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Patterns of Human Memory
By David Talbott & Michel Tavir
Michel Tavir wrote:
Human remembrance, forgetfulness and the good old days: every
single person living in coastal Western Europe "knows" that the
weather has changed in the past few decades. Every single person
"knows" that when they were children, there was always snow at
Christmas. Well, sort of. Meteorological records tell us another
story: two white Xmas's in the past 50 years or so. Memory and the
use humans make of it are very fascinating things indeed.
David Talbott Replied:
Gotta disagree with you here concerning the meaning of the
"exemplary" epoch, since I believe you are referring to my
comments on the Golden Age. Comparative analysis will show that
the memory of the Golden Age is much more than a recollection of
"the good old days". It is a global idea with very specific
content: passage from timelessness to time; rule of the universal
sovereign as first king "on earth", a superior, motionless sun in
the sky; identification of this "sun" with the first king;
paradisal garden divided by four rivers of life; identity of the
garden with the turning "wheel" of the sun; identification of the
"hub" or "nave" of the wheel with the mother goddess;
identification of the "axle" of the wheel with the unborn warrior-
hero; placement of a crescent on this same wheel; location of
paradise on the summit of a mountain reaching to the center of the
sky; identity of the original sovereign with Saturn;
identification of the goddess with Venus; identification of the
warrior-hero with Mars; violent collapse of the paradisal
condition; exile or displacement of the original sovereign;
subsequent wars of the gods; subsequent regeneration of the world—
to name only the most elementary components of the idea.
All of this relates to the matter of memory "and the use humans
make of it", which I do see as the key, though not quite in the
sense I think you are implying.
When investigating events witnessed around the world, the patterns
of human memory enable us to draw conclusions of a far more
specific and dependable sort than could be obtained through
physical evidence or physical theory in the absence of human
testimony. Initially, almost no one will realize this. But to
discover that this is indeed true, it is only necessary to follow
the appropriate groundrules. The groundrules are designed to
expose the substratum of memory beneath all of the regional
fragments, enabling one to speak for the substratum with the
highest level of confidence.
Quite frankly, this has been the most difficult point for a few of
our readers to grasp, and we continue to hear references to
"Saturnist's subjective interpretation of myth" and the like
(c.f., Lynn Rose's and Peter James' comments at the recent SIS
conference). But the purpose of pattern identification is to
REMOVE all subjective interpretation, to assure that the
reconstruction rests on cross-cultural points of agreement, where
the patterns cannot be disputed. For example, no one can dispute
that ancient words translated as "the sun" were words for Saturn
in ancient astronomies. That's all we need to know, and the fact
that one critic or another can guess at an alternative
"explanation" to the one offered by the Saturn model is utterly
irrelevant to the validity or non-validity of the Saturn model.
All anomalies have prompted proposed "explanations" and that
includes hundreds of recurring themes. If we had to separate out
every theme and base a defense of the Saturn model on our ability
to prove our interpretation WITH RESPECT TO THAT THEME ALONE, we
would indeed be in trouble!
The only issue logically is the predictive power of the Saturn
model in relation to the substructure as a whole. Taken as a
whole, the global patterns do not just suggest certain external
events, they REQUIRE them. To see that this is so, however, one
must consider the patterns with sufficient specificity and
completeness, eliminating all selective perception. Considered in
isolation from the larger patterns, all we can expect is a
madhouse of guesses and interpretations. But when it comes to the
full substratum, no fundamentally false "explanation" could
possibly work. This truth, however, will be recognized only AFTER
enough of the substratum has become sufficiently clear to the
researcher to eliminate any doubt concerning the underlying
coherence of the patterns
Once one is willing to consider ALL verifiable patterns, it will
become clear that they are all connected to each other, that they
are entirely consistent with each other, and that, from top to
bottom, they explicitly and flagrantly contradict all patterns in
our sky today. Had the planetary forms not appeared in the
ancient sky, such detailed and coherent patterns simply could not be there.
[The comment which follows is not directed at Michel, who has
shown a sincere interest in these issues]
When I think about, I'd have to say that we Saturnists have been
remarkably tolerant of the more extreme abuses of logic and common
sense by certain critics :-) At the SIS conference, AFTER Ev had
presented numerous illustrations of global imagery showing Venus
smack in the center of the ancient and universal "sun" pictograph,
Peter James stood up and drew a picture of a circle with rays,
telling the audience that children naturally draw the Sun that
way, end of mystery. Did he not HEAR Ev's presentation? :-) Did
he not SEE the pictures Ev showed? :-) Did he not wonder why
Venus was drawn as a SPHERE in the center of the depicted "sun"?
Or why the streamers of Venus were shown reaching across the
entire face of the larger body? Did he not wonder why the images
are identical to ancient pictures of "Saturn's wheel"? Or wonder
if there is any connection between such images and the ancient
language of Saturn as "sun"?
