mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== THOTH -A Catastrophics Newsletter- VOL I, No. 18 July 3, 1997 EDITOR: Michael Armstrong PUBLISHER: Walter Radtke CONTENTS: VELIKOVSKY'S COMET VENUS..................David Talbott FINGERS CROSSED FOR JULY 4................Wal Thornhill GREAT RED SPOT SPECULATION......... .....Wal Thornhill SCIENCE MAGAZINE ITEMS * Giant Planet Formation by Gravitational Instability * Worlds Around Other Stars Shake Planet Birth Theory * 51 Peg and the Perils of Planet Searches * Extreme Cratering ----------------------------------------------- Quote of the day: "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." - Albert Einstein -------------------------------------- VELIKOVSKY'S COMET VENUS (2) David Talbott (dtalbott at teleport.com) [EDITOR'S NOTE: This continues Talbott's series of articles on the myth of the comet Venus.] SMOKING STAR In arguing for the cometary character of Venus, Velikovsky cited Aztec records suggesting that the planet Venus shared the same title given a comet. The early traditions of the peoples of Mexico, written down in pre-Columbian days, relate that Venus smoked. "The star that smoked, la estrella que humeava, was Sitlal Choloha, which the Spaniards called Venus." "Now, I ask," says Alexander Humboldt, "what optical illusion could give Venus the appearance of a star throwing out smoke?" Sahagun, the sixteenth century Spanish authority on Mexico, wrote that the Mexicans called a comet "a star that smoked." It may thus be concluded that since the Mexicans called Venus "a star that smoked," they considered it a comet. In Bob Forrest's mind, the Aztec references could have nothing to do with "what may or may not have happened back in the mid second millennium BC" --because the references to Venus "smoking" come from the sixteenth century A.D. In a number of instances Aztec records say that the earth shook and the star sitlal choloha (Venus) smoked. To account for the curiosity Forrest simply accepts the guess of Alexander von Humboldt, "who suggested that the 'smoke' related to the volcano Orizaba, situated to the east of the city Cholula, and whose glow, when seen in the distance, resembled or was symbolically related to the rising Morning Star." Forrest was apparently satisfied with the first guess he uncovered. "All we have are some sixteenth century records which say, every so often, that the star smoked, but since the smoking seems frequently to be intertwined with earthquake activityŠHumboldt's assumption seems reasonable." With that stated, Forrest moved on, never returning to the issue of the Aztec "smoking star." A quite different approach would have been to explore the possibility of a broader Venus-comet association to see where the available evidence leads. Guided by this intent, Forrest would have quickly found, for example, that Aztec association of "earthquake activity" with "smoking stars" belonged to the general mythology of the comet among the Aztecs. Thus, with respect to the comets portrayed in the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Telleriano-Remensis, the respected authority on Mexican astronomy, Anthony Aveni, writes: Comets (citlalimpopoca, or the stars that smoke) are represented frequently by the surviving historical documents, usually by a stellar image on a blue background with emanating streams of smokeŠThese usually signify that a person of nobility will die; for example [one picture] tells of the death of the ruler of Tenochtitlan following the apparition of a comet; later another comet occurs, then an earthquake, all of nature's events being connected in the Aztec cosmic view. As I hope to demonstrate fully in this series of articles, the connectedness of these images derives from a universal substratum of myth. Appearance of a comet, death of a great ruler, quaking earth--not in Mexico alone, but in one ancient culture after another, the skywatchers repeatedly placed these unusual themes in juxtaposition, despite this crucial fact: no comet observed by science has ever justified the symbolic connection. But Forrest seems unaware that the language employed in astrological texts and omens is drawn from ancient mythical images. Following his methodological groundrules, therefore, no records of "portents" in the sky recorded in the last three millennia would be of any relevance to Velikovsky's argument, even when repeatedly attaching explicit cometary images to Venus! With respect to the image of the planet Venus as the "smoking star" in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, Aveni offers his own attempt at an explanation: "Perhaps a cometary object appeared near the planet." Of course, Forrest