mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== THOTH -A Catastrophics Newsletter- VOL I, No. 22 August 31, 1997 EDITOR: Michael Armstrong PUBLISHER: Brian Stewart CONTENTS: EDITORIAL.........................................Michael Armstrong VELIKOVSKY'S COMET VENUS(6)...........................David Talbott SCIENTISTS DISCOVER SOLAR JET STREAMS.....NASA Release REMARKS ON SOLAR JET STREAMS.......................Wal Thornhill ----------------------------------------------- Quote of the day: It seems clear.... that we are faced with deep and radical fragmentation, as well as thoroughgoing confusion, if we try to think of what could be the reality that is treated by our physical laws. At present physicists tend to avoid this issue by adopting the attitude that our overall views concerning the nature of reality are of little or no importance. All that counts in physical theory is supposed to be the development of mathematical equations that permit us to predict and control the behaviour of large statistical aggregates of particles. Such a goal is not regarded as merely for its pragmatic and technical utility: rather, it has become a presupposition of most work in modern physics that prediction and control of this kind is all that human knowledge is about. David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1980, P. xiii. ----------------------------------------------- EDITORIAL By Michael Armstrong (mikamar at e-z.net) MORE PHILOSOPHY CONCERNING TRUTH Why search for the truth if it isn't going to do you any good when you find it? Physical reality is dynamic, not static, and it is this dynamic essence that we experience and apprehend with our five senses. There is no experience of physical reality apart from some dynamic aspect, i.e., some movement or change, contrast, difference or discontinuity, or irreversibility. If there were only one color to physical reality, even the best conceivable eyes would see nothing. Or if there were only one changeless sound, even the best of ears would not hear anything. So is it also with the essence of spiritual or non-material realities. In order to understand the meaningful aspects of human experience and human nature it is necessary to see that which is the same and that which is different. As a functioning mechanical/biological system we can be compared to a computer -- we have Hardware (our biological body), Software (our psyche or soul, the composite of mind, instincts, propensities, aptitudes, etc.), and Input/Output (our ability to respond and communicate). This triune pattern seems to hold for Man's intellect, which under sound operation is rational, logical and reasonable. While being rational means being able to distinguish and apprehend the pertinent facts and information of a situation, being logical includes being rational and also means being able to see meaningful relationships between facts and information and to extrapolate to valid or correct conclusions. These two lower level intellectual capabilities are meaningless in and of themselves unless they form the foundation of what is ultimately meaningful, that which is being reasonable. This also includes but transcends being rational and logical by relating to and incorporating a defensible purpose and set of values which can be called human or humane. Being reasonable (ultimately meaning "correct") is so closely bound up with purpose that much of the time we use the word "reason" as a substitute for the word "purpose". Now, what is ultimately meaningful can ONLY be the search for truth. There is no other meaningful reason to study planetary history. But it is one thing to postulate the existence of truth; it is quite another to postulate a trustworthy way of accessing or apprehending that truth. How can we be assured that something is the truth? If the truth walked up to us and shook our hand, how would we recognize it? Truth without a way of accessing it will have no value. Truth without a TRUSTED way of accessing it will always remain tentative. Truth without an AGREED UPON means of accessing it will always leave one isolated: it will provide no basis for a common understanding of the world or our place in it. Many people have their sense of truth tethered to their culture, some to the majority, some to prior schooling, some to a set of "sacred writings", some to tradition, and some to "accredited" authorities. There is only one way to get past the resulting divisions in our collective perception of the world. And that is through a commitment to rational, logical, and reasonable inquiry, with nothing else standing between ourselves and the quest for truth. -------------------------------------- VELIKOVSKY'S COMET VENUS (6) By David Talbott (dtalbott at teleport.com) [EDITOR'S NOTE: This continues Talbott's series of articles on the myth of the comet Venus.] THE GREAT COMET AND THE DEATH OF KINGS We began this section with a note on the Aztec emperor Moctezuma's terror on the arrival of a comet. The focus of this fear is significant because it was shared by emperors and kings and tribal chiefs the world over. The comet means the death of great leaders. The idea appears to be as old as Babylonian astronomy, which associates a comet with the death of kings. The Roman poet Lucan offers a vivid description of cometary disaster, when the skies, "blazing fire," bring forth the "hair of the baleful star--the comet which portends changes to monarchs." So too did the Greek mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy connect the comet with the death of kings. The profound fears of royalty at the appearance of the comet continued well into the present era. The third century Christian theologian Origen cites the comet as heralding a change in dynasties. It was a common "belief that the comet of AD 336 had announced the death of the great emperor Constantine." In connection with the assassination of Julius Caesar, it was said, a comet had appeared in the sky. On learning of a comet Nero was seized with fear, and chroniclers assure us that a comet preceded the death of the Emperor Macrinus in A.D. 218, and of Attila in A.D. 451. According to Synesius, writing in the fourth century A.D., a comet means great disaster: "And whenever these comets appear, they are an evil portent, which the diviners and soothsayers appease. They assuredly foretell public disasters, enslavements of nations, desolations of cities, deaths of kings." The Frankish bishop and historian Gregory of Tours, writing in the sixth century, reports that the "flaming diadem" of a comet portends the death of kings. Geoffrey of Monmouth connected the death of Aurelius Ambrosius with the appearance of a spectacular comet whose political symbolism was said to have been explained by Merlin. Even the brilliant astronomer Tycho Brahe, several centuries later, was unable to free himself from the idea that the comet brought overwhelming pestilence, war, and the death of kings. When Halley's Comet appeared in April 1066, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gave this report: ...In this year King Harald came from York to Westminster at Easter, which was after the mid winter in which the king (Edward the Confessor) died. Then was seen over all England such a sign in the heaven as no man ever before saw; some say it was the star Cometa. Among the ancient Germanic peoples, according to Grimm, the belief persisted that a comet's "appearance betokens events fraught with peril, especially the death of a king." The memory of the comet is well preserved in the song of German schoolchildren in the time of Martin Luther-- [These] things a comet brings ... Storm, plague, famine, death of kings, War, earthquake, flood, and upheaval. A drawing of a comet in the Chinese cometary atlas from the tomb at Mawangdui is accompanied by the simple statement: "There will be deaths of kings." The Chinese Record of the World Changes, by Li Ch'un Feng, (602-667 AD) warns of dire consequences: "When a comet travels into the Constellation Taurus... within three years the emperor dies and the country is in chaos." So, too, do the Luba of Africa say that comet means the death of a leader. And in the same way, natives of the Polynesian Islands, claimed that a comet signified the death of a chief. Here, then, is the universal mythical context in which we must understand Moctezuma's fears. In the global tradition it is as if the comet bore particularly ominous news for heads of state, and the Aztec world view was no exception. Aveni, noting the intense interest in cometary phenomena among Mesoamerican peoples, tells us that illustrations of comets are frequently accompanied by interpretations of these portents: "These usually signify that a person of nobility will die." The paradox is accented in Shakespeare's famous lines-- When beggars die there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes. Of course kings knew very well the special perils of comets. When a comet in 837 drew the attention of King Louis the Pious of France, "The king went into a veritable orgy of prayers and devotions, ordering churches and shrines built to appease the imagined wrath of God." The Carthaginian general Hannibal in 184 B.C. was warned that a "recently- discovered comet meant he would die soon." He answered the comet by committing suicide. Is there something to be explained in the comets threat to kings? When Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan encountered the "death of kings" idea, they offered the usual explanation, calling such ideas "the triumph of superstition" and assuming the fear arose from the random coincidence of certain kings dying at the time comets appeared. Velikovsky's critic Bob Forrest was even less impressed with the strange idea. While noting that the death of kings is "perhaps the commonest" theme of all, he adds-- Certainly I see no pressing need to postulate cometary "collisions" on the basis of the "evil" reputation of comets any more than I need to invoke cometary/planetary exhalations to explain good wine years. But again the critic has drawn his conclusion prematurely, and we are left only with what amounts to a guess as to whether there is a connection with planetary upheaval. What happens, on the other hand, if instead of setting the fragments aside once gathered, we look for connecting links? In summarizing the curious theme of the comet and the death of kings, Mary Proctor adds a telling observation. The comet of A.D. 451 or A.D. 453 announced the death of Attila, and the comet of A.D. 455 that of the Emperor Valentinian. So widely spread was the belief in the connection between the death of the great and those menacing signs in the heavens that the chroniclers of old appear to have recorded comets which were never seen, such as the comet of A.D. 814, which was supposed to have presaged the death of Charlemagne. The note concerning the death of Charlemagne is significant. Can one really believe that localized, random, and disconnected events caused the same theme to arise on every continent--and with such oppressive influence that a comet would be invented when the expected visitor failed to materialize at the death of a powerful ruler? According to Peter Lancaster Brown, "Every bright comet which appeared during the medieval period, the Middle Ages, and even the Renaissance had itself affixed to the death or misfortune of a prominent historical figure. These beliefs were so widespread that (according to Pingre) the chronicles recorded in good faith comets which were never actually seen." This suggests that the death of kings motif, rather than reflecting random local events, conditioned man's perception of local events for century upon century. For those familiar with the way core mythical ideas work their way down through history, this is a key indicator of a very ancient and well-rooted idea. The chroniclers would happily re-write history to bring it into accord with the great mythical traditions of kingship and the gods. To the modern reader it may appear as if the ideas dropped randomly out of the sky, but a closer look will eliminate that impression completely. The patterns are the key. One fascinating idea about comets, for example, provides a unifying thread, while directing our attention to earlier mythical sources. A comet was frequently claimed to be the soul of a great ruler rising in the sky (certainly a good reason for loyalists to find a comet on the death of a ruler, even if the sky is not cooperating). Consider the famous case of Julius Caesar. On the death of that ruler, according to the Latin poet Ovid and others, a great cometary spectacle occurred in the sky, as Caesar's soul itself rose as a comet. And from Ovid's reverent description it seems that it could not have been otherwise for a leader of such stature. Clearly, the mythically-rooted story--celebrating the cometary "soul" of a great leader--preceded Ovid's poetic license! Aristotle, not given to celebrate the mythical tradition, tells us that the Greek philosopher Democritus held that comets were the souls of men of renown. Among the Polynesian Islanders, according to Williams, a comet did not just signify the death of a king, a comet meant the flight of the soul. Similarly, the eminent student of comparative myth and religion, James Frazer, produced extensive proof that "a widespread superstition...associates meteors or falling stars with the souls of the dead. Often they are believed to be the spirits of the departed on their way to the other world." With respect to the departing cometary soul of Caesar, which I shall take up in a summary of the Greek and Roman material, I cannot resist passing on to the reader one fascinating detail. When Robert Schilling, perhaps the world's leading authority on the Latin goddess Venus, gathered the references to Caesar's apotheosis, he noticed a curious blend of two ideas: one that the soul rose as a comet, the other that the soul rose as the planet Venus. And the two ideas were actually joined as one, for the poet Ovid describes the soul as a flaming comet CARRIED ALOFT BY VENUS. In more than one instance the soul itself is celebrated as Venus. A curiosity indeed. "What general conspiracy," Schilling asks, "seems to have tacitly excluded the comet to the profit of the star [Venus]?" That the specialist did not discern the connection to a larger pattern (Venus = comet in a global tradition) is why the comparative study is so crucial. SOUL OF THE CREATOR-KING We are thus brought back to Moctezuma's terror. One "explanation" for his fear of the comet asks unidentified local experiences to account for it and asks coincidence to account for parallel comet fears around the world. But another explanation is possible, in terms of an ancient story known to every native of Mexico and reflected in the most powerful cosmic images of Aztec culture. I refer to the myth of Quetzalcoatl, whose soul rose as the comet-like Venus. If Quetzalcoatl's departing heart-soul provided a prototype of the comet myth, we do not need to look further for an explanation of the comet's relation to the "death of kings" . In this case, the relationship is self-evident: the comet means the death of the king because tradition proclaimed that on the death of GREAT KING (the god remembered as the PROTOTYPE of kings) his soul departed from him in a cosmic disaster. And the comet brings the end of the world because, in the death of the god-king and the departure of his heart-soul as a comet, a former world age ended catastrophically. Having raised the question rhetorically, I do not expect the critic to accept the suggested explanation of comet symbolism apart from the complete presentation of evidence in this series. Nevertheless, for the sake of saving time, it may be helpful to give the gist of the idea I intend to develop and substantiate with each future installment-- Within human memory extraordinary changes have occurred in the solar system. Planets now remote from the Earth once moved in much, much closer proximity to our planet, appearing as gigantic powers looming over man. Hence, we cannot understand the mythical age of the gods without confronting the "gods" as visible forms in the sky, forms that are no longer present. In all mythical systems the gods rule for a time, then depart amid celestial upheaval. Mythically, there was once a founding king, a celestial model of the good king. But neither this charismatic figure, nor his celestial progeny will answer to familiar references in a now-settled sky. Nor will the mythical powers of darkness, in their monstrous dress, find any explanation in our experienced world. Inherent in the myths of the gods is the collective human experience of extraordinary trauma. An idyllic world, a paradisal condition, a Golden Age ruled by a former "great king" (the CREATOR-king, the Universal Monarch), came crashing down in a world-ending disaster: wars of the gods, earthquake, famine, wind and flood, the arrival of universal night. Of this world-ending catastrophe the Great Comet Venus--the departing heart-soul of the creator-king--was remembered as both symbol and agent. ----------------------------------------------- Donald Savage Headquarters, Washington, DC August 28, 1997 (Phone: 202/358-1547) Bill Steigerwald Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD (Phone: 301/286-8955) RELEASE: 97-184 SCIENTISTS DISCOVER MASSIVE JET STREAMS FLOWING INSIDE THE SUN Scientists using the joint European Space Agency (ESA)/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft have discovered "jet streams" or "rivers" of hot, electrically charged gas called plasma flowing beneath the surface of the Sun. They also found features similar to trade winds that transport gas beneath the Sun's fiery surface. These new findings will help them understand the famous sunspot cycle and associated increases in solar activity that can affect the Earth with power and communications disruptions. The observations are the latest made by the Solar Oscillations Investigation (SOI) group at Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, and they build on discoveries by the SOHO science team over the past year. "We have detected motion similar to the weather patterns in the Earth's atmosphere," said Dr. Jesper Schou of Stanford. "Moreover, in what is a completely new discovery, we have found a jet-like flow near the poles. This flow is totally inside the Sun. It is completely unexpected, and cannot be seen at the surface." "These polar streams are on a small scale, compared to the whole Sun, but they are still immense compared to atmospheric jet streams on the Earth," added Dr. Philip Scherrer, the SOI principal investigator at Stanford. "Ringing the Sun at about 75 degrees latitude, they consist of flattened oval regions about 17,000 miles across where material moves about 10 percent (about 80 mph) faster than its surroundings. Although these are the smallest structures yet observed inside the Sun, each is still large enough to engulf two Earths." Additionally, there are features similar to the Earth's trade winds on the surface of the Sun. The Sun rotates much faster at the equator than at the poles. However, Stanford researchers Schou and Dr. Alexander G. Kosovichev have found that there are belts in the northern and southern hemispheres where currents flow at different speeds relative to each other. Six of these gaseous bands move slightly faster than the material surrounding them. The solar belts are more than 40 thousand miles across and they contain "winds" that move about ten miles per hour relative to their surroundings. The first evidence of these belts was found more than a decade ago by Dr. Robert Howard of the Mount Wilson Observatory. The Stanford researchers have now shown that, rather than being superficial surface motion, the belts extend down to a depth of at least 12,000 miles below the Sun's surface. "In one way, the Sun's zonal belts behave more like the colorful banding found on Jupiter than the region of tradewinds on the Earth," said Stanford's Dr. Craig DeForest. "Somewhat like stripes on a barber pole, they start in the mid-latitudes and gradually move toward the equator during the eleven-year solar cycle. They also appear to have a relationship to sunspot formation as sunspots tend to form at the edges of these zones. "We speculate that the differences in speed of the plasma at the edge of these bands may be connected with the generation of the solar magnetic cycle which, in turn, generates periodic increases in solar activity, but we'll need more observations to see if this is correct," said DeForest. Finally, the solar physicists have determined that the entire outer layer of the Sun, to a depth of at least 15,000 miles, is slowly but steadily flowing from the equator to the poles. The polar flow rate is relatively slow, about 50 miles per hour, compared to its rotation speed, about 4,000 miles per hour; however, this is fast enough to transport an object from the equator to the pole in a bit more than a year. "Oddly enough, the polar flow moves in the opposite direction from that of the sunspots and the zonal belts, which are moving from higher to lower latitudes," said DeForest. Evidence for polar flow previously had been observed at the Sun's surface, but scientists did not know how deep the motion extended. With a volume equal to about 4 percent of the total Sun, this feature probably has an important impact on the Sun's activity, argue Stanford researchers Scherrer, with Dr. Thomas L. Duvall Jr., Dr. Richard S. Bogart, and graduate student Peter M. Giles. For the last year, the SOHO spacecraft has been aiming its battery of 12 scientific instruments at the Sun from a position 930,000 miles sunward from the Earth. The Stanford research team has been viewing the Sun's surface with one of these instruments called a Michelson Doppler Imager that can measure the vertical motion of the Sun's surface at one million different points once per minute. The measurements show the effects of sound waves that permeate the interior. The researchers then apply techniques similar to Earth-based seismology and computer-aided tomography to infer and map the flow patterns and temperature beneath the Sun's roiling surface. "These techniques allow us to peer inside the Sun using sound waves, much like a doctor can look inside a pregnant woman with a sonogram," said Dr. Schou. Currently, the Stanford scientists have both identified new structures in the interior of the Sun and clarified the form of previously discovered ones. Understanding their relationship to solar activity will require more observations and time for analysis. "At this point, we do not know whether the plasma streams snake around like the jet stream on Earth, or whether it is a less dynamic feature," said Dr. Douglas Gough, of Cambridge University, UK. "It is intriguing to speculate that these streams may affect solar weather like the terrestrial jetstream impacts weather patterns on Earth, but this is completely unclear right now. The same speculation may apply to the other flows we've observed, or they may act in concert. It will be especially helpful to make observations as the Sun enters its next active cycle, expected to peak around the year 2001." - end - Images to support this story can be found at the following Internet address: http://pao.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/newsroom/flash/flash.htm ---------------------------------------------- REMARKS ON SOLAR JET STREAM WEATHER By Wal Thornhill (walt at netinfo.com.au) I've downloaded the images and text [of the above article] to find that it offers startling confirmation of the "Electric Universe" model, which sees the Sun being powered externally by plasma currents from the galaxy. Few, if any of the features on the Sun have any right being there if it is purely an isolated nuclear source of energy. For example, if the Sun is an isolated body in space radiating away its internal energy, then it should have no "weather". If the solar wind is carrying energy away from the Sun, slowing it down, then it's equator should be spinning more slowly than the higher latitudes, not faster. But if the Sun is being powered externally, like an electric motor, the equatorial plasma will be driven to rotate faster creating complex electromagnetic interactions in the conductive plasma of the Sun, interpreted in the attached article as "weather". Of particular note is the reference to the similarity of the solar jet streams to the banding on Jupiter. As I have written many times over recent years, I believe Jupiter's "weather" is largely driven externally by some of the electrical energy intercepted from the galactic plasma circuit centered on the Sun. Since the mechanism is the same in both cases, the discovery is not surprising. The fact that planetary winds are more ferocious the farther away from the Sun, may be explained also by electrical energy input. That the Earth participates in this electrical circuit, in its own small way, is shown by the direct correlation between earthly thunderstorm activity and the sunspot cycle. The Great Red Spot (GRS) and white spots on Jupiter may have something in common with sunspots. All are probably the point of connection of a Birkeland current rope from the plasmoid surrounding the planet/sun. The strong vertical magnetic field in sunspots suggests this is so in their case. (Birkeland currents flow along magnetic field lines in a force-free fashion). The long-lived GRS on Jupiter may be associated with some underlying electrical inhomogeneity in the planet resulting from the catastrophic breakup of the Saturnian system. The many reports of Jovian thunderbolts attest to the probability that the giant planet may bear hidden electrical scars. Of course, the standard picture of the structure of Jupiter does not allow for a solid surface under the clouds to bear scars. But it must be remembered that the Electrical Universe requires a completely new estimation of what a "gas giant" really is. Calculations of both the density, composition and the internal heat budget will need to be reassessed, with the good possibility that there is a solid surface under the clouds. If so, it would allow for the simplest electrical inhomogeneity -- a high point on the solid surface to act as a giant lightning conductor. It was actually calculated back in 1982 that a mountain only a few thousand feet high on Jupiter could create an effect like the GRS in Jupiter's atmosphere. There will be no understanding of the sunspot cycle until the true first cause of solar dynamics is recognized. I have theorized that it is caused by the passage of the Sun across giant Birkeland current filaments in the tenuous plasma of interstellar space, flowing along the galactic arm. That such currents exist is shown by the spiral magnetic fields wrapped around our arm of the Milky Way. It explains at once the variability of the cycle and the solar field reversal during each cycle. ---------------------------------------------- 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. BACK ISSUES OF THOTH 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. ELECTRONIC DISCUSSION GROUP: FREE 30-DAY TRIAL You are invited to participate in a vigorous electronic discussion of planetary catastrophe, with regular contributions from the leading proponents of the Saturn theory and the electrical solar system. Normal subscription to the list is $30 for six months. To receive a 30-day "pass" at no cost, simply email kronia at teleport.com with the message, "Requesting trial subscription to Kronia List." Michael Armstrong Mikamar Publishing mikamar at e-z.net