Vanishing Probability the Present Ecliptic Is a Chance Occurrence

Yesterday I re-published on this blog an article I first published on lulu.com 15 years ago. The following is another early article I placed on that site 16 years ago:

Abstract: It is claimed herein that there is a common objective origin to the myths, legends and other ancient traditions of mankind, worldwide: It is a design, set into the spheres of “heaven” (the starry sky) and Earth, by those known as the “gods” in myth and legend. It is claimed the design entailed the re-orientation and re-formation of the entire solar system, and the re-formation of the landmasses on the surface of the Earth, as well as the conceptual linking of stars on the celestial sphere into the constellation forms known to this day. The remaking of the Earth forms and the invention of the constellation forms were done to enable the matching of forms on the two spheres of “heaven” and Earth, in a series of precise mappings of the former onto the latter. This was done in order to convey a history of the design deeds of the “gods” to anyone who discovered and correctly interpreted their many features. These mappings were the origin of the prime hermetic dictum, “As above, so below,” or “on Earth as it is in heaven.” Physical evidence of the re-formation of the Earth’s landmasses can be seen in their shapes, which exhibit many creature-like images, whose overwhelming uniformity of orientation toward the north proves their deliberate design. Physical evidence of the re-orientation of the solar system resides in obvious design elements (for which chance can be overwhelmingly ruled out as the cause) associated with the areas on the celestial sphere on and around the poles of the ecliptic -- the approximate axis of the solar system -- and at other celestial sites defined by the current placing of the ecliptic axis; one series of heaven-to-earth mappings also clearly and precisely indicates the former position of the ecliptic axis. The most famous of worldwide myths, legends, traditions and symbols also provide universal ancient testimony, all directed toward the aforementioned celestial design elements, and toward the Earth’s creature images; the celestial area surrounding the current ecliptic north pole (ENP), for example, was the “home” and “garden” of the “gods” in all of the major mythological traditions, and the position of the former ENP can be independently verified from myths such as the “Twelve Labors of Hercules”. Discovery and successful interpretation of the design enlightens all of the so-called “ancient mysteries”, and corrects some basic flaws in the modern scientific consensus. In this article, attention will be narrowly focused, upon the most directly observable and verifiable physical evidence for a past re-orientation of the solar system -- those clearly designed elements associated with the ENP position -- ignoring for the present a large amount of supporting evidence from ancient testimonies, and from the several aforementioned mappings that actually pinpoint the former ENP. (That proof, of the precise position of the former ENP as commemorated in the Great Design, is in my 2009 post, Challenge to Science III)

A feature common to the most ancient testimonies of mankind, the world over, are myths told about a race of all-powerful “gods” who once ruled the Earth, and who were generally credited with creating it. This and all other ancient traditions were characteristically fantastic, magical, and yet religiously maintained over many generations. These traditions were believed to be literally the sacred truth about the world, and they were the forerunners of all later religious faith. They are today commonly considered mere superstitions, patently untrue, but if that is so, one is left with explaining the complexity and cohesiveness of the ancient canons, the common elements found in myths worldwide, and the manic, worldwide determination to remember them perfectly, even over millennia. The very simplest hypothesis that would account for all of these characteristics is that the ancient traditions all proceed from a common, and an objective, source. A common thread among them was the idea of number, of design, and of image -- sacred image. Another was the perceived division of the universe, between the earth wherein man dwelt, and heaven, the home of the gods. With all these ideas in mind, the author in 1996 determined to study the heavenly sphere -- which scientists today still call the celestial sphere -- to see if there might be some apparent design among the stars that could have served as the common source for widely-scattered but similar traditions among men. In August 1997, the author found such a design; it was in fact but the central element of a much larger design, whose recognizable boundaries would eventually grow to cover the spheres of both the Earth and heaven.

