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. 23 August 17, 1997 EDITOR: Michael Armstrong PUBLISHER: Brian Stewart CONTENTS: ANNOUNCEMENTS.................................Kronia Communications VELIKOVSKY'S COMET VENUS(7)...........................David Talbott HUBBLE FINDS A BARE BLACK HOLE POURING OUT LIGHT Space Telescope Science Institute Release COMMENTS ON BLACK HOLES...............................Wal Thornhill "WHAT CANNOT BE SAID IN SCIENCE," From the journal Nature, with comments by Wal Thornhill ----------------------------------------------- Quote of the day: The original emergence of life and consciousness in the universe is.... attributed to chance in modern cosmology. When scholastic theology encountered inexplicable elements of reality, it frequently deemed them mysteries. When science encounters such elements, it now tends to regard them as random chance events. B. Alan Wallace, "Choosing Reality" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- € ANNOUNCEMENTS € ANNOUNCEMENTS € ANNOUNCEMENTS € ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ELECTRONIC DISCUSSION GROUP: 30-DAY FREE TRIAL A vigorous list-serve is sponsored by Kronia Communications, with numerous postings from key contributors involved with research periodically summarized in our THOTH newsletter. This includes David Talbott and Wal Thornhill, fellow researchers such as Ev Cochrane and Dwardu Cardona, and a group of explorers eager to learn more about the new science of Catastrophics. We are offering a 30-day trial subscription to the discussion group at no cost and no obligation. (Normal fee is $30 for a six-month subscription to the list.) To accept this offer write to: kronia at teleport.com The simple message, "I accept the 30-day free trial" will be sufficient. Please allow 48 hours for the trial subscription to be activated. POSTAL MAILING LIST To retain the "non-commercial" emphasis of this newsletter, Kronia Communications has developed a postal mailing program for disseminating general information on available materials--the journal AEON, video and cable program information, workshop and world conference announcements, and other significant items of interest. To be included on this mailing list, email to Kronia at the location above, giving your full name and address. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- VELIKOVSKY'S COMET VENUS (7) By David Talbott (dtalbott at teleport.com) [EDITOR'S NOTE: This continues Talbott's series of articles on the myth of the comet Venus.] QUETZALCOATL AND THE FEARS OF KINGS The apprehension of Moctezuma, mentioned in our previous submission, can be illuminated by a sweeping mythical tradition concerning the life and death of Quetzalcoatl, the celestial prototype of kings. Quetzalcoatl was called the "sun," but the mythical and ritual sources remind us that this does not mean the light we call Sun today. The most revered figure of Mexican myth, Quetzalcoatl ruled for a time, then disembarked for other realms. As the great "teacher," the exemplary ruler, his life and death defined the duties and expectations of kings. But as we will see, it also substantiated a pervasive fear, and this fear always rose to the surface on the appearance of a COMET. Moctezuma's fear of the comet, the fear of the neighboring king of Texcoco, and the fear of every emperor when a comet appeared must be understood in terms of a cosmic crisis at the center not just of the Quetzalcoatl myth but of a universal tradition. When the celestial king or prototype of kings died or departed, a world cycle ended catastrophically--AND THE "GREAT COMET" WAS SEEN RAGING IN THE SKY. To amplify this crucial point: it was not just the myth of Quetzalcoatl that reminded rulers of their tenuous hold on the kingdom and on life itself. Such is the message of universal myth, which affirms two intimately connected principles-- 1) AS ABOVE, SO BELOW. This theme couldn't be more clearly stated throughout Mesoamerica: the terrestrial king lives in the shadow of the former celestial king, the Great Example for later kings. The death of Quetzalcoatl and the collapse of his kingdom (or world age) contained signposts and warnings which no terrestrial king could ignore. 2) AS BEFORE, SO AGAIN. This is the key to all mythically-rooted fear. What happened before will happen in the future. Quite apart from their interesting mathematics, for example, the mythical context of the Mesoamerican calendar system was the periodic cataclysm. But that deeply-embedded fear reached far beyond the calendar and into every expression of culture from war, to sacrifice, to such seemingly mundane practices as ritual sweeping. The collective goal was to reckon with divine caprice, to bargain for a new lease on life, to avoid the recurring disaster. Though Immanuel Velikovsky did not give substantial attention to the myth of Quetzalcoatl, he did observe the relationship to Venus, and the catastrophic nature of the god's death and transformation. To which Bob Forrest replied with considerable skepticism, claiming that in the life and death of Quetzalcoatl he found-- ...no reference to the planets in a Velikovskian sense. True, Quetzalcoatl...was symbolically related to the Morning Star, but this is a far cry from being told that the planet