove his love, this son of a god transformed himself into an ant and demonstrated all his attributes including his perseverance, courage, devotion, industriousness and intelligence. The goddess was touched by this display and yielded. Thus was born the people of the ants, who went on to become, in human form, the Myrmidons of Achilles. Victor Hugo also remembers the golden age of the insects (Contem­ plations):

The created being, adorned in baptismal array, At a time only we remember, Soared in splendour on wings of glory. All was chanting, incense, flame, dazzle. The creature wandered, its wing golden in a charming ray of light, And was host of all the scents each in turn. All things swam, all things flew.

The Satyr of the legend provides the name of this age. He says: The earliest times, happiness, Atlantis.

258 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Drawing by Edward Bawden, 1946

(Bawden)

14.

Falling and Surpassing The Resurrection s the Dutch thinker Albert Raignier remarked, it is wrong to refuse to grant an individual insect any signs of intelligence and personal will. When ten thousand termites fight against ten or twenty thousand ants, it is useless to say that each of the combatants is guided by instinct, whatever the thinking behind the concept of “instinct.” In a fight, the blow to be struck against an adversary is judged and decided upon by an intelligence that is nothing but individual. No one other than the fighter can immediately decide, and under pain of death, which blow to strike, which hold to take, whether to advance or to retreat. Two jumping jacks facing each other, and powered by electricity or by radio, cannot truly fight in the way two men, or even two ants, can fight. When an insect tries to escape, and often succeeds, at its level, it is a case of its intelligence working against your own. Inversely, an impartial, non-human observer, seeing one of our armies in action or on the move, seeing individuals in formation acting as one, renouncing apparently all freedom and intelligence (and we know they renounce it in large measure), could also logically conclude that human beings have neither a separate will nor an individual intellect. Bees, if they could observe our dancing, would not understand it, while theirs communicates precise and valuable information. It is impossible to attribute, on the one hand, instinct to the insect and, on the other, intelligence to man. Man is unaware of many of his own actions: almost all the behaviour of his physiology-digestion, circulationis the basis for all else including movement or rest, health, depression joy; and a good part of his feelings are involuntary, beginning with love, the most important of all, not to mention maternal love, envy, anger, and so many others.

A

259

260 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

The type of food we need does not depend on us. How we get it is our business. In this, we resemble insects. Among insects, there is also intelligence; ants also have their poli­ ticians. Moreover, there are some serious disadvantages to our intelligence. Our horror and our fear of death and illness, which ruin a large part of our life, must be unknown to insects. Without a doubt, the dead insect does not know it is dead. Our stupor and our helplessness before the world of insects are stupid. We put ourselves in the place of the insect with our feelings, which it does not have. The male scorpion undoubtedly does not feel itself being eaten. And yet, in battle, insects know well how to avoid death, just as we do. If we look at animals, in a herd watched over by the shepherd and the dog, each sheep finds its own grass and eats it. In religion, that which we call “faith” may be our own form of instinct. The believer calls Christ his “shepherd.” Faith means, in effect, belonging directly; it includes reason and “intellect,” but represents more. Action is “instinct” in the insect: action means belonging even more directly, since: Is faith that fails to act a true faith? Goethe, in his famous translation of “In the Beginning Was the Word,” presents this surprising monologue in Faust: *. Am Anfang war die That In the beginning was the act. If Goethe had written nothing but this, he would have still been a great man. The actions of the insect, in effect, imply intelligence, freedom and voluntary belonging, which only manifest themselves later. The insect concretely demonstrates, without hesitation, in its life and its physical death, that which we show only with hesitation, repeated at­ tempts, trials and doubts. In following the rhythm of life that we defined at the beginning of this research, insects are far superior to us. They are better Christians than we. Christ is clearly incarnate in all insects. He could only become incarnate in one man. Marais arrives at this conclusion to understand the termitary; it must be

Falling and Surpassing | 261

judged as an organic whole that includes thousands of insects like the cells in our bodies.

Maeterlinck, who reflected a lot on these kinds of subjects, more so probably than most experts, refers to a “spirit of the hive,” for which he was criticized without his critics truly understanding what he was talking about. All the zoologists and biologists whose works I have read sooner or later slipped into finalism and anthropomorphism and even, and especially, disguised deism, as the quotations presented below will demonstrate. In fact, a more elevated consciousness has just penetrated and is observable at all points where the possibility of such is created. Something greater than man appears in the history of mankind. The “spirit” of the hive or the termitary requires that the individual insect sacrifice itself if necessary, and man also knows, less well than the insect it is true, how to sacrifice himself for the city or homeland. However, while the hive or the termitary knows how to sacrifice itself for the entire race, or at least, to expose itself to danger, the human city does not know how to sacrifice itself for mankind. It seems, however, that man may have arrived at an idea superior to that of race. In mysticism, man succeeds in suppressing the self before God, in sacrificing himself for God through the martyrs “even if there is no heaven or hell, no immortality, but only the love of God,” said the great saint Theresa. Therefore, it appears that a moral surpassing of the world is visible in man. Surpassing the self in an insect begins with a greater “self,” undoubtedly, a city or race, but still a “self.” Surpassing the self in humans begins with the abolition of the self. It is perhaps in striving towards this goal of integrating freedom and conscience that we are forced to remark that in the organization of living beings, when, distancing ourselves from those who resemble us the least, we carry around our mind like a lamp shining on the degrees thus arranged. Let us note that it is in the concrete world, the most concrete possible, that insects are better Christians than we. Deep within Christianity, the concrete ritual of the insects has become spiritual. With the resurrection of the body, the concrete is preserved for eternity, but transported into

262 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

eternity by the spirit itself, while in the insect, we believe we see the spirit become living matter and firmly established in the concrete. And this series of occasions to surpass is possible through a series of falls. We can imagine fairly easily, along with the geologist Perrier or the poet Hugo, a golden age of the insect followed by its downfall: Hercules kills Geryon.

The three-winged creature

Falling and Surpassing | 263

With Bellamy and the Greeks, we can imagine the fall of the giants that we almost witnessed: David kills Goliath. And each fall was sudden, not the result of a long decline, but of a cosmic catastrophe, namely the fall of the secondary moon, then the tertiary; the physical expulsion in a single day, through a universal cataclysm, from a Paradise long enjoyed. The fall of the secondary moon freed man from the mechanisms of the insects, who were guided by sex and reproduction, and gave man enough awareness and freedom to create a second civilization, which favoured the development of the individual. The fall of the tertiary moon freed man from the gigantic matriarchies and the sexual restrictions of which the ancient mythologies still speak; more freedom and awareness were introduced into the world of man than existed in the world of the giants. Man drew one step nearer to God than at the time of the giants. This is the inevitable conclusion of everything that we have discussed here; man escaped cannibalism, male sacrifice, matriarchies, subterranean life (symbol recorded in matter), in the same way that the giant drew one step nearer to God than the insect. Gigantic and intelligent insects descended into a mechanized state. Good and powerful giants, descended into cannibalism and brutishness. What will the fall of man bring? Only time will tell. At the same time, passing from insect to giant, the ritual became spiritualized; the giants applied it to the gods more than to themselves; then, from the religion of the termitaries of Tiahuanaco to Christianity, the ritual became completely spiritualized among men, and this caused many to forget that it must be both concrete and spiritual. The ascent of the being must obviously continue, in strictly logical terms, until the destruction of the earth and the projection of man into eternity. So, Hoerbiger tells us that in 15 million years, the trumpet of the giant standing before the Gate to the Sun, powered by all the fluids of the earth, will sound both the last judgment and the triumph of the planet in the spiritual world.

15.

The City and the Nation Ant Democracy The Parallels not defending the absolute thesis and I would also consider it blasphemous to say, for example, that the truths revealed in religion were taught to us by observing the world of insects a very long time ago. I think it more reasonable to believe in a universal harmony between the world of thought and the world of concrete facts. The cycle of life which, in the life of Christ, is offered both to the spiritual in its teachings and to the physical in its earthly history, is found in all of creation. Logically, if you believe in God, then it is in the thought of God that the cycle exists and, therefore, you must be able to find it in the peripheral world, in the living concrete represented, as the most remote example compared to ourselves, by the insects. That we look upon ourselves as being at the centre is perfectly inevitable. Therefore, by placing our conscience at the centre of everything and making a “superhuman” and, therefore, effective effort to pass intellect­ ually from this anthropocentrism to theocentrism, we can move intellect­ ually from the Christ Cycle to the Insect Cycle, or vice-versa, from the Insect to Christ. Yet, both efforts would be wrong since they are both products of the human mind. It is thanks to the actions of the mind that we learn something about the universe; these are not the actions of the universe. We have stated that history does not exist; that which we print under this name is the history of historians’ ideas. We have no access to that which has already passed: we have access only to the reflections of those who witnessed or who thought about the events. Moreover, we cannot explain the world of insects through the life of

I

am

264

The City and the Nation | 265

Christ in the years 1 to 33 after Christ, nor can we explain the life of Christ from ages 1 to 33 years through the insect life cycle. We can see the whole world arose in all aspects in parallel to the spirit of God and we can see these parallelisms and sometimes the transversal relationships: but generally, we are mistaken. Therefore, the study of the great religions will not explain the beliefs of the savages, nor will the beliefs of the savages shed light on the great religions. We can say: The similarities throughout the cosmos radiate from the centre in every direction. We can also say: the similarities are evident in the parallel lines that pass through a being in all its forms. Thus, we can also see that the same mathematical representations are nothing more than expressions of human language, since, in mathematics, the distribution that starts in the centre is the opposite of parallelism, and yet, one or the other formula applies to reality. Upon closer inspection, I do not believe that we can say, in general, that human cities imitated insect cities. However, it is interesting to note the similarities. Only four types of governance are possible, and we find all four in human and insect civilizations:

-absolute monarchy -moderate (or constitutional) monarchy -democracy -anarchy We saw an absolute monarchy among termites. The moderate monarchy of the queen bee may bear nothing more than the name of monarchy. Anarchy, at least what appears to be anarchy, is highly visible. Bossuet claims in the conclusion to his Discours sur I’histoire universelie (Discourse on Universal History) that anarchy only appears to be such and that, in reality, God oversees everything to the smallest detail. A very seductive theory, but not widely accepted in politics today. Yet, it is curious to note how ants live. The egg-layers do not seem to have any kind of authority. In fact, no one seems to exercise any authority among ants. But ants have a class of individuals who correspond exactly to those we would call politicians.

266 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

English and American writers have closely studied these individuals and refer to them as “centres of excitement.” Inspired by Michelet (La vie des fourmis) (The Life of the Ant), Maeterlinck writes: “In the case of a decision on which the fate of the entire city may depend, such as the abandonment of the birth home, emigration, or a dangerous expedition, the ants try to convince those who disagree by touching them with their antennae or by example. They succeed, as Michelet describes it well, this time in a tone that is not too sentimental, in removing the unresisting listener to the new location or to the new object. In this instance, which is difficult to believe or to apply, the persuaded listener joins the first, and both will bring other witnesses who, one by one, will bring others in ever increasing numbers. Our parlia­ mentary expressions win everyone over and move your audience are not metaphorical among ants.” D.W. Morley writes: “These centres of excitement are the leaders. They decide what is to be done, not by sitting down and reflecting, but by exciting the other ants into doing the work, starting with themselves.” The observer describes the beginnings of a new anthill: the few “leaders” decided that it was time to build another nest. “Each ‘leader’ carried either a larva or a worker, but exactly when the movement begins is open to debate. One or two workers that went to reconnoitre a new site assume the task of carrying others to the new location. However, there is often a fight, and sometimes the ants carried to the new location proposed by the leaders, escape and return to the place from which they were taken. But the leaders forcefully take other workers and carry them to the new site, while others voluntarily join the leaders and stubborn workers continue to return, but gradually, the movement towards the new site grows. Some of the obstinate workers re-enter the old city, often carrying other workers back with them, but even these leaders of the opposition end up allowing themselves to be led back to the new city to join the first ones. An increasing number of ants remain at the new location, and soon work begins on digging and constructing a new nest. “This conflict can go on for a long time after the new city is well established. There are workers who refuse to move, even when the old anthill is, in fact, abandoned, and continue to live there in a lethargic state

The City and the Nation | 267

until their death (The Evolution). “Some of these ants, the centres of excitement, more so than the others, are powerful motivators of the city. They are the most sensitive and energetic workers in the nest. They quickly react to events and sensations, to information accumulating in their sensory organs. They act with greater nervous energy. They are the engines of the city, the first to perceive the presence of food or the enemy, or who feel the movement of a grain of sand or a twig on well-worn paths. They are the first to act and, strangely resembling some humans, the first to sacrifice themselves. “Place them in an artificial labyrinth and they will be the first to discover the exit. “They are the memory and judgment of the whole anthill.” Morley reports that, during one experiment, one of his American col­ leagues, Turner, placed the ants on a small platform that took them to a nest where they transported their larvae. To shorten the distance, the ants learned to stand, bearing their burden, on the small spatula Turner used. In fact, these intelligent insects used the entomologist to help simplify the task. The love of sports is highly developed among ants. “They fight simulated battles and hand-to-hand combat, and demon­ strate all the symptoms of the joy of life.” It took a long time for myrmecologists to discover some private battles in which the ants did not hurt themselves, and these boxing matches occurred in the middle of a crowd of spectators who, judging from their behaviour, enjoyed it as much as other spectators might enjoy a soccer or a wrestling match. Everyone also knows that ants raise cattle and obtain “milk” from them just as we do from cows. Finally, ants also have a system for communicating that may be beyond our comprehension and may occur through telepathy or radio. Here is a Pheidolic order to warriors to move out (is this sufficiently human?): “The Pheidole soldiers are, for the most part, lazy and slow creatures. They are bigger than the workers, their head is rectangular and often as long as the rest of their body; they have a huge pair of jaws for fighting situated above their mouth. They wander aimlessly along beaten paths, among busy workers, but they themselves do no work.

268 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

“They show no signs of activity except when the workers themselves become excited more than usual. Then, suddenly, as if something happened that caused them to act the way an electric switch activates the current, they rush outside the nest and begin running to and fro, attacking any foreign creature within reach using their massive jaws.” Yet, sometimes, as with us, the soldiers help to bring in the harvest: “Except for when they occasionally help the workers to husk the grains, they do nothing else to help the city.” Finally, unbelievable but true [See Maeterlinck, Fourmis (Ants)], there are ants who become drunk. Some of the parasites of the termitary produce a stimulating but noxious secretion, and there are female workers who love this alcohol so much that they imbibe to the point of becoming drunk, and they are then “sent to bed” by the others until they recover. But it is in the art of war that we must admire the ants and make note of the similarities with our own tactics and strategies. Once again, it is not a question of us having learned from them, or they from us. Whether insect or man, our natural abilities run deep and must be innate. It is hardly necessary to say that ants have launchers and tanks; they conduct chemical warfare by firing corrosive jets of formic acid and transform their best beasts into tanks. Without a doubt, once we have studied them in depth, we will find that they can show us a thing or two. They do not appear to have invented the atomic bomb, or perhaps they found it too dangerous for those who would use it. According to Bathellier, Feytaud described a battle between ants and termites. To our human satisfaction, the battle ended in victory for the good guys, for the termites were obviously the attacked and the ants the attackers. Unfortunately, the ants usually win: the war, which continues today, has been going on between the two species for 150 million years. “When the battle first began, the soldiers (termites) rushed the ants, whom they tried to strangle using their pincers. But they (the termite soldiers) were immediately caught in a horde of enemies who frightened them to the core, latched onto them and did not let go despite their jumping up and down, and tensing followed suddenly by relaxing. Undoubtedly poisoned (by formic acid), they fell to the ground, paralysed, and died.