Quite apart from all the evidence the author has found that ties the ancient traditions of mankind to the specific images and story implied by the design, the designers were careful to arrange elements with mathematical precision that would make plain that those elements were intelligently designed. One need not even know the purpose of a given such arrangement, to recognize that it is not the result of chance.

Consider the primary motions of the Earth in space: The Earth spins upon its own north-south axis, and it orbits the Sun, in a near-circular orbit. Its orbital plane is called the ecliptic (and this is marked on celestial charts as the apparent path of the Sun among the stars over the course of the year--it is a great circle on the celestial, or heavenly, sphere). The Earth's spin axis is tilted about 23.5 degrees from its orbital axis, the latter being the approximate axis of the entire solar system, since all the planets but Pluto orbit in nearly the same plane, and even the Sun spins about nearly the same axis. In its movements, the Earth is thus like a leaning, spinning child's top; and like the top, the Earth's spin axis precesses, around its orbital axis. This causes the celestial north pole, or CNP--the direction of the Earth's spin axis, as a projected point on the celestial sphere--to circle the ecliptic north pole (or ENP), with a period of approximately 26,000 years.

In 1997, the author found a symmetric pattern of stars around the ENP point on the celestial sphere. It is a pattern whose central, religious importance to at least one ancient civilization is easily demonstrated, but we need not consider mere ancient testimonies or expressions (the author relates many such testimonies, across many traditions, worldwide, in the book "The End of the Mystery"). Here is an illustration of the celestial sphere in the neighborhood of the ENP, with the precession circle of 23.5 degrees radius around it:

The ENP is the red dot in the center of the circle, and one can see it is very near the center of the pattern of stars formed by Xi, Epsilon, Psi 1 and Zeta, all in the constellation Draco. These stars form a rhombus, or truncated pyramid shape. The symmetry of that shape is indicated in the figure by the black lines (actually great circles on the sphere), which are the perpendicular bisectors of the top and bottom lines of the rhombus -- one can see they are very nearly the same (they diverge by only one-half of a degree). The ENP point is within 0.5 degree of the center of that pattern. The stars making up the pattern are all among the 1200 or so brightest stars in the sky, and finding the ENP so near the center of such a symmetric pattern is quite unexpected, but this is just the beginning. For example--just to provide some of the wider, worldwide context this has in myth -- the author has been able to prove that the image of the precession circle on the "heavenly" sphere represented the "home of the gods", and the "garden of the gods", in every major tradition studied to date. It was, for example, the "garden of Eden", with Draco representing the serpent in the garden; it was also the "garden of Idun" in Norse myth, and the "garden of Inanna" in Mesopotamian -- all of these had a “tree of life” in the center, whose central “trunk” represented the ENP, and whose “crown” was the surrounding precession circle. It was Hyperborea and Olympus in the Greek, Asgard in the Norse, Swarga in India, Xian in China, the Duat in Egypt. It was the "many-pointed lotus" of creation in both India and Egypt (just as Olympus was "many-peaked", and Xian and the Duat were likewise characterized as being surrounded by mountain peaks--these "peaks" being just the successive CNP points around the circle). The End of the Mystery tells much more about this “blessed land” of myth.

This placement of the ENP among the stars also dictates other uncanny placements on the celestial sphere. Another anciently known plane among the stars, besides the ecliptic, is the galactic plane. Here is an illustration of the area where the ecliptic and the galactic planes cross on one side of the celestial sphere:

The galactic plane is the horizontal line through the center of the image just above, and the ecliptic is the black line crossing it, at an angle of almost exactly 60 degrees (60.189). These images illustrate a galactic alignment, with the galactic north pole (GNP) on the north pole of the sphere, and its equatorial plane on the equator. (The lines of galactic latitude and longitude are overlain to emphasize the longitude where the ecliptic crosses the galactic plane.) Again, there are many associations of this area with elements in many myths around the world, but we won't go into them here; we will only state that this is a critically important spot on the heavenly sphere according to ancient testimonies. The main concern here is to note that there is a clear, inverted "finger" in the outline of the Milky Way, that points very closely to the galactic longitude of the ecliptic/Milky Way crossing--the tip of the "finger" is just 0.02 degrees off the line to the crossing point. Note too that the Milky Way narrows to a unique, small "neck" just at this point, and the crossing point is very near the midline of the "neck" (in other words, at this point, the Milky Way is spread out nearly equally to either side of the galactic equator, which is not the case in other spots, as the larger illustration shows).

