![Lake Van and The Hero of the Ages](https://themasterproject.love/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/111999123_s-Lake-Van-1024x266.jpg)
The followers of Van early withdrew to the highlands west of India, where they were exempt from attacks by the confused races of the lowlands …
Quote from The URANTIA Book, 0759:04
Lake Van is a large saltwater lake in eastern Turkey, lying southwest of the Caucasus Mountains, which extend across the neck of land separating the Black Sea from the Caspian Sea. The Caucasus are the highest mountains in Europe and form the border with Asia, at the periphery of ancient empires of lands now called Turkey, Iran, and Russia, precisely where history disappears into legend. Mount Ararat, traditionally thought to be the resting place of Noah’s Ark, is part of the Caucasus.
When I was a young man, people of my race thought of themselves as Caucasian, though I do not hear this term used so much now. We had this idea of an ancient mix of peoples arising in the area of the Caucasus who had racial characteristics belonging to the white race. I read recently that the Kurdish people were thought to have originated from the area around Lake Van.
As you may have heard in conjunction with our numerous wars, the Kurds are spread across areas of Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran and would very much like to govern themselves. After the First World War when the British and French partitioned that area of the world with straight lines drawn across the sand, the Kurds were left out. With a population now over 30 million, they are currently the largest ethnic minority in the world without their own country.
I have made this brief reference to the Kurdish people because, although this is not confirmed by The URANTIA Book, the Kurds may be, in our modern world, as directly descended from the “Caucasians” as anyone. I know the Kurds must be admixed with innumerable strains of other races. But the fierceness of these people in conserving their cultural identity inspires me and tugs at my heart. And this, for all the benumbing disregard of current world powers, has literally been ongoing since before the time history emerged from legend.
You might be curious as to the origin of the name of Lake Van, and wonder—who was Van? None of our histories go back far enough to uncover his name, but from The URANTIA Book, which is our fifth revelation, we now know that Van was the individual who undertook to prepare the first Garden of Eden to receive Adam and Eve, the second revelation to our world. That was over 37,000 years ago, yet by that time Van had lived here for over 450,000 years.
The story of Van begins with our first revelation, some 500,000 years ago. In my next essay I will begin sharing the essentials to understand Van and his part of the first revelation. This story has so many aspects any path I choose will be straightforward and worth your while.
For Van, who was an immortal, was also the hero of his age.
Ernest Clement
Ernest Talk
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[In referring quotations from The URANTIA Book, I will follow the convention of The URANTIA Book Concordance (1993). The page number is given in four digits followed by a colon and the number of the paragraph on the page in two digits, with an incomplete paragraph at the beginning of the page, and also any section title appearing in capital letters, numbered “00.”
The URANTIA Book (1955) was first published, under copyright, by URANTIA Foundation of Chicago, Illinois. This non-profit group has a United States trademark of “three azure blue concentric circles on a white background” (0606:00), by which you may identify their publications and affiliates. URANTIA Foundation’s copyright is not longer valid, and the text is now in the public domain.]
To continue, click on Cluster 2, Experiments in Time, which starts with “Part 4—The Implantation of Life,” a topic of great confusion on our world. Or you may click to return to the >> Table of Essays.