THOTH -A Catastrophics Newsletter- VOL I, No. 27 DECEMBER 10, 1997 EDITOR: Michael Armstrong PUBLISHER: Brian Stewart CONTENTS: VELIKOVSKY'S COMET VENUS (11)...................David Talbott LIFE ON MARS?......................................L.A. Times Submitted by Robert Dunlap MAGNETIC MARS......................................L.A. Times Submitted by Robert Dunlap SPECULATIONS ON MAR'S SPIN RATE.................Wal Thornhill SPECULATIONS ON POLAR CONFIGURATION.....Wal Thornhill ----------------------------------------------- Quote of the day: Is it likely that any astonishing new developments are lying in wait for us? Is it possible that the cosmology of 500 years hence will extend as far beyond our present beliefs as our cosmology goes beyond that of Newton? Fred Hoyle, _The Nature of the Universe_ ----------------------------------------------- VELIKOVSKY'S COMET VENUS (10) By David Talbott (dtalbott at teleport.com) [EDITOR'S NOTE: This continues Talbott's series of articles on the myth of the comet Venus.] RITES OF SACRIFICE Both the Aztecs and Maya are known to have practiced sacrifice on a horrendous scale, in intimate correspondence with the gods. To honor the gods and heroes of former times, the priests performed rites ordained by these divine ancestors, with a meticulous reverence for the way things happened in ancestral times (the age of the gods). Critical events in the gods' own lives provided the ritual drama, and in these biographical rituals, sacrifice was usually the central episode. In the Mesoamerican world view, it was a sacrifice of cosmic proportions that preceded the dawning of the present world age. As noted by Carrasco, the role of cosmic sacrifice in regenerating the world "was at the basis of the extraordinary practice of bloodletting and sacrifice throughout Mesoamerica." The present age was created out of the sacrifice of a large number of deities in Teotihuacan, or elsewhere, depending on the tradition. It was believed that this age would end in earthquakes and famine. What is clear is that cosmic order is achieved in the Aztec universe out of conflict, sacrifice, and the death of humans and gods. In addition to the calendrically ordained sacrifices, there were many other occasions on which the gods themselves seemed to call for sacrifice. For minor challenges in the course of daily life, offerings of food or ornaments might be sufficient, but in times of greater common need, particularly when the kingdom was beset by drought, or hurricanes, or plagues of locusts, the gods called for human victims. It does not appear that scholars as a whole appreciate the reason for this, however. It is through sacrifice "that two realms of time, the time of the gods and the time of humans, are linked together and renewed," states Carrasco. But why did sacrifice fulfill the divine requirement? And why at strategic calendar moments, or on occasions of distress? Again, it is imperative that one distinguish between the archetype and the symbol. Numerous contexts in which we observe the ritual response will suggest that a drought was not seen as a thing in itself, but a SYMBOL of the greater ordeal in more ancient times, the archetypal "drought" which gave meaning to the symbols. In the same way, every hurricane became a symbol of the irresistible cosmic wind that once overcame the world; or a plague of locusts referred back to the devastating chaos hordes which had overtaken the world in the great cometary disaster. A symbol is a reflection of some aspect of a prior experience. As such it does not, on its own, disclose the full character of that experience. Thus the researcher, to gain any sense of the true reference, must draw upon patterns revealed through the CONJUNCTION of symbols. Under the conventional analysis, however, the regional drought or the regional hurricane is the worst thing the analyst can imagine, so there is no prior reference for the symbol, only the symbol itself. Students of the culture are left, therefore, with a madhouse of symbols and meaningless, unexplained, barbaric practices and superstitions. Here, the ritual sacrifice has no broader significance than an apparent "bargaining with the gods" because the researcher does not see a relationship between the sacrifice and the events (drought, plague, storm) "calling" for it. And yet, the mythical context of sacrifice leaves no question as to a connection. When the creator-king Quetzalcoatl died, his heart was removed from him. The primeval "sacrifice," in the various traditions, occurred at a time of cosmic upheaval, of great wind and drought, of darkness, earthquake and flood, with the god's own heart--the smoking star--presiding over the regeneration of the