THOTH -A Catastrophics Newsletter- VOL I, No. 21 August 11, 1997 EDITOR: Michael Armstrong PUBLISHER: Brian Stewart CONTENTS: EDITORIAL.........................................Michael Armstrong VELIKOVSKY'S COMET VENUS(5).....................David Talbott LIGHTNING OF THE GODS.................................Wal Thornhill TIPPE-TOP INVERSION......................................News Items FROM SUN TO EARTH: TRACKING A NEW STORM ..................News Item NEW CABLE SERIES.......................................Paul Hillman ----------------------------------------------- Quote of the day: It is evident, that all the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature; and that, however wide any of them seem to run from it, they still return by one passage or another. [We must] march directly up to the capitol or center of these sciences to human nature itself; which once being masters of, we may everywhere else hope for an easy victory. From this station we may extend our conquest over all those sciences... There is no question of importance, whose decision is not compromised in the science of man; and there is none, which can be decided with any certainty, before we become acquainted with that science. In pretending, therefore, to explain the principles of human nature, we in effect propose a complete system of the sciences, built on a foundation almost entirely new, and the only one upon which they can stand with any security...The science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences. David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, p 12-13. ----------------------------------------------- EDITORIAL By Michael Armstrong (mikamar at e-z.net) However much one may disagree with the underlying metaphysical assumptions that Hume started with for his new "system of the sciences," or the conclusions that he reached, it is very difficult to disagree with the above quote. Just as it is of paramount importance for the individual on the road to spiritual integrity to take "the inward journey" to know himself, it is of equal importance for the human race to reconstruct the true nature of its past, at least those events and experiences that have left such a dramatic imprint on our individual and collective psyches. It is with this conviction that we continue our investigation of the ancient world, through the study and analysis of myths, rites and symbols, supported by new physical models and cosmology. If the great issues of human origins, purpose of life, evil in the world, and human destiny are showcased in a falsely constructed view of our past, how can any conclusions derived therein be valid? -------------------------------------- VELIKOVSKY'S COMET VENUS (5) By David Talbott (dtalbott at teleport.com) [EDITOR'S NOTE: This continues Talbott's series of articles on the myth of the comet Venus.] METHODOLOGY AND OUTCOME We have previously observed that, in seeking out Velikovsky's comet, "methodology is everything." A useful methodology will not dismiss a widespread theme just because it appears highly irrational or incapable of explanation. In Bob Forrest's critique he acknowledges such "comet" themes as the death of a king or great leader at the appearance of a comet, good wine in the year of a comet, and the comet signaling outbreaks of war. As to the roots of such odd ideas, "heaven only knows," he exclaims. So why should we accept only those comet ideas that support Velikovsky's thesis? Here Forrest missed each and every opportunity to account for what he assumed could never be explained. If worldwide comet symbolism originated in the experience of a truly terrifying intruder, it is simply impossible to know which portions of comet lore are relevant prior to reconstructing the story from the global evidence. And in truth, ALL of the comet themes cited by Forrest are illuminated by the biography of the Great Comet, as I intend to demonstrate with more than sufficient evidence in this series. First there is the matter of pervasive fear; for when it comes to "irrational" terror carried as luggage from the past, little else compares to the universal fear of THE COMET. Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, in their book _Comet_, find the fear to be virtually universal: Rarely have so many diverse cultures, all over the planet, agreed so well. In the history of the world, more societies have advocated incest or infanticide than have taught that comets were benign, or even neutral. Everywhere on Earth, with only a few exceptions, comets were harbingers of change, ill fortune, evil. It was common knowledge. Most of us are, in fact, so accustomed to the common expressions of this fear that we fall into a trap of illogic: "Comets, of course, were always regarded in antiquity as omens of disaster," wrote the esteemed authority on comparative religion, Theodore Gaster. It sounds as if ("of course") the overwhelming fear is completely natural and needs no explanation BECAUSE it is so universal. The trap also