Author: Alfred de Grazia
Year: 1983
Series: Quantavolution & Catastrophe
Series Volume: VI
| File | Type | Words | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
../the_divine_succession.txt | Plain text | ~61,467 | 367 KB |
../the_divine_succession.pdf | — | 513 KB |
Source: https://grazian-archive.com/quantavolution/QuantaHTML/plaintext/DIVINE_succession.txt
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.
Cited for its appendix on celestial mechanics — provides the orbital-mechanical framework for understanding how the planetary succession could have occurred physically
(referenced in Cook's annotated bibliography at saturniancosmology.org/books.php.html)