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. 2 February 5, 1997 EDITOR: Michael Armstrong PUBLISHER: Walter Radtke CONTENTS: EDITORIAL SECTION.........................Michael Armstrong RED SPRITES AND BLUE JETS......... ..........Wal Thornhill SATURN THEORY OVERVIEW (2)....................David Talbott OLDEST KNOWN STONE TOOLS?................ Michael Armstrong GIZEH PYRAMID IRON PLATE..................... Clark Whelton EDITORIAL SECTION By Michael Armstrong (mikamar at e-z.net) Quote of the day: When Saturn ruled the skies alone That golden Age, to Gold unknown, This Earthly Globe to thee assign'd Receiv'd the Gifts of all Mankind. Johnathan Swift, A Panegyric on the Dean As we publish this second edition of the THOTH newsletter, the catastrophic reconstruction of ancient history is alive and well based on an ever- deepening understanding of the ancient sources, records, mythologies, and cultural themes, as well as a developing understanding of the electric/plasma nature of the universe. The best source of information about what happened in ancient times is, of course, the witnesses themselves. But this testimony is only the beginning and must, in the final analysis, be reconciled with what science can tell us about physically plausibility, the geological record, and other data bearing on our reconstructions. This is essentially what has been happening in an ongoing debate between catastrophists and the scientific mainstream, and you can expect an acceleration of discussion in the coming months and years. There is reason to believe that, just a few thousand years ago, ancient cultures around the earth worshipped the planet Saturn as the "sun"-god, and under the duress of cosmic upheaval they sacrificed their children in that name. These ancient nations were not ignorant or sub-human savages, but the builders of advanced civilizations. Why did they worship a _planet_ as a sovereign god? The reconstruction presented in this newsletter will suggest that they lived under a much different celestial environment than our own. The mission of THOTH is to offer for discussion a new view of our cosmic history, based on the universal testimony of ancient sources, buttressed by the most relevant information coming from the hard sciences. Our contention will be that ancient sources and solar system physics make possible an entirely new way of seeing planetary history and the evolution of human consciousness. Below is a preliminary list, as promised, of themes you will find explored in this and subsequent issues of the THOTH newsletter: ^À New models of planetary history based on systematic cross-cultural comparison. Global myths and symbols of an alien sky. ^À Scars of planetary violence in the solar system, as exposed by recent space exploration. The new catastrophist profile of the planet Venus, resulting from the Magellan probe. Those improbable meteorites from Mars. The mystery of former oceans and rivers of Mars. ^À Evidence of massive electrical scarring on the Moon, Venus, Mars, and (most recently) Jupiter's moon Europa. Unified approaches to electricity and gravity. ^À From chaos to order. Dynamical issues arising from new "catastrophist" hypotheses. Principles affecting the present stability of the solar system and the circularization of orbits within geologically brief spans of time. This is, of course, only a preliminary listing of key theoretical issues, and the list will doubtless be expanded as our discussion proceeds. RED SPRITES AND BLUE JETS By Wallace Thornhill (walt at netinfo.com.au) On 26 December, 1996, while I was enjoying the hospitality of Dave Talbott and Walter Radtke at Kronia Inc. in Beaverton, Oregon, there was a very interesting segment on the Discovery Channel on the topic of "blue jets" and "red sprites" above lightning storms. The final words were: "we don't understand them at all". At the Cambridge '93 and '94 Portland symposia I had offered the following explanation: The principal difficulty in understanding the origin of lightning is likely to be the assumption that the Earth is a closed electrical system with no input from the solar plasma environment via the plasmasphere (magnetosphere in the conventional lexicon). As long ago as the McMaster symposium in 1974, it was reported by a physicist from Cornell University that a glow discharge between the ionosphere and the centre of a hurricane was observed from an orbiting satellite. Low light cameras have captured discharges originating 14km above the Earth over storm clouds, rising like fountains another 20km into the stratosphere [1]. Our Earth-centered view is exemplified by the researcher's comment that it is one way for the storm to dissipate energy into the magnetosphere. Instead, it would seem reasonable to suggest that storm clouds which span great heights offer a convenient path to ground for charge originating in the ionosphere. As further evidence of this phenomenon, in April 1990 the