prophets and plasmas

8/6/2019 Prophets and Plasmas

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THINGS ASTHEY ARE,WERE

ARE TO COME

Pphts n PssANTHONY E. LARSON


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THINGS AS THEY ARE,WERE AND ARE TO COME

Prophets and PlasmasCopyright 2005 Anthony E. Larson

Mythology from ancient cultures describe the gods hurling huge thunder-

bolts across the heavens and down to earth. Recent discoveries in plasma

science present a startling proposition: the myth of the cosmic thunderbolt

is rooted in planetary plasma displays that can be reproduced in the lab.

It is the thunderbolt that steers the universe, wrote the Greek phi-losopher Heraclitus. odays scholars and scientists dismiss suchstatements as simpleminded nonsense, based in ignorance.

But, as we have seen, electricity probably plays a ar greater role

in the universe than modern science recognizes. What i Heraclitus

actually knew much more than we do about the nature o the power

that organizes and drives the universe?

o illustrate this notion, lets look at a glaring example rom history.

Zeus throwing a thunderbolt

Notice the object Greek sculptors put

in Zeus hand.

No, its not a ootball or a stalk o corn.

Te Greek sources tell us this was the

appearance o those abled thunderboltsZeus was said to have launched rom

Olympus, the sacred mountain on which

he resided. Clearly, it looks nothing like

anything we would call a thunderbolt. Yet the Greeks were unwavering.

Tese, they insisted, were thunderbolts. Tere were many variations,

but none o them look like a bolt o lightning to our eyes.


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More thunderbolts

Te most elementary orm was that o a simple missile with a

corkscrew conguration.

Numerous illustrations o the weapon show it sending orth lea-

like sepals, then owering into a lotus orm. Te petals o the lotus/

thunderbolt are also elaborated in tradition as horns or wings, a act

that appears absurd today, until we perceive the underlying structure.Tough they dier somewhat, these patterns are, in act, surpris-

ingly consistent. And that consistency is a

vital key to understanding what we see in

these sculptures.

So, what are these thunderbolts o the gods?

o answer that question, we must look to a surprising source: the

most recent images o similar eatures in distant galaxies and stars.We must also consider the nature o something called plasma and its

electrical properties.

Plasma and electricity

Plasma permeates space. Our entire Milky Way galaxy consistsmainly o plasma. It is the ourth state o matter. We are all amiliar

with the rst three, most common states o matter: gas, liquid andsolid. We experience them every day. Yet, we are also surrounded

with plasmas, though we dont recognize them or what they are. In

act 99% o the entire universe is plasma!

An electrical plasma is a cloud o ions (positively charged particles)

and electrons (negatively charged particles) that can sometimes light

up and behave in some unusual ways when excited or activated by

applying electrical and magnetic elds. Te most amiliar exampleso electrical plasmas on Earth are the neon sign, lightning, and the

electric arc welding machine. Te ionosphere o Earth is an example

o a plasma that does not emit visible light. Fire is a plasma. Te cloud

o particles that constitutes the solar wind is a plasma.


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Birkeland

During the late 1800s, a Norwegian physicist, Kristian Birkeland,

explained that the reason we could see Earths polar auroras was that

they were plasmas. Birkeland also discovered the twisted corkscrew-shaped paths taken by electric currents in plasmas.

Plasma behavior continues to astonish the specialists who study it,and it is radically dierent rom the amiliar behavior o solids, liquids,

and gasses. It is sel-organizing, paring into laments that intertwine

or braid into pairs that attract each other at long distances and repel

each other at short distances.

Sometimes those twisted shapes arevisible and sometimes not that de-pends on the strength and the current

density being carried by the plasma.oday these braided streams o ionsand electrons are called Birkeland

currents aer their discoverer. Te

mysterious sprites, elves, and bluejets associated with electrical stormson Earth are examples o Birkeland

currents in the plasma o our upper at-

mosphere.

In a plasma, these laments evolveinto braided ropes that can act as

electrical transmission lines, much asbraided, twisted cable is used to carryelectrical power to our homes. As a

practical matter, weve learned that wound or braided cable carries

electricity more efciently. Te apparent reason is that this is the

natural conguration or electrical current, as discovered by Birkeland.

