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 II, No. 14 Sept 15, 1998 EDITOR: Amy Acheson PUBLISHER: Michael Armstrong LIST MANAGER: Brian Stewart CONTENTS DYING AND FLYING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . by Mel Acheson HEROES OF THE ILIAD. . . . . . . . . . . . . David Talbott RETHINKING GRAVITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . comments by Wal Thornhill ELECTRIFYING NEWS ABOUT IMPACT CRATERS . . . . . comments by Wal Thornhill ---------------------------------------------- DYING AND FLYING by Mel Acheson Changing your beliefs feels like dying. Whether it's religion, politics, or science, letting go of the complex of ideas that provides an orderly explanation for your life and your experiences seems like falling into chaos and oblivion. It seems suicidal even to loosen your grip on that branch of Truth suspended over the abyss of ignorance. But every day, with every new thing you learn, you're hopping to another, usually very close, branch. The Truth you believe in today is a little different from yesterday's. And sometimes the change is so big you find yourself clinging to the branch of a different tree: You change religions, or switch political parties, or experience a paradigm shift. After doing it several times, you realize that if you gave up believing altogether, you'd only have to die once. Then Truth ceases to be a branch you cling to but a forest of branches _and_ the air between: You can spread your intellectual wings in this more inclusive Truth and fly from branch to branch, choosing truths and viewpoints according to their usefulness, appropriateness, esthetics, promise. The moralistic preoccupation with "correctness"--whether you're clinging to the "right" branch--is irrelevant. Salvation, in science as in politics and religion, is simply fear of flying. Camus addressed this matter four decades ago: Can you live without hope? Without belief? He concluded that not only can you, but you must--to become truly human and to avoid the homicidal presumption that you are a god. (Or, in today's terms, that you know the mind of God.) Only after you have died to beliefs do you discover real faith-- the confidence that the universe and your part in it will be what it is regardless of your belief. Your beliefs (and their opposite polarity, disbeliefs) are the sand in which your head is buried. They are a mirror, reflecting your own brilliance and blinding you to the unassuming light of reality. They are a log anchoring your feet, preventing you from soaring into the universe that is your natural home. --Mel Acheson Thoth at Whidbey.com ---------------------------------------------- Heroes of the Iliad By David Talbott (dtalbott at teleport.com) In the previous issue of this newsletter, we began a review of a 1974 article by James Fitton (I erroneously entered the name as "Pitton") occurring in the first and only issue of the journal CHIRON. We shall now continue that discourse, with a twofold purpose: first, to examine the logic of the comparative method; and second, to illustrate the ACID TESTS for verifying even the most extraordinary conclusions. Following this path will require us to go far beyond a mere "answer" to Fitton's contentions and to consider the groundrules of a more promising perspective on the entire field of study. Fitton wrote - > > "One of Velikovsky's most brilliant passages is that > in which he cites the famous scene in the _Iliad_ > where Ares and Athene fight on the battleground > before Troy. Athene, says Velikovsky, is the planet > Venus, and Ares the planet Mars. Here is an allegory > of a great cosmological drama of the eighth century > B.C., when, as Velikovsky believes, these two planets > nearly collided in space. The myth seems decisive > evidence for his beliefs. But, on looking more > closely at Homer, we see that this incident is one of > several that occurred in a scene where various gods > and goddesses were depicted as lining up against each > other. In another part of this sequence Athene > trounces Artemis, a goddess of the earth; in yet > another Apollo, the sun god, contemplates a trial of > strength with Poseidon, god of the sea. What great > cosmological events are referred to in these lines of > Homer? Velikovsky does not say; he does not refer to > them.... This paragraph reveals a deep misunderstanding of the Comparative method. The presence of isolated and unexplained images does not invalidate any conclusions with respect to images that ARE explicable through comparative analysis. Repeated similarities in the accounts of diverse cultures - similarities at the level of concrete detail, similarities that cannot be explained by coincidence - MUST refer to a common origin or common experience. And the more unusual or "out of the ordinary" the shared details, the more powerful the evidential value, as we have already noted. Moreover, as we will also see, a model based on recurring, global motifs will often throw surprising new light on more fragmentary images, even in cases where the fragments originally appeared to have no explanation whatsoever. When it comes to ancient memories of Mars and Venus (as we Previously observed), one faces a staggering volume of material. These are, in fact, the two most active figures in archetypal myth, while the Universal Monarch is a far more passive figure, often fading into the background in later transmissions. But the issues here are complicated by Velikovsky's own assumptions in his treatment of the Iliad. Velikovsky argued that Homer's