CHAPTER TEN
The first part of our narrative was given over largely to the origin and progress of Solaria Binaria up to the beginnings of a fatal instability. Almost from the beginning life burgeoned and flourished in the plenum, and subsequently on Earth and other planets. Celestial objects were not then visible from the Earth because the plenum was too dense to let light pass directly from the binary stars to the planets. Hence mankind originated its physical being almost entirely in a world where murky grey skies softened the light through a misty air. His psychic being and intelligence, by contrast, were formed in most important regards during the degeneration of the binary system.
As best we can locate this turning-point of humanity, it happened during the pre-nova instabilities of Super Uranus. Already mentioned is evidence that early humans had intimations of a primordial plenum and an electrical fire. More extensive evidence correlates human observers with the expectable, inferable, behavior of Solaria Binaria as it would begin to collapse. The first human observations have to do with a solid heaven that began to separate from Earth and fell apart.
A number of peoples claim that the primeval chaos was present before the creation. It was a plenum - dark (compared with what followed), uniform, dense, and housed a Demiurge who had not yet acted and a world of things and beings that were potentially activatable. The Ngadin Dayak, a people of Borneo, insist that "at the beginning, the cosmic totality was undivided in the mouth of the coiled water-snake", possibly referring both to the togetherness of the chaos and the omnipresence of the electrical axis mundi. In the Hindu Vedas, Dyaus-Pitr (Dyava), "Father Sky", can be identified with the age of first man and an unbroken plenum. He married Prthivi, Earth. The world was dark and asleep, "says" Manu (a Hindu Noah) until the Great Demiurge "appeared to scatter the shades of darkness".
Coelus, or "Heaven", was the most ancient Latin god of the sky. His name means "covering". Ouranos was "Heaven" and the first god of Greek legend; this Heaven was at first a calm and settled person, married to Mother Earth, Gaea. The Chinese legend pictures Heaven as T'ien, at first a marble-like ceiling, unbroken. According to the Iroquois of north Eastern America, the Chief of Heaven was persuaded into marriage by "Fertile Earth" (Awenhai) and impregnated her by his breathing. The Hebrew Book of Genesis, a creative compilation, probably by Moses, of earlier legends, describes in its opening verses the Demiurge brooding over the combined celestial and earthly universe; "The Earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, and God's spirit hovered over the water." as the editors of the Jerusalem Bible comment, most of these images are intended to describe how being may be created from Nothing.
All religions, says Eliade (1954, p4) go back to the earliest times, illud tempus (" That Time") when the world was born and the initial creative happenings occurred in all aspects of existence. Ever thereafter, the practices and rules of the religion are obsessed with repeating the events of those days. It is obvious that all peoples look upon this epoch, illud tempus, as a highly volatile quantavolutionary period, full of stresses and inventions. There is no uniformitarian or mild illud tempus.
In many places, a theory of the Cosmic Egg is used in connection with the earliest god, who is Heaven; it explains how God and the World were born. Thus the Hindus asserted that a seed was laid and became the Golden Egg. The Cosmic Egg is often said to have existed from an age before it revealed itself. We construe from this that the earliest humans are present on Earth as the troubles of Solaria Binaria heighten and that they were newly human for a short time before Super Uranus, that is, the Cosmic Egg, appeared.
Other widespread types of creation legends are usually conformable to the Cosmic Egg myth or do not contradict it (Long. 1963), and often occur within the legendary corpus of the same culture; as examples, in the Greek legends of Hesiod and the Cosmic Egg myths of Orphism, in China with two variant stories about P'an Ku, or with the Dogon of the southern Sahara, who put creative twins within the Cosmic Egg. Some type of creative urge is antecedent to the Egg. usually a supreme sky deity. The Egg can take related forms: a shell, a seed etc. Fuliginous powers that break out of the Earth to assume living forms are a type of creation widely believed; usually an external force inseminates or provokes the Earth, as in the Egyptian image of Nut and Geb, Heaven copulating with Earth. Finally, parents representing Sky and Earth are experienced as separating, allowing life to flourish. Earth divers, yet another type of creator, are deities who often are commanded by a supreme deity to plunge beneath the primordial waters of chaos and emerge with Earth, which becomes the site of life. This cosmic image can be a metaphor of the same events in the breaking of the Cosmic Egg and the separation of the Sky and the Earth.
We assume that primordial observations gave rise to all of these legends. As part of the continuing emergence of life and intelligence from the chaos befalling Solaria Binaria, the Cosmic Egg myth is imagery for the vision of the first great "sun", Super Uranus, as it emerges from the Heavenly gloom. It emerges shortly after human self-awareness, and in a time of troubles for mankind. This Uranian Age was, both in legend and in our astronomical theory, a time of disturbances.
As is typical of evolving binary systems, the principals, here Sun and Super Uranus, move apart with time. During the phase when a strong electrical current flowed between the two stars the components remained relatively close together, while the whole system charged negatively in transaction with the galaxy (Figure 21). This charging drives the Sun and Super Uranus apart so that the current flowing between them weakens and from time to time falters; the two become more isolated electrically within the ever-diluting gases of the plenum. The importance of the electrical axis of the binary diminishes. The universality of binary recession can be documented by Russell's 1927 data, where star class is correlated with binary period. Only Bruce (1944, p13) has connected binary age with separation of the components.
Figure 21. Transaction Between Solaria Binaria and the Cosmos : Dense Plenum Phase.
Originally Solaria Binaria transacted with the Cosmos as a unit. Electrons flowed from the Galaxy into the sac of the binary, liberating energy to the gases along the perimeter of the plenum. Charges so delivered to the binary as a whole were subsequently redistributed among the parts of the enveloped binary, producing secondary energy releases as they impinged upon some particular component (star or planet) within the dense plenum.
While the two bodies, the Sun and Super Uranus, were transacting vigorously, they were quite luminous, though not sufficiently bright to be perceived as celestial bodies. As the arc between them began to falter, they and the arc remained luminous, but the latter less so than before.
Though the central arc was sputtering, the surrounding gases in the magnetic tube sustained an afterglow and so were not always extinguished between discharges. But, as the arc decayed further, the discharges became less frequent, so that eventually even a long afterglow could not maintain continuous luminosity throughout the magnetic tube. At times the sky briefly darkened. This was the first light and darkness experienced by humans, who may then have deduced the concept of contraries, good-bad, yin-yang, or light-darkness, the basis for religious dualism and human thinking processes.
Relative time may have been invented in the period of Super Uranian instability. If the arc pulsed regularly, the earliest humans would have responded to it, first subliminally and later consciously. Possibly, when the glow of the arc darkened and lightened perceptibly and in rhythm, a notion of periodicity would be imparted to humans they would have a clock. The experience of the first abrupt darkness would be terrible, the unexpected gloom of even a minute, provoking fears of a shutdown of light. If the pulsing were regular, but interruptions occurred, terror would ensure with the interruptions. Frenzies of fear attending eclipses, historically and recently (Corliss), may be traceable to primordial experiences with a degenerating axis. The birth of Super Uranus, emerging from the plenum sky, would be both terrifying and reassuring. Graeco-Roman mythology pictures the god Uranus as gloomy and enshrouded (de Grazia, 1981). New measures of time and space might be calculated, a reliable presence was granted humans, and even the ultimate terror of a turn-off of electrical axis activity could be tolerable if Super Uranus remained visible.
It is possible that through this period the electric discharge was converting from one emitting light to a non-optical, or dark, discharge. Thus the absence of light is not a synonym for the absence of electric flow, only a change in the gases' reaction to the flow. Nevertheless, pauses in the glow were becoming longer with time and the flow more erratic in its intensity.
Whereas before, the two stars transacted internally to produce the arc, while the opaque plenum transacted at its perimeter with the Cosmos, now each star transacted separately with the galaxy through the thinning plenum. This new galactic connection could occur because the plenum density had fallen as it expanded both bodies were still far from electric equilibrium with their galactic environment (Figure 22).
Thereupon, Solaria Binaria would be observed to be a semi-detached binary star system (Note D) from the vantage point of another star system. Not surprisingly, the gas density detected in such binaries is at a level of that plenum density that would suffice to let the principals be seen from the Earth's presumed location during that era [74] .
Figure 22. Solaria Binaria as the Plenum Thins and the stars Separate.
Late in the development of Solaria Binaria the gases of the plenum had been thinned to such an extent that the transaction between the Cosmos and the binary ceased to liberate the major part of its energy at the binary's perimeter. Thereafter the cosmic transaction deposited energy individually at the two stars. The inter-star transaction (the electric arc) continued for some time after each of the stars attained a separate connection with the Galaxy. An important feature in semi-detached binaries is the flow of material from one of the principals to the other. Usually as flows directly between the principals, however, in some cases the flow is deflected or is directed around the recipient star (Batten, 1973a, p8). Gas expanding from the star is seen in some systems.
