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 IV, No 11 July 15, 2000 EDITOR: Amy Acheson PUBLISHER: Michael Armstrong LIST MANAGER: Brian Stewart CONTENTS THE UNIFORMITARIAN PRINCIPLE. . . . . . . . . . .by Amy Acheson ON DIAMONDS AND CANYONS AND COMPUTER RESETS . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kronia discussions with Wal Thornhill OF DONKEYS, DONUTS, and WEATHER . . . . . . . . by Wal Thornhill LABYRYNTHS . . . . . . . . . Kronia discussion with Dave Talbott >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>-----<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< THE UNIFORMITARIAN PRINCIPLE By Amy Acheson The acceptance in the 1830's of James Hutton's uniformitarian principle, that "The present is the key to the past," has been hailed as the birth of modern geology, and James Hutton is considered the "father of modern geology." But "the present" to which James Hutton referred included not only the rock formations and fossils from which data was collected, but also the theories by which geologists made sense of the data they collected. For instance, although James Hutton was one of the first to suggest that erratics might have been transported by glaciers, he died in 1797, long before Louis Agassiz convinced geologists that Europe had once been covered with glaciers. (Agassiz' paper was read before the November 4, 1840, meeting of the Geological Society of London, and his _Etudes sur les glaciers_ was published in the same year.) So the "present" in which James Hutton searched for keys to the past did not include moraines or eskers or drumlins or glacial striation; his "past" did not include Ice Ages. Which brings me to this: Before we can apply the uniformitarian principle, we must first define the present. If my definition of the present is "all the events seen on my little island in the Pacific Northwest of the USA", then Midwestern tornado season and tropical rainforests and Antarctic winters and deep-sea lava worms become highly unlikely. Should I hear about other ecostructures, I'm going to be hard-put to find an explanation for them in terms of Seattle drizzle. This example is absurdly limited, of course. Geologists consider all of the processes they are aware of in the "present" of the Earth when they seek their "key to the past." But is this definition big enough? Is the Earth itself too small a sample from which to understand the geological mysteries of the past? Let's take our concept of "present" one world beyond the Earth. The rubble field photos that Pathfinder took of the surface of Mars display an uncanny resemblance to both the rock-strewn Snake River Plain in Idaho and the Channeled Scablands of Eastern Washington. In both cases, the cause appears to be geological events -- volcanism and flooding -- on a scale not currently happening on either Earth or Mars. On Earth, some of these formations -- the basalt floods or traps -- appeared in a geologically short time period and are associated with climate changes, extinction events, and the opening of new ocean basins. Could it be that the similar "present" on Mars is key to a similar past? If we expand our "present" just a few planets further, it is even possible to see massive volcanic floods in action. Jupiter's moon, Io, and Neptune's moon, Triton, both have active volcanism. From the Jovian system, where the successful Galileo space probe continues far beyond its originally planned mission, we have received incredible close-up photos of volcanoes hotter than any found today on Earth. During the few years of Galileo's observations, some of Io's volcanoes have measurably wandered across the moonscape, traveling on stepped plains that look remarkably like the ancient volcanic events we find on Earth and the canyons we see on Mars. Triton and Io are both close-orbiting phase-locked satellites of gas giants with large electromagnetic fields. Can this "present" offer any clue to Earth's past? There is one factor of Earth's "present" that has been systematically ignored by science, geological science included. This factor is the mytho-historical record. Legends are repeated around the world of a time when the sun was closer, when the sun was raised higher into the sky, when a new sun heralded the beginning of a new age. The global mythic record agrees that the original sun stood motionless in the sky. James Hutton's "present" had no reference for understanding that key to the past. But an observer on Io today would see Jupiter large and motionless in a sky, exactly as the ancient myths described the perfect sun of the golden age. The process of formulating the uniformitarian principle involved rejecting the human record. My feeling is that this was an appropriate step to take in James Hutton's time. In the 18th century, the mytho-historical record had long since become a tangle of misinterpreted rituals, beliefs and traditions that were used as excuses for tyranny and genocide all over the world. But I also think