space shuttle photographed on the horizon: a lightning bolt extending an estimated 31 kilometres into clear air above an isolated thunderstorm. At least 15 pilots have reported seeing such lightning at some lime in their flying careers. [2] In the summer of 1992, two pilots flying at midnight at 41,000 feet, six miles from a storm cell, reported they: were startled [to say the least] by a massive single stroke of vertical lightning coming straight out of the cell. Massive describes not only its 'thickness' but the altitude above us to which it seemed to penetrate. It seems reasonable to guess this thing went 20,000-30,000 [feet] above us, perfectly straight, no 'branches' and no 'flickering'. [3] Lightning occurring preferentially in the evening, and cloud clearing after a day of rain, may be associated with observed changes in the ionospheric layers. Everyone is familiar with the change in radio reception at dusk, which is due to decay of the lower ionosphere. Meteorologists may be missing a major energy input into weather systems by ignoring ionospheric electricity. [1] R C Franz et al, Science 249 (1990), p 743. [2] J McClellan, Flying 120:7 (July 1993), pp 9,10. [3] R M Baird, Flying 120:9 (September 1993), p 14. Since those earlier symposia, gamma ray bursts were accidentally observed coming from higher levels again. By way of confirmation of electric discharges extending from space into the ionosphere, I should mention the enigmatic "spokes" in Saturn's rings. The spokes are: 1. sporadic in occurrence; 2. occur preferentially where the ring is emerging from shadow; 3. occur in a particular magnetic sector of Saturn; 4. are formed radially in less than 5 minutes; 5. decay with the distortion expected of Keplerian movement of the ring particles; 6. have shapes classified as 'broad with diffuse edges', 'sharply defined wedges' pointing to Saturn, and 'filamentary'. 7. appear to co-rotate with Saturn. The appearance of the spokes is said to be caused by displacement of ring particles above the ring plane by some unexplained mechanism (ionized meteor trails was one suggestion). All of these phenomena, collectively, seem to be an analogue of the electrical activity seen on the 'surface' of the sun. That is, the blue jets are equivalent to spicules on the sun, which spew ions into the chromosphere to add charge carriers to the plasma in order to carry the electrical discharge load. The red sprites are equivalent to the long streamer discharges seen to advantage in the penumbra of sunspots. This would make the 'tufted' tops of the red sprites equivalent to the solar granules. The gamma ray bursts above that again are equivalent to the x-rays and gamma rays in the sun's corona. This would mean that all planets in the solar system have a source of external energy other than the radiant energy received from the sun. The planets are intercepting directly some of the energy which drives the sun! This would help explain the curious energetic plasmaspheres, weather systems and excess heat being radiated by the gas giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. It also offers the possibility that there may be life supporting possibilities away from the electrical influence of a star like our sun. More on that idea later. Wal Thornhill SATURN THEORY, OVERVIEW (2) By David Talbott (dtalbott at teleport.com) Vine Deloria, one of the most enjoyable speakers I've ever had the pleasure of listening to, has provided a catalyst here. I'd like to respond in discrete steps, to avoid getting ahead of myself. > As to myth interpretation--if we have some scenario that suggests > unusual physical activities and then find in so-called myths FACTS > that must connect to the storyline we are in good shape. I think > basically that is what Talbott is doing. I only wish it was clearer. Vine is certainly not the only one. But there's a dilemma here. Unlike many competing catastrophist models, the "Saturn theory" involves explicit pictures showing *exactly* what we are proposing the ancients saw. And the claimed celestial images relate specifically to the positions of *planets* in the sky, planets that are *named*. Moreover, the proposed celestial forms behave in an incredibly precise way. Hence, this behavior can be tested against all domains of evidence globally. A picture of one phase in the hypothesized planetary configuration is shown on the Kronia Communications website. [See listing of websites at the end of this newsletter.] The claimed celestial form is very specific, as I'm sure all will agree. Readers of this submission who are unaware of the proposed collinear planetary arrangement are referred to either the video documentary, "Remembering the End of the World," or the first overview article in AEON: A Journal of Myth and Science (IV:3). But there is also an issue of methodology. How can we prove something we are claiming was remembered and celebrated above all else around the world? In