narrative describes tribal conflicts on Earth at a time when the planets Venus and Mars moved on catastrophic courses, appearing to battle in the sky. At the outset of my own research, I was eager to consider this possibility. But soon a quite different possibility emerged. Here was my conclusion: there is no local history whatsoever in the poet's narrative! The entire story of the "Trojan War" is a localization of a much more ancient memory - the earthshaking celestial conflagration called the "wars of the gods". How can I assert this sweeping conclusion with such confidence? Theconfidence comes from the comparative study itself, which exposes the taproot of worldwide cultural traditions. It is this deeply-rooted cultural memory that fed all of the later accounts of heroes and warriors, as the chroniclers brought formerly celestial gods down to earth and presented them in mortal dress. First there was the story of a heaven- shattering conflagration, in which celestial powers battled in the sky. Then, centuries later, there were the chronicles of "tribal" wars, of "nations" battling "nations", all highlighting the exploits of a great warrior, and all sounding as if the events occurred on a terrestrial landscape. But who were these heroes, whose feats and ordeals fill the pages of Homer's Iliad, or the Aeneid of Virgil, or the Mahabharata and Ramayana of the Hindus, or the Celtic Mabinogion (not to mention countless other native chronicles)? It is simply impossible to undertake a comparative study of such figures without confronting the ARCHETYPAL warrior-hero presented under a vast range of symbols - what Joseph Campbell called "The Hero with a Thousand Faces". In tracing various hero-motifs to the earliest strata of civilization, it became crystal clear to me that the later figures are nothing more than echoes of the great celestial warrior celebrated in the oldest written records of humankind.- Nergal, Ninurta, and Irra of the Akkadians; Shu, Horus, and Sept of the Egyptians, to mention the barest few examples. The archetypal warrior-hero moves in the sky. And yet centuries later this same personality is seen on a local landscape, and the entire texture has changed. (For example, he no longer stands in relationship to a central sun or Universal Monarch, but instead serves a TERRESTRIAL "great king", a literary echo of the central sun.) The principle of localization is almost certainly the most misunderstood tendency in the evolution of myth. And the Iliad would make an excellent case study. Homer's story is presented as an account of the tenth year of the "Trojan War", as a confederation of Greek tribes under the rule of Agamemnon and led by the hero Achilles, sought to avenge the abduction of Helen, wife of King Menelaus, by the warrior-hero Paris, son of the Trojan king Priam. On the face of it, the conflict is something like a feudalistic war, in which far-flung communities are mobilized against a common enemy. In concept it is certainly believable, though the respective warriors appear (suspiciously) as mirrors of each other, and the abduction of a famous princess by an equally famous warrior-prince does have an eerily familiar ring to it. By comparing attributes and key episodes in the lives of the great heroes, one sees that the "best" or most illustrious tribal "ancestor" expresses archetypal images and storylines (flight of his mother, miraculous birth, abandonment at birth, exposure on a mountaintop, or fall into a river, ignorance of his father, spectacular growth and amazing feats as a child, possession of an astonishing weapon with which he is inseparably identified, servitude to a great king, murder of a great king, abduction of the daughter of a great king, torrid love affair with the daughter of a great king, confrontation with chaos powers (dragons and other monsters), defeat of chaos powers, and a good deal more, down to numerous remarkable or bizarre details ranging from intimate associations with a cosmic pillar to such potentially comic episodes as being dressed, or disguised as a woman. These unexplained but recurring motifs are, in fact, far too numerous to be detailed here, but must all be confronted under the rules of the comparative approach. On the cosmic origins of these motifs I no longer have any doubt. The hero was originally a god seen in the sky. Indeed, in the Iliad, the demarcation between "mortals" and celestial "gods" is incessantly blurred Throughout the story, gods and goddesses intervene in critical events, and historians would have us believe NONE of this. Nevertheless, many of the same historians DO ask us to believe that within Homer's narrative are embedded the accounts of actual historical personages, despite the fact that all efforts to find evidence for their historicity have failed. In the intricate web of genealogies, divine intrigue, and heroic combat we meet numerous great warriors on both sides of the confrontation. On the Trojan side, Paris, Hector, Troilus (all "sons" of Priam) and the hero Aeneas. On the Achaean side, Achilles, Odysseus, Ajax, Patroclus, Diomedes. (Numerous others flit in an out of the story, of course.) But these figures are virtually indistinguishable in underlying concepts from the heroes Heracles, Perseus, and Theseus, whom Greek literature treats as "mortals", but who are beyond question the echoes of older warrior-gods helping to organize kingdoms, not on earth, but in the sky..Heracles was a Greek name of the planet Mars. And it is of no small significance that Theseus, a virtual carbon copy of Heracles, was himself said to have abducted Helen - before the events recounted in the Iliad, of course. The birth of Paris and his feats as a child replicate the universal "birth of the hero" theme: abandonment at birth, exposure at birth on a mountaintop, super-human strength , defeat of "bandits", and rescuing of stolen "cattle" as a child (c.f., "cattle of the sun" rescued by the Hindu warrior-god Indra). Like so many heroes, he begins his life as a slave (servant motif), though he is actually a prince, wins contests of strength, speed and skill, is loved by goddesses, carries off and marries the daughter of a famous king, murders another famous king while on adventures in foreign lands, and so on. So too, his alter ego Achilles entered the world by a miraculous birth. The event was followed by the flight of his mother. He was dropped into a river, raised on a sacred mountaintop, performed extraordinary feats as a child; was disguised a girl, placed in the service of a great king, and consorted with the daughter of the king. (I might also mention that the armor of Achilles was fashioned by the god Hephaestus, the same god who fashioned the shield of Hercules, around which OCEANUS flowed.) As celestial gods and goddesses are localized, they shed their cosmic dimensions, becoming the far-famed "ancestors" of the tribes telling the stories - the great kings, queens, heroes, and princesses of a lost epoch. In the same way, the spectacular dwelling of the gods - the "wheel of the sun" (habitation of the Universal Monarch) - becomes a legendary town, or city, or kingdom which fell in the distant past, when vast armies were mobilized and the world shook from great battles. Of course, in epic literature, the memories of numerous tribes are woven into linear narratives, depicting one warrior after another fighting beside or against his own alter egos. That is, in fact, the primary artifice by which poets succeeded in honoring and integrating diverse tribal traditions. These heroes are not just "descendants" of the gods. They WERE the gods - once! Actually, even in Greek literature it is virtually impossible to separate the epic heroes from the domain of the gods. In the Iliad, the gods Zeus, Apollo, Ares, Athena, Hera, Aphrodite, and Poseidon are very much a part of the key episodes, conversing with heroes, standing beside them, falling in love with them, consorting with them. More than once, the gods themselves take part in the fighting, as when Apollo delivers the first blow to Patroclus, before the hero is struck by Euphorbus and then Hector. It was Apollo who guided the arrow that struck the "heel" of Achilles. Agamemnon is likened to Zeus in his upper part and Ares in his lower limbs. (Those familiar with the Saturn model will have no difficulty discerning the concrete origins of the idea.) Numerous ancestors or relatives -Tantalus, Niobe, Pelops, Atreus and Thyestes, among others - were closer in character to gods than to men. Helen was the daughter of Zeus. Her mother Leda was also the mother of the "heavenly twins", Castor and Pollux. (Indeed, more than one scholar has recognized Helen as a local transcript of Aphrodite, astronomically identified with Venus). It was said that the walls of Troy were built by Apollo and Poseidon. Cassandra, foretelling the destruction of Troy, is strangely reminiscent of the ancient lamenting goddess, roaming about with wildly disheveled hair and disturbing the land. In truth, there is not a shred of historical evidence that such personalities originated as flesh and blood figures. It is not my purpose here to merely suggest that there are archetypal themes and connections yet to be discerned by historians. Our claim must be much more explicit. There is an archetypal Universal Monarch or king of the world, an archetypal mother goddess, and an archetypal warrior hero. ALL OF THE RECURRING THEMES AROUND THESE ARCHETYPES AROSE IN RESPONSE TO SPECTACULAR FORMS IN THE SKY. THESE FORMS ARE NO LONGER PRESENT. But such a claim is surely preposterous! Well, the very outlandishness of this claim will provide a unique value under the comparative approach. It will make the acid tests both obvious and decisive. And it is these tests to which I will refer the reader in our next installment. Dave ---------------------------------------------- RETHINKING GRAVITY comments by Wal Thornhill Surely gravitation should be working! --Halton Arp, _Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies. p 114 * * * >From a New Scientist article this week, available in full at: http://www.newscientist.co.uk/cgi-bin/pageserver.cgi?/ns/980912/ngravity.html If the force is with them ... By Charles Seife Gravity may not be working as advertised. Spacecraft hurtling through the Solar System have been behaving so bizarrely that some scientists wonder whether our theories of gravity are wrong. Enjoy, Ian Tresman * * * ANTI-GRAVITY FIND STUNS SCIENTISTS Tim Radford, Science Editor, Guardian, Friday 27th Feb 98. An international team of astronomers is about to set the world of physics reeling. They have observed anti-gravity in action and say they have confirmed that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. 