Still, a little evidence wouldn't hurt.

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Honestly, I think this is a very closed minded way of looking at things.

Rtomes, the weather has cycles right? Even the most hard nosed scientist has no trouble accepting that a complex chaotic system will show cycles.

Wanting to believe something is a major influence in any human beings psyche.

However, to claim that there is a 'grain or truth' to the twaddle of astrologers is a very misleading claim.
The astrologers are not aware of whatever grain of truth is in their ramblings. They are just practicing 'feel good -wanna beliefs.'
It is the scientifically minded individual that will rationally separate the evidence and data from the fluff. That is how true discoveries can be made.

If I'm walking with a vial of a chemical agent in a lab and I slip on a banana peel and my vial falls into a different batch of chemicals and the resulting combination turns out to be a cure for cancer- I'll get credit for the discovery even if it was an accident. True. But it would be known as an accident- a grateful one. How much MORE credit would I receive if it was a result of research? We want things that WORK. I can believe whatever I want, but if I am to influence the lives of the people- I need something that I can demonstrate as functioning, tested and true. I will need to know what I'm talking about.
Even with the accidental discovery, I would need to pore over the results and data and figure out what happened, why it happened and how it happened. I will need reproducible results.

But If I'm rambling about magnetic bracelets curing cancer- it doesn't matter what "truths" may be in anything I say. No one is going to get cured of cancer by my unknowledgeable and ignorant ramblings. Nor will they by wearing the bracelet.
The scientist is much more likely to make a discovery by researching the actual facts. The new age astrology guy will still be rambling about things he knows nothing about- even if by utter chance he happens to accidentally state a truth- he won't even know he said it.
They are motivated by a want to believe. This does not make them "open minded." It makes them fluff-minded.
And they are far less likely to make a discovery because they don't have a solid foundation upon which to stand.

I have never encountered an astrologer, new age proponent, paranormal investigator or otherwise make ANY discovery. At All.
None.
No evidence, no papers - nada.

The Randi Prize has yet to ever be claimed.

Really? Can you give some examples where New Agers and astrologers have made brand new discoveries?

Please show something to quantify your 'much more likely" claim.

In the last century, if you please.

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You are, however, responsible for answering simple questions with the simplest answers possible. You may not find them particularly pertinent, but what I am telling you is that, if all you have is a handful of perceived similiarities between Rome and the US, you don't have a case. Also, that last diagram of yours looked a great deal like one of Dutch's.

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I am not quite sure what you mean by a ‘data point.’ The biggest world event of a given time, when that event involves large scale physical forces such as major wars or political or ideational changes, can be compared to events of an age before. This cosmic cycle is just one big factor in historic causality, so it may on occasion be hard to detect, due either to other factors swamping it or our inability to read history well. I think your comment on the US frontier is an example of the latter. The fact that in law the frontier ended hid a real ongoing frontier in other ways. In Australia we call this the culture of silence about Aboriginal genocide – often the history books only tell a small or biased part of the story.

The mapping of the world-defining event of American victory in World War Two on to Roman victory over Carthage has the parallels that it turned the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans into ‘American Lakes’ just as the victory over Hannibal turned the Mediterranean into ‘Mare Nostrum’. Hence we have an underlying structural parallel in these two ‘data points’, together with a generally parallel emergence story, which are suggestive enough to build a picture of what the future might bring if America continues to parallel Rome just to this major event level. It suggests that claims the US is an empire are at least a century too early – that over the next 200 years we are likely to see structural forces shifting the US from its current democratic republic towards a more autocratic form of governance, but at the same time, the story of Christ suggests we can expect emergence of a messianic figure late next century who will contest this hegemony.
As many as possible. The nature of this hypothesis is that it opens a method for comparing different times in a way that should be amenable to quantified statistical analysis. Dane Rudhyar, who I mentioned earlier, draws a speculative picture of each of the twelve sub-ages of the Age of Pisces in a very preliminary fashion. My hope is that more systematic study of these cosmic cycles of time will provide a productive schematic ordering in which events around the world can be compared to see how they align.
Much in depth analysis would be needed to answer this properly, but my expectation would be that the cycle of the ages will prove most visible in world-shaping events and people. Hence a world shaping moment such as the end of the Second World War can usefully be compared to its parallel. An anomaly raised by critics here is that the world shaping period 1770 to 1800 does not have clear parallel to 380-350BC, and nor does World War One. As I see it the possible explanations are that we just have not looked at the ancient times hard enough to see the parallels or that there were other causal factors in the modern revolution and WW1 which supervened the weak underlying cosmic rhythm.

