Attos' Magazine

Volume #115, Arpil / 2010

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Immanuel Velikovsky

Worlds In Collision

By Immanuel Velikovsky

Worship of the Morning Star

Now that it has been shown it was Venus which, at an interval of fifty-two years, caused two cosmic catastrophes in the fifteenth century before the present era, we understand also the different historical connections between Venus and these catastrophes.

In numerous biblical and rabbinical passages it is said that when the Israelites went from Mount Sinai into the desert, they were covered by clouds. These clouds were illuminated by the pillar of fire, so that they gave a pale light. With this should be connected a statement of Isaiah: “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, the light of Noga was upon them.” Noga is Venus; it is, in fact, the usual name of this planet in Hebrew, and it is therefore an omission not to translate it so.

Amos says that during the forty years in the wilderness the Israelites did not sacrifice to the Lord, but carried “the star of your god which you made to yourselves.” St. Jerome interprets this “star of your god” as Lucifer (the Morning Star).

What image of the star was carried in the wilderness? Was it the bull (calf) of Aaron or the brazen serpent of Moses? “And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole.” Of this serpent it is said that it was made with the purpose of providing a cure for those bitten by snakes. Seven and a half centuries later this brazen serpent of Moses was broken by King Hezekiah, guided in his monotheistic zeal by the prophet Isaiah, “for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it.”

The brazen serpent was most probably the image of the pillar of cloud and fire which appeared as a moving serpent to all peoples of the world. St. Jerome apparently had this image in view when he interpreted the star mentioned by Amos as Lucifer. Or was it the “star of David,” the six-pointed star?

The Egyptian Venus-Isis, the Babylonian Venus-Ishtar, the Greek Venus-Athene were goddesses pictured with serpents, and sometimes represented as dragons. “Ishtar, the fearful dragon,” wrote Assurbanipal.

The Morning Star of the Toltecs, Quetzal-cohuatl (Quetzal-coatl), also is represented as a great dragon or serpent: “cohuatl” in Nahuatl is “serpent,” and the name means “a feathered serpent.” The Morning Star of the Indians of the Chichimec tribe in Mexico is called “Serpent cloud,” a remarkable name because of its relation to the pillar of cloud and the clouds that covered the globe after the contact of the earth with Venus.

When Quetzal-cohuatl, the lawgiver of the Toltecs, disappeared on the approach of a great catastrophe and the Morning Star that bore the same name rose for the flrst time in the sky, the Toltecs “regulated the reckoning of the days, the nights, and the hours according to the difference in the time.”

The people of Ugarit (Ras-Shamra) in Syria addressed Anat, their planet Venus: “You reverse the position of the dawn in the sky.” In the Mexican Codex Borgia, the Evening Star is represented with the solar disc on its back.

In the Babylonian psalms Ishtar says:

The Morning-Evening Star Ishtar was called also “the star of lamentation.”

The Persian Mithra, the same as Tistrya, descended from the heavens and “let a stream of fire flow toward the earth,” “signifying that a blazing star, becoming in some way present here below, filled our world with its devouring heat.”

In Aphaca in Syria fire fell from the sky, and it was asserted that it fell from Venus: “by which one would think of fire that had fallen from the planet Venus.” The place became holy and was visited each year by pilgrirns.

The festivals of the planet Venus were held in the spring. “Our ancestors dedicated the month of April to Venus,” wrote Macrobius.

Baal of the Canaanites and of the Northern Kingdorn of Israel was worshiped in Dan, the city of the cult of the calf, and throngs visited there during the week of Passover. The cult of Venus spread to Judea also. According to II Kings (23 : 5), King Josiah in the seventh century “put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.” Baal, the sun, the moon, and the planets, is the division used also by Democritus: Venus, the sun, the moon, and the planets.

In Babylonia the planet Venus was distinguished from other planets and worshiped as a member of a trinity: Venus, Moon, and Sun. This triad became the Babylonian holy trinity in the fourteenth century before the present era.

In the Vedas the planet Venus is compared to a bull: “As a bull thou hurlest thy fire upon earth and heaven.” The Morning Star of the Phoenicians and Syrians was Ashteroth-Karnaim, Astarte of the Horns. Belith of Sidon was likewise Venus, and Izebel, wife of Ahab, made her the chief deity of the Northern Kingdom. The “queen of heaven,” referred to repeatedly by Jeremiah, was Venus. The women of Jerusalem made cakes for the queen of heaven and worshiped her from the roofs of their houses.

On Cyprus it was neither Jupiter nor any other god but “Kypris Queen whom they with holy gifts were wont to appease . . . pouring libations out upon the ground of yellow honey.” Such libation, as already mentioned, was made in Athens in commemoration of the Flood of Deucalion.

Not long ago, in Polynesia, human sacrifices were offered to the Morning Star, Venus. To the Arabian Morning Star, queen of the heaven -al-Uzza- boys and girls were sacrificed down to modern times. Likewise, human sacrifices were brought to the Morning Star in Mexico; this was described by early Spanish authors, and was still practiced by Indians only a generation ago. Quetzal-cohuatl “was called the god of winds” and of “flames of fire”; the Greek Athene, too, was not only the planet, but also the goddess of storm and fire. The planet Venus was Lux Divina, the Divine Light, in the worship of the Roman imperial colonies.

In Babylonia, Venus was pictured as a six-pointed star -which is also the shape of David’s shield- or as a pentagram -a five-pointed star (seal of Solomon)- and sometimes as a cross; as a cross it was pictured in Mexico, too.

The attributes and deeds of the Morning Star were not invented by the peoples of the world: this star shattered mountains, shook the globe with such a violence that it looked as if the heavens were shaking, was a storm, a cloud, a fire, a heavenly dragon, a torch, and a blazing star, and it rained naphtha on the earth.

Assurbanipal speaks of Ishtar-Venus, “who is clothed with fire and bears aloft a crown of awful splendor, [and who] rained fire over Arabia.” It has been shown previously that the comet of the days of the Exodus rained naphtha over Arabia.

In the attributes and in the deeds ascribed to the planet Venus -Isis, Ishtar, Athene- we recognize the attributes and deeds of the comet described in the earlier sections of this book.

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