Venus brought about the End of the World with a cosmic hurricane! Quetzalcoatl is here a Great Teacher, rather than a rampant super-comet." Notice the critic's reasoning: if Quetzalcoatl was a "great teacher," his story could not involve an account of Velikovsky's comet Venus. It seems that Forrest could not imagine a celestial form filling the role of exemplary model in the myths, nor could he imagine the "death" of this charismatic personality in terms of a sweeping natural catastrophe. But this is precisely where comparative study becomes so essential. Had he known that virtually all of the celestial, "founding kings" of myth suffer some variation on the fate of Quetzalcoatl, he might have noticed as well a recurring corollary: the god-king's "heart-soul"--the planet Venus--departs to join in a celestial conflagration. (On such a grand claim as this, I can only ask the reader's indulgence as the evidence unfolds.) Forrest's concluding exclamation mark only emphasizes the gap that separates conventional students of myth from the world of the earliest skywatchers. Coherent motives disappear before the eyes of the researcher, and the primary cultural symbols dissolve into dust under the specialist's microscope. Then it becomes possible to believe that it was merely a chaotic mixture of ambiguous and UNRELATED experiences came together as the doomsday anxiety, or gave rise to pervasive ritual sacrifice, or provided the impetus for relentless, fear-driven observations of Venus. This is where Velikovsky's comet will help to rescue ancient myth and ritual from a theoretical vacuum. It will do so by providing a coherent reference, sufficient to substantiate an entirely new approach to the subject matter. The comet Venus enters ancient myth as the celestial agent of disaster, and its emergence is synonymous with the DEATH OF THE CREATOR KING. In the story we will reconstruct, we will see the now-peaceful Venus again and again appearing in ancient times as the great god's heart-soul, departing from him (or removed violently, or flung into the ensuing holocaust) to become a comet-like flaming star, then presiding over the re-establishment of celestial order, the dawn of a new world age. It will take time to tell this story with sufficient color and detail, but I can assure every reader that we ARE dealing here with a coherent and universal theme--a theme completely ignored by specialist too preoccupied with their own narrow turf to discern the definitive patterns of human memory. To see Velikovsky's comet in its globally-defined and catastrophic role is to realize something overlooked by the specialists: that a planetary history we have forgotten will do more to explain the pervasive fears of ancient cultures than all of the more fashionable speculations combined. How are we to understand the unending ritual wars and sacrifices in which rulers remembered, honored and satisfied the gods, hoping to hold the heavens together? How do we interpret the complex calendars of world ages, anticipating the return of doomsday with every completion of a Venus cycle? Or the endless preoccupation with catastrophic omens and portents tied to the planet? For centuries the priest-astronomers reacted with terror to any natural phenomenon that might suggest the return to world chaos. In what experience did this fear arise? Surely one way of illuminating the symbols of celestial TERROR is to consider the possibility of TERRIFYING EVENTS. To make this point completely clear it will be useful to look at a few of the Mesoamerican symbols of the doomsday fear, asking the reader at each stage whether we are considering randomly-evolved absurdities, or the coherent reflections of a traumatic experience remembered around the world. MESOAMERICAN ASTRONOMY Velikovsky reminded us that to the natives of Mexico the planet Venus bore a very special significance. No celestial body loomed more centrally in their meticulous observations of the sky. To emphasize the point, Velikovsky noted the Augustinian friar Ramón Y Zamora's report that the Mexican tribes held Venus in great esteem and kept a precise record of its appearance. "So exact was the book-record of the day when it appeared and when it concealed itself, that they never made mistakes," stated Zamora. In Velikovsky's interpretation, the carefully recorded observations of Venus by the Mexicans, Babylonians, Chinese and other cultures arose in direct response to Venus' cometary past. And for many centuries after the cometary disaster, the astronomers perceived closer approaches of Venus as a grave potential threat. If Velikovsky was correct, astronomy arose in response to UNPREDICTABLE planetary powers, but could only flower as a science after planets achieved their present predictable orbits. Then the new observational science strove to bring the movements into a comprehensible system, enabling the priest to reckon with the gods and, by reading ancient signs properly, to ANTICIPATE divine behavior. The special place of astronomy in Mesoamerican myths and rites is acknowledged by the best authorities, though the origins of this culture-wide theme appear lost in a gray past. "It has been clear to all serious students of Mesoamerican culture," writes David Kelley, "that there was an intimate relationship between astronomical knowledge, the calendar, and religious beliefs and rituals." Or, as Anthony Aveni puts it, "...Quite unlike our modern astronomy, the raison d'ętre of Mesoamerican, particularly Mayan astronomy, was ritualistic and divinatory in nature." But what were the roots of the religious motive, placing such an emphasis on astronomy? The intense interest Venus is noted by Burr Cartwright Brundage-- The true role of the planet Venus in the development of the Mesoamerican cultures is not understood. It might not be far wrong to look upon the Mesoamerican's great skill in numeration as a child of that planet and to state that their intellectual life pulsed to its periods. Certainly a significant portion of their mythology involved that planet... To observers approaching the Mesoamerican cultures from an interdisciplinary vantage point, the cultural preoccupation with Venus immediately stands out. E. C. Krupp, a popularizer of modern archaeoastronomy, was impressed with the Venus profile in Mesoamerica, noting that the priest-astronomers computed portentous moments "based upon their calendar and the behavior of Venus. They installed their kings, sacrificed prisoners and went to war by these omens." But why? Must we assume unhesitatingly that the anxiety over Venus' movements arose under a tranquil sky? This unquestioned presumption of cosmic regularity is surely the single greatest obstacle to our comprehension of ancient fears. ------------------------------------------- HUBBLE FINDS A BARE BLACK HOLE POURING OUT LIGHT Probing the heart of the active galaxy NGC 6251, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has provided a never-before-seen view of a warped disk or ring of dust caught in a blazing torrent of ultraviolet light from a suspected massive black hole. This discovery, which is reported in the September 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters, suggests that the environments around black holes may be more varied than thought previously, and may provide a new link in the evolution of black holes in the centers of galaxies. "This is a completely new phenomenon which has never before been seen. It blew my mind away," says Dr. Philippe Crane of the European Southern Observatory, in Garching, Germany. "Before Hubble you could never do this kind of research. We used a lightly exploited facility of Hubble: its extremely high resolution imaging capability in the near ultraviolet provided by the Faint Object Camera (FOC), built by the European Space Agency." Previously, black holes observed by Hubble have been largely hidden from view because they are embedded inside a torus, a donut-shaped distribution of dust that forms a partial cocoon around the black hole. In galaxies previously studied, the intense light from super hot gas entrapped by the black hole's powerful gravitational field shines out from inside the "donut hole" of the torus and is restricted to a narrow beam, like a searchlight. But this is the first clear example of an "exposed" black hole that illuminates the surrounding disk. Because Hubble sees ultraviolet light reflected on one side of the disk, astronomers conclude the disk must be warped like the brim of a hat. Such a warp could be due to gravitational perturbations in the galaxy's nucleus that keep the disk from being perfectly flat, or from precession of the rotation axis of the black hole relative to the rotation axis of the galaxy. * * * * Photos, captions and press release text are available via the World Wide Web at: http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/97/28.html -------------------------------------- COMMENTS ON BLACK HOLES Wal Thornhill (walt at netinfo.com.au) There has been a barrage of publicity about black holes this week. A TV special, the latest New Scientist (which features the stars of the TV show), and the following report from the Hubble Space Telescope. Astronomers seem more convinced than ever that these fictional objects exist, because they have found "objects that do what only black holes can do", as NS reports. But this statement is based on the very shaky premise that Nature is silly enough to use the weakest force in the universe to create the outpourings of radiation that are interpreted as coming from a black hole at the centre of galaxies. When we want to create x-rays or ultraviolet light we use electricity--why should natural processes be different? The blindness of otherwise highly intelligent astronomers to the simple plasma cosmological explanation for the goings-on in active galactic nuclei is quite a phenomenon in its own right and worthy of study by those in the human sciences. It is an object lesson in the failure in practice of The Scientific Method, which requires a constant re-examination of the assumptions which underpin a theory--especially when that theory is so bizarre as to predict Black Holes. (I sported a T-shirt some years ago which had in bold letters: "Black Holes Exist", with a tiny subtitle: "In astronomers' heads".) The features of the small disk (the plasmoid in plasma cosmology) and the jets emanating from the disk are precisely those found in the simple plasma focus device, and described in Eric Lerner's book "The Big Bang Never Happened". ----------------------------------------- Under