that with today's larger understanding of the "present" it is appropriate to reassess the value of the mytho- historical record. Just as similar geological strata hold keys to global events, a similar mythical stratum can identify such events which occurred within the memory of humanity. In this way, the present holds the key to unlocking the mysteries of not only our geological past, but our prehistoric human past as well. As to the future: our "present" is growing at an unprecedented rate. New extrasolar planets are being discovered nearly monthly. And the "present" they define is not the same as the "present" we expected from the theories we developed based on past experience of only one solar system. For example, of the first 20 extrasolar planets, only 8 had orbits greater than 0.2 AU. This is less than half the size of Mercury's orbit. And those 8 all have eccentricities greater than 0.1, as compared to eccentricities of less than 0.05 for Jupiter and all of the gas giants in our solar system. Most of the new planets are giants, larger than Jupiter. This doesn't mean that there aren't smaller planets out there -- only that we haven't developed instruments strong enough to detect anything smaller yet. But all 30 of the extrasolar planets known today (as of March 30, 2000) have orbits of less than 3 AU; 19 of them are closer to their stars than Mercury to our sun. In the old "present" of a few decades ago, it was theoretically impossible for a gas giant to form closer than 5 AU. Is it time to incorporate this larger "present" as a new key to earth's geologic past? If, in the course of improved astronomical instrumentation and space exploration we should come across a stellar system with a polar configuration in the process of breaking up, then not only planetary catastrophism in general, but the Saturn modern in particular will be more true to the uniformitarian principle than today's accepted geology. Amy Acheson thoth at whidbey.com ***************************************************** ON DIAMONDS AND CANYONS AND COMPUTER RESETS Kronia discussions with Wal Thornhill Frank Wallace here in Toronto Canada. What are the odds that kimberlite pipes, noted markers for diamond explorations, are the product of electric discharges up from the crust of the earth? At the same time what are the odds that the diamond fields located usually in surface till, within the vicinity of the pipes are the result of eruptions, from well below and/or just at the surface of the pipes, caused by electric discharges? Wal Thornhill responds: Diamonds occur in many types of meteorites. Conventional wisdom has it that they are not formed in the same way as "natural" diamonds on Earth. The larger ones, between 0.1 and 1.0 mm are thought to be a result of collision shocks. Smaller ones are thought to have been created outside the solar system because their parent meteorite shows no signs of shock. Vapor deposition is favored as the mechanism in such instances. I favor the electric discharge removal of surface material from a planetary body as the mechanism for both types since both conditions will be found in such a discharge. The shock effects can be caused by the magnetic pinch and the explosive expansion following. Vapor deposition and ion implantation are both seen to result in the most common chondritic meteorites. So, I think there is a good chance that electric discharges within certain minerals in the Earth's crust could give rise to the formation of diamonds. The surface deposits suggest that the sub- crustal discharge was part of an extended discharge between the Earth and a bolide. >From Kronia: Michael Armstrong posted the following excerpts from a conference on the Grand Canyon, an article By SANDRA BLAKESLEE: NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE, late Spring, 2000: The Grand Canyon: A geological puzzle Scientists lack coherent clues to solve riddle The Grand Canyon is more than a mile deep in places, with the Colorado River running at the bottom. The geological evidence is confusing, and competing theories seek to explain how and when the canyon was formed. [Following are 4 current theories] [1] ANCIENT RIVER THEORY Canyon was formed roughly 70 million years ago. The original canyon theory says that as tectonic forces pushed the Kaibab Plateau upward 65 million to 70 million years ago, the river cut through the layers of rock as they were lifted. 