[much of this ended up also in the file cos.php] We attended the NPA 2011 conference (Google "NPA 18"), Jno C, Kees C, and Alex K. Find Alex K's report at http://saturniancosmology.org/files/npa/alex.htm. The following are some of my impressions of the NPA presentations of the Electric Universe (which is how the Saturnians of the Thunderbolts.info site style themselves). These comments have been delayed because initialy it was difficult to make anything of the conference. Eventually I gave in to the fact that the Electric Universe group presented nothing new, dabbled in scientificism, and still lacked any goals or direction. Most of the other NPA talks dealt with aspects of gravity and relativity. The Electric Universe people, Dave Talbott, Wal Thornhill, and Michael Gmirkin, presented space-plasma topics, as did five other people associated with them. Only Dwardu Cardona and Ev Cochrane gave talks dealing with topics of mythology. Presumeably any shortcomings will be made up with a promised separate Thunderbolts conference "at the end of the year, in Las Vegas" as told by the NPA in an email. [This happened on January 6 - 9 2012, in Las Vegas.] I would suspect an even more definitive statement on the uniqueness of the original Saturnian polar configuration. This is exactly the difference between Thunderbolts.info and Saturniancosmology.org. That has been pointed out in the Chapter "Dogma and Speculation," but without considering all the causes. First impression: nothing new ... I was disappointed. I got the impression that the Thunderbolts group has not advanced one iota since 2001. The evidence for this is mostly from inuendos and avoidances. All mention of "myth" and "Saturn" were avoided, except when the audience twice introduced the word "Saturn." The condition of a standstill is not different from the past: the "polar configuration" of Saturn was first developed in the mid seventies, and promoted with the book "The Saturn Myth" by Talbott in 1980. Except for the addition of plasma to the mechanics of this (2001), no advances have been made. Cochrane's and Cardona's presentation were first seen in print 23 years ago, in early issues of Aeon. In his talk Cardona claimed that the arctic polar region was the location of the genesis of life -- because it was warmer. That sounded convincing decades ago, when we knew less of what transpired in the more recent history of the Earth. But all of it could as easily be attributed to the frequent warm periods in the earlier history of the Earth. I saw NPA regulars (the people who do differential equations) perform their expected knee-jerk reaction at the suggestion of an overhead planet, and then start making phew-phew spitting noises at the mention of mythology. Cardona's suggestion is that all of the biological muck at the north polar regions (the sea, and, unstated: river valleys) is related to the growth of plants and animals in the arctic (despite his suggestion of a high-standing tide and a scouring planet-size tornado). My suggestion is that all of that muck was deposited in a rebound of water after the flood of 3147 BC, and the sources were the tropical and temperate zones further south. Cochrane likewise seemed to have been under instructions to stick to old tried-and-true topics. That mandate resulted in a talk on a very old topic of Venus iconography in Sumer and Egypt. The transition of a "gatepost with banner" glyph to a name for Inanna (Venus) was interesting, however. Cochrane complained of having defended the same thesis for 30 years. I have some problems with the Thunderbolt people. The problem is that for all their posturing and snotty pedantics, they are amateurs at what they are doing. I concluded that years ago when I saw them make incorrect statements about the physical world, and reach baseless conclusions about mythology. I ignored further conclusions derived from analogy. In the TPODs of the Thunderbolts site there is still constant talk of "auroras" and other nonsense, something I would have expected less of since Dave Smith took over as editor. They are given to identifying vintage celestial displays as species of the axis mundi, and hold them to be auroras which "stretched from pole to pole." The aurora doesn't do that. It is a thin circular sheath, and an aurora of greater magnitude would appear nearer the equator, but not "from pole to pole". And then there are the "chaos hordes" and the "dragon," which I have searched for but never found -- except, of course, in their own literature. We were spared from these runaway fanatasies at the NPA. I should not complain, for I have my faults: like, I can't spell, but I dont pursue an absolutely senseless "methodology", called the "Comparative Method" driven by "Mythological Archetypes" which are subsumed under the banners of Western, Christian, and Indo-European thinking. Not to diminish their methods but it has to be the most excruciatingly slow way to persue an investigation. And it smacks of a complete lack of imagination. Secondly: about science ... The NPA jamboree was the opportunity for the group to present themselves as scientists, and they took full advantage of it. This was demonstrated with the singular focus on "space plasma" topics in presentations by Talbott and Thornhill, and with the addition of six new people, who also recounted mostly the same aspects of plasma. Talbott's second talk recapped an earlier presentation of the plasma elements