IV:3 THOTH A Catastrophics Newsletter VOL IV, No 3 Feb 15, 2000 EDITOR: Amy Acheson PUBLISHER: Michael Armstrong LIST MANAGER: Brian Stewart CONTENTS WHAT IF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . by Amy Acheson CONJUNCTION THEMES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . by Dave Talbott THE NEUTRINO QUESTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . .by Dwardu Cardona PARADIGM PORTRAITS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .by Amy Acheson ALIEN SKIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . by Wal Thornhill >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>-----<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< WHAT IF By Amy Acheson In SEEING RED (pp. 58-59), Halton Arp tells this story: "In about 1951 I was choosing a Ph.D. thesis topic. I had been captivated by the early reports of Karl Seyfert's discovery of galaxies with brilliant compact cores. I was particularly intrigued with the fact that these cores were rich in ultraviolet light. I guess I sensed this was where there was some action, some mystery. For a thesis, I proposed to photograph these galaxies in ultraviolet light, and see what connection the nucleus had to the galaxy, and whether there were any other ultraviolet objects around." Arp's proposal was vetoed: "a terrible thesis that would yield nothing." Arp adds, "Twenty years later, I was finding quasars around active galaxies by photographing them in ultraviolet and blue light and taking spectra of those candidates with ultraviolet excess. Occasionally, I would think on those nights: If I had done that thesis, maybe I would have discovered quasars ten years before they were discovered from radio positions. What difference would it have made to the course of cosmology?" What difference would it have made to the course of cosmology? Quasars might have been discovered a decade earlier, before it was as strongly accepted that the Big Bang/Expanding Universe was the only cosmology worth studying. They would have been discovered "in situ", obviously associated with and ejected from active parent galaxies. Furthermore, their existence would have been connected to Halton Arp (would they be called "Arp objects" rather than quasars?) One might imagine that it would be easier to accept a cosmology argument from the man who discovered quasars than from a bright young astronomer from Palomar. Then, again, maybe not. Quasars aren't all that impressive when you place them in their natural surroundings. Many had already been photographed and dismissed as nearby (within the Milky Way) stars. It took the redshift/velocity relationship to distort them into magnificent beacons, violent energy sources, at the very edge of the expanding universe. And it was this distortion which captured the imagination of the astronomical world. Possibly, if Arp's doctoral thesis had identified quasars as faint companions of nearby galaxies, astronomers would have dismissed their high redshift as an unimportant anomaly and continued to theorize about an expanding universe that began with a Big Bang. Or maybe, as they actually did a decade later, they would have doubted the connections, expelling and magnifying the quasars to today's accepted concept. In the real world, Arp was hurt, but not defeated by the refusal of colleagues and professional journals to take seriously his observational contradiction to accepted theory. So, in our "what if" world, I would imagine that even if quasars were dismissed as minor anomalies, and Arp's ideas ignored, Arp would have had the strength to continue his research and wait for the rest of the world to catch up. That's the kind of astronomer he was. When urged by a well-respected astronomer to "give up my radical ideas and once again participate in the privilege of doing mainstream astronomy, [Arp] thanked him and answered him with a quote from [his] wife [astronomer Marie-Helene Ulrich]: "If you are wrong it doesn't make any difference, if you are right it is enormously important." . . . SEEING RED pg. 91 That's the same spirit that motivates researchers in the discipline of Catastrophics. The dismissals and ridicule are painful, but the promise of learning something new about our universe is worth the risk. In addition, it's gratifying to see how closely our Electric Universe/Saturn Theory meshes with the Arp's radical ideas on the cutting edge of astronomy. Amy Acheson thoth at whidbey.com ****************************************************************** CONJUNCTION THEMES By Dave Talbott More than one post recently has raised questions about the ancient planetary "conjunction" of Saturn's epoch. Though this subject deserves a more visual treatment than is possible in an email forum, I will register a few observations. I noticed on the videotape of the SIS conference last fall that Professor Lynn Rose made a memorable statement to the effect that one can search through world mythology without confronting the "god-kabob", his phrase for the claimed collinear system. I, on the other hand, do not hesitate to claim that world mythology is nothing else than the story of the "Great Conjunction" of Saturn's epoch and what happened to it. Of hundreds of recurring mythical and symbolic motifs we have identified, not one can be isolated from the conjunction principle. I found Lynn's statement particularly curious since, as one of the more dedicated Velikovskians, he would be among the first to agree that ancient peoples worshipped the planets as the great gods of former times. If so, on what ground could he deny that the images of Venus in the center of the ancient sun god (Saturn), which Ev presented at the very conference in question, imply a principle of "conjunction"? Or how could he deny that the far-famed liaison or "marriage" of the warrior Mars and the Venus-goddess similarly implies a planetary "conjunction"? Grant the identity of god and planet; and you cannot escape the ancient memory of planets juxtaposed in the sky close to the earth. No doubt my suggestion that EVERY recurring theme involves a joining of planets will appear excessive. But the statement is literally true and would be easily challenged if false. Examine any theme in its earliest contexts and you will come face-to-face with the conjunction principle. An example: One might wish to suggest that the myth of the world mountain, a recent subject of discussion, does not really require a conjunction principle, just a cosmic hill and a god on the mountaintop. But there is no world mountain if you take away conjunction. As we have documented, the mountain is the pillar- form of Mars, the warrior-hero, whose first form the Egyptians called Shu (a god identified as "the Primeval Hill") and the Sumerians knew as Enlil (called "Great Mountain"). The reference is to the COSMIC mountain, presenting the appearance of a great pillar supporting the central sun, who is Saturn. It is this pillar-god who, in Atlas fashion, "raises up heaven", and here too the reference is to the huge sphere of Saturn ("all-containing heaven") resting visually above the cosmic column. Nor can the planet Venus be removed from the theme of the world mountain, for the goddess is the celebrated "consort" of the mountain; the "spouse upon the mountain"; the feminine enclosure upon the summit of a masculine column. This radiant "womb" of the goddess signifies the temple, city, or kingdom of heaven, always linked to the peak of the world mountain. Thus the great column is the Mount of Assembly, or Mount of Congregation, the place where the planetary gods dwell, as we see them gathered on Zion (=Tsaphon) and Olympus; conjunction and the gathering of the gods mean the same thing in ancient symbolism. So too, we have the Martian mountain as the single "leg" or lower limbs of the ancient sun; the column as a stream of aether or "air" brought by the warrior-hero to vivify the sun god; or the luminous path of the hero-messenger traveling between worlds. Apart from the conjunction principle, therefore, virtually nothing would be left of the world mountain! Even the lost paradise on the mountaintop would dissolve before us, since (as we've noted on prior occasions) "Paradise" means nothing else than "the Great Conjunction of the Golden Age". But again, one need only look closely to see that ALL mythical themes involve conjunction--Saturn as primeval Unity (he holds within himself the undifferentiated male and female powers); the goddess as the spouse and "indwelling glory" of Saturn; goddess as womb of the hero's birth; hero on the "lap" or "throne" of the goddess; goddess as eye of Saturn and hero as pupil of the eye; goddess as feminine "heart" of Saturn and hero as masculine "heart of the heart"; goddess as animating "soul" of Saturn and hero born from this soul; goddess as plant of life and hero born from the shining blossom; goddess as the hero's crown and hero "born from the crown"; goddess as vase, and hero "born from the jar"; goddess as radiate shield protecting the hero; goddess as omphalos or navel, and hero as "navel-born" god or "husband" of the navel; goddess as nave or hub of the "sun"-wheel, and hero as axle. Once the conjunction principle is fully appreciated, it becomes easy to see that the same principle will account for Jupiter's presence at the summit of the world axis following the displacement of Saturn. Jupiter was there all along, hidden behind Saturn. This will also explain why, in later astrology, a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn was called a "Great Conjunction", and with it the seers anticipated the return of the Golden Age. But remember that the Golden Age did not stand alone in human memory. Two seemingly contradictory tendencies pervaded all of the ancient civilizations: the first was the yearning for a return of paradise; the second was the fear of another Doomsday. The two tendencies are interwoven, for the Doomsday catastrophe means nothing else than the violent end of the Golden Age. Thus, thousands of years after these events, you still see the two motives entwined around the conjunction principle. Let the visible planets gather in the sky and what do the astrologers anticipate? "The Golden Age returns!" and, "Beware, for Doomsday approaches!" It needs to be emphasized that the Saturn model offers a direct correlation between the mythical themes and the primary pictographic and symbolic themes. Just as ALL mythical themes refer back to conjunction, so do the pictographs. Take, for example, the well-known "sun"-signs we have illustrated in the notebook, "Symbols of an Alien Sky". Supposedly, these are just unusual ways of drawing our Sun! But by tracing these images back to the earliest Mesopotamian and Egyptian prototypes it can be seen that these are pictures of THREE ORBS IN CONJUNCTION. The identities of the NAMED planets in the Babylonian system is equally clear, as is the remarkable fact that the artists got the relative sizes correct. (Of this there can be no dispute, whatever you may wish to make of the situation.) These pictures, therefore, offer crucial information on the nature of the planetary conjunction to which the myths refer. In modern times when two or more planets merely enter the same zodiacal sign it is called a "conjunction". That allows a full 30 degrees of leeway--60 times the diameter of the Moon. In fact, three planets literally superimposed upon each other have NEVER been seen since the birth of empirical astronomy. And yet that is, beyond question, the ancient idea displayed pictographically and implied by countless ritual, symbolic and mythical traditions. It is also the condition inherent in the Saturn model (AND it is the principle implied by collinear equilibrium). The planets were aligned such that, in the stable phase, a single line would run through the center of each planet. In this regard, here is an interesting quote concerning the third century Babylonian priest-astronomer Berossus and the relationship of planets to world-ending catastrophe. Though the quote is weakened by the constellational associations, which have no part in the earlier imagery, the persistence of ancient memory is really quite remarkable. "Berossus, interpreter of Belus, affirms that the whole issue is brought about by the course of the planets. So positive is he on the point that he assigns a definite date both for the conflagration and the deluge. All that the earth inherits will, he assures us, be consigned to flame when the planets which now move in different orbits, all assemble in Cancer, so arranged in one row that a straight line may pass through their spheres. When the same gathering takes place in Capricorn, then we are in danger of the deluge." In this single paragraph we see a series of beliefs expressed, all of them ludicrous by modern standards. 1) The planets once moved on different courses than they do now. 2) The great catastrophes recalled by ancient cultures related directly to the movements of planets. 3) Despite their flickering, seemingly formless appearance now, the planets are spheres. [As we've noted before: planets do not look like spheres today; modern theory cannot account for this ancient knowledge] 4) In a former time, the planets stood in conjunction. 5) An overwhelming catastrophe followed this conjunction. 6) Unlike the "conjunctions" familiar to astrologers in later times, the archetypal conjunction (the one affecting the fate of the world) was so perfect as to allow a single line to pass through the planetary spheres. I trust all readers will recognize that memories such as these, impossible to explain within any conventional framework, need no further explanation under the Saturn model. TED BOND asks: How could the Great Conjunction have _caused_ or _brought about_ the destruction of Saturn, . . . given that it was stable for a considerable period of time? DAVE TALBOTT: In a nutshell, much of the later anxiety involves nothing else than the POST HOC ERGO PROPTER HOC FALLACY: .after it, therefore on account of it. Or, in terms closer to the language of ancient beliefs: As above so below; as before so again. What followed the ancient condition will be repeated whenever that condition is observed in the sky. There really is no LENGTH associated with the Golden Age tradition, and the planetary conjunction was so fundamental to the images of Doomsday as to make it impossible for ancient astronomers to observe planets approaching each other without fearing the worst. For example, it is known that in the ancient world, when planets came into "conjunction", astronomers would begin to look for the Doomsday comet. This fascinating fear continued into the Middle Ages. All collective fears and aspirations in ancient times point to a prior condition (but never to anything occurring in our familiar world, of course). The explanation for cometary fear in relation to planetary conjunction is simply that the remembered "Doomsday comet" was born from the remembered "Great Conjunction". That the Great Conjunction also defined the Golden Age will explain why BOTH a pervasive fear and a yearning for a return to Paradise are so fully entwined with the conjunction principles in later astrology. Dave Talbott ****************************************************************** THE NEUTRINO QUESTION By Dwardu Cardona In the Introduction to the paper I read at the SIS Silver Jubilee Conference held in England on September 19, 1999, I had reason to state that no solar neutrinos have been detected. This raised objections from various parties who sought to correct me in that "some" neutrinos HAVE been detected. Not wishing to get embroiled in an argument, I then wrote to Ian Tresman, who had already published my Introduction on one of his web sites, asking him to change my statement to reflect that about two-thirds of the neutrinos predicted have so far been detected. Later, Amy Acheson, the editor of THOTH, wrote to tell me that I had gone from one extreme to the other since the real amount of detected neutrinos was only one-third. Since she, also, wanted to publish my Introduction in