At www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2010/arch10/100903fire.htm the Greeks and Romans had a variety of theories on what might power the Sun and surprisingly, the notion they had in the back of their heads was not very different from a plasma filled universe. Even the astronomer, John Herschel, in the 18th century, wrote a letter to Faraday speculating that the Sun might owe its brightness to cosmic electrical currents – with the upper atmosphere of the Sun auroralised by them …
At www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2010/arch10/100902voice.htm there is another interesting post – this time on mythology as preserved by traditional story tellers. Different scholars have interpreted myth in different ways – and plasma mythology is another example of seeing something in old tales that might be based on actual eye-witness accounts of strange physical phenomena – really strange in order to make such an impression. In this instance, prehistoric geomagnetic storms.
Plasma mythology can trace creation stories back to events involving plasma images in the sky but it is rivalled by geomythology and astromythology, other fields of study that have opened up in recent years. Bruce Masse has suggested myth contains elements derived from cometary encounters with the earth and in doing so he has opened up something of a divide between scholars of myth and how scientists might approach myth. According to Masse myths are cultural accounts of major events that typically happened in the remote past – or when the world was somewhat different to what it is today. They are considered to be true by traditional knowledge keepers that learn and transmit the tales and they are also profoundly sacred and imbued with ritual overtones. Masse goes on to say it can be demonstrated beyond doubt that some myths and categories of myth are based on observation of real natural phenomena and events and these can be accurately placed in both space and time – hopefully, I might add. Hence, next time you watch a programme on TV at an archaeological site such as Stenehenge or a Mayan pyramid complex, complete with a chanting herbstrewing procession of people muttering incomprehensibly, visualise the ceremony as re-enacting a ‘sacred event’ in which all the community were involved – and that might be plasma orientated, astronomical, or entirely terrestrial.