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. 4 March 2, 1997 EDITOR: Michael Armstrong PUBLISHER: Walter Radtke CONTENTS EDITORIAL SECTION....................................Michael Armstrong NEW WEB SITE......................http://www.tcel.com/~mike/paper.html SATURN THEORY, OVERVIEW 4................................David Talbott CRATORS: IMPACT OR DISCHARGE............................Wal Thornhill VENUS GREENHOUSE QUESTIONED.................................Ted Holden EDITORIAL SECTION By Michael Armstrong (mikamar at e-z.net) Quote of the day: [R]eligion, like science, began with the inscrutable and majestic spectacle of the heavens. This points again to the fact that they are destined to compete: they are occupying the same territory. Bryan Appleyard, Understanding the Present: Science and the Soul of Man Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know. Montaigne It is useful to recognize that there are primarily four categories or types of knowledge. These can be listed as: 1) INTRINSIC: Intrinsic knowledge is a kind of "hard-wired" or intuitive knowledge that can still be further developed as time goes on. Intrinsic knowledge shows up in our rationality, our "knowing how to know" and our knowing how to apply logic, do math, and come to conclusions. This type of knowledge or ability allows us to receive data, recognize facts, become informed and to make conclusions that lead to knowledge. It allows us to learn and grow intellectually. 2) EXPERIENTIAL: Experiential knowledge comes to us through some kind of personal experience. Descartes'fundamental conclusion came to him through his experience and apprehension of his fundamental fact -- "I think", thereby enabling him to know intrinsically "therefore I exist." As I type this article on my computer, I empirically experience the various aspects of that process. That knowledge has come to me experientially, directly to me through some combination of my five senses. The above two categories of knowledge are the most reliable knowledge that we can have. We generally trust our rationality and, if we are careful, our logic. I know that 2 + 2 = 4 every time, and I know that I will get it right every time. I also know the monitor and keyboard are on the desk as I type. No one can "talk" me out of this kind of knowledge. 3) EVIDENTIAL: Evidential knowledge is composed of personally experienced evidence which directly implies conclusions reached beyond a reasonable doubt. With this type of knowledge we experience some of the evidence but not the thing itself. This makes such knowledge less reliable than that based on experience because it involves some subjective inference and some limiting interpretation of the evidence. A simple example would be where we got up in the morning, looked out the window and observed a fresh and unblemished covering of snow over everything. We would say we know it snowed during the night even if we didn't see it happen. Or if we saw tire tracks in the snow on the driveway, we would say that a car had driven in and out. Through good sense we limit our interpretations. Of course, it's possible that some joker hung from a very long crane and carefully rolled a tire to make two parallel tracks in our driveway. But not likely! 4) CONSENSUAL: Consentual knowledge is composed of knowledge that others have shared that we consent to know because we trust (rightly or wrongly) in the person or source passing on this knowledge. Often the consent is given based on irrelevant psychological factors such as authoritative stance or attitude, charisma, enthusiasm, etc., and often the consent is given based purely on the lack of any apparent reason not to trust. Consentual knowledge can be further broken down into four distinct categories: a. That based on other's experiences, their recollection, interpretation and account of that experience b. That based on other's experienced evidence, their recollection, interpretation and account of such. c. That based on other's consentual knowledge. d. That based on other's beliefs, opinions, estimations, guesses, imaginations, fantasies, falsities and misunderstandings. The latter two categories of evidential and consentual knowledge are simply and clearly less direct than the other types, and therefore intrinsically less reliable. Without considerable care and cross-checking, the reliability of these two kinds of knowledge can fall off rapidly. Consentual knowledge is the most prevalent and voluminous in our knowledge base, but the least reliable, and it is staggering to realize to what extent we have incorporated consentual knowledge into our general theories. There would be a lot more humility and much less acrimony if the popularizers and promoters of scientific dogma were aware of the scale of this component in their "knowledge base." It is also difficult to fathom the extent to which our "knowledge" and concepts in one arena or discipline are conditioned and constrained by our "knowledge", assumptions, and beliefs in the other areas of understanding. When you radically change your view in one domain, the repercussions may be extensive in the others. When