Metis

Metis. Hesiod, Theogony 886 ff : "Zeus, as king of the gods, took as his first wife Metis, and she knew more than all the gods or mortal people. But when she was about to be delivered of the goddess, gray-eyed Athene, then Zeus, deceiving her perception by treachery and by slippery speeches, put her away inside his own belly. This was by the advices of Gaia (Earth) and starry Ouranos (Sky), for so they counselled, in order that no other everlasting god, beside Zeus, should ever be given kingly position. For it had been arranged that, from her, children surpassing in wisdom should be born, first the gray-eyed girl, the Tritogeneia Athene . . . but then a son to be king over gods and mortals was to be born to her and his heart would be overmastering; but before this, Zeus put her away inside his own belly so that this goddess should think for him, for good and for evil."

Augustine of Hippo: On Changes of Venus

Augustine, City of God, Book XXI: THAT IT IS POSSIBLE FOR A THING TO BECOME DIFFERENT FROM WHAT IT WAS FORMERLY KNOWN CHARACTARISTICALLY TO BE

From the book of Marcus Varro, entitled, Of the Race of the Roman People, I cite word for word the following instance: "There occurred a remarkable celestial portent; for Castor records that, in the brilliant star Venus, called Vesperugo by Plautus, and the lovely Hesperus by Homer, there occurred so strange a prodigy, that it changed its color, size, form, course, which never happened before nor since. Adrastus of Cyzicus, and Dion of Naples, famous mathematicians, said that this occurred in the reign of Ogyges." So great an author as Varro would certainly not have called this a portent had it not seemed to be contrary to nature. For we say that all portents are contrary to nature; but they are not so. For how is that contrary to nature which happens by the will of God, since the will of so mighty a Creator is certainly the nature of each created thing? A portent, therefore, happens not contrary to nature, but contrary to what we know as nature. But who can number the multitude of portents recorded in profane histories? Let us then at present fix our attention on this one only which concerns the matter in hand. What is there so arranged by the Author of nature of heaven and earth as the exactly ordered course of the stars? What is there established by laws so sure and inflexible? And yet, when it pleased Him who with sovereignty and supreme power regulates all He has created, a star conspicuous among the rest by its size and splendor changed its color, size, form, and, most wonderful of all, the order and law of its course! Certainly that phenomenon disturbed the canons of the astronomers, if there were any then, by which they tabulate, as by unerring computation, the past and future movements of the stars, so as to take upon them to affirm that this which happened to the morning star (Venus) never happened before nor since. ... But possibly, though Varro is a heathen historian, and a very learned one, they may disbelieve that what I have cited from him truly occurred; or they may say the example is invalid, because the star did not for any length of time continue to follow its new course, but returned to its ordinary orbit.

Worlds In Collision Again

"... those terrifiers of the world stood like two planets both deviating from their orbits." -- Sanjaya, Mahabharata, Book 8 (Karna Parva), Chapter 17, 8th century B.C.

"For if the Olympian who handles the lightning [Jupiter] should be minded
to hurl us [planets] out of our places, he is far too strong for any."
-- Homer, poet, Iliad, I:580-581

"Then, it was then that Zeus [Jupiter] changed the radiant paths of the stars, and the light of the sun, and the bright face of dawn; and the sun drove across the western back of the sky with hot flame from heaven's fires, while the rain-clouds went northward and Ammon's lands [Egypt] grew parched and faint, not knowing moisture, robbed of heaven's fairest showers of rain." --Euripides, playwright, Electra, 408 B.C.

"But, when the planets,
In evil mixture, to disorder wander,
What plagues, and what portents? what mutiny?
What raging of the sea? Shaking of the earth?
Commotion in the winds? frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixture?"
-- William Shakespeare, playwright, Troilus and Cressida, 1602

"If an atom is built as a microcosmical model of a solar system, elements arriving from interatomic space, also travelling from one atom to another must be in existence. Contacts between elements, increase in numbers of electrons, polarities, change of orbits, all must take place. Change of orbits and emitting of energy at these moments were supposed by Bohr." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, polymath, November 1942

"... the solar system may have changed so much since it was created that a study of the present state would tell us very little about it's origin." -- Hannes O.G. Alfvén, physicist, 1954

"...it was accepted that the solar system has no history at all. So it was created if not 6000 years ago, then 6 billion years ago. But then for 6 billion years there was no change. Whether it was created or came into being by tidal action of a passing star which would be catastrophic as the tidal theory wishes or it is growing out of a nebula, the nebular theory which goes back to Kant and Laplace, but since creation there was no change. But if what I am telling you is truth, then there were changes, and very many, and very recently too." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, polymath, 1966

"... it is not the 'beliefs' and 'religions' which circle around and fight eachother restlessly; what changes is the celestial situation." -- Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend, polymaths, 1969

"... I started to think that quite possibly, though not certain, that at the age of Kronos, the planet Earth could have been a satellite of Saturn. None of them was on their present orbit." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, polymath, January 29th 1975

"... Immanuel Velikovsky wrote a series of books decades ago saying that the events in the Bible were literally true, and caused by various astronomical things like planets careening around the solar system like billiard balls, interacting in impossible ways, and doing many impossible things." -- Phil Plait, pseudoscientist, January 8th 2010

Scientists are once again proving the historical record, theomachy, and Immanuel Velikovsky, the greatest natural philosopher of the 20th century, correct. However pseudoscientists like Phil Plait are still in denial of reality.

New Scientist: Did Jupiter and Saturn play pinball with Uranus?

URANUS may have been batted back and forth between Jupiter and Saturn before being flung out to its present location, new simulations suggest.

Previous modelling has shown that Jupiter and Saturn moved out of their initial orbits in the early solar system, scattering nearby objects.

In some simulations, this led to Uranus crossing the path of Saturn, which could then have flung it towards Jupiter, which lobbed it back to Saturn. The process might have happened three times before Uranus was finally ejected beyond Saturn, to where it now resides. Hurling Uranus would have caused Jupiter and Saturn to recoil, further shifting their orbits.

New simulations led by Alessandro Morbidelli of the Côte d'Azur Observatory in France suggest this pinball game, which would have lasted just 100,000 years, fits with observations. In an alternate scenario, Jupiter and Saturn moved to their orbits over 5 million years by simply flinging away space rocks, but this would have visibly scarred the asteroid belt (Astronomical Journal, in press). "The evolution of the giant planets has been more violent than we thought," Morbidelli says.

Scientists Rediscover Pythagoras/Democritus/Velikovsky

"Some of the Italians called Pythagoreans say that the comet is one of the planets [Venus]." -- Aristotle, philosopher, Meteorology, Book I, 350 B.C.

"Democritus however, insists upon the truth of his view and affirms that certain stars [Venus] have been seen when comets dissolve." -- Aristotle, philosopher, Meteorology, Book I, 350 B.C.

"Venus experienced in quick succession its birth and expulsion under violent conditions; an existence as a comet on an ellipse which approached the sun closely; two encounters with the earth accompanied by discharges of [electric] potentials between these two bodies and with a thermal effect caused by conversion of momentum into heat; a number of contacts with Mars, and probably also with Jupiter. Since all this happened between the third and first millennia before the present era, the core of the planet Venus must still be hot." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, polymath, 1950

Science Daily: Super-Hot Planet With Unique [sic] Comet-Like Tail Discovered [sic].

ScienceDaily (July 15, 2010) — Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed the existence of a baked object that could be called a "cometary planet." The gas giant planet, named HD 209458b, is orbiting so close to its star that its heated atmosphere is escaping into space.

The New Kingdom's Comet Venus Crown

Venus, Athena Cometha, Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent, Lucifer.

"As Zeus's [Jupiter's] daughter [Venus] she'll be immortal and live in heaven with her brothers, Pollux and Castor, the heavenly twins, an extra star for ships to steer their courses by." -- Euripides, playwright, Orestes, 408 B.C.

"Democritus however, insists upon the truth of his view and affirms that certain stars [Venus] have been seen when comets dissolve." -- Aristotle, philosopher, Meteorology, 350 B.C.

"Some of the Italians called Pythagoreans say that the comet is one of the planets [Venus]." -- Aristotle, philosopher, Meteorology, 350 B.C.

