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 II, No. 9 May 31, 1998 EDITOR: Amy Acheson PUBLISHER: Michael Armstrong LIST MANAGER: Brian Stewart CONTENTS DINNER WITH WAL & MICHAEL & MEL . . . . . . . . . .Amy Acheson ON THE USE OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. . . . . . . .David Talbott CATASTROPHIC RESEARCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .David Davis THARSIS THOLUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wal Thornhill ------------------------------------------------------------- DINNER WITH WAL & MICHAEL & MEL By Amy Acheson Menu: Red-shifted Paradigms spiced with Gamma-ray Bursts Healthy portions of Catastrophics marinated in Philosophy Side order of Personal Anecdotes Dessert: Inspiration a la mode We talked for hours, but I didn't take notes. As a result, you're getting a synthesis of my own warmed-over musings rather than bite-by-bite recitation. So chew on this: The old paradigm has been a useful one. It put men on the moon, telescopes in space, and a radio-controlled car on Mars. What does the new paradigm offer? To begin with, we have the excitement of discovery, the "eureka" when one observation fits another and opens up a whole new way of looking at the universe. This, in itself, is happiness for me and Mel. But there are also practical challenges and opportunities. Now that the paradigm is being defined, it's time to begin reaching out to other explorers. Recent years have seen a surge of international interest in catastrophics. Now, conferences, books, CD's, videos, Internet curricula and a TV documentary need to be developed. We're working on them. My dinner with the guys was an intermission in a three-day planning marathon on behalf of the Mind Exploration Corporation ("Mind Corporation", for short). This is a newly-formed company, bringing business and professional leaders together with catastrophist researchers to forge an ambitious communications program. More info on the program will be found at: www.youneedtoknow.com/mind/ For the majority of the world, the new paradigm will be judged by what it has to offer to each individual. And the expectations of my dinner companions are not just high but...well...cosmic. Michael dreams of a global culture seeking to recapture the sense of kinship and community traditionally linked to a Golden Age. Of course, Mel and Wal and I want to see a vehicle that will take us to the stars. And who knows? Perhaps even that will be possible as the new paradigm begins to fire human imagination. Dinner was fun, guys. Let's do it again. Amy Acheson thoth at whidbey.com --------------------------------------------- ON THE USE OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE David Talbott (dtalbott at teleport.com) [EDITOR'S NOTE: For the next two or three weeks David Talbott will be tied up with travel and other activity of the Mind Corporation. In his absence, we are presenting a follow-up piece to the Q & A appearing in the previous issue of THOTH.] YOU'RE SUGGESTING THAT EARLY MAN WITNESSED SPECTACULAR EVENTS IN THE SKY. BUT SKEPTICS WOULD CLAIM THAT ANCIENT RECORDS ARE A HOPELESSLY ELUSIVE SOURCE FOR "PROVING" SUCH A CLAIM. Of course they would, and the response should not surprise us. The most common objection to the "Saturn theory" is that it rests on the words of storytellers who understood nothing about the world in which they lived. But we need to re-think these familiar responses. One reason ancient memories seem so absurd is that they speak for things that clearly do not exist - today. Our thinking is governed by an incredible amount of inertia, and only the rarest of investigators has ever asked, "Do we really know what ancient starworshippers saw in the sky? Can we really be certain that the natural world our ancestors experienced several thousand years ago is a mirror of our world today?" SKEPTICS MIGHT SAY THAT YOU CAN "PROVE ANYTHING" BY RESORT TO MYTH. Well, you certainly do hear that statement a lot, and the statement is obviously not intended to be taken literally. The skeptic is saying that all sorts of strange and exotic ideas have been proposed on the basis of myth, and he is saying you could argue for anything under the sun if all you have to do is select a few myths for support. The answer to this perfectly natural objection is to adopt investigative groundrules which exclude all selective use of historical testimony. In the approach I've proposed, the entire inquiry rests on well-established patterns of memory, patterns that have survived thousands of years of tribal mixing and still shine through despite the inherent tendency toward distortion over time. The value of limiting admissible evidence to RECURRING themes is that this approach will expose the substratum of human memory. And that is when the great surprises come: with astonishing consistency the substratum speaks for an alien sky. Additionally, this approach will place the highest emphasis on the oldest sources, those situated closest in time to the original experience, where there is the least opportunity for distortion. It is in the oldest sources that you find the most poignant and literal expressions of the universal themes, with minimal dilution of the celestial images involved. AND YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN "PROVE" YOUR CASE ON THE BASIS OF MYTHICAL AND HISTORICAL EVIDENCE? The "proof" begins with certain well-established celestial forms repeated in myths and pictographs and ritual reenactments around the world. Not one of these primary forms, when placed under the microscope, will reveal any relationship to things experienced today. There are "sun"-wheels, to be sure, but on examination they have nothing in common with the body we call sun. We find images of "stars" in great abundance, but they do not behave like any stars in our sky. One finds as well a distinctive crescent-form, recorded by all ancient cultures, but why do the particulars NEVER correspond to the crescent moon? The researcher's first impression will be of confusion - one astronomically absurd image after another. A star in the center of the "sun." A crescent holding in its hollow a central star. A crescent on the great sphere of the "sun". A sun standing motionless at the center of heaven. A "sun" occupying the summit of the world axis. A celestial column rising along the polar axis to support a great crescent "moon". A star with a spiraling tail. A star carrying inside itself an unexplained dark or reddish sphere. The theoretical problem is that, from one ancient nation to another, there is far more consistency to these "astronomical absurdities" than is rationally conceivable if they arose from imagination somehow driven to DENY natural experience. And that's the dilemma in a nutshell: random, irrational ideas could never produce global, coherent patterns at any level of detail; but there are demonstrable global patterns, and in greater detail than any comparative mythologist has previously recognized; therefore, the images cannot be random in the sense typically assumed. In truth, the dilemma has no answer until one finds a new vantage point for interpreting the coherent substratum of myth. But finding that vantage point will require us to stop projecting our own sky onto that of prehistoric man. The good news is that nothing else is necessary in order to open the door to discovery. NEVERTHELESS, YOUR DEPENDENCE ON MYTHICAL IMAGES WILL SURELY INSPIRE SKEPTICISM. Of course! On the face of it, myth is the most incoherent, confused and least credible source of information in the world! In common perception myth has, for centuries, meant fiction. And myth, in one obvious sense, IS fiction. It is make believe. It should be obvious we're not suggesting that things occurred in the manner implied by mythical language itself. We don't need to be told that fiery serpents and dragons, or heaven-sustaining giants, or ships in the sky, or witches on brooms do not exist in the sense understood by the myth-makers. The questions we're asking are: where did the myths come from? What are the celestial references? In what human experiences did the most powerful themes of myth originate? Nothing is more obvious than the myth-maker's relentless tendency to interpret events: monstrous creatures in the sky, celestial cities and kingdoms, sky pillars, rivers or fountains of life, celestial kings, heroes, and warriors, mother goddesses and divine princesses, heaven-embracing trees, crescent-horned bulls and crescent-ships, demons of chaos - there is no limit to the role of human imagination, whatever may have inspired these ideas. Ultimately, there is only one question here: is it even conceivable that the general patterns could have arisen without an external reference to prompt the ideas? What we are claiming is that these themes arose from a natural environment more dramatic and terrifying than anything known in modern times. Since there's virtually no limit to the field of evidence, there are logical groundrules for determining if the references are alien to our sky. Why not apply these reasonable groundrules and see where they lead? The first step toward understanding the myth-making epoch is to distinguish between the unusual and the imaginative. The events are unusual, while the interpretations are imaginative. I'm not asking you to agree that a shining temple or city of living "gods" once stood in the center of the sky; or believe that a great hero of flesh and blood once arose to rid the world of the chaos-monsters; or that this very same hero once consorted with a "mother goddess". I WILL ask you, however, to consider whether these unexplained and global themes may have roots in uncommon natural events. In our skepticism about such global themes we forgot the elementary distinction between event and interpretation, then tossed out the entire body of evidence. A new approach will simply let the dominant patterns of myth speak for themselves, suggesting the concrete forms behind the imaginative interpretations. If it can be seen that the diverse mythical images, in their earliest uses, point to the SAME underlying forms, it becomes rationally impossible to deny the presence of those forms. And in the same way, once the concrete forms have been identified, the concrete sequences of events will provide additional acid tests. WHAT, THEN, IS THE HEART OF YOUR ARGUMENT? For several years now I've been asking those with an interest in the subject to see if they can find a