Given the feedback I've received since posting the first video in the Turquoise
Sun series, it occurs to me that a brief review of the historical reconstruction,
defended by David Talbott and myself, might be helpful in order to clarify various
matters, and set the stage for the discussion to follow. In the early 1970s, Dave began theorizing
about a polar configuration of planets in the northern circumpolar heavens. So far as I know, this idea was original
with him and had never occurred to anyone previously. In the “Saturn Myth” published
in 1980, Dave presented a wealth of evidence in favor of this hypothesis, arguing that Saturn and its unique
configuration dominated the sky in the relatively recent prehistoric past. In that book Dave did not speculate about
the role of other planets in the configuration in question, but it was evident from his writings and network
that he ascribed Jupiter and Mars prominent roles as well. He believed Mars was involved in the formation of the
’World Mountain’ for example. I first learned about Dave's theory in 1981 and began corresponding
with him shortly thereafter. Very early on I had arrived at the idea that in order to be conceptualized as the Eye of
Horus, Venus must have appeared behind Mars but in front of Saturn. Although Dave had Venus and Jupiter hidden behind
Saturn in his original scenario, he eventually saw the logic of my contribution and our collaboration was
born. In a series of Articles published in the journal Kronos in the mid-80s, Dave and I presented evidence that
Venus's comet-like history traced to the period of its involvement in the polar
configuration. I.e., in prehistoric times, well before the series of events discussed by Velikovsky in “Worlds in
Collision”, circa 1500 BCE. We identified Venus with the Eye of Horus, the latter described as rampaging
about the sky in serpentine form and threatening the world with destruction. In the “Saturn Myth” Dave
relied heavily on a careful reading of the “Egyptian Pyramid Texts” to make his case. In addition to being the oldest
corpus of religious texts found anywhere on Earth, the Pyramid Texts have the additional advantage that the hieroglyphic
language employed often encodes the celestial imagery in strikingly concrete terms. Consider the name of the Egyptian
goddess Hathor which literally means ’House of Horus’. As the ‘Eye of Horus’, Hathor is to be identified with the
planet Venus. Horus, in turn, was identified with the planet Mars by Egyptian sky watchers as early as the
second millennium BCE. Encoded in Hathor’s name is the astronomical information that Venus was
conceptualized as housing, or containing, Horus-Mars. The Egyptian texts have the additional advantage that they are
endlessly redundant, describing the same celestial relationships from numerous
different vantage points. Thus, it is that Horus-Mars is repeatedly described as residing within the womb of
Hathor. Here too, Horus-Mars is clearly conceptualized as placed within Hathor- Venus.
Central to our argument from day one was the proposition that the unique relationship between Mars and Venus
provides the key to understanding the message encoded in ancient myth and religion. The ancient sources speak with
one voice that Mars was located between Earth and Venus, seemingly fixated in front of the larger body for a prolonged
period of time. Hence, we would understand the classic depictions of Horus at the
breast of Hathor or accounts describing him as the pupil of her eye. Inasmuch as this particular configuration of
planets is quite impossible in the present arrangement of the solar system, where Mars can never appear in front of
Venus, much less for a prolonged period, it constitutes a decisive claim of our reconstruction. With this scenario in
mind, we hired a worldclass computer animation company to simulate what three spheres the size of Saturn, Venus and
Mars, would look like while in conjunction, and they came up with the following image. Here, Saturn is the large yellow
orb, Venus is the green orb, and Mars is the innermost red orb. while it would take numerous videos
to summarize the evidence pointing to this particular arrangement of planets,
the short answer is, because the ancient testimony demanded it. It will be seen at once moreover, that this image closely
approximates the classic Sun image recorded in rock art the world over. A core principle of our research
methodology holds that the primary mythological motifs must be reflected in the ancient artworks. A classic example in
this regard is the oldest pictograph of the planet Venus as Inanna, the so-called ‘moosh’ sign. Given the known
fact that the earliest Sumerian script, like the Egyptian script, was pictographic in nature, how is it
possible to explain this image by reference to Venus? The answer is that it depicts a comet-like Venus during one
particular phase in the polar configuration's history. Hence it comes as no surprise to find that the
destructive history of Inanna-Venus, as recounted in the Sumerian sources, is virtually indistinguishable from the
Egyptian accounts of the ‘raging eye’ of Horus. Another early symbol associated with Venus was the rosette. An example
taken from Inanna's Temple at Uruk is Illustrated here. What are we to make of the fact that the innermost core of the
rosette was red in color. According to our historical reconstruction, this red
orb must be Mars, the deduction supported by the fact that analogous images will be found around the globe. Which brings
us back to a core thesis of the case of the ‘Turquoise Sun’. The planet Mars, as Horus, was specifically described as a
star on a lotus flower at the time of creation. Thus, it is that a passage from the Coffin Texts recounts the God's
inaugural appearance during the tumultuous natural events attending the primeval separation of Heaven and Earth,
a pivotal juncture in cosmogonic myths around the globe. Quote, “The earth opens its mouth, Geb throws open his jaws on my
account, and I will raise up as Horus pre-eminent on his lotus flowers.” End of quote. The star-god's epical appearance
atop the lotus is celebrated again and again in Egyptian texts, albeit always in elusive terms. A hymn from the post-
Amarna period invokes the Horus child as follows. Quote, “Greetings, boy from the womb, Child, who ascends in the lotus
flower, Beautiful youth, who comes from the land of light, And illuminates the [Two Lands] with his light.” End of
quote. The Horus child atop a lotus flower represents a popular theme in Egyptian religious iconography as well.
