The Divine Succession: A Science of Gods Old and New

Author: Alfred de Grazia Year: 1983 Series: Quantavolution & Catastrophe Series Volume: VI

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Source: https://grazian-archive.com/quantavolution/QuantaHTML/plaintext/DIVINE_succession.txt

Synopsis

The Divine Succession reconstructs the sequence of planetary gods that dominated ancient sky-religion — the succession from Saturn to Jupiter to Venus to Mars — as a record of actual changes in the visible planetary hierarchy in Earth’s sky. The “gods” of antiquity are not metaphors or personifications of natural forces: they are specific planets, observed in specific positions and behaviors that changed catastrophically over historical time.

De Grazia argues that “divine succession” — the mythological motif of one god displacing another (Cronos/Saturn displaced by Zeus/Jupiter, etc.) — reflects real astronomical events: planets shifted orbital positions, grew brighter or dimmer, and were occasionally destroyed or captured. The violence of divine succession myths is the violence of planetary close encounters.

The appendix on celestial mechanics is specifically noted by Jno Cook for its technical treatment of the orbital dynamics required to produce the sequence of planetary dominance recorded in myth.

Jno Cook’s Note

Key Themes

• The succession of planetary gods (Saturn → Jupiter → Venus → Mars) as real orbital history
• Divine succession myths as encoded records of planetary close encounters
• The political theology of sky-religion as a response to changing planetary dominance
• Celestial mechanics appendix: orbital dynamics of the inner solar system in catastrophic eras
• The end of the “age of gods” and the stabilization of the present solar system

See Also

• Author Index
• Solaria Binaria — origins of the binary system that preceded the succession
• Disastrous Love Affair — Moon-Mars encounter in the succession sequence
• Iron Age of Mars — the final stage of the succession

Keywords: #Divine #Succession #Science #Gods #Old #New