the underpinnings to of a modern world view are ripped out by a major reconstruction, one may as well start all over in examining what one knows and what one believes. In confronting the ramifications of the reconstruction, modern man now faces the challenge of an intellectual, social and spiritual revolution unmatched by those introduced in the last two millennia a la Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, Semmelweiss, et al. --------------------------------------------- SATURN THEORY, OVERVIEW (3) By David Talbott (dtalbott at teleport.com) In seeking out the roots of ancient experience, one will continually face an issue concerning the use of ancient testimony as evidence. How can the disparate threads of memory, expressed in seemingly contradictory symbols, through stories that are often barely intelligible, and in archaic words of uncertain meaning, ever provide a dependable guide for reconstructing cosmic events? The first essential is to expose the *substratum* of memory, and this can only be accomplished by limiting what counts as evidence. Only broadly-repeated themes are to be included in the early phases of the inquiry, and only the clearest facts, or undisputed principles, qualify as building blocks in the reconstruction. When I speak of the "historical argument" for the Saturn theory, I am referring to all sources of evidence suggesting *things remembered*. Before the Egyptians, Sumerians, Hindus, or Greeks ever raised a temple, they would consciously and deliberately look backwards to a remembered event. The foundation ceremonies would *reenact* an archetypal occasion in the lives of the gods--the construction of a vast dwelling in primeval times, a "temple" brought forth by the Universal Monarch, a temple "floating on the clouds." Similarly, when the warrior-kings of Egypt and Assyria and numerous other lands launched their campaigns against neighboring peoples, they summoned memories of cosmic catastrophe, when the gods themselves battled in the heavens. Symbolically, foreign armies meant "the fiends of darkness," and were to be dealt with accordingly. The warrior-kings saw themselves defeating neighboring forces in the same way that, in primeval times, the great gods devastated and controlled the Chaos Hordes, when these dark powers overwhelmed the cosmic order. It is a remarkable fact that the builders of civilization declared, with one voice, that the first cities and first kingdoms organized in the ancient world, the first pictographs drawn on rock or on temple walls, the vast complexes of sacred festivals and rites, had their prototypes in dramatic events occurring in the age of the gods. Ancient art and architecture, hymns and prayers, the origins of writing, the rise of kingship, nationalistic wars of expansion, ritual sacrifice, the first athletic competition, the roots of drama, tragedy, and comedy--and all other forms of collective activity associated with the flowering of civilization--were commemorative in nature, remembering, re-enacting, re-living, and honoring above all else the archetypal events, when the gods themselves ruled the world. Such an idea may seem incomprehensible to us, but there is no escaping the festive and commemorative aspects of emerging civilizations, all pointing *backwards* to remembered events. Hence, the field of evidence we must draw upon includes literally every feature distinguishing these civilizations from the prior, more pastoral epoch of human history. That is a huge library of evidence! Moreover, there is a taproot feeding the explosive, upward movement of the first civilizations. That taproot is the ONE STORY TOLD AROUND THE WORLD. Every recurring cultural theme, in truth, is linked in the most explicit ways to this global memory. But don't forget that the memory is at once pristinely simple and highly complex, depending on which level you are looking at. To the figure of the Universal Monarch, the subject of the ONE STORY, I added six additional archetypal figures of myth, brashly asserting that these personalities all intersect with the ONE STORY in highly specific ways, and claiming that the myth-making epoch has not presented us with any other elementary types. If true, this will mean that the pervasive motives of the first civilizations, cited above, must bear a direct relationship to the *remembered activities* of the seven archetypal figures. Hence, this is a testable hypothesis. If it is incorrect, it can and will be easily disproved under the groundrules we have proposed. This leaves two other issues relating to the foundations of a theory. What are the relationships of these root personalities to *planets*? And what is their relationship to the illustration presented on the Kronia website as a starting point for this discussion? It needs to be emphasized that the planetary identifications suggested here did not fall off the wall. They are the result of a patient reconstruction of ancient astronomical traditions over many years. Portions of the material have already been published either in *The Saturn Myth*, or in AEON articles. So let's go back to the beginning. But to do so I