“In the meantime, the workers (termites) who began to repair the vast

The City and the Nation | 269

breach (loosely created by the scholar Berthillier himself and quickly used to their advantage by the ants), covered the mushroom beds with chewed earth all the while creating small openings quickly guarded by several soldiers. “Reinforcements arrived in the form of a long column of ants, the end of the line lost in the surrounding grass; they dragged along these enor­ mous neuters with their strong cuirass and powerful jaws, who, depending on the situation, served as shields or as war machines, and who, spread throughout the mass of ants at regular intervals, resembled tanks in an infantry column. But this formidable formation met with vigilant warriors (termites) from all sides. As soon as an ant was within reach, they rushed forward, delivered their blow, and then retreated just as quickly to retake their position at the entrance to the opening that they were charged with defending. “The war machine, the ant tank, twice as big as its adversary (the termite warrior) was neatly cut in two. “The fight, which was rough, ended with the ants retreating.” Thus, concluded Feytaud, the termites would have been at a disad­ vantage in open conflict (which humans force them to do sometimes by opening up the termitary, which the ants then use to their advantage). They have a superior ability to fight in ambush fighting, “the only kind which nature forces them into in order to maintain their strong positions.” In other words, their Maginot Lines are better conceived than our own. “This is also true in the case where the defenders are fighting using chemical weapons. The contractile sack feeding their nasal sprayer is equipped with a viscous secretion that they spray on their adversary. “A soldier (termite) when brushed by an ant, stops, points its nose in the direction of the ant and shoots a jet of glue. Abandoned to their fate, the ants, unable to disengage, die on the spot, completely immobilized.” I would not like to offer arguments to the enemies of democracy, but it does seem that the democratic ants may be the most battle-hardened of all living creatures. They fight amongst themselves, sometimes even in huge civil wars within the same anthill; they attack other ants less capable and enslave them; as for attacking anything that is not an ant, this is their daily task.

270 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Tiahuanaco: The Temple drawn in 1839 (Atlas of the American Man, Alee ides d’Orbigny)

Drawing by Marais: The Queen’s Cell

The City and the Nation | 271

Admirable as such from certain points of view, they resemble man too closely to not pose a danger to us. Sir John Lubbock said that the closest relative of man, morally and intellectually, is not the monkey, but the ant. The ant may also pose the greatest danger to man on earth. And, there are scholars who think the earth will end up belonging to the ants once man has disappeared. It is slim consolation to think that the peaceful, non-aggressive termites will probably succeed in holding their own against the ants, something man will have failed to do. Let us not turn to Pascal to console ourselves by thinking that the ant knows nothing and that insects are only machines. One of the men most knowledgeable about ants, Albert Raignier, professor of general biology responsible for international missions, and who knows man as well as he knows animals, writes [Vie et moeurs desfourmis (Ant Life and Customs), Payot, 1952, translated from the Dutch]: “There remain worlds to be discovered in the psychical life of ants. For a colony of ants is not a group of automatons, but, as with any animal community, consists of personalities; of types possessing a character and habits, and perhaps real faults and passions.” (I remember that some ants are inclined to become inebriated on the special secretions made by their cattle and become useless for a time, just like our drunks.) “Nothing is as inaccurate as considering a nation of ants a pile of massproduced products.” We cannot say this about termites or bees, far from it. Let us make the opposite point in favour of democracy: it is in this environment, where there are centres of excitement, civil wars, drunks, and politicians, that individual freedom seems to appear with some clarity. Note, however, that La Bruyere was mistaken. It is still correct, as he says, that we have never seen 50,000 lions lined up to battle 60,000 tigers on a vast plain, or 10,000 wolves against 15,000 foxes, but we have seen, and still frequently see, millions of ants perfectly organized in armies, spreading terror wherever they go, not only among other insects, but also among animals that are much larger, and among humans. When a human settlement, as often happens in Africa, lies in the path of one of these ant armies, the only thing the humans can do, and they do it, is leave, taking with them everything they do not want eaten. Mouse, horse, lion or man,

272 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

anything that does not flee will disappear. Only termites, in their fortresses, can defy the ferocious imperialists, and sometimes the termites are conquered. In a book that talks a lot about termites, the political relationship be­ tween termites and ants may have its place, for this relationship interests mankind as a third party. Termites reigned peacefully on the earth for 150 million years, then the ants appeared and the termites had to arm themselves. “Almost all the instruments of defence of the termites were produced specifically to defend against the constant attacks by ants. The large­ headed termite warriors, the horn of one-horned nasuti termes through which a particularly corrosive liquid is shot, the special mandibles of the capitermes which allow them to jump backwards and avoid being seized by the enemy, the captoterme secretions which seal together the jaws of the aggressor, all these weapons were specifically built to fight ants. “Termites are of less interest to ants. For them, termites represent an important food source, but only one. No ant species counts the termite as its only source of food. “The ants’ success in their wars against the termites is significant, therefore, ants contribute considerably to the human economy in the tropics.” *> Thus, men have allowed themselves to be placed in the humiliating position of having as their allies these ferocious imperialists against good, peaceful insects. It is right to add that, as we have already seen, termites themselves seem not to have hesitated, in certain instances, to accept ant warriors as mercenaries to defend them against other ants. Politics (we are somewhat ashamed to have to come back to this platitude, but it is truly unavoidable) knows no moral laws, whether among insects or men. But who can deny the parallels between the world of insects and our own?

16.

From “Homo sapiens” to “Homo faber” writes (L’Evolution creatrice [Creative Evolution]): “If we could rid ourselves of all pride, if, to define our species, we restricted ourselves to that which history and prehistory present as being the constant characteristic of man and intelligence, we might not say Homo sapiens, but rather Homo faber. Once and for all “the intelligence envisaged in that which appears to be itsfirst step, is the ability to produce artificial objects, in particular, tools to make tools and to vary indefinitely their manufacture” (Bergson’s italics). I am not trying to use the entire bergsonism; but we agree that some of the ideas of this great man, both poet and thinker, go further than any other attempt in our time. I think that in this quotation he is expressing an essential idea. But I would like to support the thesis that, during the first period, before “history and prehistory” of which Bergson writes, man tried, and in a certain measure, succeeded in keeping the spiritual power that had preceded industrial-scientific power. Renan admirably mocked the great Joseph de Maistre, who had written: “It is impossible to think of modern science without seeing it constantly surrounded by machines of the mind and all the methods of the art. Just as it is possible to see the science of the early time, we still see it free and isolated, flying more often than it walks, and incorporating something that is ethereal and supernatural.” This same Joseph de Maistre had also written: “We have always considered the savage as primitive, while he is nothing but and can only be the descendent of a man separated from the great tree of civilization. “We took the languages of the savages to be the beginning of language, while they are nothing but and can only be fragments of ancient, ruined ERGSON

B

273

274 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

languages.” [Soirees de Saint-Petersbourg (Evenings in St. Petersburg), Vitte, 1924.] Yet, as often occurs, he who mocks is wrong. The talented man succeeds too easily in poking fun at the man of genius. Considering the difference in available information between 1810, the year in which Joseph de Maistre noted these thoughts, and 1850, the year in which Renan wrote down his, it is Joseph de Maistre who seems to be the man of genius. His mistakes belong to his era, while his intuitions are his own. Renan is a man of his time, except for his charm, which is his alone, and de Maistre would have admired it as he admired that of Voltaire. But all that we have learned since from ethnography and history tends to show that de Maistre is right. Otherwise, this fact is an inexplicable phenomenon, repeated too often to not be striking. It is the first, oldest monuments of a civilization that are the greatest, and any subsequent degree of intellectualism, no matter how high, cannot go back to its origins. It is from another side, the practical side that our “modern” intelligence comes. Examples: Plato. Why hide the fact that our entire philosophy, right up to Hegel and Hesserl, Descartes, Bergson and Hamelin, is nothing but a comment on (or a contradiction of, which is the same thing) Plato? Plato is the first thinker of which we have the “complete works.” Add to this that Plato is also the greatest writer of prose that we know. In him, the beauty of form is one with the depth of his thought. Without a doubt, it is the “beauty,” a mysterious and an irresistible power, which is the mark of “intuition” according to Bergson. “Internal” beauty and perception, through a type of telepathy accessible to all, of a reality that surpasses intellect. Do we need to speak of love, an inevitable product of beauty? That Plato, the thinker, is beautiful in form, places him, on the first horizon of our culture, at the edge of this mysterious period with dates that vary according to race, when “ancient” science soared. Plato still bears something of the great period before the intelligence industry, something that we have since lost. Before Plato, moreover, and even more unintelligible and sumptuous, there was Homer, closer to the Paleolithic, and to which no poet has since

From “Homo sapiens” to “Homo faber” | 275

come close. Let us look back even further. The Egyptians told us, at all of their ages, that their greatest era had oc­ curred during the early dynasties-before the pyramids-and the texts of the pyramids unquestionably tell us that “their” great age was much “older,” before the age that left these monuments. We might not believe this too, if it was not for the evidence of beauty, as with the Greeks. But we have examples of art produced during the earliest dynasties, which show that a sovereign force, a realism that is at times complete, and a stylization that is sometimes unsurpassed were achieved at the start of Egyptian culture and never again since. And Mesopotamia? It was the epic of Gilgamesh, which we hardly understand, that constitutes the oldest document and which obviously dominates 4000 years of a very intelligent civilization that came later. And India? The Vedas, brought to or produced in India between 2000 and 1500 before Christ, dominated Hindu thought until the arrival of the greatest of all thinkers, Sankara; the language and poetry of the Vedas are also an incarnation of “Aryan” beauty never seen since. From all sides comes the same evidence: in our mechanized and industrialized-and sometimes very admirable-civilizations, we carry, from the start, proof of an intuition and a greatness stemming from earlier and unknown periods. Even in our short evolution currently underway, we see the same thing. A mysterious explosion created our current European culture between 1000 and 1300. We have done nothing since that compares to the cathedrals, architecture, colours and sculptures of that time. We have not had any thoughts subtler or more powerful than those of St. Thomas Aquinas (whether or not we agree with him, no one can deny his pre­ eminent force). Before this time of wisdom and beauty, there was nothing. After the Roman Empire had fallen (and after some decline) around 400, we spent another 600 years in the Neolithic age. And Dante, the first of our great European poets, is still the greatest because he alone gave us the two worlds of the European mind: the earthly world and the heavenly world, while Shakespeare, great as he was, only gave us the earthly world.

276 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

James Stephens, the famous Irish writer, maintained that the greatest English poet is Chaucer, who was also the first, and after Chaucer he would rank Spenser and The Faerie Queene, and, in third place, Shakespeare. One day when he was depressed, Paul Valery confided in me in the London Underground that he considered Ronsard the greatest French poet and himself, Valery, the last and the least, but still a poet, while after him there would be no one. Dismal glory. But we should not mechanize this theory either. Let us return to Bergson. According to him (op. cit.) we have, in our observation of life, allowed the “fluid” to escape: everything that is actually vital in a living being. The insect, on the other hand, maintains Bergson, in examining the famous case of the digger wasp presented by Fabre, the same digger wasp that “knows that the cricket has three nervous centres that activate its three pairs of legs, or at least acts as if it knows,” knows its victim (or its col­ leagues, just as the ant knows them, says D.W. Morley) innately through an affinity. Empathy, says Morley, is when this intuition is used for and not against another insect. Telepathy, in any case. Marais, Morley and Bergson all agree. We have to assume that “between the digger wasp and its victim [there exists] an affinity that may have informed it, innately, about the vulnerability of the caterpillar. This feeling may owe nothing to external perceptions and result in the only time the digger wasp and the caterpillar appear together.” “Positive science” is the work of pure intelligence. “When intelligence broaches the study of life, it deals necessarily with the living as well as the inert, but the truth thus arrived at cannot have the same value as the truth in physics.” Briefly, Bergson says we have constituted a certain new scholasticism that developed around the physics of Galileo during the second half of the 19th century, just as the ancient one did around Aristotle. We distanced ourselves from the ancient religion of the insects and from “intuition” by distancing ourselves from the Christian religion and an “affinity” for other living creatures. We distanced ourselves from communion. The insect was sapiens.

From “Homo sapiens” to “Homo faber” | 277

The giants were still half-sapiens and began to becomefaber. This was the fall. We have stopped being sapiens and have become faber. This is why we build enormous cities, planes and atomic bombs. But we no longer understand anything about life and death. We no longer try to. We remember the “golden age” when the “animals talked,” as “good old La Fontaine” said. In other words, we remember the time when we understood them. When did this “fall” occur? Bergson says: At that moment when we made tools to make tools. Which means? The wooden or stone tool is allowed, it is made by the human hand. The iron (or the iron weapon) or bronze tool is not allowed. It is made through metallurgy. Stone and wood are life itself drawn from the earth, they are living nature. Metals are the illness of stone. The Iron Age is synonymous with a bad age. With iron, we make tools to make tools. History begins with metal tools. Therefore, history is the recording of a decline. This is why, in the Paleolithic age, we find the remains of ancient natural religions. From the time of the Greeks, we have the beginning of the move towards mechanization. We will need a saviour. Christianity will follow the ancient natural religions. Joseph de Maistre said it well when he claimed that God wanted to give science, physics and chemistry only to Christians; only those who know where salvation lies should use science. Otherwise, they are lost. Do not mock too much the old anti-revolutionary sage: The 20th century appears to confirm what he said. God gave experimental physics only to Christians. “The ancients certainly surpassed us in strength of mind. On the other hand, their physics is almost worthless; for, not only did they not place any value on their physical experiments, they even scorned them.” This is true of Plato and even of Aristotle. “When all of Europe became Christian, the human species, being thus prepared, was given the natural sciences.”

17.

Discourse on the Method St. Paul and the Men of Science Finalism one of the most “distinguished” of recent philosophers (one of the most strictly pure philosophers), a deist himself, clearly took note of the following rule: We may believe in God, but he should never be asked to intervene because, from the point of view of scientific research, “God” is simply a term that explains nothing. The explanation must be a discovery of a previous phenomenon related to the observed phenomenon. Kant had already expressed (too absolutely even) this rule: The noumenon does not relate to the phenomenon. Science is concerned solely with the phenomenon, and even with the way the phenomenon is perceived. After Lagneau, Alain, his disciple and a deist at heart, followed this same rule and spent his life being an atheist professionally. Therefore, he stopped being a philosopher to become, to our great joy, a great writer. At the same time, Hamelin, in the last great book of French philosophy (Essai sur les elements principaux de la representation) (Essay on the Principal Elements of Representation), arrived at a deism, acknowledged as the last word, not in science, which must remain atheist, but in philosophy. Lastly, Bergson, after Evolution creatrice (Creative Evolution) and in the same year as Hamelin, shows an internal God at work over time and arrives at a deism theoretically proven in his final works. Thus, he joins the first theorist of modern materialism, Locke, who was a deist, and ULES Lagneau,

J

278

Discourse on the Method St. Paul | 279

Darwin, also a deist: Evolutionism achieves nothing unless there is an internal God that makes it work. These philosophers touch on science: Bergson likes to think he has closely studied this. How do true scholars proceed in zoology or ento­ mology? We were taught with insistence that you should never resort to final causes, a harmful idea inherited from the Middle Ages; saying God did something for a particular reason should never be used to explain anything. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, the childish writer of Paul et Virginie, a charm­ ing and stupid work, who said that God made the melon so that we could eat it together as a family and, therefore, share slices of it, is the same one who became the scarecrow of science: you should never say that God did this to arrive at that. Science must be materialist and atheist. Present-day scholars, far from being atheists and materialists, spend every moment thinking of final causes. Do they know this? Some of them do. Most, never having written literature or philosophy (which is nothing more than a branch of literature), do not. Thus, to write this book, I consulted the latter, the most informed, all of them scholars, and I am going to take the liberty of citing several convincing quotations: “God does not exist; God does not act.” “The insect is a machine, activated by the movement of other “things” and unaware of what it is doing.” K.P. McKeown [Curator at the Australian Museum, Sydney, Vie et moeurs des araignees d’Australie (Australian Spiders), Payot, 1954]: “Is it possible that nature, concerned as always with preserving the race and taking into account the dangers that the tiny male must confront on his way, conceived this state of ecstasy (of the female spider, who remains passive during mating), the sleep of Sleeping Beauty, as a means of protecting the poor lover? Without this, he would have little chance of playing his role.” What is this “Nature,” which reflects so precisely and with so much intelligence on the dangers and protection needed? Does it not resemble the God of our good old friend Fabre, this Catholic God who organized everything for the better among insects? What is the difference?