the title, "What cannot be said in science", from the Commentary section of the journal Nature of 14 August, pp. 619-620, is a very timely wake-up call for science, both in the way it is taught and the way it is practiced. It is a strong plea for generalists with an interdisciplinary outlook and training - something dear to our heart. Mott T. Greene writes: "Scientists have an understandable modesty about publicly discussing areas of research other than their own. But this reticence has had the unforeseen consequence that generalization and synthesis, essential parts of the advance of science, are very much neglected. Scientists are trapped in their own specialisms, leaving others, often poorly qualified, to represent to the public the larger architecture and interconnections of modern scientific theories. Although the capacity to convey to society a compelling vision of the whole of science may not be necessary in the day-to-day progress of investigation, it is crucial in maintaining cultural, political and financial support for science. Scientific education has become so specialized that scientific literacy is little more advanced among scientists than it is among non-scientists. Undergraduates who have completed courses on cell biology and evolution are unable to discuss broad issues in evolutionary theory, let alone Earth history or cosmogony, in any greater depth than can their non-scientist peers. "Physics students don't know how a protein differs from a nucleic acid; chemistry students don't know the age of the Earth; geology students cannot give a simple account of metabolism or say why the sky is blue. This is not to say that science students cannot understand several fields of science and their connections. But a generalized curiosity has not been encouraged or reinforced in basic science training for almost a century. The robust pride that one's knowledge of science is narrow and deep is almost universal among specialists...... "NARROW DEPTH OF KNOWLEDGE "First, there is no provision in undergraduate curricula for broad acquaintance with several sciences. The norm in the United States, as in many other places, is self-selection of a single science in the first year. "Basic science education is like basic training in the military -directed to tactics rather than to strategy and designed to teach recruits as quickly as possible to use the latest weapons, so that they can be sent to the research front at the earliest opportunity. Second, there is the problem of the impenetrability of specialist discourse-not only to non-scientists, but to highly trained scientists in different specialisms. Journals such as Nature were created to provide rapid publication of results of such importance that they ought to be communicated beyond the boundaries of individual fields. This function will be frustrated if articles are written in language understood by no-one outside the authors' fields of expertise. Third, and perhaps more subtle, is the general and strong sense among scientists that. because the advance of science depends on the accumulation of knowledge rather than of opinion, they are not permitted to speak about scientific subjects in public other than those in which they are expert. "When Erwin Schrodinger published What is Life? in 1944 (ref. l), he began with an apology: "A scientist is supposed to have a complete and thorough knowledge, at first hand, of some subjects, and therefore is usually expected not to write on any topic of which he is not a master." Freeman Dyson extended this apology in Origins of Life (ref. 2) more than 40 years later, only to discover that many biologists had not yet forgiven Schrodinger and now were annoyed at him as well . At less exalted levels of discourse, the imperative to segregate oneself within one's specialism is strong enough to impede the development of interdisciplinary under-graduate science courses even at the first year level. Most doctoral level scientists think themselves unqualified to teach a first year undergraduate course even in a closely allied discipline. "Specialization is not itself the problem. As the volume of knowledge increases, the proportion of the total comprehended by an individual must diminish. Yet specialization has had unanticipated and even paradoxical consequences. The paradox is that specialization, however necessary, is not all of science: generalization and synthesis are parts of it as well. Yet generalization and synthesis, even as long as 50 years ago, were well on their way to disappearing altogether from the careers of scientists. I am not referring to textbooks, review articles or the occasional popular lecture, but the deliberate attempt to summarize how the work of one's field fits into the larger framework of scientific advance. Scientists used to do this regularly. That they no longer see synthesis as even a remotely plausible activity is a measure of how completely 'what goes without saying' can pass within a generation or so into 'what cannot be said'." [Wal comments:] I think specialization IS a major problem and partly a way of avoiding the fact that there is no generally accepted, coherent picture of science to be taught. Following Mott, it could be argued that a specialist is not qualified to debate