must refer readers to the illustration (see the Kronia website directory under of the "Saturn Theory). The Universal Monarch, the true subject of the ONE STORY, is the planet Saturn. In the illustration, this is the large sphere visually dominating the sky from its fixed position at the celetstial pole. The Mother Goddess is the planet Venus, the luminous, central orb seen squarely in the center of Saturn and from which radiating streams of material course outward. The Warrior-Hero is the planet Mars, the small red orb seen inside the sphere of Venus. Our subject, in other words, is a *collinear* configuration of planets, with each planet stationed at its own equilibrium position, and all sharing the same period of revolution. The Primeval Seven, though not shown in the oversimplified illustration, should be considered as seven smaller orbs revolving in the vicinity of Saturn. The Chaos Monster denotes the interacting forms of Mars and Venus in periods of instability or cosmic *disorder*, as gas and dust (or other material) stretched between planets, giving shape to the evolving forms of the monster in different phases of the configuration. The Chaos Hordes mean the material stretching between planets. Hence, they constitute both the retinue and the *form* of the Chaos Monster. (This latter identification is complicated by the fact that, in the illustrated phase, the material is not chaotic. Whatever this stuff is, it moves in the vicinity of the participating planets, with a complex (stable and unstable) history going far, far beyond the illustrated phase.) The Rejuvenated Creator-King is the planet Jupiter, not visible in the illustrated phase because it was hidden behind Saturn, but becoming visible with the disruption of the collinear system. But what is the most efficient way to clarify and to test the hypothesis as a whole? The only way to prove a theory is to demonstrate its explanatory power. And what I believe we can demonstrate through rigorous testing is that the Saturn theory does indeed account for, or predict, the recurring themes of myth, ritual, and symbol, down to hundreds of extraordinary details. This testing procedure will show that there was a *myth-making* epoch, involving a natural environment and intense human experiences unlike anything known in our own time. We can achieve this testing by simply granting the hypothesized condition, then asking if that condition leaves any aspect of a particular theme unexplained. Then we can go to the next theme, then another, until we have explored every general theme of myth (if our endurance holds up that long). This kind of testing can be very explicit and will remove subjective interpretation and selective use of evidence altogether, because only acknowledged or indisputable, broadly recurring themes count as evidence, and once the question is asked, the answers will tend to be self-evident. We need interpret nothing for the skeptic, simply note the acknowledged themes so that he can determine for himself whether the predictive ability is as complete as we have claimed. Let me explain what I mean by this. While the theory suggests events never entertained by modern science, no one would dispute that *if* Saturn hung immense in the sky, the identity of Saturn as the dominant luminary or "sun" god in most ancient times is explained. *If* the gas giant did indeed occupy the summit of the world axis, there can be no surprise in finding that diverse traditions actually placed the ancient Saturn at this astronomically absurd location. And no one would dispute that *if* Venus formerly appeared as a radiant "star" in the center of Saturn, the worldwide "sun" pictographs depicting precisely this relationship are explained. Similarly, no one would deny that *if* light from the solar orb placed a crescent on Saturn, the enigmatic crescent wrapped around the ancient, Saturnian "sun" god is explained. And how could anyone claim that, *if* a collinear planetary system once towered above ancient stargazers, the mystery of the Great Conjunction of Saturn's Golden Age would remain unsolved? Through a comprehensive testing process of this sort, I believe it can be made clear that the Saturn theory does, in fact, achieve what could not be achieved by a fundamentally incorrect hypothesis. Successful predictions in one or another case will never validate such an usual theory. But the ability to predict *all* of the global themes of the myth-making age--and all of the indisputable, concretely-defined relationships *between* these forms--could not be an accident. Dave Talbott --------------------------------------------- CRATORS: IMPACT OR DISCHARGE EXCHANGE? By Wal Thornhill (walt at netinfo.co.au) A scientific critic has posted: > I find it incredible and unbelievable to argue that Meteor Crater >or any other well-known earth craters such as the Ries Crater in >Germany or Manson in Iowa originated from a giant bolt of lightening, >because the bulk of ejecta in all the above and all others I have read >about is not fused. Response: Your reaction is understandable because, as it is with so much evidence for catastrophism, we are