280 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Jean Feytaud says [Professor at the Faculty of Science at Bordeaux, Le Peuple des termites (Termite People), Presses Universitaires de France, 1949]: “Nature gave termite familial societies the valuable privilege of surviving by replacing the defective founders with subjects that it maintains in reserve.” Who is intelligent here? The familial societies? Nature? The “God” of the naturalists? This Nature has, in effect, all the qualities that the catechism attributes to God. The common book on entomology [R. Jeannel, professor at the Museum National d’Histoire naturelle, Introduction a I’entomologie (Introduction to Entomology), II, Biology, Boubee, Paris, 1946] says: “Looking at this from another point of view, we will see that many insects absorb solid food that they have to grind up; others, certainly just as numerous, consume liquids which they either inhale gently or obtain by piercing plant tissues to reach the inner sap. These differences in the way they feed themselves led to the anatomical specialization of the parts of the mouth and special physiological adaptations. “There are some, like some anobiide larvae, whose digestive juices transform cellulose into glucose. “It was demonstrated that some termites *benefit from commensal protozoa living in their digestive tube. “The problem of how these insects digest wood remains a mystery.” The finalism in this passage is hardly more obscure than in the preceding passages. The differences “lead to” specializations. How do they do this? If “Nature” already appears to be a somewhat feeble excuse that explains the survival of males, then “the differences,” a more abstract entity, are even less able to explain the “adaptations.” Who is adapting? What power has the ability to see a difficulty and then change behaviour to resolve this difficulty? What has the ability to adapt and to kill itself, as men do everyday when they adapt to a bend in the road by misjudging their steering and die? These “differences” are very intelligent. And these termites (by chance?) have in their intestines protozoa that

Discourse on the Method St. Paul | 281

transform wood into sugar; without a doubt, they do not do it deliberately. But someone seems to be doing it deliberately. Lastly, Dereck Wragge Morley, the latest and haughtiest of all myrmecologists today, after devoting pages and pages to warn us against anthropomorphism in entomology, writes: “Approximately 150 million years ago...fate (?) provided ants with exceptional fertility.” (Who is fate?) “The long voracious worms (larvae) developed near their mouth a (special gland that seemed (to whom?) to be of no importance; adult ants seemed (to whom?) to enjoy droplets of the liquid produced by these glands, and sometimes began to feed these larvae for the pleasure of licking the droplets. This insignificant event became one of the most important moments in the history of the ant. “The larvae became important; because of this delicious treat, licking and feeding the larvae became an important ritual” (“nature” was obviously going to abandon the larvae without this, and ants as a species would have disappeared). “The development of sexual behaviour in ants, like that in many other animals, was guided, in general, in such a way that mixed marriages were arranged between individuals of different stock.” Guided by whom? In four admirable pages, this entomologist explains the behaviour of one of his ants, a 3-year-old veteran he observed closely by comparing its behaviour to human behaviour, to a citizen who lived in a closed city and was responsible for retrieving each day a sack of gold stored in a hidden warehouse in a cave located several kilometres from the city. (This incident must have occurred often. And we accuse writers of being eccentric.) In short, I could quote volumes. I have not read any book on natural history where the “genius of the hive” for which Maeterlinck was criti­ cized, “God” for which Fabre was criticized, nature, species, race or the individual does not play a role, sometimes half hidden in the wings, often under the very eyes of the most naive reader, a role which we forbid philosophers and poets to describe. Forbidden anthropomorphism? Let us read again Feytaud, slightly ashamed, but conclusive: “Despite the fanciful element which characterizes this narration and the

282 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

colourful tableau that accompanies it, we must recognize that they have the merit of illuminating the importance of the care with which termites treat their royal couples.” And here is the scene: “The fat queen is caught between the vault and floor of the cell, flanked by the king and surrounded by trainers, some running around her, others busily grooming her powerful abdomen; at either end stand two denser groups: one constantly pouring the stomodeal food into the mouth of the giantess, and one snacking on material leaving the anus and licking the eggs with delight before bringing them to the surrounding foster mothers. The laying, cleaning and removal of eggs follows at a pace of 30 per minute, however, the occasional droplet of excremental fluid rewards the zealous servants. The workers tend to the king in the same way, licking, grooming, and feeding him. Tiny soldiers, scattered among the workers, watch and stimulate them by shaking their heads, while the bigger ones stand guard around them.” It is the court of Louis XIV, but better organized. Anthropomorphism? But we can hardly do otherwise. Our thinking operates in this way. So? Why not admit it? This is how we see “Nature.” We cannot see it in any other way. Our eyes and our brain operate in this way. We are going against “Nature” by trying to do otherwise. By realizing this fact, we can avoid becoming too often its victims. Therefore, I am not writing this against men of science, on the contrary: they are behaving “naturally.” Speaking in strictly logical terms, science may not have any right to hypothesize. A hypothesis is always false because it is “adapted,” not to the fact, but to the ability of the mind considering the fact. And yet, the human mind cannot advance without hypotheses. As it progresses, science necessarily uses unscientific scaffolds that it knocks down as far as possible as quickly as possible. (I am perfectly conscious of the fact that the book I am writing is nothing more than a cathedral of hypotheses and is intrinsically unscientific.) The “pure” man of science is not a “normal” human being. The mathe­ matician is not a “normal” human being. He operates against “Nature.” Nothing in nature follows mathematics the way the scientific mind latches

Discourse on the Method St. Paul | 283

onto things. This unnatural state among men of science was recently proven in a startling way: by the ease with which they cross over to the enemy and justify their action contrary to all the “instincts” of men and even insects. The extent to which a man of science does not have a scientific mind determines his ability to remain a man and to advance real knowledge. Let us reflect on the danger of founding a civilization that is not based on natural processes, a “scientific” civilization that would be the enemy of everything that the Earth has produced to date. Who would triumph in the end? The Earth, or we, the “scientific” men? But there is no danger. We will never be “scientific” to this degree. Even men of science are not that scientific, as their books show. Without the idea of God, the theory of evolution does not hold. Darwin knew it and remains a deist. Moreover, before this, the theory of materialism, which defines thought as an attribute of matter, does not hold without the idea of God. Locke, the modern founder of this theory, knew it and was a deist. Voltaire, his disciple, was also a deist. Obviously, God does not act from without, does not come with a scalpel, disinfectant and colloids to produce a powerful head armed with strong jaws, and to glue it or stitch it to the body of the termite. He acts from within, and transforms the existing body in such a way as to produce a weapon that is useful against ants. It is against this childish idea of a God acting from without that some theoreticians of transformism are childishly fighting. But no philosopher supports this idea. And the idea of God working from within is used constantly in zoology; only, we avoid the word “God,” and what does that leave us with? We say race, species, nature, or instinct and make these abstract and non-existent entities do the work of what we called “God.” We want to say that it is not the individual insect that is doing this, which is also obvious. Deism remains the same in Locke and in Darwin. C.G. Jung’s new theory of coincidences, still not well known in France, and supplementing a slightly outdated theory of causalities, seems to me to lead unavoidably to deism. As well, updated through psychoanalysis, this is Leibniz’s theory of pre-established harmony, which is the height of

284 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

deism. (I will not hide the fact that I consider Leibniz to be the greatest of all European philosophers.) Montaigne already said (Raymond Sebond, in fine) “to make a handle bigger than the fist, an armful bigger than the arm, and hope to stride further than our legs can stretch is impossible and monstrous. Nor should man surpass himself and humanity, for he can only see with his eyes and only grasp with his arms. He will rise if God extraordinarily extends his hand.” This applies to the termite as well as to man. We can almost write that, in science today, anthropomorphism, intently scrutinized by a critical mind to avoid traps, is the real explanatory method. St. Paul, in the first of the Epistles of the canon (to the Romans, 1,19, 20, 28) writes: “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in men. For God hath shewed it unto them. “For the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world, are clearly seen, and may be understood through the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godliness: so that men are without excuse.” Invisible things (God’s plans) are clearly seen (in things created) since the creation of the world. St. Paul is the first of our philosophers, above Plato and Aristotle and, in strength of thought, above Descartes and Kant; moreover, he had been more influential than they, which is “natural.” We cannot escape his opinion that invisible things are clearly evident in visible things.

Conclusion am not submitting this book as a contribution to the disciplines of entomologists and metaphysicians; my very limited area is completely different from theirs. It is limited in its foundation, infinite in its perspectives. I am really addressing the ordinary, cultured man, and the ordinary man at the heart of every expert. The man of science refuses-rightfully so-to respond to the questions of the ordinary man. The metaphysician also refuses. Who will respond? The man of letters. It is, therefore, without shame that I respond, for we need answers, even temporary ones, even uncertain ones. We have to cross the divide: otherwise, we do not progress. Accustomed to studying the great poets, I saw, and I showed, that Milton, for example, anticipated psychoanalysis by saying that religious heresies are born of repressed sexuality. Protected by these illustrious examples, I will, therefore, take the leap. What can be concluded from these facts that extend from the termites to Parsifal? Let us first look at the historical viewpoint. When we seek to imagine the history of mankind after reviewing the facts outlined here, the imagination first presents an aesthetic condition. Man is much older than we have been told. From the time of the literal credibility of Genesis and six thousand years of human existence, the animals (therefore, the insects), considered as part of the preparation of the world with a view to human comfort, did not precede humanity by very much. The scene was a harmonious one. Christ arrived in the centre of time, and the end of the world was to come as long after his death as creation had occurred before his birth. Therefore, around 4,000 after Christ, the world was to cease to exist. Many said Christ would return to earth and reign for a thousand years over a rejuvenated and peaceful world. These thousand years corresponded more or less to the thousand years that God must have spent preparing the world for man. But Hoerbiger tells us that the current moon will fall to the earth in approximately 15 million years and put an end to all living things (except,

I

285

286 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

perhaps, insects). According to the same aesthetic law that ruled ancient religious chronology, man thus condemned must have appeared on the earth 15 million years ago. The two thousand years that separate us from the time of Christ do not really count; we are still living in the time of Christ.

The giant on the termitary

Conclusion | 287

But ethnography and prehistory refuse to offer more than 1 million years of mankind. Therefore, we are forced to imagine that the giant race that preceded the human race dates from the end of the secondary age 15 million years ago. Many scholars today (but this is not the point of this book) are starting to think that man is, in effect, one of the oldest mammals, far from being the most recent. Man is both plantigrade and bimanous, and holds himself upright: He is normal. Horizontal animals are not normal: thanks to their position, their eyes point down towards the ground and, at great inconvenience, the animal must raise its neck to see. This may explain giraffes and the raised head of the lion. In evolution, man’s foot precedes the monkey’s hind “feet,” which are nothing more than degenerate forms of the hand. The horizontal position of the animal forces it to throw its head back and to balance the weight of its head leaning back with the forward weight of its jaws: also a degenerate position; perhaps the animal gained by having more space for its nasal fossae and by developing its sense of smell, but renounced any development of its brain. Many anatomical remains tend to show that mammals also walked upright on their hind legs and did not start walking on all fours until much later in order to focus on food on the ground located within a short distance. Other mammals, by seeking refuge in trees, saw their feet almost change into hands, which helps them live in the branches. The hind hands of the monkey are degenerate hands anatomically speaking. Only man kept two feet and two hands. The other mammals chose either four feet or four hands. But many still display the differences between fore- and hind legs. Thus, the lion, tiger, and bear, among others, use their front legs differently from their hind legs. Not to mention kangaroos. Comparative studies of the monkey embryo and that of man, and even the study of the development of the small monkey compared to that of the child, tend to make us think that the greatest similarity between monkey and man occurred a long, long time ago. The monkey resembles man more closely when the monkey is embryonic or young. Then, the monkey loses the human qualities with which it began. A famous law-and, moreover, doubtful law-claims that the development of an organism repeats the

288 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

evolution of the race. If, by chance, this law is true, the current race of monkey would be the degenerate remnant of a race of monkeys that initially bore a closer resemblance to man. In other words, far from man descending from monkeys, monkeys would be our degenerate cousins that descended 15 million years ago from a monkey that resembled fairly closely a hypothetical superhuman existing at the same time. Therefore, scholars confronted with gigantic prehistoric bones are apt to confuse giant monkeys and giant men. Which would be natural since these two races would have been similar. In principle, these giant monkeys of 15 million years ago would have been more intelligent than today’s monkeys. This remark would, moreover, apply to all animals, and the legend that says that animals used to talk would mean this: that animals were much more capable of almost human thought than they are today. Therefore, we see man as a giant and few in number, probably, as the Bible says, existing as one joined couple initially [See L’Atlantide et le regne des geants (Atlantis and the Giants')], the product of a sudden mutation 15 million years ago. Which leads to the question: Why do we not find any fossilized bones? Several plausible reasons have been proposed. First, we only have fossils for a small number of races; if there is some truth to the evolutionary theories, we are missing most of the fossils that are of any interest to us. No scholar, I believe, has dared to address this point, but I would hazard a guess that a complete evolutionary chart would require a hundred times more types of fossils than we have. If ninety-nine species out of a hundred are missing from the geological table, then it is not surprising that the earliest humans, who were few in number, are missing. Another reason: fossils were only produced in great numbers during certain geological periods and under certain conditions. The buried body does not fossilize, it disappears. To produce fossils, you need pressure and rare physical and chemical conditions in which the earliest humans may never have found themselves. One more reason, discovered or imagined by Hoerbiger’s disciples, is that it is entirely possible that the earliest humans, who were very intelligent, avoided places where enormous, but foreseeable catastrophes caused fossilization.

Conclusion | 289

Lastly, despite the fossil shortage, we are beginning to discover gigantic human bones in quite a few places. These have been found not only in Java, southern China and western Africa, but also in the Champagne and Auvergne regions of France. Experts are studying the age and anatomies of these bones, but the number of discoveries continues to rise, and some will prove to be authentic; there are not, moreover, a huge number of fossils of very ancient, ordinary men. In addition, flints weighing four to five kilos, tools for carving stone, which could not have been used except by men four metres tall, have just been discovered in Morocco, as well as in Syria and Moravia. [See R. Lafanechere, Recherches de prehistoire dans la region du Bani Draa (Prehistoric Research in the Bani Draa Region), in the Bulletin de la Societe de prehistoire du Maroc, 1st and 2nd semesters, 1952 and 1954. (Ain Fritissa), Burkhalter on the flints of Syria. See Le Figaro of November 1, 1954, on similar discoveries in the Auvergne. On ancient man, the oldest mammal, we cite: B. Heuvelmans, A.M. Schultz, Bolk, Westenhofer, Frechkopf (on the foot), Bbker (on ancient primates), K. de Snoo (on the location of internal organs).] For the moment, let us accept that it is possible that giant men, in small numbers, lived 15 million years ago. These would have been men who lived a long life, who were very intelligent, and who did not experience the human rivalries that are destroying us today: a golden age. According to Hoerbiger’s theories already discussed, between 15 million and 1 million years ago, average or dwarf human races developed following the disappearance of the secondary moon and the increase in gravitation. These small races would naturally have fallen under the domination of the giants who were older, more intelligent and stronger, and human history would have evolved towards the phase of which the Bible still speaks: a state of things where people of ordinary size had giant-kings that were gods. The mentality of these giant-king-gods had been shaped through contact with insect societies that occupied the earth for 300 million years before their time. These insects had also been giants and were, without a doubt, intelligent. [See the quotations of geologist Edmond Perrier included in the appendix.] The human giants probably knew what may have still been

290 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

giant insects, but already mechanized and degenerate, since they already followed the rhythm of the seasons and the destruction caused by winter. But the termites and ants were so powerfully organized, if we compare them to early man, who must have seen, unavoidably, among the great civilized insects, models to be emulated and strengths to be studied closely, either to avoid them, to exploit them, to fight them or to imitate them. Whence the very reasonable insect worship of Tiahuanaco, Easter Island and, without a doubt, many other still unexplored regions. Thus, a religion of the giants was established, built around insect civilizations as we have tried to show. What could this religion have been before the corruption that caused it to degenerate into the superstitions or savage practices that we have mentioned, if not completely catalogued? Let us remember that our hypothetical giants, few in number, must have been both good and intelligent. By their nature, they were good to each other and intelligent because of the first sudden mutation that had caused a vast skull and spacious brain to rise towards the heavens. No reason to think that they practised male sacrifice or that the white goddess represented the night terror. Why would they have been cannibals or warriors? Why would they have even known ownership, the source of terrible rivalries, since they had the whole earth at their disposal for a very small number of children? There was enough for everyone. What did the lessons they learned from their adoration, or simply their admiration of insects, termites, ants and bees lead to? We began by cataloguing these ideas, and we find in Christianity:

the idea of virginity as a source of creation; the idea of sacrifice as the source of new life arising, of fertility; the idea of pain as the fountain of moral greatness; the idea of cultivated chastity as the origin of precious psychical powers, from telepathy to poetry; the idea of the soul’s immortality, of the preservation of the being through metamorphosis. All of these are fair, legitimate and beneficial ideas based on an

Conclusion | 291

observation of nature. After the tertiary era dominated by giants who studied insects, there followed a period of catastrophe that marked the beginning of the quaternary: the fall of the tertiary moon, says Hoerbiger. Before this fall, there was, without a doubt, a second period of gigantism, which included some mammals, whose origin dates from the same time period as the origin of man. Then, there came the fall and degeneration of the giants. Ordinary man lost the lessons of the god-kings from the golden age. There was a degeneration of the notions that were being transmitted increasingly poorly throughout the centuries of misfortune. Imitation of the ancient rites whose meaning had been lost became stupid and fierce. We think we are doing something right by repeating that which we still know of the ancient practices, by representing in the concreteness of human life that which the giant-king-gods had taught in goodness and in wisdom. Sacrifice became the murder of the impregnator. The virgin mother became the fierce white goddess, the mother of sacrifice. The ancient science of resurrection became servitude before deified or demonized dead. Fierceness and stupidity became part of the human race. But, in all corners of the world, there were wise men that still remembered part of the ancient science and the high morals of the great art. Man begins again-perhaps in the Dordogne? Undoubtedly also elsewhere, everywhere-and, in the new dawn, still remembers enough of the golden age to sing the Vedas, to build pyramids, to produce Homer or Plato, and to plant the seed of a primitive religion as a starting point for all historical civilizations. While some races are declining intellectually, although often maintaining early human qualities, found in the darkest comers of the earth, other races are advancing towards full intellectual development, although often abandoning more valuable qualities for new gains. So, at a pivotal point in history, Christianity appeared. Everything fell into place. That which seemed to be developing gradually, suddenly blazed.