Peter James is a scholar commanding great respect. But after
viewing his SIS comments, I am prompted to ask: If a critic will
not even engage the first scratches on the surface in our
presentation of acknowledged patterns, are we not permitted to
doubt the sincerity of his interest?
Michel wrote:
Sacrifice is a fairly vast notion. I wonder whether sacrifice of
animals (found in its "purest" form in clan initiation rituals)
and human sacrifice (found in its uttermost form in holy wars -
but aren't all wars "holy"?) can be equated. Some hints as to the
mythical significance of the former (initiation consisting in the
intake of the clan's animal's spirit by sacrificing it) might be
found, if I remember well, in Carlos Castaneda's later books.
Dave replied:
Sacrifice does indeed take many different ritual forms, and these
collective practices certainly do reflect memories of planetary
upheaval. But they also draw our attention to a deeper human
tendency, and this tendency, I believe, must be confronted as a
pre-condition to any healing deserving of the name. If we peel
away the respective ritual forms of sacrifice, we will eventually
confront a root idea more fundamental than any collective
practice. By the "sacrifice principle" I mean the idea that
something (be it yours or mine, a thing, a possession, or life
itself) must be given up in order for ME to gain an advantage.
How did this idea arise? There is nothing inherent in planetary
catastrophe to make ritual sacrifice "logical", unless an
underlying premise had already been accepted. (I do realize that
more needs to be said to make the point clear.)
Michel:
"The principle of sacrifice involves an obstruction of human
awareness, a barrier to the innate sense of the unity of life".
this does not seem - repeat seem - to apply to the cannibalistic
sacrifice of war prisoners among pre-Portuguese Brazilian Indians
- where prisoners received the best and most honourable treatment
before they were sacrificed and eaten (hearts first). I would
associate this kind of sacrifice with the type of animal sacrifice
mentioned above, whereas animal sacrifice in the ancient religions
of the Mediterranean (including Judaism) resembles Amerindian
human sacrifices, for instance.
But keep in mind that the "honorable treatment" you refer to above
cannot be separated from the honor being paid to the sacrifice
principle itself. The distinctions you make between ritual
practices are surely valid, but all forms of sacrifice do express
an underlying, uniquely human conflict, or a contradiction in
human motivation and perception, if you will. Rather than address
the point here, which would unfairly imply that I'm directing the
comments toward something you have said, Michel I will post some
further notes on the sacrifice principle separately.
Michel:
Not sure I can formulate where the line should be drawn, if a line
has to be drawn, that is. Cruelty, maybe? The birth and the
success of Christianity reflecting times when people felt pretty
sure that the planetary gods had stopped "acting" (or had
forgotten that they had been acting) and that they no longer had
to be appeased with sacrifices? Nonetheless, the abolition of
ritualistic sacrifice didn't keep cruelty away from Christianity,
until very recently at least. Incidentally, it seems that ancient
Greece, as opposed to most of the cultures and time periods we can
turn our eyes to, shunned the practice of cruelty towards fellow
humans (not that it was unheard of: the gods of the Pantheon made
a generous use of it).
Dave:
I would suggest that when thinking philosophically, no "lines" be
drawn in response to the sacrifice principle, since the
distinctions between different expressions of the principle are
only matters of degree and of variations in the form of projection
involved. But an acknowledgment of the sacrifice principle and its
effects is, I believe, essential both to constructive self-inquiry
and to cultural healing. The value of penetrating to the taproot
principle is that, once we discover that the idea is contradicted
by another principle we know to be true and do not wish to
violate, then only one correction is necessary. On the other
hand, if we do not confront the taproot, we will tend to treat
some forms of the error as advantageous, some as harmless, and
some as unforgivable. And that pretty well encompasses the human
condition in all its variations.
Michel:
"Guilt" is a concept extremely peculiar to Judaism and
Christianity. As such, I believe, its "bandwidth" is too narrow to
be useful when considering events on a planetary scale over such a
time range as implied since the Saturn configuration.
Dave:
I do not believe that it is correct to limit the influence of
"guilt"-concepts to Judaic-Christian influences. If there is no
sense of SOMEBODY'S guilt, there can be no sense of "deserved
punishment", and wherever actions or events are seen as deserved
punishment, some idea of guilt (either "mine" or "yours") must be
present. In fact many instances could be given from around the
world in which the "guilty" party is a god. Much of Egyptian and
Mesopotamian magic can be seen as early variations on the theme of
"casting out the devil". Accordingly, various rites were designed
to continue indefinitely the "punishment" of a guilty god or
goddess, the male or female form of the chaos monster (witch-
burning being the most familiar instance). This is only one
variation on the scapegoat principle and that, too, is a form of
sacrifice and certainly does involve the projection of guilt.
All of this requires something more than a natural event. It
requires that human imagination see events in a particular way. I
simply do not believe that any experience of "guilt" is possible
apart from a prior attraction to the sacrifice principle. (But
again, I realize that what I mean by the "sacrifice principle"
needs further explanation, and I'll try to get to that.)
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