generations lived and still do live in the conviction that they possess the 'truth'.
Somewhat more modestly, I claim that we cannot possess the 'truth'. At best we can believe in it. Anyone who really seeks the truth cannot and ought not to seek it under the aegis and within the confines of his own religion. If he does so, is not insincerity godfather to a matter which demands the greatest integrity? What is the purpose and goal of life after all? To believe in the 'truth' or to seek it?
Even if Old Testament facts can be proved archaeologically in Mesopotamia, those varified facts are still no proof of the religion concerned. If ancient cities, villages, wells and inscriptions are dug up in a particular area, the finds show that the history of the people lived there is an actual fact. But they do not prove that the God of that people was the one and only god (and not a space traveller).
Today excavations all over the world show that traditions tally with the facts. But would it occur to a single Christian to recognise the god of the pre-Inca culture as the genuine god as the results of excavations in Peru? Quite simply what I mean is that everything, both myth and actual experience, makes up the history of a people. No more. But even that, I claim, is quite a lot.
So anyone who really seeks truth cannot ignore new and bold and as yet unproved points of view simply because they do not fit into his scheme of thought (or belief). Since the question of space travel did not arise a hundred years ago, our fathers and grandfathers could not reasonably have had thoughts about whether our ancestors had visits from the universe. Let us just venture the frightful, but unfortunately possible idea that our present-day civilisation was entirely destroyed in an H-bomb war. Five thousand years later archaeologists would find fragments of the Statue of Liberty in New York. According to our present-day way of thinking they would be bound to assert that they were dealing with an unknown divinity, probably a fire god (because of the torch) or a sun god (because of the rays round the statue's head). They would never dare to say that it was a perfectly simple artefact, namely a statue of liberty.
It is no longer possible to block the roads to the past with dogmas.
If we want to set out on the arduous search for the truth, we must all summon up the courage to leave the lines along which we have thought until now and as the first step begin to doubt everything that we previously accepted as correct and true. Can we still afford to close our eyes and stop up our ears because new ideas are supposed to be heretical and absurd?
After all, the idea of a landing on the moon was absurd fifty years ago.
-------------------------------
Chapter Six - Ancient Imagination And Legends Or Ancient Facts?
According to my previous observations there were things in antiquity that should not have existed according to current ideas. But my collector's zeal is by no means exhausted with the finds already accumulated.
Why? Because the mythology of the Eskimos also says that the first tribes were brought to the north by 'gods' with brazen wings! And the oldest Red Indian sagas mentioned a thunderbird who introduced fire and fruit to them. Lastly, the Mayan legend, the Popol Vuh, tells us that the 'gods' were able to recognise everything: the universe, the four cardinal points of the compass and even the round shape of the earth.
What are the Eskimos doing talking about metal birds? Why do the Red Indians mention a thunderbird? How are the ancestors of the Mayas supposed to have known that the earth is round?
The Mayas were intelligent; they had a highly developed culture. They left behind not only a fabulous calendar, but also incredible calculations. They knew the Venusian year of 584 days and estimated the duration of the terrestrial years at 365.2420 days. (The exact calculation today: 365.2422!) The Mayas left behind them calculations to last for 64 million years. Later inscriptions dealt in units which probably approach 400 million years. The famous Venusian formula could quite plausibly have been calculated by an electronic brain. At all events, it is difficult to believe that it originated from a jungle people. The Venusian formula of the Mayas runs as follows:
The Tzolkin has 260, the terrestrial year 365 and the Venusian year 584 days. These figures conceal the possibility of an astonishing division sum. 365 is divisible by 73 five rimes, and 584 eight times. So the incredible formula takes this form:
(Moon)-20 x 13 x 2 x 73 = 260 x 2 x 73 = 37,960
(Sun)-8x13x5x73=104x5x73=37,960
(Venus)-5x13x8x73= 65x8x73 = 37,960
In other words all the cycles coincide after 37,960 days. Mayan mythology claimed that then the 'gods' would come to the great resting place.
The religious legends of the pre-Inca peoples say that the stars were inhabited and that the 'gods' came down to them from the constellation of the Pleiades. Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Egyptian cuneiform inscriptions constantly present the same picture: 'gods' came from the stars and went back to them, they travelled through the heavens in fireships or boats, possessed terrifying weapons and promised immortality to individual men.
It was, of course, perfectly natural for the ancient peoples to seek their gods in the sky and also to give their imagination full rein when describing the magnificence of these incomprehensible apparitions. Yet even if all that is accepted, there are still too many anomalies left.
For example, how did the chronicler of the Mahabharata know that a weapon capable of punishing a country with a twelve years' drought could exist? And powerful enough to kill the unborn in their mothers' wombs? This ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata, is more comprehensive than the Bible and even at a conservative estimate its original core is at least 5,000 years old. It is well worthwhile reading this epic in the light of present-day knowledge.
We shall not be very surprised when we learn in the Ramayana that Vimanas, i.e. flying machines, navigated at great heights with the aid of quicksilver and a great propulsive wind. The Vimanas could cover vast distances and could travel forwards, upwards and downwards. Enviably manoeuvrable space vehicles! This quotation comes from the translation by N. Dutt, 1891:
'At Rama's behest the magnificent chariot rose up to a mountain of cloud with a tremendous din ...'
We cannot help noticing that not only is a flying object mentioned again, but also that the chronicler talks of a tremendous din. Here is another passage from the Mahabharata:
