mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== THOTH An Electronic Catastrophics Newsletter VOL I, No. 1 January 25, 1997 EDITOR: Michael Armstrong PUBLISHER: Walter Radtke CONTENTS: WELCOME....................................... Michael Armstrong WORLD CONFERENCE REPORT............................Walter Radtke SATURN THEORY OVERVIEW.............................David Talbott PLANETS, STARS AND PLASMA PHYSICS..............Wallace Thornhill ARCTIC CLIMATE SHIFTS..............................Clark Whelton WELCOME By Michael Armstrong (mikamar at e-z.net) Quote of the day: The idols of the pagan world are, in fact, congealed history, and will some day be intelligently studied as such. Ignatius Donnelly, "Ragnarok: The age of fire and gravel", 1883. Welcome to the kickoff issue of the THOTH catastrophics electronic newsletter published by Kronia Communications. It has been over 46 years since Immanuel Velikovsky published his revolutionary Worlds in Collision and conditions are right for a sea-change in our world view. By virtue of the space exploration efforts and the ongoing march of science and technology, there have been an overwhelming number of developments and discoveries in the various disciplines, virtually all of which support an astral catastrophic mechanism playing a major role in the geological history of the earth and the psychological history of humankind. One of the basic problems we as catastrophists face in getting the catastrophic reconstruction considered seriously, especially those of us that are "Saturnists," is that of paradigm lockout. This is where pieces of the old paradigm that are almost universally accepted but are incorrect preclude or lockout consideration of pieces of a new or more correct paradigm. Even though almost all of the leading cosmologists have proffered some form of astral catastrophic mechanism, the scientific establishment is constantly throwing up such pieces of the gradualistic or uniformitarian paradigm that are clearly incompatible with the Saturn reconstruction or any other astral catastrophic scenario. So, in this issue David Talbott, author of The Saturn Myth, gives an overview of the Saturn scenario reconstruction from the mytho-historical viewpoint, phycisist Wallace Thornhill summarizes some major aspects of traditional scientific thinking that are misguided and starts an ongoing discussion about the electrical/plasma nature of the physical universe, and Clark Whelton talks about some recent findings in the Arctic Circle that fundamentally challenge the current world view paradigm. If you understand and accept in general the theme of recent astral catastrophism--especially the Saturn myth reconstruction--the implications and ramifications of the reconstruction become enormous. The range and extent of intellectual knowledge and spiritual belief change becomes almost unmanageable or overwhelming for the modern man immersed, educated, trained and conditioned in the popular world views built around either the "godless" or purposeless evolutionistic gradualism of establishment science, or his "religion" based on some external authority figure (book, tradition, denomination or hierarchal priesthood, leadership pr clergy), or some mind and soul numbing combination thereof. It is to this dilemma that this newsletter is directed. Our intention is to publish the THOTH newsletter every seven to ten days, and over the course of the next year to provide you with a significant amount of important material to keep you abreast of what's going on in the world of inter-disciplinary synthesis. In the next issue we will publish a list of categories into which the various articles and items can be classified. We suggest that you save the newsletter material, and ultimately build some kind of directory or folder structure to cut-paste-and-save to from your word processor. Is it important to be concerned about the extent and ramifications of the reconstruction? One of the vital reasons is given by physicist Nick Herbert in his Quantum Reality: The search for the picture of the "way the world really is" is an enterprise that transcends the narrow interests...for better or worse, humans have tended to pattern their domestic, social, and political arrangments according to the dominant vision of physical reality. Inevitably the cosmic view trickles down to the most mundane details of everyday life. May the year of 1997 see us to a truer picture of the "way the world really is." WORLD CONFERENCE REPORT By Walter Radtke (walter at teleport.com) The event was a great success with a Friday night crowd of over 400 and a full 3-day registration crowd of over 120. There were 3 film crews on hand to document the event and Laura Lee arrived on Sunday to conduct radio interviews for her nationwide talk show. An invitation had been extended to non-Velikovskian catastrophists and much interesting material was presented by Zecheria Sitchin, Paul LaViolette, Rand Flem-Ath, Victor Clube and Tom Van Flandern. The Sunday dinner banquet featured a violin performance by speaker Richard Heinberg. Richard Hoagland backed out at the last minute & we have subsequently learned that he is apt to do that if he feels less than in-control of an event. The conference was held at one of Portland's Red Lion Inns which happened to be set against a backdrop of catstrophe as the Columbia River was within 3 feet of flood crest just outside the meeting hall. Many attendees came from distant locations around the world- Australia, Germany, Belgium, England, Malaysia, and Canada. William Mullen and Roger Wescott stood out in my mind for their energetic and erudite presentations. Wallace Thornhill presented some brilliant synthesizing of plasma physics as operant in intergalactic and interplanetary space- a potential revolution in its own right. The Saturnians- Dave, Ev and Dwardu presented a salvo of compelling mythological work which we are hoping to take on the road to the Whole Life Expos around the country this spring and summer. Robert Bass unveiled new orbital dynamic material produced by his own orery program and showed himself to be a one-man library of references to current applicable research, keeping the other speakers busy taking notes during the day-after meeting. And Ted Holden, our curmudgeon cum laude, presented an update of his compelling material on the impossibility of sauropod (big dinosaurs) scaling in earth's present gravity. Paleontologist Robert Dunlap showed clips from 4 of his video productions about extinctions and meteor craters and after some some prompting & cajoling, managed to get a handle on Ted Holden's compelling sauropod scaling argument. C. J. Ransom provided much needed comic relief with his witticisms and ironies regarding basic resistance to Velikovskian catastrophism. Conference organizer, Dave Talbott's talk on Sunday barely seemed to get started when his time was up so an invitation was extended for the banquet crowd to see it through to completion after the dinner. It appeared that the entire company of attendees, some 150 plus wanted to see Dave complete his thoughts and found themselves staying late to see an in-depth university quality exposition on the mythic memories of humanity. And it was generally agreed at the Monday meeting that Roger Wescott's suggestion that the term "catastrophism" is itself an oversized dinosaur and should be replaced with "catastrophics" was a good one, since we should conceive ourselves less as an ideology and more as a discipline. Ev Cochrane made the observation that the "Saturnist" wing of the Velikovskian movement knew more about mythology than anyone on the planet & with a "bring 'em on!" challenged academia at large to a duel of mythological proportions (couldn't resist)- any mythologist, anywhere, anytime. SATURN THEORY OVERVIEW By David Talbott (dtalbott at teleport.com) THE FOLLOWING IS EXCERPTED FROM A SUMMARY-IN-PROGRESS ON A PRIVATE EMAIL GROUP I The origins of ancient mythology; the birth of the first civilizations; a violent history of the solar system: these are the primary themes of what has been called the "Saturn Theory." In the broadest sense, what I have proposed is an explanation of the myth-making epoch as a whole. Astronomers and astrophysicists, historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and students of ancient myth and religion are asked to reconsider the most common assumptions about ancient history, including many that have rarely if ever been doubted. The underlying principles of the theory are these: 1. Major changes in the planetary order, some involving Earth- threatening catastrophes, have occurred within human memory. 2. Through myth, ritual and symbol around the world, our ancestors preserved a global record of these tumultuous events. 3. The first civilizations arose from ritual practices honoring, imitating and memorializing these events and the planetary powers involved. It should go without saying that if these principles are correct, there is an extraordinary evidential value to the mythical-cosmological underpinnings of the first civilizations. Hence, the communications challenge: this evidential value is virtually never acknowledged by conventional schools. Nevertheless, the model I have offered holds one advantage that prior catastrophist notions based on ancient testimony have lacked. It is specific enough to be easily disproved on its own ground if wrong. Whatever else one may think of the thesis, it meets this test of a good theory. THE POLAR CONFIGURATION The theory holds that a unique congregation of planets preceded the planetary system familiar to us today. For earthbound witnesses, the result was a spectacular, at times highly unified apparition in the heavens, the obsessive focus of human attention around the world. For more than 20 years, I have claimed that this fear-inspiring image once stretched across the northern sky, towering over ancient starworshippers. I termed this planetary arrangement the polar configuration because it was centered on the north celestial Pole. And I have proposed that the history of this configuration is the history of the ancient gods, recorded in the fantastic stories, pictographs and ritual reenactments of the first star worshippers. A vast field of data is therefore available to the investigator. Remarkably similar pictures of a "sun" in the sky, revealing no similarity to our sun today. A pictographic crescent placed on the orb of the "sun" and a radiant "star" placed squarely in its center. The universal chronicles of a cosmic mountain, a pillar