Birkland currents orm braided flaments

On a cosmic scale, that means they can carry electric power acrossgalactic and intergalactic space, while organizing and driving second-

ary systems, including stars and planets. Electric current in space,passing through plasma, will take on the corkscrew (spiral) shape

discovered by Birkeland (see above).


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Tere are three distinctly dierent steady state modes in which

plasma can operate:

Dark Current ModeTe strength o the electrical

current (ow o charged particles) within the plasma is verylow. Te plasma does not glow. It is essentially invisible. Wewould not know plasma was there at all unless we measured itselectrical activity with sensitive instruments. Te present daymagnetospheres o the planets are examples o plasmas operatingin the dark current mode, as are the giant, but quite indiscernible,Birkland currents that carry the prodigious power throughout

the galaxy to light our sun and all the stars.Normal Glow ModeTe strength o the electrical cur-

rent (ow o charged particles) is signicant. Te entire plasmaglows. Te brightness o the glow depends on the intensity othe current in the plasma. Examples are any neon sign, emissionnebulae and the Suns corona.

Arc ModeTe strength o the electrical current in the

plasma is very high. Te plasma radiates brilliantly over a widespectrum. Current tends to orm twisting laments. Exampleso this mode o operation are an electric arc welding machine,lightning or the Suns photosphere.

Such laments have already been discovered in our own solar sys-

tem. For example, it is known that million ampere currents owing

down the Earths magnetic eld lines at the northern and southern

poles cause the Earths aurora to glow. A similar glowing vortex,astronomers dubbed a ux tube, was ound by planetary explorer

spacecraf to connect the planet Jupiter with its closest satellite, Io.

Langmuir

In the early 20th century, Nobel laureate Irving Langmuir studiedelectric plasmas in his laboratory at General Electric. He urther

developed the body o knowledge Birkeland had pioneered and was

the rst to use the name plasma to describe the almost lielike, sel-

organizing behavior o these ionized gas clouds in the presence o

electrical currents and magnetic elds.


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Langmuir identied a plasma phenomenon called a double layer,

a boundary that orms around charged objects immersed in plasma.

Tis boundary, now called a Langmuir sheath, surrounds our planet.

Invisible to the naked eye, it electrically isolates our world rom theSuns plasma, called the solar wind, and interacts with it in ways we

have yet to ully understand.

Laboratory experiments and simulations on supercomputers reveal

that plasma discharge ormations, under the inuence o electric cur-rents, are remarkably similar to ormations observed in remote space.

Te patterns o plasma behavior are said to be scalable. Tat is, a high

energy electric discharge in plasma will produce the same ormationsirrespective o the size o the event. Te same basic patterns will be

seen at laboratory, planetary, stellar, and galactic levels.

Duration is proportional to size as well. A spark that lasts or mil-

liseconds in the laboratory may persist or years at planetary or stellarscales, or or thousands o years at galactic or intergalactic scales.

Because Birkeland currents most ofen occur in pairs, they tend to

compress between them any material (ionized or not) in the plasma.Tis is called the z-pinch eect. Tus, when we look at nebulas in

space such as the one pictured above, we are looking at glowing

plasmaa celestial thunderbolt o prodigious size showing the z-

pinch eect on a galactic scale.

Te most striking eature o the central part o this nebula is its polar

symmetry, looking much like those Greek thunderbolts pictured

on the rst page. Te central neck is where the galactic electricalcurrents, pinch down to create the hourglass gure.


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Once again in the photo above, we see the similarities between

galactic plasma structures and the lotus-like illustrations rom ancient

art o the gods thunderbolt weapons.

Tese shapes are uncannily similar to those o Zeus thunderboltsdrawn by ancient astronomers because such electric phenomena are

scalable through several orders o magnitude.

Tat is, microcosmic or macrocosmic,

they always take on the same appear-

ance. Tey exhibit the same orms and

characteristics whether the discharge oc-

curs over a raction o a millimeter in alaboratory, over thousands o kilometers

in Earths heavens or across many light-

years in the galaxy. In act, computer-

ized simulations o high-energy electrical

discharges in the laboratory indicate that

the same patterns can be scaled up yet another 100 million times to

galactic size.

A revised view o the past heavens

In the electric model, the actual history o our solar system does

not resemble the currently accepted theories o the sciences. Abbre-

viated rst glimpses o these discoveries may provoke incredulity,

shock, and irritation. Tereore, the reader must be asked to suspend

all prior belies on the subject, including matters thought to have been

settled decades, or even centuries ago in order to give this evidencea proper hearing.

