Who knows?
My speculations are daring, the lines of communication between my axioms are not yet stable. If everyone practised intellectual modesty and paid tribute to Socrates the wise when he said: ‘I know that I know nothing, and barely that . . .’ it would be ideal. As all previous speculations about the significance and purpose of the menhirs are out of date and illogical, new stimulating ideas pointing to both past and future can do no harm.
An apparently unimportant detail often suggests associations.
Nearly all the menhirs taper downwards from the top. We might think that the builders sharpened the long stones before ramming them into the earth. That is a reasonable idea, but I find it illogical on two counts.
The heavy menhirs would stand more firmly in the ground if they were rectangular all the way down than if they tapered from above. A construction expert confirmed this. Level ground plus a level stone base plus heavy dead weight guarantee stability. That is how we build high rise buildings today, using precast concrete supports. Pyramids taper towards their summit and have their greatest area at the lowest point of the platform resting on the earth. If it were otherwise, they would tilt to one side. The ‘normal’ menhir is like the pyramids. It has its largest cross-section below, it stands where it is inserted into the level ground. If it tapers from above, the base area is smaller and consequently its stability is lessened. Not only do the Breton menhirs exhibit tapering, they also have carved snakelike grooves below ground level. These are explained away as ornamental embellishments. Underneath the earth, where no one could see them?
Did these ornamental grooves once contain metal connecting the menhirs with each other? According to engineer Kutzer’s theory, such connections would have been necessary for a ‘forest of antennae’ to function. The electricity in the quartz-bearing menhirs would have had no effect until it was concentrated. They were certainly not connected at their upper pointed ends where there was no support, whereas the peculiar decorations strongly suggest that they may have been connected at the bottom. Today only the grooves are left. No trace of copper (or any other metal), no trace of supports. Does that mean that the antennae theory belongs to the rubbish heap?
Think of the lightning-conductor. The part in the earth corrodes more rapidly than the part leading to the roof, although the latter is exposed to the elements. Why is the metal section in the earth destroyed more quickly?
Two pieces of different metals which are connected with each other form, together with an acid solution, a galvanic element. In every galvanic (electric) element, ionic currents flow in such a way that the ‘baser’ metal is decomposed in the electrolytic electrochemical series. The bigger the difference between a ‘noble’ and a base metal that work on each other in an acid solution, the more radically will the baser metal be attacked.
Magnesium (chemical symbol: Mg), aluminium (Al), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn), chromium (Cr), iron (Fe), nickel (Ni), tin (Sn), lead (Pb), copper (Cu) and silver (Ag) form a series of metals which will always destroy the baser metal, in an acid solution. If we put a minus sign for the baser series and a plus sign for the nobler, it would look like this:
- Mg, Al, Mn, Zn, Cr, Fe, Ni, Sn, Pb, Cu, Ag +
Although metals plus an acid solution create a galvanic field, an ionic current, and metals dissolve in it, the ‘acid solution’ is missing in the case of metals lying in the ground! However, rainwater is mildly acid.
Now a corrosive current also occurs when one electrode is fixed in concrete and the other in the earth. The iron in the concrete becomes the cathode, the metal in the earth the anode. In the long term, the anode will be destroyed, dissolved, by the ions . . . With modern measurements of corrosive currents we calculate in advance how many grammes of a metal will be lost in a given time.33
The logical conclusion is that if the menhirs with their rich quartz content were once connected with each other by metal, the metal underground would have been completely dissolved over the millennia, because the megaliths worked as cathodes. Another point is that such ionic currents can run from one monolith to another not only in a straight line, but also in circles. A single strong cathode close to the menhir groups would have been quite enough to dissolve metals down the millennia.
The speculation that the menhir complexes had a technical purpose is not so farfetched in connection with the dolmens, either.
‘Dolmen’, translated from Celtic, means ‘stone table’(dol = table, men = stone).
There is a great variety of stone tables: sometimes two clumsy megaliths support a gigantic stone slab, sometimes several slabs lie on small megaliths, sometimes more than ten covering slabs form dolmen corridors, sometimes the stone tables are covered over with artificial mounds—burial chambers.
Like the menhirs which have never revealed their purpose and significance, the mystery of the dolmens is also an unsolved case. Graves and skeletons which do not date from megalithic times were found under many dolmens. During the Bronze Age, later inhabitants of Brittany must have chosen already existing dolmens as their last resting place. If you ask the local farmers, they say the dolmens were ‘giants’ tables’. This answer conjures up another paradox: the dolmen corridors—too low for giants, but suitable for dwarfs, who could never have handled the heavy slabs. On the other hand, the very large free-standing dolmens from Rostudel to Cap de la Chèvre certainly remind us of ‘furniture’ for giants. Perhaps they, too, were previously covered with earth which was washed away down the millennia. We do not know. But if the menhir columns served a technical purpose in megalithic times, the dolmens certainly originated in connection with that system. Perhaps ‘something’ was hidden under the dolmens or they protected the environment from the something.
