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The End of Eden: The Comet That Changed Civilization

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Graham Phillips is always an interesting read no matter what the subject. This time he delves into the idea a comet hit the Earth around 1450 BC causing war, famine etc. He also states it was the cause of monotheism, which seems to me to be more significant than what the comet allegedly did to humanity.

Mr Phillips does write about the early starts of civilization and how peaceful everyone was for the most part. He then states during the time of around 1450 BC. all hell broke loose as many countries went to war against each other on a massive scale. He also looks at the writings of the day and many reported a large disk like object in the sky.

Mr Phillips then goes on to discuss the cults built around said object such as the Cult of Ir and the Aten of ancient Egypt which became popular around the same time. Atenism was the first form of monotheism and that became what is now Judaism. Of course, Christianity and Islam are offshoots of the belief system.

This is interesting stuff, and much of it is speculation. I do think Atenism did start monotheism and Judaism itself, but the author contradicts his earlier works where he claimed Atenism came after Judaism. I guess this is a work in progress, and it is fun to follow how he gets his conclusions.

There really isn't anything shocking revealed in this book as the events written about were recorded. It also is interesting to think Christianity ultimately got its start from a comet getting too close to Earth 3500 years ago.

I have brought this book by Graham Phillips, out of curiosity as well to further study the subject of and the history of the comets, and an interesting theory of this book caught my attention as I became quite skeptical. The choice for the title, "End of Eden," reflected the whole thesis of this book as initially the comet of 1486 BC brought about a major change from peaceful/egalitarian to violent/aggressiveness societies.

This interesting work discussed the shifts in the social institutions/orders as coincided with the appearance of the comet, namely 12P/Pons-Brooks. It is stressed that Earth has passed through the comet's tail or the meteoroid stream in the past as ancient human beings became exposed to certain chemical (i.e., vasopressin), which triggered the mass aggressive tendencies. Before the appearance of the comet, the civilizations (Megalithic, pre-Olmec, Mehrgarh, etc.) were very peaceful egalitarian societies and after the comet's appearance, these mentioned civilizations changed in a massive scale and revealed their violent/aggressive tendencies, and it also brought about the birth of the monotheism. He proposed that the mentioned comet was the common cause of such major shift in our history.

While I was impressed with his presentation of historical researches to explain the evidence behind the pre-written historic societies before and after the passing of the comet in 1486 BC, I am not quite sure if the Phillips' theory of the number of ancient civilizations as being remarkably peaceful as factual. There were histories of violence, war, death, and aggressiveness having been occurred numerous times and long before the passing of comet in 1500s BC.

Also, while the author brings a good and important point about the cosmic event having such an impact on the human societies in the past as it was taken in a similar approach as Immanuel Velikovsky did in his Worlds in Collision, as Richard Firestone did in his The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: How a Stone-Age Comet Changed the Course of World Culture, and as Mike Baillie did in his New Light on the Black Death, I would question about the chemicals from the comet (such as vasopressin) that triggered the aggressiveness in human beings. An epidemic of mass aggression as occurred in 1500s BC can be as a result of having seen the passing comet in the sky, but it is highly uncertain if it was only caused by the chemicals like vasopressin from the comet's ion tail. If this was true, not only would we face a possible plague from the comet impact, but we would have people killing other people on our hands as well. I think the chemicals/aggression/comet equation may require more scientific research as part of this aspect of the theory.

However, overall, I think this work presents an interesting look at the affects of the comet on the ancient civilizations and how imagery of the comet was depicted in the historical records (such as monuments, ancient texts, mythology, hieroglyphics, etc.). This book is a very readable and well-written, with just close to 200 pages, fourteen chapters and six pages worth of bibliography.

It is certainly the book that I could not put down as it was very intriguing to read, and I would surely recommend it.

The book gets off to a slow start, since it isn't immediately apparent what megalithic construction has to do with comets, or their affect on civilization. However, the author uses historical and archeological research to establish that a number of societies around the globe had experienced lengthy periods of relative peace until they were simultaneously shaken by episodes of extreme irrational violence.

With that fairly well established, the author searches for and finds a significant incident in the near passage of an extremely large bright comet around the year 1486 B.C. Although the mechanism that he proposes of how this comet induced our ancestors to sudden violence, is a bit of a stretch, and without any substantial proof, the timing does seem to be far beyond coincidental. Astrologically, comets are generally thought to be harbingers of social upheaval and disaster. Perhaps this comet did have some effect to contribute to that association.

But for me, the most valuable contribution the book makes to my understanding of history, is the development of monotheism (again attributed to the comet), and the explanations of the biblical story of Exodus and the explosion of the volcanic island of Thera / Santorini in the Mediterannean just before the plagues affected Egypt and the enslaved Jews. While the author does not succeed at proving his thesis, he certainly makes a very strong case for the event and its consequences. And for providing so much well researched and reasoned food for though, I am very grateful.

Greetings all,

Read the book and was rather skeptical of the central thesis. However, it is a fast read and is really about an excellent researcher stumbling on a fascinating theory that I have not seen addressed elsewhere. Thus, the book picks up speed and novelty as the pages turn. Why have I not read anything like this before? The topic is utterly unique - definately worth a read.

Graham Phillips' THE END OF EDEN; THE COMET THAT CHANGED CIVILIZATION details the shifts in social demeanor and religious thinking that helped shape the world in the wake of a massive comet which appeared in the sky in 1500 BC, when the comet 12P/Pons-Brooks' tail engulfed Earth. In the comet's wake cultures became more aggressive, abandoning prior peaceful ways and making wars - and monotheism arise. THE END OF EDEN details the comet's influences on these changes and also maintains the comet's tail held a chemical known to cause aggressive behavior. An intriguing 'must' new age collections will relish.

Let's see now, there was this meteor that hit the Earth in 9500 B.C., somewhere in Canada, I think, that melted all the glaciers, etc., and then there was the presently discussed comet. Now no real valid, scientific proof has ever come to light to support either one. And this book doesn't fill that void.

Let us be honest. Both theories, and I degrade the the word "theory" in describing them, are limited to no more than finding a series of essentially unrelated events, concocting enough fuzzy glop to make them appear similar, and then confabulating a "theory" to show that the "common origins" of the non-existent, totally proof-deficient "relationships" are real and substantial. In polite terms, this is called fiction.

This book is an epic waste of money, time, effort, and paper. No one should seriously entertain the notion of even perusing it, let alone buying it. The author should go back to designing other incredible conspiracy theories that are not so insulting to the reader's intelligence, like, maybe, how the Sindheits, aliens with canned heat brains, plotted to kill all the Kennedys, starting in WWII.

The fact even one copy of this book has sold causes great trepidation for the future.
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