Date: 9/11/00 4:10:52 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: cleland@nwlink.com (James Cleland)
To: BARDSQUILL@aol.com

On Dragons and Red Dwarves 9/11/00

Kent;

While we're on the subject of the possibility of Jupiter being a "failed" star, let's not ignore the question of changes in (you guessed it) ORBIT:

"A long study of myth and iconography beginning from first principles rather than standard interpretations, has led David Talbott and Ev Cochrane and others to a model of the antique system in which Jupiter and Saturn are a small binary system with Mars, Venus, and Earth orbiting this binary system and the whole of the binary system orbiting the sun. At least, this is the state in which the system finds itself at the time of the great mythical systems.
Moreover, the larger of the two super-planets has the other super-planet on one side, and the smaller planets on the other, producing a system in which the bodies walk around the more major super-planet in unison in a system of synchronous or synchronized orbits. This looks like a cane turning on an axis, and produces the alignment which you saw in the image. In other words, the planets remain stacked up overtop of each other as they turn around the larger super-planet.

Further, the orbits are all fairly circular other than for that of Mars, which is more pronouncedly egg-shaped.

To observers on the Earth, then, since the orbits are synchronous and Mars remains overtop of the Earth, this MUST produce the visual effect of Mars shrinking to a small size and then growing much larger on a regular basis.

Surely references to that could not be lacking in mythologies and early literature.

Ev Cochrane has produced an intriguing study titled "On Dragons and Red Dwarves" in the February 95 issue of Aeon. What he has discovered, is that Mars is referred to not so much as a god, but as a "warrior/hero" in the most ancient mythologies of numerous nations, and that the theme of this warrior/hero regularly changing from a dwarf to a giant and back again is, as the model predicts, archetypal.

Highlights include:

"A giant tree is also the eclipsing agent
in a fascinating tale preserved in the Kalevala.

"There the hero who eventually frees the
sun, strangely enough, is a homunculus by the
name of Sampsa. The Finnish account reads as follows:

'A man rose out of the sea, a hero from
the waves. He was not the hugest of the huge
nor yet the smallest of the small: he
was as big as a man's thumb Confronted with
this strange little man, a wiseman [Vainamoinen]
chides him with the following words:


"You seem more like a man to me and the
most contemptible of heroes. You're no
better than a dead man and a face on you like
a corpse!"19

At this point the little man blurts back:

"I am a man as you see-small, but a mighty
water-hero. I have come to fell the
oak-tree and splinter it to fragments!"
Vainamoinen, old and wily, scoffed: "Why,
you haven't the strength, you'll never
be able to fell the magic oak-tree and splinter it
to fragments!"

Scarcely had he said these words when,
before his eyes, the little man was transformed
into a giant. He stamped with his feet
on the earth and his head reached up to the
clouds; his beard flowed to his knees
and his hair to his heels. His eyes were fathoms
wide and his legs fathoms long. .. He
struck the tree with his axe... Sparks flew from the
axe and flame from the oak as he tried
to bend the magic tree to his will. At the third
stroke the oak-tree was shattered...
Now that the oak-tree was felled and the proud
trunk levelled, the sun shone again...

The sudden growth of Sampsa offers an
intriguing parallel to the rapid swelling which
forms such a prominent motive in the
traditions surrounding Indra and Cuchulainn.20 It
is a motive that we will encounter again
and again in the traditions surrounding the
warrior-hero.


...The Maya hero Ez, for example, is said to
have assumed a tiny form in order to
gain entrance into the belly of a great dragon.
Shortly thereafter, "When the serpent
swallowed him, he cut his way out with the obsidian
and killed the serpent. He emerged bigger
and stronger than before. "42

As a dragon-slaying dwarf, Ez has numerous
parallels in the sacred traditions of Pre-
Columbian Indians from North and South
America. Consider, for example, a fascinating
figure from South America known as Mura,
the trusty servant of the great god Pura, the
primal sun.43 Described as a red dwarf
renowned for his club and giant knife, Mura is
said to reside upon the World Mountain
at the center of heaven, together with-but in a
position subordinate to-the sun-like
Pura. Once upon a time, according to Arikena
tradition, Pura and Mura found themselves
in the belly of a great serpent and it was only
with great difficulty that they eventually
hacked their way out thanks to the
aforementioned knife.44 It is the possibility
of relating Mura to the red planet that peaks
our attention, of course, and thus it
is tempting to compare the club-bearing red dwarf
with Heracles, the latter alike being
renowned for his club and homunculus-like (daktyl)
form.45


As is the case with any truly archetypal
mythical motive, the shape-shifting red dwarf
can be found throughout the ancient world.
46 A prominent example can be found in the
Ramayana, where a trickster-like figure
by the name of Hanuman finds himself
confronted by a giant monster:


Later, a huge form stood in his way and
said: "Enter my mouth. I have been without
food for a long time and am eagerly waiting
for you," and the monster opened wide
like a cave... Hanuman thought quickly
and decided what to do. Step by step he
made his body grow bigger and bigger.
The Raakshasa form (the monstrous form
assumed by Surasa, a Naaga goddess) opened
its mouth correspondingly wider and
wider. When the mouth was thus enormously
wide, all of a sudden Hanuman
contracted his body into a speck and,
darting through the demon's mouth and body,
came out again and resumed his former normal shape.47

Hanuman resorts to the same ploy on another
occasion. This time, however, it is the
very fact of the hero's assuming a gargantuan
form that causes the belly of the dragon to
burst, thereby bringing about its death.
Jung summarizes the episode as follows: "Once
more he had recourse to his earlier stratagem,
made himself small, and slipped into her
body; but scarcely was he inside than
he swelled up to gigantic size, burst her, and killed
her, and so made his escape."48

The fact that Hanuman (or his face) is
elsewhere said to be ruby-red in color offers a
striking parallel to the aforementioned
dwarves from the New World.49 Nor can the
shape-shifting contortions ascribed to
Hanuman fail to evoke comparison with the
grotesque contortions undergone by the
ruddy-colored heroes Cuchulainn and Indra
whilst in the throes of their respective "
furors".50 In Indra's case, it will be remembered,
he swelled to such an extent that he
dominated the region between heaven and earth,
actually threatening to block out the
light of the sun. Recall again the Vedic description
of Indra' s epiphany:


Indra, endowed with all heroic valor.
Then up he sprang himself, assumed his vesture,
and filled, as soon as born, the earth
and heaven.51

A similar passage is the following: "
Indra, Impetuous One, hath waxed immensely: he
with his vastness hath filled earth and heaven."52

Indra's ability to assume a gigantic
form is a decided point of emphasis in the Vedic
hymns, and more than one scholar has
called attention to the prominent role of the root
vrdh, "to increase, or swell," in his
mythus.53 A stock epithet of the god-Pravrddha-
emphasizes this ability to swell, signifying "
swollen, enlarged, expanded, increased,
violent. "54


AEON is a journal of science devoted to the collection and exploration of archaeo-astronomical traditions and analysis of common patterns in ancient myths from around the world. Articles and abstracts build upon the pioneering work of Immanuel Velikovsky, author of the best selling "Worlds In Collision".
Featured topics include:

a.. Evidence of catastrophic planetary interactions in historic times
b.. Reconstruction of standard archaeological dating systems
c.. Evidence for cataclysmic evolution and extinction
d.. Astral worship in the Egyptian Pyramid Texts, the Veda, and ancient Babylon and mythological traditions surrounding the planets in general
e.. Astral myths of the American Indians, astral worship in Meso-America
f.. The role of Osiris in Egyptian myth; Thor; the Mother goddess; the birth of Athena; Oedipus in Comparative Mythology; etc.
g.. Common elements in the myths of Heracles, Indra, and Cuchulainn; in the myths of Heracles and Gilgamesh and myths of the Deluge from around the world
Please send all manuscripts and inquiries to:
AEON
601 Hayward,
Ames, IA, 50014.

email: ev.cochrane@ames.net
Subscriptions are $40 per year* $55 foreign air mail." >>

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Subj: How the Stuff Gets Here
Date: 9/11/00 7:18:58 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: cleland@nwlink.com (James Cleland)
To: BARDSQUILL@aol.com

Observations of solar wind plasma entry into the magnetosphere

The observations of one of the two Russian Interball satellites have revealed new information on solar wind plasma entry into the magnetosphere. The observations took place in January 1997 when a huge solar plasma cloud originating from a coronal mass ejection passed the Earth's magnetosphere. After the passage the collaborative Swedish-Finnish-Russian plasma instrument observed, for an exceptionally long time, impulsive plasma entry into the magnetosphere in a local sector where such entry has not been reported previously. These observations are expected to have a significant impact on understanding solar plasma entry into the magnetosphere.

I. Sandahl, H. E. J. Koskinen, A. M. Mälkki, T. I. Pulkkinen, E. Yu. Budnik, A. Fedorov, A. L. Frank, J. B. Sigwarth, Dispersive magnetosheath-like ion injections in the evening sector on January 11, 1997, Geophys. Res. Lett., in press 1997

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