of fire and light rising along the world axis. The myth of a central sun or motionless sun at the celestial pole. Identification of this ancient "sun" with the planet Saturn in early astronomies. A radiant city or temple of heaven, providing the prototype for the sacred habitation on earth. Global memories of a star-goddess with long-flowing hair. An angry goddess raging across the sky with wildly disheveled hair, threatening to destroy the world. A flaming serpent or dragon disturbing the celestial motions or attacking the land. An ancestral warrior or hero, born from the womb of the star-goddess to vanquish the chaos-serpent or dragon. Is it even possible that such diverse motifs could have a unified explanation? Well, one fact remains uncontested after many years of publishing on this subject. The hypothesized planetary configuration does predict or account for hundreds of ancient themes never before explained--and at a level of detail or specificity that could not be denied. Indeed, I have gone so far as to brashly claim that not a single general motif of ancient myth, ritual or symbolism is left unexplained in the most straightforward way by the model. And that's what I mean when I say the model supports a general theory of ancient symbolism as a whole. It needs to be emphasized, therefore, that the historical argument for the polar configuration is fully testable against a massive historical record. And I would hope that this will provide some assurance to those unnerved by the source material (ancient testimony): if the model is fundamentally incorrect, the experts on ancient myth and symbolism will have no trouble whatsoever refuting it. -------------------- Vine Deloria, author of the recently-published book, *Red Earth, White Lies*, has asked a couple of questions which I would like to address. But not in one shot, because the questions are too fundamental for that. I'd like to see if I can divide the issues into segments that could make for useful discussion. The Saturn theory arose from a "historical argument," in the sense that the argument relates to the human past, as implied by the details of human memory in ancient times and by human artifacts. I shall offer this series of summaries as an exercise in clarifying the historical argument, without the aid of visual presentation. One obvious and immediate question is whether something as ambiguous as myth could actually qualify as "evidence"? The historical argument focuses on *points of agreement* in the memories of widespread races, suggesting levels of coherence often missed by historians and anthropologists, and raising the possibility that this coherence arises from a core of human experience that has been missed as well. There is an overarching idea in this argument. We've not only misunderstood the past, we've failed to recognize the consistency of ancient memory in pointing to extraordinary events never considered by modern science. Remarkably, every motive of our early ancestors directs our attention to experiences impossible to comprehend in terms of any natural phenomena occurring today. This consistency will be seen even at the most fundamental levels of human memory, in the most deeply-rooted themes of the first civilizations-- The universal memory of a former age of the gods. The universal memory of an ancestral Golden Age, inaugurating the age of the gods. The universal memory of a celestial "king of the world" whose life inspired the ancestral leap into civilization. Descriptions of the gods as luminaries of immense size and power, wielding weapons of thunder and stone. The universal claim that the ancient world evolved by critical phases or cycles, punctuated by sweeping catastrophe. Global traditions of gods and heroes ruling for a time, then departing amid terrifying spectacles and upheavals. The frequently-stated transfiguration of the departed gods into distant "stars". The identification of these ruling gods with planets in the first astronomies. The relentless urge of starworshippers to draw pictures of celestial forms never seen in our sky. Their desperate yearning to recover the semblance of a lost cosmic order. Their collective efforts to replicate, in architecture, the towering forms claimed to have existed in primeval times. Their festive recreations, through mystery plays and symbolic rites, of cosmic violence and disorder. Their repetition, through ritual sacrifice, of the deaths or ordeals of the gods. Their brutal and ritualistic wars of expansion, celebrated as a repetition of the cosmic devastation wrought in the wars of the gods. Such motives as these constitute, in fact, the most readily verifiable underpinnings of ancient ritual, myth and symbol. How strange that in their incessant glance backwards, the builders of the first civilizations never remembered anything resembling the natural world in which we live! What is needed in the face of unusual but widely repeated memories is brutal intellectual honesty. How did human consciousness, emerging from the womb of nature, converge on the same improbable ideas *contradicting* nature? For centuries we've lived under the illusion that our ancestors simply made up explanations of natural phenomena they didn't understand. But that's not the problem. What the myth-makers interpreted or explained through stories and symbols and ritual re- enactments is an unrecognizable world, a world of alien sights and sounds, of celestial forms, of cosmic spectacles and earth-shaking events that do not occur in our world. *That* is the problem. >From an evaluation of the global themes of ancient cultures, we have hypothesized a world order never imagined by mainstream theory--a world in which *planets* moved on different courses, appearing huge in the sky. Heaven-spanning celestial forms dominated human imagination to the point of obsession at the time of civilization's birth. Our contention will be that hundreds of ancient themes speak for a unified experience, an experience more specific in context and detail than any of us had ever imagined when we started our research. No universal theme stands alone or in isolation from any of the others. All are connected. All speak for the presence of a coherent memory beneath the surface of seemingly random detail. In offering these summaries, I am not asking or expecting anyone to embrace the extraordinary theory of planetary history involved, only to consider highly interesting evidence. One of the values of this re- interpretation of evidence is that the model *works*. It explains the subject matter. Even if you do not for an instant believe that the suggested events occurred, merely discovering the active memory will throw remarkable new light on the ancient structures of human consciousness. In the course of these summaries, questions and challenges will be welcome, and wherever possible I will try to incorporate these into the narrative as we go along. Dave PLANETS, STARS, AND PLASMA PHYSICS By Wallace Thornhill Hello everyone from DownUnder! Dave has asked me to give a summary of my interest and position in the debate about the Saturnian configuration. I was one of the early science undergraduates, in the late 50's, who had read Velikovsky's works before entering University. In my naiveté, I thought that no questions were taboo in the halls of academe. To my surprise and profound disillusionment with "experts", I soon discovered that this was not so. I then began to do what Dave has done and looked for further evidence, working on my own. So far as I know, I was the only science undergraduate who haunted the anthropology section of the library bookshelves. It was enough to convince me that there was a major case to be explored for a "recent" re- arrangement of the solar system. I did not pursue the mytho-historical threads, since my first love is astronomy. But I have applied the same principles in that field that Dave has done in his work--that is, pattern recognition and matching. The results have been very encouraging and interesting. I should state my prejudices concerning the present state of science. I would characterize the scientific age as being the age of homo sapiens ignoramus. To be specific about our ignorance in the areas most likely to affect the Saturnian configuration, I would list the following: GRAVITY - Einstein, with his geometric DESCRIPTION of gravity has held back understanding by the better part of a century. The most promising work in EXPLAINING gravity is being done by a handful of Classical Physicists who see it as a minute imbalance in electrostatic forces associated with fundamental particles. The recent announcement of the accidental discovery of gravitational shielding by a rotating superconductor seems congruent with the classical approach. It certainly could not be predicted from the current metaphysics of gravity theory. ELECTRICAL DISCHARGES - This is crucial. We do not understand what causes earthly lightning so we are unlikely to acknowledge plasma discharges in space. The little plasma physics that astronomers are taught is flawed: that plasmas are electrically neutral and superconducting (they trap magnetic fields). So apart from gravity, magnetism is the only other force we hear about. We are told that energetic events on the Sun are due to "magnetic reconnection" (whatever that means). The strongest force (barring nuclear)--electrical--is never mentioned. We find it easy on Earth to generate x-rays using electric discharges, but astronomers insist on Nature doing it the hard way in space. It is also not generally known that electrical discharges are very efficient at removing material against gravity and dumping it into space or onto another nearby object. STARS - We do not understand what makes them tick. As Ralph Juergens said in the 70's, practically every feature of our Sun has no business being there if it is purely a thermonuclear engine radiating into space. Magnetic fields do not occur without an associated electric current. The Sun is essentially an extended, conducting plasma subject to electric stress. The phenomenon we call the Sun is purely a ball of lightning. That the Earth and other planets intercept some of the galactic plasma discharge is shown by the recent discovery of diffuse stratospheric discharges (sprites), x-rays and gamma-rays above earthly storms. This is a precise analogue of the corona (x-rays), chromospheric glow discharge and photospheric lightning (granulations are the tops of the discharges) on the Sun. The umbra of a sunspot gives us a glimpse of the true temperature