global mythical theme explicable by reference to known natural phenomena. I do not believe it will ever happen. Despite appearances at a superficial level (where the translators of various texts ASSUME a reference to the sun or moon, or some other readily accessible phenomenon), there is, in truth, no theme of myth answering, in its earliest expressions, to the world we know. Now if this assessment is correct, we're left with only two options theoretically. Either we must imagine that the ancients populated their mythical world with forms and events never experienced, denying natural experience at every turn (something no theorist has ever claimed); or we must assume that the world formerly presented to the mythmakers a range of sights and sounds unlike anything known in modern times. That's why I've urged an analytical approach concentrating on the universal themes of myth. Nothing will boost the researcher's confidence more than discovering, first, that there are authentic but unexplained patterns; then discovering that the patterns are all inseparably connected, as if joined to a single taproot. Just consider, for example, the collective memory repeated in myths the world over - of a former "age of the gods". It began with a period frequently termed the "Golden Age", but was punctuated by a collapse of the original order, sweeping catastrophe, wars of the gods and eventually a departure of these visible powers. Yes, there are a hundred variations on the theme, and countless contradictions in the localized versions, but at root we have the idea that the great gods were overwhelmed in a deadly catastrophe, wandered off, or flew away to become distant stars. We've never really reckoned with this collective memory - of a time when man himself lived close to the "gods". The general theme is both universal and remarkably persistent. From the dawn of history onward, that theme never gave way to a contrary idea - UNTIL the contradiction between the memory and the experienced world became so great that men stopped believing in the gods! By concentrating on the themes that have survived for thousands of years, in all major cultures, the investigative approach itself prevents you from slipping into subjective interpretation, or dwelling on aspects of myth that are clearly evolutionary and localized. AND HOW DO THE PLANETS FIGURE INTO THIS? In the most direct way. The great celestial powers first celebrated by man were planets and aspects of planets, all playing concrete roles that can be demonstrated through systematic analysis. When I started my own investigation in 1972 it was obvious that most mainstream scholars do not admit any meaningful relationship of early gods and later planets. It soon became clear why this is so. The gods are far more dominant, more active, and more violent than could possibly be explained, or illuminated in any way by the present fireflies of light we call planets. We know that the early priest astronomers upheld cosmic traditions dating back to the dawn of civilization. And when the first stargazers of ancient Mesopotamia, China, and Mesoamerica began recording the movements of settled (or nearly settled) planets, they insisted with one voice that these distant bodies once dominated the world as "the gods". The incredible discrepancy between the biographies of these gods and the present little specks in the sky presents a fascinating and unexplained global anomaly. I'm suggesting, in other words, that we pay serious attention to the profound shift in ancient ideas about gods and planets, a shift occurring some time in the first millennium B.C. Gradually, the "capriciousness" of the gods gave way to fixed and repeated cycles of planets. Whatever you may think of our reconstruction, it cannot be denied that the dramatic change in human perception IS consistent with the claimed transition - a shift from the active and dramatic presence of the gods to the remote, uniform and predictable planetary system we observe today. Until the establishment of stable cycles or patterns, of course, observational, mathematically-based planetary astronomy would be impossible. Now obviously, the unshakable opinion of astronomers is that the solar system of our ancestors looked very much like it does today. Yet surprisingly, though celestial "sun" and "star" symbols are everywhere, one searches in vain for evidence of PRESENT planetary movements. What we find is thus what we should EXPECT to find if the planetary system changed dramatically within human memory. David Talbott --------------------------------------------- CATASTROPHIC RESEARCH By David Davis What does exasperate me no end is when I read catastrophist & chronologist literature, and an argument is being put forward which is totally incompatible with other work published in that journal (or other organs) ... yet the author makes no explicit reference to the fact. In some cases this is simply lack of knowledge on my part, since I'm not familiar with footnote 7 on page 21 of Kronos Volume 6 number 2, which showed conclusively that footnote 3 on page 5 of SIS Review Vol. 1 number 3 was in fact totally wrong and need never be considered in the catastrophist literature ever again. In other cases, authors just don't have