COSMOLOGY AND REVELATIONS

Eighteenth century philosophers took the view that human knowledge is acquired through a process of empiricism allied to scepticism and is amenable therefore to statistical calculation on the basis of mathematical models. Such empirical models however are always provisionally open to the introduction of unsubstantiated transcendent phenomena (e.g. gods, dark matter, creation ex nihilo etc) and it is for this reason that basic science now carries forward essentially two versions of cosmology. On the one hand it is supposed that we are dealing with uniquely material phenomena in an infinite universe (e.g. nineteenth century ether theory) and on the other hand physical space--time limits are prescribed within which materialism applies ( e.g. twentieth century big bang theory). This ambiguity  has now led to a cosmological redshift phenomenon which is widely regarded as favouring the big bang theory coupled with photon transmission whereas in reality the empirical search for a material ether coupled with wave transmission is still in its infancy.

The ambiguity however has its origin further back in time since neither cosmological model currently allows any calculable features relating to the incidence of historical revelations as was proposed by Newton, Halley and Whiston before the end of the seventeenth century.

The question does therefore arise whether twentieth century philosophers (e.g. Popper) have allowed themselves too much latitude in respect of large scale transcendent phenomena and whether the main features of cosmology, both past and present, can now be better understood as a purely material phenomenon. It has recently been shown for example that Newton and his associates, working within the philosophical framework developed by Hobbes  and Locke, constructed an essentially materialist model for the celestially driven historical process which intermittently causes civilization to lose its nerve, characteristically inducing the collapse of society whilst prompting apocalyptic and millenarian movements to flourish. The cosmological scheme was basically the product of two hundred years of hard-nosed protestant insight ultimately requiring creation ex nihilo without trinitarianism whilst at the same time treating revelations as a material phenomenon involving both zodiacal (non--planetary) and meteoric events.

Newton himself however, by his addiction to creation ex nihilo (reflecting a modified Arianism), also initiated a philosophical reaction led by Berkeley, Hume and Kant which ultimately caused revelations to be regarded as an immaterial phenomenon and nature to be governed by the doctrine of uniformitarianism. The inadequacy of this doctrine is of course now widely recognized in view of the cosmic catastrophes which apparently accompany the punctuations besetting the course of geological and biological evolution. Newton's addiction however, also that of the Christian Church, was in fact a progression from Hobbes' hard-nosed protestant viewpoint as well as being a progression which matched that from Platonism to neo-Platonism some two thousand years previously.

By reverting therefore to the Platonist cosmological viewpoint, essentially equivalent to the material ether, and taking over a raft of space age discoveries which relate to generally unseen aspects of the interplanetary medium, it has now become possible to develop a detailed model of historical revelations involving the hierarchical  fragmentation of a giant  comet, which explains the vast Taurid meteoroid complex and which provides a new setting in which the trinitarian concept inter alia can now be qualitatively understood.

According to this model, both late Pleistocene and early Holocene observers  (i.e. during the period circa 65-5 kyr BP) would have been aware of not only a vast and luminous cosmic entity corresponding to the original meteor stream produced by this giant comet, but also of the likely (catastrophic) role of this stream in relation to the processes inducing the contemporary ice-age (i.e. global cooling/bombardment episodes correlated with Heinrich events and other global signatures). Ultimately however, due to a probable close encounter with planet Mercury circa 3100 BC, this entity's highly evolved source (by then frequently observed to be tripartite and yet well nigh invisible) underwent deflection ("the fall") and fragmentation a la Shoemaker-Levy ("emanation") giving rise  to an early visible array of rapidly evolving comets and sub-cometary debris which has become the Taurid complex. Fundamentally this climactic event gave rise to two dense meteoroid streams, along with many lesser ones -- one original, the other new -- which have since afflicted the Earth and civilization, each producing major set-backs and visible solar phenomena every circa 2500 years in accordance with the streams' underlying nodal precession and phase shift.

Western civilization, having taken its lead from Near Eastern civilization some two thousand years ago, has of course long sought to come to terms with the social upheavals which parallel the resulting pattern of cosmic revelations; and it was essentially Newton and Kant therefore who determined the course of European Enlightenment. They did this by simply denying first the pre-encounter (trinitarian) phase and then the physical reality of revelations. It is a form of enlightenment which has probably now outlived its usefulness. Indeed to exercise any control over environmentally produced social upheaval in the future, it will be necessary to renounce Bishop Berkeley's fundamental thesis and revive the material ether.