world. Mythically speaking, the rites of sacrifice CAME INTO BEING through the critical events in the life, the death, and the transformation of the god-king. Why, then, did a drought or plague call forth a sacrifice? Because the sacrificial rites replayed, on a microcosmic scale, the overarching celestial drama, honoring the gods through remembrance, not just repeating the divine ordeal, but repeating the RESOLUTION. The followers of Quetzalcoatl, as noted by Carrasco, insisted that "all ceremonies and rites, building temples and altars...imitated the ways of that holy man." That is what the Aztecs meant by the repeated statement that Quetzalcoatl was the exemplary king, the model upon which kingship arose. And more than one sacrificial rite served to mirror essential episodes in the god's life and death. Citing a native informant, Duran summarizes a commemorative ritual involving a mock king, a captured enemy warrior chosen for his beauty and physical perfection and dressed in the attire of the founding king himself. For 40 days this human symbol of Quetzalcoatl was honored in feasts and celebration. "This living man was bought to represent the god for forty days, and he was served and revered as such," Duran writes. At the conclusion of his "reign," and with great ceremony, the assistants to the officiating priest laid the mock king on the sacrificial stone. Then the priest, with a crude stone knife, tore his heart from his body. Removal of the heart was, in fact, the most common form of human sacrifice throughout Mesoamerica, a recurring pattern recalling a celestial power's own "sacrifice" in the age of the gods. Interestingly, the officiating priests at the Templo Mayor bore the name quequetzalcoa, after Quetzalcoatl himself --suggesting that priest and sacrificial victim were, in their respective capacities, representing one and the same cosmic power. In the common pattern of the sacrifice, when the priest tore the heart from the victim, he raised it, still steaming, before the sun--the sacred "steam" of the removed heart offering a poignant reminder of the COMET-LIKE, smoking "heart" of the great god himself "The high priest then opened the chest and with amazing swiftness tore out the heart, ripping it out with his own hands. Thus steaming, the heart was lifted toward the sun, and the fumes were offered up to the sun." Or again, "they opened his chest and took out the heart, and holding it up, they presented it to the Sun until its steam had cooled." Then, as if to re-play the mythic flight of the heart-soul, the priest turned and flung the heart toward the image of the god. The "steam" of the removed heart thus stood in symbolic correspondence with the "plumes" of the transformed heart-soul as plumed star, and with the "smoke" of the heart-soul as smoking star. In illustrations of these events, we see the Aztec priest raising the removed heart of the victim, with the "steam" rising before the sun. But elsewhere it is rather the PLUMES that rise from the heart, while still other contexts involve a SMOKING HEART. In a widespread ritual counterpart to human sacrifice, the celebrants formed a model of the heart from copal or pom, a resin derived from the copal tree, and set it burning as incense. The dark smoke rising from the ritual "heart" thus provided a vivid reminder of Quetzalcoatl's burning heart-soul, the smoking star Venus, which we have recognized as the GREAT COMET. A conjunction of three symbols--steaming heart, plumed heart and smoking heart- meaningless in themselves, derives a self-evident and spectacular significance when referred to the celestial prototype, the ascending, comet-like heart-soul removed from the ancient sun god Quetzalcoatl. The relentless practice of human sacrifice in every well- documented Mesoamerican culture, a source of horror to the conquering Spaniards, can produce great ambivalence in the treatments by historians, archaeologists and ethnologists. But what is really missing is the sense of context. How did such a widespread practice come to rule an entire civilization? Seeing the role of collective apprehension will bring the dark and fearful motives into the light of day, for the ceaseless acts of "remembering" and bargaining with the gods do become intelligible when referred to a world-shattering catastrophe, symbolically recalled every time a priest raised the sacrificial knife. In sacrifice the practitioners remembered and "nourished" the gods, and the two aspects of the practice seemed to go hand in hand, fueled by the memory of the all-devouring, smoking star. Why were the Aztecs so "deeply concerned about where and when Venus might appear to reverse their fortunes" (Aveni's words)? Why was