One day long ago, for unexplained reasons (that is not my hypothesis!), the constructors and builders of the megaliths disappeared or died. They bequeathed an astonishing puzzle to their ancestors, who even today do not understand what went on thousands of years ago. Will they disclose the secret tomorrow?
* * *
Communiqué
JAMES OBERG, American spacetravel expert, is convinced that we can count on permanent Soviet colonies in space within fifteen years. Families would live in these orbiting satellite cities and their life would not differ in essence from life on earth. Oberg thinks that the first immigrants who came to America from Europe had to show far more pioneer spirit than future space dwellers will need.
James Oberg is not some crazy visionary. He is the expert on Soviet space travel at the Institute of Astronautics and Aeronautics, and he prophesies that:
‘Spaceships with men and women on board will orbit the earth for so long that they will look on themselves as permanent inhabitants and no longer have any intention of returning to earth.’
The world-famous Russian astronomer Yosef Shklovski even goes a step further—he says that artificial biospheres will be set up in space during the next 250 years and that up to 10 milliard people will be able to live in them. Shklovski is not a fanatic, either. He is Director of the Radioastronomical Department of the Sternberg Institute in Moscow and a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences. This highly qualified scientist assumes that raw materials from the moon, asteroids and other planets will be used to build the space colonies. Shklovski says:
‘The erection of artificial worlds in space is inevitable. Once man’s breakthrough into space has begun, it will be as irreversible as the discovery, colonisation and exploitation of new countries during the age of great historical discoveries.’
Shklovski is convinced that mankind will colonise the whole planetary system and thus begin an inevitable drive into other spheres of the Milky Way:
‘Only the colonisation of space offers a long-term solution to the problems of mankind, as it has been proved mathematically that a strategy of limited growth aiming at global equilibrium cannot prevent a world crisis.’
4: History Repeats Itself
WHEN I tore the page for yesterday, 7th
December, from my calendar, I read this thought for the day:
‘We need Utopias. Without Utopias the world would not change.’
The sentence is by the American writer Thornton Wilder, who died three years ago yesterday.
The maxim for today was supplied by Johann Wolfgang Goethe:
‘Everything clever has already been thought; we must try to think it again.’
If a calendar compiler asked me for a pithy saying, I should like to write in thick black letters:
‘All history repeats itself.’
Whatever the day, it would always prove right.
* * *
Garuda is the prince of all birds in Indian mythology. He is a multi-purpose bird, so to speak, for he is depicted with an eagle’s wings and beak, but the body of a man. He must have been of powerful stature, for he served as the god Vishnu’s saddle-animal.
Extraordinary faculties were ascribed to this remarkable bird. He was highly intelligent; he acted independently, waging wars and winning battles on his own. Even the names of his parents are known. They were called Kasyata and Vinata. Mother Vinata laid the egg from which Garuda emerged. In other words, everything began quite normally. On the face of it.
His face was white, his body red and his wings were golden. He would have cut a good figure in an ornithological book . . . but he would not have fitted in!
For when Garuda raised his wings, the earth quaked. That was when he began his journeys into space.
In addition he had one phobia; he could not stand snakes. But he had good reason for this.
His mother Vinata was kept prisoner by snakes when she lost a bet. The snakes promised to release mother if her son brought them a bowl full of ambrosia, the food of the gods that conferred immortality. The brave son made every attempt to comply with this condition, although ambrosia was only obtainable on a divine mountain which lay in the middle of a fiery lake. But Garuda even had a bright idea for coping with this precarious situation. The myths tell us that he filled his red body so full of water from the neighbouring rivers that he finally managed to extinguish the wall of flame and reach the mountain of the gods. But the mountain was teeming with fire-breathing snakes which tried to stop him landing. Once again Garuda had a bright idea; he sent out whirling clouds of dust. The snakes could no longer see him. Then he hurled ‘divine eggs’, which tore the snakes into a thousand pieces. He is supposed to have slit the tongues of some snakes which came too close to him. We can understand that.
Adventurous as this strange bird was, immediately after the liberation of his mother Vinata he set off for the moon! But it was in the possession of alien gods who did not want him on the moon at any price and so gave battle. However Garuda’s body was immune to the gods’ weapons; they could not harm him. Garuda was invulnerable. When the moon gods realised this, they offered a compromise. Garuda would become immortal and would serve as a saddle-animal of the god Vishnu, who stood out as supreme god because of his power. After that Vishnu, ‘the penetrating one’, ‘flew’ through the myths on Garuda.
