Lost Star of Myth and Time
by Walter Cruttenden
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Book Reviews of Lost Star of Myth and Time
Book Review: highly speculative and non-scientific
Summary: 2 Stars
What defines civilization? Is it the magnitude of knowledge, or tools, or transportation, or commodities, or peace, or all of these? Some writers have postulated the easiest method to ascertain a civilization's height is sift through their garbage dumps. There is some predisposition to believe a civilization is more developed if the refuse shows signs of complexity in art or construction technique. Archeologists have sought in vain to find records in the dust bearing the knowledge of deceased civilizations. The best they have found is records of commerce or letters between merchants or rulers.
Walter Cruttenden makes a pretty good case for our sun being a companion star in a binary or trinary system. And he presents some curious research on the finer influence of energy upon living tissue. But the idea of information stored in rocks or the earth's surface stretches credulity. The storage of information involves the imprinting of specific, organized patterns. To date, no one has noticed patterns of any kind (geological phenomena aside) residing or emitted from rocks or soil. I submit that the mark of a truly advanced civilization is it's ability to record and PRESERVE its knowledge for future generations. What would be the point of life if what is learned is carried to the grave? Isaac Asimov wrote an interesting story of a world which self-destructed caused by superstition, each time all the planets and moons occulted the sun. After a great number of cycles some information was preserved, enough that those of learning could disseminate to subsequent generations the discovery of the cause for periodic occultation, as well as the technical knowledge gained since the previous conflagration.
Mankind, in order to survive, must have transportation. The nomadic way of life has never produced a culture or civilization of advanced degree. It may contain a significant body of knowledge, but the passing of that knowledge verbally and by myth are the least effective of tools. The Ancients Walter speaks of may have had some knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, and various technologies, but they certainly weren't highly developed when it comes to technology, nor do they evidence anything of the Calculus we have today.
The Ice Man of 3500 BC may have owned an axe of highly refined tool grade copper, but did that knowledge die with him? Where are the others like it? Today we may not know how to refine and harden copper to that level, but apparently that knowledge was not widely disseminated by the Ancients either.
Did these Ancients levitate all those giant megaliths around like Tibetan monks in meditation? The scientific investigation into Stonehenge shows that those stones were moved by raw muscle-power which was destructive to bone and sinew. The Sumerians may have had beautiful gardens, sewers, tools of metal, medical technique, and the wheeled cart. They also had war. But none of it was as highly developed as we have today. No evidence has come forth demonstrating widespread education, high technologies in metals, glass, oil derivatives, medicine, art, and transportation. All of these advancements over the basic knowledge the Ancients had have happened in less than 200 years. It is exceedingly difficult to overlay this explosive growth with the Cycle of the Ages as Walter presents it. It doesn't fit the gradual cycle curve controlled by an interlaced binary companion star.
We may have lost some of the ancient knowledge of more refined energies, but no civilization of the past can rival the developments in knowledge dissemination and preservation, technology and artistic materials as we have today. Where is the evidence that a Pavaroti could be heard and observed not only in real time thousands of miles distant, but repeatedly as often as desired? Where is there evidence that man has brought back soil from the Moon, along with the technology to transport him there and back? Where is there evidence that the Golden Age of the Ancients had pictures of the surface of Mars, of asteroidal impacts upon Jupiter, of those tiny light sources in the sky really being galaxies of endless number as far as we can see?
The Ancients may have known many things we have yet to discover. The Spinx and Giza pyramid may forever remain a mystery as to how, when, and why they were constructed. But their "Golden" civilization does not hold a candle to the opportunities of learning, mobility, health, and leisure of today. It has been estimated that 70% of all the people who have lived on this earth are alive today. Surely, we do not know the extent of population on the earth back 10,000 years and more. But this merely begs the point: any advanced civilization will leave a trail of evidence indicating that of all advancements, chief will be reliable record keeping. The Egyptians will remain embarrassed over the mystery of the Sphinx and Pyramids. Ralph Ellis can go rooting around the north slope of K2 for the fabled Hall of Records. But the pattern that has emerged to date indicates no knowledge more advanced than we have today lies anywhere on this planet, nor were there ever any people who had greater comforts and self-fulfillment than today. Nor were they able to preserve their "advanced" knowledge against the Decline.
