Mercury

The Origin of Mercury

The Velikovsky/Ackerman scenario, developed from the synthesis of ancient myths and astrophysics, explains in detail the creation and recent history of the ‘planet’ Mercury. Due to the intimate relationship of priori_Mars and Mercury, it is important to review the Velikovsky/Ackerman scenario concerning what I call priori-Mars, the form of Mars which existed up to 6,000 years ago. This, the most ancient terrestrial planet occupied an interior orbit and had abundant water, a thick atmosphere, an internal magnetic field and was full of vegetable and (intelligent) animal life. This planet was ejected from its ancient orbit by proto-Venus, whence began its amazing series of one hundred prolonged (fifteen-year) encounters with the Earth during the Vedic period. Mercury came into play in the most amazing way.  The way that each encounter ended was that its solid core actually came out through the side of the planet, orbited the Earth toward the east while the outer shell drifted away from the Earth toward the west and the two recombined as they left the vicinity of the Earth. Priori-Mars then remained in a planetary orbit for fifteen years when it was recaptured in geosynchronous orbit once again. However, at the end of the one-hundredth fifteen-year encounter the solid core was deflected by the Moon and Venus and failed to rejoin the mantle.  The solid core moved into the inner solar system to become the 'planet' Mercury while at the same time the mantle drifted outward to become the 'planet' Mars

The Origin of Mercury in Myth

The following legend of Ra (an ancient Egyptian name for priori-Mars, not the ‘sun god’ as currently believed) and Isis (the Moon) provide details of the physical processes observed at the end of each fifteen year priori-Mars encounter with the Earth:

As the god Ra aged and became infirm, Isis fashioned a serpent from the dust which, having been placed in his path, bit Ra and poisoned him. When he was close to death, Isis, in the form of an enchantress, heeded his call for help and administered to him. In order to treat him, she asks only that he state his name. Then Ra hid himself from the gods and the throne in the Boat of Ra was empty. When it was the time for the ‘heart’ to come forth the great god was made to yield up his name, and Isis, the great lady of enchantments, said:

Flow on, poison, and come forth from Ra; let the Eye of Horus come forth and shine outside his mouth...Let Ra live, and let the poison die; and if the poison live then Ra shall die. *

Due to many devastating internal convulsions caused by alignments of the revolving pair with the Sun and Moon, priori-Mars became weakened (infirm) and distorted as each dance encounter drew to its end. This was the reason for the great concern of ancient cultures about lunar and solar eclipses. Toward the end of each encounter, liquid iron from its outer core was drawn out through the western end of the Valles Marineris, taking on bizarre forms, such as the snake in the myth. This was also the impetus of the idea that Ra was old because he dribbled from his mouth.

As proto-Venus approached the Earth-priori-Mars pair at the end of each fifteen year encounter, its tidal force combined with that of the Sun and Moon at the vernal equinox to induce a particularly powerful effect on priori-Mars. As a result it was literally pulled inside out. The involvement of Isis in the myth confirms that the alignment of the Moon was a factor in this process. Violent global marsquakes induced by the rapid alignment first raised dust over the entire planet, obscuring all the natural features ('Ra hid himself'.) It was then that ‘the eye of Horus came forth.’ This was the glowing solid core of priori-Mars being drawn out through the side of its lithosphere. In the quote, the 'heart' is first described as 'the eye of Horus' or 'the eye of Ra,’ which is represented by a unique and mysterious hieroglyph that has never been correctly interpreted to date (see Mars article). The 'eye' was the solid core of priori-Mars extending partially through the mantle at the Valles Marineris. As the ‘canyon’ parted, it resembled two eyelids opening, exposing the glowing solid iron core of priori-Mars still partially within the planet.

But the eye opening became seen as a mouth when the glowing solid core actually exited the planet into space, to 'come forth and shine.’  The solid iron core of the planet priori-Mars was actually drawn out of the mantle and became a separate glowing body in space. Two figures showing the remarkable resemblence of the Valles Marineris with the hieroglyph for the ‘Eye of Ra’ are shown in the article on Mars in this section. It is easy to picture the solid core protruding through the (now closed) opening. The view is ‘upside down’ compared to normal pictures of this ‘canyon’ on Mars. The reason is that during the ‘dance encounters’ the north pole of priori-Mars pointed toward the Earth. Therefore, people saw everything upside down. This orientation is a further corroboration of the V/A scenario.

