Jehovah: Ancient Astronaut From the Pleiades?
Ken Raines
«The constellation of the seven stars forming the Pleiades appears to be the crowning center around which the known systems of the planets revolve.... It has been suggested, and with much weight, that one of the stars of that group is the dwelling place of Jehovah and the place of the highest heavens;....The constellation of the Pleiades is a small one compared with others which scientific instruments disclose to the wondering eyes of man. But the greatness in size of other stars or planets is small when compared to the Pleiades in importance, because the Pleiades is the place of the eternal throne of God.» (J. F. Rutherford, Reconciliation, 1928, p. 14.)
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On page 91 of the automatic writing book, Angels and Women, there is an allusion by Hesperus, a fallen angel, to his former home in the stars. Hesperus says the following to Aloma apparently in reference to his former estate in heaven:
... O Aloma, beautiful, beloved, look forth into the western sky! Seest thou the brightest of yon celestial group, a star radiant and tender as thine own eyes? There once I dwelt, happy and pure. I would return unto mine ancient realm. I have seen thy soul,... and I tire of earth, its baseness and sin.... Have pity, Aloma!1
When the 1878 novel Seola was revised and published by a Bible Student as Angels and Women in 1924, the Society believed and taught that Jehovah was a being who eternally existed in the time and space of this universe. For example, Rutherford said the following:
Jehovah is and always was. From everlasting to everlasting he is the Lord God.... How unsearchable to us are the thoughts which he must have had as he communed with himself when he was all alone in the immeasurable eternity of time and space!2
Rutherford thus believed that Jehovah lived eternally in infinite time and space before he created anything. This is an occultic view or conception of God, that is, it is common among theologies derived through occult means (Angels and Women for example!) but is completely different from the historic Christian or orthodox view of God that holds He transcends all time and space as he created all things including space and time. Since He created both space and time, according to the orthodox view, He is 'space-less' (Infinite) and 'time-less' (Eternal).
Jehovah of the Pleiades
Rutherford, as the above quotes demonstrate, believed that God was confined to a place or location in space. This place was identified as being in the Pleiades star cluster! Specifically it was claimed he probably lived on or near the largest or brightest of the stars in this group, Alcyone. In the August 15, 1925 Golden Age it was stated that the City of Zion in heaven was associated with Alcyone in the Pleiades star group.3
They probably got this belief from Piazzi Smyth and Joseph Seiss' works on the pyramids. For example, Russell's Thy Kingdom Come quotes Seiss as saying:
Alcyone, then, as far as science has been able to perceive, would seem to be 'the midnight throne' in which the whole system of gravitation has its central seat, and from which the Almighty governs the universe.4
This quote came from Seiss' book, Miracle in Stone or The Great Pyramid of Egypt published in 1877 (Also a source for Russell's pyramidology). The Pyramid was viewed as "God's Stone Witness" that pointed to the Pleiades as the place where God lived. The connection between the Pyramid and the Pleiades starts with the book's cover which has a drawing of the Pyramid and seven stars (the Pleiades). In this book Seiss claimed (based on Smyth's earlier work) that when the Pyramid was first built, the entrance passage:
... pointed to a [Alpha] Draconis, the then pole star, at its lower culmination, at the same time that the Pleiades, particularly Alcyone, the centre of the group, were in the same meridian above.5
In the September 10, 1924 Golden Age they were still echoing Smyth and Seiss' words about the Pyramid pointing to the Pleiades when it was first built:
... the position of the Pleiades at the time of the completion of the Great Pyramid of Egypt, "God's Stone Witness," is a very prominent feature of that building in the midst of the land of Egypt. For these and other reasons Bible Students have good cause to believe that in the region of the Pleiades is located the throne of Jehovah God,...6
Because it was viewed as being where Jehovah lived (heaven) it was worthy of the Bible Students reverence (worship?) and study:
If somewhere in the space among the Pleiades is the throne of God, then this group is worthy of our most reverent study.7
When the Society ended its belief that God lived in the Pleiades in 1953 they stated that this "reverence" could lead to star worship:
Were we to think of the Pleiades as his throne we might improperly view with special veneration that cluster of stars. -- Deut. 4:19; 2 Chron. 2:6; 6:18.8
Deuteronomy 4:19 states:
and that you may not raise your eyes to the heavens and indeed see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the armies of the heavens, and actually get seduced and bow down to them and serve them,... (NWT)
The footnote to this in the 1984 NWT with references says:
"And serve (worship) them."