a sufficient command of the literature, and the complex web of arguments that follow when B and C followed A (based on X), but then 6 years later X was shown to be false (due to the unearthing of P and Q) so B and C no longer stand, but we mustn't forget that this now means that original counterviews G and H to B and C are now in fact worthy of new consideration (albeit modified with respect to P and Q) (for A to X just substitute a few Third Intermediate Period Egyptian Pharaohs and who their pet rabbits were, and you'll begin to get the picture) All this is compounded still further when there is major disagreement on whether both P AND Q really DID allow X to refute B and C, or does just C hold, permitting G but not H? (Never mind that orthodox view never accepted any of them in the first place, holding to R, S and T) Yes, well, enough of this. Considering that most catastrophist researchers are not paid academics but simply ordinary folks trying to earn an honest wage in the modern world whilst rewriting all known fields of human knowledge in their spare time, I don't think they do _too_ bad. However, on a point as fundamental as [someone] claiming to have a billion years positive proof of a 365 day year [tending towards 400 for those earliest few millions ;-) ], I really draw the line at saying "well, he's a scientist, I'll have to take his word for it until I can conclusively prove him wrong". Instead I'd say "excuse me, but conclusions from _my_ discipline show that the length of the terrestrial year *has* changed sharply in the last billion years and so you better recheck your figures cos I don't think they can be as reliable as you assume them to be" Dave Davis ---------------------------------------------- THARSIS THOLUS By Wal Thornhill [I]t is possible to point to some features on Earth which look like the surface features on other bodies in the solar system. That was superficially true of the collapsed lava tube and sinuous rilles on the Moon. But the fact that confusion was rife for many decades about whether craters on the Moon were of volcanic or impact origin is an indication that we should be careful about attributing mechanisms based on incomplete knowledge of our own planet and its geological history. Professor V R Baker writes in The Channels of Mars, p.14: "The new frontier of geomorphology lies in the comparative study of planetary surfaces. The comparison of planetary surfaces is mainly accomplished with orbital images or photographs. The interpreter of the landforms on those images relies on analogic reasoning to reconstruct the complex interaction of processes responsible for the observed features. Mutch (1979) has summarized the difficulties of this approach: (1) The method often assumes a unique correlation between the observed landforms and the responsible processes. Actually geomorphologists recognize that some landforms may be generated by different combinations of processes converging on the same result. This problem of "equifinality" is a continuing limitation on geomorphic analysis. (2) Photointerpreters are artificially constrained in their analyses by their range of familiarity with natural landscapes. For this reason the proposed analogs must be exhaustively pressed for their limitations as explanations for the phenomena under study. Mutch (1979) observed that the origins of landforms on other planets are established not so much by the individual study of analogs as by a consensus among the active investigators. After the photographs and images have been studied for many years, one explanation remains that explains the majority of terrain features and is not incompatible with the remaining ones. The decade that has elapsed since Mariner 9 has allowed consensus explanations to emerge for Mars, and these will be discussed in this chapter. However, controversial issues remain." [Mutch, T A, Planetary Surfaces: Rev. Geophys. & Space Phys., v. 17, no. 7, pp. 1694-1722]. So, the origin of the features on Mars basically relies on a show of hands based on experience with features on Earth. However, Baker goes on to say: "...many Martian craters have a unique morphology, different from that observed elsewhere in the solar system. The ejecta surrounding the crater is layered, and each layer has an outer edge terminating in a low ridge or escarpment. The surfaces of well-preserved ejecta blankets typically display radial striae, ramparts, and concentric features." Even the notorious "face" on Mars exhibits some of these features. As I have shown in The Electric Universe, these features are all easily explained by the electric arc model. And that is the point of departure between my interpretation and that of geologists. Geologists are restricted in their models to tectonic, volcanic or impact forces. I have one more model in my repertoire which actually embodies some of the features of both volcanoes and impacts (in the form of anode melting at the top of an electric arc 'blister', and the explosive qualities of an arc). But there are additional features which provide the electric arc signature. My model has the virtue of being reproducible in the laboratory and it was there that I discovered the tendency for the arc to impinge like a corkscrew - giving