THOTH, I asked her to change my "two- thirds" to "one-third" if she so wished - which I believe she did. Then came accusations that "Cardona is rather wishy-washy" about all this and that "he does not know whether he is coming or going." I was also told by several "authorities" that current theory can actually accommodate the missing neutrinos and that my statement was therefore meaningless. Hog wash! The truth of the matter is that the Introduction in question was lifted from a longer work of mine. Here, then, in an effort to silence all critics, are the pertinent passages (not meant to be exhaustive) as they appear in Chapter 11 of my still progressing book - GOD STAR. BEGINNING OF QUOTE: Theories do not stand, if they are to stand at all, in isolation. They raise certain demands. For instance, the theory concerning the nuclear fueling of the Sun demands that the Sun shed a vast amount of neutrinos. Well, in the first place, physicists are not even sure whether neutrinos have mass or not. On this matter, the claims in the pertinent literature keep flip-flopping, back and forth. Some authorities claim neutrinos have mass, others claim they don't. It all seems to depend on who is conducting the experiments and/or who is responsible for reporting on them. But let that be. What is at issue here is the fact that, despite untold sums of money spent in constructing complex instruments to register them,(1) not enough neutrinos, if any, have so far been detected. Raymond Davis, who has been "trapping" neutrinos for decades, "has consistently detected about one-third FEWER neutrinos than predicted by theories of the solar interior"(2)-which means only TWO-THIRDS the amount predicted. Most other experimenters, however, can only vouch for about ONE-THIRD of the predicted amount.(3) As John Bahcall stated, no matter what the true figure is, "some flaw seems to exist either in the current models of the sun or in our present understanding of the laws of physics."(4) Also: "The only DIRECT signal of the stellar nuclear reactions predicted by the standard model is the neutrino flux from the sun. The problem is, the prediction seems to be wrong."(5) Nor is the lack of neutrinos an illusory state of affairs brought about by imperfect detectors. As Bahcall stated, "a REAL deficit of solar neutrinos exists."(6) Danylo Hawaleshka went one step further: "One possible explanation [for this lack of neutrinos] is that prevailing theories of how the sun works are wrong-which, if true, would turn astrophysics upside down."(7) It is not that astrophysicists have not attempted to explain the mystery of the missing neutrinos, but only by pre-supposing solar elements which are themselves undetected--such as assuming that the interior of the Sun is cooler than otherwise believed, or through the invocation of interaction with undetected particles nick-named wimps,(8) or that "the sun is undergoing a temporary lull in activity."(9) But, as Bahcall stated: "None of these models has proved to be consistent with all the observed characteristics of the sun."(10) And: "None of the modified models is fully consistent with the well-established physics, and each involves ad hoc assumptions designed primarily to accommodate the observed neutrino fluxes."(11) Coming from a physicist of Bahcall's standing, these words carry much weight. But worse was to come. At the Neutrino '90 conference held at CERN near Geneva, it was revealed that the latest experiment (known as SAGE) carried out by a joint team from the then Soviet Union and the United States detected no solar neutrinos at all - nothing - zilch!(12) END OF QUOTE: It can therefore be seen that all three figures I supplied - zero, two-thirds, and one-third - have actually been forwarded by the scientific literature itself, and that if anybody is being wishy- washy about all this, it is definitely not I. Dwardu Cardona REFERENCES: (1) The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory alone was estimated to cost $70-million, with the cost of the heavy water needed costing as much as $300-million. See, D. Hawaleshka, "Probing the deep for Cosmic Clues," MACLEAN'S (September 2, 1996), pp. 48, 49. (2) C. Sutton, "Where Have All the Solar Neutrinos Gone?" NEW SCIENTIST (August 18, 1990), p. 24 (emphasis added). (3) Anonymous, "Neutrinos Have Mass," ASTRONOMY (September 1988), p. 26; S. L. Glashow, "Closing the Circle," DISCOVER (October 1989), p. 68. (4) J. N. Bahcall, "The Solar-Neutrino Problem," SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN (May 1990), p. 54. (5) Ibid., p. 56 (emphasis added). (6) Ibid., p. 58 (emphasis added). (7) D. Hawaleshka, op. cit., p. 48. (8) See here, for example, NEW SCIENTIST (June 23, 1983), p. 856; S. Boxer, "A Wimpy Solution?" DISCOVER (November 1985), pp. 16-17; S. L. Glashow, loc. cit.; M. Bartusiak, "Wanted: Dark Matter," DISCOVER (December 1988), pp. 64, 66. (9) J. N. Bahcall, loc. cit. (10) Ibid., p. 57. (11) Ibid., p. 60. (12) C. Sutton, loc. cit. ****************************************************************** PARADIGM PORTRAITS By Amy Acheson When you step into a new paradigm, it's like going to a different country. Customs are different; the rules have changed. People drive on the other side of the street. Coffee's served in a different way. It can be upsetting and exciting at the same time. The same is true when you enter a