A cracking, the earth cracks open, a jolting, the earth gives a jolt, a lurching, the earth lurches backwards and forwards. The earth will reel to and fro like a drunkard, it will be shaken like a shanty; so heavy will be its sin on it, it will fall, never to rise again.
Book of Isaiah 24:20
In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats; to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
Isaiah 2:20-21
Behold, the lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.
Isaiah 24:1
And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together...
Revelation 6:14
And on that day, the lord caused the whole earth to shake, and the sun to be darkened, and the foundations of the world raged, and the whole earth was moved violently, and the lightening flashed, and the thunder roared, and all the fountains in the earth were broken up, such as was not known to the inhabitants before...
Jasher 6:11
CHAPTER 3
Back to what I consider are the Old Testament’s two most obvious mistakes in telling the story of Noah; it’s inclusion of two of every animal on the planet; and it’s claim that only one family survived the world flood. By immersing ourselves in this faith, we can believe in this account with the ‘leap of faith’ aid: “its because all things are possible when dealing with a higher power.” This is where I get off the bus.
Common sense tells me a drastic change to the story exists when the number of each species saved is two. Why bother to save two of each species only to lose the animals to inbreeding? Mind you, looking at some of the species on the planet, one might wonder whether some of them were indeed the result of inbreeding.
All kidding aside, if we were to believe Noah and his family were the only humans to survive, there would be some serious moral issues to consider as well as genetic consequences. Their first generations would likely be running their four forefingers up and down over their lips while uttering the word “duhh!” (Sorry, I couldn’t help it).
I would like to offer a scenario that I think is the reason the Bible’s version of the flood reads as it does. First off, the only reason I can think of for this story to have transcended generations is because it is based on a true story. The generations that first shared the story were the survivors of the Deluge; without a doubt they told the story in no uncertain terms. After thousands of years of relative calm on our planet, the story of Noah has not yet been turfed from religious doctrines for being so far-fetched it hurts their credibility. This is testimony to the strength of emphasis with which this message was first conveyed.
However, if we remember what a group of children can do to a story in fifteen minutes, we can understand how a story that has transcended the generations of several thousand years must have changed as well. In “my scenario” I will demonstrate how a literal interpretation can easily be subjective by changing perceptions. No matter how meticulously a religion guards its doctrine from change, changes in perception and understanding will evolve as new knowledge is learned or old knowledge is forgotten, and words may be changed or misinterpreted to make sense of the story.
Lets say that, in the early years after the shift, a few generations after the original survivors had passed, on, their descendants remained isolated and spoke of ‘their’ world as ‘the’ world. All of the animals around them in ‘their world’ likely had ancestors on the Ark. Over time, their people began to travel greater distances and new species were encountered. But the descendants’ doctrine was clear: the Ark was the only sanctuary during the Deluge. Therefore, to them, every new species discovered must have had an ancestor on the Ark.
Those who protected their Old Testament belonged to an orthodoxy that clung to the literal interpretation that every species in ‘the’ world was saved on the Ark, instead of believing every species in ‘their’ isolated community was saved on ‘their’ ancestors’ Ark. Two little words, “the” and “their,” can dramatically change the interpretation of this story.
I don’t believe Noah’s family were the only survivors of the Deluge, or that Noah and the craftsmen were the only group to survive. I think groups of pole shift survivors were spread out around the world. I also think the declaration that two of every animal on the planet were on the Ark is merely a misinterpretation.
Basically I think religion is a good thing and I certainly couldn’t have put this together without these records. But that damming of human souls keeps cropping up for me; it sounds very un-God-like to me. I have absolutely no doubt the words that restrict God’s love are a legacy from my fellow imperfect human beings. I find myself back to the idea that people can be both right and wrong at the same time and for me this raises questions.
Does any religion speak for God? Did God ever speak to any human directly? Was Noah a man who talked with God? Or, did Noah receive theory shocks and help from fellow humans to figure out a cataclysm was coming? Personally, I don’t have a problem with Divine Inspiration. We can clearly hear a common basic goodness in many religions. I don’t believe God, the ultimate power of the Universe, communicates in the form of a chat. I do believe we can receive guidance, and that this guidance is communicated to our inner being, our soul and that doors of direction can be opened through apparent coincidence. We can listen to this guidance by trusting the feelings we are left with; then, self-will is enlisted by the individual to choose from where they will be guided -- their head or their heart.