100 million years ago [Land was flat with river running through it] 60-75 million years ago [ Plateau rises; river cuts through it. Canyon fills with gravel] 5 million years ago [Another uplift; the river finds the channel to clear out the canyon.] [2] HOPI LAKE THEORY Some geologists who think the canyon was formed in the last 5 million years also believe that the Colorado River once emptied into a huge body of water known as a Hopi Lake. As uplift occurred in the area, the lake may have overflowed, causing torrents of water to carve the canyon. [3] RIVER CAPTURE THEORY Another theory suggests that the current Colorado River was once a young stream drainage that flowed east to west. By means of erosion, the drainage made its way back to connect with the old north-south Colorado River, which tore through the shallow drainage area, creating the canyon. [4] REVERSE FLOW THEORY Others suspect that the Colorado River cut the canyon when it flowed in the opposite direction from today. Proponents of this theory cite the present-day tributaries, which feed into the Colorado at an angle that supports the river's former flow. WAL THORNHILL adds the ELECTRIC UNIVERSE THEORY: The simplest explanation is that the Grand Canyon was created in an event like that which created a similar but much grander series of canyons on Mars. That is, an interplanetary electric discharge. The stubby tributaries which join the main canyon at nearly 90 degrees are a strong indication that this is so. Erosion by a river through a mountain barrier is well nigh impossible, but electric arc machining has no such problem. The possible mechanisms available to geologists are far too limited to allow a sensible explanation for the Grand Canyon formation. Wal comments on the Galileo Millennium Mission Status February 25, 2000: The latest NASA report on the Galileo mission has some interesting things to say about the on-board computer resets. On Feb 23rd, I wrote: "A "radiation-related false reset" is indistinguishable from an electrostatic discharge within the spacecraft. Radiation hits would be expected to have more random effects than an internal electrostatic discharge which will always choose the weakest spot in insulation to give the same effect." In the vicinity of Io, which is acting as a focus for the electrical discharge with Jupiter, the rate of charging of the spacecraft will increase rapidly as it closes in on the Moon. The faster the rate of charging, the more likely there will be internal arcing or "flash-overs" in the computer equipment or the signal and power lines feeding it. The Mission Status Report report states: "Galileo engineers were somewhat surprised that this third computer reset happened well after the Io flyby, when the spacecraft was quite a distance away from Jupiter (29 Jupiter radii, which is 2.1 million kilometers or 1.3 million miles) and therefore not as close to the most intense radiation. This served as another reminder of the powerful effects of natural radiation in space." Wal comments: It serves more as a reminder of the power of assumption. It seems likely to me that a well insulated on-board computer could suffer another flash-over some time after leaving Io as the charge leaked slowly away from the body of the spacecraft but was unable to do so from the computer. The report continues with: "Galileo has already survived more than twice the radiation it was designed to withstand, and its experiences will help mission planners design future spacecraft headed for high-radiation environments." Wal comments: It is true that the technology used in the Galileo spacecraft seems to have exceeded expectations concerning its hardiness in a high radiation environment. But to ignore the alternative of electrostatic discharging between components within the spacecraft may cost NASA dearly on subsequent missions, particularly those concerning close approaches to electrically highly active bodies such as comets. All spacecraft electrical equipment should have lightning arrestors integral in their design. I would then suggest that future spacecraft be tested in a vacuum chamber subjected to high voltage discharges. Such an environment is known to be extremely hostile to computers. Wal Thornhill ****************************************************** OF DONKEYS, DONUTS, and WEATHER By Wal Thornhill The distant braying of the skeptics intruded, unwanted, into my email yesterday. . . . As Don Scott noted at the recent Portland meeting, it is we in Kronia who are the true skeptics. We do not accept ex-cathedra statements by authorities without analyzing them critically. We do consider alternative points of view often from unusual sources. On the other hand, the card-carrying skeptic seems as incapable as any fundamentalist of considering alternative points of view . . . the gist of the message was that since "convection" had been proven from recent measurements of the Evershed effect in sunspots, then the electric star hypothesis was disproven. The Evershed effect has nothing to do with convection and certainly cannot prove that convection occurs at deeper levels in the Sun - as required by the standard model. In fact C. E. R. Bruce, one of the early pioneers of papers on electrical effects on stars, claimed more than 50 years ago that the gas flow in the perimeters of sunspots (the Evershed effect) would be due to electric discharge effects and have a characteristic velocity - which he predicted and had later confirmed. Electric discharges give rise to anode and cathode jets with the simplest