The hypothesis is that now is at the same moment in a terrestrial temporal wave function as 2147 years ago, and that our planetary character (karma) is shaped by this cosmic Gaian rhythm. Hence, this moment in human evolution can be usefully compared to the year 140 BC, as 1945 may be compared to 202 BC, etc. This is a global hypothesis. The potential to measure and compare events in different contexts varies. Many stone technology communities such as Australia had no records, so even though I suggest they participate in this causal process we cannot point to them as illustrations. All big old civilisations could illustrate the theory in principle, and my focus on Rome and Greece is due to my knowledge of them and the observation that the observed parallels are suggestive.
Good question. The theory of cosmic ages is of course highly controversial, and this material is exploratory. My claim is that the system works by deductive logic – we are part of a cosmic system, the cosmic system has this feature, we participate in this feature. Further study may show the effect is so weak as to be homeopathic, but my hope is that the strong skeleton of time that I have suggested can be usefully fleshed out.
Well, there is quite a parallel involving Greece and Europe too, for example between Alexander and Napoleon. I regard these parallels as a finely developed result of the wobbly shape of time: looking at other star systems we rely on Doppler Shift, while for our planet we can refer to Livy and Plutarch. I simply do not know enough ancient history from other regions to start to draw comparisons, although figures like Buddha, K’ung Tzu and Ashoka could usefully be studied.
No way. I am not looking for anyone to believe anything on such flimsy grounds, but I am interested in cooperative research, and in recognition that these ideas are possible even if they are not yet persuasive or compelling.
The two issues here are that you are being reasonable to suggest research into wider historical correlations, but also that the theory is deductive, as I covered in my last post, and that this deductive logic has an astronomical interest aside from its potential inductive corroboration through broader study.
I would like to suggest five years as a reasonable orb, enabling comparison of events separated by between 2142 and 2152 years, but that should be a matter for empirical study.

What I have read of the infamous Dutch has not yet impressed me, except that we seem to share an esteem for Pythagoras. The cube of time at http://www.bautforum.com/attachments...years-2148.jpg is a topology of the precessional age, in line with the claim in Revelation that the new Jerusalem could be imagined as a cube. As well, each two vortices map the cycle of the Solar System Barycentre shown at http://www.bnhclub.org/JimP/jp/comp1.JPG . This is a new form of physics, using geometry to map physical time. The angles of the cube are just under 90 degrees to the same proportion the SSB cycle is less than 180 years, ie 89.5/90 degrees ~= 178.9/180 years.

Just responding to your following message, there are a few others here (at least me, and perhaps Ray Tomes as well) who would have an interest in Pythagoras. I really want to stress that I don't think your exploration is a bad idea. If things turn out to have patterns, it's an interesting discovery. I just think that you have to be careful to be dispassionate about things like this. If you look for patterns, it is easy to find them. I think we need to be merciless in trying to disprove such patterns, and only recognize them if they are strong enough to stand out even if we try to disprove them. Finding patterns is very easy for humans; we all know this from looking at a marble wall and seeing faces in it. To me, simply showing a rough resemblance between Rome and the US is not enough; they are too different. If you can show a fluctuation in global population, for example, with peaks at 2,148 years, that to me would be a fascinating discovery.

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I think you will find that Russia had a rather large hand in that, not to mention the British Empire and Commonwealth.

Who were Romes Allies?