292 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. “The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him, was not anything made that was made. “In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Therefore, we no longer have any need to think about Hoerbiger’s

giants, the tertiary moon, termites, Wales, the white goddess, or the Cathars. Complete virginity? In the beginning was the Word. Sacrifice of the impregnator? But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God. Acceptance of pain as the source of greatness? For if I go not away, the Comforter will not come to you; but ifl depart, I will send him unto you. Chastity as the source of power? [They are] not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.^ Some astronomers tell us now that the whole world was created by the instantaneous explosion of an atom, an event that occurred on a scale that would have been invisible to us. Not only human history, but also the history of the cosmos was created, for us, in the instantaneous explosion of the Word mentioned in the eternal words of St. John. We see history by looking back from where we are now. It was not made backwards; it was created in the opposite direction than the one from which we are looking at it. This is what our intellect still tells us, just as it tells us that the Earth revolves around the sun, in the opposite direction from that which we see the sun revolving around the Earth. In reality, there has to be God, by whatever name we call him, be it material, nature or atom: this concept always has the same content; and it applies to insect activity as much as to human activity. It is lacking in

Conclusion | 293

intellectual generosity to not use the name by which men have always known him. And, if there is God, then he is necessarily active at all times and in all places. And, all times and all places must be subsidiary to God, included in him. He acts through them and they place themselves at his will, whether through action or conscience: through action like the termites, through conscience like the saints. If we can, or believe we can, recognize certain characteristics of this existence, we should not find it surprising that these characteristics are the same everywhere: that the giants worshipped the termitaries and that we worship Christ. They were right, and we are right. They worshipped the same forces we do: The forces of reproduction and resurrection: the forces of existence.

Appendix I

The Earth Before History From Les origines de la vie et de I ’homme (The Origins of Life and Man) by Edmond Perrier, member of the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Medicine, former director of the Museum of Natural History. New edition, revised. Appendix by Jean Piveteau, professor at the Sorbonne, 1954. Editions Albin Michel.

Pages 263-264: What is most astonishing about the insects that lived during the Carboniferous period, and which Charles Brongniart carefully studied, is the size they could reach. Titanophasmafayoli grew 28 centimetres long; some butterflies had a wing span of 61 centimetres, and the wings of one species of mayfly of the genus Meganeura measured no less than 33 centimetres. Undoubtedly, this large size was common among certain species. Moreover, very large stick insects such as Cyphorrana, which are very large beetles, Dynasts, and Goliaths still live in warm countries; they deserve no less attention. Currently, the life of an insect is brief; it hardly exceeds one year except for that of the larva that lives sheltered under­ ground, like that of the beetle and cicada, in tree trunks, like that of the stag beetle and large capricorn beetle, or in water that does not freeze, like that of our great butterflies. These larvae live three or four years; there is one cicada in the United States (Cicada septemdecim) whose underground life may last up to 17 years. It is so much a question of shelter that longevity increases substantially among adult insects that live in society and are able to build a common home, like termites, social wasps, bees and ants. From this we arrive at the conclusion that the brevity of insect life is caused by annual variations in temperature that periodically lead to winters that are too cold or summers that are too wet. These variations did not exist during the primary era; they did not begin to clearly distinguish 294

The Earth before History | 295

themselves, and only in a moderate fashion, in the Polar Regions, until the end of the secondary period: there was no reason, from that point on, for the longevity of the insect larvae and adults to increase and for them to grow bigger.

Page 313:

The theory we have just explained assumes that an intelligence analogous to the one we see today intervened from the start, for example, by becoming involved in various ways in the automatism of birds that live with their young in conditions similar to those during the cretaceous period in which insects lived with their larvae. We might also be surprised to know that these fragile beings benefited from such an intelligence. However, it exists and functions today, precisely as we have indicated, among all social insects, termites, wasps, bumblebees, bees and ants, and we are obliged to bow before the facts.

Appendix II

“Memoirs from Beyond the Grave” by Chateaubriand See p. 304, vol. I, Levaillant edition (Flammarion), after 1840; Lettre ecrite de chez les sauvages du Niagara [Letter written while living among the savages of Niagara] to M. de Malesherbes, op. cit., vol. VI, p. 51 et seq.f.

The various carnivorous insects, seen with a microscope, are formidable animals. They may have been these winged dragons whose anatomies can be found: small in size as the matter lost energy, these hydras, griffons and others would find themselves today in an insect state. The antediluvian giants are today’s small men. Page 623 of the Levaillant edition:

“(1) Increase the volume or the weight of the earth, the power of attraction or the centre of gravity, and the man who stands upright will fall on his stomach and become a reptile, no longer having the strength to stand up. “(2) Finally, is organization (a thing that cannot be shown)? Comparative anatomy, does it teach us that the skeleton is the same for all animals? That only the bones, by encroaching upon one another, shape structural variability? Thus, in man, the skull would be larger at the expense of fewer facial bones, and in the crocodile, the almost complete disappearance of the skull would have provided the mask of an outrageous face. In this regard, nature would have only one bandage with which it would wrap all creatures, but by tearing the envelope in order to distinguish the species. “(3) That anatomy made great strides, that physiology is a new science, 296

“Memoirs” | 297

rich in clever results; that chemistry, in reforming its nomenclature, penetrated the substances; that each day, we compose and decompose gases; that electricity, galvanism and magnetism reveal the attractions and repulsions of liquids, unknown properties and relationships; that steam and machines change material society; that we are reconstructing the history of the eras of nature; that our globe and the globes are explored with respec t to their light, their elements, their age, their laws, their courses; that geology has become a vast and curious discipline, and that mankind is beginning to know itself better through the interpretation of monuments, through learning so-called primitive languages: the more we advance in our discoveries, the less we understand. Do we think we can be certain of a truth with the help of an inscription, a number or an experiment? Then along comes another inscription, another number or another experiment that destroys this truth: all we do is exchange one night for another. “I am not at all embarrassed by the progress of science: by showing me that I had been wrong to provide evidence of a superior intelligence, an alleged combination of elements that were nothing more than a mistake of physics, that you are only moving the object of my admiration, what would be the result? In the table you are offering me, the order appears to me to be like that of the old table. If the telescope pushes back space; if this bright star that seemed simple is two or three times bigger; if, instead of one star, I see three? If, instead of one world, three? With their dependent spheres, if God, at the centre of this immeasurable universe, watched these magnificent theories about suns file past him, I would seize upon these glories; these are evidence that I can add to my own proof. I consent to exchanging against these mortals of the firmament, the two domestic lamps of man’s home.”

*

Is it by chance that the Viscount de Chateaubriand was also a great thinker?

298 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

“Essays” by Montaigne Book III - Chapter VI Coaches

The people of the kingdom of Mexico were certainly more civilized and more artistic than those of other nations from there. Therefore, they decided, as did we, that the universe was coming to an end, and took as a sign of this desolation that we brought to them. They believed in the being of the world, this start with five ages and life during five consecutive suns, of which four had already offered their time, and the one that illuminated their way was the fifth. The first perished with all the other creatures in a universal flood; the second through the falling of the sky upon us, w hich suffocated every living thing, during the age to which they assign the giants, and which caused the Spanish to see bones whose proportions suggested men twenty hands tall; the third through a fire that set everything ablaze and consumed everything; the fourth through the movement of air and wind that shook everything but a few mountains: man did not die, but he was changed into a maggot (what impressions did the weakness of human credibility suffer); after the death of the fourth sun, the world was cast into twenty-five years of perpetual darkness; during the fifteenth year, a man and a woman were created to reproduce the human race; ten years later, on certain days, the sun appeared newly created; and from that moment on began the counting of their years. On the third day of its creation, the ancient gods died; new ones have since been born, overnight. What they think about the way in which this last sun will perish, my author knows not.

Postface

Denis Saurat (1890-1958) Harold Saurat

1. enis Saurat was born in Toulouse on March 21, 1890, the son of young countryfolk who came from the Pyrenees mountains. His parents had learned French at school, but all their lives they spoke Occitan, their popular dialect, between themselves and with Denis, even after moving to the North of France when Denis was four years old. From 1905 to 1908, Denis was educated at the School-teacher’s Training College in Douai. Then he went to England for a year to learn English. The language became his life-long love and possession. At the age of twenty-one, he married Ella, a highly cultured and musically inclined London girl who was to bear him a son, Harold, and three daughters, Marguerite, Cecile, and Eveline. During World War I, DS was drafted as a translator of English Intelligence reports in the Defence Ministry in Paris. Then he spent a year as an assistant lecturer in French al the University of Glasgow, Scotland. Returning to France in 1918, he soon passed the Agre gallon, a competition for lycee (senior high school) teachers, and was appointed to teach in a high school in Bordeaux. It was here that, two years later, he was awarded a doctorate for his thesis on “Milton, Man and Thinker” and was appointed Professor at the University of Bordeaux at the early age of thirty. In 1924, DS was chosen as Director of the French Institute in London, a post he was to hold for the next twenty years. Two years later he was given, as well, the chair of French Literature at King’s College in the University of London. In the 1930s, the British and French authorities that ran the French Institute decided that they should design and built a brand-

D

299

300 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

new structure to replace the old one in South Kensington. DS was made responsible for overseeing the undertaking, and in 1934 he was awarded the Cross of the Legion d’Honneur. With the Fall of France, in June 1940, DS became the first Frenchman to declare his support for General de Gaulle, who had just arrived in London. He devoted all his energy to presenting the Gaullist creed to the English public. Consequently, the Vichy Government deprived him of his French citizenship. In June 1944, a German flying bomb exploded in Cromwell Readjust opposite DS’s home, and his house and belongings were reduced to ruins. DS was seriously injured and remained in convalescence for three months. When he returned to the Institute, he found that the French and British diplomats had agreed to end the Institute’s bi-national status and hand it over to the French Embassy. DS ceased to be its director but remained in London as a Professor at King’s College until 1949. DS and Ella retired to Nice in the South of France. There DS found new and stimulating tasks and undertakings to occupy himself. He presided at the annual congresses of the International PEN Club from 1949 to 1954. He managed the summer courses for foreign students at Nice, and also lectured to them on French literature of the past and the present. In his later years, DS became passionately Interested in a variety of unsettling subjects and these offered him opportunities to explore a set of original ideas. These included some astonishing, semi-scientific research on the legendary island of Atlantis, on the gigantic humans of prehistory, on the medieval Cathar heresies of Toulouse, and on the supreme intelligence of insect societies. He also composed long poems in Occitan, the language of his parents and ancestors. He took delight in the friendship of such writers and artists as T.S. Eliot and Jean Cocteau. In 1950, for his work as a man of letters, he was promoted to the rank of Officier de la Legion d’Honneur. DS died on June 10, 1958. He rests in the East Cemetery in Nice. 2. A major change occurred in Denis Saurat’s life when, in 1949, he retired from King’s College London, where for twenty-three years he had held a Professorship of French Literature and served as Head of the Department.

Postface | 301

He and his wife Ella decided to leave London and their long-time home at Queen’s Gate Gardens, S.W.7. They settled in Nice, the capital of the Cote d’Azur, the French Riviera. The main reason for this choice was Denis’ health. He suffered from chronic bronchitis, made worse by diabetes. He and Ella believed that the mildness of the climate on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea would bring him relief. There was also a lot of talk at the time about a university being established at Nice, and Denis hoped that when this happened he would be able to teach there. After all, he was barely sixty years old and he was as inspired a lecturer as ever. Here is a chronological account of what would prove to be the final period of his life, the Nice years, from 1949 to his death in 1958.

Chronology November J 949 Denis and Ella move into an apartment at Le Regine in Cimiez, a former grand hotel high up above the city of Nice, where Queen Victoria had often stayed. April 1950 DS is charged with running the Summer Classes for foreign students at the Centre universitaire mediterraneen (CUM), a teaching centre run by the Nice City Council.

August 1950 DS presides over the PEN Club’s annual international congress in Edinburgh, Scotland. September 1950 DS is promoted Officier de la Legion d’Honneur by the French Government. (The honour had been withdrawn by the French authorities during the Occupation but was now restored; the original honour was as a scholar; the restored honour, as an author.)

302 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

November J 950 DS delivers a lecture on Balzac at the Sorbonne, University of Paris. April 1951 His book L ’Experience de I ’au-Dela is published by La Colombe, Paris.

June 1951 DS presides over the PEN Club international congress in Lausanne, Switzerland.

August 19521 DS mentions the subject of “giants” as one suitable for study.

January 1952 DS delivers a lecture titled “Giants” at the CUM and attracts an audience of 1,000 people.

March 1952 DS delivers “Giants” again as a private lecture in Paris.

June 1952 DS presides over the PEN Club international congress in Nice, France. 29 July 1952 There is a military coup in Egypt, just after DS has been offered a chair in French Literature in Cairo. Theree months later the offer is cancelled.

February 1953 An audience of 900 is attracted to hear DS’s third lecture on “Giants” in Nice.

October 1953 Denis and Ella travel to Istanbul, Turkey, where DS is supposed to take up a major university appointment. After three days of incessant rain, they return to Nice.

Postface | 303

End of J 953 For the first time in his life, DS begins to write in Occitan, the language of his childhood. He composes a 550-line poem.

February 1954 DS draws an audience of 900 in Cannes, France, to hear him deliver a lecture on the subject of the Cathars.

June 1954 DS presides over the PEN Club international congress in Amsterdam, Holland. This is the last annual meeting at which he officiates. July 1954 L’Atlantide et le regne des geants is published by Denoel, Paris. August 1954 DS exchanges three letters with Jean Cocteau, who lives nearby at Saint-Jean Cap-Ferrat. February 1955 La Religion des geants et la civilisation des insectes is published by Denoel, Paris.

Summer 1957 Denis and Ella visit London, the last time he will see England.

September 1957 Atlantis and the Giants is published in English by Faber & Faber, London.

10 June 1958 DS dies in Cimiez (Nice).

304 [ The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Nice Nobility When Denis and Ella moved to the Riviera, they knew hardly anyone who lived there, except for the two people who, more than any other, had talked them into settling in Nice. One of these people was Prince Lukomski, a Russian emigre, artist and close friend from DS’s days in London. The other person was Count Gauthier-Vignal, a man of the world who promised to introduce the Saurats to all “the right people.” The Count, in his youth, had been friendly with Marcel Proust. The novelist had left the Count a gray velvet waistcoat, a precious souvenir of a friendship, a gift that to this day remains a prized possession of the Saurat family. The Count proved true to his word. From the first, invitations poured in from all his noble relatives and relations. Here, for instance, is an extract from DS’s letter written in April 1950: “Yesterday we were invited to the Concours hippique (the Horse Show), lunching first with the President’s wife, Vicomtesse de 1’Hermite. The weather was chilly, the concours on the wind-swept air field common, sheer snobbery kept Ella from coming home, so cold it was (i.e., cold-catching, I say), so-called Chubby did not go except to the lunch.” The most renowned members of “the upper crust” were the Duke and Duchess of Broglie. He was a celebrated scientist, a member of the French Laureate Academy, and the brother of the Nobel laureate Louis de Broglie; she was the grande dame of the Riviera. From letters dated March 1951: “We are getting chummier and chummier with the aristocracy, high and low; the due de Broglie is now nearly a daily friend-as for the duchess, she is delightful and redoubtable. Anything less like a duchess of the conventional old regime is impossible to find-perhaps they never existed....The duchess who is a terror on the road is fetching us to take us to Juan-les-Pins this afternoon. So if you hear no more about us, start your police work with the Broglie family.” Once, on an excursion to Paris, the Saurats were invited to lunch with the Royal Pretender, the Comte de Paris. Asked by his son whether the table conversation had been suitably brilliant, Denis answered, “Not at all, Monseigneur talked all the time about his pig-raising farm-but the Countess is very cultured and interesting.” Special mention should be made of Laurence de Ferrier, wife of the

Postface | 305

Count de Beylie, daughter of literary parents and herself a lady of great culture. She was passionately interested in the mysteries of the literatures of the past and became a close friend of both Denis and Ella. A devout Catholic, it is not unlikely that she was to some extent an influence on DS at the end of his life, as he attempted to reconcile his philosophy with her Christian beliefs.

International PEN Club PEN Club-the association of Poets, Essayists, and Novelists-was founded in London in 1920. Every year PEN delegates meet at an international congress in a different capital of the Western world to hear lectures and to elect a President. In 1946, DS was chosen to be in charge of the first meeting of the postwar years. It was held in Stockholm, and as “moderator” DS had to deal with the feelings of the writers, most of whom were left-leaning. The French writers, who knew little English, had been cut off from the Free world for five years by German rule. The following year, DS was elected IPC vice-president and asked to organize the Zurich congress and, as it turned out, all the subsequent annual congresses until 1954. During the Nice period, these were occasions for the Saurats to travel abroad, meet old friends, and make new ones. For instance, Denis met T.S. Eliot through the PEN Club, and they were soon on sufficiently good terms that the Nobel laureate preferred to be put up in the Saurat’s humble little spare room in Cimiez rather than in one of the palatial hotels on the Riviera. In August 1950, the congress was held in Edinburgh, once known as “Auld Reekie” because of all its chimneys which coughed up coal smoke but still as humid as ever. Denis wrote, “The PEN in Scotland was horrible: 1) it was cold and rained incessantly. 2) Robert Sherwood, of Petrified Forest fame, in his opening speech on drama, said that Stalin was the greatest idiot in history and that Hiroshima had been a good thing. The pseudo-communists were furious and politics raged the whole time. I was in the chair. Al the end they calmed down.” Controlling tempers at the Nice congress, in June 1952, was no mean task either: “We have had a tough and exciting time with the PEN on the

306 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

whole and on the outside it was a brilliant success-no row in the open-in fact Maeterlinck was grossly insulted by a prominent French writer (name omitted here) who in 1940 had published in the Saturday Evening Post that Europe was finished and the only fragments worth saving were in the USA, like him. So he has earned the solid hatred of all PEN’s....The imbecility of literary men is incredible, they should be put in monasteries and carefully segregated from the population-and their books carefully searched before publication, but who can do the searching? We keep to chaos for fear of worse.” The last congress organized by DS was held in Amsterdam, in June 1954, with Queen Juliana of the Netherlands as the President of Honour. Denis had a nice chat with Her Majesty, and they discussed in French the origin of the princely House of Orange, which has nothing to do with the fruit, or the colour, but came from an old Roman city on the banks of the Rhone near Avignon.

The Toulouse Connection DS never forgot Occitan, the traditional language of the people of Tou­ louse, his birthplace. Occitan is a tongue intermediate between Provencal and Catalan and it is still in use with the country folk of southwestern France. All through their lives, his parents had spoken to one another and to their son in their particular Pyrenees variety of the dialect, which is so much more colourful than the French language. ‘‘Did I tell you I have just written a long poem (550 lines) in the language of the Ariege?” He asked this rhetorical question in a letter written in the early 1950s; Haute Ariege is the region in the mountains above Foix, the point of origin of his ancestors. Soon thereafter, DS developed a keen interest in the Cathar heretics, whose strange beliefs had been condemned by the Church in the early 12th century, with dire consequences for the Languedoc region. (“Oc” instead of “oui" is characteristic of the local dialects spoken from Toulouse to Montpellier, hence the description “langue d'oc”}. In his articles and lectures, he made the point that the Cathars (from the Greek word for “pure”) pretended to be Christians, if slightly heretical ones, in order to escape being burned at the stake. Actually, their austere leaders, known as

Postface | 307

“perfects,” taught that there were two gods-a good and heavenly one who was unattainable; an evil and earthly one who was omnipresent in the material world. The Count of Toulouse, the powerful ruler of Languedoc, was a protector of the Cathars. In the year 1209, the Pope launched a crusade to crush the infidels by the sword. According to feudal law, the King of France could not personally wage war against his vassal, Toulouse, but he could allow a large army of “Franks,” Northern knights and adventurers led by one Simon de Montfort (the father of the Montfort who became so famous in English history) to seize Languedoc. The cities of Albi and Beziers were stormed and great numbers of people who were believed to be Cathars were slaughtered. The decisive battle was fought in 1213, at Muret, near Toulouse. The Count was imprisoned and replaced by Simon, his conqueror. Officially, the last professors of the condemned creed were consumed in flames in the Castle of Montsegur in Ariege in 1244, but DS was convinced that their beliefs continued to be held and were expressed thereafter in secret in poetry and the arts. His lecture on the subject of the Cathars at Cannes in 1954 was a tremendous success. Among the other works that he composed in Occitan during this period was an epic poem in langue d’oc called Encaminament Catar (“Cathar Itinerary”).

The Giants Shortly after settling in Nice, DS became fascinated with a new subject. He discovered it in the work of Hanns Hbrbiger (died 1931), an Austrian engineer who had suggested that at least one earlier “moon” had circled nearer and nearer our planet until it disintegrated into a ring like the rings that circle Saturn. The gravity of this early moon was such as to raise the height of the world’s oceans beneath the ring and form mountains and also gigantic species of trees, grass, animals, and quasi-human beings. Hence the development of a race of Giants, some members of which were as much as five metres tall and supremely intelligent because of their enormous brain capacity. The remains of members of this gigantic race are constantly being unearthed all over the planet. When the ring-satellite crashed onto the surface of the earth, almost all living beings, including

308 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

monstrously large animals and gigantic beings, died and disappeared from history. DS conceived the notion that Atlantis, the mysterious island that lent its name to the Atlantic Ocean by which it was eventually engulfed, had been inhabited by this race of Giants who used ordinary men and women as their slaves. This myth later gave rise to the legend of mankind’s Golden Age, lore that persists as folklore in modern times. In January 1952, in spite of a snowfall in Nice, the CUM was packed to capacity with people who came to hear Professor Saurat discourse on the subject of the Giants. More than a thousand people attended and many more people were turned away. The next day he wrote to his son as follows: “I had a huge success with my lecture on the Atlantides...! must invent even a taller yarn for next time...the slides just struck the audience [and left them] panting....Science is a great joke, really.” The book about the Giants was published in Paris in 1954 and it made quite a stir. Hundreds of letters from readers were received, and there were more than fifty reviews in the press, all of them enthusiastic. Congratu­ lations arrived from eminent literary figures. For instance, Jean Cocteau, the most gifted artist and playwright of his generation, sent DS three letters in one week explaining that the book had cured him of a fit of depression, and might he send his car and chauffeur to drive the author, whom he was eager to meet, to his residence at nearby Saint-Jean Cap-Ferrat? After that, Cocteau and Saurat became great friends. There is a lovely photograph of the two of them posing for a camera in front of the murals of the Fisherman’s Chapel painted by Cocteau. The photograph is reproduced in O Rare Denis Saurat. The English verson of Giants was published in London in 1956 and the work also appeared in a dozen or so other languages. In France a reprint in pocket-book form was issued in 1977 and sold well through multiple editions.

The Insects and Matriarchy After the extraordinary success of the Giants book, DS lost no time in writing a sequel. The new theme was to be that of the origin of ancient creeds, especially the oldest religion on record, the Egyptian, which could

Postface | 309

be found in the study of insect lore. It was obvious to him that the religious beliefs of the Giants in Atlantis must have followed this pattern. Insects have thrived on Earth for the last 500 million years, while Homo sapiens, the direct ancestor of modern man, has been around for merely one or two million years. It is not surprising then that our distant forefathers may have been influenced by the collective civilization of their seemingly divine elders. DS felt that man’s worship of the dead-the dead who had to be dressed in the finest of clothes, bedecked in the most valuable of jewellery, and installed in their superb mausoleums with a store of food and water as they await their resurrection-is surely inspired by the example of bees, wasps, ants, and termites which spend winter in lethargy while they shelter and feed their larvae in magnificent beehives or ant-heaps. “The centre of the insect religion,” wrote DS, “is the killing of the male, the bee, the spider, the scorpion, etc....The same happens to Cronos, to Saturn, to Osiris, to Marduk, to Orpheus, not to mention better Gods than that.” Even parthenogenesis (virgin conception) is found among bees. After he had shown portions of this manuscript on matriarchy to Ella, his wife said, “We had better prepare our passports. None of our friends will ever want to speak to us again after having read that.” The book was published in Paris in 1955 under the title La Religion des geants et la civilisation des insectes and reprinted as a pocket book in 1970. At the end of his life DS had in mind the study of a third, no less controversial, subject. This was the rule of the female sex, the so-called weaker sex, following the destruction of domination by the male sex, the so-called stronger sex. These three subjects would thus form a trilogy: 1) The Giants. 2) The Insects. 3) Matriarchy (“or how women got the upper hand”).

Unfortunately he did not live long enough to write the third volume and all his drafts and notes were lost.

310 | The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects

Epilogue DS died from a stroke on June 10, 1958. One of the last texts that he wrote was what his daughter Cecile called his “Metaphysical Testament.” After the warning stroke that he had sustained some months earlier, he felt the need to explain to his children, while there was still time, his ultimate convictions about religion. Testament metaphysique

La philosophic en particulier, et la logique, n’apportent aucune preuve serieuse de 1’immortalite de l’ame. Elles presentent seulement de tres vagues indications auxquelles il faut donner un appui serieux du cote du sentiment pour les trouver convaincantes. En effet, a la grande approche de la mort, il ne reste rien de la person­ nalite, la conscience s’eteint sans savoir qu’elle s’eteint par un coup brutal. La psychologic est inutile, aucun element de la personnalite ne peut servir de base a un raisonnement qui permettrait de croire a sa permanence. Comme la connaissance de Dieu, la connaissance de 1’immortalite vient du dehors, par la revelation, par 1’experience d’evenements qui ont leur origine hors de la personnalite. On pourrait comparer cela a un homme en faillite dans ses affaires, qui a perdu capital, revenus, maisons, creances, etc....Rien ne lui reste, mais il peut etre sauve par une aide venant de 1’exterieur. Ceci est concentre dans la phrase celebre prononcee au nom de 1’humanite: “Mon Pere, je remets mon esprit en tes mains.” Il faut tout remettre entre ses mains. Il faut abandonner meme la croyance de soi: revenir a rien. C’est Dieu qui nous sauve de ce rien. Ce n’est pas un element de nous qui est permanent, c’est une redemption et une resurrection. Pourquoi? Le souci du salut n’est lui-meme qu’un egoisme quintessencie. Il nous faut abandonner le moi et tout remettre a Dieu, meme, surtout, la conscience de soi. Il ne reste de nous que ce que Dieu en conserve. Et, contrepartie de cet etat d’esprit, est 1’esperance, le deuxieme vertu: Mourir, cesser completement, en abandonnant tout, mais avec le plein espoir que Dieu nous le rendra: Se livrer a l’aneantissement total, mais entre les mains de Dieu. N’etre rien et y consentir, et prouver ainsi qu’on

Postface | 311

se fie a la promesse: Ce soir tu seras avec moi.

Denis Saurat, Avril-mai 1958 Metaphysical Testament (translated by Harold Saurat) Philosophy in particular, and Logic, do not establish any serious proof of the soul’s immortality. They only present very vague indications which need to be helped along by sentiment before they can be found to be convincing. Thus, as impending death comes closer, nothing remains of personality, consciousness disappears without realization of such a brutal shock. Psychology is of no use, no element of personality can strengthen a reasoned belief in its permanency. Like the knowledge of God, the knowledge of immortality must come from outside, by revelation, by experiencing events originating outside personality. This can be compared to a man going bankrupt, losing capital, income, dwelling, credit, etc....Nothing is left over, but he may be saved by assistance from outside. This is concentrated in the celebrated words spoken on behalf of humanity: “My Father, I entrust my spirit into thine hands.” Everything must be entrusted into his hands. Even self-belief must be abandoned: return to nothingness. It is God who saves us from this nothingness. It is not an element of our self which is permanent, it is a redeeming and a resurrection. Why? The worry about salvation is itself but quintessential selfishness. We must give up the ego and entrust everything to God, even, especially, consciousness of one’s self. There will only remain that part of us which God will keep. As a counterpart to this state of mind, there is Hope, the second virtue: to die, to cease completely, to abandon everything, but with the full hope that God will return it to us: to give oneself up to total annihilation, but within the hands of God. To be nothing and to consent to it, and thus to prove that one trusts the promise: “Tonight thou shalt be with me.”

Denis Saurat, April-May 1958

Appendices These eleven appendices consist of texts and documents that are relevant to an appreciation of the life and writings of Denis Saurat. Some of the appendices are centrally related to the themes and subjects of the present book; others are, at best, peripherally related. What the texts and docu­ ments illustrate is the range of DS’s interests, the uses to which he put his research efforts, the notions he entertained of Earth’s early history with its earliest life-forms, the nature of his views on Western thought and modern society, the character and depth of his spiritual convictions, the nature of some of his correspondence, the effectiveness of his aphoristic style of writing and speaking, a summary of his final thoughts, and a listing of his books.

1.

Geological Classification Much of Early Earth is concerned with the geological record. To put that record into perspective and to give it a scientific context, what appears here is the “Geological Classification into Eras, Periods, Epochs, and Ages” for the planet Earth along with its “Time Scale.” In the main these calculations were established in the 19th and the 20th centuries. They outline 4.6 billion years of geological history. The Universe itself is estimated to be in the some 11 billion years old.

Eras. 4 divisions. 1. Precambrian. No life. 0 divisions into Periods. (Formation of Earth’s crust, 4.6 billion years ago - 570 million years ago)

312

Appendices | 313

2. Paleozoic. Ancient life. 5 divisions into Periods with 2 Ages. (570 million years ago - 225 million years ago) Cambrian (570 - 500) Ordovician (500 - 430) Silurian (530 - 395) Devonian (395 - 345) Carboniferous (345 - 280) Mississippian (345 - 325) Pennsylvanian (325 - 280) Permian (280 - 225) 3. Mesozoic. Middle life. 3 divisions into Periods. (225 million years ago - 65 million years ago) Triassic (225 - 190) Jurassic (190 - 136) Cretaceous (136 - 65)

4. Cenozoic. Recent life. 2 divisions into Periods. (65 million years ago - 0 years ago) 1. Tertiary. 5 divisions into Epochs: Paleocene (65 - 54) Eocene(54 - 38) Oligocene (38 - 26) Miocene (26 - 7) Pliocene (7 - 2.5) 2. Quaternary. 2 divisions into Epochs: Pleistocene (2.5 - 10,000 years ago) Holocene (10,000 years ago - present day)

Covers of the various editions

2.