form having a circular cross-section. It is an anode jet that clears the photospheric lightning and gives rise to the phenomenon we call a sunspot. There is no clear explanation in standard models why sunspots should exist as a result of convection. Arm-waving about trapped and twisted magnetic fields breaking through the photosphere ignores the simple fact that a plasma is not a superconductor and cannot sustain a magnetic field without electrical input. And electrical input is anathema to astrophysicists. As might be expected in an Electric Universe, the pattern is repeated here on Earth. There is an earthly analogue of sunspots in the form of ephemeral holes that appear in the Earth's UV dayglow. (Seen in UV light the sunlit side of the Earth's atmosphere glows almost like the surface of the Sun due to ionized oxygen emission). The dayglow holes were famously misinterpreted by Prof. Louis Frank as being due to a steady influx of "snowball" comets. They do seem to be correlated with meteor trails. . . . My view is that meteor trails in the ionosphere act as convenient "leader-stroke" paths for a form of diffuse, doughnut-shaped ionospheric lightning known as "elves". They have been photographed at night above large electrical storms by low-light cameras. Their altitude and dimensions tally well with the dayglow holes. Of course these discharges would be invisible in daylight. Taking that insight in the other direction, back to the Sun, raises another possibility - that some coronal mass ejections (CME's) in the Sun's atmosphere may be triggered by sun-grazing comets in a completely analogous fashion. The SOHO spacecraft has seen a surprising number of such comets and some of the CME movies seem to show one just prior to an outburst. I am not suggesting that sun-grazing comets cause sunspots. Just as large electrical storms on Earth can generate "elves", it is known that the Sun also exhibits large scale "weather patterns" and so we might expect a similar scaled-up phenomenon in the form of sunspots. And in an Electric Universe, weather patterns are driven primarily by external electrical input. Had any accurate weather forecasts lately? ~Wal Thornhill See the home of The Electric Universe at http://www.holoscience.com ****************************************************** LABYRYNTHS Kronia discussion with Dave Talbott Michel Tavir asked: Here under our latitudes {Denmark] it is claimed that what is known in the Anglo-Saxon world as "Celtic Knots" was actually brought over by the Vikings when they colonized the coasts of Ireland. If this is true, they are not two separate traditions. On the other hand, I cannot think of a similar "labyrinthic" symbol in Scandinavia before that time. If this is also correct, why did the symbol only turn up so many millennia after the event? Dave Talbott responds: That kind of erratic evolution is typical of the fragmentation and diffusion of symbols. And where particular symbolic styles emerge in later times as if from nowhere, it is usually the case that they were imported. Symbolic knotwork design is probably as good an example as any. But here it's crucial to distinguish between the symbol (knotwork in this case) and the archetype to which the symbol directs our attention. The elaboration of symbols over time involves a substantial role of innovation in which regional signatures can be recognized, helping historians to trace various paths of diffusion. My guess would be that the similarities between Scandinavian and Celtic knotwork, which I had mentioned in the same breath, will trace to a single cultural origin. Of course, the absence of a particular symbolic innovation does not take away from the more universal influence of the celestial archetype, which inspired numerous paths of symbolic expression, a number of which I had listed as part of a UNIVERSAL memory. I would not want to suggest that a particular mythical interpretation of an archetype--much less a particular style of representing that interpretation--was universal. In the absence of the direct reference in the sky, human imagination was free to conjure many variations on the received mythical concepts. The purpose of comparative study is to identify the root form (archetype) originally expressed by the entire range of symbols. It is the existence of these archetypes that cannot be explained by any prior theory of human history. As Don Scott had noted, Teutonic mythology was filled with the labyrinthine motifs I listed. In comparative study that would be the significant fact, not the continuity of a particular mode of stylistic representation. Dorothy Millard wrote: Here is a subject I love-Celtic Art! I tend to agree with Dave that the two motifs arose from the same experience. The origin of Celtic knotwork is not as easily understood as previously thought. I have been studying this subject for only 2 years, and there seem to be as many trails as there are in a labyrinth. :) One of the books I've read, , by