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Ray, Thank you for these points, which are immensely helpful. It is about application of statistics to physics including planetary cycles which can be plotted as wave functions and compared. I suggest the SSB shows all the different planetary cycles resolved together into a systemic wave effect, so suggest it is a useful starting point to analyse the structure of time. It can however be compared to other astronomical wobble studies.
Space.com says about the exoplanet Gliese 581 c: “The scientists discovered the new world using the HARP instrument on the European Southern Observatory 3.6 meter telescope in La Sille, Chile. They employed the so-called radial velocity, or "wobble," technique, in which the size and mass of a planet are determined based on small perturbations it induces in its parent star's orbit via gravity.” http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...exoplanet.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_581_c
The recent discovery of this exoplanet in the habitable zone is illustrative for the method I am applying in this thread. Compared to other star systems, we know vastly more about the dynamics of our own solar system, including accurate measurements of barycentres and precessional rates. We have accurate data, and do not need inference from radial velocity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_velocity Noting Ray Tomes’ recognition that there are good reasons why cycles are sometimes divided in 12, I am suggesting there is scope for much more detailed and complex empirical speculation about the effects of the various wobbles that we are subject to. Notably, that major events separated by one age are causally linked by harmonic cycle. I would hope enough data can be assembled to use Fourier Analysis.
We know there is a 178.9 year solar system barycentre (SSB) cycle. I have suggested this may be related to precession because it is exactly 25764/144, providing direct physical analogs for the Great Year, the Cosmic Age and the Houses of the Age. These terms may look mystical but I am using them in purely physical way, ie that the house is just the SSB cycle.
Cursory visual inspection of the SSB graph I posted from JimP at #61 in this thread shows the very high correlation between the last two SSB cycles. Hornblower has pointed out that the drift of planetary alignments over multiple periods would throw out this cycle compared to the precession. I do not know if he is right, and would be grateful if some one could help me look at SSB ephemera from JPL Horizons over long time period so I can look in to it more. (Apologies I have had trouble working out how to access JPL myself). The test would be to match the variance in each successive pair of cycles to assess whether the SSB could be a part of a deeper systemic rhythm against which the earth’s precessional wobble is also entrained.
The link between these themes, the SSB and precession, is the Gaian hypothesis that our planet obeys deeply imbedded cosmic rhythms reflecting the organic unity of the solar system. How would we go about corroborating it? A first step is from the mathematics in the last paragraph. If that falls down then I am back to square one regarding the mechanism of a precessional ecology. If that is confirmed, we can look for corroborative examples in history.
The claim is that earth’s ecology is adapted to these matched cosmic rhythms. However, we know the influence of this rhythm is very weak, approaching homeopathic levels, as it is clearly not visible to superficial examination. For example, we know the Sorbonne occupation happened precisely 178.9 years after the storming of the Bastille, and therefore at the precise same moment of the SSB cycle, but that looks like a cherry-picked one off. And yet, this correlation is of more than coincidental interest, because we can use it in looking at our planet from a cosmic level.

Hi Mak, thanks for posting. I rebutted this article by The Bad Astronomer Phil Plait at Science and Astrology

The common long term patterns are of emergence of a sole superpower protecting the known seas. The two emergent dominant powers are linked at the point of their emergence by a time period of one age. I would also compare the British Empire and Europe to Ancient Greece, with Napoleonic and Victorian times comparable to Alexander and the Hellenistic Age. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenistic_civilization shows some similarities to how Greek language spread like English around the known world.

Sparta looks a possible historical parallel for Russia and the USSR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...3rd_century_BC is interesting, especially comparing Lenin to Cleomenes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleomenes_III, Stalin to Nabis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabis and the defeat by Rome with the end of the Cold War. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...ention_of_Rome

So Rome and Sparta were allies against Carthage?

I also think you do down the influence, power and sizxe of the British Empire.

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I had a previous thread Precessional Cosmology which discussed this at length Considering the solar system as an organic unity suggests to me that main regular cyclic patterns are likely to be manifested in things which evolve within them.We can predict astronomical cycles without looking at history. However, to explore how astronomical cycles may be manifest in history can be assisted by looking at how instances of the cycle played out in events. Influence on events compared to other factors. Of course not. Dice are random, cosmic time is ordered. Zama in 202 and Hiroshima in 1945, and the creation of republics in Rome at 509BC and England 1637-60AD are separated by 2147 years. Imperial expansion is a longer process but one where the two processes match well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timelin...5th_century_BC can be roughly set against American expansion from 1650.