I'll trade the stone commode or bath-house for a modern flusher and sauna in a thermally efficient, heated room. If the Ancients were masters at canals and waterways it couldn't be due to unwillingness to use advanced technology over stone building. Walter claims there is evidence of widespread prosperity, but that is an unwarranted conclusion about a culture based on digs. I'll take the modern instruments used to do cranial surgery (which replaces the entire bone in its original location) over the crude Egyptian trephine any day.
Walter contradicts himself in many places trying to fit the eccentric binary orbit into the gradual loss and accretion of knowledge. He attempts to account for the changes in life span via the precession cycle, without investigating research into the errors in the Bible and his other sources of ancient longevity. It is amazing in one place he can assert that Terra Preta pottery is more than 10,000 years old, yet high tech metals, plastics, glass, and ceramics couldn't possibly last for more than a few hundred years. Archeologists dig up clay inscripted tablets from several thousand years back which are still legible! The obvious conclusion points to the absence of such technologies because nothing like ours has ever existed in the past. To assert that the Ancients figured out how to recycle any advanced metals, glass, plastic and chemicals back into the earth without a trace and learned to live without it is absurd. Nearly in the same breath he points to evidence of metal working discovered inside coal and stone, and stone blocks in an Oklahoma coal mine that survived several millennia. His stroll through the beaches and bluffs of southern California finding assorted trash is hardly equivalent to unearthing evidence of civilization several meters into the earth like Mexico City, the Cave of a Thousand Buddhas, and a thousand other digs.
The main subject Walter overlooks in his presentation is the prevalence of war in all ages. We have not found evidence of any civilization in ancient times without it. Walter also does not mention the Caste systems of India and China which extends back into the Golden Age he so glorifies. Nor does he treat in detail civilizations declining because of catastrophism. People who build with stone (megalithic or otherwise) don't recover from severe climate changes or deluges in short order.
While Walter presents reasonable and cogent research by professional scientists, his own approach is not scientific. Like much of the phony astronomical science of today, Walter has his process backwards, and leads the reader to believe that our world civilization's decline and rise are explained by association of Precession with ancient myth and folklore (ancient "science"). To him it is a forgone conclusion.
His book contains many interesting discoveries. But his speculations, assumptions, and premature conclusions simply do not hold as an explanation for the fall and rise of this planet's civilizations.
Book Review: We have to do better than this
Summary: 1 Stars
INTRODUCTION
I'll first explain, briefly, why I gave this book only one star, and why any of us should even care whether this is a bad book. Then, I'll present examples of the book's defects.
WHY ONLY ONE STAR, AND WHY THE BOOK'S DEFECTS SHOULD MATTER TO ANYONE
As David Hestenes once noted, "The crank is distinguished from the scientist not so much by his outlandish ideas as by a refusal to subject his favorite ideas to a searching criticism." The Lost Star shows Cruttenden to be a thoroughgoing crank.
I gave this book only one star because of its combination of incompetence, factual inaccuracy, and arrogant intellectual dishonesty. I know that to many adherents of "Independent" investigators, none of that is particularly important: what matters most is "being open to other possibilities", even when those possibilities go against all evidence. This is a very unfortunate attitude, especially for adherents of Cruttenden who are social and environmental activists as well.
It's understandable, and even laudable, that activists are drawn to "Independent" investigators, since "mainstream" science has become so corrupted (Impure Science: Fraud, Compromise and Political Influence in Scientific Research, and The World According to Monsanto). However, to be effective activists they'll have to mobilize a lot of people who currently disagree with them. I used to be such a person, so I know that activists can't afford to impress the public as scientific illiterates who get fooled by every smooth talker who comes along.
In that spirit, I'll point out some of Cruttenden's errors. For more information, please see "Uncle Dragon's" 2-star review of 16 February 2010, and the comment I posted on Erika Borsos' 5-star review of 8 October 2005. (Those reviews are currently the "most helpful" ones.)
EXAMPLES OF THE BOOK'S DEFECTS
(1) Cruttenden grossly exaggerates the "problem" with the conventional explanation for precession. (E.g., pp. 86 and 108.)
Cruttenden claims that the conventional model is "broken", but even simple calculations based upon the conventional model give precession rates well within 1% of the observed values. (See, for example, pp. 551-553 of New Foundations for Classical Mechanics (Fundamental Theories of Physics), and links in my comments on Erika Borsos' review.)
(2) Cruttenden lacks the basic astronomical background needed to recognize that the "Galactic Alignment" hypothesis is nothing more than disinformation and double-talk. (e.g., pp. 63ff)
For more about the Galactic Alignment, see my review (2 February 2010) of Jenkins' The 2012 Story: The Myths, Fallacies, and Truth Behind the Most Intriguing Date in History, and the comments thereon. Jenkins returns Cruttenden's favor by overlooking Cruttenden's gaffes. (See alignment2012 dot com / thoughtsoncpak-sent-to-heidi5-24 dot html.)
(3) Cruttenden's "red shift of Sirius" (pp. 162-164) idea is obviously wrong.
According to Cruttenden, Sirius (which is one of his candidate's for the Sun's companion star) was described as "red" in sources written before 500 AD. Now, however, it is quite blue. Cruttenden's explanation for this change is that Sirius and the Sun were moving away from each other before 500 AD, but are now approaching each other, as might be reasonable if they were orbiting a common center.
One objection to this idea is that the velocities needed to produce such drastic red-shifts are so high (about half light-speed, according to sources mentioned in my comments on Erika Borsos' review) that the Sun and Sirius could not remain in orbit about each other. Another objection is that the Sun (and therefore the Earth as well) would have a high velocity not only with respect to Sirius, but almost all other visible stars as well.
Therefore, almost all stars in the direction of Sirius would look bluish now (though not quite as blue as Sirius), and those on the side of the sky away from Sirius would look reddish. Of course, none of this is observed.
(4) Cruttenden exaggerates the anomalous acceleration of the Pioneer 10 space probe (pp. 157-158).
Since Cruttenden's binary-star hypothesis goes squarely against our understanding of gravity, he attempts to gain "wiggle room" by discrediting that understanding. Therefore, he brings up the Pioneer 10 space probe, which doesn't travel the predicted distance each year. What Cruttenden doesn't mention is that the discrepancy amounts to only 450 km out of 386,000,000 km (0.00012%), which is equivalent to less than an inch in ten miles.
A related defect of this book is ...
(5) Newton-bashing
Cruttenden's need to discredit our understanding of gravity leads him to blatant errors. One is his claim that "in science, you usually don't question Newton" (p. 107). Well, one bozo named "Albert Einstein" did; the difference between him and Cruttenden is that Einstein knew what he was talking about. His Relativity Theories therefore revolutionized physics. Calculations of precession rates based upon those theories (such as calculations of the precession of Mercury's perihelion) are spectacularly accurate.
It's thoroughly dishonest of Cruttenden to smear the successful modern explanation of precession by sniping at Newton's 350-year-old one.
Cruttenden also claims (p. 110) that Newton assumed the Sun is stationary. This is erroneous: Newton's Proposition 57, in Section 11 of Book I of The Principia, states that "Two bodies that are attracted to each other [gravitationally] describe similar figures about their common center of gravity and also about each other." (See The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, p. 561) That Proposition is the basis for the diagrams of binary-star orbits that Cruttenden presents on p. 167 of Lost Star.
(6) Inconsistency regarding the significance of the date of the Spring Equinox (pp. 135 and 274)
On page 135, Cruttenden cites, as evidence against the conventional explanation for precession, the fact that the date of the spring (Vernal) Equinox has not changed since the modern (Gregorian) calendar was adopted in 1582. However, on page 274 he shows he's aware that the Gregorian calendar was DESIGNED to keep it from changing. Therefore, the fact that the date hasn't changed has nothing to do with precession.
(6) Cruttenden makes Kent-Hovind-Style claims for gold chains embedded in lumps of coal, etc. (pp. 243ff)
A particularly laughable claim involves the "Ancient Spark Plug" known as the Coso Geode. Years before Lost Star was published, this artifact had been shown to be a 1920s-era Champion spark plug. (Search on line for "Coso artifact talkorigins.)
SUMMARY
"Uncle Dragon" was on target when he described Lost Star as a "Sloppy heap of scientific and historical errors". We can't be effective social activists while falling for such drivel.
Book Review: Breathtaking Revelations About the Cycle of History
Summary: 5 Stars
With dread I expected to read the wild speculation of a sensationalist b-author. For the fun of it. What a surprise or rather what a shock to get a revelatory science based work which beats anything contentwise I have read so far! And I have "revealed myself" a lot via books and other sources.
This book is well structured. First it goes into the cyclical nature of human history instead of the modern Western proposed linear one, i.e. that progress in any way conceivable is made in cycles - or rather a spiral - than the steady build-up construct. Next, evidence is provided that this is based on a binary (or multiple) star system we live in, i.e. astronomical proof that our solar system is circling in connection with another. After that the search for the most likely candidate goes into full gear, including verification through ancient (obviously superior) knowledge. As I am a known critic of astrology, I was REALLY dreading to find out about the supposed reason, why on Earth the proximity to another sun is supposed to dramatically influence humanity. I was shocked next to find the reasoning very convincing. (Even though much more scientific research has to get done in that area.) The book closes with some notions of how the ancients attempted to counteract this cycle at the descending age as long as possible, until the inevitable scientific prophesy fulfilled itself. Plus some more advanced overstandings by the ancients, still unsolved today (2007) are provided.
This book really stunned me. A lot of previous bits of knowledge, usually not fully overstood, suddenly made perfect sense. I had read an entire (German) book before about the difference of Western thinking about linear history and basically anybody else's thinking in cycles. Quite frankly, before "Lost Star" I never really grasped the concept of what exactly is supposed to cycle. I had also informed myself on the ancients' concept of expecting an ever deteriorating future. Which remained alien to me as sick, as the other books never grasped the cyclical nature of that concept, i.e. that before the last "Golden Age" there was a lesser one and after the long (now retrospect) abyss, there will be an ascend once again. I had informed myself on the astronomical sources of the astrological and religious evolution of the age of the bull (Taurus) finishing and getting villified (by symbols etc.) in the process. Yet, none of the sources connected that with the very real cycle of history.
In other words, during the descending age, knowledge about the scientific reasons for all of that got lost and astrology emerged without full overstanding. Which is the same principle with ancient cartography getting copied and not overstood anymore (read Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings: Evidence of Advanced Civilization in the Ice Age) and ancient measurements getting decadenced (read Civilization One: The World Is Not as You Thought It Was), two books I highly recommend to read in tandem with this one. Actually, "Lost Star" provides a lot of bibliograpyhy, referencing books which elaborate on many separated issues, without seeing the holistic picture yet. I ordered myself crazy, I couldn't help it.
"Lost Star of Myth and Time" takes the phenomenological approach, i.e. jumps right into the viewpoint of the ancients, which once and again turns out to be absolutely necessary to comprehend them. As such, a spiritual approach isn't neglected, though it isn't necessary to count oneself spiritual in order to follow this book. However, personally, I take the spiritual path and could appreciate the occasional revelation in that light, even though when not directly pointed out by the author. The Age of the Lion - and in fact the Age of Pisces - have impact for RastafarI symbols. As a Rasta, I got even challenged here and there, e.g. about the real worth of jewelry, which got utterly lost as sick in the mean-while.