could just as easily have cited this guess, then dropped the whole issue. But is there something more worth investigating here? Throughout the Americas, including Mexico, natives called a comet the "star with hair," or a "long-haired star," or a "maned star," an appellation that fits comfortably with the global language of the comet. In fact, the "long-haired star" is the single most common phrase for the comet around the world, and our own word for comet comes from the Greek kometes, the "long-haired star" . Yucatec Maya dictionaries give as a gloss for "smoke star" the "maned comet". But curiously, the Aztecs used this very language for Venus. As noted by Velikovsky, they called the planet Tzonte-Mocque, meaning the "mane"-star, or "long-haired" star. And not the Aztecs alone: for one finds among the Maya the same enigmatic association of the planet Venus with long flowing hair. A commonly observed Maya hieroglyph is the Caban- curl, a flowing tassel or lock of hair repeatedly attached to acknowledged Venus symbols, including the glyph-name of Venus itself. To encounter the long flowing locks of Venus, one need only consult available sources. Turn to the Incan language of Venus, for example. I can remember, in the first few days of investigating images of Venus, looking through a standard summary of Incan mythology and encountering the name of Venus as Chasca, translated as the "long-haired star"--the precise phrase for the comet in the global lexicon. It was instances such as this that continued to fuel my own interests in learning more. According to William Prescott, Venus was "known to the Peruvians by the name of Chasca, or the 'youth with the long and curling locks.'" Burr Cartwright Brundage tells us that among the Inca, Venus was "the Radiant Star with the Flowing Hair." "The morning star, Chasca (The Disheveled One), dispensed stores of freshness and loveliness upon flowers, princesses, and virgins below. She was the deity of the rosy cloud rack of morning, and when she shook out her long hair she scattered the dew upon the earth." The point here is that Forrest's "explanation" of the Aztec Venus/smoking star association fails to acknowledge converging lines of evidence: Aztec comet as smoking star, Aztec Venus as smoking star, Aztec and Mayan long-haired star as comet; Aztec Venus as long-haired star, Mayan Venus with or as flowing lock or tassel, Incan Venus as long- haired star. Hence, the methodological issue is placed in sharp relief. Here is another way of looking at the issue logically: Around the world there are only a small number of pre- astronomical hieroglyphs for the "comet." You could, in fact, count the primary glyphs on the fingers of one hand: heart-soul of a deceased god-king or great leader rising in the sky. long-haired star (star with flowing locks, mane, tresses, disheveled hair, beard, hairy tail); torch-star (ember, flame, smoke, smoking star, train of fire, spark, or train of sparks); celestial feather (winged star, soul-bird, bright feathers, feathered headdress, shining bird's tail); cosmic serpent, dragon, or similar monster. The remaining general hieroglyphs for the comet could be counted on the fingers of your second hand! They include: a sword, a bundle of grass or straw (whisk, broom), or a spiraling rope (cord, tie, or knot). At what point, then, does a "coincidence" or seemingly irrational use of language (comet-words or glyphs attached to Venus) become an anomaly worth pursuing? Forrest not only sidesteps the implications of parallel cometary images of Venus in other lands, he ignores the convergence of such images in Mexico. As a methodology, the approach is disastrous, because there is much, much more. QUETZALCOATL In the popular Aztec myth of Quetzalcoatl, the Venus-comet anomaly grows by leaps and bounds. And in this case, the completeness of the cometary motifs leaves no room for ad hoc explanations. Whether remembered by the Aztecs as a former great king and founder of the golden age, or a former sun god ruling a primordial epoch, Quetzalcoatl was a cultural hero without equal in the Aztec pantheon, his countenance adorning temple walls and the stucco bases of pyramids, painted on countless frescoes and codices, and engraved on sarcophagi and nonoliths strewn across Mexico. The climactic event in the Quetzalcoatl myth is the god's catastrophic death and transformation in an overwhelming disaster--an event endlessly repeated in sacrificial rites and supplying the cornerstone of Aztec calendar rituals and astronomical symbolism. In a pervasive version of the myth, at the death of Quetzalcoatl the god's heart or soul rose in the sky as a great spark or ember, trailing smoke and