Liquid iron was drawn out from the interior first, forming bizarre shapes in the microgravity between the two planets, such as the ‘serpent’ in this myth. The egress of the core signaled the end of each dance encounter, but the Egyptians knew from experience that the core would return to the shell of priori-Mars after orbiting the earth once, and re-enter the lithosphere as the planet drifted away from the Earth. As long as this occurred, priori-Mars would live, i.e. return between fourteen and fifteen years later, which it did a total of ninety-nine times.

When the 'poison' (the core) lived, that is, failed to return to the interior of Mars, the true 'death' of Ra took place, that is, when the disemboweled lithosphere, which we now call Mars, was permanently separated from the core, the shell of priori-Mars drifted away from the vicinity of the Earth never to return. This was the terminal event ending some 3000 years of chaos in the solar system. This occurred only 2,691 years ago..

Thus on ninety-nine occasions, the solid core exited the planet and returned as priori-Mars entered a planetary orbit. This was the crucial event in the breaking off of each dance encounter. Further support is supplied by the following quote. As with many books on ancient myth written after these events ceased, the translator has no inkling that his exposition actually is describing celestial events involving priori-Mars:

Re [Ra] first addresses Nu, the primeval material out of which he arose at the time of creation. In his statement he mentions how mankind emerged from the tears of his eyes ... and now they are conspiring against him. He wants to know Nu's opinion before he kills the entire human race. Nu's reply is that the Eye of Re, the solar eye, will be the instrument to terrorize and slay mankind. Re now becomes aware that men know he is angry over their plot and discovers that they have fled into the deserts of Egypt. The gods in unison urge Re to take vengeance on the conspirators.

The symbol of the Eye of Re is complex but an underlying feature of it is that it can form an entity independent of the sun god himself - even to the extent of going off on journeys to remote regions and having to be enticed back. Here the Eye of Re becomes his daughter, the goddess Hathor ... In the myth of cataclysm ... Hathor becomes a deity of invincibly destructive powers, pursuing men in the desert and slaughtering them ...

The rest of this compilation, following the punishment and near extermination of the human race, is concerned primarily with the rebirth and ascension of the sun god, and therefore of the monarch, into heaven on the back of the 'Divine Cow.’ Both the shrine of Tutankhamen and the tomb of Sety I have depictions of the Cow 'Mehet wer' or 'Great Flood' who forms the celestial firmament, identifying the sky goddess Nut.

The second paragraph describes the separation and return of the solid core of priori-Mars from its lithosphere. The third associates this process with the departure of priori-Mars from the earth at the end of each ‘dance encounter’ and the floods that resulted as the global sea levels on Earth returned to their natural levels. The translator of this myth probably confuses the earlier destruction of North Africa by proto-Venus with later events involving the core of priori-Mars. But there is little doubt that the core was a feared marauder for the relatively short time that it was separated from the shell of priori-Mars. It was very hot and glowing and its lower, faster orbit toward the east brought it much closer to Earth than priori-Mars. It probably made only one orbit of the Earth before rejoining its ‘parent body’ as the pair drifted away from the Earth. The passage implies that the iron core departed from priori-Mars on more than one occasion but soon returned ("rebirth"). Their recombining is translated as “the ascension of the ‘sun god’ into heaven on the back of the divine cow”. The core is the ‘sun god’ because it was glowing, and it has rejoined the lithosphere but has not yet reentered. The 'celestial firmament' was the planet priori-Mars, which hovered stationary in the sky above the Earth, not the sky (Nut) as is currently understood. It was also called the ‘Astral Plane’ and the ‘Home of the Olympian Gods.’ The process of reforming into a normal planet took place once the two parts of priori-Mars were far from the Earth, so that its own gravity became the dominant factor.