the methodology I am suggesting, nothing counts as ground floor evidence except *points of agreement* between widely disbursed cultures. To follow this methodology religiously is to have--well, a religious experience. Suddenly, it becomes crystal clear that ancient races really *did* remember things which, under the spell of the now-uneventful solar system, we have forgotten. I listed several fundamental and universal principles in my first submission. But it occurs to me that, in working from the general to the specific, I did not start at the *most* elementary level. For example, Vine asked the question, How many mythical themes are there? Well, it all depends. At one level--the most fundamental level of all--there is only one story, told with a thousand symbols. Here is rough paraphrase of "THE ONE STORY TOLD AROUND THE WORLD." Once the world was quite a different place. In the beginning, we were ruled by the central luminary of the sky, the motionless sun, presiding over an age of natural abundance and cosmic harmony. Creator-king, father of kings, founder of the kingship rites. And this earliest remembered time was the *exemplary* epoch, the Golden Age, the standard for all later generations. But the ancient order was disrupted and the entire cosmos fell into confusion, when the Universal Monarch tumbled from his appointed station. Then the hordes of chaos were set loose and all of creation slipped into a cosmic night, the gods themselves battling furiously in the heavens. And yet, from this descent into chaos, a new world emerged, now re-configured, but with the Universal Monarch himself, rejuvenated and transformed, assuming his rightful place in the heavens. THE END Is it really possible that this *one story*--a story so pristine and elementary--was remembered around the world? Is it really possible that all of the recurring storylines of world mythology are only a part of this singular story? Yes, I will swear by this. In fact I am eager for a challenge to this sweeping and seemingly outrageous statement. (A challenge will often help me to clarify such statements, in a context of interest to the one issuing the challenge.) But remember: I DID NOT SAY THAT I GAVE YOU THE WHOLE STORY. For example, I did not mention the mother goddess, and I did not mention the ancestral warrior-hero. Both are inseparable linked to this one story. But we're going for simplicity here. Now let's go back to the most pervasive motivations of early civilizations, a topic I noted in my earlier submission. Is it possible to reduce the cited motives of ancient cultures to more elementary principles, without falling into the reductionist fallacy? I think it is, indeed, possible. There is a singular principle, for example, that is beyond dispute: the builders of the first civilizations were incessantly looking backwards. In the first expressions of civilization, human imagination was dominated entirely by *things remembered*. Moreover, two contradictory impulses will be discerned in this alignment to the past, and neither will make any sense in terms of conventional assumptions about human history. One impulse is nostalgia, a yearning for something remembered above all else, but lost. The second impulse is terror: the pervasive, ever-present fear that something terrible that happened in the past will happen again. No civilization in the ancient world failed to express these contrasting motives, reflected in monument-building, commemorative rites, hymns and prayers to the gods, kingship rites, ritual sacrifice, and holy war. How is this to be explained? One possibility has been consistently overlooked by the specialists--the possibility that celestial events of an unimaginable scale cast their shadow over all of civilization. But why do nostalgia and terror exist side by side in such a paradoxical relationship? A comparative approach will show that this is no accident, that a unified memory lies behind both of the expressions--the memory of an ancient "paradisal" condition, the mythical "Golden Age," giving way to overwhelming catastrophe, universal darkness, cosmic tumult, and wars of the gods. Look at the deepest yearning of civilization's builders, and you will see the yearning for paradise, a desperate longing to recover the lost Golden Age. For the Egyptians this was the revered Golden Age of Ra, and for the ancient Sumerians it was the Golden Age of An--a theme reverberating around the world. But now look at the deepest fears of the same peoples, and you will see the Doomsday anxiety, the terror of the great catastrophe. This is not an isolated memory, but a memory inseparably linked to the theme of the ancestral paradise. The remembered events were not just catastrophic; they were the events that brought the Golden Age to an end, when the sky was overrun by chaos. Two seemingly incompatible motives trace to a common experience, and both bring us back to the ONE STORY TOLD AROUND THE