Texts of the Two Books The first editions of DS’s books on Earth’s early history were issued in Paris by Editions Denoel. DS signed the contract for the publication of L ’Atlantide et le regne des geants on April 14, 1954, and the contract for the publication of La Religion des geants et la civilisation des insectes was signed on February 22, 1955. Permission to publish Atlantis and the Giants was granted not by the author but by Denoel, so no author’s contract exists for the English edition. Among DS’s papers there is an interesting typewritten letter about the text of this edition. It bears the signature of Charles Monteith, the wellrespected editor with Faber and Faber Limited, Publishers, 24 Russell Square, London W.C.l. Monteith wrote reassuringly to DS as follows on November 2, 1955: “I am delighted to know that the translation is progressing so well.” He then raised the following points:

1. Chapters on theosophy, psychoanalysis, spiritualism, etc. Thank you very much indeed for your suggestion that these chapters shouldn’t be reproduced in the English edition. It is a suggestion with which we entirely agree; and we are very grateful to you for saying that you will replace them with a general conclusion and with a new chapter-as an appendix-by an archaeologist on the giant implements found in Morocco in 1954. Yes indeed; much more impressive proof than Jung or Blavatsky! 2. English manuscript. I can quite understand your difficulties in getting a competent English typist; and since I think a handwritten manuscript mightn’t be completely acceptable to the printers, we would be very pleased indeed to have your manuscript typed here and we would be prepared in this case to bear the cost of the typing ourselves. 315

316 | Early Earth: Appendices

3. Title. About the title we agree completely; Atlantis and the Giants will do admirably. 4. Illustrations. I have spoken to our Production Manager about these and he tells me that we have already made an agreement with Denoel to buy electros of their illustrations. I gather they haven’t arrived so far, but he doesn’t anticipate any trouble.

Monteith concluded, “I am quite delighted to know that all goes so well; and most grateful to you for keeping me informed.” Atlantis and the Giants was duly published in a cloth edition with an attractive jacket and priced at 12s 6d. Its appearance generated an extremely thoughtful review by Edwin Muir which appeared in The Observer (London), September 15, 1957. (The review is reprinted in The Denis Saurat Reader and also in these pages.) The French editions were reprinted in mass-market paperback editions with bright covers in maroon and gold colours by Editions J’ai lu. With these editions DS reached a far-reaching readership, much greater than he had ever known. It is not known how many copies of the two books were printed but as they were frequently reprinted over the decades, it is presumed hundreds of thousands of copies hit the newsstands and book­ stalls. They appeared in J’ai lu’s series titled “L'A venture mysterieuse.” LAtlantide was number A-187 and Religion number A-206. An inkling of the company DS was keeping is conveyed by this list of the names of some of the authors of companion titles in the series (added over the years): Morey Bernstein (on Bridey Murphy), Robert Charroux (on treasures of the world), James Churchward (on Mu), Serge Hutin (on man and fantastic civilizations), Joseph Millard (on Edgar Cayce), Ferdinand Ossendowski (on beasts, men, and gods), T. Lobsang Rampa (on the third eye), Gerard de Sede (the treasure of Rennes-le-Chateau), Guy Tarade (on flying saucers), and Roland Villeneuve (on loups-garous and vampires). Atlantis is long gone; so are the days when a leading publishing house would so oblige an author as to arrange to have his manuscript typed (at its own expense) prior to being sent to the printer.

3.

Blurb and Excerpts from Reviews The blurb and the excepts from reviews that appear in French on the back cover of the original edition of La Religion des geants et la civilisation des insectes appear here in the translation of Harold Saurat. The reviews refer to the publication of L’Atlantide et le regne des geants. A new theory that shatters the history of religions and that of civilizations. Does man owe everything to the insects who reigned over the world before him? With a scholarly knowledge that is breath-taking, Denis Saurat suggests here an unexpected but fascinating explanation of the ancient monuments to be found on Easter Island and in Peru, as well as of the dogma of present-day religions. His great talent enables him to bring the problems of universal history within the grasp of everyone.

An Earlier Publication by the Same Author L’Atlantide et le regne des geants

...written by a lover of Art and Poetry-Pascal Pia (Combat) I admit without the least embarrassment that I devoured Denis Saurat’s latest book with passionate interest.-Rene Lalou (Les Annales)

To explain what is legendary, Saurat in a certain manner explains the world. And this is the opportunity for him to give a description, all the more astounding for being scientifically based, of the fate that awaits Man and the Planet.-Christiane Chateau (France-Soir)

317

318 | Early Earth: Appendices

A book both enthralling and passionate.-(Samedi-Soir) ...adventurous...stimulating for the mind.-Pierre de Boisdeffre (Combat)

Well designed to arouse curiosity-Pierre Loewel (L’Aurore)

The original edition of La Religion des geants et la civilisation des insectes is at hand, but not its back cover, so there is no copy from that book to be reproduced here in translation. Here is the blurb from the third book of interest, the Faber & Faber edition of Atlantis and the Giants. * This presents a new development-stimulating and provocative-of the theories advanced in a well-known series of books by H.S. Bellamy and Peter Allan. Like Mr. Bellamy and Mr. Allan, Professor Saurat accepts the “glacial cosmology” of Hoerbiger-its theories of successive satellites crashing to the earth and subsequent global cataclysms. In these events, Professor Saurat argues, are to be found not only the origins of some of our major my ths—Atlantis, for example-but also an explanation of certain puzzling anthropological remains of superhuman size. Can it have been, he asks, that the gravitation pull of our tertiary satellite induced both gigantism and longevity? If so, what happened after the subsequent catastrophe? During a Golden Age can ordinary' men have walked the earth under the benevolent tutelage of good giants? And did these good giants degenerate into the ogres of legend? The answers suggested by Professor Saurat created wide interest when this book was first published in France. “I read it,” wrote M. Jean Cocteau,” with much more than my eyes alone.” In this country, too, where Professor Saurat’s work is almost equally well known, Atlantis and the Giants will be recognized as a notable contribution to Hoerbigerian literature.

Brave Old World (Edwin Muir) The speculations of DS concerning the sunken continent of Atlantis are described in a remarkably succinct and sympathetic manner in this review of DS’s book Atlantis and the Giants (London: Faber & Faber, 1957). The review “Brave Old World” appeared in The Observer (London), 15 Sept. 1957. It was the work of Edwin Muir (1887-1959), the Scottish poet and translator (of Kafka). He was also a friend of long-standing. It should be noted that Muir is reviewing the author’s abridged version of his much longer work, the French original titled L’Atlantide et le regne des geants (Paris: Denoel, 1954). As much as Muir enjoyed the unshackled speculation of the English edition, he would have taken even greater delight in the longer and more speculative French edition, which chapters on theosophy, poetry, dreams, psychoanalysis, and “L’hypothese spirite integral.” These would have appealed to Muir, who all his life was fascinated with fable and lore as well as with dream analysis.

319

Brave Old World Atlantis and the Giants. By Denis Saurat. (Faber. 12s 6d) By Edwin Muir

Professor Saurat is a daring thinker, impatient of provisional conclusions. All his books, from the philosophical dialogues written when he was a young man to that very remarkable book founded on personal experience, The End of Fear, show the same exciting quality. In his latest volume, which has created wide interest in France, he develops the “glacial cosmology” of the Austrian scientist Hoerbiger and his followers, Mr. H.S. Bellamy and Mr. Peter Allan. This theory replaces the picture of a slow and humdrum evolution of the earth by a violent and cataclysmic one. It describes terrestrial ages in which three moons in succession revolve so close to the earth that, to quote Professor Saurat, they “outshone the sun, being very much larger, and later circled the earth several times a day-and later crashed on the earth and destroyed all nations.” The attraction exerted by these moons was so great that it gathered the waters of the earth into a great bulge round the Equator. Professor Saurat believes that they brought two Golden Ages to mankind, for he holds that man was not born until towards the last phase of the second moon, “perhaps 15 million years ago.” During the first and the second Golden Age high civilisations existed, fostered by benevolent moons. Then the moon crashed and the piled-up waters at the Equator poured north and south, inundating islands and continents. It was on an earth left by the tertiary catastrophe that our own modestly attractive moon rose. Hoerbiger’s theory of glacial cosmology is not officially accepted by scientists. Yet the Hoerbigerian theory does seem to give a reasonable explanation for more things than the official one; for instance, the gigantic plants and the huge fossilised animals. Professor Saurat points out that “an organism, plant or animal buried normally today does not fossilise, it rots away.” Fossils must have been formed by extraordinary pressures. Such, perhaps, as the crash of a moon? And there are the stories-records Professor Saurat would call them-of a giant race. He believes that the giants really existed, and he has an ingenious explanation for them. When those earlier moons circled close to the earth, the gravitation exerted by them lessened the weight of all creatures, drawing them upwards. Living things grew taller, and the giant race was

Appendices | 321

born. When the moon crashed, Professor Saurat believes that some of the giants escaped and later became the teachers of their high civilisation to ordinary mankind. They lived to fabulous ages. In Greece, long after their death, they became gods or Titans. But on giants Professor Saurat relies mostly on the Bible, for there they are described objectively, without any theological colouring, since Jehovah, the one true God, could not admit companions or rivals. The Hoerbigerian theory does provide a possible explanation for the appearance of giants and the creation of man; the atmospheric conditions, let us say. On the other hand, a Golden Age when men were taught and ruled by wise giants is perhaps nothing more than a pleasing imagination. Yet the problem of Tiahuanaco, high in the Andes, is an extraordinary one. There, over the length of 375 miles, there are continuous traces of a coastline: the sea was once there: did the oceanic bulge once reach that high place? There are gigantic ruins scattered over the ground, which seem inexplicable as the work of ordinary human hands. There is a calendar, sculptured in massive stone, giving a year of 290 days. In 1927, without knowing anything about this, Hoerbiger had reckoned that at the end of the Tertiary Age the earth went round the sun in 198 days. To Professor Saurat Tiahuanaco was once a flourishing sea-port. Then the third moon fell, the ocean bulge receded, and Tiahuanaco was left high and dry on the mountains. Yet its ruins remain ambiguous; they have been put down to A.D. 1200; Hoerbiger, on the other hand, held that they were three hundred thousand years old; the figure was later reduced to thirty thousand. Professor Saurat says rightly that there is no such thing as science, but only theories in the minds of scientists. Tiahuanaco at least tells us how little is known about the earth even by those who know most. I feel that Professor Saurat’s argument would have been more persuasive if he had not claimed so much for it. But his book opens the mind, literally, to a new world, and stimulates both mind and imagination.

5.

A Study of Gurdjieff “A Study of Gurdjieff’ is reprinted from The Gurdjieff Journal, Volume 10, Issue 1, Number 37, February 2005. If it was published earlier, its appearance has escaped the eyes of the present editor. The journal’s editor William Patrick Patterson, a redoubtable researcher, does not explain its origin. Instead, he writes as follows:

When Professor Denis Saurat, head of the Institut Frangais in London, visited his friend A.R. Orage at the Prieure in February 1923, he spent an afternoon speaking with Mr. Gurdjieff. These are his impressions. Saurat’s visit to Gurdjieff’s Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at Fontainebleau was arranged through the good offices of A.R. Orage, a long-time friend. Later, Orage presented Saurat with an early mimeographed version of All and Everything and encouraged Saurat to write about it for publication. In a letter to Orage, Saurat explained that he knew of no magazine or journal that would publish such an article, if it were written, so he took pains to express in this letter his generalized understanding of Gurdjieff’s message and mission. A Study of Gurdjieff by M. Denis Saurat I do not think that Gurdjieff should be looked upon as a master whose object was to instruct disciples in a doctrine, but rather as a teacher trying to shape the intellect and character of a chosen number of pupils, whom he regarded as children under his care. One does not tell children the whole truth, one gives them carefully prepared parts of the truth that one hopes will further the development of their souls, and sometimes one even invents stories, such as Father Christmas, to encourage the children to

322

Appendices | 323

express themselves. In his book, All and Everything, Gurdjieff says, when speaking of a great sage of the earth (page 901):

“I had full moral right to tell him the truth about myself, because by his attainments he was already...a three-brained being of that planet with whom it is not forbidden us from Above to be frank. But at the moment I could in no way do this, because there was also present there the dervish Hadji-Bogga-Eddin who was still an ordinary terrestrial three-brained being, concerning whom, already long before, it was forbidden under oath from Above to the beings of our tribe to communicate true information to anyone of them on any occasion whatsoever....This interdiction on the beings of our tribe was made chiefly because it is necessary for the three­ brained beings of your planet to have ‘knowledge-of-being.’ “And any information, even if true, gives to beings in general only ‘mental knowledge’ and this mental knowledge always serves beings only as a means to diminish their possibilities of acquiring this knowledge of being. “And since the sole means left to these unfortunate beings of your planet for their complete liberation (from their errors) is this knowledge-of-being, therefore this command was given to the beings of our tribe under oath concerning the beings of the earth.” This almost hidden passage on page 901 (that most readers never reach) gives us the clue to Gurdjieff s behavior with his pupils. His aim was to induce them to discover truth for themselves as, according to Gurdjieff’s general doctrine, this is the only kind of truth of any value. Cardinal Newman gives us the essentials of this doctrine on the many occasions in which he makes his famous distinction between “notional assent” and “real assent.” A man gives “notional assent” to something that his mind under­ stands and accepts, but he hardly ever acts on this assent, which is purely intellectual, abstract and fruitless. “Real assent,” on the other hand, comes not from intellect but from immediate contact with being, and this “real assent” includes not only intellect, but also desire, will and action. Newman would not have agreed with Gurdjieff that intellectual acceptance is fatal to real knowledge, but at heart Gurdjieff’s thought is not far removed from Newman’s, nor from that of many of the poets, Keats amongst others, who says in the “Ode to a Nightingale”: “Though the dull brain perplexes and retards,” for it is his intellect that prevents him from taking in the beauty of the nightingale’s song.

324 | Early Earth: Appendices

In Christian theories of grace there is, indeed, the same idea. It is not through the intellect that one reaches faith; on the contrary; intellect is inimical to faith. Faith is direct contact with God and comes through grace. In Gurdjieff’s thought this theory applies to everything, not only to God, of whom he hardly ever speaks. In order to know things, one must discover them for oneself and all that we are told by others is only a veil. The fact that Gurdjieff gives free rein to his sense of humor follows from this theory. In the way he presents things he is above all a humorist. I do not mean that he is a humorist and nothing else, on the contrary, I maintain that he is an extraordinary highly developed spiritual teacher. But the presentation of his doctrines and above all, perhaps, his actual behavior towards his disciples, is dictated by his sense of humor. This can be seen in the first few pages of his book. The first chapter is called: The Arousing of Thought, and on the next page he says: “In any case I have begun just thus, and as to how the next will go I can only say meanwhile, as the blind man once expressed it, ‘we shall see.’” This excellent theory and the equally excellent practise of never telling the truth are both evidently beyond human strength; Gurdjieff himself inevitably tells, from time to time, and even perhaps quite often, what he believes to be the truth. His enormous book is a startling mixture of humorous stories, deliberate lies told in all seriousness, and ideas of which he himself is profoundly convinced. This means that one reads it at one’s peril and that one would need to be cleverer than Gurdjieff to see through his diabolical method and to separate these three geological layers that he does his best to confuse. But on the other hand, one can conceive the immense pleasure of embarking on this adventure, a pleasure that would be intellectual, moral and even spiritual. It seems to me that the best way would be to start with a prejudice against the book and to resolve, like Descartes, not to take anything that is said seriously unless one can verify it by one’s own inner experience. Perhaps I may add that according to my own personal contact with Gurdjieff (it is true that this was only one afternoon’s talk through an interpreter 30 years ago), and to my later observations of many of his disciples, the method that I advocate of reading his book would have his

Appendices | 325

entire approval. Gurdjieff was not proud of his disciples and he tried hard to discover amongst them even a handful of promising ones. It is touching, by contrast, to see how much affection and respect the disciples felt for him, and it is quite possible that Gurdjieff underestimated them. We must remember that Gurdjieff came from the East and never understood very well the European type of mind and of civilization, but he saw our faults clearly and it is perhaps this fact that could be of most value to us. All and Everything is a critical study of certain fundamental points of our civilization, and of our ways of thinking. If we could understand the book it would be of immense value, but that is the great difficulty. Gurdjieff’s sense of humor is different from ours in the West and we often cannot tell if he is joking or not. Wit is a dangerous intellectual game and should only be practised on unimportant subjects because even if one carries it only a little too high it will be found that no two people have exactly the same sense of humor. Many misunderstandings arise from this fact, not only between nations but also between people and especially between men and women. So Gurdjieff is very hard to understand, even when what he says seems to him to be perfectly clear. All this is, in fact, quite superficial and I am only describing the intellectual atmosphere of the book. I must now state clearly that Gurdjieff is a very great spiritual teacher. He evidently knows things that the ordinary man of culture does not know. He has a quite exceptional and very surprising conception of the spiritual world. One can only take in fragments here and there of this conception, but those fragments are of a very high quality. Everyone interested in philosophy and metaphysics should read Gurdjieff closely; I mean that al) who read the Christian mystics and know the Father’s will, and those who follow recent trends in psychology, will find many interesting ideas and possibly even new facts in this great book, which at first seems nothing but a hotchpotch.