of the sun and added the electrical scarring of Mars. It has come into vogue to again mention Ralph Juergens, which I consistantly have done on my website, but whose name had disappeared almost completely from mention by Thornhill and on the Thunderbolts website. Thornhill talked about plasma at the Sun and stars. But nothing new. I walked out after five minutes of the hour-long talk, Kees followed suit a half hour later. Alex stayed longer. Additionally there were plasma-related talks by six people who were not traditionally associated with the Thunderbolts group -- numerous efforts at overviews of plasma thus, including a history and a manual. The effort at writing a "manual of plasma" is by Jim Johnson, after having been started by Bob Johnson. Gmirkin also presented a rundown of the same topic (more accurately), as did Findlay. People were surprised that Findlay seemed to have picked up on the whole breadth of plasma theory, by his admission, only since February -- 5 months. I was not surprised: he is an engineer. But see below. Additionally Rens van der Sluijs talked about the history of plasma theory. And the Rev. Sykes made a plug for electric universe education, or for bible chronology, or for a young earth thesis ... something like that. I picked up on some of this young-earth talk, perhaps by inference. As a result I can't place my sources, except for Michael Steinbacher's paper, and some hints by Sykes that before Saturn there was no time at all (which surely must have been a metaphor, hey what?). Another aggravation was the constant mention of "circuit in space", "currents from the Sun", and "twisted Birkland currents" -- as if there is nothing else. A "circuit in space" has never been remotely demonstrated, and unlikely to be needed in an expanding universe. Rather than learning physics and electrical theories, or perhaps investigating the textbooks by Alfven and Piddington, most of the references were lifted from the plasma popularizers associated with Thunderbolts -- TPODS, books and articles by Thornhill, Talbott, and Scott, and papers by Peratt. I object also to the analogical association of things at intragalactic dimensions and the operation of the Solar System. Every one of the speakers seemed content to see a connection. I don't see a connection. I think it is as unworkable an analogy as it is to suggest that the Sun and its planets are a model for the atom. Findlay, who lectured entirely in the passive voice (casting a spell of objectiveness), came up at one point with the following smorgasboard of plasma-scientific terms: "Account would have to be taken of the existence of the 'Double Layer' barriers created between these areas [galactic and stellar regions], together with the likelihood of Z-pinch events occuring in filaments that result in catastrophic electrical breakdown events." Say what? Quoted here in the span of one sentence is scenery which seems to drift effortlessly from the galactic realm to the solar system. My main objection, however, is to this stringing together of what look like important terms -- as if their contiguity gives them meaning. I had this same problem with Dennis Cox (not of the NPA) -- at his site "dragonstormproject" -- that is, his use of a barrage of plasma terminology without any recognition that many of the terms were completely unrelated to the context of his presentation. It started to sound like a grade school science fiction essay. I had that problem also in email with one of Talbott's lieutenants, someone who could handle sensible prose, except when it came to expounding the glories of plasma. Then I got the feeling that he was trying to sound smart by using plasma-speak words, but mostly didn't know what he was talking about. Not that the concepts are easy or intuitive. Even the nemesis of the electric Sun, Tom Bridgman (with a doctorate in physics and astronomy, says he) represents a "double layer" as a two-plate capacitor in space, (http://saturniancosmology.org/files/critics/bridgman4.jpg) whereas Wikipedia at least has the good sense to represents it as an ion and electron drift region dependent on adjacent electrical field values. (http://saturniancosmology.org/files/plasma/double_layer_form.png) What was entirely missing from the overall views of plasma, in my opinion, is its relationship to the planets of the Solar System: the formation of tubular plasma sheaths with the resulting ability to remain entirely hidden electrically from other planets, the almost instant relocation of plasma sphere boundaries when they meet, the conductivity of the sheet and the resulting transfer of ions, and the extremely violent electric field interactions when plasmaspheres merge. Not a word on this. Last I saw mention of this was a TPOD by Michael Armstrong in 2004. Now if the Thunderbolts people claim that all of the bad things which Velikovsky wrote about never happened, then they are safe from ever having to explain any interactions between planets in the Solar System. Viola, nothing explained, nothing happened! They can spend all their time and resources (as they do) explaining galactic and intragalactic happenings (for whatever quaint reasons they have for doing so). That was actually the starting point for the Thunderbolts.info website a decade ago: The planetary interactions had to be explained. But since that time there has been a change in the weather. Cardona's strange 1979 cosmology has gained the upper