Frank 013 wrote:Penelope: It damwell does separate it from other religion!!
I should have been more specific…RT’s conjecture is not testable and is worded so that it evades the burden of proof. So like most other religions, RT can freely make claims without the hassle of dealing with the inconsistencies in the historical record. But you are correct it does not inspire fear, or force agreement… yet. Once people start claiming that they know what the UNIVERSE wants that will inevitably change. Later
My claim is that this precessional theory of the evolution of culture is entirely consistent with the historical record. I have been rather reticent to push this framework simply because astrology has such a bad reputation as a false belief. However, having jumped in the pool I do need to swim, and am happy to expand on this framework.
For example, as we now move from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius, the theory would postulate a movement in the world's organising principal from what astrology claims is the central Piscean theme – ie belief – to what is claimed as the central Aquarian theme – knowledge. The development of science supports this contention. Science has led the world to a 'pregnant' state, nearing the cusp of a transition to domination of knowledge over belief. The frustration experienced by atheists and others who focus now on knowledge is that the world is just not yet ready to be organised on the basis of knowledge, urgent and necessary as such a change is. The beauty of knowledge is that it cannot force agreement – that is something only belief can do.
This cosmology would also suggest that at the middle of the Age of Pisces, in about 1000 AD, the world was entirely dominated by belief. This looks to me to be a consistent and accurate theory of history. I have thought a lot about how it might work scientifically, and can point people to further material including on
www.bautforum.com if there is interest.
Frank 013 wrote:RT: An example of such an unconscious connection is that rats are more active when the moon is down. Frank Brown, Professor of Biology at the University of Illinois, proved this was entirely independent of their conscious awareness of the position of the moon, so must be hardwired into the rats' genes.
I don’t know anything about this study, but unless he moved the rats to another time zone all that study really shows is that the rats have a very stable internal clock, which really proves nothing about their knowledge of their relative position to the moon. And even if that is true (I could accept that the effect of the moon's gravity could be affecting the rats) how do you justify them knowing about the rest of the UNIVERSE which is not detectable through gravitational pull.
Frank Brown did another study (on oysters) which addressed precisely your time zone question, explained below. Apologies for responding at length, but this seems really interesting to me as a challenge to current dominant thinking. At
http://www.bautforum.com/890964-post60.html I state
An extraordinary chapter in Gauquelin's The Cosmic Clocks discusses the empirical research of Frank A. Brown Jr., Morrison Professor of Biology at Northwestern University, Illinois. Brown conducted a series of laboratory experiments in which various animals were deprived of any external stimulus to measure the response of their body clocks.
“A rat was kept for months in a closed cage with constant light, temperature and pressure. There was no way for the rat to know if it was night or day, whether the moon was above or below the horizon. When Brown and Terracini recorded the rat’s physical activity, they found clear peaks in activity corresponding to the moon’s position: the rat was more active during the hours in which the moon was below the horizon, and quietest when it was above the horizon… The above experiment has been duplicated and confirmed.” (cited by Gauquelin, p.85, from ‘Exogenous Timing of Rat Spontaneous Activity Periods” Proceedings of the Society of Experimental Biological Medicine, CI, No 3 (1959) 457).
How can this be explained? There is a clear evolutionary adaptive advantage for a rat to be active when the moon is down in order to avoid predators who hunt by sight. Given the lack of sensory stimulus in the experimental conditions, it appears the rat senses the position of the moon in an unknown way – either by a ‘tidal’ sense of the moon’s gravity or some magnetic influence. My postulate is that the rat’s DNA, having evolved within the moon’s constant orbit and having been circled by the moon some fifty billion times since the dawn of life, is attuned to the rhythm of the moon. The alternative hypothesis, that it is solely an internal clock within the rat, is refuted by the next experiments:
“Brown was recording the activity of hamsters… At first the rodents synchronized their activity with the rising and setting of the sun, which was probably their natural rhythm before they had been confined to their cages. Then, suddenly, the 24 hour rhythm changed to a new, slightly longer rhythm, one that lasted 24 hours 50 minutes. This period corresponds exactly to the length of the lunar day… Their pattern of activity switched through the study, first following one and then the other of the two celestial bodies – without their ever knowing the position of either in the darkness of their experimental lodgings.” (cited by Gauquelin, p.85, Propensity for Lunar Periodicity in Hamsters, op cit, CXX (1965) 792). Here we have a further extraordinary example of how the tides of the ocean caused by the moon also exist within a mammal – and presumably would also exist in humans.
My final example: “Brown had some live oysters sent in closed, darkened containers from Long Island Sound to his laboratory in Evanston, 1000 miles from the sea… At first the oysters kept to their natural rhythm, opening and closing themselves to the rhythm of the tides washing Long Island Sound. But after about 15 days Brown noticed that a slippage in the rhythm had occurred. The oysters now opened up at the time the tide would have flooded Evanston, had the town been on the seashore – ie when the moon passed over the local meridian. The oysters had abandoned their rhythm tied to actual tides and responded to an exclusively lunar rhythm.” (cited from ‘Persistent Activity Rhythms in the Oyster’, American Journal of Physiology, CLXVII 1954, 510).
These three examples illustrate how animals are adapted to the gravitational rhythms of the moon. Brown notes that “definite hostility met anyone who as much as suggested that one might search for subtle celestial influences” (Gauquelin p. ii). Gauquelin (p86) says Brown offers an explanation that the rhythms are external, with these three experiments taken together showing that internal clocks of the organisms were not sufficient to obtain the observed results.
The oyster and hamster examples above directly address your 'internal clock' question. The rest of the universe is not relevant as it is too far away to have such rhythmic effects on the earth. This cosmology is restricted to the solar system, including the weak deep slow effects of the gas giants.
RT: The resonance between human culture and the long term cycles of the cosmos is simply another physical scientific example of such an unconscious connection.
Which culture? Western culture or all of them… and did the cosmos back up during the dark ages? You don’t really need to answer these questions, once I understood your “unconscious guidance” claim the rest just seems… well… lets just say you lost me there. Later
You are too harsh on the 'unconscious guidance' point, where I may have worded things unclearly. Are you familiar with the Marxist idea of economic determinism of base and superstructure? Marx claimed that history is determined by the economic base, and that ideas are nothing but a superstructure that is unconsciously caused by the base. So my view of the cosmos as base and ideas as superstructure is not so new as you seem to think. Yes, the cosmos did “back up during the dark ages”. On this precessional model, the Age of Aries (principal 'I am') was replaced at the time of Christ by the Age of Pisces (principal “I believe”). As the fanaticism of faith purged the world of the pagan “I am” approach to culture, it naturally found itself bereft, enabling the dark ages when belief was entirely dominant. My view is that Christ incarnated the full cycle of the Great Year, but that only the Piscean part (and secondarily a Virgoan part) of his message has been understood in the present age. As we move towards an Aquarian Age it is possible to see the Aquarian message in the Gospels, and for this knowledge-based approach to spirituality to gradually find cultural traction.