sacrifice so frequently regulated by the rising of Venus? Sahagun tells us that "Captives were slain when it emerged that it might be nourished. They sprinkled blood toward it, flipping the middle finger from the thumb, they cast the blood as an offering." Seen from one vantage point, there is only meaninglessness in these rampant practices, by which whole nations responded to uncertainties large and small. Seen from another, there is the long shadow of celestial terror, when planets moved out of control and affected the fate of mankind. -------------------------------- LIFE ON MARS (L.A. Times story). Thursday, October 9, 1997 Mars Keeps Looking More Like Earth Red Planet: Pathfinder adds weight to evidence of a warm, wet history capable of supporting life. By K.C. COLE, Times Science Writer So they waited to hear from the Pathfinder spacecraft‹ unable to send data from Mars for the last 10 days‹ scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported Wednesday that the Red Planet is not "just a big ball of rock" but has a clearly layered internal structure, much like the Earth. Meanwhile, the rover Sojourner waits silently at some unknown location on Mars for instructions from its mother ship. The layered structure, along with new close-ups of pebbled and pockmarked rocks, adds weight to previous evidence that ancient Mars was a warm, wet planet capable of supporting life. "This is the first evidence that Mars has a core, mantle and crust," said project scientist Matthew Golombek. At the same time, the pebble-encrusted rocks suggest that "water was stable on the surface. As you know, that is the one requirement for life," he said. Both findings imply that early Mars was hotter and more geologically active than previously thought. The presence of a distinct core--probably of iron, like the Earth's--was deduced from subtle changes in the planet's spin picked up by shifting radio signals beamed between Mars and Earth. The way the planet spins changes depending on how the mass inside is distributed--just as an ice skater spins slower with outstretched arms. The unseen internal structure also affects the turning of the planet around its axis, said JPL scientist William Folkner. Further measurements should reveal whether any part of the core is molten, like Earth's. Only a spinning liquid metal core, scientists believe, can churn up the electric currents necessary to produce global magnetic fields. Meanwhile, close-ups taken by the rover's stereo cameras before the communications breakdown show clear signs that some rocks are conglomerates of smaller pebbles, fused over time. The roundish shapes of the pebbles suggest that they were carried by flowing water for long periods, losing their rough edges along the way. Pockmarks, or "sockets," in the rocks appear to be holes where pebbles have been dislodged, said rover scientist Henry Moore of the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif. However, the "problem of the pebbles," as Moore called it, is far from solved. They could have been rounded during a flood, he said, or formed from melted glass thrown into the air during a fiery meteor impact, cooling into globules as they hit the ground. They could even be splatters from ancient volcanoes. "It's going to take a long time to figure out what we've seen," he said. "[But] I think we're looking at conglomerates." Another Martian mystery--concerning the possible presence of sand--is a clear source of disagreement between Moore and another Pathfinder scientist, Wes Ward of the Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz. Ward said Pathfinder had solved a puzzle left over from Viking missions 20 years ago. Viking orbiters saw clear signs of sand dunes, but once the mission's landers reached the surface, they found only floury dust, too fine to form dunes. However, when Sojourner scrambled over a hill and looked down into a valley, it saw details of dunes that looked much like sand dunes on Earth, with rising slopes on the windward side, a sharp crest and a steep slope on the trailing edge. These dunes are "markedly different" from those Viking saw, Ward said, and are clear evidence of sand. Moore, however, is not convinced that the dunes are made of sand and thinks they might consist of small clods of finer dust, or "virtual sand." The size of the grains is significant, because sand-size particles probably would have required water to break them down from rocks. Finer dust particles tend to be created by other chemical processes. Pathfinder also reported the first signs that fall is approaching on Mars, and dust storms are expected within the next few weeks. "It's starting to get cold," Golombek said. Since Pathfinder's