6.

The Black Dwarf Here is the synopsis of a novel that DS wrote in the mid-1950s. It was his sole work of fiction. The novel was never published and the manuscript has been lost, or at least no one knows its whereabouts. What does survive in typescript form is the author’s two-page synopsis, which is reproduced here, with the following explanation by Harold Saurat:

Going through the documents left by my father, I found the plot of a novel that he wrote after his retirement, possibly two or three years before his death. The novel was to be called Le Nain noir or The Black Dwarf. The scene is set both in 1942 B.C. and in 1942 A.D. This work was never published, either in French or in English, and the manuscript has apparently disappeared. It is not listed in the nine-page inventory of the Saurat papers held by the French Institute in London. Yet I distinctly remember reading The Black Dwarf about fifty years ago and am most disappointed that the text has been lost. The outline exists in typescript form and is reproduced here. So wrote Harold Saurat to the present editor on Feb. 10, 2005. DS’s synopsis, composed in English, is published here for the first time. What to make of it? The work is quintessential Saurat. Judged on the basis of the synopsis of the plot, The Black Dwarf is a spare, schematic novel. Despite the device of time travel, it is not a contribution to science fiction, as much as it is a moral comparison of the quality of life in civil­ izations both Ancient and Modern, both Egyptian and English. By the equation of travel in time with travel in space, it resembles Montesquieu’s Persian Letters of 1721, aclassic of French literature quite familiar to DS; by the equation of time travel with space travel, it resembles G.I. Gurdjieff s All and Everything of 1950, which DS read in mimeograph form in the 1930s. The notion of the equivalences of periods of time before and after the birth of Jesus Christ is one that impressed DS, so much so

326

Appendices | 327

that he discussed it in three of his books. In The Christ at Chartres (1940), for instance, he reports on a discussion with “an old theologian, a canon of a cathedral in a small town in Northern France” who “should have been a priest in some long-drowned temple.” The canon maintains that “everything was created in that instant nine months before the birth of Christ." He offered this analogy: “If you bang a gong, the sound flows in all directions; it does not come from the left, enter the gong, and then flow to the right.” In consequence, the division of history into dates before and after the Common Era corresponds to the fundamental act of Creation. Therefore 1942 B.C. and 1942 A.D., although separated by 3,8 84 years, are echoes of each other. (In the same vein a numerologist might say that a slight rearrangement of the digits turns 1942 into 1492, the year Columbus discovered the New World.) Slight liberties have been taken with the text, which has been copy edited for ease of reading.

The Black Dwarf In the year 1942, before Christ, a Pharaoh decides to send a scientific exploration mission to investigate the island which is now Great Britain and especially the site of London. But time turns round like a clock. Just as a clock shows six o’clock whether it is a.m. or p.m., the same time works whether it is A.D. or B.C. Pharaoh’s expedition lands therefore in London in 1942 A.D. in the middle of the last war. Now the peculiarity of the Egyptian excavationists is that they can see only ruins just like when our men to-day go to Egypt they see only ruins. The Egyptians therefore discover with great joy all the bits of antiquity especially Egyptian, which are now in the British Museum, for instance. They do not see any of the present life but they see the ruins of houses accumulated by the bombing. Now it happens that the chief of the Egyptian expedition has a twin soul which is a twenty-year-old daughter of an English general, and twin souls can see each other in all periods. The Egyptian and the young English woman therefore come together as lovers and make a bridge between 1942 A.D. and 1942 B.C.

328 | Early Earth: Appendices

In the year 1942, present time, the English girl is engaged to a young medical officer called Peter, an army doctor in the R.A.F. This in no way impedes the Egyptian love affair, which is on another plane, and Peter and the girl love each other sincerely in 1942 A.D. Peter has a great friend who is a black Dwarf of unknown origin found in a hospital after some military stunt. This mysterious black Dwarf is tremendously powerful in body and soul. Peter takes him ail over London, shows him the House of Commons, etc., and the Dwarf utters the most pungent criticism of English traditions, institutions, and habits. Especially our marriage practices and Parliamentary ways. It is gradually discovered that this Dwarf isn’t a human being at all but a member of a race who has come from another planet, and he is to take a very active part in the war. He is actually the charioteer of Pharaoh in his war against the Bergers in 1942 B.C. and Montgomery’s guide in the battle of El Alamein, one battle being a replica of the other in the corresponding time system. Through the Dwarf’s energy and intelligence both battles are won. Meanwhile the English girl who is now an army nurse in Egypt has a baby from the Egyptian explorer, as a result of their affair in London. But in the nursing home in 1942 A.D., they think she has simply a bout of malaria, because they cannot see the baby who belongs To 1942 B.C! The baby’s father takes the child to Pharaoh and they decide that he shall be brought up to be a great reformer of the Egyptian nation which at the time is greatly in need of reform. That can be done only by someone who has the blood of a totally different race. The girl thus relieved of her past goes back to her Peter. They get married and have many children. Meanwhile the war is won thanks to the activity of the Black Dwarf (who in a fit of optimism then starts for Russia which he wants to reform next).

7.

Some Passing References In this section appear a handful of references to DS that show his effect on people.

Once I showed Denis Saurat, who is one of the wisest men, a letter I had received from Militsa. “She writes from Skoplje, I see,” he said. “Really, we are all much safer than we suppose. If there are twenty people like this woman scattered between here and China, civilization will not perish.” Rebecca West, novelist and traveller, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: The Record of a Journey through Yugoslavia in 1937 (N.Y.: Viking, 1941).

Denis Saurat refers to Eupalinos as Valery’s “prose masterpiece,” not meaning more, however, than that it was one of a number of masterpieces by Valery in prose, not to speak of his masterpieces in verse. He cites a biief passage or two and then says, “You have to go back to Bossuet to find such writing in prose.” It is easy to believe this of Eupalinos if you give yourself up to some of the more rhetorical episodes. Wallace Stevens, poet and essayist, “Two Prefaces” (1956), Opus Posthumous (revised edition, 1989). Interesting to note, Stevens finds no need to identify Saurat.

I once heard Professor Denis Saurat, not a uniquely chauvinistic Frenchman, declare in a public lecture: “Each great French writer is worth a whole foreign literature....Who had heard of Existentialism before Sartre gave it world currency?” J.G. Weightman, critic, “The French Literary Scene,” Commentary, 329

330 | Early Earth: Appendices

February 1966. Weightman continued, “There is some truth in the second statement.” Walter de la Mare, Bonamy Dobree, T.S. Eliot, E.M. Forster, Sir George Franckenstein, Hugh Kingsmill, Rose Macaulay, Philip Mairet, Violet Lady Melchett, Gilbert Murray, George Orwell, Hermon Ould, M.S. Primmer, Herbert Read, Stephen Spender, Rebecca West, Geoffrey Winthrop Young

Names of writers, editors, PEN executives, and other prominent English literary figures who protested the removal of Denis Saurat from the post of Director of the Institut fran^ais du Royaume-Uni, London, March 1, 1945. The removal was instigated by the government of Charles de Gaulle.

8.

Interesting Initiative basis of this section is an interesting initiative. It consists of the texts of two typewritten letters (in the original French and the English translations made by Harold Saurat) which shed light on a proposal made by Denis Saurat to General Charles de Gaulle, the newly installed Presi­ dent of France. It is apparent that Denis Saurat was thinking about pan-European culture (perhaps anticipating his work with PEN Inter­ national) and about an association of European states (which resulted in the creation of the European Union). As Harold Saurat wrote to the present editor on 20 Oct. 2005: “I have translated the two letters exchanged between D. Saurat and the General in the fall of 1945, only two months after De Gaulle had become the President of France. I had been able to visit my parents after nearly six years of absence, and was given the letter to be handed over privately, my father fearing it might otherwise go astray. My sister and I were unaware of an answer until we discovered it in his files after his death in Nice in 1958. “I think it is an excellent idea to put the two letters, both in French and translated, in the appendix to Early Earth, explaining that after living as an Englishman in London for twenty years, D. Saurat had become a true European before the time, a creed which, as you say, he was soon to put in practice with the International Pen Club.” he

T

1. Letter dated October 16, 1956, from Denis Saurat (22 Queen’s Gate Gardens, London SW7) to General de Gaulle (Paris)

Mon General, Voudrez vous bien me permettre, en souvenir de 1940, de vous adresser mes respectueuses felicitations pour la politique que vous donnez a la France? La formation d’un groupe occidental europeen-quel qu’en soit le 331

332 | Early Earth: Appendices

nom; et 1’annihilation de Berlin comme centre administratif ou reel, et du Reich meme comme unite: voila la politique serieuse, non seulement pour la France, mais pour le monde. Puis-je vous rappeler que des 1941 nous avons forme a Londres une Union culturelle des pays de 1’Europe occidentale et que nous sommes maintenant occupes a 1’elargir? J’ai moi-meme fait, a 1’Institut Frangais de Londres et ailleurs des conferences publiques pour proposer 1’abolition de Berlin comme centre d’un Reich quelconque. Je m’emploierai autant qu’il sera en mon pouvoir a faire comprendre au publique anglais ce qu’il ya a de raisonnable et de necessaire dans la politique expliquee par vos recentes declarations, et je puis vous donner 1’assurance que cette politique rencontrera ici beaucoup de sympathies malgre certaines influences et certaines apparences. Ce sera de plus, comme vous 1’avez dit, 1’interet de 1’Allemagne occidentale elle-meme de regarder vers 1’Ouest: Goethe a dit qu’il ne pourrait pas hair les Frangais parce qu’il leur devait trop. Je vous prie d’agreer, mon General, 1’assurance de mon respectueux devouement. 2. Le General de Gaulle, Paris, le 28 Novembre 1945

Monsieur le Professeur, Votre lettre m’est bien parvenue et je vous en remercie. C’est avec la plus vive attention que j’ai pris connaissance des interessantes suggestions que vous m’y communiquez. Croyz, Monsieur le Professeur, a mes sentiments les meilleurs. (Signed) C. de Gaulle. 1. Translation of the letter dated October 16, 1945, from Denis Saurat (22 Queen’s Gate Gardens, London SW7) to General de Gaulle (Paris) My General, Please allow me, in memory of 1940, to respectfully send you my congratulations for the policies that you are giving to France. The creation of a West European Group-whate ver the name-and the annihilation of Berlin as an administrative or actual centre, and of the Reich itself as an unit: such is the reliable policy, not only for France, but for the world.

Appendices | 333

Let us not forget that as early as 1941 we had set up in London a Cultural Union of the West European Countries which we are today continuing. I myself delivered public lectures at the French Institute in London suggesting the abolition of Berlin as the centre of any kind of Reich. I shall spare no effort, within my possibility, in order that the British Public may understand how reasonable and required is the policy explained in your recent statements, and I can assure you that such a policy will be received with great sympathy over here in spite of certain influences and certain appearances. Moreover, as you have pointed out, the interest of West Germany will be to turn her eyes towards the West: Did not Goethe say that he could never hate the French because he owed too much to them? Please accept the expression of my respectfully devoted feelings. (Signed) Denis Saurat

2. Translation of the answer dated Paris, November 28, 1945, from General de Gaulle

Professor Saurat,

Your letter has been well received and I thank you for it. I have read with the utmost attention the interesting suggestions you sent me. With my best regards, (Signed) Charles de Gaulle

9.

Two Letters from Jean Cocteau he lively if unforeseen friendship of DS and Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) dates from the mid-1950s, although it is reasonable to assume that its roots may be traced to earlier years, as DS was certainly appreciative of Cocteau’s varied achievements as poet, novelist, playwright, cineaste, artist, illustrator, and litterateur. Both men had taken up residence on the French Riviera in the 1950s, DS in retirement at Cimiez, Cocteau in convalescence at nearby Saint-Jean Cap-Ferrat. A photograph of the two of them posing before the swirls of Cocteau’s mural at the Fisherman’s Chapel at Villefranche-sur-Mer is reproduced in O Rare Denis Saurat. In 1954, DS sent Cocteau one of the first copies of the newly published L’Atlantide. The poet responded with a remarkable declaration, or testimony, at once terse and touching: “I read it with much more than my eyes alone.” That is a translation of the original French: “Je I’ai lu avec beaucoup plus que les yeux seuls.,, The source has not been found. A correspondence ensued and they met on a number of occasions. Alas, there is no record of their conversations. Five of Cocteau’s letters to DS, all dating from 1954, survive in DS’s papers in the possession of Harold Saurat. Three of them are reproduced in The Denis Saurat Reader. In the present publication, the other two letters appear in these pages for the first time, in transcription and translation by Harold Saurat. The first letter is undated.

T

1. Saint-Jean Cap-Ferrat, Alpes-Maritimes Mon cher ami Voila bien ces postes et telegraphes du coeur et de 1’intelligence. Elles fonctionnent de plus en plus mal. Car non seulement je possede votre livre 334

Appendices | 335

mais je 1’ai lu et relu et fait lire a tout le monde autour de moi. En outre je le cite dans mon discours Beige sur Colette en Octobre comme example des problemes qui etaient trop familiers a son essence pour que son esprit s’en preoccupat. Lui parler de votre livre (il a paru lorsqu’elle etait morte) c’eut ete parler de la famille des Atrides a Electre ou a Clytemnestre (ces dames n’auraient pas compris de quoi on leur parle). Et dans mon discours academique je parle des laboratoires d’Oxford et de Firebrace. Bref vous etes sans cesse avec moi, aupres de moi et victime de cette illusion humaine que certains silences valent des paroles. Je croyais vous parler et dialoguer avec vous. Si vous vous presentiez sous la coupole nous aurions un Buffon...mais de reve-comme dirait Mallarme. J’attends toujours de vous des details sur la periode homosexuelle des Geants et un eclairage sur les “anges” de Sodome. Je vous embrasse Jean Cocteau

2. 11 Juillet 1954 Mon bien cher Denis Saurat Grace a vous j’ai assiste a une experience pour laquelle on nous aurait tous brules au Moyen-Age. Le matin je portais, du reste, le costume medieval. L’instinct destructeur des termites serait assez propre a denoncer l’ame humaine. De coeur a vous Jean Cocteau

1. St. Jean Cap-Ferrat, French Riviera My dear friend, Here have we the Postal Service of the Heart and the Mind. It is getting worse and worse: not only do I have your book, but I have read and re-

336 | Early Earth: Appendices

read it and given it to read to everyone around me. Moreover, I mention it in my Belgian lecture on Colette in October as an example of the sort of problems that are too familiar to her essence for her spirit to trouble with them. Talking to her about your book (she was dead when it was published) would have been like talking about the Atrides to Electra or to Clytemnestra (the ladies would have failed to understand what it was all about). And in my Academy speech I spoke of Oxford laboratories and of Firebrace. In short, you are constantly with me, next to me and suffering from the human illusion that certain silences are as good as words. If you were to present yourself before the Coupole, we would have a Buffon...as dreamed of, Mallarme would have said. I am still awaiting your details of the homosexual period of the Giants and some enlightenment on Sodom’s “angels.” Jean Cocteau Notes: Coupole refers to the dome of the Academic frangaise, of which Cocteau was a new member. Le Comte de Buffon was the 18th-century French naturalist whose writings on geology and zoology anticipated those of Lamarck and Darwin. Commander R.C. Firebrace was a commanding figure of the time, a Canadian-born astrologer who worked in London with psychics and mediums.

