by Note to the Editor: Jason Colavito (@JasonColavito) is a writer and culture critic based in upstate New York. His writing has appeared in Esquire, The New Republic, Slate, and elsewhere. He is the author of several books including “Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean,” which will be published this fall. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion on CNN.
In ancient Mesopotamia, a solar eclipse was a cause of great concern. The ancient peoples of the Near East feared that an eclipse, especially of the sun and the moon, but also of the planets, was a “bad omen” that indicated a great danger to the health and life of the king. To save the ruler from an evil fate, they would appoint a temporary king for a short period and murder him, thus fulfilling the portent of the king’s death and allowing the usual occupant of the throne to return to office unharmed.
Now, a rare solar eclipse is crossing the United States ahead of an election contest in America that will pit the current president and his predecessor in a rematch that many voters say they don’t want. Although an election loss is only figurative political death, it’s hard not to feel at least a little of that ancient Mesopotamian anxiety mixed with the excitement and joy of watching one of nature’s most spectacular light shows .
Even in this age of science, superstitions die hard, and even the most rational of us sometimes believe in myths. Today, eclipses retain somewhat of their historical role as deceivers of illusion.
On social media, far-right mongers offer insensitive conspiracy theories about the eclipse depicting an attack on American cities by undocumented immigrants. But most of us now realize that a sign in the sky doesn’t dictate events as dramatically as an eclipse on Earth, it’s an important reminder of indisputable scientific truths in an age of conspiracy theories.
Around the ancient world, solar eclipses inspired fear because they seemed to occur randomly, and their cause was not fully understood, leading to concerns about whether the sun would ever rise again.
When knowledge failed, myth filled the gaps. Many cultures imagined that a solar eclipse occurred when a mythological being ate the sun. In Vietnam, it was a frog. In the Andes, puma. Among the native peoples of North America, animals from squirrels to bears did the work. In ancient China, a dragon was responsible. In other cultures, eclipse myths were based on a meeting or marriage between the sun and the moon.
Over time, ancient people began to attempt to record and understand eclipses scientifically, although these efforts were still mixed with magical thinking. More than 2,500 years ago, Chinese astronomers compiled records of solar eclipses, but saw them as dark omens for the emperor, who had to avoid meat and perform rituals to “save” the sun.
According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Thales of Miletus was the first to predict a solar eclipse, and when the prediction came true, the Medes and the Lydians, who were at war at the time, took it as a prediction, they stopped battle and they asked for peace.
Some modern scholars argue that Thales never made such a prediction, but by c. 100-300 CE, scholars from the Mediterranean to China had begun to calculate the time of solar eclipses, although they could not predict where in the world they would appear. That skill took until 1715 to master.
As science worked out the mechanics of eclipses, some of the traditional fears subsided, at least among the educated. By the early modern period (c. 1400-1600 CE), European writers tried instead to recapture that sense of divine awe by recording how the natural world was crushed before an eclipse.
There were many stories of horses and other beasts of burden refusing to move during an eclipse. The birds, some said, fell from the sky, “caught in fear”. Nocturnal creatures ran riot outside their appointed hours. (Science today tells us that many animals think night is approaching and act accordingly.)
Even among some people, especially those with little scientific training, eclipses remained frightening for centuries, even as late as the 19th century. When a total solar eclipse approached France in 1654, an anonymous pamphlet attributed to astronomer Pierre Gassendi tried to convince the residents of Paris that the eclipse would not cause any harm. However, the message did not sink in; France’s literacy rate was around 30% and many Parisians locked themselves in their cellars to meet an unexpected disaster.
It is said that Christopher Columbus surprised the Arawak people he wanted to violently colonize by correctly predicting a solar eclipse – but that story is wrong. In fact, Columbus predicted a moon. Many people confuse the story of Columbus with a story from a much later novel. In 1889, Mark Twain told a similar story, with a more dramatic solar eclipse, to save the hero of his novel “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” from execution. In both cases the stories aimed to contrast modern practitioners of science with superstitious people.
With the expansion of public education and increased literacy, the eclipse became less of a cause for fear as much as for excitement and amusement. By the 19th century, large crowds gathered for eclipse viewing parties, looking through smoked glass to shield their eyes from the sun.
During the solar eclipse of 1842, 20,000 people of all social classes gathered in Perpignan, France, and praised the performance of the sun. But even at that late date, some poor, illiterate farmers reported being frightened by the eclipse. “The sky was calm, and yet the daylight diminished, and everything grew shadowy, and then all at once we were in darkness. We thought we were blind,” one told astronomer François Arago.
Eclipses have always brought with them a dominant mix of science and superstition, but today, thanks to education and the media, almost everyone knows what an eclipse is and how to view it safely. This triumph of scientific education gives us rays of hope that even in the age of fake news, misinformation and alternative facts, scientific knowledge will eventually prevail. It might take a few thousand years.
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