caught author David Ritchie: "For thousands of years comets have been associated with all manners of disasters and misfortune. This association is easy to understand." But the pervasiveness of an irrational fear is not an explanation. I find it of interest that Fred Whipple, one of the deans of modern astronomy, did not find an easy explanation for the hysteria. "Why should comets--those graceful, sometimes majestic, creatures of the sky--frighten people? They move very slowly, without startling changes in shape or aspect. They make no sounds and emit no dazzling flashes of light. In short, they do nothing that seems to me to be threatening. Yet comets have terrified people as long as there have been people to terrify." The ancient and poorly understood fear aroused by the appearance of a comet continued through the Middle Ages and even (in a more tempered expression) into the twentieth century, with the arrival of Halley's Comet in 1910. "We may all die laughing when the comet [Halley] comes," the French astronomer Camille Flammarion was quoted as saying, with language that fed a widespread pre-existing apprehension of the fin du monde. In earlier times the extent of comet fear was deadly. On the arrival of the comet of 1528, the famous French surgeon Ambroise Paré described the public reaction: "This comet was so horrible and so frightful and it produced such great terror in the vulgar that some died of fear and others fell sick." The range of comet fears is impressive. According to Aristotle, the comet brings wind and drought. Among both the Greeks and Romans, "The comet was inevitably the presage of some cataclysmic event," states A. Barret. Josephus reports in his History of the Jews that prior to the destruction of Jerusalem by Roman armies, "a comet shaped like a sword" hung over the city for an entire year. (While Carl Sagan hastens to point out the impossibility of the literal occurrence, it effectively mirrors the mythical role of the comet.) According to Servius, the ancient and infamous comet Typhon produced terrible famine. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle recorded "firedrakes"--fiery dragons--"seen flying in the air" at the time of a great famine in 779, observing as well that a great comet appeared at the time of famine in 975. And so too does a comet bring great famine in the traditions of the Masai of East Africa. In Byrhtferth's Manual, published in the year 1011, occurs this description of a comet: "There is a star called a comet. When it appears it betokens famine or pestilence or war or the destruction of the earth or fearful storms." Similarly the Eghap of Nigeria say that pestilence is the regular companion of the feared comet. Even the historian Isidor Bishop of Seville (602-636), a well known skeptic when it came to astrology, could not set aside the belief that the comet presaged "revolutions, wars, and pestilence." Gregory of Tours (c. 541-594), writing in De Cursu Stellarum, tells us that when a comet "spreads its hair abroad darkly, it announces rain to the country." Nor is it surprising to find the rumor that the Great Plague of London was due to the appearance of a comet; or that a comet is also said to have accompanied the great earthquake at Lima, Peru, in 1746. While the association of the comet and wide-ranging disaster is worldwide, the pattern may initially seem diffuse, with insufficient coherence to support any unified theory of comet fears. Funk and Wagnall's encyclopedia, for example, included the following description under the heading "comet": Not only in antiquity, but through the centuries among all peoples, comets have aroused in man a feeling of terror and foreboding. These mysterious visitors in the heavens have been thought to be connected with war, famine, the plague, the downfall of kings and monarchs, the end of the world, universal suffering, ill-luck, and sickness. How, then, did this curious profile of the comet arise? The darkly pessimistic ideas about comets inspired Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan to muse-- There is an overwhelming sadness to the literature of comets. With melancholy consistency we discover that disaster has always been a commonplace; that any comet at any time viewed from anywhere on Earth is assured of some tragedy for which it can be held accountable. Such is the logic of efforts to explain mythical ideas through experiences familiar to our own day: the commentator simply assumes that when a comet appeared the undisciplined primitive mind freely associated it with one or another disaster occurring around the same time. But this suggested habit will not explain why the first instinct of stargazers was to look for a COMET to account for the occurrence of great disasters. Nor will the stargazer's haste to connect the comet and disaster explain the deeper theme of the WORLD-ENDING apocalypse. If one looks at comet lore more closely, it will be realized that what the stargazers feared most was no local calamity. Ancient Chinese