Two Profound Events On The Immediate Horizon

    This article will examine the end of the present age, or cycle, from the perspective of 1) an Edgar Cayce reading, and 2) a highly prescient, late-1800’s vision by Phylos, a master in the spirit plane. Both psychic messages deal primarily with the end of the present cycle. My thesis is that the present cycle will end with a pole shift, and also, with the destruction “by fire” of much of humanity that has become “unfaithful” in the current cycle. The current cycle is about to end this year, according to the Cayce reading. Such a radical thesis is advanced here for your evaluation and, if you wish, your response via e-mail to <wh@huttoncommentaries.com>

    Event Number 1. Cayce reading 826-8 implies that a new cycle for humanity is to begin in 2000-2001, in association with shifting of the poles.

    Event Number 2. Before discussing solar heats related to the “fire” of the transition to the new Cycle, we will turn to a visionary prediction of the last sign of the end of the present Age. This sign is presented below by a master known as Phylos the Tibetan. (More later on Phylos).

    So now we have the predicted two events. Consider the warning that accompanies them.

    What does it mean to be unfaithful? Indeed, what is faith? The word is not easy to understand but, as paraphrased from Maurice Nicoll's psychological commentaries (v. 3, 1952, Vincent Stuart), in the Gospels, faith is referred to as a seed in one’s mind. “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and nothing shall be impossible to you.” Christ spoke these words to the disciples after they were unable to cure an epileptic boy who kept falling “into the fire and oft-times into the water.” In answer to the disciples’ question, “Why could we not cast it out?” Christ says, “Because of your little faith.”

    Now faith is not as most people suppose, belief. In its essential meaning, faith denotes a certainty that a higher interpretation of life exists and, as a consequence, that the transformation of human kind is a possibility. The peculiar quality of faith can be found in this idea, that life can only be understood by the sense of something higher than Man as he is, and that Man has this possibility of becoming transformed and passing into completely new meanings relative to life on Earth. It is this peculiar quality that is the essence of faith, and which makes it completely different from what we normally call belief. Indeed, faith undermines all our ordinary and natural beliefs because it leads away from worldly belief and in a direction that can no longer be confirmed by the evidence of the five senses. For this reason, faith is defined as a seed in a person’s mind; that is, it is the potentiality of a growth in a man’s mind, which cannot exist in him as long as he believes that life, as it is, is the end of human endeavor, and not a means for something else. Thus, if we imagine that life is an end in itself - and the only end - we cannot possess faith and do not even wish to.

    When we are identified with our personality and with life, we dwell among the unfaithful and fall under the laws of accident and karma that govern inhabitants of this plane. When we faithfully begin to work on diminishing our acquired personality and developing our in-born essence, we begin to fall under the laws of our own fate. This seems to be the message of the warning in the above reading. Thus, those who have been and are unfaithful -- who believe in life as it is and not as a means to transformation -- may experience Earth changes or accidents of various sorts. Such people contrast with those of faith who, by their own mental searching and not in response to external coercion, begin to dwell in a “spiritual” environment.

    Note that the commercialism mentioned previously by Phylos is by its very nature rooted in the belief that the discoveries of researchers and inventors in the external world are capable of providing products that meet all the needs of people, leaving aside all consideration of Man’s inner needs. Commercialism is a symptom of lack of faith. This realization brings us back to the warning of reading 5148-2.

    But Phylos’s use of the term “commercial shackles” goes a step further. Here, the “commercial” emphasis is on excessive profit, to the detriment of exploited peoples. For today's world situation, it would seem that Phylos’s "blue-coated soldiers" refers to businessmen, and that the "alien peoples in tropical islands" refers primarily to the inhabitants of southeast Asia. The "commercial shackles" forced upon these peoples could in part be the servitude, the often prison-like working conditions, and the minuscule wages experienced by laborers in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Indonesia. The American Press has documented these conditions. One article, entitled "Asian Labor: Wages of Shame", is headlined, "Western Firms Help To Exploit Brutal Conditions." Children are often the only wage earners in some areas of southeast Asia because adult workers have been laid off in favor of children, who are infinitely more exploitable and provide larger profits for wealthy factory owners and corporate stockholders worldwide.

    In an article entitled “U.S. Trained Butchers of Timor” (The Guardian, 9/19/99) we read,

    More recently, in the New York Times of March 6, 2001, Abigail Abrash has used reports of recent bloody fighting on the Indonesian island of Borneo to detail the failed economic and social policies that Indonesia, with American support, has followed far too long. She states, in part:

    The foregoing material certainly comports well with Phylos’s sign of commercial shackles placed upon the peoples of tropical islands, and indicates clearly the complicity of America in this tragedy. And who would have thought that such a sign would ever come to pass when it was first published in 1894? But that is exactly what happened. And note that Phylos concludes his narrative of the Mammon’s-commercial-shackles sign with, “Then shall the end come.” End of the Age (or Cycle) that is.

    The book, A Dweller on Two Planets, was channeled from Phylos, a disincarnate master, whose facts and truths were taken from the Akashic records. The channel was a seventeen-year-old named Fredrick Oliver. Phylos claimed to have had incarnations, in Tibet, on Atlantis, and most recently in America during the California gold rush. Between Earthly incarnations, his soul spent time in the realm of Venus. Thus, his claim of having dwelt on two planets. Interestingly, the Atlantis story and the forecasts mentioned by Phylos seem closely to parallel those of the Cayce readings. And the references by Phylos to reincarnation, Lemuria, karma, and to Christ as being the only way to personal salvation also parallel the readings. One wonders if Cayce ever read the book.