with generalists. In fact, I think it goes deeper than that. The greatest generalist I know, Velikovsky, identified within his specialist critics "a desire not to know". This was usually manifest in knee-jerk responses to anything he uttered. One of his worst critics was the noted specialist Carl Sagan, whose arguments against Velikovsky wouldn't stand up to investigation by a college student. That is why I feel that it is futile to argue with specialists. By all means use their expertise as input to a general synthesis and then argue amongst others whose aim it is to see the big picture. The specialist's dislike of generalists or popularizers stems, I think, partly from the fact that we have to take ideas and information from them and place those ideas in a larger, maybe unfamiliar framework. This is a confronting thing for an expert's ego. And as Greene wrote: "The robust pride that one's knowledge of science is narrow and deep is almost universal among specialists...".What's that old saw about pride going before a fall?] Greene continues: "STIGMA OF POPULARIZATION "The loss of a view of the whole travels in harness with a contempt for generalization- invariably stigmatized as 'popularization' or 'speculation'--and with an irritation directed at those who claim that historically things were different, and even better. This problem is not resolved even if one takes the position that scientific work is 'self integrating'--that it is structured so it can function well even if no-one is in charge of the overall picture. There is still a need for some compelling vision of the whole of science and of its worth to animate those other 'necessary regulators of scientific advance': elected officials who vote on whether to support science, and their constituents. On the other hand, the unhappiness of many scientists with the picture of the whole presented by historians and others who study science could be simply a negative reaction to seeing the state of science as a whole when it is reasonably well represented, rather than a well-informed reaction to a supposed misrepresentation. One must wonder at the criteria by which scientists can determine the accuracy of any historical representation, given that most have declared themselves ineligible to comment on issues outside their own part of the research front. But I have never met a scientist, however specialized, who felt she or he could not discuss what science is, or the scientific viewpoint, or the scientific method, or the difference between science and superstition. So an interesting phenomenon has evolved in this century-people who freely admit not knowing much detail about matters beyond their own field of science, and who would never speak about any other aspect of science in particular, but are perfectly comfortable speaking about science in general. ......" [Wal comments:] It is not surprising that scientists don't like to look at the history of science when it is reasonably well represented, because it is not a pretty picture and doesn't conform to the image projected of the "scientific method" and a kind of Darwinian progression toward some notion of perfection--a Theory of Everything, for example. But it is not just the history that looks bad, they probably don't want to acknowledge that nothing has changed. They would rather pontificate about their open-mindedness and rationality, but then go off and cut themselves on Occam's razor. Greene continues: "THE POINT OF GENERALIZATION "In the seventeenth century, people used all the science they knew to explain the operations of the world, and then 'plugged the remaining holes with God'. Now there is enough science for a world-view with widely placed small holes. Yet most people, including increasing numbers of natural scientists, have a world-view with large and rather closely placed holes that they are content to fill either with blithe ignorance or with super natural explanations for phenomena already well understood in physical terms. "So today's scientists are in command of only a small part of what is known, and there are no educational or career structures that mandate, suggest or reward the synthesis of results into a unified world picture. If this trend continues, one can imagine a world dominated by the results and artifacts of natural science, but in which no-one has a scientific world-view. This outcome, not as bizarre or unlikely as it may appear at first, would be remarkable, not least for the danger it would pose to the continued survival of the scientific enterprise. Mott T. Greene is at the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington 98416, USA. e-mail: greene at ups.edu 1. Schrodinger, E. ~What is Life? (Cambridge Univ Press 1944). 2. Dyson, F Origins of Life (Cambridge Univ Press 1985). [Wal comments:] Sorry, science is mostly holes--covered with beautiful mathematical wallpaper, stuck there with the glue of mysticism. ---------------------------------------------- Second hand copies of most of Velikovsky's books are available from: The Advanced Book Exchange Home Page http://www.abebooks.com Bibliofind http://www.bibliofind.com Submitted by Ian Tresman (sis at knowledge.co.uk) ---------------------------------------------- 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