"For the past 50 years or so, scientists have been talking about dust condensing at low pressures and gradually becoming pebbles, then boulders, etc. and building planets. While that process goes on to some extent, it would lead to oxidized planets without massive cores. I think in the main the planets rained out of the centers of giant gaseous protoplanets, which would account for their massive cores and, in the case of Earth, for her two component surface." -- J. Marvin Herndon, geophysicist, Email to the Noob, October 2008

Gary Gilligan: Velikovsky's Comet Venus.

Immanuel Velikovsky concluded from his extensive interdisciplinary research that the planet Venus was remembered from the time of the dawn of civilization as a brilliant cometary body.

While there is a wealth of literary sources to draw upon, when it comes to the pictorial evidence it isn’t as forthcoming. No images can be conclusively identified as actually representing Venus in cometary form, a situation that essentially shouldn’t exist. After all, it stands to reason that it was naked eye observations that primarily inspired the myths. So, at the very least the imagery should be equal to or analogous to the literary sources – but this clearly isn’t the case.

Have we overlooked something? Is it possible images of Comet Venus have been staring us in the face for decades?

The image on the right has been taken from the back of Tutankhamun’s throne. It depicts the wife of king Tut, Ankhsunamun. The queen is shown wearing a very distinctive crown consisting of a disk surmounted by cow horns and two tall plumes.

This unusual headdress made its appearance in the New Kingdom and features prominently in Egyptian art - numerous queens can be seen sporting this particular crown. Although the actual shape or outline remained constant (for approximately 900 years), there exist a few variants to the colours shown. For example, the disk was predominantly painted the traditional Egyptian deep red, the ‘horns’ normally black, while the plumes can be gold, a plain yellow, or blue and without the ‘filaments‘.

Like most Egyptian crowns encompassing a sphere, it somehow represents an aspect of the sun, or so the conventional way of thinking goes. This is a perplexing line of thought since the Sun is a golden glaring ball—it doesn’t have cow horns wrapped around it and most certainly exhibits no signs of enormous cometary tails.

It is apparent even to the uninitiated that what we are looking at here is a comet—a large comet with a plumed tail. Furthermore, if Egyptian art is used as a measure of time, this comet graced our skies for nearly a thousand years. It is carved, painted, and represented in statues the length and breadth the of Nile valley. Even the legendary Cleopatra wore this headdress.

Could this particular crown be a true-life physical representation of proto-Venus as it appeared in ancient times?

To quote Wal Thornhill:

'In the electrical model of the solar system, any body on a sufficiently eccentric orbit about the Sun will exhibit cometary features. For ancient people to have seen Venus as an Earth-threatening comet, Venus must have had an eccentric orbit that brought the planet near to Earth'.

Are we looking at Velikovsky’s comet Venus?

Comparing the comet crown with the Venus diagram on the left reveals some fundamental similarities, far too close to be deemed coincidental. In fact, for all intents and purposes they are virtually identical!

The orb represents the body of Venus: the horns signify the bow shock as the solar wind slams into the Venusian surface, enveloping its body due to a lack of an intrinsic magnetic field. The two large plumes represent Venus’ magnetotail—split in two and flowing downstream at least three times its diameter.

The image on the left is just a diagram, and today Venus’ comet tail can only be detected by magnetometers and charged particle detectors. However, place Venus on an eccentric orbit in a highly charged ‘dusty’ environment and the normally invisible magnetotail (and bow shock) would become highly visible.

Wal Thornhill commenting on Venus’ cometary magnetotail:

'A power surge in those filaments today would cause them to glow, and Venus would form a "stupendous" cometary apparition in the sky. The forensic evidence would stand up in court, showing that Venus was a comet within human memory'.

Science is slowly proving Velikovsky to be correct in a number of areas. Perhaps with the comet crown of ancient Egypt we now have the pictorial evidence to match.

Saturnian Research

"Woe to thee, Moab! thou art undone, O people of Chemosh [Saturn]:" -- Numbers 21:29

"And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal [Saturn] and Ashtaroth [Venus]." -- Judges 2:13

"Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh [Saturn] thy god giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever the LORD our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess." -- Judges 11:24

"Then did Solomon build a high place for Chemosh [Saturn], the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech [Saturn], the abomination of the children of Ammon." -- I Kings 11:7

"Because they have forsaken me, and have worshipped Ashtoreth [Venus] the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh [Saturn] the god of the Moabites, and Milcom [Saturn] the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in my ways, to do that which is right in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes and my judgments, as did David his father." -- I Kings 11:33

"Then said Elijah unto the people, I, [even] I only, remain a prophet of the LORD; but Baal's [Saturn's] prophets [are] four hundred and fifty men." -- I Kings 18:22

"And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal [Saturn]." --II Kings 17:16

"For he [Manasseh] built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal [Saturn], and made an Asherah, as did Ahab king of Israel, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them. -- II Kings 21:3

"And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth [Venus] the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh [Saturn] the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom [Saturn] the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile." -- II Kings 23:13

"And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet [Saturn], because of all the houses whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods." -- Jeremiah 19:13

"For because thou hast trusted in thy works and in thy treasures, thou shalt also be taken: and Chemosh [Saturn] shall go forth into captivity with his priests and his princes together." -- Jeremiah 48:7

"And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh [Saturn], as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel [heaven] their confidence." -- Jeremiah 48:13

"Woe be unto thee, O Moab! the people of Chemosh [Saturn] perisheth: for thy sons are taken captives, and thy daughters captives." -- Jeremiah 48:46

"Seek him that maketh the seven stars [Khima/Saturn] and Orion [Kesil/Mars], and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name:" -- Amos 5:8

"But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch [Saturn] and Chiun [Saturn] your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves." -- Amos 5:26

"And them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops; and them that worship and that swear by the LORD, and that swear by Malcham [Saturn];" -- Zephaniah 1:5

"Which maketh Arcturus [Aish], and Orion [Kesil/Mars], and Pleiades [Khima/Saturn], and the chambers of the south." -- Job 9:9

"Canst though bind the sweet influences of Pleiades [Khima/Saturn], or loose the bands of Orion [Kesil/Mars]? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth [Lucifer/Venus] in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus [Aish] with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?" -- Job 38:31-33

"This is the way it is fated to be; and for you and your anger
I [Jupiter] care not; not if you stray apart to the undermost limits
of earth and sea, where Iapetos and Kronos [Saturn] seated
have no shining of the sun god Hyperion to delight them
nor winds delight, but Tartaros stands deeply about them."
-- Homeros, poet, Iliad, VIII:477-481, 8th century B.C.

"Hades [Pluto] trembled where he rules over the dead below, and the Titans under Tartarus who live with Cronos [Saturn] ...." -- Hesiod, poet, Theogony, 8th century B.C.

"Zeus [Jupiter], as thou sayest, holds a father's death
As first of crimes,-yet he of his own act
Cast into chains [rings] his father, Cronus [Saturn] old."
-- Aeschylus, playwright, Eumenides, 458 B.C.

"Again, we have been often told of the reign of Cronos [Saturn]." -- Plato, philosopher, The Stateman, 360 B.C.

"And since they [Chaldeans] have observed the stars over a long period of time and have noted both the movements and the influences of each of them with greater precision than any other men, they foretell to mankind many things that will take place in the future. But above all importance, they say, is the study of the influence of the five stars known as planets, which they call 'Interpreters' when speaking of them as a group, but if referring to them singly, the one named Cronus [Saturn] by the Greeks, which is the most conspicuous and presages more events and such as are of greater importance than the others, they call the star of Helius, whereas the other four they designate as the stars of Ares [Mars], Aphrodite [Venus], Hermes [Mercury], and Zeus [Jupiter], as do our astrologers." -- Diodorus Siculus, historian, Library of History, Book II, 1st century B.C.

"There was in their city [Carthage] a bronze image of Cronus [Saturn], extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire." -- Diodorus Siculus, historian, Library of History, Book XX, 1st century B.C.

"The second star is that of Sol; others say of Saturn. Eratosthenes claims that it is called Phaethon, from the son of Sol. Many have written about him – how he foolishly drove his father’s chariot and set fire to the earth. Because of this he was struck with a thunderbolt by Jove, and fell into the river Eridanus, and was conveyed by Sol to the constellations." -- Gaius J. Hyginus, author, Astronomica, 1st century B.C.

"Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch [Saturn], and the star of your god Remphan [Saturn], figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon." -- Acts 7:43

"I regard Serapis as foreign, but Osiris [Saturn] as Greek, and both as belonging to one god and one power. Like these also are the Egyptian beliefs; for they oftentimes call Isis [Venus] by the name of Athena...." -- Plutarch, historian, Isis and Osiris, 61-62, 1st century

"To you, O Saturn, Zoilus dedicates these chains and these double fetters, his first rings." -- Marcus V. Martialis, poet, Epigram XXIX, 1st century

"... and yet the King of Gods, the first and eldest one, is in bonds [rings], they say, if we are to believe Hesiod and Homer and other wise men who tell this tale about Cronus [Saturn]...." -- Dio Crysostom, philosopher, Discourse XIV, 1st century

"Theopompus records that the people who live toward the west believe that the winter is Cronus [Saturn]...." -- Plutarch, historian, Moralia: Isis and Osiris (69), 1st century

"Certain things he [Pythagoras] declared mystically, symbolically, most of which were collected by Aristotle, as when he called the sea a tear of Saturn...." -- Porphyry, philosopher, Life of Pythagoras, 3rd century

"In Orpheus, likewise, Saturn is ensnared by Jupiter...." -- Porphyry, philosopher, Cave of Nymphs, 3rd century

"There also is that one they call Saturn, and yet they give him no small property beside, namely all seeds." -- Augustine, theologian, City of God, 426

"The last fell to the lot of Cronos [Saturn] the seventh planet. Such he made this seat; and having founded the sacred city, he called it by the name of Thebes in Egypt...." -- Nonnus, poet, Dionysiaca, Book V, 5th century

"...as ancient Cronos [Saturn] heavy-kneed, pouring rain." -- Nonnus, poet, Dionysiaca, Book VI, 5th century

"I take the sharing of the kingdom of Hyperion among his brothers the Titans, to be the division of the earth among the gods mentioned in the poem of Solon." -- Isaac Newton, mathematician, Revised History of Ancient Kingdoms: A Complete Chronology, 1727

"But this reign [Quetzalcoatl/Venus], like that of Saturn, and the happiness of the world, were not of long duration...." -- Alexander Von Humboldt, naturalist, 1814

"... but how is it possible that the dark and distant planet Saturn can answer to the luminary who 'irradiates the nations like the sun, the light of the gods'?" -- George Rawlinson, historian, Ninip or Nin - His Epithets, 1875

"... by the word 'Sun' we must understand the 'Star of the Sun,' i.e., Saturn...." -- R. Campbell Thompson, historian, The Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh and Babylon in the British Museum, 1900

"[R. Campbell] Thompson in his Introduction to his collection of astrological reports has noticed that the planet Saturn was also designated as Šamaš, i.e. 'sun' by the Babylonian-Assyrian astrologers and he quotes the statement of Hyginus to the effect that Saturn was called 'the star of the sun.'" -- Morris Jastrow Jr., historian, Sun and Saturn, 1910

"... 'when Šamaš stands in the halo of the moon'. Since this phenomenon can only occur at night, Šamaš cannot of course be the sun. The proof that it is Saturn is furnished by the astrologers themselves...." -- Morris Jastrow Jr., historian, Sun and Saturn, 1910

"'The planet Saturn is Shamash.'" -- Morris Jastrow Jr., historian, Sun and Saturn, 1910

"At a date that I would be hard put to identify even with approximation, but possibly about less than ten thousand years ago Saturn was disturbed by Jupiter and exploded, actually became a nova. The solar system and reaches beyond it were illuminated by the exploded star, and in a matter of a week the earth was enveloped in waters of Saturnian origin." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, Saturn, 1966

"The rings of Saturn are formations of less than ten or twelve thousand years old. They must consist largely of water in the form of ice, but since the ancient lore all around the world tells us that it was Jupiter who put these rings around Saturn, they may have some other components, too [1940s]. Since these lines were written, spectroscopic study of the Saturnian rings has revealed that they consist mainly of water in the form of ice." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, Saturn, 1966

"The age of Uranus preceded the age of Saturn; it came to an end with the 'removal' of Uranus by Saturn." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, In the Beginning: Uranus, 1966

"One instance of the Saturn myth can be verified with the help of a small telescope: Saturn is in chains." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, In the Beginning: The Rings of Saturn, 1966

"How did the ancient Greeks and Romans know that Saturn is encircled by rings? It is strange that this question was not asked before." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, In the Beginning: The Rings of Saturn, 1966

"Saturn exploded and caused the Earth to go through the greatest of its historical catastrophes, and this was completely sufficient to make of Saturn the supreme deity; but it appears that the Age of Saturn is a name for the epoch before the Deluge; after the Deluge, Saturn dismembered, almost ceased to exist as a planetary body and when at length it was reconstituted it was fettered by rings, and was far from being the dominant celestial body that would behoove it as the supreme deity of the epoch." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, In the Beginning: Saturn's Golden Age, 1966

"... the conclusion would be that the distance of the Earth from Saturn was but a twentieth part of what it is now; this would permit us to speculate whether the Earth could at some earlier period have been a satellite of Saturn." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, In the Beginning: Saturn's Golden Age, 1966

"Today expert philologists tell us that Saturn and Jupiter are names of vague deities, subterranean or atmospheric, superimposed on the planets at a 'late' period; they neatly sort out folk origins and 'late' derivations, all unaware that planetary periods, sidereal and synodic, were known and rehearsed in numerous ways by celebrations already traditional in archaic times." -- Giorgio de Santillana, polymath, Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and Its Transmission Through Myth, 1969

"Ancient historians would have been aghast had they been told that obvious things were to become unnoticeable. Aristotle was proud to state it as known that the gods were originally [wandering] stars, even if popular fantasy had obscured this truth. Little as he believed in progress, he felt this much had been secured for the future. He could not guess that W.D. Ross, his modern editor, would condescendingly annotate, 'This is historically untrue.' Yet we know that Saturday and Sabbath had to do with Saturn, just as Wednesday and Mercredi had to do with Mercury. Such names are as old as time; as old, certainly, as the planetary heptagram of the Harranians. They go back far before Professor Ross' Greek philology. The inquiries of great and meticulous scholars such as Ideler, Lepsius, Chwolson, Boll and, to go further back, of Athanasius Kircher and Petavius, had they only been read carefully, and noted, would have taught several relevant lessons to the historians of culture, but interest shifted to other goals, as can be seen from current anthropology, which has built up it's own idea of the 'primitive' and what came after." -- Giorgio de Santillana, polymath, Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and Its Transmission Through Myth, 1969

"... Huang-Ti, the Yellow Emperor, is acknowledged to be Saturn." -- Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend, polymaths, Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and Its Transmission Through Myth, 1969

"... Ptah, who is the Egyptian Saturn, and also Deus Faber." -- Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend, polymaths, Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and Its Transmission Through Myth, 1969

"In China, Saturn has the title 'Genie du pivot,' as the god who presides over the Center, the same title which is given to the Pole star. This is puzzling at first, and so is the laconic statement coming from Mexico: 'In the year 2-Reed Tezcatlipoca changed into Mixcouatl, because Mixcouatl has his seat at the North pole and, being now Mixcouatl, he drilled fire with the first fire sticks for the first time." -- Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend, polymaths, Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and Its Transmission Through Myth, 1969

"What has Saturn, the far-out planet to do with the pole? Yet, if he cannot be recognized as the 'genie of the pivot,' how is it possible to support Amlodhi's claim to be the legitimate owner of the Mill?" -- Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend, polymaths, Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and Its Transmission Through Myth, 1969

"It is the Golden Age, in Latin tradition, Saturnia regna, the reign of Saturn; in Greek, Kronos. In this dim perplexing figure there is an extraordinary concordance throughout world myths. In India it was Yama; in the Old Persian Avesta it was Yima xsaeta, a name which became in New Persian Yamshyd; in Latin Saeturnus, then Saturnus. Saturn or Kronos in many names had been known as the Ruler of the Golden Age ...." -- Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend, polymaths, Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and Its Transmission Through Myth, 1969

"It should be stressed that the disinclination of philologists to allow for the 'essential' connection between Chronos and Kronos rests upon the stern belief that the 'god' Saturn has nothing to do with the planet Saturn, and upon the supposition that an expert in philology has nothing whatever to learn from Indian texts. Were it not so, they might have stumbled over Kala, i.e. Chronos, as a name of Yama, i.e. Kronos, alias the planet Saturn." -- Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend, polymaths, Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and Its Transmission Through Myth, 1969

"... I started to think that quite possibly, though not certain, that at the age of Kronos, the planet Earth could have been a satellite of Saturn. None of them was on their present orbit." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, Letter to David Talbott, January 29th 1975

"This non-acceptance made me view mine in a different light. To begin with, if others had detected this northernism with which Saturn is associated, the knowledge could not be as obscure as I had first imagined it to be. Also, it was easier to imagine Saturn as pole star than it was to accept that primitive man would have noticed the slow precession of the equinoxes. It was then that I realized that if we were to reconstruct a cosmic history based on ancient records, we would have no option but to accept what the ancients recorded. I also decided that, for the time being, it did not much matter whether what the ancients recorded was deemed possible or not. The testing of such possibilities could come later. Temporarily it was enough to attempt a reconstruction as dictated by the message of myth. Moreover, in those cases where the message was unambiguous, it would have to be accepted at face value. And such was the message which stated that Saturn had once played the part of pole star. Much as I wanted to disbelieve it, I had to accept it. It was either that or disbelieve everything else I had thus far uncovered." -- Dwardu Cardona, author, The Road to Saturn, December 1988

"This repeated confusion of the Sun and Saturn seems to make no sense at all. Can you imagine any difficulty in separating the two bodies, or distinguishing the one from the other?" -- David N. Talbott, author, Saturn: The Ancient Sun God, April 1997

"... as the leading expert Franz Boll soon pointed out, the identification of the 'sun' god as Saturn was more widespread and more archaic than previously acknowledged. ... Based on his reading of the most original Greek manuscripts, Boll drew a startling conclusion: the sun god Helios and the planet-god Saturn were 'one and the same god.'" -- David N. Talbott, author, Saturn: The Ancient Sun God, April 1997

"Myths have no point to make. They are, in fact, history." -- Jno Cook, Recovering the Lost World: Saturnian Cosmology, author, November 2009

"If electrical capture is common, it lends credibility to such Saturnist models of the recent history of the Solar system as that described by Dwardu Cardona in his book God Star and its two sequels. The body that became Saturn was a brown dwarf star moving alone in the galaxy with Venus, Mars, and Earth held in the axial jet above its pole—a low-energy counterpart of Herbig-Haro stars. It was drawn toward the Sun along the same galactic current. When it entered the Sun’s sheath, the electrical readjustment caused flaring and the disruption of the axial alignment of planets. Proto-Saturn lost its stellar radiance and its planets, and the bodies soon settled into quasi-stable orbits among the rest of the Sun’s planets." -- Mel Acheson, natural philosopher, Stars in Collision Part 2, November 2nd 2009

Cosmetologists and Astrologers Vs. Immanuel Velikovsky

"I who am a specialist in the field am moved to ask myself, 'Did this physician [Immanuel Velikovsky] writing in 1954 know more about physics of radio emissions than this physicist [Carl Sagan] writing 20 years later?'" -- James Warwick, astronomer, 1974

"Dr. Velikovsky pointed out that the collisions were not independent; in fact, if two bodies orbiting the Sun under the influence of gravity collide once, that encounter enhances the chance of another, a well known fact in celestial mechanics. Professor Sagan's calculations, in effect, ignore the law of gravity. Here, Dr. Velikovsky was the better astronomer." -- Robert Jastrow, astrophysicist, December 1979

"This Sagan assumption is so disingenuous that I do not hesitate to label it as either a deliberate fraud on the public or else a manifestation of unbelievable incompetence or hastiness combined with desperation and wretchedly poor judgement." -- Robert W. Bass, astronomer, 1976

Joshua Snyder: The Science Cartel vs. Immanuel Velikovsky. (Via Louis Hissink's Crazy World)

In 1950, Immanuel Velikovsky culminated decades of research with a book titled Worlds in Collision that "proposes that many myths and traditions of ancient peoples and cultures are based on actual events." His approach was interdisciplinary, a rarity in the 20th century, taking into account astronomy, physics, chemistry, psychology, ancient history, and comparative mythology.

He noted, for example, that Venus, the second brightest object in the night sky, was not mentioned by the earliest astronomers. He proposed that the planet was a newcomer to our solar system, a comet, appearing in historical times with an irregular orbit that caused catastrophic events on our own planet.

Coming in close contact with the Earth, the latter's rotation altered, making it appear that The Sun had stood still, a phenomenon reported on in the Book of Joshua. What has come to be known as Joshua's Long Day is corroborated by the texts of the ancient Chinese, Japanese, Egyptians, Babylonians, and Mayans; the East Asians reporting a extremely long sunset, the Mexicans reporting an extremely long sunrise.

Immanuel Velikovsky was too eminent a scholar to be dismissed outright as a kook, and he counted some respected people among his friends. (See The Einstein-Velikovsky Correspondence). Nevertheless, his Catastrophism was rejected outright by a scientific establishment that couldn't stomach an interdisciplinary challenge to its dogmatic Uniformitarianism, even after Velikovsky's predictions about the temperature of Venus and radio activity from Jupiter were proven true.

Planetary Cause of Rapid Pole Shift

"...consider what impetuous force
Turns stars and planets in a diff'rent course.
I steer against their motions; nor am I
Born back by all the current of the sky.
But how cou'd you resist the orbs that roul
In adverse whirls, and stem the rapid pole?"-- Ovid, poet, Metamorphoses Book II: Phaeton, 8

"Have we of all mankind been deemed deserving that heaven, its poles uptorn, should overwhelm us? In our time has the last day come?" -- Lucius A. Seneca, philosopher statesman, Thyestes, 1st century

Greenland and Antarctica are currently in an ice age. But this has not always been the case. Formerly temperate green continents such as Greenland and Antarctica (see my post When Antarctica Was Green) weren't always located at the poles. So-called "ice ages" such as exist in Antarctica and Greenland today are only caused by axis shift. There was an astronomical catastrophe. Though some giants and megafauna survived, it should be called the P-H Extinction Event since it marked the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene.

Woelfli, W., and Baltensperger, W., A Link Between an Ice Age Era and a Rapid Polar Shift, Jul 2004

The striking asymmetry of the ice cover during the Last Global Maximum suggests that the North Pole was in Greenland and then rapidly shifted to its present position in the Arctic Sea. A scenario which causes such a rapid geographic polar shift is physically possible. It involves an additional planet, which disappeared by evaporation within the Holocene. This is only possible within such a short period, if the planet was in an extremely eccentric orbit and hot. Then, since this produced an interplanetary gas cloud, the polar shift had to be preceded by a cold period with large global temperature variations during several million years.

Either that or maybe there really isn't a global conspiracy spanning several millenia to convince us Venus is a new planet.

"As Zeus's daughter [Venus] she'll be immortal and live in heaven with her brothers, Pollux and Castor, the heavenly twins, an extra star for ships to steer their courses by." -- Euripides, playwright, Orestes, 408 B.C.

"Then, it was then that Zeus changed the radiant paths of the stars, and the light of the sun, and the bright face of dawn; and the sun drove across the western back of the sky with hot flame from heaven's fires, while the rain-clouds went northward and Ammon's lands [Egypt] grew parched and faint, not knowing moisture, robbed of heaven's fairest showers of rain." --Euripides, playwright, Electra, 408 B.C.

"Some of the Italians called Pythagoreans say that the comet is one of the planets [Venus]." -- Aristotle, philosopher, Meteorology, 350 B.C.

"...all the comets that have been seen in our day have vanished without setting, gradually fading away above the horizon; and they have not left behind them either one or more stars. ... Democritus however, insists upon the truth of his view and affirms that certain stars [Venus] have been seen when comets dissolve." -- Aristotle, philosopher, Meteorology, 350 B.C.

"Here you see the Morning Star [Venus]. Who sees the Morning Star shall see more, for he shall be wise." -- Black Elk, medicine man, August 1930

"... the morning star [Venus] lives to give men wisdom ...." -- Black Elk, medicine man, August 1930

"In an ancient Hindu tablet of planets, attributed to the year -3012 Venus among the visible planets is absent [Delambre, J.B.J., Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne I, Page 407, 1817: 'Venus alone is not found there.']." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1950

"These four-planet systems and the inability of the ancient Hindus and Babylonians to see Venus in the sky, even though it is more conspicuous than the other planets, are puzzling unless Venus was not among the planets." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1950

Jupiter Gets Owned Again

"Dr. Velikovsky pointed out that the collisions were not independent; in fact, if two bodies orbiting the Sun under the influence of gravity collide once, that encounter enhances the chance of another, a well known fact in celestial mechanics. Professor Sagan's calculations, in effect, ignore the law of gravity. Here, Dr. Velikovsky was the better astronomer." -- Robert Jastrow, astrophysicist, December 1979

15 years after the Shoemaker-Levy catastrophe, another catastrophe. This confirms the scientific teachings of Democritus, Plato, and Immanuel Velikovsky.

This impact event was discovered by an amateur. Professional scientists and mathematicians were clueless. They were totally unprepared and had no idea this was coming.

If it hadn't been pointed out to them by an amateur, it is likely scientists would have never known about this. Some scientists are in denial of catastrophism even after the facts have been pointed out to them: Jupiter Pummeled, Leaving Bruise The Size Of Pacific Ocean.

ScienceDaily (July 21, 2009) — Scientists have found evidence that another object has bombarded Jupiter, exactly 15 years after the first impacts by the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.

Following up on a tip by an amateur astronomer, Anthony Wesley of Australia, that a new dark "scar" had suddenly appeared on Jupiter, this morning between 3 and 9 a.m. PDT (6 a.m. and noon EDT) scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., using NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility at the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, gathered evidence indicating an impact.

Astronomers Admit Defeat, Plagiarize Democritus/Velikovsky

Newtonian astrologers and scientologists are now hedging against the ignorance of their 17th century religion by admitting defeat.

Democritus/Velikovsky 1 - Newton/Lyell 0.

BBC: 'Tiny chance' of planet collision. (Hat tip: Anaconda via Wattsupwiththat)

Astronomers calculate there is a tiny chance that Mars or Venus could collide with Earth - though it would not happen for at least a billion years.

The finding comes from simulations to show how orbits of planets might evolve billions of years into the future.

But the calculated chances of such events occurring are tiny.

Writing in the journal Nature, a team led by Jacques Laskar shows there is also a chance Mercury could strike Venus and merge into a larger planet.

Professor Laskar of the Paris Observatory and his colleagues also report that Mars might experience a close encounter with Jupiter - whose massive gravity could hurl the Red Planet out of our Solar System.

Astronomers had thought that the orbits of the planets were predictable.

LOL @ astrologers.

"Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame...." -- Isaiah 37:13-14

But 20 years ago, researchers showed that there were slight fluctuations in their paths.

Worlds In Collision was published in 1950 so that would be 59 years ago, not 20 years ago.

Now, the team has shown how in a small proportion of cases these fluctuations can grow until after several million years, the orbits of the inner planets begin to overlap.

The researchers carried out more than 2,500 simulations. They found that in some, Mars and Venus collided with the Earth.

"It will be complete devastation," said Professor Laskar.

"The planet is coming in at 10km per second - 10 times the speed of a bullet - and of course Mars is much more massive than a bullet."

Professor Laskar's calculations also show that there is a possibility of Mercury crashing into Venus. But in that scenario, the Earth would not be significantly affected.

"If there is anyone around billions of years from now, they'd see a burst of light in the sky and the two planets would be merged," he said.

"The new planet would be a little bit bigger than Venus, and the Solar System would be a little more regular after the collision, but the Earth's orbit would not be affected."

Velikovsky 2012

Venus and Velikovsky

Rens Van Der Sluijs: Velikovskian Chaff and Wheat: Venus

Science progresses in a variety of ways.

One way that science progresses is through a careful evaluation of arguments advanced by earlier scholars in the field. For the sake of academic honesty, this has to be done in a completely dispassionate manner. The work of pioneers, Nobel-prize winners and other prestigious people cannot be judged by different standards than that of the least noticed postgraduate student.

The maverick Russian-American polymath, Immanuel Velikovsky (1895-1979), deserves recognition for his pioneering statements about the role of electromagnetic activity in space and the importance of catastrophic events even in historically recent periods. Yet science has no place for worship and it is incumbent on modern researchers to scrupulously evaluate each of Velikovsky’s many claims in the light of current knowledge.

One of Velikovsky’s boldest ideas was that the planet Venus is a relative newcomer in the solar system: during the mid-2nd millennium BCE, it would have been erupted from the interior of the planet Jupiter and have inflicted damage to the earth’s atmosphere and biosphere with its conspicuous cometary tail before settling in its present orbit and shedding its appendage. How does this analysis fare when approached today with an open but a sternly critical mind? ...

First, Velikovsky’s citation of the Roman intellectual, Varro, to the effect that Venus “changed its color, size, form, course, which never happened before nor since,” presents a genuine puzzle to modern historians of the solar system. The citation itself is unambiguous and not suspicious, but it needs to be resolved exactly how and when Venus’ colour, appearance and movement were modified.

In addition, the so-called Venus Tablet of Ammiṣaduqa (7th century BCE?), which presents the oldest known set of Venus observations, remains a mystery. Specialists are urged to investigate whether the data given in the tablet could consistently describe not the present orbit of Venus, but any other course the planet might have followed.

Second, Velikovsky’s argument that Venus once sported a cometary tail stands up to close scrutiny and can be buttressed with a mass of additional evidence. In modern terms, a plausible explanation for the ancient testimony would be the assumption that Venus’ large magnetosphere had acquired a visible glow in historical times, at a time when the inner solar system was brimming with electrical activity.

Third, Velikovsky rightly drew attention to the voluminous body of mythical traditions concerning the birth of the morning star. The spectacular ascent to heaven of the feathered serpent, Quetzalcoatl, in Aztec mythology, is a textbook example for this motif.

The Wisdom of Egypt and Solon In Plato's Timaeus

In Plato's Timaeus (360 B.C.), Critias, an elderly relative of Plato, tells Socrates the story of his grandfather, also named Critias, and his great grandfather Dropides who was friends with Solon. The speaker is an Egyptian priest (according to Plutarch, "Sonchis the Saite, the most learned of all the priests") and the listener is Solon, one of the Seven Wise Men of antiquity.

The Jowett translation sucks but whatever (it's free...:P): Timaeus.

Critias: Then listen, Socrates, to a tale which, though strange, is certainly true, having been attested by Solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages. He was a relative and a dear friend of my great-grandfather, Dropides, as he himself says in many passages of his poems; and he told the story to Critias, my grandfather, who remembered and repeated it to us. There were of old, he said, great and marvellous actions of the Athenian city, which have passed into oblivion through lapse of time and the destruction of mankind, and one in particular, greater than all the rest. This we will now rehearse. It will be a fitting monument of our gratitude to you, and a hymn of praise true and worthy of the goddess [Athene being "grey-eyed" might be the Moon or else Venus], on this her day of festival.

Socrates: Very good. And what is this ancient famous action of the Athenians, which Critias declared, on the authority of Solon, to be not a mere legend, but an actual fact?

Critias: I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an aged man; for Critias, at the time of telling it, was as he said, nearly ninety years of age, and I was about ten. Now the day was that day of the Apaturia which is called the Registration of Youth, at which, according to custom, our parents gave prizes for recitations, and the poems of several poets were recited by us boys, and many of us sang the poems of Solon, which at that time had not gone out of fashion. One of our tribe, either because he thought so or to please Critias, said that in his judgment Solon was not only the wisest of men, but also the noblest of poets. The old man, as I very well remember, brightened up at hearing this and said, smiling: Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only, like other poets, made poetry the business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by reason of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in his own country when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet.

And what was the tale about, Critias? said Amynander.

About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which ought to have been the most famous, but, through the lapse of time and the destruction of the actors, it has not come down to us.

Tell us, said the other, the whole story, and how and from whom Solon heard this veritable tradition.

He replied:-In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which the river Nile divides, there is a certain district which is called the district of Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is the city from which King Amasis came. The citizens have a deity for their foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith [Nit is either the Moon (Tanit in Carthage) or else Venus (Ashtarte in Phoenecia).], and is asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene; they are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way related to them. To this city came Solon, and was received there with great honour; he asked the priests who were most skilful in such matters, about antiquity, and made the discovery that neither he nor any other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the times of old. On one occasion, wishing to draw them on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient things in our part of the world-about Phoroneus, who is called "the first man," and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and reckoning up the dates, tried to compute how many years ago the events of which he was speaking happened. Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very great age, said: O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you. Solon in return asked him what he meant. I mean to say, he replied, that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age. And I will tell you why. There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes. There is a story, which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Paethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals; at such times those who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore. And from this calamity the Nile, who is our never-failing saviour, delivers and preserves us. When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, the survivors in your country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell on the mountains, but those who, like you, live in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea. Whereas in this land, neither then nor at any other time, does the water come down from above on the fields, having always a tendency to come up from below; for which reason the traditions preserved here are the most ancient.

The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer does not prevent, mankind exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes in lesser numbers. And whatever happened either in your country or in ours, or in any other region of which we are informed-if there were any actions noble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have all been written down by us of old, and are preserved in our temples. Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves. As for those genealogies of yours which you just now recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than the tales of children. In the first place you remember a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones; in the next place, you do not know that there formerly dwelt in your land the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived, and that you and your whole city are descended from a small seed or remnant of them which survived. And this was unknown to you, because, for many generations, the survivors of that destruction died, leaving no written word. For there was a time, Solon, before the great deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens was first in war and in every way the best governed of all cities, is said to have performed the noblest deeds and to have had the fairest constitution of any of which tradition tells, under the face of heaven.

Solon marvelled at his words, and earnestly requested the priests to inform him exactly and in order about these former citizens.

On Predictions In Science

"...my liveliest interest is not so much in things, as in relations of things. I have spent much time thinking about the alleged pseudo-relations that are called coincidences. What if some of them should not be coincidence?" -- Charles H. Fort, writer, 1933

Immanuel Velikovsky: On Prediction in Science .

In order to bring into proper focus the significance of correct prediction in science, I offer at the start a short survey of the most celebrated cases, and it is not by chance that almost all of them come from the domain of astronomy. These cases are spectacular and, with one or two exceptions, are well known.

The story of scientific “clairvoyance” in modern astronomy starts with Johannes Kepler, a strange case and little known. When Galileo, using the telescope he had built after the model of an instrument invented by a Danish craftsman, discovered the satellites circling Jupiter, Kepler became very eager to see the satellites himself and begged in letters to have an instrument sent to Prague; Galileo did not even answer him. Next, Galileo made two more discoveries, but before publishing them in a book, he assured himself of priority by composing cryptograms, not an uncommon procedure in those days: statements written in Latin were deliberately reduced to the letters of which the sentences were composed, or, if the author of the cryptogram so wished, the letters were re-assembled to make a different sentence. The second way was chosen by Galileo when he thought he had discovered that Saturn is “a triple” planet, having observed appendices on both sides of Saturn, but not having discerned that they were but a ring around the planet, a discovery reserved for Christian Huygens in 1659, half a century later. Kepler tried to read the cryptogram of letters recombined into a non-revealing sentence, but did not succeed. He offered as his solution: “Salute, fiery twin, offspring of Mars” (“Salve, umbistineum geminatum Martia proles” ). Of this, Arthur Koestler in The Sleepwalkers (1959) wrote (p. 377): “He [Kepler] accordingly believed that Galileo had discovered two moons around Mars.” But Galileo did not discover them and they remained undiscovered for more than two hundred fifty years. Strangely, Koestler passes over the incident without expressing wonder at Kepler’s seeming prescience.

As I have shown in Worlds in Collision (“The Steeds of Mars”) the poets Homer and Virgil knew of the trabants of Mars, visualized as his steeds, named Deimos (Terror) and Phobos (Rout). Kepler referred to the satellites of Mars as being “burning” or “flaming” , the same way the ancients had referred to the steeds of Mars.

Ancient lore preserved traditions from the time when Mars, Ares of the Greeks, was followed and preceded by swiftly circling satellites with their blazing manes. “When Mars was very close to the earth, its two trabants were visible. They rushed in front of and around Mars; in the disturbances that took place, they probably snatched some of Mars’ atmosphere, dispersed as it was, and appeared with gleaming manes” (Worlds in Collision, p. 230).

Next, Galileo made the discovery that Venus shows phases, as the Moon does. This time he secured his secret by locking it in a cryptogram of a mere collection of letters—so many A’s, so many B’s, and so on. Kepler again tried to read the cryptogram and came up with the sentence: “Macula rufa in Jove est gyratur mathem etc.” which in translation reads: “There is a red spot in Jupiter which rotates mathematically.”

The wondrous thing is: how could Kepler have known of the red spot in Jupiter, then not yet discovered? It was discovered by J. D. Cassini in the 1660’s, after the time of Kepler and Galileo. Kepler’s assumption that Galileo had discovered a red spot in Jupiter amazes and defies every statistical chance of being a mere guess. But the possibility is not excluded that Kepler found the information in some Arab author or some other source, possibly of Babylonian or Chinese origin. Kepler did not disclose what the basis of his reference to the red spot of Jupiter was — he could not have arrived at it either by logic and deduction or by sheer guesswork. A scientific prediction must follow from a theory as a logical consequence. Kepler had no theory on that. It is asserted that the Chinese observed solar spots many centuries before Galileo did with his telescope. Observing solar spots, the ancients could have conceivably observed the Jovian red spot, too. Jesuit scholars traveled in the early 17th century to China to study Chinese achievements in astronomy.

Kepler was well versed in ancient writings, also knowledgeable in medieval Arab authors; for instance, he quoted Arzachel to support the view that in ancient times Babylon must have been situated two and a half degrees more to the north, and this on the basis of the data on the duration of the longest and shortest days in the year as registered in ancient Babylon.1

Jonathan Swift, in his Gulliver’s Travels (1726) tells of the astronomers of the imaginary land of the Laputans who asserted they had discovered that the planet Mars has “two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve about Mars, whereof the innermost is distant from the center of the primary planet exactly three of [its] diameters, and the outermost Five; the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter in twenty-one-and-a-half; so that the squares of their periodical times are very near in the same proportion with the cubes of their distance from the center of Mars, which evidently shows them to be governed by the same law of gravitation that influences the other heavenly bodies.”

About this passage a literature of no mean number of authors grew in the years after 1877, when Asaph Hall, a New England carpenter turned astronomer, discovered the two trabants of Mars. They are between five and ten miles in diameter. They revolve on orbits close to their primary and in very short times: actually the inner one, Phobos, makes more than three revolutions in the time it takes Mars to complete one rotation on its axis; and were there intelligent beings on Mars they would need to count two different months according to the number of satellites (this is no special case — Jupiter has twelve moons and Saturn ten*), and also observe one moon ending its month three times in one Martian day. It is a singular case in the solar system among the natural satellites that a moon completes one revolution before its primary finishes one rotation.

Swift ascribed to the Laputans some amazing knowledge—actually he himself displayed, it is claimed, an unusual gift of foreknowledge. The chorus of wonderment can be heard in the evaluation of C. P. Olivier in his article “Mars” written for the Encyclopedia Americana (1943):

“When it is noted how very close Swift came to the truth, not only in merely predicting two small moons but also the salient features of their orbits, there seems little doubt that this is the most astounding ’prophecy’ of the past thousand years as to whose full authenticity there is not a shadow of doubt.”

The passage in Kepler is little known—Olivier, like other writers on the subject of Swift’s divination, was unaware of it, and the case of Swift’s prophecy appears astounding: the number of satellites, their close distances to the body of the planet, and their swift revolutions are stated in a book printed one hundred and fifty years to the year before the discovery of Asaph Hall.

The names Philolaos, Aristarchos, and Seleukos ring a bell. What was it that Copernicus discovered again?

Celestial Events In The Time of the Iliad

"There did really happen, and will again happen, like many other events of which ancient tradition has preserved the record, the portent which is traditionally said to have occurred in the quarrel of Atreus and Thyestes. ... how the sun and the stars once rose in the west, and set in the east, and that the god reversed their motion, and gave them that which they now have as a testimony to the right of Atreus. " -- Plato, The Statesman

"Then, it was then that Zeus changed the radiant paths of the stars, and the light of the sun, and the bright face of dawn; and the sun drove across the western back of the sky with hot flame from heaven's fires, while the rain-clouds went northward and Ammon's lands [Egypt] grew parched and faint, not knowing moisture, robbed of heaven's fairest showers of rain." --Euripides, Electra, 408 B.C.

Once again Velikovsky demonstrates himself to be an absolute monster intellect and polymath with his essay Celestial Events in the Iliad.

The true time of the events recounted in the Iliad was the second half of the eighth and the beginning of the seventh centuries before the present era.

In Worlds in Collision an effort was made to recognize in the description of theomachy and of the natural phenomena that accompanied the battle of the gods, the events that took place in the sky and on earth between -747 and -687.1

The Trojan War was waged to the accompaniment of blows exchanged by the planetary gods—Earth (Hera), Moon (Aphrodite), Venus (Athene), Mars (Ares) and Jupiter (Zeus).

These celestial phenomena could not have taken place in the sky over Troy alone: the entire world had to witness the events, if they were not mere creations of the bard. That they were not can be deduced from the fact that these very events, witnessed in all parts of the world, are also described in sacred epics from Finland (Kalevala), Lapland and Iceland (Edda), from Mexico, Peru, India, the South Sea Islands, China and Japan, and, of course, by the poets and dramatists, annalists and astronomers, of the Near and Far East. It would require repeating close to two hundred pages of Worlds in Collision, actually the entire part II (Mars) of that book, should we desire here to evidence and illuminate this in some detail.

Perturbations in the celestial sphere, or Theomachy, in which Mars endangered the Earth at nearly regular intervals during this century, preoccupied the minds of men and repeatedly intervened in human history. Pestilence also broke out, and many references in the cuneiform literature ascribe its cause to Nergal (Mars). Earthquakes, overflooding, change of climate, evidenced by Klimasturz, did not spare a single land. These changes moved entire nations to migrations. Calendars were repeatedly thrown out of order and reformed—and the reader will find abundant material in the second part of Worlds in Collision and also in Earth in Upheaval, where no human testimony, but only the testimony of nature was presented; and this material could be multiplied by any dedicated researcher.

It appears, however, that in the Iliad Homer telescoped into a few weeks events that took place in the space of several decades. At least some of the events may be placed in a chronological order with the help of ancient Israelite sources: namely, on the day when King Ahaz was interred the motion of the Earth was disturbed so that the Sun set before its appointed time;2

At the time of the destruction of Sennacherib’s army in the days of Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, another disturbance occurred with the contrary effect: the Sun appeared to return several degrees to the east before proceeding on its regular westward path. It is asserted in the rabbinical literature that the second disturbance rectified the effects of the first—and this is also the meaning of the sentence in Isaiah 38:8: “So the sun returned ten degrees by which degrees it was gone down.”3

In Greek legendary tradition the first event took place in the days of the two brothers, Atreus and Thyestes, contesting the throne of Mycenae—when, according to Seneca, the Sun set earlier than usual.4

Yet a certain compression or amalgamating of two events, separated in time, must have taken place, for another version of the story tells of a reversal of the sun’s motion. This version is recorded by Apollodorus and several other authors.5

The event described as the reversal of motion of the sun took place, as illuminated Worlds in Collision, on March 23rd, -687.6

The fixing of the event to the early spring of -687 is made on the strength of the information from Hebrew sources that the event took place on the night of Passover, during the second campaign of Sennacherib against Judah, the ninth campaign of his reign. The exact date for the last of this series of catastrophes7 is provided by the records of the astronomical observations of the Chinese, where we learn that in the year -687, on the 23rd of March, “during the night the fixed stars did not appear, though the sky was clear. In the middle of the night stars fell like rain.”8

This date is also confirmed by Roman sources—Romulus found his end during a celestial-terrestrial catastrophe connected with the planet Mars:

Both the poles shook, and Atlas lifted the burden of the sky . . . The sun vanished and rising clouds obscured the heaven . . . the sky was riven by shooting flames. The people fled and the king [Romulus] upon his father’s [Mars’] steeds soared to the stars.9

Romulus was a contemporary of Hezekiah;10 and the 23rd of March was the most important day in the Roman cult of Mars.11

We must not forget that the Romans and the Greeks worshipped their gods in the planets, not as gods of the planets. Invocations to the gods, such as the Homeric Hymn to Ares (Mars) are addressed directly to the planet as an astral power.12

The siege of Troy under Agamemnon followed by less than one generation the natural disturbances of the days of his father Atreus, when this king of Mycenae competed with his brother Thyestes for the crown of the realm and the Sun was disrupted in its motion.

The Arctic Was Tropical

"And immediately there is the problem of the climate. There were ancient climates that were very different from what they are today. If those corals grew where they were found, certainly the Earth was not travelling with the same elements of rotation and revolution which means not in the same orbit, not with the axis directed in the same position as it is today. If you don't believe it, try to cultivate corals on the North Pole." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1966

Velikovsky was right (again): Ancient Turtle Migrated From Asia To America Over Tropical Arctic.

ScienceDaily (Feb. 2, 2009) — In Arctic Canada, a team of geologists from the University of Rochester has discovered a surprise fossil: a tropical, freshwater, Asian turtle.

The find strongly suggests that animals migrated from Asia to North America not around Alaska, as once thought, but directly across a freshwater sea floating atop the warm, salty Arctic Ocean. ...

"We've known there's been an interchange of animals between Asia and North America in the late Cretaceous period, but this is the first example we have of a fossil in the High Arctic region showing how this migration may have taken place," says John Tarduno, professor of geophysics at the University of Rochester and leader of the Arctic expedition. "We're talking about extremely warm, ice-free conditions in the Arctic region, allowing migrations across the pole."

In 2006, Tarduno led an expedition to the Arctic to study paleomagnetism—the Earth's magnetic field in the distant past. Knowing from previous expeditions to the area that the rocks were rich with fossils, Tarduno kept an eye out for them and was rewarded when one of his undergraduate students uncovered the amazingly well preserved shell of a turtle. Together with collaborator Donald Brinkman of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Canada, they later named the fossil Aurorachelys, or aurora turtle. The turtle strongly resembles a freshwater Mongolian species, which raised obvious questions about how it came to be in the marine waters of the North American Arctic.

Tarduno's paleomagnetic expertise, which allows him to ascertain when points on Earth's crust were at specific locations, allows him to rule out the possibility that millions of years of tectonic activity had brought the fossil from southern climes. The turtle was clearly a native of the area.

Al Gore and Venus Envy

Great post on Velikovsky and Venus via Louis Hissink's Crazy World: Al Gore and Venus Envy.

Steven Milloy of the Junkscience site has just posted an interesting development - Al Gore has publicly stated what drive's his, and therefore Jim Hansen's, belief that CO2 is a dangerous greenhouse gas - Venus.

Jim Hansen's PhD was on the atmosphere of Venus and it is from this work that his belief in CO2 being a significant greenhouse gas is based.

The theory is wrong as was Carl Sagan who postulated that Venus was hot because of a runaway greenhouse mechanism.

This raises the ghost of Velikovsky for it was Velikovsky who initially proposed that Venus would be hot because of it's youthfulness based on historical evidence from many sources.

Mainstream science believed Venus was an earth-like arcadia, our sister planet! As Sagan could not admit that Venus was a young planet, he therefore had to come up with an ad hoc explanation to make this new discovery fit the "standard model", hence the runaway greenhouse effect.

Velikovsky Correct About Pole Shift

"Diogenes Laertius repeated the teaching of Leucippus: 'The earth bent or inclined towards the south because the northern regions grew rigid and inflexible by the snowy and cold weather which ensued thereon.' The same idea is found in Plutarch, who quoted the teaching of Democritus: 'The northern regions were ill temperate, but the southern were well; whereby the latter becoming fruitful, waxed greater, and by an overweight preponderated and inclined to the whole that way.' Empedocles, quoted by Plutarch, taught that the north was bent from its former position, whereupon the northern regions were elevated and the southern depressed. Anaxagoras taught that the pole received a turn and that the world became inclined toward the south." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1950

"The sea erupted. Often the sea and land changed places. The immutability of contours of continents and seas, a dogma in geology, has no basis in fact. And immediately there is the problem of the climate. There were ancient climates that were very different from what they are today. If those corals grew where they were found, certainly the Earth was not travelling with the same elements of rotation and revolution which means not in the same orbit, not with the axis directed in the same position as it is today. If you don't believe it, try to cultivate corals on the North Pole." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1966

Stephen Smith: Europa's Unsettled Poles.

It appears as if the north and south poles on Jupiter's giant moon are no longer located where they originated.

Scientists have been studying images returned by the Galileo spacecraft for almost ten years now. The images transmitted from Jupiter's moons, in particular, revealed structures that seem to defy conventional geological theories. Why is Callisto covered with craters? Why does Ganymede possess a magnetic field? Why does Europa appear to be covered with water ice that is floating on a vast ocean?

A May 15, 2008 article in the science journal Nature announced that Europa seems to have experienced displacement of its north and south poles on more than one occasion.

Hecht, J., Jupiter's Moon's Poles 'Wandered' Far and Wide, New Scientist, May 2008

Schenk, P., Matsuyama, I., and Nimmo, F., True Polar Wander On Europa From Global-Scale Small-Circle Depressions, Nature, 453, Pages 368-371, May 2008

Fountain, H., Arc-Shaped Troughs on Europa May Be Sign of Wandering Poles, The New York Times, May 2008

Cosmos Without Gravitation

"I have long held an opinion, almost amounting to conviction, in common I believe with many other lovers of natural knowledge, that the various forms under which the forces of matter are made manifest have one common origin; or, in other words, are so directly related and mutually dependent, that they are convertible, as it were, one into another, and possess equivalents of power in their action. In modern times the proofs of their convertibility have been accumulated to a very considerable extent, and a commencement made of the determination of their equivalent forces." -- Michael Faraday, physicist, 1845

"The long and constant persuasion that all the forces of nature are mutually dependent, having one common origin, or rather being different manifestations of one fundamental power, has often made me think on the possibility of establishing, by experiment, a connection between gravity and electricity …no terms could exaggerate the value of the relation they would establish.'' -- Michael Faraday, physicist, 1865

"What we call mass would seem to be nothing but an appearance, and all inertia to be of electromagnetic origin." -- Henri Poincaré, physicist, 1908

"Gravitation is an electromagnetic phenomenon." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1946

Velikovsky, I., Cosmos Without Gravitation: Attraction, Repulsion and Electromagnetic Circumduction in the Solar System, 1946

1. The ingredients of the air—oxygen, nitrogen, argon and other gases—though not in a compound but in a mixture, are found in equal proportions at various levels of the atmosphere despite great differences in specific weights. ... Why, then, do not the atmospheric gases separate and stay apart in accordance with the specific gravities?

2. Ozone, though heavier than oxygen, is absent in the lower layers of the atmosphere, is present in the upper layers ... Nowhere is it asked why ozone does not descend of its own weight or at least why it is not mixed by the wind with other gases.

3. Water, though eight hundred times heavier than air, is held in droplets, by the millions of tons, miles above the ground. Clouds and mist are composed of droplets which defy gravitation.

...

7. Cyclones, characterized by low pressure and by winds blowing toward their centers, move counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. This movement of air currents in cyclonic vortices is generally explained as the effect of the earth’s rotation.

Anticyclones, characterized by high pressure and by winds blowing from their centers move clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere. The movement of anticyclones has not been explained and is regarded as enigmatic.

Cyclones and anticyclones are considered a problem of fluidal motion with highest or lowest pressure in the center. As the movement of anticyclones cannot be explained by the mechanistic principles of gravitation and rotation, it must be concluded that the rotation of cyclones is also unexplained.

And the same is true for the cloud bands on Jupiter which have differential rotation.

a. Gravitation acts in no time. Laplace calculated that, in order to keep the solar system together, the gravitational pull must propagate with a velocity at least fifty million times greater than the velocity of light. A physical agent requires time to cover distance. Gravitation defies time.

b. Matter acts where it is not, or in abstentia, through no physical agent. This is a defiance of space. Newton was aware of this difficulty when he wrote in a letter to Bentley: “That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body can act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.” Leibnitz opposed the theory of gravitation for this very reason.

"If Dr. Velikovsky is right, the rest of us are crazy." -- Harlow Shapley, astronomer, 1946

"He [Velikovsky] invents electro-magnetic forces capable of doing precisely what he wants them to do. There is no scientific evidence whatever for the powers of these forces." -- Martin Gardner, mathematician, 1957

Immanuel Velikovsky

I have just listened to this man and read him for the first time, which given his intellectual greatness is most certainly due to censorship and poor educators, and all I can say is "wow." The religious reaction to his scientific claims was so fundamentalist and extreme that it has been the subject of psychological and psychiatric studies and papers in peer-reviewed journals and is what is known as the Velikovsky Affair.

Like Galileo, Velikovsky was ridiculed in his time by the mainstream religious establishment but time has vindicated Velikovsky.

Here are 3 Velikovsky claims.

Claim Number 1: Uniformitarianism is false.

"The sea erupted. Often the sea and land changed places. The immutability of contours of continents and seas, a dogma in geology, has no basis in fact. And immediately there is the problem of the climate. There were ancient climates that were very different from what they are today. If those corals grew where they were found, certainly the Earth was not travelling with the same elements of rotation and revolution which means not in the same orbit, not with the axis directed in the same position as it is today. If you don't believe it, try to cultivate corals on the North Pole." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1966

Claim Number 2: Venus is hot.

"And Venus must be hot if the history of the solar system is not the history of no change for billions of years. And Venus was found hot, not room temperature as was thought until 1959. In 1961 it was detected with radio means that it is like something like 600 Farenheit and Mariner 2 was sent out to find out true or not true? It was found that even more it is full 800 [degrees Farenheit]." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1966

Claim Number 3: Jupiter emits radio waves.

"But then if there were events of this character, discharges between planets and so on, I put one of the most outrageous claims before the scientific readers, that in the solar system and in the universe generally, not just gravitation and inertia are the two forces of action but that also electricity and magnetism are participating in the mechanism, so the Lord was not just a watchmaker. The universe is not free of those forces with which the man makes his life easy already more than 100 years. They were unknown practically or little known in the time of Newton in the second half of the 17th century. But today we know that electricity and magnetism, these are not just small phenomena that we can repeat as a kind of a little trick in the lab, that they permeate every field from neurology into botony and chemistry and astronomy should not be free...and it was admitted by authorities that this was the most outrageous point in my claims. But the vengeance came early and swiftly. In 1960, already in 1955, radio noises from Jupiter were detected and this was one of the crucial tests that I offered for the truth of my theory. In 1958, the magnetosphere was discovered around the Earth, another claim. In 1960, the interplanetary magnetic field was discovered and solar plasma, so-called solar wind, moving rapidly along the magnetic lines and then it was discovered that the electromagnetic field of the Earth reaches the moon ." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1966

"Our debate ended on Friday, April 8, 1955, only nine days before Einstein’s death. I think I was the last person with whom he discussed a scientific problem. On that day I brought him the published news that Jupiter sends out radio noises; ten months earlier, in a letter to him, I had offered to stake our dispute on this my claim of an as yet undiscovered phenomenon..." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1976

The radio noises of Jupiter that were only predicted by Velikovsky are available on Youtube:



He was Albert Einstein's best friend and neighbor late in life and wrote a book on the subject titled Before The Day Breaks. Einstein and Velikovsky exchanged many letters which are available online.

Here are some highlights:

"Here is the year 1845. Leverrier in France and Adams in England, out of perturbations of Uranus calculated, to the exactness of one degree of arc, the presence of a yet unseen planet. Both of them assumed that a planet of a size not larger than that of Uranus travels on an orbit at a distance dictated by Bode’s law. Neptune is actually of the size of Uranus, but the mean distance between their orbits is not ca. 1,750,000,000 miles, as Bode’s law required, but only ca. 1,000,000,000 miles; thus the error is equal to ascribing to Neptune a triple mass. The discovery of Pluto did not solve the conflict between the theory and the fact and caused also conflicting estimates of Pluto’s mass. Thus the finding of the planetary stations in relation to a chart of fixed stars is not enough; if the theory is true the distances must also be correct. And still the discovery of Neptune is regarded as the strongest proof of the Newtonian theory of celestial motions.

Now in the same 1845, the year of this triumph, Leverrier calculated also the anomaly of Mercury, and by this caused to think that the Newtonian law of gravitation may be not precisely true. Leverrier first thought of some planet moving inside the Mercurial orbit or of a possible unequal distribution of the mass in the sun. You have used the fact of the anomaly to prove that the space is curving in the presence of a mass. About the same time—in 1913—G. E. Hale published his paper on “The general magnetic field of the sun” (Contr. M. Wilson Obs., #71), in which he estimated the general magnetic field of the sun as of 50 Gauss intensity. At this intensity “under certain conditions electromagnetic forces are much stronger than gravitation.” (Alfven) The last named author in his “cosmical Electro-dynamics” (Oxford, 1950, p. 2) shows that a hydrogen atom at the distance of the earth from the sun and moving with the earth’s orbital velocity, if ionized, is acted upon by the solar magnetic field ten thousand times stronger than by the solar gravitational field."

Here is a May 1966 speech he gave to a parochial school in mp3 format known as From Book to Book and Land to Land. In it he uses his now famous expression "Collective Amnesia."