comet lore held that "Comets are vile stars. Every time they appear in the south, something happens to wipe out the old and establish the new." In the language of myth that means the end of the world. Both the Sibylline Oracles and a Dead Sea Scroll (War of the Sons of Light and Darkness) present the comet as a sign of the Last Days--all of which sounds very much like the Aztec's comet-like plumed serpent presiding over the end of one world age and beginning of another. Consider, for example, why it is that the comet soars into prominence as our own calendar approaches a "critical moment," at the end of a millennium. (Yes, it seems that round numbers and "critical moments" go hand in hand, fed by the sense of cyclical time and the global myth of a world age ending in sweeping catastrophe.) Mary Proctor tells us that as the year 1000 approached "even the most simple phenomena assumed terrible proportions." And this included, not surprisingly, "reports of earth-quakes, and a comet visible for nine days." Here again is the earthquake-comet association despite the failure of any known comet to redeem the association. The role of an archetypal myth in influencing reports of ostensibly historical comets will be clearly seen in the following chronicle of the year 1000, cited by Proctor-- The heavens having opened, a kind of burning torch fell upon the earth, leaving behind a long train of light similar to a flash of lightning...as this opening in the heavens closed, imperceptibly there became visible the figure of a dragon, whose feet were blue, and whose head seemed continually to increase. Even the world-famous dragon finds its way into the story, when the calendar calls for it! But let us not forget the distinction between the symbol and the thing symbolized. Every break in the natural order was a reminder (symbol) of what world mythology presents as a universal disaster; in this sense, the local pestilence needed a comet to find its place in the mythically-defined scheme, particularly at the end of the millennium. Even today, as we approach a new millennium, the apocalyptic fear expresses itself with every local catastrophe, offering a "sign" of the anticipated end of the world--just as, century after century, virtually every wisp of a comet played its required part in the psychological drama. How the underlying story and its symbols originated is an entirely different matter, involving patterns that could never be explained by any local disaster or any local experience whatsoever. That many of the most significant patterns are poorly recognized is due almost entirely to the methodology and suppositions of the investigators. The result is a heap of evidential fragments--more than sufficient to illustrate the global fear of comets, but with little or no comprehension of the remembered events from which the patterns emerged. The "portentous" news brought by the comet can be summarized as follows: € the comet foretells the fall of the kingdom; € the comet predicts the arrival of plague, famine, earthquake, pestilence; € the comet means the end of a world age, the arrival of universal darkness or night, the occlusion of the sun by chaos monsters, a victory (though temporary) of rebelling powers. € the comet forecasts the death of kings or great rulers; € the comet heralds cataclysmic wars. For the present discussion, I shall simply cite enough instances to illustrate the key ideas. These recurring motifs do not explain themselves! Why the repeated idea that a comet means the death of kings? It is the archetype and nothing else that will explain the symbol. (As we will see, appearance of the Great Comet was synonymous with the death of the Universal Monarch, the PROTOTYPE of kings.) While the unobtrusive comets observed in our time only accent the irrationality of ancient fears, the worldwide portent symbolism of the comet answers so completely to the Great Comet (Venus) as to logically preclude the customary, localized explanations of these fears. The things which ancient nations believed about comets are, in every case, inseparably tied to the story of one heaven-shattering, universally-remembered comet, an archetype in every sense of the word. ----------------------------------------------- 'It is the thunderbolt that steers the Universe' -Heraclitus, c.500 BC LIGHTNING OF THE GODS By Wal Thornhill (walt at netinfo.com.au) [EDITOR'S NOTE: This begins a series of articles by Wal Thornhill on the electrical character of stars and planets.] Heraclitus, 2,500 years ago, was closer to the truth than modern astronomers. In years to come, people will look back on the present era with incredulity. How could we have been so blind? Why did we regard the universe as electrically sterile, when the evidence that it is not was staring us in the face? In answering these questions I will show how badly science suffers from paradigm paralysis. Breaking free from old paradigms allows amazing connections to be forged between disciplines presently thought to