Te implications o these new discoveries or aiding in our under-

standing the scriptures are proound.

Te Roman historian acitus wrote that the catastrophe o Sodomand Gomorrah was caused by a thunderbolt the plain was con-

sumed by lightning. And he added, Personally I am quite prepared

to grant that once-amous cities may have been burnt by re romheaven. Also Josephus asserted that the cities had been consumed

by thunderbolts. Philo wrote that lightnings poured out o heaven,

destroying the cities.


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Such observations dovetail with the Greek traditions o thunder-

bolts. Accounts in scripture o what might otherwise be considered

miraculous become understandable phenomena, without detracting

rom the gospel message they also convey.In the later years o his lie, Nobel Laureate Hannes Alven, the

ounder o plasma science, reached a startling conclusion about the

nature o the universe. He said that todays gravitational systems are

the ashes o prior electrical systems. Tis remarkable idea and the

revelations weve seen about plasmas in a near Earth environment

requires that we read our scriptures rom an entirely new perspective,

however unnerving. It raises the possibility that the ancient heavenslooked nothing like the skies we see now, and accounts o events rom

that time must be re-read with this new perspective to more ully ap-

preciate the message they contain.

Tis is the new perspective Latter-day Saints should keep in mind

while re-reading their scripturesnot only prophetic passages buthistoric accounts such as Abraham in the Pearl o Great Price. Tese

can only be ully understood when read with the ollowing in mind:

As recently as several thousand years ago, planets moved under the

inuence o electrifed plasma, a medium that can easily overwhelmgravity. Orbits changed, and catastrophic electrical encounters altered theterrain, the climates, and the atmospheres o planets, including our Earth.

Tough the duration o instability is unknown, the fnal episodes o

catastrophe occurred in the time o our early ancestors, who witnessedcelestial wonders beyond anything imagined today. Charged planets

and moons were held in a close array by electrical orces and were seenas huge spheres in the sky. In periods o instability, plasma discharges

passed between planets, capturing the obsessive attention o humanwitnesses. Ancient sky worshippers observed the resulting plasma con-fgurations as these discharges mutated rom one unstable phase to

another, seemingly alive, intelligent and habitually combative. It was

such events, ofen earthshaking, earsplitting and terriying, that supplied

the raw content o world mythology and inspired the great religious andsymbolic traditions o antiquity.

Claims or such a scenario can be substantiated by comparing the

orms taken by plasmas in the laboratory and the symbolic religious


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art o antiquityetched on tomb and temple walls, carved on rock,

illustrated on religious icons and even painstakingly embedded invast landorms.

Plasma orms in sacred art worldwide

Plasma physicist Anthony Peratt, the oremost authority in theworld on the orms exhibited by laboratory plasmas under the inu-

ence o electrical orces, recognized this ancient orm o iconographyas illustrations o plasmas in space, much as we have identied the

thunderbolts o the Greek gods as plasma. Tat is, Peratt insists that

what looks to our eyes as though they were myth-inspired icons,nonsensical doodling or just plain gibberish are actually accurate

representations acsimiles in stone, i you willo what the an-

cients saw in their skies. He points out that he has seen all these sameorms in plasmas generated in his lab experiments at Los Alamos

National Laboratories.

What ollows is only a minute sampling o Peratts published work,

comparing ancient rock art with laboratory experiments and simu-

lations on supercomputers o plasma discharge ormations underthe inuence o electric currents. You will agree that the similarities

are stunning.

Tese are graphic representations o

one plasma conguration produced inPeratts laboratory that he afrms gave

rise the examples o rock art rom around

the world seen below that he calls squat-ter man.

Note that the squat-

ting position illustratedabove is strongly remi-

niscent o the posture or

stance taken by Polyne-

sians in their sacred rit-ual dances and by Hindu

ritual dancers, a connec-

tion not previously made

by anthropologists.


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Tese images suggest two other possibilities or interpretive use

beyond the more common squatting gure. Te many arms o the

Hindu god, Shiva and the spider, ound on the plain o Nazca in Peru

are likely derivatives o the same plasma image.

Most o the symbols and petroglyphs ound the world over areprobably illustrations o things seen in Earths heavens anciently,

urther demonstrating the universality o these images, as in this

Chinese glyph.