Aidan Meehan, traces labyrinths back to the earth goddess myths. How convoluted the earth goddess myths can be! Meehan starts with the chevron, goes through spirals, key patterns (although he doesn't like the term), other goddess symbols, and drawings of plans of court cairns (megalithic tombs) found in Ireland, c. 5000 BC. The cairns supposedly represent the goddess in a pregnant state, and the maze aspect to the tombs is a birth ritual. Then he associates Neolithic carvings with warrior-hero myths. I find it fascinating! But how accurate is it? Dave Talbott says These are of course the associations I suggested based on a much broader analysis. But while most scholars can recognize such associations, they cannot produce an intelligible explanation, due primarily to the fact that their interpretations are drawn from the language of nature TODAY, with no thought of the possibility that the myths might have originated beneath a completely different sky. The archaic goddess of the labyrinth (Ariadne- Aphrodite in the Greek tradition) is not an 'earth goddess" in the sense implied by familiar uses of words today. The phrase identifies the goddess herself as the HABITATION of the gods: "God's land," "Holy Land," "city of the sun," "Saturn's earth" (Virgil's phrase) That this dwelling of the gods was in the sky is universally supported by the more ancient texts. It's cavernous shape (the labyrinth) is formed from the spiraling essence of the goddess--the unraveling thread of life, the entangling knot-- and it is specifically associated with the "initiation" or symbolic death and re-birth of the hero, as I had also noted. In entering the labyrinthine "bowels" of the cavern, the hero enters the womb of the goddess in her dark and menacing aspect. His re-emergence is his re-birth. Dorothy Continues: I also found some history of the origins of knotwork in by George Bain (Dover 1973, originally published by William MacLellan & Co. Ltd., 1951). He concludes that the various patterns that have been used throughout history are imitations of plaiting, weaving, and basketwork. He also states that knotwork interlacing was "peculiar to the Pictish School of Celtic Art," and that Pictish key patterns were similar to key patterns "found in the Ukraine and Yugoslavia dating from 20,000 BC to 15,000," but not like classical Greek key patterns or frets. Borders and panels of interlacing "are to be found in the art of most peoples surrounding the Mediterranean, the Black and Caspian Seas. Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Moors, Persians, Turks, Arabs, Syrians, Hebrews, and North African tribes have used interlacing." According to Bain, "the finest achievement of knotwork interlacing are by the Pictish School," and that "interlacing humans, animals, birds, and reptiles each with interlacing top-knots were developed in East Pictland and Ireland to migrate at a later date to Scandinavia to become a decadent art." Dave Replies: . . . I am highly skeptical of the author's interpretation. In all cases I can think of, enduring design elements trace to sacred activity, while sacred activity was, beyond any reasonable doubt, part of a collective act of REMEMBERING. With the explosion of human imagination in the myth-making epoch, all mundane functions such as pottery making, weaving and basketwork became vehicles for something more than the obvious practical functions. That is, the symbolism did not ARISE from the practical function, but from a collective endeavor to hold onto or to recover, if only for a symbolic moment, the lost age of the gods. Nevertheless, I strongly suspect that the references you've given are valuable sources of information, and I hope you will continue with your investigation. Dave Talbott ******************************************************* PLEASE VISIT THE KRONIA COMMUNICATIONS WEBSITE: http://www.kronia.com Subscriptions to AEON, a journal of myth and science, now with regular features on the Saturn theory and electric universe, may be ordered from this page: http://www.kronia.com/html/sales.html Other suggested Web site URL's for more information about Catastrophics: http://www.knowledge.co.uk/sis/ http://www.flash.net/~cjransom/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/velikovskian/ http://www.bearfabrique.org http://www.grazian-archive.com/ http://www.holoscience.com http://www.users.uswest.net/~dascott/Cosmology.htm http://www.catastrophism.com/cdrom/index.htm http://www.science-frontiers.com Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered, 10 Pensée Journals may be ordered at the I-net address below: http://www.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 focus is 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. thoth at Whidbey.com New readers are referred to earlier issues of THOTH posted on the Kronia website listed above. Go to the free newsletter page and double click on the image of Thoth, the Egyptian God of Knowledge, to access the back issues. ---