Which is the way others translate the passage. The other two passages cited by the 1953 quote above states that God cannot be contained in the universe. They also stated that God and heaven are invisible, and cannot be seen by scientific instruments such as telescopes. This apparently ended their belief that God exists in the universe. However, they still state emphatically that they believe that God exists in a spiritual "body" and is therefore confined to a particular location and cannot be in more than one "place" at a time. This means that they still believe he exists in some kind of space and time that He didn't create. Other statements by the Society's writers seem to imply that angels and God exist invisibly in the space and time of this universe. Also, they have not addressed the philosophical problems of Jehovah existing in a time and space that He didn't create.
Jehovah Drives a Flying Saucer?
Since Jehovah was viewed as existing in outer space during the Rutherford period, he was not Transcendent, Omnipresent or Immanent as Christians have traditionally believed. He was confined to a body located in "the space amongst the Pleiades." When he sent angels to communicate to those on earth light-years away they would have to travel through space to get here. This took time. Days, in fact.9
Did they use some sort of spaceship to travel from the Pleiades to Earth as some have suggested? Or could they survive traveling through interstellar space unaided and unprotected? At this point the Watchtower Society's 'occultic' view of Jehovah and his angels sounds more like Erich Von Daniken's "gods" from outer space than the Alpha and Omega of Scripture! It sounds more like the "ancient astronaut" theory that the "gods" of the religions of earth including the God of the Bible were actually aliens from space. (See R. L. Dione's book God Drives a Flying Saucer.)10
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| Space Shuttle astronaut (above) and humanoid Jehovah (right). Jehovah was formerly viewed by Jehovah's Witnesses as a space and time bound humanoid from the Pleiades star cluster. They even believed that God wore clothes (The Golden Age, September 8, 1926, p. 777) | Revelation — It's Grand Climax at Hand!, 1988, p. 16 | Revelation — It's Grand Climax at Hand!, 1988 p. 121 |
The Pleiades Connection
In his book UFO's in the New Age Extraterrestrial Messages & the Truth of Scripture, William Alnor documents the relationship between the New Age movement and the UFO phenomenon. He documents that both have similar beliefs at times concerning enlightened "extraterrestrials" communicating to man today in a variety of occultic ways including telepathic messages, automatic writing, channeling, etc.. Many of these extraterrestrials claim to come from, you guessed it , the Pleiades!11 This is true of the 'ancient astronaut' books by Daniken and others.12
I am not trying to make the claim here that Jehovah was an "ancient astronaut" or that the Watchtower Society believed he was. The Watchtower Society and the demon behind Angels and Women though have defined "Jehovah" and the angels in a way that is very similar to that theory. It is also similar to the claims of "extraterrestrials" or "space brothers."13 If one were a believer in this theory one could certainly find plenty of evidence for it in Angels and Women and early Watchtower Society publications.14
Hesperus Came From Outer Space
Hesperus, the fallen angel in the automatic writing book Angels and Women claimed to be from a star system in outer space as well. This was in a cluster of stars located in the western sky, he said. This is similar to the Watchtower Society's position at the time that heaven was located in the Pleiades star system. The Pleiades however, is in our northern sky, not the west, according toThe Golden Age:
The Bible seems to show that God's throne in heaven is in what we call the north, very likely near the stars called the Pleiades (Job 38:31)15
However, I believe they were referring here to the Northern Hemisphere, not the North per se, as the Pleiades can be seen in the Western sky in the Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Angels and Women appears to teach that all the fallen angels had their own star or planet that they were assigned to and from which they came. They were therefore not all from the Pleiades star system.16 In contrast to all of this, the orthodox view of God transcending time and space is, in my view, more in accord with both the Scriptures and Science.
Physics and God
As pointed out by the astronomer Hugh Ross, the God of the Bible as traditionally interpreted (being both transcendent and personal) is the only one of the various religions that is in accord with current knowledge regarding the origin of the universe. All others, including the God of the Christian sects such as Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. and the similar 'occultic' views of Dione, Daniken, and others are at odds with the evidence.
Einstein's general theory of relativity pointed to a creation of the matter and energy of the universe. From 1966 to 1970 three famous British physicists, Stephen Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose solved the equations of General Relativity for time as well as space and demonstrated that time itself had a beginning at the creation event along with space, matter, and energy. According to theorectical particle physics it appears that at least ten dimensions of space and time are required for the creation of the particles in this universe. Thus, Whomever or Whatever was responsible for this universe can operate in at least ten dimensions of space and time.17 This evidence points to the transcendent, personal God of scripture and not the limited gods of the Pleiades (Jehovah's Witnesses) or Kolob (Mormons) or the similar 'ancient astronaut' "gods" of Dione and Daniken.