Two female Egyptian deities, Isis and Nephthys (Nept-het), are often mentioned together in Egyptian myth. Isis ('ancient') was the bright sunlit portion of the Moon, while Nephthys, was the darker, faintly lit side, illuminated. by earth-shine. The latter’s identification with the dark side is consistent with her marriage to Set (proto-Venus), the primary antagonist of Osiris. These deities were always represented as the chief mourners at ceremonial Egyptian funerals, where they performed the mysterious ritual called 'the opening of the mouth.’ The body in its humanoid coffin was placed upright at the entrance to the tomb by a priest. A hook, made of iron, was then used by the two ‘deities’ to touch the left corner of the mouth, exactly where the western end of the Valles Marineris cuts into the mouth of Horus in the above figure. Thus the ceremonial placing of the iron implement at the corner of the mouth on the coffin, was a direct mimicking of the events that were observed on priori-Mars, as it was in its death throes. Moreover, the iron from which the implement was made had fallen to Earth from these very same celestial events, because no capability to extract iron existed at the date of the earlier Egyptian dynasties. The Egyptians even called iron ‘the celestial metal.’

Another clue to these bizarre events comes in the form of a protome from ancient Egypt shown in this figure. It depicts a lion holding the head of a Nubian in its jaws. Archaeologists suppose that the lion is a symbol of the power of the pharaoh subjugating a Nubian, a people who were one of the traditional adversaries of Egypt. My interpretation is that this is a stylized representation of the 'eye of Ra,’ the solid core, coming forth from the interior of priori-Mars at the end of one of the dance encounters.

The ancient Greeks were very interested in the Egyptian knowledge of the hoary past, which they lacked. Plutarch studied and wrote volumes about the Egyptian myths in an attempt to preserve the knowledge of very ancient events that the Greeks had lost knowledge of, due to the destruction of the Earth by the proto-Venus encounters. Unfortunately he was born after the conclusion of the Vedic period, so that he did not understand their real meaning. In his work Isis and Osiris he wrote that (the Egyptians say)

Mercury stole 1/70 of the Moons light, giving it to Earth, whose year changed from 360 to 365 days.

This is in exact agreement with my proposed scenario. When priori-Mars orbited the Earth geosynchronously, the increased moment of inertia of the pair slowed their rotation so that the Earth experienced only 360 days per year.  Because the appearance of Mercury, the solid core of priori-Mars, coincided with the break-off of each encounter, the rotation of the earth returned to normal, producing 365 days per year. The Egyptians described the extra five days as ‘bad days’ just as the Aztec calendar contains five bad days. Perhaps they are called bad days because the people loved the great stationary astral plane or firmament which rotated like a great wheel in the sky for fifteen years at a time - the ancient equivalent of the television screen on which many celestial events occurred. Another possibility is that the release of priori-Mars caused sufficient trauma to endanger the lives due to the reorienting of the spin axis of the lithosphere and the flooding due to the absence of the tidal force of priori-Mars.

Hermes’ (the Greek name for Mercury) motion was described by Homer as:

“...with the speed of the wind ...”

which is difficult to reconcile with the current scientific explanation that the planet Mercury’s orbital velocity is the fastest of all The Planets - particularly considering it is seldom even visible in the sky. Hesiod referred to it as:

“The herald of the gods who carried instructions from Zeus.”

This is consistent with its exit from priori-Mars while in geosynchronous orbit and its dropping into a lower orbit.

The Greeks also claimed that Hermes stretched the seven strings across a tortoise shell, thereby inventing the lyre. I maintain that this story derives from linear gouges on its originally smooth surface, due to the sharp rocks it scraped against as it exited the rigid lithosphere of priori-Mars. Vestiges of these linear features are still visible on the surface of Mercury today. They comprise the ‘The Mercurian Grid.,’ shown in the figure to the right. These parallel features are partially obscured by bright rays from some craters and the vast amount of regolith ejected from priori-Mars during the Vedic period, which subsequently fell on the surface of Mercury.  The same material covers the near side of the Moon, causing a superficial resemblence of the two bodies.

At the end of the hundredth ‘dance encounter’ the solid core of priori-Mars was deflected by the Moon, whose period changed from 36 to 27.5 days at that time (687 BC), and drifted into the inner solar system along with Venus. After several hundred years of interactions, the two bodies, Mercury and Venus settled into their current orbits. In order that orbital energy and angular momentum be conserved, the hollow shell of priori-Mars drifted outward and collapsed in on itself to form the smallish, low density ‘planet’ we now call Mars.