In the autumn I too flew with Garuda. From Bali to Singapore. Garuda is the name of the Indonesian airline. I was told that the Indonesians, aware of the marvelous qualities of the legendary bird, hoped that the name Garuda would give their airline a good name.
I can write these special qualities in the mythological bird’s dossier:
Garuda could fly when intelligently steered.
Garuda could take on water.
Garuda could extinguish fires.
Garuda could put a smokescreen round fire-breathing snakes (laser cannons?).
Garuda could destroy with ‘divine eggs’ (bombs?).
Garuda could fly inside and outside the atmosphere (to the moon).
Garuda was immune to unknown but powerful weapons.
Very odd.
The bird that carried the Babylonian Etana into space was also described as an eagle. The first manned spaceship to land on the moon was called Eagle!
Is history repeating itself?
Who was Shiva?
What is Shiva?
The answers to both questions reveal a mysterious background.
Shiva was one of the main gods; he is described in detail in the Indian Vedas. He had his permanent dwelling on Mount Kailasa in the Himalayas. His name in Sanskrit means ‘the kindly one’, ‘the friendly one’. These qualities must have prevailed, for he was also the god of destruction, while being held in high repute as bringer of blessings.
Shiva must have looked rather uncanny. In most pictures and sculptures he appears naked, or clothed in filthy skins, as an ascetic smeared with the ashes of a corpse, with plaited and unkempt hair. In addition Shiva had five faces, four arms and three eyes!
The third eye was in the middle of the forehead. The Vedas relate that he could destroy as well as see with it. If he looked hard at an enemy, a ray of fire shot from this dangerous third eye.
And that’s not all. His blue tongue and blue throat had their story. When snake gods poisoned the water, Shiva, with the help of his wife Parvati, managed to filter the undrinkable water through his mouth. From that time on his tongue and throat were blue.
Shiva was considered to be invincible, and kindhearted and gentle when people prayed to him.
Once, the gods, whose head was Indra, were attacked by the Asuras, another ancient Indian group of gods. Although Indra hurled his Vadshra, a dangerous club, at the enemy, he was in such distress that he prayed to Shiva for help. As soon as he heard the prayer, Shiva did not withhold his aid, indeed, he was at once prepared to endow the Indra faction with half his enormous power. Then, he said, they would be capable of destroying the Asuras with a single fiery arrow. But neither Indra nor his companions in arms were in a position to accept and store even half of Shiva’s power. Shiva saw this and proposed that the Indra gods should let him have half their power. They did so and Shiva conquered the Asuras in a flash, but he did not return the borrowed power and from that day was the strongest of all the gods.
Shiva’s arsenal of weapons also included the Pinaka, a trident which was reputed to be a flame-thrower. Then there were a sword, a bow and three snakes. These coiled round him and defended vulnerable parts of the body: head, shoulders and loins. It is obvious that the loins needed special care, for his symbol as creator of new life was the phallus, or lingam, home of creative power.
Oscillating between his faculties of production and destruction, Shiva loved the gay and the sad dance, the dance of the ‘eternal movement of the universe’. When Shiva himself danced this dance of ‘cosmic truth’, there was a halo round his head and he was surrounded by ghostly figures.
Shiva, the ‘lord of the Universe’, could do all this and more. We should take good note of these attributes, but also read between the lines a little.
What is Shiva?
The most powerful laser cannon in the world!
Its home is Livermore, a small suburb of San Francisco. Shiva cost more than its divine predecessor, namely thirty million US dollars! In a milliardth of a second Shiva can fire twenty laser beams at a target the size of a grain of sand. Its energy output: 26 million megawatts. In comparison a nuclear reactor of the normal type produces about 1000 megawatts when operating steadily.
Like the mythological Shiva the modern Shiva can be destroyer and saviour. ‘Our’ Shiva can detonate hydrogen bombs, and also make them explode, before they bring disaster. One day ‘our’ Shiva will be able to solve all energy problems with one blow—by the nuclear fusion of hydrogen with helium. The hydrogen-helium fusion reactor is the dream of all physicists specialising in energy.
What is going on in Livermore?
The Shiva laser beams aim at a microscopically small glass ball. A gaseous mixture of deuterium and tritium, the isotopes of helium, is smelted into the tiny ball. If the concentrated laser discharge hits it, it disintegrates with such incredible intensity that millions of degrees of heat are produced. The point of the experiment: at such high
temperatures hydrogen atoms dissolve into helium. The rest is simple, say the scientists. As in previous reactors the energy freed will be turned into steam which will drive turbines.
The ‘creators’ of the modern Shiva are the scientists of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory of the University of California. They are convinced that in this way they can solve the energy problem by the end of this millennium. Then, to put it simply, a few litres of water will be enough to supply a whole city with energy. Omnipotent Shiva will make it possible.
Signs of the Gods? Page 12