have nothing in common. Who would have thought that mythology could illuminate plasma physics and celestial dynamics and vice-versa? And this must be the hallmark of correct paradigms - no data can be ignored or discarded when searching for the truth. Every piece must fit the puzzle. Some of the results are astounding on first meeting - for example that our Sun and all stars are giant balls of lightning - but so obvious and simple when the evidence is presented. That evidence comes from the totality of human experience of phenomena in the skies, spanning prehistoric cave paintings to modern space probes. This is as it must be. According to David Talbott's meticulous research spanning 25 years, the "Saturnian Configuration" was a spectacular arrangement of looming planets in Earth's prehistoric sky, universally remembered and depicted by the ancients. The appearance of that sky beggars even the modern imagination which has been conditioned to the weirdness of phenomena seen in deep space. Since shortly after their assumed creation 4 or 5 billion years ago, the planets are believed to have moved like clockwork along their separate orbits. Yet, it is well known among astronomers that Newton1s law of gravity when applied to more than 2 orbiting bodies, leads in a relatively short time to chaotic motion. How can the solar system have remained in its apparently stable configuration for the 5 eons required by current theories of solar system evolution? And why, if the planets and moons were formed from the same primordial cloud of gas and dust, are they such a fruit salad of physical characteristics, axial tilts, rotation rates and orbits? Why do many of the moons show sharp hemispherical differences? What really caused the strange pristine scars seen on the inner planets and moons? How is it that many of these scars are of such colossal size? In several cases we see, smaller moons, craters so large that the moons should have been pulverized by the impact, if indeed the craters were formed by impacting bodies. The ad-hoc nature of most expert answers to these questions prompts skepticism of the current paradigm. It seems much too easy to dismiss the Saturnian Configuration of planets as science fiction. Astronomers may reassure themselves and us that such an arrangement of planets is impossible, but in doing so there is no acknowledgment of the alien sky, depicted with remarkable specificity and consistency by ancient peoples around the world. Consequently, many loose ends in other disciplines are left dangling. This is characteristic of modern scientific knowledge. It has been left to a few qualified people with more imagination to show that there is a stable dynamical system of planets conforming to the Saturnian Configuration. But it raises the additional question: if the solar system has been so drastically reordered since prehistoric times, how is it that it shows no sign of it now? I will show that by scaling up electrical effects seen on Earth and in the laboratory, I can provide stunning support for the ancient imagery of a different sky and hence the likelihood that planets and moons did move in close proximity in the recent past, as proposed by David Talbott's model. An electric universe model provides a simple mechanism for re-ordering a chaotic planetary system in a very short time and maintaining that stability. It has other startling consequences which confirm that science fiction writers are the best predictors of the future. My approach to the problem has been like Talbott's, using pattern matching, but converging from the physical sciences rather than the humanities. It is a lesson we both learned early from Immanuel Velikovsky. It has given amazing results for the synthesis of a new cosmology and history of the human race. It provides the first glimpse of the interdisciplinary knowledge of the third millennium. So, what do I mean by an electric Universe? Astronomical theory presents gravity and magnetism as the only forces participating in the mechanism of the Universe. This may seem a very strange attitude when it is known that magnetism requires electrical currents to flow, but I think it highlights our mistaken models of the material world and our failure to discern the interactions of seemingly separate parts. I will show that a re-examination of basic physics points to an intimate connection between the electrical force and magnetism and gravity. The result is a more holistic, interconnected view of the universe and its interactions, from the subatomic level on up through living beings to the planets, stars, and great streaming galaxies. ---------------------------------- The following news items were submitted by Ian Tresman: >From New Scientist, 2 August 97 Twist of fate By Jeff Hecht The crust and mantle of the Earth twisted 90 degrees around its liquid core in a mere blink of geological time around half a billion years ago, claim geologists in California. The repositioning of the continents may have caused the unprecedented