spectacular parachute landing July 4, the spacecraft has long outlived what was supposed to be a one- week mission for the rover and one month's service for the lander. Now into its third month, the mission is switching gears to a completely solar-powered mode. It appears that a waning battery on the lander is behind the communications problems, according to acting flight director Jennifer Harris. However, engineers have not yet pinned down the difficulty. "We still do not know what situation we're in," Harris said. Just before Pathfinder stopped transmitting scientific data, Sojourner had left a cluster of stones called the "rock garden" to move to a large rock named Chimp, about 30 feet from the lander. The rover was programmed to head back for Pathfinder if it didn't hear any commands for six days. "It's not known where she [Sojourner] is right now," Moore said. "If she behaved herself, she would be back at the lander. . . . She's patiently waiting for Jennifer [Harris] and her crew to bring back the lander [into communication] so she can send back more information." Golombek expects that to happen soon. "[Pathfinder] is not dead in any way, shape or form," he said. "I hope to have this job for a year." * * * * * OF CORES AND SOCKETS Scientists from the Mars Pathfinder project said Wednesday that: * The Red Planet has a layered structure, much like Earth. * Close-up photos taken by the rover before a recent communications breakdown show signs that some Martian rocks consist of smaller pebbles cemented together over time. The pebbles' roundish shapes suggest that they were carried by flowing water, and pockmarks, or sockets, in the rocks appear to be places where pebbles were dislodged. * Subtle changes in spin were picked up by shifting radio signals between Mars and Earth. Source: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena. * * * * * New from Robert E. Dunlap on CD-ROM and Video "Dinosaur: The Arctic Expedition" * Four Part Video Series "Mass Extinctions" Visit URL (NOW With QT Movies) http://home.earthlink.net/~redprods http://www.redprods.com * * * * * MAGNETIC MARS Friday, October 3, 1997-- Spacecraft Finds a Magnetic Patchwork on Mars Space: Global Surveyor data--received six months early‹ surprise scientists, who had expected a weak but uniform field around the whole planet. By K.C. COLE, Times Science Writer Future Boy Scouts on Mars won't be able to use compasses to get around, because the magnetic field of Earth's sister planet swings wildly from one spot to the next as if the Red Planet were littered with small but extremely powerful magnets. The finding, announced Thursday at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, comes from the Mars Global Surveyor six months ahead of schedule, as the spacecraft coasts far out from the planet, slowly skidding into orbit on its solar-panel wings. Strong magnetic fields, which shield planets from intense space radiation, are essential to the evolution of life, according to some scientists. And because the concentrated magnetic splotches on Mars are 40 times stronger than similar areas on Earth, it is likely that Mars once had a substantial magnetic core. "They're surprisingly strong," said Jack Connerney, a magnetometer scientist with the NASA Goddard Space Center in Maryland. Planetary scientists had expected to find a magnetic field around Mars that was relatively uniform, similar to those encircling all the other planets except Venus, and weak. Mars is the only planet in the solar system with such a peculiar magnetic patchwork, Connerney said. Almost 70 miles above the Martian surface, Global Surveyor continues its long spiral toward the planet--and its eventual parking orbit--slowing down each time it dips into the atmosphere. Although the craft wasn't due to begin sending back scientific data until next year, it has already returned some "remarkable, interesting results," said project scientist Arden Albee, "just a foretaste of things to come." Foremost among these findings is the unusual magnetic character of the Red Planet. As Global Surveyor plowed through the layer of electrically charged particles surrounding Mars, electronic compasses on board recorded a sudden and surprising drop in magnetic field strength. "Mars no longer has a global magnetic field," Connerney concluded. While the magnetic fields surrounding other planets are generated by swirling electric currents deep within their cores, the pockets of magnetism on Mars appear to be entirely on the crust. Whatever planetwide field once encircled Mars "is gone but not forgotten," Connerney said. The patches are thought to be remnants of that ancient field, frozen into the rock as the planet cooled after a