proof that ancients knew stars were electric?

[james weninger]

There is a passage from the Hermetica that I would like to quote. In "Excerpt VI.Hermes to Tat",it says,"And below the moon are stars of another sort...rising as exhaltations from the earth itself into the air above the earth;and we can see there dissolution with our own eyes...". And again,"...even so the stars which rise as exahaltations from the earth do not attain to the region of heaven....having effected nothing except a troubling of the air above the Earth"
It is clear the author is talking of lightning being "stars of another sort". Interestingly, the comentary suggests that the author is talking about shooting stars. But do shooting stars "rise from the Earth"? Or did this ancient knowledge of stars being electric, get lost by the time the commentary was written?
Any comments?

[Total Science]

How do you define ancients?

If you mean the Pelasgians or Atlanteans, it's impossible to say what they knew because their world is lost to us having been destroyed in a catastrophe.

If by ancients you mean the Argives, then this is the best I could find for you:

"Then, it was then that Zeus changed the radiant paths of the stars, and the light of the sun, and the bright face of dawn; and the sun drove across the western back of the sky with hot flame from heaven's fires, while the rain-clouds went northward and Ammon's lands [Egypt] grew parched and faint, not knowing moisture, robbed of heaven's fairest showers of rain." --Euripides, Electra, 408 B.C.

"There is a story, which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Paethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals." -- Plato, Timaeus, 360 B.C., (quoting Sonchis of Sais ~594 B.C.)

"And that the sun and moon and all the stars are burning stones and are carried about by the rotation of the aether. ... And that the shooting stars are as it were sparks which glance off from the movement of the pole. And that the winds are produced by the rarefaction of the air by the sun and by their drying up as they get towards the pole and are born away from it. And that thunderstorms are produced by heat falling upon the clouds. And that earthquakes come from the upper air falling upon that under the earth; for when this last is moved, the earth upheld by it is shaken." -- Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies: On Anaxagoras, ~3rd Century

You can find more here.

[Grey Cloud]

Hi James,
I diasagree that 'It is clear the author is talking of lightning being "stars of another sort"'. I would agree that the author is referring to shooting stars or specifically meteorites. These were probably believed to originate from Earth and being unable to escape into 'the heavens' fell back down. These people were aware of terrestrial lightning and could describe it if they so wished.
The term 'stars of another sort' is used to differentiate them from the stars he has referred to previously, i.e. those above the Moon etc. In the Mead translation, the term 'There is another class' to refer to comets.
http://www.hermeticfellowship.org/Colle ... _Mead.html

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Totalscience,
Not sure what the point of your post was other than yet another plug for your blog.
Argives are natives of Argos.

[Grey Cloud]

For some reason this thread is appearing in Net Talk and Resources (not that it relates to either).

[Total Science]

Hi Totalscience,
Not sure what the point of your post was

Did you read the OP?

I'm not sure what the point of your posts are.

Argives are natives of Argos.

Clever.

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Totalscience,
I wrote 'Argives are natives of Argos' because you mentioned Pelasgians and Atlanteans as ancient then went on to mention Argives in the same context, i.e. ancient. My point being that Argive does not refer to an histocrical period but a location. Also, you followed the use of Argive with a reference to Euripides, who was from Salamis and based in Athens, and his play Electra which is based on events in what was, in the second millennium BCE, Mycenae. So I guess my question would be: what relevance has 'Argives' to James' original post?
And, yes, I did read the original. James was, according to my reading of it, seeking comments on the passage which he cited in relation to lightning and the EU. He did not appear to be seeking references from other ancient texts or links to blogs.

[Total Science]

Hi Totalscience,
I wrote 'Argives are natives of Argos' because you mentioned Pelasgians and Atlanteans as ancient then went on to mention Argives in the same context, i.e. ancient.

It is obvious from my post that I was making a distinction between Pelasgians and Argives.

My point being that Argive does not refer to an histocrical period but a location.

It refers to a time period as well. Argives were called Pelasgians before Tiryns was burned in the time of Neleus.

Also, you followed the use of Argive with a reference to Euripides, who was from Salamis and based in Athens, and his play Electra which is based on events in what was, in the second millennium BCE, Mycenae.

Correct.

So I guess my question would be: what relevance has 'Argives' to James' original post?

The poet uses Argive synonymously with Mycenaean 21 times in the Iliad and in this sense he simply means Greek.

"And in the first place let me mention in how many ways the term 'Argos' is used by the poet, not only by itself but also with epithets, when he calls Argos 'Achaean,' or 'Iasian,' or 'hippian,'or 'Pelasgian,' or 'horse-pasturing.' For, in the first place, the city is called Argos: 'Argos and Sparta,' 'and those who held Argos and Tiryns.' And, secondly, the Peloponnesus: 'in our home in Argos,' for the city of Argos was not his home. And, thirdly, Greece as a whole; at any rate, he calls all Greeks Argives, just as he calls them Danaans and Achaeans." -- Strabo, Geography Book VIII

[Grey Cloud]

So I guess my question would be: what relevance has 'Argives' to James' original post?

[Total Science]

So I guess my question would be: what relevance has 'Argives' to James' original post?

Did you read the quotes?

[Grey Cloud]

So I guess my question would be: what relevance has 'Argives' to James' original post? Viz. Lightning, electricity, loss of ancient knowledge, etc.

[nick c]

Hello james weninger,
I was not familiar with that document, but I don't see any knowledge of eletric stars in that passage from Hermetica.
It must be remembered that the prevailing thought of the ancients did not consider stars in the modern meaning as "suns at great distances." (There may have been a philosopher or two that theorized the true nature of stars, but that would be an exception.) The word "stars" would refer to any celestial object, except maybe, the sun or moon.
For example:
meteor= shooting or falling star
comet= hair, feathered, broom, etc star
planet= wandering star
exploding star (nova)= new star
the modern concept of star= fixed star

I agree with GC, the quote you cite is about meteors (and maybe comets too.)
It seems to me that there is an Aristotlian influence in the Hermeticum.
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/meteorology.1.i.html
Aristotle accepted that everything in the sky was of different distances (and sizes) from the earth. Aristotle thought that fixed stars were furthest away, and meteors and comets were closer, thought to be atmospheric phenomena, gases or objects originating from the earth, that were ignited in the atmosphere. That is what is referred to as "exhalations" from the earth in your quote.
I don't think it is lightning, but rather meteors and perhaps comets, which were thought to be a product of the earth.

nick c

[james weninger]

Well, there is another quote from the Hermetica that makes it more clear that stars are charged and moving according to E-M fields.
First, can we agree on the following behavior: If stars are charged and moving through magnetic fields, those magnetic fields do not add kinetic energy to the star,but only change it's direction. In the simplest electrodynamic model, a charged star moving through a magnetic field may begin to move helically around magnetic field lines. That velocity in circles around the magnetic field lines comes at the expense of velocity along the original axis of travel. No K.E. is added to a star by the external magnetic field. If we are talking Birkeland currents,the motion may be more complex, but the arguement is the same. (No additional K.E. to star from external field even if that field is a Birkeland current). Finally, if the sun was charged and moving on some circular path around the center of the galaxy, a local magnetic star star may cause the path of the sun and planets to spiral in smaller circles, but only at the expense of velocity of travel around the larger galatic circle. Agree?

[Grey Cloud]

Hi James,
Let's see the the passage from the Hermetica (with a reference to the actual book and chapter).

[james weninger]

Hermetica ISBN 0-87773-338-4