rise in some craters to corkscrew terracing or incomplete formation of a circular crater. In my opinion, Tharsis Tholus on Mars shows classic signs of such an effect. Of course, the accusation is levelled by [skeptics] that I have not provided mathematical proof that electric arcs of sufficient power could create scars the size of Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris. And even if they could, you cannot scale up electrical scarring effects from lab to planet. There are many answers to that. To begin with, it was no less than Hannes Alfven, the pioneer plasma physicist, who pointed out the enormous scalability of plasma effects and exhorted theorists to get back in the lab to find out how things really work in space. (I plan to do that again as soon as possible). Also, if you read any recent research on arcs in plasmas you will find statements such as: "While no single, complete theory covers all aspects of arc formation....", [from the latest issue of the Vacuum Society of Australia, Summer 1998]. And if you read technical works on arc welding you find it is more an art than a science. Once again, the phenomenology of plasma arc scarring must be undertaken in the lab, not sitting in front of a computer fiddling with some unrealistic model. Then we have the evidence amassed by the Saturnists for prehistoric interplanetary discharges which reportedly took on the plasmoid shape, only recently rediscovered in plasma labs. Not only that, but a marked change in appearance of Mars ensued from one such strike. Back to Baker again: "Concepts as basic as uniformitarianism must be seriously questioned. ...The relatively recent discovery of alien landscapes poses many disturbing questions for a science grown complacent with the study of the familiar." Tharsis Tholus is classified as a Martian volcano, 150 kilometres across and 8 kilometres high. It is also dubbed a geological puzzle because it requires explosive and effusive eruption followed by collapse and faulting in an attempt to explain its weird features. Not only that but the faulting has to be almost vertical in every instance. Such a succession of ad-hoc requirements stretches credibility beyond any reasonable limit. I believe Tharsis Tholus was not formed by geological forces. It is not volcanic. Tharsis Tholus is an example of an electrical fulgamite scar, topped by a typical spiral or corkscrew crater, as we saw on the Moon. (Note that such a crater (King) on the Moon is given as a textbook example of an impact! This is testimony to the confusion between astronomers and geologists as to which craters are caused by volcanism and which by impact. The simple answer to the conundrum may be given by the electrical model - neither of the conventional explanations is correct in many cases). A fulgamite (lightning arrestor scar) has a characteristic raised mound. The 5 kilometre high gullies in the left side of the crater of Tharsis Tholus have the same scalloped form as those carved by a colossal arc from the walls of Valles Marineris. The complex mound has been machined by 3 or more consecutive discharges during its formation, giving rise to sharp differences in levels on its flanks and different radii of excavation depending on the current density of each stroke of the arc. You will note the beautiful arcuate walls at the bottom of the picture which are characteristic of arc machining. Interestingly, earthly lightning conductors often show 3 successive strokes in the one flash. The first stroke lifts and creates the mound, the later ones machine or distort the peak. The main corkscrew machining seems to have begun at the top right of the picture and proceeded in a counter-clockwise motion, producing the sloped terraces inside the crater. The acid test will be when we get to the Moon and Mars and find no central vent in the so-called volcanic mounds. Wal Thornhill ---------------------------------------------- PLEASE VISIT THE KRONIA COMMUNICATIONS WEBSITE-- http://www.kronia.com/~kronia/ Other suggested Web site URL's for more information about Catastrophics: Subscriptions to AEON, a journal of myth and science, may be ordered at the I-net address below: http://www.ames.net/aeon/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/sis/ http://www.flash.net/~cjransom/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/velikovskian/ http://www.access.digex.net/~medved/Catastrophism.html http://www.grazian-archive.com/ http://www.tcel.com/~mike/paper.html 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 initial focus will be on a reconstruction of ancient astral myths and symbols in relation to a new theory of planetary history. Serious readers must allow some time for these radically different ideas to be fleshed out and for the relevant background to be developed. The general tenor of the ideas and information presented in THOTH is supported by the editor and publisher, but there will always be plenty of room for differences of interpretation. We welcome your comments and responses. New readers are referred to earlier installments in issues of THOTH posted on the Kronia website listed above. Go to the THOTH page and click on the image titled "Thoth: the Egyptian God of Knowledge" to access the back issues.