WORLD. Hence, the implication cannot be avoided. Something extraordinary was remembered by the first skywatchers, something profound and yet unexplained. THE OLDEST KNOWN STONE TOOLS, OR BAD DATING? By Michael Armstrong (mikamar at e-z.net) According to the LA Times--Washington Post news service on January 22,1997, scientists announced the discovery of the world's oldest stone tools, dated about 2.5 million years old. Some 3000 tools were discovered between 1992 and 1994 in arroyos of the Ethiopian badlands and supposedly show that the prehuman creatures that made and used them were "surprisingly sophisticated" toolmakers. Of course these scientists are excited about the implications of this anomaly and are speculating about pre-hominid toolmakers, an undiscovered early species of Homo, etc. According to the news service article, the fist-sized cobble tools "were sandwiched between layers of volcanic rock and ash that could be precisely dated by the Berkeley Geochronology Center using radio- isotope and paleomagnetic techniques." The exciting implication of the finding, of course, is that it pushes "back the origins of technology by at least 250,000 years." Well, what's another quarter million years when you've got "meellyuns and beelyuns." Precisely what they should get excited about is the non-validity of their dating methods. But noooooh... GIZEH PYRAMID IRON PLATE From: Clark Whelton The message below was posted in the Ancient Wisdom conference. Has anyone heard of this iron plate before? It was news to me. Clark >The following information about the iron plate episode comes >from "Keeper of Genesis": "On Friday, 26 May 1837, after a couple of days of blasting and clearing [the southern shaft of the Kings Chamber at the Great Pyramid (GP)], Hill discovered the flat iron plate mentioned... Vyse [Hill's boss] was soon afterwards to trumpet it in his monumental opus, "Operations Carried on at the Pyramids of Gizeh," as "the oldest piece of wrought iron known", but Hill at the time was content to write up the discovery in the proper, sober manner: "This is to certify that the piece of iron found by me near the mouth of the air-passage, in the southern side of the Great Pyramid at Gizeh, on Friday, May 26th, was taken out by me from an inner joint, after having removed by blasting the two outer tiers of the stones of the present surface of the Pyramid; and that no joint or opening of any sort was connected with the above mentioned joint, by which the iron could have been placed in it after the original building of the Pyramid. I also shewed the exact spot to Mr Perring , on Saturday, June 24th." Perring was a civil engineer. He examined the find spot with Marsh, another civil engineer. Both came to the conclusion that the iron plate was contemporary with the Pyramid, ie. inserted while the Great Pyramid was being built. The plate was sent to the British Museum, where the feeling was the iron plate could not have been contemporary as iron was supposedly unknown in the Pyramid Age. However, two series of examinations (done in 1881 and 1989) clearly disprove that view: It was examined in 1881 by Flinders Petrie who concluded, "Though some doubt has been thrown on the piece, merely from its rarity, yet the vouchers for it are very precise; and it has a cast of a nummulite (fossilized marine protozoa) on the rust of it, proving it to have been buried for ages beside a block of nummulitic limestone, and therefore to be certainly ancient. No reasonable doubt can therefore exist about its being a realy (sic) genuine piece." In 1989 examination was done by Dr Jones (Senior Tutor in the Mineral Resources Engineering Department at Imperial College, London) and Dr Gayer (lecturer in the Faculty of Petroleum and Mining at Egypt's Suez University). They, through checking on the nickel content of the plate, were able to exclude the possibility that the plate had been manufactured from meteoritic iron. Their tests also showed that it was most probably gold-plated. They concluded, "It is concluded, on the basis of the present investigation, that the iron plate is very ancient. Furthermore, the metallurgical evidence supports the archaeological evidence which suggests that the plate was incorporated within the Pyramid at the time that structure was built." The reaction of their colleagues and others could have almost been predicted. They labeled the conclusions "highly dubious". Calls from the two scientists who undertook the examination, and others, for additional independent tests to be done to either confirm or disprove their findings have been completely ignored; and it's very easy to see why: the specialists have to redate the beginning of the Iron Age, with all the implications that go with it. Clark Whelton ------------------------- 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.kronia.com/~kronia/ http://www.access.digex.net/~medved/Catastrophism.html Mikamar Publishing mikamar at e-z.net