of the body of the Sun. As a result of this realization, it follows that the conventional stellar evolutionary story is pure fiction. Stars are what they are because of their environment. Their variability is caused by their environment, not their internal workings. This explains the speed with which some stars change their characteristics. Heavy elements are not built up solely in supernovae, but at the surface of all stars in the non-thermal compression and acceleration of plasma discharges (granulations). Hence, nucleosynthesis and what little neutrino production there is fall as the sunspot number increases. The differential rotation of the Sun, its magnetic field and the sunspot cycle are all influenced by the Sun's passage across large Birkeland currents flowing along, and defining the arms of our galaxy. PLANET FORMATION - The Laplacian theory and its variants are garbage. The Hubble Space Telescope has shown that in regions of star formation large bodies are being shot out as if from a gun, which is peculiar if gravity is the operative force. Once again plasma discharges provide a mechanism which can simply explain this. The view is that diffuse hydrogen and dust is efficiently scavenged and compressed by the well known magnetic pinch effect of an electric current flowing along the arms of a galaxy. At some point gravity takes over and stellar objects are formed. Beyond a certain size proto stars become electrically unstable and "fission", spitting out some of the core and giving rise to one or more companions. This explains the predilection for stars to be found in pairs or multiples. Not all of the matter ejected from the core of a proto-star may coalesce into a companion star. It may be in the form of one or a number of gas giants. (The recent discovery of a Jupiter-like body orbiting very close to a nearby star argues strongly for this model and against the standard theory). A gas giant, in turn, due to either internal or external electrical disturbance may fission, spitting out its core, to give rise to the highly condensed planets, moons, asteroids, comets etc. COSMOLOGY - All of the above gives rise to the conviction that cosmology should be in the hands of the plasma physics experimenters (not the theorists). It is ironic that they have been chasing the holy grail of fusion power "just like the Sun", when that is patently wrong. (Interestingly, a recent breakthrough in fusion energy research came about in my home town, Canberra, when the researchers configured their plasma discharge in the form of a Birkeland current ring - a precise analogue of that flowing along the arms of our galaxy). But astronomers will continue to be surprised by results pouring in from space probes when their fundamental paradigms rest on Newtonian and billiard-ball physics. The current paradigm has no predictive power whatsoever. The book "The Big Bang Never Happened" by Eric J Lerner is a pointer to the cosmology of the 21st century. ------ So, what are the patterns that apply from all this to the Saturnian Configuration (SC)? The following are some ideas: 1 - the core discharge mechanism of planet formation is a plausible way to generate the SC, a string of objects with the largest near the middle. 2 - the reliance on the degree of electric stress in the enveloping plasma for the characteristics of the larger bodies enclosed in that plasma could see rapid changes occur, even the disruption of one of the stellar or gas giant objects. It could certainly involve jets of material being emitted by such bodies and forming a diffuse cloud enveloping the SC. It could also be the destabilising influence which finally breaks it up. 3 - As seen in the high speed objects shooting out of the Orion Nebula, plasma discharges taking place in the core of a star or gas giant can result in considerable acceleration of the resultant debris. This may provide some of the source of the energy required to position Jupiter and Saturn much farther out in our solar system. The redistribution of charge amongst objects in a solar radial field also REQUIRES that their orbits will change. 4 - Charged bodies orbiting eccentrically in a radial electric field around the Sun will dissipate energy through electromagnetic induction heating in such a way as to quickly spiral into a circular orbit. For any object with a high eccentricity, electrical breakdown will occur within its Langmuir sheath and cometary discharge phenomena will be seen, regardless of its size (Venus?). 5 - If gravity is essentially an electrostatic phenomenon, the unusual environment of the Saturnian configuration would be expected to have caused a difference in the perceived gravity at the surface of the Earth. It is conceivable that the electric stress within the plasma sheath enclosing the SC was less than that which the Earth endures in its current solar environment. This would result in an effective lower gravity. The breakup of the SC would have caused a sudden change. An interesting sidelight to this idea is that the apparent very low density of Saturn may be due to the use of a UNIVERSAL Gravitational constant in the determination. There may be no such thing! (Measurements of G in laboratories on Earth don't seem to agree). In Saturn's electrical environment we may have shared an apparent low gravity. 