Wyse showed that emission lines are often observed in close-binary systems. Emission by hydrogen, helium and singly ionized calcium is common. Mass transfers amounting to 10 -8 to 10 -5 Sun per year have been proposed in such systems (Koch, p90). In some cases, lengthening of the period of the binary has been ascribed to mass loss from the system (Nather and Warner). In our view the flow of mass contributes towards separating the two stars; nevertheless most of the separation occurs because of the electric charging of both stars through transaction with the Cosmos. We also see no way for gas to escape except as stellar wind.
In certain close-binary systems, like nova AO535+ 26 in Taurus (Coe et al.), intense X-ray emission is noted as gas flows onto one of the stars (Wickramasinghe and Bessell). The discovery that most galactic X-ray sources represent close-binary systems and that in some cases a flow of ionized gases occurs between the principals in the presence of (inferred) [75] magnetic fields is an important finding (Kraft); we concur. The presence of electrical potential difference between the two stars makes X-ray emission understandable. Detection of cosmic X-ray sources implies that electric, not magnetic, behavior, is being observed. We infer that Solaria Binaria was an X-ray emitting binary at this stage. Enough of these X-rays were penetrating to the planets to cause quantavolutions in the biosphere before the eyes of humans, possibly contributing to the age-old beliefs of humans in metamorphosis of living things.
Various scholars have maintained that all peoples have possessed religious beliefs from their earliest origins, that these beliefs centered upon a single "Heavenly Father" as a type of monotheism, and that this father God became indistinct after the first ages, was lost, was forgotten, and/ or was indifferent. This is true of Dyaus in India, of Ouranos in Greece, of Coelus in Latium, and of the "Great Fathers" of the Australian Arandas, for example (Eliade, 1967, pp20ff). This Ouranos-type is first the sky and then the materialization of the sky into a sun-like body, whence it disappears and is replaced by a son, a Saturn (Tresman and O'Gheoghan, p36).
The Maori of New Zealand have the Demiurge moving form inactivity to increasing activity. And this is a universal subsequent theme. The skies break up. They fall, Humans, are much disturbed. Their world changes. The heavenly god moves heavily and destructively. The god becomes various gods, families of gods, and demons. Creation is under way, rarely in one phase, but continuously, over a long time -- thousands of years, we think -- before arriving at what is recognizably the modern Solar System.
Hesiod's version of the Greek creation myth has Ouranos or Heaven squeezing down upon Mother Earth, oppressing her until she cries out in agony. We interpret this suffocation of Gaea as an increasingly disturbed atmosphere, with many extinctions and quantavolutions in the biosphere. The mechanism usually termed "natural selection" operates rapidly, under extreme environmental pressures. The "fittest" which survive are often accidents of isolation, or species that can draw upon luckily beneficial reverse or recessed genetic capabilities, as well as groups with now to be proven superiority in food-finding and breeding under difficult conditions.
Ouranos goes increasingly mad, taking up his children and hurling them beneath the Earth, Gaea in desperation urges her brood to revolt against the Father. We interpret his sons plunging to Earth as a bombardment by heavy meteorites, released into the plenum by the "unsettled" Super Uranus and encountering the Earth.
To the pre-nova turbulence of gases and bombardment, a duration of 1000 years may be assigned before the human creation (which will be related in Chapter Twelve). is connected with the turbulence; subsequently another 2000 years is assigned before the climactic nova of Super Uranus.
In China, P'an Ku, a creator god, began pounding on T'ien, breaking large chunks off with his hammer and chisel until the skies showed through. The Dayak of Borneo, report that two mountains arose and clashed, with the first features of earth and sky emerging into existence from their explosive contest. The mountains are revealed as two creator gods, Mahatala and his parahedra, Putir, who then continue to create.
Turning to Hindu sources, Dyaus is replaced by a struggle of two types of heavenly powers, one good and the other evil, one led by Varuna, the other by Vitra. The good powers were termed Adityas; the bad dragon-like demons were called the Vitras.
Removed from the protective blanket of the plenum, which heretofore had isolated Super Uranus from the Cosmos, this sun-like body became directly subject to variations in the electrical environment through which it was travelling (Chapter Three); a new variability of the surrounding plenum's electrification was produced by the sputtering arc.
At this stage, Solaria Binaria was transmogrified and might have resembled the cataclysmic variable stars, a group of close binaries. Here the primary is sub-luminous and its companion is often a dwarf red star. The diminished luminosity of the stars begins as the components readjust from internal transaction to galactic transaction. We think that, in transition, Solaria Binaria, now a low luminosity system, entered an eruptive phase.