As I have said, this precessional parallel is just one factor among other terrestrial and accidental factors, so there are bound to be points of convergence and points of divergence. My approach does somewhat suggest the ancient Mediterranean was a playpen compared to the bigger modern empires, so it is no slight to Britain to compare it to Greece. Alexander the Great was quite a figure, and Koine Greek was a lingua franca like english - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koine_Greek. The Greeks lost power to Rome at about the same point in the cycle that the British lost power to the Americans, cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Macedonian_War .

I for one am a skeptic when it comes to the sorts of things required by the Randi Prize. He seems to be insisting that to win the prize people must conclusively contravene the laws of physics, whereas what I am saying is compatible with physics. You might care to look at my discussion of Gauquelin linked in recent response to Maksutov.

Robert. There was no frontier at the time you want to count to in order to show a parallel. There was still some settlement, and I'm not trying to dispute that. However, a frontier requires a line that can be drawn, and there was no line left. Further, if you want to claim that there's still a frontier so long as there is suppression of the native people, I suggest you look into the case of Leonard Peltier--whether you believe he's guilty or innocent, a thing I will not argue here, he is a pretty good example of why you're still off, only by even longer.

So if the claims are correct, you are wrong, right?

Blah de blah, astrology, blah de blah. If my hypothesis is disproved by the history, the history must be wrong.

Fine. We cannot compare Australia. I don't dispute. However, there are quite a lot of non-Australian civilizations that do have records, and you have shown no evidence of looking into them. Why not?

I thought it was a good question. However, I do not think you've given a good answer. Your answer seems to boil down to, "Because I think it is." Further, do you really not recognize that it's your job to flesh it out?

So you don't know the ancient history, but you've posited a cycle that applies to all human history based on two civilizations that you've compared?

No, no, no. You must persuade us that these ideas are possible, which involves showing us that they are persuasive and compelling. Do you understand the concept of "burden of proof"?

So again, you're right because you think you're right. Do you understand why that isn't good enough for us?

So when it was categorically shown to you that you are off in some cases by as much as 200 years, what does that do to your hypothesis?

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An excellent observation. Comparing America and Rome is still a bit like comparing apples and oranges. Mr. Tulip, why not compare plums and plums? Why not compare Chinese history to Chinese history to see if there is this alleged periodicity?

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The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

I think an important flaw in Robert's idea, apart from the ones that have already been said, is that it lacks a mechanism. He alludes to precession, but does not explain how exactly that could affect human affairs.

Finding patterns is all fine and good, but if you don't explain how the wheels of the machine mesh into one another, your idea will remain unsatisfactory.

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So you can measure it?

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I saw those links when you posted.
Read them.
Found them wanting.

Robert Tulip, you are obviously intelligent. But intelligence alone is not enough. One must also have clarity.

Randi, all personal opinions of the man himself aside, is a skeptic.
He is not supporting a system with a system. His request is supported only by itself.
Calling yourself a skeptic of a skeptic is nonsense. Either you are on the same side- or you are in opposition.

You are seeing a correlation only because you are looking for one. And that is your error.

Robert, can you tell us how you could falsify your theory. What piece of observational evidence, if it was found, would mean that you would accept that you were wrong?

Former, or current?

Also, let's not forget Spain or Italy, both of which were, at various times, the top of the heap.

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If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.

Thanks for the suggestion to look at China. The data supports the hypothesis.

Using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasti...hinese_History for dates and references we can see the following correlations across the precessional gap of 2147 years.

• Spring and Autumn Period 722 BC - 476 BC, (246 yrs), +2147yrs =1425-1671AD correlates to Ming Dynasty 1368 – 1644AD (276yrs):

• Warring States Period 475 BC - 221 BC, (254 yrs), +2147yrs =1672-1926AD correlates to Qing Dynasty 1644 – 1912AD, (267yrs)

• Qin Dynasty 221 BC - 206 BC, (15yrs) +2147yrs = 1926-1941AD correlates to Nationalist era

• Western Han Dynasty 206 BC - 9 AD, (215 yrs), +2147yrs = 1941-2156AD correlates to beginning of Peoples Republic of China

Overall, the two cycles line up as follows

• Spring-Autumn/ Ming: Comparable periods of stability
• Warring States/Qing: Conflict in ancient times similar to concessions to European powers from 18th century
• Qin/Nationalist: short periods followed by major consolidation respectively by Han and communists– the burning of books of 213BC happened at the same time in the precessional cycle as the Long March of 1935.
• Han/PRC: If the Peoples Republic of China compares to the Han period, beginning 2147 years before 1941, it can expect to be in power for several centuries.