Cambrian explosion in species diversity. Evidence for the theory comes from the directions of magnetic fields in the minerals in rocks. The magnetic fields in molten rocks align with the Earth's and become frozen in as the rocks cool and solidify, providing a permanent record of the position of the rocks at that time relative to the Earth's field. Geologists had already looked at the magnetic signatures in Australian rocks that solidified between about 534 million and 519 million years ago in the Cambrian. At that time, Australia was part of a super-continent called Gondwanaland that also included what are now Africa, South America, Antarctica and India. The rocks suggested that over 15 million years, Australia rotated through almost 90 degrees. Geologists suspected that the data were misleading, however, because they suggested unrealistically rapid motion. In last week's Science (vol 277, p 541), Joseph Kirschvink and his colleagues at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena report that they reanalyzed the Australian data and now conclude that Gondwanaland really did turn about 90 degrees over some 15 million years. They believe this means that the entire solid part of the Earth rotated as a unit, with the points that had been the ancient north and south poles ending up on the equator. Data from North America also back this up, they say. Kirschvink says that this might have happened due to changes in the distribution of mass within the Earth following the formation of Gondwanaland 550 million years ago. "We're not sure exactly what the changes were," he admits. But had the distribution changed, heavier regions would have shifted towards low latitudes due to the spin of the Earth. "Excess mass tends to go toward the equator," Kirschvink says. The rapid movement of the continents could explain the Cambrian explosion, when species diversified very rapidly. Continents and oceans would have shifted into new climate zones. Kirschvink suggests that this upheaval would have fragmented ecosystems, leaving isolated populations that could have evolved rapidly. Other geologists are unconvinced, however. "It's plausible, but it has in no way been demonstrated," says Rob van der Voo, a geologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Christopher Scotese of the University of Texas at Arlington adds that the team only used a small subset of the available data: "Where you have really good data, in the past hundred million years, the amount of true polar wander is negligible." (c) Copyright New Scientist, IPC Magazines Limited 1997 ************ Science Magazine Volume 277, Number 5325, Issue of 25 July 1997, pp. 541-545 Evidence for a Large-Scale Reorganization of Early Cambrian Continental Masses by Inertial Interchange True Polar Wander Joseph L. Kirschvink, Robert L. Ripperdan, David A. Evans Analysis of Vendian to Cambrian paleomagnetic data shows anomalously fast rotations and latitudinal drift for all of the major continents. These motions are consistent with an Early to Middle Cambrian inertial interchange true polar wander event, during which Earth's lithosphere and mantle rotated about 90 degrees in response to an unstable distribution of the planet's moment of inertia. The proposed event produces a longitudinally constrained Cambrian paleogeography and accounts for rapid rates of continental motion during that time. J. L. Kirschvink and D. A. Evans, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA. R. L. Ripperdan, Department of Geology, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, Mayaguez 00681, Puerto Rico. **end** ----------------------------------------------- NEW WEEKLY CABLE SERIES TO FEATURE PLANETARY CATASTROPHE ...BUT WE NEED YOUR HELP. Dear Friend, Yes, we are excited about a new opportunity to tell a story of planets and catastrophe, but we need your help in more ways than one. Again and again we've heard from people asking for a full overview of the Saturn theory, a story whose breadth and sweeping implications far exceed the sum of published articles. This requested overview is exactly what we intend to deliver, but with a surprise. It was only in the past year that the work of David Talbott, author of The Saturn Myth, converged with the work of the Australian physicist Wallace Thornhill. The great surprise for us has been the perfect fit of Thornhill's "electrical solar system" with the historical data gathered by Talbott and his colleagues. How confident am I in this "perfect fit"? Well, the most compelling evidence is the response of participants in our recent northwest regional workshops. To the best of our knowledge not one person left these events believing that science has gotten the picture right. And all agreed that Thornhill's work pulls the rug out from under the typical objections to the Saturn model based on mainstream physical theory. Let me give you just one of many examples. When the European SOHO satellite, just a few months ago, unexpectedly encountered a comet-tail of Venus (extending almost to the Earth), astronomers were more than a little puzzled. To put it bluntly, this highly structured plasma tail defies all conventional theory. What astonished scientist's about the now-invisible or remnant-tail of Venus was the apparent structure, which they called "stringy things." On the conventional model, there can be no such structure in a tail constituted from plasma simply "blowing in the (solar) wind." The discovered structure requires the flow of electricity‹a phenomenon astronomy has never even considered!