There is also an implied precession circle around the ecliptic south pole (ESP), the antipodal point to the ENP. In this area we find the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, galactic remnants on the celestial sphere:

In the above, the Large Magellanic Cloud is located just beside the ESP, and the Small Magellanic Cloud, or SMC, is located on the rim of the 23.5 degree circle around the ESP. In fact, the SMC is shaped with an actual pointer to the circle, and to its center. As the bottom image shows, the sides of the pointer cross right on the circle (at 23.507 degrees from the ESP) and the pointer is oriented very closely toward the ESP itself (the bisector of the pointer passes just 0.43 degrees off the ESP). Furthermore, if we consider the symmetric pattern of stars around the ENP, and its center point, we find that the SMC pointer passes just 0.05 degrees from it (and from the point antipodal to that center point).

It is not difficult to calculate the separate probabilities for the above close placements, at points of demonstrably critical importance either to ancient or modern observers. We will come to those calculations shortly, but first there is one more view to consider.

The author has shown, from the very names given to the image of the northern precession circle, that the famous oriental "yin/yang" symbol, or "tai chi", also came from the disposition of stars around the ENP. Here is an illustration of the "tai chi" overlain on the precession circle:

The bottom image shows how the "S" curve of the tai chi, interior to the outer circle, is generated by considering two circles having just half the radius of the outer circle. With the outer circle's radius of 23.5 degrees, these smaller circles have a radius of 11.75 degrees. Considering only the "S" curve and outer circle in the upper image, the lines of the "tai chi" closely overlie the stars Epsilon, Theta, Iota and Alpha (which is called Thuban). Epsilon is 0.255 degrees off the curve, Theta is 0.074 degrees off, Iota 0.148 degrees, and Alpha is both 0.484 degrees off the "S" and 0.138 degrees off the outer circle. The improbability of each of these close matches occurring by chance is calculated by comparing their displacements from the "tai chi" lines with the average separation between stars. Again, the stars involved are all among the 1200 (actually 1204) brightest stars, so we need only consider that number. We can closely estimate the average separation of these stars on the celestial sphere by calculating the angular diameter of a region occupying just 1/1200th of the sphere. Assuming a circle, the radius--or half the average stellar separation--works out to 3.3 degrees, which should be reduced slightly (since contiguous circles won't cover the sphere completely, i.e., they need to overlap slightly). Given a supposed arbitrary line (a line of the "tai chi" symbol) passing "close" to a given star--closer to it than its nearest neighbor--the probability that the star is by chance alone within a given small distance of the line is, on average, just that distance divided by half the average distance between neighboring stars, or approximately 3 degrees. The probability that Epsilon is .255 degrees off the tai chi line by chance alone is thus .255/3, or 0.085. The probability that Theta is .074 degrees off is .0247; the probability Iota is .148 degrees off, .049; and the probability Alpha is .484 degrees off, .161. The separate probability that Alpha is just .138 degrees off the outer circle is .138/3, or 0.046.[see note at end of this text--HDH] The probability that all of these happened by chance is the product of their separate probabilities, or about 7.6E-7--about 1 in a million.