6 - Various odd phenomena associated with plasma discharges would have been observed from Earth and should appear in ancient depictions of the SC. These include helical, serpentine glows surrounding a central column or twined rope-like around each other. These would be representations of Birkeland currents flowing between planets enveloped in the same plasma sheath. The number of "strands" may have varied and given rise to the depictions of Venus with different numbers of radiants. We should also look at photographs from deep space of "exploding stars" for clues to the imagery since they are electric discharge phenomena writ large. One example is where we see bright rings at the bases of cones. From below, they would possibly look like rings around the column or a series of flared skirts. Another effect is seen in discharge tubes filled with low pressure gas where a series of light and dark bands are formed transverse to the discharge axis. This might give rise to a kind of "stairway to heaven" or ziggurat appearance. Then there is the self-contained plasmoid, a corkscrew within an overall football shape which forms the interplanetary equivalent of lightning and appears to have been depicted as Zeus' thunderbolt. ----------- I have looked in some detail at chondritic meteorites which I expect to be left-overs from a planetary discharge event. They show all the characteristics to be expected of material that has been subjected to flash heating, acceleration, collision and ion implantation in a spatially restricted compressed gas stream together with isotopic modification by enhanced radiation, followed by sudden cooling - all the symptoms of a plasma discharge. I predicted that the features of the enigmatic chondrule shells could be reproduced in the lab in a plasma oven. (A planetary discharge is a very effective way for Martian meteorites to have been created). Very strong evidence for planetary electrical scarring comes from the Magellan Orbiter images of Venus. Also, the Jovian moon, Europa was presumably a part of the SC and would also have been subject to electrical scarring. I predict that when closeups of Europa are available in December, the so-called cracks in the ice will be found to be electric discharge channels with the raised levees on either side and the dark-light-dark cross section caused by discharge modification of the excavated material. (In the manner of the green glass beads formed from the melted soil excavated by an electric discharge along the lunar rilles). The "cracks" on Europa show no lateral displacement where they intersect, though displacement would be expected if they were due to shifting ice. Discharge channels will throw material from the younger channel into the older where they intersect. Cracks should not show this characteristic. After that I need a long, cold Fosters! Wal Thornhill ARCTIC CLIMATE CHANGES By Clark Whelton (whel at worldnet.att.net) The discussion about mammoths on Wrangel Island in the Arctic prompts me to re-post an earlier message about well-preserved temperate forests at 79 degrees north latitude. The discovery of non-mineralized fresh-looking deciduous trees and the fossils of tropical fauna on Axel Heiberg Island still strikes me as remarkable. Clark W. (Reposted message below) The appeal to continental drift does not explain the well-preserved remains of temperate forests discovered on Axel Heiberg Island, which, at 79 degrees n. latitude, is deep within the Arctic Circle. Articles in "Canadian Geographic" (Vol. 106, no. 6) and "Equinox" (May-June 1986) describe the surprise that awaited a member of the Geological Survey of Canada when he arrived on Axel Heiberg in 1985. "He had found the remains of a 45 million year old forest just 1,100 kms. from the North Pole... The sense of being transported into the past is made all the more real by the remarkable preservation of the fossils. The wood (swamp cypress and dawn redwood) has not been altered through all this time; it looks and feels like freshly cut wood -- it splits and splinters, it can be carved with a knife, and it burns as readily as kindling. Most impressive of all, it still has that reddish hue we often find in softwood lumber. The only thing missing is the scent (of fresh wood)." The fallen tree trunks of the deciduous trees and their still-rooted stumps were perfectly preserved. Beneath a layer of silt were found well-preserved leaf mats. "Sorting through these mats is much like probing beneath a modern forest." On Ellesmere Island, also in the high Arctic, have been found "tree trunks so perfectly preserved they give the illusion of having fallen yesterday, rather than 50 million years ago. A close examination of the fossilized wood revealed regular growth rings, a sign of seasonality... the Arctic trees (had been) growing in swamps, which were also inhabited by alligators and giant salamanders (and numerous other tropical and temperate fauna)." It's not clear how deciduous trees and reptiles survived six months of Arctic darkness, let alone the accompanying cold. And, regarding continental drift, "Axel Heiberg is today only a few hundred kilometres closer to the North Pole than it was when these forests flourished." Clark W. Mikamar Publishing mikamar at e-z.net