new paradigm. Familiar ideas no longer work. Predicted outcomes are transformed into unexpected discoveries. Take, for example, the galaxies M81 and M82, shown here at NASA's "Astronomy Picture of the Day." Website: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000209.html The discussion presented with the picture explains that: "These two mammoth galaxies have been locked in gravitational combat for the past billion years." It concludes with the prediction that: "In a few billion years only one galaxy will remain." >From Halton Arp's viewpoint, a paradigm based on his observations of connections between high and low-redshift galaxies and quasars, this prediction is wrong. M81 is a parent to M82, not a warring sibling. And there is much more to M82 than the loser of a cosmic wrestling match. M82 is a disturbed galaxy with a dark notch on its side. And in a narrow cone with its point at the center of M82, bordered by this notch and a little more than one galaxy diameter in length, you will find four quasars and a high-energy radio cloud. This grouping of galaxies and quasars is unique. Nowhere else can we see such a tightly packed group of quasars. Nowhere else are clustered quasars so closely matched in redshift. That this grouping is associated with a particularly disturbed galaxy cannot be coincidence. The uniqueness of this configuration was instrumental in Halton Arp's deducing many of the properties of quasars: In addition to adding evidence to his previous predictions that quasars are associated with and ejected from active galaxies, M82 adds information about the intrinsic brightness of quasars and the relationship between the absolute luminosity of a quasar and its redshift. Perhaps the most startling contrast seen in this simple photo of M81 and M82 is the difference between the predictions proposed by mainstream astronomy and the intrinsic redshift paradigm. In the billion years mentioned above, the old paradigm expects to find a single galaxy being slowly gobbled by a black hole. The new paradigm expects to find a whole new family of galaxies, with M81 as the patriarch, M82 as second-generation, and the visible quasars (and probably more that we can't see) will have become vigorous galaxies growing up and ejecting offspring of their own. Amy Acheson ****************************************************************** ALIEN SKIES By Wal Thornhill "Homo sapiens sapiens is not always as sapiens as he sapiently should be." Professor Gus Nossall. Two Voyager spacecraft are carrying a message from the human race to the remote future, somewhere in the distant stars. Our faint hope is that some other life form will find one of those spacecraft and decipher its cryptic hieroglyphs. If so, we will have established contact with other intelligent life in the universe! In a similar way, our ancestors have sent us not one, but thousands, of important messages in the form of legends and art from our remote, alien past. Like the Voyager message, they require intelligence to decode. Do we have that intelligence? Surprisingly, until the last half of the 20th century, the answer has been no! The problem has been in our human tendency to project our familiar world onto those messages. Intelligent aliens would be better equipped to decode those messages because they would have to make a conscious effort to give up their familiar references in an effort at understanding. As the comparative mythologist David Talbott has shown, we have simply assumed that the sky we rejoice in is the same as the sky that our long-forgotten ancestors lived beneath. On the other hand, alien investigators would not know whether we had one sun, or two or more, what color those suns were, and whether they rose and set like ours. So, when the ancient peoples from around the world record that the sun remained fixed in position in the sky, the aliens could allow for the possibility that the Earth was in some kind of phase lock with its nearest star. What have we done with similar information? We have discarded it as impossible nonsense. So our first obstacle has been the intellectual arrogance we bring to our attempts at understanding the stories and images our ancestors considered of utmost importance to be passed on faithfully to future generations. What we fail to understand we have minimized or denigrated. As De Santillana and Von Dechend wrote in Hamlet's Mill - An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and Its Transmission Through Myth: "... we almost dare not admit the assumption ... that our ancestors of the high and far-off times were endowed with minds wholly comparable to ours, and were capable of rational processes -always given the means at hand. It is enough to say that this flies in the face of a custom which has become already a second nature. Our period may some day be called the Darwinian period, just as we talk of the Newtonian period of two centuries ago. The simple idea of evolution, which it is no longer thought necessary to examine, spreads like a tent over all those ages that lead from primitivism into civilization. Gradually, we are told, step by step, men produced the arts and crafts, this and that, until they emerged into the light of history. Those soporific words "gradually" and "step by step," repeated incessantly, are aimed at covering an ignorance which is both vast and surprising. One