There isn't an end to the search for reality and the author closes with some theories and speculations after all the science. Which is necessary to give a direction for further science projects. Even though such speculation usually turns out to be hilariously off the mark, without them, the path which leads to knowledge for the better would not have entered. Still, I have to say I am not quite sure what the author is insinuating by stating that odd archaelogical findings would suggest a high civilization on Earth 65 million and 600 million years ago in previous cycles. I am seriously concerned, what species exactly would have had to produce these items found in granite etc., as the author fails to mention that humans are considered to be 195,000 years young only. His numbers clearly leave the ape species, even the next related mammals in line. I suggest there are rather as of yet unknown reasons, why certain artefacts ended up in rock stratum millions of years old instead of thousands. But I shall forgive that brain storming...
Book Review: Sloppy heap of scientific and historical errors and New Age hokum
Summary: 2 Stars
The first clue that something is wrong with this book can be found on the back cover, where the three quotes praising the book come from writers who are mentioned and praised in the book itself.
Lost Star begins with some promise. The author, Walter Cruttenden, proposes some intriguing theories: that a binary star (unseen or seen -- Sirius?) might have some gravitational pull affecting the earth's rotation, that the ancients knew or suspected such a star, that the ancients were aware of the precession of the equinoxes. Soon, however, the book turns sloppy. Errors start piling up, enough for me, someone without the critical faculties to judge some of the more technical astronomical details, to turn skeptical real fast. Soon the book moves away from its stated thesis and turns into a collection of rambling New Age musings about higher consciousness. By the last third of the book, the lost binary star seems to have disappeared entirely.
On page 141, the author writes, "The Babylonian and Egyptian cultures both used a daily time system made of 12 periods ascending (our AM), and 12 periods descending (our PM), for a total 24-period (hours) time system. No one knows the true origin of this system of time.... It might be because of the twelve constellations, it might be because the earth is roughly 24,000 miles in diameter with half always in light and half always in darkness."
First of all, the earth's diameter is not 24,000 miles. It's about 7,900 miles. The circumference is close to 25,000 miles. Secondly, 24,000 miles is only relevant to the Babylonian and Egyptian 24-period system if the Babylonians and Egyptians used the modern measurement of the mile. They didn't.
The Kaliyuga is not named for the goddess Kali, contrary to the author's claim. (The vowels in Kali are both long; in Kaliyuga, named for a male apocalyptic demon, they're short. The names are unrelated.) According to ancient Hindu sources, the Kaliyuga did not end in 500 CE -- in fact, it's 432,000 years long. We're still in it, although a few more recent Hindu yogis and writers have redrawn the yuga calendar. If Cruttenden intends to stake so much of his argument on the validity of ancient wisdom, he should probably avoid 20th century rewrites thereof.
On page 257, we read "And in southern Iran, a multinational team of experts has come upon the relics of eight Achaemenid dams... all of them dated to several millennia BC." The Achaemenids didn't rule "several millennia BC," they ruled in the first millenium BC, with their greatest imperial empower in the 6th through 4th centuries.
A few pages later, Cruttenden is telling us that ancient people had far longer life spans. His evidence? Not human remains (which indicate shorter life spans), but scriptural claims and the Shu Ching (Chinese Book of History), which records Chinese emperors reigning up to 115 years during the third millennium BCE. This is like believing that Odysseus really killed the Cyclops, held the winds in a bag, and visited Hades, because Homer said so.
Any editor with rudimentary knowledge of historical science should have caught these and other whoppers.
Rome didn't fall in 476 CE because of influences from the stars. We know why Rome fell -- because it was logistically unable to sustain such a geographically huge empire (it had already split in two), because the provinces grew independent and resentful of remote rule and high taxes, because of Gothic invasions, and other mundane reasons. Contrary to the book's cyclical interpretation of global history, dark ages in one part of the world aren't so dark in another.
Contrary to several statements in the book, no serious anthropologist believes that the evolution of human culture conforms to a model based on Darwinian progress. There are plenty of counterexamples in the archeological record, not to mention more recent history. Anthropologists aren't stupid.