‹and this single fact challenges mainstream theory at its foundations. The flow of electricity in a plasma produces Birkeland Currents in the form of twisting filaments--the "stringy things" encountered by the SOHO satellite. But long before the SOHO discovery, Wal Thornhill had discussed this principle of cometary "discharges"--while the twisting, "braided" hair of the Venus comet has for many years been part of David Talbott's reconstruction! Now to the punchline. Thanks to the exceptional interest generated by our recent activity in the northwest, we are launching a weekly one-hour cable program to be called "Electric Sky: The Age of Gods and Heroes." The program will focus on Velikovsky, the Saturn theory and the work of Wal Thornhill. (You will see a number of articles by Thornhill in future issues of AEON, while Talbott and Thornhill are now collaborating on a book, expected out within the year.) The program is being produced in Portland, Oregon, but we expect it to be available on other cable channels across the country as well. We're scheduled to produce 12 programs over 12 weeks, and we will continue the program if it works as hoped. We now have a complete production team contributing time as volunteers. This includes the director, producer, host, scriptwriter, cameramen, engineers, and assistants. (Please keep in mind that this is cable access. We are not promising Stephen Spielberg production values. But we are promising something higher than the familiar cable access quality --and a subject more interesting and with more dramatic implications than anything Spielberg himself has ever produced!) Over the past three years we've accumulated hundreds of visual images, computer graphics, and animation segments to illustrate the way the ancient sky once looked, highlighting the specific roles of planets. Only a small portion of the total material has been published in any forum. The cable series, we believe, gives us the best opportunity to present the principles of the reconstruction in simple language and with visual clarity, all in manageable pieces that can be easily assimilated, both by newcomers and by people who have followed the discussion over the years.. I cannot think of a greater opportunity to get the story out, to begin reaching a larger market, and to attract new scholarly and scientific participation. That is why we are asking for your contribution to any extent possible, from $20 to $200, or more if that is possible without inconvenience. I cannot overemphasize that every contribution will make a difference in our total impact. All contributors will receive a VHS tape of the first two programs in the series. (TOTAL: TWO HOURS) ADDRESS: Kronia Communications 8350 S.W. Greenway # 24 Beaverton, OR 97008 Credit card transactions are possible by phone: PLEASE USE THIS TOLL FREE NUMBER: 1-800-230-9347. The back-up number to call is 503-646-5257. Though we have scheduled studio time on the first twelve programs, the wealth of material now available is sufficient to keep the program going indefinitely. To succeed in the longer-term strategy, however, it will be necessary for us to develop a national network of cable producers with an interest in alternative science. We are now covered in the Portland, Seattle, and Los Angeles areas, and are prepared to begin vigorous communications with producers in other regions. Perhaps this is an additional way in which you can help if you can direct us to anyone in your own area who is active in cable production and distribution, with a potential interest in the subject. Additionally, our series will include interviews with experts who are able to contribute significant insights on the physical and historical issues discussed. We would be pleased to receive any suggestions you may have as to credible authorities we should contact. I must emphasize as well that the aggressive production schedule to which we are now committed means that the timeliness of your help will be critical. Please accept our heartfelt thanks for your assistance. Sincerely, Paul E. Hillman, Kronia Communications. PLEASE VISIT THE KRONIA COMMUNICATIONS WEBSITE-- http://www.kronia.com/~kronia/ Other 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.access.digex.net/~medved/Catastrophism.html http://www.grazian-archive.com/ http://www.tcel.com/~mike/paper.html http://nt.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. Michael Armstrong Mikamar Publishing mikamar at e-z.net