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CHAPTER 3 59
A cockatrice was a fabulous serpent with deadly glance, reputed to be hatched by a serpent from a cock's egg,
and commonly represented with the head, legs, and wings of a cock and the body and tail of a serpent. The
word cockatrices comes from the word cocatris (corrupt), and calcare (to tread). When cockatrice is used in
the Bible it means an unidentified venomous serpent.
Swedenborg tells us that Palestina (Philisthea) means those who conceive false principles and reason thence
concerning spiritual things which overflow man. All those who conceive falsely are told not to rejoice just
because Lucifer was destroyed by having its vortex shattered, because out of the center (root) of the coiled,
spiral vortex (serpent) would come an unidentified destructive object that would corrupt and tread the land,
and the result or product (fruit) of this would be a fiery, flying object.
Here we see that the people are warned that the catastrophe is not over yet because a large meteoric fragment
will head for the Earth and it will divide into smaller fragments like "fiery flying serpents" and when it strikes
the Earth it will "corrupt and tread the land". One object, perhaps larger than the rest, is mentioned
specifically.
The Great Meteor Crater near Canyon Diablo in Arizona, about six miles south of the Sunshine Station of the
Santa Fe Railroad, was evidently caused by one of the "fiery serpents". These meteors were thus described by
the ancients because as they headed for Earth they did, indeed, look like flaming dragons or snakes. It is
important to note in this connection that the morning star of the Toltecs, Quetzal-cohuatl, is represented as a
great dragon or serpent: "cothuatl" in Nahuatl is "serpent", and the name means "a feathered serpent". The
morning star of the Chichimec Indian tribe in Mexico is called "serpent cloud".
The ancestors of the present day Navajo Indians are said to have seen one of their gods come down from the
sky in a cloud of fire and bury himself in the ground at the spot where the Great Meteor Crater exists in
Arizona. A cedar tree on the rim of the crater grew to be over seven hundred years old. Some scientists think
that the meteor that caused this tremendous crater may have been a small comet. And what better description
would fit a comet than a "feathered serpent"?
Of course, Meteor Crater was not formed by a "true" comet, but the meteor itself was of such tremendous size,
it would seem more like a comet than a meteor, which we associate with little "shooting stars". The meteorite
weighs somewhere between a million and ten million tons. It threw out between three and four hundred
million tons of rock when it hit the earth. The crater is about 4,100 feet wide, about 570 feet deep, and about
three miles around. The outside rim is over one hundred feet high. The time when it fell is unknown.
Scientists say probably more than one thousand years ago and maybe as much as fifty thousand years ago.
However, the fall of this gigantic meteorite is found in the legends of the Navajo Indians, and this tribe hasn't
been in the Southwestern area very long. They came from Canada "hundreds", not "thousands" of years ago.
Therefore, it is believed that this great meteor was a part of the "fiery flying serpent" that headed for Earth in
the time of Isaiah the prophet.
Isaiah 24:17-19: "Fear and the pit, and the snare are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth . . . for the windows
from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake. The earth is utterly broken down, the earth
is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly."
When did the catastrophe come? Isaiah 14:28: "In the year that King Ahaz died was this burden." Ahaz was
the son of Jotham, King of Judah, and father of Hezekiah. Ahaz succeeded his father as eleventh King of
Judah, and reigned sixteen years. (740-724 B.C.). Therefore, the catastrophe came on the day on which King
Ahaz was buried, some-time in 724 B.C.
Isaiah 24:1: "Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and
scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof."