Comets and Catastrophism Book List

Approaching Infinity

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It's been a while since I posted any lists on the forum, and my compulsion is becoming overpowering! ;) I believe all of these have been vetted by Laura at one point or another.

1950 - Worlds in Collision (Immanuel Velikovsky)
1955 - Earth in Upheaval (Immanuel Velikovsky)
1982 - The Cosmic Serpent (Victor Clube and Bill Napier)
1990 - The Cosmic Winter (Victor Clube and Bill Napier)
1997 - Rain of Iron and Ice (John Lewis)
1997 - Cataclysm! (D.S. Allan and J.B. Delair)
1999 - Uriel's Machine (Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas)
2000 - The Diluvian Impact (Heinrich Koch)
2002 - Planet X, Comets and Earth Changes (James McCanney)
2003 - Surviving Planet X Passage (James McCanney)
2003 - From Exodus to Arthur (Mike Baillie)
2004 - Principia Meteorologia (James McCanney)
2005 - Man and Impact in the Americas (E.P. Grondine)
2005 - Lost Star of Myth and Time (Walter Cruttenden)
2005 - The Celtic Gods (Mike Baillie and Patrick McCafferty)
2006 - The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes (Richard Firestone, Allen West, and Simon Warwick-Smith)
2006 - New Light on the Black Death (Mike Baillie)
2007 - End of Eden (Graham Phillips)

These have been mentioned by others. Haven't read them, but they may be worth checking out (James McCanney also has several other books that may be worthwhile):

1980 - The Saturn Myth (David Talbott)
1999 - Impact Earth (Austen Atkinson) [
2000 - Catastrophe (David Keys) [about the A.D. 535-536 catastrophe]
2005 - Thunderbolts of the Gods (David Talbott and Wallace Thornhill) [about the electric universe and mythology]
2007 - The Electric Universe (David Talbott and Wallace Thornhill)

Did I miss any must-reads?
 
Approaching Infinity said:
Did I miss any must-reads?

The Electric Sky by Donald E. Scott is another book in the Thunderbolts series. I read this, The Electric Universe, and Thunderbolts of the Gods about a year ago -- I thought they were quite good (I'd like to re-read them again now that I've read McCanney's book). There's actually a number of books at Mikamar Publishing that look like they could be good as well.

Perhaps Mother of Storms should go here as well -- it's fiction, and only deals with terrestrial issues (with the exception of how they solve their climate problem), but the science is supposed to have been well-researched, and the climate stuff ties in with the larger catastrophe theme.
 
Thanks for the list.
Are the books of McCainney very complicated to read?

Interesting list. I just print it.
 
I was looking online for information regarding Clube and Napier's Cosmic Serpent, as I have not read it, and found this:

http://contrarybooks.com/clube.php

Walt Thornhill is on the list AI posted above, Electric Universe and Thunderbolts of the Gods.

I came here to see if there was any thoughts on this as he is disputing the work of Napier and Clube.

Criticism is frequent and expected in academia, the motives vary, but as I have not yet obtained/read Cosmic Serpent or Cosmic Winter I cannot really say much about the dispute.

Anybody who is familiar with the works have thoughts they care to share?

Also noticed this link, which is based on Thornhill's "The Electric Universe" and since there has been a lot of posts about McCanney ideas on the forum wonder if the ideas mesh?

http://www.holoscience.com/
 
I am so far behind on the reading I would like to do . . . . .

BUT, thanks to SOTT, found this article which helps to explicate some of the history. Does not go into Clube or Napier...

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/224161-The-True-Origins-of-Electric-Comet-Theory

Edit: Corrections.
 
Herakles said:
I am so far behind on the reading I would like to do . . . . .

BUT, thanks to SOTT, found this article which helps to explicate some of the history. Does not go into Clube or Napier...

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/224161-The-True-Origins-of-Electric-Comet-Theory

Edit: Corrections.

Yup, that article does a pretty good job of summarizing the differences between McCanney's comet model and the comet model of Thornhill et al.

Long story short, Thornhill and his camp don't believe that comets can accrete mass. They believe that comets primarily disintegrate or break-up into smaller fragments over time. I believe this is the same assumption that Clube & Napier make as well.

While I think comets certainly have the ability to break apart into smaller fragments (shoemaker-levy being a prime example), McCanney's model adds a new dimension to the features of comets. McCanney's notion that comets accrete mass on their passage through the solar system explains certain features of why larger planet-size comets do not necessarily have stable orbits. McCanney cites the recent comet Hale-Bopp as a prime example in this case.

McCanney also believes that planets form from comets. A comet might start as a large asteroidal body of irregular shape, but on it's many passages around the sun, the electrical heating it endures causes its metallic components to melt and rearrange themselves into spheroidal shapes due to gravitational forces. This process eventually results in a spheroidal planet-shaped object. It might also pick up other volatiles on its way through the solar system and thus contain various quantities of carbon, hydrocarbons, liquid water, or any mixture of these. Venus is a good example of a planet that has just gone through this process, according to McCanney.

So, I think it works both ways: Comets break-up and comets grow, depending on the comet in question. I suspect (and I don't have any proof here) that comets that have already formed into larger spheroidal objects are probably more stable and more likely to accrete mass. The younger objects, of asteroidal size and shape, might be more likely to break-up and cause havoc in that way.

Clube & Napier and others such as Thornhill and his EU group are not wrong in the way they are thinking, but I don't think they've looked at the full range of possibilities with respect to comets. Or maybe they have looked into these matters and due to various influences or alliances don't speak of them for one reason or another. I'm not sure.

McCanney really has a bone to pick with Thornhill and the EU folks. He doesn't typically use specific names on his website or in his podcasts, but it seems obvious that he is upset with them for one reason or another.

Here is what he has to say about them on his website:

http://www.jmccanneyscience.com/PeerReviewSubPage.HTM

i keep harping about the internet imposters who are presenting themselves as "people with 30 years of research" and research scientists in the "Electric Universe" etc etc etc ... these are people who have no degrees or scientific backgrounds and have stolen 99% of everything they are posting on their internet pages (and they do not have "30 years of research" ... this is a play on words at best !!!!) ... they are hiding from any contact by the throngs of the curious public who ask repeatedly "why no reference to mccanney's work" and repeatedly get no answer .. the big question is ... why do the two sites that continually post and promote by printing this obviously plagiarized material continue to do so after being notified and why do they not respond to the literally thousands of people who have pointed this out ??? ... it may be because these "host sites" are government sponsored and are being told what to do ... most people do not know what happened about a month ago when for the third time these host sites were challenged to post the truth about the people that are posting as "researchers on the Electric Universe" ... rather than post the truth ... these sites (which claim to be open forums) chose to take down the postings that exposed the truth on this issue ... what are these sites hiding and what else do they have to hide ??? for web pages that claim to have "the truth" is it not interesting that some truths are not allowed ... it is in fact this group of imposters promoted at these sites who are using Velikovsky's name as a draw that are doing the most damage to Velikovsky's name ... possibly that is the intent after all, as that is the very nature of disinformation (seemingly promoting a concept and then doing a bait and switch to do just the opposite ... and just a final note ... is it not interesting that NASA is providing daily pictures from its internal files to post on this site every day and why are the standard nay sayers ... the web trolls gov disinfo crew that is ... not saying peep about this site ???? ... someone is putting a good deal of backing into that site which is complete with full time staff ... with no visible means of support) ... jim mccanney

I'm not sure what data he has to back up these assertions, so he might be right or he might be wrong.
 
Herakles said:
I was looking online for information regarding Clube and Napier's Cosmic Serpent, as I have not read it, and found this:

http://contrarybooks.com/clube.php

Walt Thornhill is on the list AI posted above, Electric Universe and Thunderbolts of the Gods.

I came here to see if there was any thoughts on this as he is disputing the work of Napier and Clube.

Criticism is frequent and expected in academia, the motives vary, but as I have not yet obtained/read Cosmic Serpent or Cosmic Winter I cannot really say much about the dispute.

Anybody who is familiar with the works have thoughts they care to share?

This writer makes some pretty dumb remarks in this article, IMO. Sure, I think Clube and Napier suffer by the lack of an electric universe framework in their work, but that does not totally negate their work. For example, this person says:

I do not doubt that meteor swarms have been recorded since 34,000 years ago (as I have pointed out). But I seriously doubt if meteors have ever had any significant impact on mythology, or, for that matter, even on the weather.

First of all, Clube and Napier aren't just talking about meteor swarms, but of comets and comet fragments, and it's pretty clear from their work, and Mike Baillie's, that an influence on mythology makes sense. I'm not really sure what his point is.

He quotes Thornhill:

"...[there is a] crucial distinction between the planetary catastrophism of the Electric Universe and that of neo-catastrophists who attempt to explain the evidence for planetary encounters in terms of cometary phenomena. Modern comets simply do not fit the descriptions from the past. Nor can they account for abundant evidence of fresh looking planetary cratering and scarring. Besides, in an Electric Universe comets are not the apocalyptic threat to the Earth imaginatively portrayed by artists. Such pictures are entirely fanciful because a comet would be disrupted electrically by a cosmic thunderbolt before it hit the Earth. The only visible evidence remaining would be an electric arc crater."

Uhh, sure. Modern accounts don't match old ones because our sky isn't as active as it once was. Bombardment is cyclical and things are just getting warmed up.

There are some valid criticisms, IMO (e.g. sothic cycle-based chronology), but they seem to ascribe all catastrophe to electrical interactions and none to comets. I think it's safer to say that they are not mutually exclusive, and cometary bombardment (with its electrical effects) had a LARGE part to play in earth history and mythology.
 
Just finished reading "Diseases from space" by Sir Fred Hoyle and Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, a title that I think is well worth adding to the list. Part of the blurb on the the back cover reads -

"This revolutionary new theory argues that microbial life originates in space and is stored deep-frozen in comets which swarm around the solar system and subsequently fall to Earth. By examining the infall of pathogenic material from space and analysing plagues and epidemics, including influenza and the common cold, the authors provide startling evidence of the relationship between astronomy and terrestrial disease."

What I found specifically unsettling in the book was passage dealing with the occurrence in Alaska in 1919 of an influenza epidemic across widely scattered native populations who had no contact with each other during the winter months of the outbreak, and therefore no chance spreading the flu by person to person contact between the different communities. Also the fact that presumably at that time the Eskimos, Aleuts and Indians would have a diet high in animal meat and fat, yet this seems to have afforded them limited protection and a lot of them still succumbed to the disease. :(
 
Great list! Maybe the following 2 books can be added, too:

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Turning Points in Ancient History by Eric Cline
Gods of The Cataclysm by Hugh Fox
 
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