hand, Talbott had always included all of 3000 years of planetary altercations in the original polar configuration (with Cochrane following suit), vd Sluijs was converted to auroral polar columns by Peratt, and Thornhill dropped all association with Velikovsky in 2007 after being marked as a "serious researcher" in a book by the astronomer Hilton Ratcliffe. It is unbelievable to me that the people reputed to be the leading edge researchers of mythology simply cannot see what is front of their eyes, and completely disregard 3000 years of events and records. This is the period during which almost every myth and legend was recorded from contemporaneous events, not as a recollection from a previous era. The context of a myth can be determined by the first appearance of a tale, a new religious practice, the first appearance of certain iconography, and also by the use of names, the dedication of temples, and the economics of the states. This will tell you that there was a long sequence of celestial events spanning 3000 years. If the Thunderbolts people have no interest in the period of 3000 BC to today, then my website should be no problem to them. My theories would just be wrong, and it would be obvious to the whole of their audience. But they have yet to develop a sensible narrative of how the polar configuration got there, and what happened to it when it ended. And what ended it? Certainly not Chaos Hordes and Dragons. On the other hand, I have those answers, presented in an easy (although lengthy) narrative. This is a direct affront to their cause. They can claim all they want about Velikovsky being dead wrong, and brag about knowing more about mythology (see further below), the fact remains that their polar configuration has neither a beginning nor an end -- it sort of hangs suspended somewhere in the past. Considering the stream of accolades my website has received (at times even from the Thunderbolts.info forum), and the number of file hits I get, perhaps I have something; perhaps I might be right. In that case a reader might ask, Where does the Saturnian Thunderbolt mythology come from, and where does it lead? They similarly refuse to adopt even the most basic measures which are readily found among their sources: they have not even set a date to the demise of the polar configuration (they could have used the Maya 3114 BC), and have, in fact, made it known that "it cannot be done." Back to the NPA: Of the related talks, the only new and facinating one was by Michael Steinbacher, "Mountain Formation." I talked to him afterward. He thought he might have blown the talk, but I think his enthusiasm carried it. He is a photographer, and sees things we don't see. He must not have gotten much backing from the Saturnians, for he had (I feel) way too much in undirected plasma-speak vocabulary. He also did a considerable bit of hemming and hawing on dating, making it sound at times like a young-earth thesis dismissing C-14 dating methods. In his presentation he suggested dates of 5,000 or 10,000 years ago for the vitrification of canyon edges and tops. These dates are the current Saturnian estimates on when the prior "Age of the Gods" started. (I have a much later date of ca 4200 BC.) He also suggests that an aurora at the equator might have been responsible for the burning and vitrivication of the south-facing valleys in the southwestern USA landscape. Auroras don't do that. But his data parallels that of Dennis Cox in northern Mexico and southwestern USA. I told Michael that the melting was due to Mars in the seventh century BC. When Michael next appeared as part of an Electric Universe panel, he used the single date the 7th century BC, unlike his totally unknown dates given earlier during his talk. The Saturnians would not have advised him on that date. It would have validated Velikovsky. Third and lastly: no direction ... Velikovsky's theories are irrelevant as far as the Thunderbolts people are concerned. In fact, Velikovsky is seen as antagonistic to their broader theory of a polar Saturn. And they simply do not want to be associated with the reaction of instant disgust and dismissal that the name of Velikovsky provokes among "scientists". They feel it hurts their standing as serious researchers. This has become reason to totally invalidate all of Velikovsky, rather than to attempt a new investigation. During the second Electric Universe panel (on mythology), Cardona gained the floor and made an emphatic statement insisted that Velikovsky's Venus event of 1500 BC, and the later Mars events of 800-700 BC, never happened (hey, where did they get 800 BC? that's my estimate). Van der Sluijs, seated next to Cardona, sat nodding his head in agreement. Cardona had already reached this conviction in the 70s and 80s when he was writing for Aeon and Kronos. I think this attitude of dismissal is a giant loss of connections to many other catastrophists and many other resources. I suspect that the genesis of this notion of voiding all of Velikovsky's research also stems from the fact that both Talbott and Cardona, by their own admission, were snubbed by Velikovsky in the 70's. Similarly, the Velikovsky scenario came under fire again with Peratt's column stretching away to the south and the appearance of three ball plasmoids below the earth's south pole. Not that this new data (published in 2003 and 2007) could not be instantly resolved and fleshed out with "mythological" data (which I have