fire- a "star" whose fiery train the Aztecs portrayed as the streaming tail of a quetzal-bird. Was this flaming star a "comet"? One notes that the Quiché Maya called a comet uje ch'umil, "tail of the star," and Aztec artists often drew comets as stars with quetzal tails, the bright and luminous plumes of the quetzal providing a particularly well-suited hieroglyph for a comet. The symbolism accords well with that of other peoples. The Pawnee gave to the comet the name u: pirikis kuhka, "feathered headdress" (an appellation that proves telling; see later discussion of the plumed headdress in our next installment). In Africa, the streaming comet's tail was identified as the feathers of the nightjar, and the natives say of a comet, "it is wearing streaming feathers." Astronomer Carl Sagan, in his review of worldwide comet motifs, notes that comets are called "tail stars" and "stars with long feathers." Germanic races called a comet the peacock's tail, while in China a comet was seen as both a peacock's tail and a pheasant's tail. That Quetzalcoatl's "flaming" or "plumed" heart-soul meant a comet-like star is substantiated by converging lines of evidence. Its cometary character, for example, would agree with a general tradition among the Aztecs that comets were the ascending souls of great chiefs. That Quetzalcoatl was the model of the good king gives perfect sense to the symbolic motif. But Quetzalcoatl was also the prototype of the Aztec shaman (that is, he was the celestial figure whose biography provided the general myth and symbolism of the shaman). It is thus worth noting that in South American lore, the soul of a shaman was believed to depart in the form of a comet. Noteworthy as well is the fact that a comet appearing some time prior to the conquest of the Aztecs by Cortez was "reckoned as a positive sign that Quetzalcoatl would eventually return to Mexico." To suggest that the heart-soul of Quetzalcoatl rose as a comet is simply to place the Aztec symbolism alongside a universal tradition: cultures around the world proclaim the comet to be the soul of a dying king. Thus, we have listed this significant theme as number one in our short list of comet symbols above. (See discussion to follow.) But there is a problem here. While several variations on the story of Quetzalcoatl's death have been preserved, one of the central elements is the identification of the heart- soul as the planet Venus. Burr Cartwright Brundage gives this summary: "The god's heart, like a great spark, flies up to become a new and splendid divinity, the Morning Star." Thus a native source declares, "Then the heart of Quetzalcoatl rose into heaven and according to the elders, was transformed into the Morning Star, and Quetzalcoatl was called the Lord of Dawn." We shall have more to say about this transformation. The fact at hand is that in their myths and rites the Aztecs say the separated heart-soul of Quetzalcoatl, following a period of darkened sky and cosmic upheaval, rose as the planet Venus. If the story has roots in any celestial occurrence (as explicitly claimed in the myths), the "death" of Quetzalcoatl must have involved a cosmic disaster of unprecedented scale, for no mythical-historical event left a deeper impression on Aztec thought and culture. Upon this traumatic episode, the Aztecs evolved their collective sense of cyclical time, including a calendar of world ages: the death of Quetzalcoatl, the onset of celestial confusion, and the transformation of his heart-soul into the planet Venus meant nothing less than the end of one world age and the beginning of another. ---------------------------------------------- FINGERS CROSSED FOR JULY 4 Given the many successes of space missions involving orbiting spacecraft around other planets, it is odd that the closest planet, Mars, has had more than its share of sudden, complete failures of spacecraft on final approach. Is it possible that the Maruts of Mars, as described by Velikovsky, have their unseen remnants still orbiting the planet - creating an unsuspected hazard for all approaching spacecraft, including future manned missions to the red orb? If, as I surmise, the colossal scar on Mars known as the Valles Marineris was spark-machined out of the planet's surface only a few thousand years ago, as the ancients report, then I would expect there to be more debris orbiting Mars than just the two remnants of that cataclysm, Phobos and Deimos. These two asteroids, dignified with the title, "moons", show the surface markings expected of objects which have been subjected to electrical discharge machining. Those characteristics are: linear chains of circular craters; large circular craters which, had they