Water
For in seven days’ time I will make it rain upon the earth, forty days and forty nights, and I will blot out from the earth all existence that I created.”
Atlantis
Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher, wrote of a great civilization called Atlantis founded by a race of people who were half god and half human. They lived in a utopia that held great naval power. But their home, located on islands shaped like a series of concentric circles, was destroyed in a great cataclysm.
Fire
The Crater Lake
When the first Europeans arrived in the Pacific Northwest, they heard a tale from the Klamath people about the creation of Crater Lake. The Native Americans would not gaze upon the lake, for to do so was to invite death. The lake, they said, had been created in a great battle between Llao, who ruled the Below World, and Skell, the chief of the Above World. During the battle, darkness covered the land, and Llao, standing on Mount Mazama, and Skell, on Mount Shasta, threw rocks and flames. The fight ended when Mount Mazama collapsed and sent Llao back into the underworld. Rain filled in the remaining depression, forming a lake in the mountain’s place.
Hail
יהוה said to Moses, “Hold out your arm toward the sky that hail may fall on all the land of Egypt, upon human and beast and all the grasses of the field in the land of Egypt.” So Moses held out his rod toward the sky, and יהוה sent thunder and hail, and fire streamed down to the ground, as יהוה rained down hail upon the land of Egypt. The hail was very heavy—fire flashing in the midst of the hail—such as had not fallen on the land of Egypt since it had become a nation. Throughout the land of Egypt the hail struck down all that were in the open, both human and beast; the hail also struck down all the grasses of the field and shattered all the trees of the field.
Earth(quake)
Delhi
In ancient Greece, in the town of Delphi on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, there was a temple devoted to the god Apollo. Within a sacred chamber, a priestess called the Pythia would breathe in sweet-smelling vapors emanating from a crack in the rock. These vapors would send her into a state of frenzy during which she would channel Apollo and speak gibberish. A priest would then turn that gibberish into prophesies.
What are the similarities between these stories?
Why are these natural phenomena so fascinating for the humankind since thousands of years?
How can we relate these stories of supernatural events to our ideas and fears today?