Tis worldwide commonality argues con-

vincingly that there is only one place all an-

cient cultures could have seen these images:

in Earths ancient skies.

Another plasma arrangement discovered

in the laboratory by Peratt is here illustrated

(below lef.)

Called a Peratt Instability, this plasma conguration takes the

shape o a stack o donuts. Tese graphic and computer generated illus-

trations o experimentally created plasmas lookremarkably like the mythic backbone o god.


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A multitude o petroglyphs appear to depict Peratts stacked toruses.

Tese are only a ew among thousands o such examples. So all those

squiggly drawings on rocks were based in rock-solid reality.

Te stacked toruses, seen rom an oblique angle, also took on theappearance o the mythical chain o arrows. Tese can be seen in

similar illustrations rom sacred art o widely separated cultures.

Heretoore inexplicable rock art that was generally thought to haveno basis in the physical world can now be seen as a heroic attempt byancient cultures to record the plasma phenomenon they saw in the

heavens, something they considered to be sacred imagery.

Without the insight these plasma congurations oer, anthropolo-gists are at a loss to explain the origin or the motivation or such

bizarre images. Tey rankly admit that the meaning o such glyphs

is a mystery, such as the Egyptian il-

lustration (lef.)

Yet, when seen in light o cutting

edge plasma science, the explanationis quite simple, though unexpected.Tese were things seen overhead in

Earths ancient heavens. Tose that


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saw them elt compelled to record what they saw in order to preservewhat they considered to be sacred. Tese petroglyph sites were subse-

quently considered sacred as well, a place to recall the images o the

gods and perorm rituals.A more complete and elaborate version

o the Peratt Instability is seen here (lef) in

a computer simulation o an actual plasma

experiment in the laboratory.

Compare it to a reproduction o an Ari-

zona petroglyph (right).

Te correlation is stunning, and it leavesno doubt about the original subject or thisNative American petroglyph.

Te computer simulation (above le) shows where the increase

in current strength begins to warp at the edges. Te petroglyph(above right), precisely reects those same details. Like the squatter

man seen above, this is clearly an illustration in stone o a plasma

conguration seen in the heavens.Peratt identies the parts o the stone glyph that correspond to

those elements o a Peratt Instability (below).

aking a closer view at the torus seen at the base o the Peratt In-

stability, we see an entirely new gure.


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Tis plasma image (above lef) gures prominently in the mythology

o the past, where it was call the sky mask, giving rise to the universal

practice o wearing masks in conjunction with religious ceremoniesand stacked divinity icons in totems. Te obvious relationship o

these plasma images to sacred imagery leads to only one conclusion:

Earths ancient inhabitants recorded by every means possible whatthey could see in the skies above them during an epoch o intense

electrical plasma activity in the heavens.

Coming ull circle

Having only briey explored the nascent eld o plasma scienceand its relationship to ancient iconography, there is only one more

comparison to make in order to complete

our journey.

Like the thunderbolt wielding Greek god,

Zeus, the Sumerian god Ninurta is said to

have thrown thunderbolts across heaven as

he battled the celestial monster, Anzu. A side-by-side comparison o the Sumerians illustra-tion o their gods weapon (ar lef) with one

o Peratts electrical hourglass ormationsin plasma (near lef) puts a lock on the

thesis o this paper.

A cross-cultural comparison o celes-

tial thunderbolts, as in the Hindu vajra(lef top) and the Greek thunderbolt (lef

bottom) reveals a whole new perspectiveo the religious iconography o the past


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and its unexpected, but exciting, connection to plasma physics.

And a comparison o a variety o Greek thunderbolt images (nine

images below) to some primary plasma constructs seen in computer

simulations o laboratory plasma (ve images below) leaves little doubtwhat the ancient Greeks saw.

Te astounding relevance o plasma phenomenon in space to

the iconography o the ancients orces Latter-day Saints to consider

the likelihood that i these maniestations were so impressive as to

motivate cultures worldwide to record what they saw by any methodavailable to them, then this same imagery must have ound its way

into scriptural accounts recorded by the prophets o God and into the

iconography o temples, ancient and modern.

Tis is the test. And Joseph Smith and the gospel he restored pass

it with ying colors.

For more essays rom this series:http://mormonprophecy.blogspot.com/

For online classes, videos, newsletters and published books exploringthis material in depth:http://www.mormonprophecy.com/

Your questions or comments are welcome:

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