The dates of certain ancient writings  are consistent with the V/A scenario. Hesiod’s quotations are from the 8th century B.C., i.e. during the Vedic period when priori-Mars still orbited the Earth periodically. This ended in 687 BC, but the solid core (Hermes or Mercury) interacted with Venus for several hundred years before settling into their current orbits. The clay bas relief, crafted during this period (5th century BC), indeed shows Mercury consorting with Venus, consistent with the V/A scenario time line. Also consistent is the reference to Mercury as 'The star of Hermes' in the 4th century BC

Hermes is often equated to the Egyptian deity Thoth, the disseminator of wisdom and language. But this is difficult to reconcile with his reputation as the god of thieves, and his threatening, transient appearances. Likewise it is difficult to reconcile with the reputation of Hathor in the myth stated above. Practically every culture has such a deity, one that taught language and abstract concepts at the beginning of the Bronze Age, but there is no consistency in their descriptions. In Vedic myth, Indra (priori-Mars) is credited with bringing language to mankind. In Hindu myth the five heads of Brahma, the great column of smoke and fire on priori-Mars, are said to have composed the Vedas.

I suggest that the advent of language can only have come by the intervention of super-human beings, the biblical élohiym (ordinary gods), who descended the short distance from priori-Mars while it was in geosynchronous orbit above the Transhimalayas, and not by orbiting planets or the features on their surfaces. Why the credit in most mythologies is given to the glowing bodies is difficult to understand. Perhaps, the ‘elohiym erased any memory of themselves and substituted The Planets as the originators of language and intellect in the memories of the first Homo Sapiens.

Physical Evidence

The Valles Marineris on Mars is the largest and most unique ‘canyon’ in the solar system. It is 4000 km long, 6 km deep, and was obviously not formed as a result of fluvial action. The diameter of Mercury is 4879 km, which seems a little too large to have exited through the Valles Marineris. But two additional factors must be taken into account. The solid core was compressed by the overburden of the rest of the planet at the time it exited and as a result may have been somewhat smaller. More significantly, the diameter of priori-Mars with the core in place would have been considerably larger (11,687 km) than Mars is now (6787 km), and when it lost the core permanently the lithosphere had to have shrunk, collapsing in on itself. Assuming that the surface features shrank by a corresponding amount, the Valles Marineris would have been some 6872 km in length when the solid core exited - allowing plenty of room for its egress.

Mariner 10 discovered that Mercury has a dipole magnetic field. This surprised planetary scientists who believed it to be solid, because it is small and should have cooled quickly. Their surprise is based on the currently accepted hypothesis that planetary magnetic fields are generated by a ‘dynamo effect,’ due to the swirling motion of liquid iron in their outer cores. But this circulation is so ponderously slow that it cannot explain the sudden jerks observed in the earth’s magnetic field. Moreover the circulation of liquid iron, without electric charge cannot generate a magnetic field.

I maintain that planetary magnetic fields are due to super-currents circulating within the solid cores of planets, which are ‘pumped’ by Faraday induction due to pulses of charged particles emanating from the Sun and spiralling into the magnetic poles. The magnetic field of the solid body Mercury confirms this hypothesis. Mercury was the solid core of priori-Mars, which produced a strong magnetic field around that planet up to 6,000 years ago. The field of Mercury has weakened because the superconducting crystalline state requires very high pressure. Because the overburden of priori-Mars lithosphere has been removed this state has moved deeper into the core. I predict that the next Mercury probe will show that Mercury is completely solid and has a perfect dipole field.

In a similar vein, Mars lacks an internally generated magnetic field because it has lost its solid core. This, in spite of the fact that many of its surface rock exhibit strong remnant magnetism. The lack of any magnetism in the northern plains of Mars is due to the trauma there which essentially overturned the rocks and buried the surface under layers of volcanic rock. The absence of a single dipole orientation of the surface rocks in the remainder of the planet may be due to the different orientations of the solid core each time it reentered the planet during the Vedic period.

Postscript

This article is meant not only to explain the origin of Mercury, but also to provide insight as to how the myths of different cultures, when interpreted with an open mind and in the context of modern physics, provides profound insight into ancient events, giving consistent and physically viable answers to the mysteries of the solar system.

* Egyptian Myths, George Hart, University of Texas, 1992, p.48, 49.