should like to inquire: which steps? But then one is lulled, overwhelmed and stupefied by the gradualness of it all, which is at best a platitude, only good for pacifying the mind, since no one is willing to imagine that civilization appeared in a thunderclap." The use of the word "thunderclap" is remarkably prescient of the authors for it has been established by Talbott, that the over- riding concern of our ancestors was with the actions of the capricious and warring planetary gods. And the weapon of choice was the thunderbolt. It was no earthly spark. It took the strange involuted, corkscrew form of plasmoids and was associated with stones (meteorites) falling from the sky and global devastation. It is therefore of little wonder that mythic traditions were established in an effort to remind future generations of those terrible experiences. Recent evidence from genetic studies suggests that the human race sprang from a handful of survivors. The question remains - survivors of what? Talbott answers provocatively that we are survivors of the apocalypse; doomsday; the end of the world. It was a time when the planets were not mere specks in the night sky but instead loomed as majestic, sometimes terrifying, spheres in the heavens. Like me, Talbott received an early intellectual mentoring from that great but unrecognized interdisciplinary scholar of the 20th century, Immanuel Velikovsky. It was he who identified the biologically impossible fire-breathing, flying dragon or serpent as an awe-inspiring comet which later settled down to become the planet Venus. Velikovsky alone predicted the intense internal heat of Venus and was further vindicated before his death by the announcement of Venus' "cometary tail" which stretches as far as the Earth's orbit. As space exploration has continued, his ideas of 50 years ago have been confirmed while experts are continually forced back to their drawing boards. If a theory were to be judged by its successful predictions then Velikovsky should have received a Nobel Prize. Instead, academics lashed out with unprecedented fury at someone who would cross their jealously guarded disciplinary boundaries and open doors that they were unaware existed. The overwhelming desire "not to know" certain things seems to afflict us all. That is particularly true where the safety of our tiny blue spaceship Earth is concerned. It could be that much of modern science is subconsciously aimed at making us feel safe by pushing cataclysmic events into remote times or deep space. Velikovsky suggested that the human race behaves collectively like the victim of a dreadful trauma. The result is a kind of localized amnesia and an unwillingness to confront the painful memory. But until we face and accept our true past we will continue to behave neurotically. Here may lie the key to understanding our insane destructive behaviour toward ourselves and the planet as an unconscious identification with, and re-enactment of, the power of the old planetary gods. Only understanding can bring true healing. Clearly, astronomers can point to powerful theoretical reasons why the solar system cannot have had a chaotic recent history. However, astronomy is an odd science. While using all of the trappings of 20th century technology, its theory is firmly rooted in gas-light era science. As Velikovsky rightly said, "it is of Victorian vintage". Astrophysicists have not yet discovered the electric light. Nowhere will you find any reference to electrical energy in celestial mechanics. Yet the ancients were adamant, as Heraclitus, ca. 500 BC, put it: "it is the thunderbolt that steers the universe". Anomalistic behaviour of experiments during solar eclipses shows that we do not understand the true nature of gravity. Common sense (which as one wag said, isn't so common) suggests that it is a property associated with the fundamental electrical nature of matter and has nothing to do with empty space. So, aliens who intercept a Voyager spacecraft should have a clear advantage in deciphering our plaque and recording from the remote past. This is in stark contrast to our difficulty in understanding messages from our own species in the not so distant past. Aliens would not need to impose limits like a planet that has been undisturbed for billions of years, merely to make them feel secure. The chances are that they live in a far more interesting environment anyway, with two or more suns. But they should have no difficulty in visualizing a planet orbiting a gas giant, with other planets looming nearby, and a distant single sun. Nor do we - provided that it is an artist's fancy of an alien planet. Yet this is the kind of message we have been sent from the past! The aliens won't have to be super intelligent to detect from the Voyager recordings that they are dealing with a damaged species. And when they see that we have not mastered the electrical nature of gravity and resort to primitive rocket engines - maybe they will have discovered Homo sapiens ignoramus? ~Wal Thornhill See the home of The Electric Universe at http://www.holoscience.com ************************************************************** 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. --- You are currently subscribed to kroniatalk as: mikamar at e-z.net To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-kroniatalk-36515E at telelists.com