been formed by impact, would be unlikely to have exhibited such circularity on an odd-shaped target; large craters which would have been expected to disrupt the body; and small circular craters perched on the rims of larger craters. The electrical scarring of Mars' asteroidal moons likely occurred as part of the powerful event which ripped 2 million cubic kilometres of surface rock out of Mars and hurled it into space. It is hardly surprising that we find Martian meteorites on Earth! This leads to the subject of asteroids. Those that have been imaged in detail, Gaspra and Ida, show the same kinds of surface markings as Phobos and Deimos. It is also apparent in recent times that the distinction between asteroids and comets is becoming blurred. Such discoveries accord with a paper I wrote for the SIS Review in 1987 which detailed seventeen puzzling features of chondritic meteorites and showed how they could all be explained simply in terms of an electric discharge in a plasma. A discharge of the magnitude required would be expected to occur during the close approach of planetary bodies and (I wrote - following work of Eric Crew) also give rise to comets and asteroids, the distinction initially being purely in their orbital characteristics. A portion of the asteroid belt is probably Martian and gives a clue to the location of the events involving Mars and the Saturnian configuration. I envisage a scenario like that publicised by the astronomer Tom Van Flandern who, after careful analysis, proposed that comets, asteroids, etc. are the remnants of a planet which exploded some millions of years ago. Tom had to resort to nuclear energy and some ill-defined and improbable event to cause the explosion. However, electrical discharges can provide a mechanism for lofting huge quantities of planetary material into space (arc welders routinely transfer molten metal against the force of gravity) and modifying it precisely in the way captured and frozen into the complex structure of meteorites, without destroying the whole planet. Such a mechanism has the added virtue of eyewitness support if we have the wit to accept what the ancients have been trying to tell us. There are a number of asteroid "families" which indicates that there has been more than one episode of expulsion of matter from a planet. This creates a severe problem for the exploding planet theory since it requires multiple occurrences of an inherently implausible event. But in Velikovskian terms it supports the dynamic recent history of the solar system. So, let us all keep our fingers crossed for the Mars Pathfinder mission. If it succeeds in negotiating the Maruts, I have no doubt that it will confound the experts and provide more direct support for Mars as the wounded hero of Saturnian legend. Wal Thornhill ---------------------------------------------- GREAT RED SPOT SPECULATION On the recent topic of cometary snowballs impacting the Earth, I made a comment about Jupiter's GRS: "I would even hazard a guess that the Great Red Spot (GRS) on Jupiter is, for reasons as yet unknown, the continual focus of a powerful ionospheric discharge. I deduce this from an example of the same effect on a much smaller scale on Earth in the reported glow discharge seen from space above tornadic storms on Earth. It would be of interest to know if Jupiter's ionosphere is the site of diffuse electrical discharges above the GRS." In the recent issue of Earth, Moon and Planets 73: 1996, pp. 167-179, there is a paper titled "Solar-Planetary Cycles in Jupiter's Great Red Spot Darkness". The conclusion of the paper states: "The jovian GRS darkness or visibility varies systematically in various modes. The main cycles of variation are approximately 33 years, 13-15 yr, 11 yr, 9 yr, and 3 yr....The obtained cycles are of variation are the result of combined effects of several agents of varying intensity - the solar activity expressed by the sunspot numbers and flares, as well as, solar- planetary interactions and internal jovian phenomena. ..... The effect of solar activity on darkness (of the GRS), for previous solar cycles, is also reinforced from earlier works on atmospheric activity and relative intensity of the GRS." Correlations of GRS darkness with solar activity and planetary alignments is the kind of effect I would expect if the GRS is an electrical discharge phenomenon. The work currently uses data up until 1976 and is being extended with later data which might have better resolution of short term changes in the GRS. I expect correlations with solar activity to be more striking when this is done. Wal Thornhill ----------------------------------------------- Giant Planet Formation by Gravitational