'My reaction is somewhere between amazement and horror', Brian Schmidt of the Mt Stromlo and Sliding Springs Observatory in Australia told the US journal Science published today.. Amazement because 'I just did not expect this result and horror knowing it will likely be disbelieved by a majority of astronomers". Adam Reiss. of the University of California at Berkeley said last night 'What we expected to find was that the universe would be expanding more slowly today than back then because gravity has this effect that it slows everything down. What we found was the opposite of that. The universe is expanding faster today than yesterday and it seems to be accelerating.' In Science, astronomers from California, Boston and Australia say they have direct observational evidence that the expansion of the universe is speeding up. Since gravity is a brake on the expansion that began with the Big Bang about 15 billion years ago, then there must be some other countering force. They call it a repulsive force, or antigravity. On a scale of half the universe, it seems to be twice as strong as gravity. If so it will force cosmologists to dream up a new history of space and time. Light travels at a constant speed for all observers, but the way the starlight itself is 'stretched" is a clue to how fast the star is moving away from the observer. 'The astronomers expected distant stars to be moving more swiftly than recent ones. They were not. 'Statistically speaking, we are quite confident of this result', said Dr Rein. 'But we continue to be concerned that there is another explanation for what we are seeing, some other sneaky effect that is getting in there'. The scientists considered the possibility that supernovae in the past might be different from those today: that stars may have evolved, in the way creatures do. They do not think so. So they are left with anti-gravity. 'The problem with this force is that on a small scale it is very weak' said Dr Reiss. 'You have to get to these amazing scales like half way across the universe, where this force adds up, because it is inherent in every little piece of space. As you add up this space. it multiplies, and eventually becomes strong enough to detect" * * * Wal Thornhill comments: I think this discovery will turn out to be another thorn in the side for cosmologists and may well vindicate Halton Arp's view of non-velocity related redshifts. It was he who pointed out that the Universe does not seem to be expanding. So we should not expect to see supernovae at great distance (theoretically closer to the hypothetical Big Bang) moving faster than those closer to us. The item reminds me of the ad-hocery involved some years ago in postulating a "fifth force" when it was found that gravity didn't behave as expected when measured down mines and at the top of towers. Another force? One possible answer is that physicists don't understand gravity; or light; or redshifts! Wal Thornhill ---------------------------------------------- ELECTRFYING NEWS ABOUT IMPACT CRATERS comments by Wal Thornhill [The following] is the first statement I have seen that the complex craters we see on the Moon and elsewhere have never been created in the lab or with explosions! Strangely, the authors then go on to assume what they have yet to prove - that the craters on the solid bodies in the solar system are impacts and therefore can be used to determine "how various target and impactor properties affect complex crater formation." Wal Thornhill "Abstract- In recent years, morphometric data for Venus and several outer planet satellites have been collected, so we now have observational data of complex craters formed in a large range of target properties. We present general inversion techniques that can utilize the morphometric data to quantitatively test various models of complex crater formation. The morphometric data we use in this paper are depth of a complex crater, the diameter at which the depth-diameter ratio changes, and onset diameters for central peaks, terraces, and peak rings. We tested the roles of impactor velocities and hydrostatic pressure vs. crustal strength, and we tested the specific models of acoustic fluidization (Melosh, 1982) and nonproportional growth (Schultz, 1988). Neither the acoustic fluidization model nor the nonproportional growth in their published formulations are able to successfully reproduce the data. No dependence on impactor velocity is evident from our inversions. Most of the morphometric data is consistent with a linear dependence on the ratio of crustal strength to hydrostatic pressure on a planet, or the factor c/rg." The introduction is where the real meat is: "Crater morphometry, the quantitative description of the shape of impact craters, has always played a key role in understanding the cratering process. One of the key arguments used to support the impact origin of lunar craters was that they were morphometrically similar to terrestrial explosion craters (Baldwin, 1949). Complex impact craters, craters with such features as a flat floor, a central peak, and wall terraces, have never been created in common geologic materials in the lab or with large explosions. At present, only the morphometry of impact craters on the solid bodies of the solar system can provide data on how various target and impactor properties affect complex crater formation." From: "Inversion of crater morphometric data to gain insight on the cratering process", Robert R. Herrick and Suzanne N. Lyons, Meteoritics & Planetary Science 33, 131-143 (1998) ---------------------------------------------- PLEASE VISIT THE KRONIA COMMUNICATIONS WEBSITE: http://www.kronia.com 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/ Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered, 10 Pensée Journals may be ordered at the I-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. 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