done), But attempting to do this has been completely neglected by the Thunderbolt group. I cannot figure the lack of imagination (or knowledge of mythology) which somehow witheld an attempt at integration. They talked in the past about Peratt's petroglyphs, but only in 2004 and 2005, relegating all the forms to an "axis mundi" and, in a misreading of Peratt's original paper, to an "enhanced aurora." (TPOD May 6, 05: "a shimmering, shining 'enhanced aurora' that stretched from pole to pole".) In 2007 Peratt revealed that this "gigantic auroral plasma column" was seen in the south, not in the north. Peratt has made it clear that he uses "aurora" as a simile. No-one has caught on to that as yet. To date the Thunderbolt people have not recovered from this change in location. In fact, they seem to have solidly ignored the need to change their story, and have reduced what passes for mythology in the TPODs to the most mundane, anecdotal, and peripheral comments on the obvious and irreducible arcana. Since vd Sluijs writes most of the mythology TPODs, naturally it all goes to prove his pet auroral column, with endless prattle about "high-energy disturbances in the geomagnetic field" and other assorted fantasies. This is but one of a number of radically divergent models. Cardona posits Earth as a south polar expulsion of Saturn, coming into the Solar System in 3200 BC. Thornhill feels that Saturn's entry into the Solar System would have caused Earth to get dragged behind like the tail of a comet. Van der Sluijs maintains that Saturn at the north pole was only a auroral apparition -- it wasn't really there. When the Thunderbolts people presented their ideas at a conference in Nevada in 2001, they came off convincingly as researchers of mythology -- with sudden help from plasma concepts to bolster the mechanics. At that point I was convinced also, and started to develop a tight narrative around the facts of mythology and the obvious electrical interactions. I added a chronology of early antiquity, and started to illucidate events throughout the period from 3200 BC to 680 BC. This task reconstituted Velikovsky's events. I added the "flood of Noah" (never noticed by Velikovsky) and located the legend of Phaethon (also missed by him). I thus solidly filled out the very period which Cardona and van der Sluijs had evacuated of any mythologically significant events. As it turned out, I then retrieved from Mesoamerican sources a complete duplicate series of Velikovskian events, dated by Katuns and matching the derived dates of the eastern Mediterranean region. And in addition the details, by seasonal dates, of the Phaethon event of 685 BC. Filling out the period after the end of the "Age of the Gods" is not the direction the Thunderbolt people are willing to go. In fact, the reason the polar configuration still remains wildly unconvincing is because the basic iconography is augmented endlessly with elements from much later periods of time which simply do not belong. It gets very busy, and soon it gets bogged down in nonsense, so that, when Talbott and Cochrane tell us that the crescent seen on Saturn is the "double mountain" of mythology, it stops making sense. Of course van der Sluijs has the world mountain represented by an auroral column instead. Additionally, without having a logical series of subsequent events after the close of the Age of the Gods, the only end to the polar configuration is the claim of a catastrophe of unimaginable magnitude involving Chaos Hordes and Dragons, a "heaven-altering 'Doomsday' catastrophe" -- which, however, never happened. Only the flood happened. It is perhaps of interest that some democratic allowances have been made in the catastrophic theories by initiating an internet forum a few years ago. Except, of course, that many competing (and competent) catastrophists are missing entirely. The whole range of contributing writers of the 70s and 80s is missing. What has been substituted instead, is a free running troop which presents the endless keyboard input of a group of fans, who overall seem to hold either opinionated or clueless perspectives on a range of topics generally out of their ken. It is as pointless as it is boring. I thus cannot help but feel that the Saturnians have absolutely no plan for the future, except to maintain their primacy. Kees observed, "For people discussing overthrowing current physics and cosmological origins, the thunderbolts folks seem to not be seeing the big picture." I felt the same lack of prospect in 2001. The Saturnians at that time showed great difficulty identifying what was so important about the whole of their Saturnian theory. It has remained thus. Perhaps what is so important is that all of it contradicts any religious precepts they themselves may have held (of which they never told), or perhaps the whole troop individually has had a series of anxious childhood experiences (of which we will never know). Participation at the Natural Philosophy Alliance seemed to me like a step directed to some important consequence. There was a lot of talk, in fact, during the two Electric Universe panels, about funding for experiments which would prove the plasma concepts: "if we only had 2 billion dollars." My feeling is that this is a complete displacement of priorities and would be a waste of time. Nothing is proven through performing experiments. Besides, you do not need the truth. The opposition owns a complete culture of