That Super Uranus was the erupter in these first noted celestial events, and not the Sun, is confirmed by the evidence that the ancients did not regard the Sun as a powerful sky god. As de Grazia has noted elsewhere (1981, p258), "the regularity of the Sun, once it appeared in the skies, worked against its becoming a great God".
In ancient writings the planet gods sometimes altered the motion of the Sun and the stars, but never the converse. Occasionally, as part of a catastrophe, the Sun would go on strike, bringing up darkness. Velikovsky (1950, pp300ff) thinks that Macrobius in the fourth century may have been mainly responsible for the erroneous personification of many sky gods as the Sun. We can say that at least he represented a trend of ideas, which Jacquetta Hawkes has confirmed (de Grazia, 1981, p259). Closer to our time, Max Muller's extensive work on primordial religions has imprinted this error in the minds of most scholars.
The outer layers of Super Uranus and its => space-charge sheath were the first places to react to instability. At intervals, a shell of material expanded explosively away from Super Uranus. To the outside observer this small star had become a nova of low intensity. Weak outbursts are not uncommon in under-luminous close-binary systems.
Some close binaries contain dwarf-nova stars, for example, SS Cygni. It is possible, sometimes, to see a hot spot where gas flows from one of the principals onto the atmosphere of the other (Cowley et al., 1977, p471; Hesser et al.). Dwarf novae also exhibit flickering, which usually disappears if one component eclipses the other. The flickering, which is especially intense in the case of Z Chamaeleontis, is attributed to the hot spot (Mitton, pp84ff).
On the other hand this flickering may be a variation of the current onto the photosphere of the stars as the system adjusts its mode of transaction from that in Figure 21 to the one shown in Figure 22 [76] .
Many stellar binaries involve components which have perplexed astronomers, because, according to the criteria of classification, one star is very old while its companion is quite young (see Kopal, 1959). Usually these pairs are closely orbiting as we propose was Solaria Binaria. Such pairs, with discrepant evolutionary ages, are thought to be systems in which one component has passed through the nova stage, some indeed being recurrent novae. Krzeminski believes that in U Geminorum the irregular flow of matter from the red companion triggers recurrent nova eruptions on the white primary (see also Aller, p603). The primary star in such systems is usually classified as a white dwarf star (Glasby, p61). A cycle amplitude relationship has been established linking the intensity of the recurrent nova flare-ups to the time between recurrences (Kukarin and Parenago). the larger the flare-up, the longer the recovery. For the largest flare-ups, recovery time exceeds the period of observation; here periodicity is implied rather than established. The regular recurrence may be a discharge effect. The transaction between the star( s) and the Galaxy may slow down periodically due to space-charge fouling of the discharge channel. The discharge then diminishes, which allows the interfering space-charge to dissipate. A new breakdown can now occur, leading to another flare-up.
Alternatively, it may be that, at this time, Solaria Binaria moved into a region of the galaxy in which the cosmic electrical pressure was diminished (see behind, Chapters Three and Four). The binary, and especially Super Uranus, as the smaller, highly electrified part, could teeter on the verge of serious internal instability. This condition, which may have persisted over about three thousand years, would have proved disastrous for Super Uranus and eventually altered for all time life on nearby planets, including the Earth. Milton (1979, p74) has postulated that the Sun today remains stable relative to the cosmos surrounding it on a moment-to-moment basis; small solar inconsistencies have been noted over the historic period (Eddy et al., pp8-9; Clark et al. 1979). Even the ultimate instability, the nova eruption, is not forbidden.
Super Uranus can have erupted many times. The shock of its recurrent explosions propagated through the plenum, damaging the planets nestled within it and electrically thinning it further. Not all of the ejecta was gaseous. Fragments circulated within the system for a time, encountering explosively other bodies differently charged. Some fragments fell back upon Super Uranus, which was diminishing in brightness and may be also in size because of its outbursts.
The rude disturbance of the hitherto peaceful atmosphere of the Earth was noted fearfully by the rapidly developing human culture that was spreading throughout the World. Men perceived the heavens to be alive and exercising a control over earthly affairs. Heaven both inflamed and frustrated man's desire ... which seized him in the course of his very creation -- to control himself and his environment.
Notes on Chapter 10
74. About 1.6 x 10 -6 kilograms of gas per cubic meter, or 10 atoms per cubic centimeter.
75. Reservation ours. Conveniently, such fields are not generally detectable (Batten 1973a)
76. Juergens (1977d) notes that similar current variations exist in the solar photosphere.