hotter, more turbulent past. "They are thumbprints of a now dead event," said JPL magnetometer scientist Daniel Winterhalt. "It's the first time we can say for sure that Mars once had a magnetic field. Now what's left are bar magnets scattered all over the surface." In some places, the field points straight up out of the planet; in other patches, straight down; in others, flat across the surface. As a result, a compass carried about on Mars would not point consistently in one direction, but swing completely around as one traveled across a patch, Connerney said. If geologists can piece together this patchwork, they should be able to reconstruct the geological history of Mars back to a time when the parched, airless planet was a lot more like Earth. And while the existence of a strong magnetic field on ancient Mars doesn't in itself mean life once existed there, the finding does make those speculations more plausible. The camera on Global Surveyor has sent back images of steep cliffs, rolling sand dunes, sharp ridges and what appear to be ancient, striated riverbeds. First tests of the laser altimeter--which measures ups and downs on the surface of the planet--revealed surprisingly flat plains, dropping off into canyons much smoother and at least three times steeper than the Grand Canyon. But even that is a small scale feature for Mars, which because of its weaker gravity has both higher mountains and deeper valleys than Earth. The large flat plains, however, were a surprise, said altimeter scientist David Smith of the Goddard Space Center. "We asked ourselves, 'Where on Earth do you find this flatness?' " The answer is either in a desert, like the Sahara, or on the ocean floor. Whether or not the flat surfaces on Mars were the bottoms of ancient seas will not be known for sure, however, until scientists piece together all the data gathered by Surveyor's six instruments over the next 2 1/2 years of its mission, Albee said. Infrared measurements have indicated that the planet's atmospheric temperatures can be extremely cold--about 150 degrees below zero Fahrenheit--and that the weather is clear, with no major dust storms on the horizon. That's good news for the spacecraft's flight directors: Dust warms the atmosphere, and a warm atmosphere rises like a cake, bringing denser air higher, where it can increase drag on the craft to dangerous levels. With its solar panels outspread like wings, Global Surveyor glides through the atmosphere, buffeted about like a light plane. The temperature measurements allow engineers to adjust the orbits so the craft brakes just enough to enter orbit in the right place at the right time. The purpose of the $250-million mission is to map the entire surface of the planet, pinpointing the distribution of minerals, ice and rocks, and analyzing the atmosphere and gravity field. Such a thorough assessment will help scout promising landing sites for future Mars missions. Surveyor carries many spare parts that had been built for its ill-fated predecessor, the nearly $1-billion Mars Observer, which was lost in space in 1993 as it prepared to enter Martian orbit. The only glitch thus far in the Surveyor mission is a solar panel's failure to completely unfold. The descent into the atmosphere over the last few weeks, however, has moved the panel into an almost flat position, Albee said. * * * * * [This makes the work of Wal look like deja vu! Robert Dunlap] ---------------------------------------------- SPECULATIONS ON MAR'S SPIN RATE I would like to clarify...... by saying that it is most likely, given the near equality of the spin rates of Earth and Mars, that both planets occupied Lagrange points of the same orbit around Saturn and therefore had exactly equal spin rates. Some moons of the outer planets do that today. We know, also from observation, that tidal forces are all that is needed to eventually cause phase lock resulting in the one face of a satellite to turn always to the primary. I would therefore argue that the Earth and Mars acquired their spins in normal orbits during the "Golden Age" of Saturn's dominance and doubt very much that any significant modification of spin rate took place during the polar alignment. It is difficult to imagine what kind of spin coupling would take place in such an environment. To call upon electromagnetic coupling to do the job of equalizing the spins of Earth and Mars during the polar alignment would be largely an exercise in hand-waving. It is a little more plausible to suggest that the strong electrical interactions between Mars and the practically static Venus slowed the much smaller Mars so that its day is now 24.6 hours instead of 24. Notice also that the extremely slow spin of Venus