My explanation of mechanism is through the linked discussion of the solar system barycentre. This 178.9 year cycle can be seen as the central pulse of our solar system, as a unifying regular pattern that integrates the gravitational cycles of the whole system. This pulsing SSB pattern is primarily a function of the outer planets and the sun, structured by gravitational connections. The earth and other small planets are in the midst of these big patterns. As it happens, the wobble of our planetary axis is precisely aligned to the SSB period, suggesting physical entrainment of the Great Year to the SSB. Prima facie, this entrainment looks similar to how some of Saturn’s rings are entrained by shepherd moons or how animals are entrained, through their genes, to the cycles of the moon. The whole solar system contributes to and reflects this pulsing SSB cycle. I view this posited reflection as analysable on the model of fractal geometry and harmonic theory - that our history is a fractal reflection of the cosmic order of time. The earth’s relation to this cycle can be looked at in terms of my previous observation that the solstices and equinoxes produce a twelve-fold harmonic division of the year. After 12 SSB cycles (2147 years) the equinox has precessed by one zodiacal sign or age, and after twelve of these age cycles the equinox is back to where it was, a 25764 year pattern that has repeated about 175,000 times since life began. Everything lines up in temporal patterns of twelve – the physical relation between the tropical sign (month) and the year is the same as the relation of the SSB cycle to the age, and of the age to the Great Year. By my understanding of harmonic theory, the apparent exact alignment of these three sets of data (month-year / SSB-age / age-great year) in which each set is entirely contained within the next, presents a prima facie case for a harmonic relation. Just as climate is roughly similar at the same month each year, the mathematics of the SSB indicate that the overall situation on earth should be roughly similar at the same SSB cycle point in each Age.

How would we look for such a diffuse long term pattern in its effects on things on earth? I submit a good way to do so is by comparing historical records over long periods to see if there are similarities. The patterns noted here regarding the West, and now China, corroborate the suggestion.

You misunderstood – what I meant was not that I am skeptical of Randi, but that I am skeptical that anyone will ever claim his prize. Randi seems to define paranormal as requiring a challenger to break the laws of physics, and I am highly skeptical that the laws of physics can be broken. The ideas I am presenting here are intended to be entirely compatible with the laws of physics. The Randi Prize highlights the superficiality of much theory of magic and miracles where people lack respect for physics and they postulate things that are simply impossible. I am not doing that.

The link to Phil Plait’s article on astrology was posted here to attack my claims. Your comment that my links are wanting seems to me to neglect that the BA’s article contains at least three glaring solecisms – the straw man argument of stellar influence, the failure to include the sun in his tidal chart, and his use of material from Geoffrey Dean that applies desperately weak arguments in the face of empirical evidence.

I would definitely like to see an answer to this question.

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None of that is a mechanism, any more than astrology shows a mechanism.

How do these astronomical cycles (which I don't argue) have an effect on human events?

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I'm curious as to the exactness of the 2147. I've seen estimates for the Great Year ranging from 25694 to 25920, meaning the an 'Age' time from 2141 to 2160.

Does anyone have a definitive measure for the length of the Precession Cycle? For this theory (OP's) to work, we'd need to know for sure what the PC figure is. Otherwise it's just making up a figure that gives a good fit to a theory.

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"...that over the next 200 years we are likely to see structural forces shifting the US from its current democratic republic towards a more autocratic form of governance, but at the same time, the story of Christ suggests we can expect emergence of a messianic figure late next century who will contest this hegemony."

I'm personally working very hard to contest the hegemony of autocratic government in this country right now, and I know many others are doing so as well. Wait 200 years? No way!