Throughout Lost Star, the author praises and quotes Hamlet's Mill, which is even more spectacularly haphazard in its citation of ancient myths. See the Wikipedia entry: [...]
Lost Star is an example of how some New Age authors pull small pieces of knowledge or belief from science, religion, and history, often taking them out of context or garbling them, to support a theory that is either completely unconvincing or perhaps plausible but requiring of rigorous evidence. Myth might show evidence that adherents had knowledge of a scientific fact. But a myth, which like anything religious is believed through faith rather than reason or observation, can never be evidence of a scientific fact.
Book Review: Portents of a "2nd Copernican Revolution"
Summary: 5 Stars
This well presented thesis bodes nothing short of a "2nd Copernican Revolution" in altering humanity's view of itself and the macrocosm. As Copernicus shook the medieval mindset with his pronouncement that the earth revolves around the sun, we are now to consider that our local sun and its solar system revolves around its binary companion! Most importantly, as the author asserts, this celestial motion is considered responsible for the cycles or "cosmic seasons" that drives the waxing and waning of human civilization.
The reader is introduced to Copernicus' 3rd motion of the earth - "Precession of the Equinoxes" in a most profound and fascinating manner. "Precession" is not a new knowledge, just as the heliocentric model was ancient in origin, what is new is the author's binary star theory to account for this phenomenon in the light of modern astronomy. The reader's mind is expanded beyond its pedestrian world to re-discover the grand cycles of the cosmos that was known to the ancient cultures.
"Lost Star" holds ones interest like a detective story as each new piece of evidence whets the reader's appetite for the next shard. The author engages the reader in solving no less than a cosmic mystery story. The prize is nothing less the reconciliation of an ancient sacred science with today's understanding of a materialistic-based science.
The author cites a variety of excellent sources, a notable one, "Hamlet's Mill" which was a seminal work by Giorgio de Santillana, professor of the history and philosophy of science at M.I.T. and Hertha von Dechend, professor of the history of science at the University of Frankfurt, which explored the encoding of precise astronomical knowledge into the worldwide myths and folklore. Typically, although this was written in the 1970's, mainstream academia has given little attention to this fact, as few people want to upset the status quo.
Mr. Cruttenden's breadth of intellectual curiosity culls from the ancient traditions of India to the most cutting edge think tanks of astrophysics. His cross-disciplinary approach adds considerable fortitude to his thesis as he explores the phenomenon of "Precession" in the light of ancient mythology, archeology, and astrophysics.
The enigmas of archeology with its many "out-of-place" artifacts fall squarely into place should we tentatively accept the thesis of this book - the rise & fall of civilizations is a product of a grand cosmic cycle that was intimately known in the far distant past.
How could the ancients have known so much without the aid of our current technology? As the author suggests, perhaps there have been cultures so advanced as to use the rarified technologies of the mind and spirit in a time more conducive to the full development of those subtle qualities. Which brings to my mind, was this what Plato was referring to when discussing the possibility of attaining absolute knowledge via a "Science of First Causes?" Contrast this a-priori (before-fact) or "consciousness-based" science with our current "trial and error," a-posteriori (after-the-fact) science and I am reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's quote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Prior to the rise of our western view of linear history the ancients' perspective of human history was a cyclical one. Plato expounds this view in his famous dialogues in an attempt to recapture a long lost Golden Age. The are many anomalies in the currently held view of linear history. These "exceptions" to the established paradigm continue to mount almost daily with new archeological discoveries worldwide, which the author aptly notes. My own personal experience is that a cursory study of western art history reveals the flawed assumptions of a linear historical model. Art students are immediately introduced to the mature art of the first dynastic periods of ancient Egypt only to see it's gradual decay over the next 3 millennia, not to mention the fact the we cannot duplicate the engineering feats of the great pyramids that have blocks fitted to ultrasonic precision.
I urge anyone sincerely interested in the whence, whither and why of humanity's origins to read this book.