dealing with mechanisms outside our normal experience. It is like arguing that the effects of a lightning strike cannot be so, based only on evidence from the spark from a hair comb. However, some earthly lightning scars are capable of indicating what is possible. Melting only occurs in the very centre of the lightning channel and therefore as a maximum may only constitute a few percent of the material excavated. It is strongly dependent on the duration of the discharge and the nature and conductivity of the material receiving the current. The National Geographic of June 1950 has a photograph, referred to by Juergens, of a trench dug by lightning which excavated 50 to 60 cubic ft of earth and distributed it either side of the trench. The earth was not melted. But even a meteorite impact would not cause much melting. Thomas Gold has said of it: "the transport by conduction of heat cannot account for more than a very thin layer of liquefaction". So the degree of melting cannot be considered diagnostic. More of the post: >Ries is considered the source of the Moldavites, which were >melted, but they are only a small fraction of the total ejecta. >Furthermore, the basement is extensively fractured ahead of the >maximal penetration of the projectile. Clearly, that is a feature of >mass impaction. Response: I don't have any useful info on the Ries Crater, but regarding the buried Manson Crater in Iowa, the largest known "impact" structure in the continental U.S, at 38km diameter; it too has the classic shape of the circular, ringed crater with a central peak which would argue for it being in the interplanetary discharge category, rather than impact. May I add a few thoughts out loud? A part of the problem in thinking about the consequences of an interplanetary discharge is to be able to imagine what would have taken place, and to forget about the puny sparks which constitute terrestrial lightning. In addition, as individuals we have to be aware of our human nature. Francis Bacon said "Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true". So, I should state my preference: it is to assume what the ancients had to say about electrical phenomena involving the planets is true since it may illuminate both the new plasma cosmology and in turn - in bootstrap fashion - confirm the veracity of ancient testimony. Also, ultimately, it should be easily verifiable. So, I begin with photographs of spark machined surfaces which show circular, ringed craters with melted floors and central peaks, together with simple craters in ratios which mimic those seen on the moon. Then I see photographs of liquid drops falling into viscous liquids, creating effects like a ringed crater. How that relates to the impact of a hypersonic projectile is not clear to me except that we then have the inevitable backup from computer models, which generally include so many variables and assumptions that the results can be made to mimic what the "experimenters" prefer to believe. However, in recent real experiments here in Canberra, high voltage, low energy, extended duration discharges into dry, low conductivity modelling clay created continuous circles of craters, the clay being excavated to form a rough moat with a central peak. It occurred to me that this might be the mechanism by which the interplanetary discharge operates. Electric current in a plasma flows in thin filaments - more current, more filaments. These filaments twist into a braid, constrained by a long range attractive force, and short range repulsive force. They are known as Birkeland currents. So, when one of these current "ropes" strikes the surface of a planetary body, the strands describe a circle on the surface. It is where each strand touches down that cratering takes place. It is well known that if the pressure in a discharge filament exceeds some critical value, the discharge will "quench" or stop. So, in complex lunar craters, the blast pressure-wave as each "simple crater" is formed, quenches that discharge and the impinging current filament moves on to form the next crater, in a circular pattern. Evidence for this comes from the conspicuously crenelated appearance of the rim crests on large lunar craters. In any electric discharge, there is a steep rise in current to some maximum value. During the current rise, the current filaments in the discharge rope are squeezed tighter, reducing the diameter of the "rope". It would also be expected that the density of filaments would be lower at the periphery of the discharge Lunar craters, like the 93km Copernicus, show the precise characteristics to be expected from the inward collapse of the cratering "rope" and its lower peripheral density, which results in terracing of the crater walls. Some terraces even have areas with the same flat, melted appearance of the inner crater floor. As expected, the terrace edges also exhibit crenelation. In a large crater, the fraction of the blasts directed radially inwards, if reasonably symmetrical and synchronous, would create an axial over-pressure, tending to quench any filaments attempting to discharge near the centre of the crater. So, the central peak should escape "spark machining" and show similar crenelation to the crater rim (which is also observed). The central peak should also exhibit blast shocked crystals but be basically made up of the same layered rock structure as it was before the cratering event. (I note that the Manson crater peak is layered, shocked breccia, rather than a frozen melt). Like all large lunar craters, the 200km diameter Tsiolkovsky crater has another interesting characteristic: the unflooded areas of the crater floor (i.e. unmelted) inside the rim are exceedingly rough on a fine scale. Looked at closely, it is covered with circular craters and sinuous rilles, down to the limits of resolution. The melted floor looks like fresh tarmac by comparison. Sinuous rilles are diagnostic of electrical cratering, similar scarring having been observed on Earth (on a much reduced scale) from powerful lightning bolts. The analogy of the effects of the discharge to that of a shaped router bit biting into the Moon's surface comes to mind. If you can imagine that the outer edge of the bit breaks off rapidly and incrementally, the analogy is even better. The scar would not be formed instantaneously in one colossal blast as the impact theory would have it, but spread over 10's of seconds, or minutes. So, the collateral damage would be many orders of magnitude less. This would, for example, explain why Saturn's 390km diameter moon, Mimas, can have a huge 130km diameter bullseye crater and still be in one piece. Sudden jumps in discharge current will form multiple-ringed craters. Such sudden jumps, from diffuse to more concentrated are commonly observed in electric arcs. The mighty triple ringed Mare Orientale, at 900km diameter, is a good example. The size and shallow nature of these large features argues for a more diffuse discharge. There is a simple relationship between the diameters of the rings which seems to hold regardless of the surface characteristics and even which moon or planet is involved. It appears to be a fruitful area for more electrical discharge research. One last thought: It has been noted by a number of astronomers (and Ralph Juergens) that "ejecta" from some large lunar rayed craters, such as Tycho, appears not to be distributed radially, but rather tangentially to the crater rim. Ralph thought that such rays were not ejecta but the equivalent of "Lichtenberg figures", created by surface-hugging streams of electrons, rushing to form the lightning "leaders" for the interplanetary discharge. The apparent different origin point for the long rays and the shorter, more diffuse rays centred on the crater might, Juergens thought, be due to an offset between the departure point of discharge "leaders" from the Moon, and the return stroke. Juergens' explanation is the only sensible one I have seen for rayed craters. In addition, if my view is correct for formation of the crater itself, the moat forming blasts will not come statically from the centre of a large crater, but dynamically, with a rotary movement about the centre. Therefore I would expect some evidence of layered, non-radial ejecta just outside the crater rim, burying the rays which a few seconds earlier had pin-pointed the target for the return stroke of the interplanetary thunderbolt. Such a dark ring of ejecta around Tycho is easily visible from Earth, but may require an on-site inspection to detect the effect. However, while I wait for that, there is highly visible evidence for rotary arcing on crater floors in the form of arcuate rilles, running parallel with the crater floor-wall contact. By the way, I have absolutely nothing against impact cratering. I would expect that almost all non-circular craters, that are not comprised of near co-incident circular craters, are caused that way - and maybe even a few circular ones too. Something less than 1% of the craters on the Moon, I would guess. Wal Thornhill VENUS GREENHOUSE QUESTIONED AGAIN Wal Thornhill posted: The Venera spacecraft found continuous lightning activity from 32km down to about 2km altitude, with discharges as frequent as an amazing 25 per second. The highest recorded rate on Earth is 1.4/sec during a severe blizzard. The Pioneer lander recorded 1000 radio impulses. Thirty-two minutes after landing, Venera 11 detected a very loud (82 decibel) noise which was believed to be thunder. Ted Holden adds: The Venera also noted "gloom" in the middle atmosphere, and then, finally light which appeared beyond some point in its descent and increased down to the surface. Electrical discharge and/or plasma phenomena may be one way to account for this. I have never yet seen any reasonable statement from establishment scientists as to why this should not invalidate Sagan's "super-greenhouse" theory, which requires that the supposed 2% of incident sunlight reaching the surface generates the 900 F temperatures. I don't see how anybody could claim that as much as 2% of sunlight even reaches the surface when all surface light appears to be local. Ted Holden 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/ ---------------------------------------------- Mikamar Publishing mikamar at e-z.net