THOTH -A Catastrophics Newsletter- VOL II, No. 11 June 30, 1998 EDITOR: Amy Acheson PUBLISHER: Michael Armstrong LIST MANAGER: Brian Stewart CONTENTS ASTRONOMY AS ART . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amy Acheson NOTES ON THE COMPARATIVE METHOD . . . . . . . . . Ev Cochrane VENUS AS THE DOVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Robert Lugibihl Comments by Dwardu Cardona CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wal Thornhill ---------------------------------------------- ASTRONOMY AS ART By Amy Acheson Ptolemy's mathematical epicycles were an effort to explain the celestial order as he saw it in terms of the "divine perfect circles" of his mythical/religious heritage. Copernicus' new viewpoint was based on the same assumption that there is something sacred about "celestial spheres". He tossed out Ptolemy's math and painted a new picture using a concept he imagined would replace the cumbersome epicycles with perfectly circular orbits. See? If you put the Sun here, at the center, the planets fall into order according to the lengths of their periods. The Earth naturally fits between Venus and Mars, because its year is longer than Venus' cycle and shorter than Mars'. In addition, putting it there neatly explains the difference between the behavior of the inner planets, which never reach the zenith, and the outer ones, which do. The math came later. It actually eliminated the perfect circles Copernicus hoped to find. A similar process is happening with the electric universe/Saturn model. At this stage, much of it is visual, an artists' rendition that precedes the mathematical development. See? If you think of the galaxy as an electrical circuit, the images fall into place: they're echoed on every scale, from lightning scars on Earth to arachnoid webs on Venus to the icy patchwork of Europa. The phenomena found in plasma labs provide a visual connection between comet tails, coronal mass ejections, machined craters, planetary nebulae, and galactic jets. In the behavior of the comet Shoemaker-Levi-9 you can see a mini-version of the polar configuration and its break-up. The math is in progress. If history can be used to predict the future, I expect that the math will confirm some aspects of this interpretation, contradict some, and provide a foundation, an easel, for the creativity of future artists. As an added bonus, the tremendous scale of this model includes uncovering the source of both Ptolemy's and Copernicus' "celestial circles": the mythical vision of Saturn's reign over the beginnings of human civilization. Amy Acheson thoth at whidbey.com ---------------------------------------------- NOTES ON THE COMPARATIVE METHOD By Ev Cochrane The science of mythology, as I've come to practice it, has three primary components, each entirely dependent upon the comparative method: (1) the demonstration of parallels between the myths and mythical characters of different cultures; (2) the identification of various mythical characters with the respective planetary bodies (or in some cases, as in that of the Babylonian Sin, with some property of this or that planet); and (3) a reconstruction of the celestial scenario behind the respective myths-specifically, an analysis of the unique behavior or visual phenomena associated with the planets which gave rise to the particular myths/characters in question. Although each of the three components should be considered necessary steps in a comprehensive analysis of myth, it is also true that each of the various stages of analysis may stand on their own. For example, our documentation of the numerous parallels which exist between Heracles, Nergal, and Indra remains valid whether or not one accepts our identification of these particular figures with the planet Mars. Similarly, even if one grants the possibility that Heracles and Indra are mythical twins, each modeled upon the planet Mars, it is always possible that some other explanation besides that of the polar configuration can be found to explain the red planet's peculiar mythical prominence (that of Velikovsky or de Santillana and von Dechend, for example). Although a satisfactory analysis of a particular myth necessarily involves completion of each of these three steps, in actual practice-as in psychoanalysis-one rarely achieves a complete or perfect analysis. As with all historical reconstructions, there are always pieces of the puzzle which remain elusive. There are several reasons for this situation, including the fragmentary nature of the myths themselves; the intrusion of foreign elements into a cult resulting in a modification or confusion of the original myth; problems caused by the faulty transmission and/or translation of a particular myth; gaps in our knowledge regarding the chronology of the events surrounding the formation, evolution, and eventual dissolution of the polar configuration, etc. Fortunately, most of these difficulties can be factored into the methodological equation or overcome/compensated for by the comparative method. For example, the fragmentary nature of the cult of Latin goddess Venus can be compensated for by comparative analysis of the extensive materials provided by the cult of Inanna. The possibility of foreign influence on the Latin cult of Mars, likewise, can be controlled to some extent by comparison with the cults of Babylonian Nergal and Aztec Tezcatlipoca. In actual