2.

11 July 1954 My very dear Denis Saurat, Owing to you I have witnessed an experience for which we would all have been burned al the stake in the Middle Ages. That morning, as it happened, I wore a medieval costume. The destructive instinct of termites (white ants) appears fairly well akin to the human soul. Yours with all my heart Jean Cocteau

10.

Some Last Thoughts “Some Last Thoughts” could be described as DS’s spiritual testament. It was hand-written in English and addressed to his daughter Cecile Saurat Trial, a devout Roman Catholic and a resident of Santiago, Chile. It was typed out and circulated among members of the family, including her three children and their spouses: Denise, Alex (wife Sarita), and Gili (husband Hernan). The document, which appears in print here for the first time, is in the possession of the author’s son, Harold Saurat, who, in 1993, described it and its contents in the paragraphs that follow. The insights that DS offers here are at one with the “probes” that he published in the philosophical musings of The Three Conventions (1926), in the heroic lines of Le Soldat romain (1944), and in the dream analyses of Death and the Dreamer (1946). Perhaps unique here is the emphasis on the mystical centrality of Jesus Christ. It is interesting to note that the aphoristic style used to express these and earlier “musings” breaks down as the text becomes increasingly visionary and fragmentary. Here is Harold Saurat’s account of the document followed by a note appended by Cecile. (“Chubby” is the family’s nickname for DS.)

Written shortly before his death, by Chubby, for his beloved daughter and distant “disciple” Cecile, the document today, thirty-five years later, appears in the guise of a Declaration of Faith in the Spiritual. All his life, and even more so as the end drew near, DS believed in the supremacy of Thought, of the Mind, of the Spirit, over the world and materialistic thinking. As death, not an ending to him but a beginning, came closer, more than a little of the mystic appeared in DS. Remember how, for many years, he had been fascinated with the possibilities of parapsychology and the transmission of thought by dreams across time and space. Here, DS seems already in contact with Christ, the Saviour, the 337

338 | Early Earth: Appendices

Redeemer, his Father’s messenger, through whom it is possible to have limited access to God, the Eternal, the Unattainable, whose purposes will forever remain a mystery to vulgar man. Chubby’s four children (we know Evie was with us in this) were convinced that their father was one of the superior thinkers of his time, and one of the most original, the founder of a new form of Christian Spiritual Belief, not to say a new religion. How could God, who is Good, create Evil? This is a question innumerable philosophers and theologians have vainly tried to answer. Maybe one answer lies somewhere in the following pages, which end in a kind of vision, as though the author no longer had the strength, or the will, to write more. Harold S. 1993

The Gospel of John (XIV, 1-2) Christ says: “Let not your head be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me; in my father’s house there are many mansions-if it were not so I would have told you. Cecile S. Document sent especially to me, for us all, by Chubby before he died, in 1958.

To Cecile, from Denis Saurat, For Denise, Alex, Gili, Hernan and Sarita. Later, for all my grandchildren too. It will seem long to you; it is very short really. Be spiritual rather than psychic. Make a determined attempt to bring spirit to the people, not to bring the people to witness psychic phenomena that the people cannot understand. If they will live in Christ and have Christ in themselves, they will fulfill their functions. Your people must know how to reach to the spiritual world and how to

Appendices | 339

govern your earth-they must be taught the meaning of all creation, not of man only, of the planet, land, water, animal, air, stars in their courses, the sun. God is not a person removed, bright, with no feeling, intended for sight only. He has also sound and colour for the less advanced. The simple feeling is also part of the light. Hold on closely to the spirit in all things material, in all things concerning the welfare of thousands and millions. You need men who are willing to work with spirit, with Christ, at least who are willing to listen to those who talk with Christ and spirit. Otherwise it will be the same thing as of old: in their own heart they do not believe that they are talking with Christ-then the people will find them out and call them hypocrites. You must explain to them that it is normal to talk with Christ and with his spirits. All have the power but refuse to use it. Assure them that it is true: they do not believe it. That is the part of the scientist to tell them that the facts are realotherwise they refuse knowledge, they will not believe their own senses when their experience is spiritual. They need the scientist to prove to them that others have the same experience, and that it corresponds to something outside themselves-otherwise they connect it only with themselves and they don’t believe it. The earth is so full of doubt, it comes from the outside into the soul. We pick it up, look at it, and throw it away. It is not ours. It does not matter. Suffering produces the mystic. After all the suffering there will be a return of many to the old mystic type; there will be visions among those who have suffered. But the mystic is not enough: because they are not sure. But they will need to be told that it is true by those whom they respect. And the psychic is not enough; he is afraid of being deceived. The scientist also is necessary. It is wrong at a certain stage to try and be more spiritual than you should be. Ignorance and darkness are as earth that covers and protects the roots of plants. If they were to see the light they would wither. They must not be hurt in that way. They have to be made capable of bearing the love of Christ. They are as plants in a dark building; put them first near the wall

340 | Early Earth: Appendices

with the sun outside; then in the shade outside; there have to be long periods before they can bear the sun. Have faith only in those whom you have known for a long time to be good. With all others keep a penetrating eye and a wise tongue. Remember the necessity of healthy doubt. Those wishing to acquire authority for their sayings put them under the name of a master-Christ, or Paul, and others, have been made to say many things that they never said. Trust only your own reason and experience. In reality there is no evil, only an aspect of good. A bad force is an element separated,/or the moment, from good, for a certain purpose. That is why there are no permanently evil forces, or persons, or spirits; once the purpose has been accomplished they go back to the whole of which they are a part, and that is good. Too much spiritual power or knowledge repels men, who, even unconsciously, get out of the way. By reaction they even cast out what little knowledge of spirit they had. They do not want to be swamped by the greater force. So by trying to do them too much good, you do them harm. No spirit remains for long in the regions of evil; it is not allowedsuffering is only temporary and is the opening of knowledge, there is no punishment: only teaching. This is really the most terrible sphere of all; in the lower spheres there is nothing but bad, so they can be managed; it is really the mixture of good with bad which constitutes the difficulty. The body does not suffer. Suffering is only of the spirit. Do not be deceived by the external signs of suffering. Those mean little. Do not be over-impressed: the signs are there to call for sympathy. Man’s region is really the most terrible of all. There only is there mental cruelty and suffering. In lower regions of cruelty, as among the reptiles, it is all physical; there is no suffering really. What is terrible is the mixture of good and evil. Evil alone is easy to deal with. Man is allowed to see these lower zones so that he may become sick of cruelty and so cure himself. But really it is only where there is spirit that there is real suffering. So when the spirit sees the lower spheres it wants to cast out cruelty; its horror improves it. Those lower spheres are only in a passing phase. From there come the elements among which you live on earth, and which are good really:

Appendices | 341

forces, not beings: impersonal. Pride prevents men from understanding the brothers of Christ. The people have always known about the brothers of Christ and taken it naturally. In the gospels, the brothers of Christ are just mentioned casually. That is because the people have no pride. But proud men think it is a shame that Joseph and Mary should have had children in the ordinary way as well. Some are so proud that they are ashamed of nature. They are stupid. God is a miracle, but God is also nature. Christ is the centre of all. Therefore there had to be ordinary children as well. So Christ is the highest, the subtlest, the most difficult to get at. And at the same time he is the lowest, the most evident, the easiest to get at. That is why he is among the people-apparently the least developed. Apparently, for that is not true really: they have the spirit of Christ. That is why he is also with the subtlest. But in the middle zone it is difficult to find Christ. Yet he is there also. Space is much more important than time. At the present day we are so obsessed by time that we cannot understand that time is only a preparation to the knowledge of space. The things that we do not understand happen in another space, but we like to put them in another time. That is just egotism, we feel, wrongly, that time belongs us, whereas we can see that space does not. Christ and the Incarnation happen in space, not in time. They transcend time: They are always there. Earth is very short. Earth is so small. At the Centre, in Christ, all is so quick that all is simultaneous, instantaneous. That is why it is so difficult to be with Christ in that sense; though in another sense, morally, it is easy, it is normal. The higher we are, the quicker things appear to us. We are not all in one place, or in one time. Individualities are not so distinct as we make them: the change of soul into animal, bird, plant, is now: they are part of us in space: Pythagoras was wrong, putting it in time. Above men is time, above time is space, above space is light, above light is love, which is Christ, the Centre. Wonder and awe are not good in spiritual research: they cut the mental picture so that half only is seen. Fear acts in the same way: therefore most

342 | Early Earth: Appendices

people see things wrong. Love goes right and left and round the object of love, envelops and sees all: it gives perfection of sight. During the separation from Christ you are an individual, that is to say, separate. In Christ you are linked with others: you are a personality-when you have something in common with others, in Christ. Individualities are distinct as we make them, in time and space. A personality stretches far beyond the time and the space of the individuality, which is the part we see of it here and now. Below individualities there are forces: a force is a collection of parts of individual spirits, mostly of their lower parts. A spiritual force dissolves when it is met by a personality; but it may have an effect on individuals who are weak. But if the individual connects with its personality, by prayer or appeal to Christ, or to Christ’s spirits, the force dissolves. If you advance to the terror fearlessly it disperses, however awful it may seem at first. There are no evil beings or things really, but some images are built on an absence of being. No one is in essence evil, evil is not in beings but in moods, that pass. One can, one must, avoid the predominance of certain moods. Then there is no evil. But evil moods can cause much disturbance and suffering. Christ never negotiated with evil: he turned out the money lenders-he did not say “listen,” he turned them out by force, not by compromise and diplomacy. The destruction of bad forces is right; it is no gain to the wielder of the destructive power. Christ suffered doing it, but it must be done. Christ alone is force and spirit, the complete synthesis. Some spirits, it is true, are undeveloped; they wish for a state of chaos and tyranny; in the spirit world they are segregated until they know better. On earth they must be fought, their individualities and the forces they lead must be destroyed. The most dangerous spirits of all are on Earth, because it is there that they are most difficult to deal with. Earth is where good and evil are mixed: that is the difficulty. The spirit does not go from insect to animal and then from animal to

Appendices | 343

man; these are separate sections. Connected, yet separate: in personalities they contact each other and work together, in Christ; as individualities they do not understand each other. Spiritually, evolutionists are wrong even as Pythagoras was wrong: they put in time what is in space. Sorrow is oftener than you know-the training for the future: many disappointments, and grief, and pain; such is your training: all is well. Kindness is the result of experience of suffering; children are not kind because they have not suffered. You can only teach the kind; others do not understand-so suffering is necessary to acquire knowledge. Most suffering is not registered [?] and is not so bad. There is a spirit plan being worked out behind events, that are only appearances. The plan can be delayed but not stopped-though it may not take the shape of the original ideas we had of it. Behind apparent events are others, true ones; when the plan is altered, things unforeseen are delayed, not abandoned. Free will and God work together: free will cannot be interfered with, it always works itself out. Man can delay destiny, alter its details; not change it; God is calling to him, he must go to God-that is his destiny.

* In the Spirit world, temporarily evil ones are segregated until they learn. *

The future is a collaboration of free will with the scheme of the spirit-a scheme in which the soul wants to play its part. All true prayer goes to the Centre, to God, to Christ; whoever you pray to, all prayer goes to Christ, all help comes from Christ. When you pray to any God, to any Gods, Christ answers. There are no evil spirits with power; all power is with Christ; to speak truly, there are no evil spirits. There is only Christ and the souls.

*

Personalities-in Christ in groups permanent Individualities-not permanent can be changed by the personality Forces-change can be dispersed Individualities: for thousands of years-according to their will + plan

344 | Early Earth: Appendices

then to higher spheres as part of a group One of us is with you always. The mass are workers; builders, they build up forms of matter on all planes. They connect men with plants, insects, water [?], etc.... Most come down straight to earth. Very few-a few-are first trained in the spirit world also in other spheres, round other stars. Some are trained here, then go elsewhere.

11.

Books by Denis Saurat This is list of the books written by Denis Saurat. The arrangement is by year of publication. English-language titles appear in roman type, French­ language titles in italic type. The list is based on the detailed bibliography to be found in O Rare Denis Saurat (2003). La Pensee de Milton (1920) Blake and Milton (1920) L’Actuel (1923) Milton, Man and Thinker (1925) The Three Conventions (1926) Milton et le materialisme chretien en Angleterre (1928) Tendances (1928) Blake and Modern Thought (1929) La Religion de Victor Hugo (1929) La Litterature et I’occultisme (1929) Literature and Occult Tradition (1930) Histoire des religions (1933) A History of Religions (1934) Modernes (1935) La Fin de la peur (\937) Perspectives (1938) The End of Fear (1938) French War Aims (1940) The Spirit of France (1940) Regeneration (1940) The Christ at Chartres (1940) Watch over Africa (1941) Le Soldat romain: Poeme epique en vers blancs (1944) Experimental Metaphysics (1945) 345

346 | Early Earth: Appendices

Death and the Dreamer (1946) Modem French Literature, 1870-1940 (1946) Gods of the People (1947) Angels and Beasts (1947) William Blake: Selected Poems (1947) La Mort et le reveur (1947) Victor Hugo et les Dieux du peuple (1948) L’Experience de l’au-deld (1951) Encaminament Catar (1952) William Blake (1954) Victor Hugo: Satirique-leger-gracieux (1945) La Bierjo Lhi diguac (1954) Ac digas pas (1954) LAtlantide et le regne des geants (1954) La Religion des geants et le civilisation des insectes (1955) Atlantis and the Giants (1957)

Denis Saurat is an Anglo-French scholar and author who between the Great War and the Second World War served as Professor of French at King’s College London and as Director of L’Institut frangais. He was born in Toulouse in 1890; he died in Nice in 1958. He is widely respected for his influential books on the “philosophical poetry” of Milton, Blake, and Hugo. In all, he wrote twenty-eight books, some in English, some in French, some in both languages. A generation of radio listeners knew his name and recognized his voice from his commentaries on BBC Radio and contributions to The Listener and other periodicals. Keeping busy during his years of retirement, he composed poems in the Occitan language of his childhood; he worked on behalf of International PEN; and he wrote the two mind-boggling books on planetary evolution that form the basis of Early Earth. Harold Saurat, who contributed the memoir to this volume, is the oldest of the four children of Ella and Denis Saurat. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, he served in the French army and was a prisoner of war in Germany from 1940 to 1945. Thereafter he worked as a petroleum engineer in Paris and is now a resident of Croissy-sur-Seine, France.

Linda Hilpold, the translator, lives with her husband and two daughters in Toronto, Canada. She is a member of the Literary Translators’ Assoc­ iation of Canada/Association des traducteurs et traductrices litteraires du Canada. Earlier translations of hers appeared in The Denis Saurat Reader.

John Robert Colombo, the editor of the present volume who is known mainly for his publications in the field of Canadiana, has a taste for odd notions and unusual ideas. He edited O Rare Denis Saurat (2003) and compiled The Denis Saurat Reader (2004). Among his recent publications are the following books: True Canadian Ghost Stories, True Canadian UFO Stories, The Midnight Hour, Terrors of the Night, All the Poems of John Robert Colombo (in three volumes), and The Native Series (in six volumes), a compilation of Native lore and eloquence.

Early Earth is an imaginative and unconventional reconfiguration of the evolution of the geology and geography of the planet Earth as well as the genesis of its varied life-forms (from prehistoric giants to modern-day Homo sapiens) from the vantage-point of perturbations caused by the Moon (specifically by Luna 1 and Luna 2). The basic hypothesis came to Denis Saurat from the extraordinary “cosmic-ice” theory of the Austrian engineer Hanns Hoerbiger through the remarkable books written by two English catastrophists, H.S. Bellamy and Peter Allan. Thereupon Saurat presented his own speculations in two best-selling French texts. Their English titles are Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants (1954) and The Religion of the Giants and the Civilization of the Insects (1955). Early Earth, the volume at hand, consists of English translations of these two texts. An abridged edition of the first book was published by Faber & Faber in London as Atlantis and the Giants (1957), but no English translation of the second book had ever appeared... until now. For the first time these twin texts are being published together in their entirety in English. The Moon will never look the same again!