The separate probabilities that the SMC should so precisely mark the circle around the ESP, and point so closely to the ESP, are easily calculated, and their product is 1.16E-7, or about 1 in 10 million. And the probability that the ecliptic/Milky Way crossing should be so closely marked by the galactic outline "finger" is .02/180, or about 1 in 10 thousand. We could also factor in the probability that the crossing should occur so close to the midline of a unique "neck" in the galactic outline just here, but the discussion it would require is not necessary, as we are already dealing in astoundingly small probabilities for all these matches, all of them directly due to the position of the ENP on the celestial sphere. We do need to note that the probability that the ENP should be within .5 (.477) degrees of the center of the symmetric pattern of stars surrounding it is only 1.73E-5.

Therefore, the total probability (based on the above considerations alone) for chance placement of the ENP where we now find it is no more than about 1.7E-22, or about 2 in ten thousand million million million.

When this is viewed in the context of a world full of myths about a former succession of suns, or of "twin" Suns, or the past or prophesied "death" of a Sun, it is clear that a re-formation of the solar system, deliberately placing the ENP where we now find it, was performed. In fact, the design of the "gods" involved the projection of the celestial sphere onto the Earth sphere, in a series of mappings, and at least four of these mappings rather precisely show where the ENP was on the celestial sphere before the re-formation took place. These mappings, and the indicated former ENP, are considered in the author’s book, The End of the Mystery. The re-orbiting, and perhaps first appearance of some, of the planets was remembered in Greek myth as the "birth of the new gods".

Note: Some statisticians may take exception to the author’s inclusion, in the main text, of the probability that the star Thuban in Draco is .138 degrees off the northern precession circle, and the probability that the Small Magellanic Cloud’s “pointer” is just .007 degrees off the southern precession circle. It might be argued that these factors depend on the size of the precession circle, rather than the position of the ENP per se. It is my position that the precession circles, north and south, are inextricably “attached” to the ecliptic axis, and we have to account for Thuban’s and the SMC’s improbable positions so near the rims of their respective circles. The real question here is whether it is correct to use 23.5 degrees for the radius of the precession circles: Modern theorists, after Milankovitch, claim the very-long-term average value of the obliquity is about 23.1 or 23.2 degrees. However, the author’s experience with the design, and the evidence of past observations of the obliquity going back to the first millennium BC, indicate that 23.5 degrees is the more likely value--it is certainly the most likely value built into the design: The SMC pointer argues for 23.5 degrees almost exactly, while overlaying the “tai chi” on the northern stars indicates a value of 24 degrees, very closely, but a circle of 23.5 degrees still matches the stars well, as shown in the text, and it does so substantially better than does 23.1 degrees. The obliquity has been observed to be within .0833 degrees of 23.5 degrees since about 879 AD, and even the far more ancient value of 23.856 degrees (or 23º 51' 20"), quoted by Ptolemy (c. 139 AD) and claimed by him as the value also observed by his predecessors Hipparchus (c. 125 BC) and Timocharis (c. 282 BC) -- this value also being claimed for Aristarchus (c. 260 BC) by Copernicus (c. 1525 AD) -- is only 0.356 degrees from 23.5 degrees. In short, the author would prefer to withhold judgment on the values in the modern Milankovitch theory, and not consider them authoritative as yet, and prefers to work with the values indicated by the design and ancient testimonies, as well as by all the (admittedly relatively recent) observations. The author argues in "The End of the Mystery" that it seems likely that the obliquity only varies about 0.3 degrees to either side of about 23.5 degrees, rather than 1.3 degrees to either side of 23.1 degrees as the modern theory claims. The author does not insist upon this -- and evaluating the probabilites discussed in the text using a precession circle of radius 23.1 degrees still results in a determination (of about 1 in a million million million) against chance positioning of the ENP -- but considers it probable. One must dispassionately conclude that the solar system was intentionally re-formed and re-oriented. Such intentional design can and does explain other well-known, improbable observations, such as that the size of the Moon in the sky is so nearly exactly the same size as the Sun (the former averages 0.527 degrees apparent diameter, the latter 0.533 degrees). The intended meaning of this situation -- deemed merely a “cosmic coincidence” by modern science thus far -- is explained in "The End of the Mystery".