Sitchin - The Stairway to Heaven

Praise for The Earth Chronicles series

"Exciting... credible... most provocative and compelling."

Library Journal

"A dazzling performance... Sitchin is a zealous investigator."

Kirkus Reviews

"Several factors make Sitchin's well-referenced works outstandingly different from all others that present this central theme. For one, his linguistic skills, which include not only several modern languages that make it possible for him to consult other scholars' works in their original tongues, but the ancient Sumerian, Egyptian, Hebrew, and other languages of antiquity as well.

"The devotion of thirty years to academic search and personal investigation before publishing resulted in unusual thoroughness, perspective, and modifications where need arose. The author's pursuit of the earliest available texts and artifacts also made possible the wealth of photos and line drawings made for his books from tablets, monuments, murals, pottery, seals, etc. Used generously throughout, they provide vital visual evidence.... While the author does not pretend to solve all the puzzles that have kept intensive researchers baffled for well over one hundred years, he has provided some new clues."

Rosemary Decker, historian and researcher

I

In Search of Paradise

There was a timeour ancient scriptures tell uswhen Immortality was within the grasp of Mankind.

A golden age it was, when Man lived with his Creator in the Garden of Eden-Man tending the wonderful orchard, God taking strolls in the afternoon breeze. "And the Lord God caused to grow from the ground every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for eating; and the Tree of Life was in the orchard, and the Tree of Knowing good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it was parted and became four principal streams: the name of the first is Pishon... and of the second Gihon... and of the third Tigris... and the fourth river is the Euphrates. "

Of the fruit of every tree were Adam and Eve permitted to eatexcept of the fruit of the Tree of Knowing. But once they did (tempted by the Serpent)the Lord God grew concerned over the matter of Immortality:

Then did the Lord Yahweh say:

"Behold, the Adam has become as one of us

to know good and evil;

And now might he not put forth his hand

and partake also of the Tree of Life,

and eat, and live forever?"

And the Lord Yahweh expelled the Adam

from the Garden of Eden...

And He placed at the east of the Garden of Eden the Cherubim, and the Flaming Sword which revolveth, to guard the way to the Tree of Life.

So was Man cast out of the very place where eternal life was within his grasp. But though barred from it, he has never ceased to remember it, to yearn for it, and to try to reach it.

Ever since that expulsion from Paradise, heroes have gone to the ends of Earth in search of Immortality; a selected few were given a glimpse of it; and simple folk claimed to have chanced upon it. Throughout the ages, the Search for Paradise was the realm of the individual; but earlier in this millennium, it was launched as the national enterprise of mighty kingdoms.

The New World was discoveredso have we been led to believewhen explorers went seeking a new, maritime route to India and her wealth. Truebut not the whole truth; for what Ferdinand and Isabel, king and queen of Spain, had desired most to find was the Fountain of Eternal Youth: a magical fountain whose waters rejuvenate the old and keep one young forever, for it springs from a well in Paradise.

No sooner had Columbus and his men set foot in what they all thought were the islands off India (the "West Indies"), than they combined the exploration of the new lands with a search for the legendary Fountain whose waters "made old men young again." Captured "Indians" were questioned, even tortured, by the Spaniards, so that they would reveal the secret location of the Fountain.

One who excelled in such investigations was Ponce de Leon, a professional soldier and adventurer, who rose through the ranks to become governor of the part of the island of Hispaniola now called Haiti, and of Puerto Rico. In 1511, he witnessed the interrogation of some captured Indians. Describing their island, they spoke of its pearls and other riches. They also extolled the marvelous virtues of its waters. A spring there is, they said, of which an islander "grievously oppressed with old age" had drunk. As a result, he "brought home manly strength and has practiced all manly performances, having taken a wife again and begotten children."

Listening with mounting excitement, Ponce de Leonhimself an aging manwas convinced that the Indians were describing the miraculous Fountain of the rejuvenating waters. Their postscript, that the old man who drank of the waters regained his manly strength, could resume practicing "all manly performances," and even took again a young wife who bore him childrenwas the most conclusive aspect of their tale. For in the court of Spain, as throughout Europe, there hung numerous paintings by the greatest painters, and whenever they depicted love scenes or sexual allegories, they included in the scene a fountain. Perhaps the most famous of such paintings, Titian's Love Sacred and Love Profane, was created at about the time the Spaniards were on their quest in the Indies. As everyone well knew, the Fountain in the paintings hinted at the ultimate lovemaking; the Fountain whose waters make possible "all manly performances" through Eternal Youth.

Ponce de Leon's report to King Ferdinand is reflected in the records kept by the official court historian, Peter Martyr de Angleria. As stated in his Decade de Orbe Novo [Decades of the New World], the Indians who had come from the islands of Lucayos or the Bahamas, had revealed that "there is an island... in which there is a perennial spring of running water of such marvelous virtue, that the waters thereof being drunk, perhaps with some diet, make old men young again." Many researches. such as PoncedeLeon's Fountain of Youth: History of a Geographical Myth by Leonardo Olschki, have established that "the Fountain of Youth was the most popular and characteristic expression of the emotions and expectations which agitated the conquerors of the New World." Undoubtedly, Ferdinand the king of Spain was one of those so agitated, so expectant for the definitive news.

So, when word came from Ponce de Leon, Ferdinand lost little time. He at once granted Ponce de Leon a Patent of Discovery (dated February 23, 1512), authorizing an expedition from the island of Hispaniola northward. The admiralty was ordered to assist Ponce de Leon and make available to him the best ships and seamen, so that he might discover without delay the island of "Beininy" (Bimini). The king made one condition explicit: "that after having reached the island and learned what is in it, you shall send me a report of it. "

In March 1513, Ponce de Leon set out northward, to look for the island of Bimini. The public excuse for the expedition was a search for "gold and other metals"; the true aim was to find the Fountain of Eternal Youth. This the seamen soon learnt as they came upon not one island but hundreds of islands in the Bahamas. Anchoring at island after island, the landing parties were instructed to search not for gold but for some unusual fountain. The waters of each stream were tasted and drunkbut with no evident effects. On Easter SundayPasca de Flores by its Spanish namea long coastline was sighted. Ponce de Leon called the "island" Florida. Sailing along the coast and landing again and again, he and his men searched the jungled forests and drank the waters of endless springs. But none seemed to work the expected miracle.