According to Erik Hornung, the dean of Egyptologists, quote “The sun-god on a lotus-blossom...was an image of the first
emergence of shapes at the creation.” End of quote. James Allen offered a very similar assessment of the archaic traditions
attached to the lotus, quote, “One of the images of the first place in which the sun rose." End of
quote. Yet why an infant child sitting atop a lotus should be an archetypal symbol of creation is rarely addressed
by Egyptologists and has never received a satisfactory answer. At no point is the elephant in the room addressed namely,
where in all of heaven is a lotus-like structure to be found in the immediate vicinity of the
Sun? Yet, if we take our cue from ancient artworks, an obvious answer presents itself: the lotus likely has reference to
the petaloid forms associated with the Sun in iconic images around the globe, many of which occur in prehistoric
context. Consider the Syrian seal, depicted here, which shows what appears to be a four-petaled
Sun. Our hypothesis receives a significant measure of corroboration from the fact that analogous conceptions
are evident in pre-Colombian Meso- America. The most common name for ‘Sun’ in the Mayan language was k’in, the
hieroglyph for which depicts a four- petaled flower. Such imagery is perfectly
familiar to all Mayanists. Quote, “In Mayan iconography [the sun] was conventionally
represented as a four-petaled flower....” End of quote. Considered in isolation, the Mayan
traditions with respect to a four-petaled Sun can only appear as incongruous and alien in nature, divorced
as they are from our own experience where flowerlike forms are nowhere to be found in the immediate vicinity of the
Sun. Yet, when viewed in light of the cylinder seals from the ancient near- East, depicting a four-petaled Sun, they
suddenly take on a profound significance. Can anyone doubt that were such a constellation to present itself
in the sky, traditions of a four-petaled Sun would be certain to follow? Yet, so far as I'm aware not a single Mayanist,
Egyptologist or Sumerologist has ever entertained the possibility that the artworks and hieroglyphs in question
might faithfully reflect the Sun's visual appearance at some point during the distant
past. Looking back on those early years of my collaboration with Dave, it is simply impossible to convey the thrill
of discovery as we developed our ideas and saw one deduction after another confirmed in distant cultures in Meso -
America, India and China. I often compared our working relationship to that of Watson and Crick or Lennon and
McCartney. Our partnership was at once complementary and synergistic in nature, with one of us pushing the other to ever
greater insights again and again. But there was one colossal problem. We had no idea how to explain the images
we were reconstructing from an astronomical standpoint. How was it possible to explain those petaloid forms
depicted in the Rosetta Venus? As Dave described at great length in an article in Aeon, it was Wal Thornhill who
provided the answer during a prolonged visit to Portland in 1996. Quote “What Wal presented to me
involved, among other things, the principle of plasma discharge, and he provided a dramatic illustration as to the
manner in which such a discharge will account for the unique descriptions of the ‘Radiant Venus,’ with streamers
radiating in all directions...Wal proposed that Venus was the focus of such a discharge, due to the electrical
interactions with other bodies in the hypothesized polar configuration. This would mean that what
I have called the ‘radiance’ of Venus was not due so much to illumination of material from the Sun, but to the
luminosity of the discharge itself.” End of quote. Equally revolutionary was the implication of the optics of the
respective planetary forms. In order to be seen as a radiant rosette-like form in the sky, Venus and Mars would have to
be aligned on a common axis with the earth. Dave discussed this aspect of the theory at some length in the same article.
Quote, “In order for the observer on Earth to see the predicted image, only one vantage point will work: the Earth
itself must be on the axis, precisely the position claimed in the historical argument. Again, to fully appreciate the
significance of this, one must be willing to apply both common sense and elementary principles of probability.
One highly unusual point of correspondence will be impressive enough, but when multiple, highly unusual
correspondences converge in one reconstruction, the improbability of the ’accidental’ explanation quickly grows
exponentially to astronomical proportions. With that principle in mind, a further correspondence must be
considered. In both the laboratory version and in the galactic scale plasma model there is, in addition to the
organization of spiraling gases out from the axis, the potential for a jetting of
material along the axis, a phenomenon mocking Newtonian models of the universe. This streaming of gases along the axis
of rotation has for 25 years, been part of the bedrock of the Saturn theory. That is the meaning of the polar column or
’World Mountain’ remembered by all ancient peoples." End of quote. Those were the days my friends,
days of breathtaking discovery and camaraderie rarely seen in the history of science. Alas, time marches on and remains
undefeated. And yet, the intellectual revolution sparked by the “Saturn Myth” remains ongoing, now and forever, so long
as inquiring minds pay serious heed to what the ancient skywatchers have to tell us. The truth will out.
[Music]