practice one also finds that there is frequently a discrepancy in the degree of resolution of the respective steps of analysis. Typically step three lags far behind the other two steps as the details and chronology of the formation, evolution, and eventual dissolution of the polar configuration continue to be worked out. In a relatively new field of science this is only to be expected. Comparative mythology, in addition to being the proper starting point of any successful exegesis of myth, is also the most crucial step in the analytic process. It must always take precedence over actual planetary identifications, whether anciently attested or not. Planetary identification, although relatively reliable in the hands of an expert, remains a tricky business in light of the contradictory testimony of the ancients themselves. Not only are the planetary identifications necessarily later than the myths themselves, many cultures never attained proficiency in astronomy and thus their statements-frequently made to modern-day anthropologists and folklorists themselves ignorant of astronomy and the comparative method-can often be misleading. Nor are the most ancient astronomies always to be trusted. Even at the outset of formal astronomy, as it is represented in ancient Babylon, for example, one finds an entirely artificial system whereby various gods are identified with this or that planet or constellation. It would be methodologically unsound to accept these statements at face value. Only by comparing the Babylonian identifications with those from cultures free of its sphere of influence, such as Mesoamerica, is it possible to arrive at reliable equations. A corollary to the first rule: One should never attempt to construct a theory on the basis of a planetary identification. Rather, a planetary identification should only be attempted upon concluding a thorough and detailed comparative analysis of a particular myth, hero, or god. This would appear to be an ironclad rule of mythological exegesis. ---------------------------------------------- VENUS AS THE DOVE By Robert Lugibihl Thinking about the following passages with the idea of the dove symbolizing Venus, they take on a whole new perspective. . . (D)oesn't Noah himself symbolize Saturn? If so, the line "he put forth his hand, and took her [the dove/Venus], and pulled her in unto him into the ark" is particularly interesting. And when the dove/Venus "returned not again unto him any more", it was then safe to venture out into the world again. "Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; "But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. "And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; "And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. "And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more." ...................................................................... Comments by DWARDU CARDONA: Precisely. Venus left the ark (the Saturnian crescent) and descended toward Earth, then returned to the ark (the crescent) but, again, left and careened away on its own to cause a series of calamities before slowly moving on to its present orbit. Now, the above mini-scenario is NOT - repeat, NOT - based on the Noah story. It is actually based on a multitude of other records. BUT - and this is the beauty of the entire thing - it DOES fit the Noah story. The unfolding of the event, of course, and as always, is a little bit more complex than the above thumbnail bio. Dwardu ---------------------------------------------- CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS By Wal Thornhill Ed note: For an example, see: http://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/comets/C2_eruptive.jpg The following news item was sent to me by an astronomer friend. As I have mentioned before, one of the features of a powerful electrical discharge is its ability to accelerate matter from regions of high pressure to regions of low pressure. (Eric Crew, FRAS, some years ago proposed that the large chunks of ice that fall to Earth during a particularly violent electrical storm are a result of moist air from the troposphere being shot into the stratosphere as a jet. The material at the front of the jet freezes and slows allowing the vapour behind it to pile into it and build a sizable chunk of ice which then crashes back to Earth). What has this to do with the Sun coughing? Well, it seems to me that the Sun has a plasma doughnut, or plasmoid, surrounding it just as most of the planets do. Some decades ago, an experiment was performed with a magnetized, conducting sphere placed in a metal vacuum chamber with viewing portholes. The sphere, insulated from the chamber and connected to a high voltage source was found to form a stable plasma doughnut around its equator. Interestingly, the plasmoid discharged to the sphere at intervals. It appears plausible that this is the mechanism behind the Sun's cough, or Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). The powerful solar discharge lofts matter from the lower corona out to where it is picked up at 6 solar radii and accelerated by the solar electric field. The laboratory plasmoid also exhibited multiple strikes after the stored energy built to some critical breakdown level. This too is observed with CME's. I quote from the article by Quinn & Fiorito in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 72, No. 5, March 1, 1967, pp. 1611-1630; "The arcs themselves fall into two categories. The first type, which appeared to be the most violent and rapid, is a bright white arc usually found between ±70° latitude, lasting the order of hundreds of milliseconds and following a magnetic field line. The point of precipitation may be in either hemisphere or both for any given arc." In this context, note well the paragraph just before "the Solar Wind". Wal Thornhill ............................................................... Royal Astronomical Society Press Notices Date: 27 March 1998 A NEW VIEW OF MASS EJECTIONS: WATCHING THE SUN COUGH It seems that the behavior of the Sun in some ways resembles that of humans with a dry throat: the first spasm leads to a further series of coughs in a kind of chain reaction. In the case of the Sun, huge clouds of hot gas are ejected during each spasm in the form of Coronal Mass Ejections. This, and other new results from the LASCO (Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph) instrument on board the European Space Agency/NASA spacecraft SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory), will be presented at the UK National Astronomy Meeting at the University of St Andrews by Dr Mark Lyons from the University of Birmingham. What Are CMEs? Astronomers have known since the early 1970s that Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are regularly thrown out into space by the Sun. These huge clouds of gas consist of electrically charged particles (protons and electrons) and have a typical mass of hundreds of millions of tonnes. In some cases they are directed towards the Earth and they travel so rapidly that they usually cross the 150 million km gap within three days of their launch from the Sun. Scientists would very much like to be able to forecast these events since, on arrival, they interact with the Earth's magnetic field, producing geomagnetic disturbances which can disrupt electricity supplies and cause damage to satellites. In addition, understanding how CMEs are produced is crucial to understanding the overall workings of the Sun. They are a dominant feature of the solar corona (the white halo seen around the Sun during solar eclipses) and may play a major role in the behavior of the solar magnetic field. LASCO The latest tool being used to advance the research into CMEs is the LASCO instrument carried on board the SOHO satellite. LASCO is a joint project between the University of Birmingham, the Naval Research Laboratory (Washington DC), the Max-Planck-Institut fur Aeronomie (Germany) and the Laboratoire d'Astronomie Spatiale (France). It consists of three telescopes (known as coronagraphs) which are capable of blocking out the bright disk of the Sun and allowing the fainter light from the corona to be observed. Combined, the three coronagraphs of LASCO give images of the solar corona from 1.1 to 30 solar radii (from just above the visible surface to a distance of about 20 million km from the Sun). This wide angle view and its high sensitivity give LASCO a tremendous advantage over previous instruments. In general, a CME is thought to occur when closed magnetic configurations in the solar corona are destabilised by some trigger. This destabilisation then leads to the expulsion of matter from the solar atmosphere. The latest research at Birmingham is revealing that the entire Sun can be affected by CMEs. This is displayed most strikingly by events observed by LASCO where an initial mass ejection is closely followed by a series of others. In some cases CMEs occur at widely separated points almost simultaneously. For the first time LASCO is showing us that the corona behaves as a single unit, capable of storing large amounts of magnetic energy which can be released from more than one point by some initial triggering mechanism. Further evidence for a global reaction of the corona was provided by an event observed on the 23rd February 1997. LASCO C1 images (covering a region from 1.1 to 3 solar radii) showed the expansion of a CME in the lower corona moving with a speed of 880 km/s from the north-east limb of the Sun. This quickly destabilised a sequence of much larger magnetic loop structures to the south which then became the dominant feature of the CME. This sequence of events implies that a higher magnetic loop system spans the solar equator to physically connect regions in opposite hemispheres. The Solar Wind For a long time the Sun has been known to produce a 'wind' of charged particles. Mass ejections from the Sun are known to contribute a significant fraction of the total material of solar wind. LASCO observations are now providing new information about the flow of the solar wind nearer to solar surface where its properties have not been closely studied. A study of CME events carried out by Professor George Simnett at Birmingham University has shown that they begin to undergo an acceleration at a distance of about 6 solar radii. So the LASCO observations indicate that this is probably where the solar wind begins. More information about the LASCO research carried out by the solar group at the University of Birmingham and about the SOHO project, including images of CMEs, can be found on the following Web sites. * http://www/research/solar.html * http://lasco-www.nrl.navy.mil/lasco.html ---------------------------------------------- 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.