is a good argument for it being a new planet. It was not in orbit around Saturn long enough for it to achieve phase lock, despite it being much closer to Saturn than both the Earth and Mars. Based on Eric Crew's work, the ejection of a fraction of a gas giant's core to form a hierarchy of objects from planet size down to meteors and dust will take the form of a spray of material, like a hose being swung around. This would impart a slight retrograde spin to that material. This may explain Venus' anomalous slow retrograde spin. Wal Thornhill ---------------------------------------------- __ SPECULATIONS ON POLAR CONFIGURATION I may be corrected here but I have not considered the polar Configuration to have lasted for thousands of years but maybe only a few centuries. The confusion probably stems from the fact that we have not been presented with the very early recollections of the appearance of the sky. This is probably due, in part, to the speculative nature of some of that material. Without drawing much from that earlier material, my reasoning goes like this: Saturn seems to have wandered in the sky before assuming a fixed polar station. This could mean either that the pre-existing polar configuration was disturbed or that Saturn's satellites were dislodged from their phase locked Saturnian equatorial orbits by the increasing influence of the Sun (both gravitationally and electrically) and moved into the polar configuration. I think the second option is more likely because of the paired spin rates of Earth and Mars, and the slow, retrograde spin of Venus (see above). The polar configuration requires that the planetary spin axes maintain a fixed orientation in space because it is not clear how or what force could be applied to a planetary gyroscope to cause the axis to rotate to follow Saturn in its orbit around the Sun. Of course, it may be that the electrostatic theory of gravity can provide a dynamical solution without introducing catastrophic effects on the Earth. However, in the meantime, Bob Grubaugh's co-linear model neatly gets around this problem by having the Saturnian line-up of planets rotating retrogradely once for each "year" of the system. That way, the planetary axes remain fixed in space. This does however raise a question about the resultant changing appearance of Saturn's crescent. Now if Bob's model is correct and I am right in assuming the entry of the Saturnian system into the solar system, then the Saturnian "year" would have undergone a steady decrease as the Saturnian system spiraled in toward the Sun. I don't think either Bob or Robert Bass considered that possibility and the effects it would have on the stability of the system. At the least it would mean that Saturn would appear to wobble once more from the polar position. There is obviously plenty of work to be done in this area. For a start, I intend to ask my friend Eric Crew in England to run his electric circularization of orbits model for the capture of Saturn to see what kind of timescales we are talking about. I will also ask Ralph Sansbury if he can consider the Saturn polar configuration from an electrostatic gravity point of view to see what gyroscopic effects might be involved. I think the weight of evidence is in favor of the capture model. The flaring and ejection of matter by Saturn would follow as a natural consequence. The dropping off from Saturn's menagerie of Pluto and Charon and Neptune's retrograde moon, Triton, in much the same plane as Saturn's ecliptic, as that system spiraled past seems plausible. A more severe interaction with Uranus may have tipped it on its side. And the axial tilt of Earth and Mars preserves a fairly similar angle (around the 20 degree mark) as that of Triton's and Pluto's orbital plane, and Saturn's old ecliptic. I am considering here only the magnitudes of tilts since precession will cause their vectors to vary. Note also that the Sun's equator is tilted at 7 degrees to the ecliptic which suggests that all of its planets (except maybe Mercury) were captured at some time. Maybe Uranus and Neptune were an old binary pair? I should emphasize that capture is highly unlikely under old Newtonian mechanics but is highly probable under the new electrostatic theory of gravity and a plasma cosmology. To sum up, I think the golden age would have required a more quiescent environment than that offered by the spectacular and memorable polar configuration. In other words it occurred during the proposed earlier indefinite period of a phase-locked relationship with Saturn. 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 Pensee Journals may be ordered at theI-net address below: 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