As for Noah being a pious man, I have my doubts about that too. I doubt very much that only one man at a particular time of earth’s development could be worthy of God’s grace. I assume the world was much like it is today. Sure there is a lot of crime and “sin” but there are also a lot of “pious” people as well. Would a God-fearing pious person suddenly break from the rest of humanity to say, “Well, it’s this way, guys. God told me you’re all toast! I’m going to build a boat and you can’t come.” I don’t think so! To undertake the immense task of building the Ark at a time when the rest of civilization was comfortable with the notion life was going to continue as usual tells me Noah was not a conformist at all and, more than likely, somewhat rebellious against the status quo.
Hindsight often offers us a different perspective of someone who, through self-will and determination, went against the flow of current belief. The appearance of being considered radical or crazy can shift to the appearance of being blessed with privileged knowledge. A logical conclusion is drawn that the recipient of this “blessed knowledge” must have found favour with God. Such a shift in perspective would most definitely occur for those who survived a global cataclysm -- regardless of what Noah’s contemporaries thought of him while he was making a public spectacle of himself.
The stories of all pole shift survivors who had taken steps to avert the disaster would be discussed with great reverence by their descendants. Only the initiator of the steps taken would know of the turmoil suffered while following their inner guidance. Yet these nonconformists will become changed people, people of great faith, because they will eventually be validated and will have witnessed firsthand the Higher Power working with them.
I think there is a strong possibility I am walking in Noah’s footsteps, as history is about to repeat itself. I feel this theory has merit and is credible, yet intellectually I recognize how crazy the idea of building a full-size ark will appear to the vast majority of people. Building a boat isn’t so crazy; neither is building an ark as a tourist attraction. It is my reason for building the boat that will be considered crazy. Building a landlocked boat for the reason of surviving a cataclysm during a time when most people are expecting only “more of the same” is quite possibly the act of a crazy man. Even I recognize that. I think Noah was filled with the same kind of ambivalence -- torn between feelings and intellect. The legend tells us from where he chose to be guided.
Another questionable statement from versions of the Noah legend is the promise allegedly made by God: “Never again will I destroy mankind with a flood.” It says this promise was sealed with the appearance of a rainbow in the sky. Why would Noah lie in God’s name? I think there is a simple and humane reason why these words were written: there are such things as white lies. Would Noah or whoever wrote those words have their souls damned for using the white lie technique in the name of God?
I’m certain those who survived the last pole shift knew the phenomenon was recurring in the natural progression of earth’s development. With thousands of years of relative calm, day-to-day living would become humanity’s primary focus. This is where humans can find the most happiness, living and enjoying life one day at a time.
So why burden the generations who will live during this relatively dormant part of earth’s development? To promise there will be a world cataclysm would create a feeling of impending doom much like the Cold War of this century. Fear of nuclear war between Russia and the United States has been a constant presence in our lives for five decades. For me, any diplomatic crisis puts the constant dulled stress on high alert. Likewise, warnings of a future flood within a doctrine would cause the same kind of constant stress and whenever it looked like it was going to rain people would wind up soiling their shorts. Life is much more enjoyable with clean shorts and without such a warning.
Such a warning would also jeopardize the chances of the legend being passed down through the generations. Who knows how long a legend would be passed from generation to generation before one generation said, “This legend keeps promising disaster yet nothing is happening. It’s obviously a hoax from Orson Wells’ ancestors. Let us remove it from the book.”
I doubt the Higher Power gives the world’s doctrines as much credence as do members of the religions. I suspect the Supreme Entity would consider our attempts to understand Itself as cute -- the way parents admire their children even when they make mistakes. I don’t think God holds us accountable for the way we worship -- what is commonly agreed within an organization to be the word of God. If we are judged, it’s more likely on what we’ve done with the life given us. The parameters of judgment would more likely be based on our inner self, for instance whether we’ve been self-serving versus compassionate and generous to fellow grounded souls.