Instability, Alan P. Boss, Volume 276, Number 5320, Issue of 20 June 1997, pp. 1836-1839 The recent discoveries of extrasolar giant planets, coupled with refined models of the compositions of Jupiter and Saturn, prompt a reexamination of theories of giant planet formation. An alternative to the favored core accretion hypothesis is examined here; gravitational instability in the outer solar nebula leading to giant planet formation. Three-dimensional hydrodynamic calculations of proto- planetary disks show that giant gaseous protoplanets can form with locally isothermal or adiabatic disk thermodynamics. Gravitational instability appears to be capable of forming giant planets with modest cores of ice and rock faster than the core accretion mechanism can. Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC 20015-1305, USA. (c)1997 by The American Association for the Advancement of Science. **************************** Worlds Around Other Stars Shake Planet Birth Theory Volume 276, Number 5317, Issue of 30 May 1997, p. 1336 James Glanz Starting just 20 months ago, observers began detecting planet after planet around other sunlike stars, throwing planet-formation theory into turmoil. Many of these new worlds dwarf the giant planets we know, orbit much closer to their parent star than Mercury, or follow wildly eccentric paths. Now theorists are coming up with scenarios that might explain this strange bestiary. Among them are planet-forming mechanisms that would flout all the standard assumptions about planet size, proximity to the parent star, and orbital eccentricity. (c) 1997 by The American Association for the Advancement of Science. **************************** 51 Peg and the Perils of Planet Searches Volume 276, Number 5317, Issue of 30 May 1997, p. 1338 James Glanz The first planetlike object found around a sunlike star, detected some 20 months ago at the star 51 Pegasi, has faced more than its share of scrutiny. The latest doubts are coming from astronomers at the California Institute of Technology and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, both in Pasadena, who have observed the star with a powerful telescopic array called an infrared interferometer and seen hints that the object orbiting 51 Peg may be a dim companion star, not a planet. (c) 1997 by The American Association for the Advancement of Science. ******************************* Extreme Cratering Volume 276, Number 5317, Issue of 30 May 1997, p. 1346 William B. McKinnon When large objects collide with planets, these violent events leave behind distinctive craters. How craters form on Earth and other planets and what craters tell us about planetary collisions are the subject of some of the sessions of the annual Lunar and Planetary Science conference. In his Perspective, McKinnon gives an overview of the highlights of impact cratering results presented at the 1997 meeting. The author is in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and McDonnell Center for Space Sciences, Washington University, Saint Louis, MO 63130, USA. E-mail: mckinnon at wunder.wustl.edu (c) 1997 by The American Association for the Advancement of Science. Above items submitted by Ian Tresman ----------------------------------------------- PLEASE VISIT THE KRONIA COMMUNICATIONS WEBSITE-- http://www.kronia.com/~kronia/ Other suggested Web site URL's for more information about Catastrophics: http://www.ames.net/aeon/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/sis/ http://www.flash.net/~cjransom/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/velikovskian/ http://www.access.digex.net/~medved/Catastrophism.html http://www.grazian-archive.com/ http://www.tcel.com/~mike/paper.html http://nt.e-z.net/mikamar/default.html ----------------------------------------------- The THOTH electronic newsletter is an outgrowth of scientific and scholarly discussions in the emerging field of astral catastrophics. Our initial focus will be on a reconstruction of ancient astral myths and symbols in relation to a new theory of planetary history. Serious readers must allow some time for these radically different ideas to be fleshed out and for the relevant background to be developed. The general tenor of the ideas and information presented in THOTH is supported by the editor and publisher, but there will always be plenty of room for differences of interpretation. We welcome your comments and responses. New readers are referred to earlier installments in issues of THOTH posted on the Kronia website listed above. Go to the THOTH page and click on the image titled "Thoth: the Egyptian God of Knowledge" to access the back issues. Michael Armstrong Mikamar Publishing mikamar at e-z.net