empty fictions -- the Big Bang, black holes, dark matter, and absolute uniformitarianism. None of it is real, yet all of it is accepted as Gospel truth. What the Electric Universe people need is marketing by professionals -- not some self-generated precepts of decisive proof of theories. There is no decisive proof. Alex K: "..then the second panel started after a question by announcer A.P. David: is the panel more focused on science or myth? David Talbott said both were important, and that eventually the biological aspects will become more known, as well as the mythology, and were going to offer a chance for reconciliation among people of various religions." Say what? This is the first time ever I have heard religion mentioned (actually, the second time.. once, back in 2005..). And the note about biology (related to religion?) is as close as it has ever came to a purposeful goal for the group. Explaining biology through plasma theory has been listed on their website for a decade (it is still there), without a single indication that anything has ever been accomplished. Alex again: "Then things got a little weird. I noticed Steve Smith was sitting there with either a very serious or aggressive look directed at us in the audience. He was staring at me, or us, or in our direction, and didn't looked pleased at all." Smith announced: "There is not a single person on the planet who knows more about the mythology than this panel right here."  I thought: "Oh yeah? Guess again." Alex: "I'm going to analyze and go ahead and guess that he obviously meant to put down you [Jno] and your work by such a statement. So he may have been directly referring to you at that moment, or perhaps us, as he was giving me bad looks, so maybe he thought I was [we were] a threat?" Maybe. We did look suspicious. During the conference I was always sitting next to Kees who was constantly engaged with his laptop as if we were taking stenographic notes on the conference. Actually he was busy negotiating the inclusion of an item for the Ubuntu kernel. But it must have looked strange. If anyone was stationed behind us to peak at his screen, they would have been totally confounded, because he operates in text at tiny fonts and with the screen mostly dimmed. Smith's statement, together with Cardona's statement about Velikovsky, sounded like the declaration of an official position. I should pay attention. These two statements were delivered in a declaratory voice. I could believe that they may indeed have been intended for us, if I could imagine myself as paranoid. It is not that they did not know who we were and that we were there. Cochrane identified me while I was in line to get my badge. I had to remind Talbott, though, that we were the Cooks from Portland. I introduced myself to vd Sluijs in Dutch. "Oh," he said, "we have corresponded." I talked to Cardona, but he does not know me, or remember me from 2001. Never talked to Thornhill. Kees remarks: "I don't get the impression of a threat. I think maybe Talbott might be disappointed he hasn't been able to make Jno another soldier in his thunderbolts army. It also seems like most of them are too arrogant to think anyone else could have good ideas." On the other hand, I know my website has all the qualities of being seen as a significant threat. It is filled with all the details which have been missing from the Saturnian theories for three decades. All the events and dates are there, including solutions to mysteries dating from antiquity. Using readily available sources I have also developed details of planetary separations, intermediate orbits, and plasmasphere interactions. One of the problems is that I have made it look too easy. It generates a certain level of dismissive jealousy. How could any of the Saturnians, having spent years tracking sources in libraries, and having spent an inordinate amount of time in deep contemplation, accept that some clown from Chicago claims to have developed all the details and filled the gaps in two or three years? I have been lucky in starting late, having most mythological details already available without being encumbered with overwhelming data, dropping in at a time when plasma interactions resolved the physical problems, being able to approach the mechanics from an engineering perspective and with a background of electrical engineering, and being able to visualize most every celestial phenomenon from the perspective of Earth or space. But even all these advantages taken together does not guarantee certitude. I've changed my mind a number of times about how things worked, often because of the stubborn insistence of others. I should also credit Talbott, whose 1995 slide show on celestial apparitions in a single wink convinced me of the mechanics of the "star in a crescent" form, plus a number of related images. The Thunderbolts polar configuration model, on the other hand, has enjoyed a certain rigidity in its inception, and has seen no further development. In fact, it is now ten years since I attended the conference of 2001, and I still do not know what the point is of the Thunderbolts website, the forum, the books, the videos. There simply seems to be no direction. Have they become paralyzed? Kees facetiously suggested to me that perhaps the purpose of maintaining the organization is to sell videos. Perhaps at the next conference there will be some resolution and more information, and we will progress beyond the Thunder.