There is no accurate way to predict an event thousands of years into the future. How does one forecast time when it is unknown what kind of calendar will be followed? Today time is forecast from an event some two thousand years ago. As cultures clash over millennia, time calculation is compromised. Today some of us know better than to expect things to remain unchanged, and so did the ancients. According to Hapgood, theses pole shift events don’t happen on a regularly timed schedule. Obviously, an exact date was unpredictable. So I think that at some point someone made the conscious choice to tell his or her children that God promised this wouldn’t happen again. Mind you, the fact that this message is still being repeated on what might be the eve of another cataclysm is more than a little disturbing to me.
I suspect they also knew all knowledge and technology accrued before the last pole shift would be lost, not right away but over time. Older skills must take precedence over the labour-saving devices of modernized societies. With a loss of technology, we are reduced to hunters and gatherers; once again, feeding our bellies and sheltering ourselves from the elements in order to survive. It’s ironic that, in the event of a world cataclysm, people living in the Third World would be better qualified in these basic skills than we in the advanced nations. Without house builders and supermarkets, I’m afraid we’d be cold and hungry.
Even our house builders would be lost without their local Home Depot building supply store. Consider the simplicity of a door hinge. This technology is taken for granted these days, yet the creation of a hinge requires a great deal of knowledge and energy. There is the knowledge of where to find the ore in the earth, the mining of ore, refining the ore and fabricating the metal into a usable shape. The hinge pin and screws are additional fabrications needed to make the hinge useful. The development of this technology will take a backseat to relearning how to take seeds and turn them into a loaf of bread.
Families will need to develop essential skills to survive. It will take time before communities are organized enough to free individuals from the plethora of daily chores to specialize in an area of need. In other words, before a community can have a baker, an individual who devotes his time exclusively to baking, the baker must be free from all other tasks that the survival of his family requires.
In an age where flipping a switch gives us light and there is indoor plumbing, it is hard to list all of the time-consuming tasks that must be performed to provide the basics for a family. We are at a stage of development where family units have forgotten the labour-intensive arts of candle making and food refinement. We take for granted that our standard of living will always be with us.
Although an ark is large, it is also finite. Supplies and knowledge for the first generation of pole shift survivors must be carefully considered. Generators and labour-saving devices could be brought for our comfort, but being comfortable might rob us of precious time, time better spent toiling and teaching our children what they will need to know to survive.
Machinery is good only while it can be fuelled. When the fuel and replacement parts run out for a tractor, it becomes little more than a very large lawn ornament. Beasts of burden are a far better investment of space on the ark. Animals, insects, humans and seeds are self-perpetuating commodities. The ark’s manifest will consist mainly of these basics. By keeping it simple, we will give our offspring their best chance for survival. The first few generations can incorporate into daily living enough twentieth century knowledge to ensure their survival, but most of our knowledge will take a very long time to be rediscovered.
The overview in these first three chapters is ominous. I’ve spent a lot of time coming to grips with whether the “theory shocks” have substance. I wonder if there is such a thing as destiny. Because if I’ve figured this thing out correctly -- then there has always existed a destiny for me.
I get confused because it seems the promise of those words might already be fulfilled. After all, writing this book has “played a significant role in my life.” Is there more? I don’t know! The theory shock didn’t say, “You will build an ark and you will survive a world cataclysm.” Theory shocks linked the Ice Age to pole shifting and at some point a link was made to the legend of Noah. It is my conclusion that, if all three events shared the same moment in time, then Noah set an example of how to survive. My next logical conclusion is that, if we are on the eve of the same kind of world cataclysm, then emulating the legend of Noah is a good way to survive.
Contemplating building a full-scale Ark fills me with anxiety because I am trusting feelings, and feelings are not tangible. Feelings are part of our sacred mystery. Feelings are real, but they are part of the Known-Unknown -- partially within the realm of our spirits (I chose to believe we have spirits; the certainty lies within the Unknown-Unknown).
I once knew a guy who, rather late in his life, experienced a spiritual awakening. He was one of my many counselors. After his experience he went back to school to study theology. (This is the same guy who said, that when all is said and done I’ll likely find out that this book has more to do with my spiritual search than surviving a cataclysm. Hence, the question on the back cover). His conclusion at the end of his studies was that, as far as he was concerned, the best one can achieve when studying God is to become comfortable with not knowing. He explained it this way (and I have gone on to adapt it to feelings because I believe feelings emanate from our soul – a mysterious place within our being and separate from the physical aspects of our bodies): In life we can relegate things into categories like the Known-Known.
For instance, we know a cow gives milk. Lets give ourselves the benefit of the doubt and agree we could figure out how to get the milk out of the cow if we needed a drink of milk badly enough. If so, then getting a drink of cow’s milk lies in the category of the Known-Known.
Another category is the Known-Unknown. Electricity is a good example. We know electricity exists. We know what circumstances will create electricity. But even the experts on electricity can’t explain why it’s there at all. Electricity lies in the category of the Known-Unknown, along with feelings.
Then, there is the third category, the Unknown-Unknown. The best examples here are the questions raised regarding the spiritual realm. Do we have souls? Is there a God? Who knows for sure? Does anybody know why we are here? Why do humans worship something they can’t see, hear or touch? Are we connected to something else? Does the Holy Spirit make its presence felt at religious services or is it a presence we feel whenever humans gather in any community-oriented activity? Having talked with those who have been “Born Again” and some very persistent Jehovah’s Witnesses, I can envision a sea of raised hands. People may give answers to these questions and believe with great conviction in their answers. Yet the fact remains that at some point in our lives we choose to believe, or not to believe, in God, or we choose neither for the time being. Just because we believe in something doesn’t make it so. Spirituality is a soulful state-of-being and this state-of-feeling resides in the Known-Unknown. We recognize it because we feel it -- but the questions raised remain unanswered within the Unknown-Unknown.
From where feelings emanate is not known. Feelings are often described as emanating from the heart because they are so often felt in the centre of our chest. This central feeling system is the core of my being; a core I cannot see, hear or touch, nor can a surgeon cut into it and alter the way I love my children.
To accept guidance in life from a feeling, one must be comfortable with the notion that the reason for making certain choices will remain unknown. Marianne Williamson, the author of A Return To Love, says accepting this guidance is an attempt to attain the highest good a situation has to offer for ourselves. I would add that when the feeling-generated guidance conflicts with the rational reasoning of our intellect, we will experience anxiety during the selection process. And yet, by listening to my feelings and following their guidance, I am learning new things and my rational reality is being changed.
If I were the only person who believed the poles shifted and the only one who thinks they will shift again, I might doubt my sanity. I take comfort in the knowledge that there are others who were the first to propose this theory. The pole shift theory was first proposed by Hapgood about fifty years ago, to my knowledge. And further back in time, George Cuvier, a famous French naturalist who lived from 1769-1832 and who became known as the ‘Father of Modern Paleontology’ said, “One major source of catastrophism was the tilting of the earth, its drastic upheavals creating oceans where there was once dry land, and dry land where there was sea.”
The theory did evolve in my mind seemingly independently from those who had already proposed the theory: yet some of the theory shocks were likely triggered by quotes from these other players. Who knows where Mr. Bell got the idea another Ice Age might happen in 2000. I am surprised when I discover someone new to me who has shared this belief, or others who are presently sharing it. The latter is happening more and more these days, so I’m not feeling as isolated.
Will the poles shift? I believe that, yes, they have shifted before and in time, they will shift again. I believe that all that I’ve speculated about Noah is an untold part of Noah’s legend. I believe all of this has happened before. I think most people don’t have a problem with the concept that history repeats itself, because the study of history teaches us certain scenarios do play themselves out time and again like a skipping CD (we used to say “like a broken record”). Like the seasons, I believe pole shifts keep coming back around. When will the poles shift? I don’t know. But I do think it would help others to come to the conclusion that cataclysm is a very real part of our existence -- if they could be certain the legend of Noah is indeed a true story.