The God of Scripture
The God of scripture as well is described as Transcendent, Omnipresent, Omniscient, and Personal. He is described as being the creator of all things which would include the Pleiades (Genesis 1:1; John 1:1, 3; Colossians 1:16). He created the universe by Himself, no one, such as Michael the Archangel, helped Him (Isaiah 44:24). Since he created all things by Himself, he transcends all things including space (2 Chronicles 2:6; 6:18; 1 Kings 8:27). He is, therefore, 'spaceless' or Infinite, Immanent, and Omnipresent (Psalm 139:7-11; Jeremiah 23:23, 24; Acts 17: 27, 28). Since He created all things, the Bible is consistent when it says that time was created as well and God is 'timeless' or Eternal and Immortal (Colossians 1:17; 2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:2; 1 Timothy 6:15; Psalm 90:2). He is also described as being Omniscient (Psalm 147:5; 1 John 3:20), not needing other, created beings to keep Him informed of what's going on "out there" in space and time.
Conclusion
I think it is safe to conclude that there is quite a difference between the Rutherford, Joseph Smith, Dione, von Daniken, et al. view of God as being a time and space bound Pleiadian or humanoid and the Infinite, Eternal, Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent God of the Bible. The two views are very different. The difference is between the creature and the Creator, the demonic, extraterrestrial humanoid and the Lord God Almighty (Revelation 1:8).18
Notes
1 J. G. Smith, Angels and Women, (AB Abac Co., New York), 1924, p. 91.
2 J. F. Rutherford, 1928 Yearbook of the International Bible Students Association, Daily Texts and Comments, January 1.
3 The Golden Age, August 15, 1925, p. 755.
4 Charles Taze Russell, Millennial Dawn, Vol. 3: Thy Kingdom Come, 1891, p. 327. This quote is from Seiss' Miracle in Stone or The Great Pyramid of Egypt, 1877, p. 91.
5 Joseph Seiss, Miracle in Stone or The Great Pyramid of Egypt, 1877 (second edition, 1878), p. 83. Material in brackets mine.
6 The Golden Age, September 10, 1924, pp. 793, 794.
7 Ibid., p. 794.
8 The Watchtower, November 15, 1953, p. 703.
9 For documentation and a discussion of this see Duane Magnani's book The Heavenly Weatherman, 1987, pp. 197-287. This has the most complete discussion available of the Watchtower Society's former belief that Jehovah lived in the Pleiades.
10 Other Works in this genre are; W. Raymond Drake, Gods and Spacemen of the Ancient Past; Alan and Sally Landsburg, The Outer Space Connection; Erick von Daniken, Chariots of the Gods?; Gods From Outer Space.
11 UFO's in the New Age Extraterrestrial Messages & the Truth of Scripture, William Alnor, (Baker Book House),1992, pp. 29, 108, 165, 168, 172, 206.
12 Erich von Daniken, Chariots of the Gods?, 1969, p. 56; W. Raymand Drake, Gods and Spacemen of the Ancient Past, 1974, pp. 49, 116, 117.
13 I take the position that much of the UFO phenomena and "extraterrestrials" are occultic and demonic in nature. See SCP Journal, vol. 17, no. 1, 2, 1992, "Alien Encounters"; Hugh Ross, "UFO's -- The Mystery Resolved," Reasons to Believe [Video].
14 Examples in Angels and Women: the unidentified flying "object" above the treetops carrying the Devas on p. 36, the "flash of light" from the sky that killed Cheros on pp. 58, 59, Hesperus claiming to be from a cluster of stars on p. 91.
15 The Golden Age, May 16, 1928, p. 540.
16 Angels and Women, pp. 149, 150.
17 Hugh Ross,The Creator and the Cosmos -- How the Greatest Scientific Discoveries of the Century Reveal God, (Navpress), 1993.
18 I may be exaggerating here to make a point, but I do believe though that the Watchtower's conception of Jehovah has at times gone beyond merely "anthropomorphic" to humanoid. There is much more on this issue that could be documented. If there is room, the next issue of this journal will have part two on the parallels in the beliefs of the ancient astronaut theory and the Society's conception of Jehovah as a Pleiadian humanoid.
