Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #357686 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
"The theory {Phillips] puts forth in The End of Eden is nothing short of paradigm-shattering, if true."

Synopsis
In the year 2024, the comet 12P/Pons-Brooks is due to pass near Earth again for the first time in 3,500 years. In 1500 B.C., Earth passed through this comet's tail, and in the decade following, cultures the world over began to exhibit significant aggressive tendencies. Civilisations in India, the Middle East, China, Japan, Europe, and Central America suddenly abandoned their peaceful ways and devoted themselves with uncharacteristic fervour to making war on their neighbours and fighting among themselves. But this was not the only effect that is linked to this celestial event. Sudden outbreaks of monotheism, the worship of a single god, and a new idea at the time, occurred simultaneously in locales spread widely throughout the world. Most of these monotheistic religions represented their god symbolically as a circle with a series of lines extending below, resembling a simple drawing of a comet.In "The End of Eden", Graham Phillips chronicles the sudden shifts in social demeanour and religious philosophy that swept the world in the wake of 12P/Pons-Brooks.

He contends that debris in the comet's tail contaminated the atmosphere with a chemical known to cause aggressive behaviour, and that after little more than a decade, worldwide hostility abruptly abated. He, also, explores how the appearance of a celestial body that outshone the moon would have been interpreted as a significant religious event.

Customer Reviews

A Comet that Brought About An End of Eden
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," 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.

disappointing
Ever since reading my first von Daniken book years ago, I've been keen to read as much on this subject as possible. However, having just read 'Slave species of God' by Michael Tellinger (which I seriously recommend), The End of Eden was a huge disappointment.
It is probably the only book I seriously thought about throwing away half-way through.
The beginning is mediocre, with a great deal of fluff. The middle is full of 1st school information (eg. the pyramids were kings tombs) - which they are not - and consequently I found myself flipping pages over ten at a time. Only when one gets towards the last chapter is the theory of a comet dealt with - and even then there's a lack of any real analysis.
In fact, the author got so involved at one point discussing volcanic eruptions that I thought he'd abandoned the comet theory. There is a conflict between these two ideas, and it remains unresloved - as does the period of the comet - at one stage suggested to be 3,500 yrs, whilst stated at c. 70yrs a short while later.
The comet theory is adjusted to suit the situation, has no real data or evidence to support it, and the reader is left wondering what it was all about.
Plenty of speculation and supposition, but very little evidence.