    Phylos's story is relevant for several reasons, one being his descriptions of the technological accomplishments of the Atlantean civilization. Conveniences on Atlantis are said to have included transportation by anti-gravity devices, "telephotic" service similar to our television, and a "caloriveyant" instrument by which energy could be transmitted by Earth currents and converted at distance into heat. In the words of Phylos, this energy transmission also utilized

    Phylos makes many references to America as being "Atlantis come again," a theme that parallels a Cayce reading:

    Earlier in this reading we find, "As we recognize, there has been considerable given representing such a lost continent by those channels such as the writer of 'Two Planets;" that is, as given by Phylos.

    What is the nature of Phylos's forecast? Phylos begins his ruminations on the end of the present age with words full of karmic penalty:

    Phylos then asserts that there is no escape from the "awful woe" of the end of the age, as pictured in prophecy over many centuries. He asserts that "America, the Glorious, together with the rest of the world" will meet worse woe than Atlantis, "though not by water but by fire." He goes on,

    Phylos then proceeds to describe the end of our age:

    As to Phylos's references to violence, lust, and animalism in American society, start with the violence and eroticism displayed routinely on American TV and now exported to ever larger audiences worldwide. Then open the Wall Street Journal and read about "a publicly held firm that turns X-rated videos into a hot business," or about "porn lines [that] offer 800 numbers." Now consider that the U. S. military-industrial complex makes more money on weapons sales overseas than it does on domestic sales, and some of these sales are financed by U.S. Government loans. By 1980, the top ten U. S. corporate earners involved in foreign weapons sales were making $15 billion yearly, and ranged from a rather obvious General Dynamics to a not-so-expected Chrysler Corporation. Consider that in 1995, the U.S. controlled 53% of the world arms trade, and has been called "the world's leading merchant of death." American exports of anti-personnel mines have maimed and killed thousands of children over the last few years. Finally, add to this partial commentary on violence, lust, and lawlessness (as promulgated by certain reincarnated Atlanteans?), that America leads the world in per capita incarceration of its own citizens.

    And what of Phylos's vision of "trained soldiers turning upon the visible representatives" of society and of lawless bands forming to satisfy selfish goals? An Atlantic Monthly article, entitled "The Coming Anarchy", refers to just such activity, in Sierra Leone. Under a subheading, "A Premonition of the Future," it suggests that "West Africa is becoming the symbol of worldwide demographic, environmental, and societal stress, in which criminal anarchy emerges as the real 'strategic' danger. Disease, overpopulation, unprovoked crime, scarcity of resources, refugee migrations, the increasing erosion of nation-states and international borders, and the empowerment of private armies [emphasis added], security firms, and international drug cartels are now most tellingly demonstrated through a West African prism. In Serria Leone, the government force fighting the rebels is full of renegade commanders who have aligned themselves with disaffected village chiefs. A pre-modern formlessness governs the battlefield, evoking the wars in medieval Europe...."

    Is there any evidence in the United States of "trained soldiers turning upon the visible representatives of society"? Unfortunately, evidence of this tendency is growing. In addition to former U. S. soldiers joining militias nationwide, consider the recent report on an underground group claiming to be serving the Army's elite Special Forces, headquartered at Ft. Bragg, N. C. The group has been publishing a far-right dissident newspaper, The Resister, which is extremely critical of the Federal Government. The New York Times article concludes that "extremists trained in special warfare are seen as posing a serious problem" to society. And we remember, too, that a U.S. Army soldier was in custody in 1995, charged with blowing up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

    When Cayce was asked whether Phylos's vision of the end of the age was "based on truth, especially in its forecast for the United States,” the answer was:

    It would seem that the "entity" referred to here is Phylos, and that Phylos's understanding is correct, but limited, however slightly, by such clouded vision as can affect any soul not fully absorbed into the Whole. I interpret this reading to mean that karmic penalty, as enunciated by Phylos, may be mitigated for a nation that does an about face, and starts to try to implement Christ-like principles in its activities at home and abroad. Thus, the Law of Grace, as intimated in this reading, can supersede the Law of Karma:

    And what relationship is there between Indonesia's woes and the beginning of worldwide Earth changes, which also are scheduled to occur here at the end of the Age? Consider first Cayce reading 294-185 (6/30/36).

    Now realize that eruptions of torrid-area volcanoes, like those in Indonesia, are predicted in Cayce reading 3976-15 to be among the precursors of pole shift and of a host of associated Earth changes. Such eruptions will undoubtedly find robust expression in Indonesia, for its 13,000 islands have the world's largest number of historically active volcanoes. These volcanoes reside in Earth's Torrid Zone and four-fifths of them have erupted this century. Tambora's 1815 eruption was the largest ever recorded. It spewed at least 25 cubic miles of ash into the upper atmosphere, causing a significant, three-day-long darkness in areas up to 200 miles distant. The worldwide climatic effects resulted in snow in New England in July of 1816. When Krakatoa blew itself away in 1883 it produced a tsunami 120 feet high that took 36,000 lives in coastal areas of Java and Sumatra. Perhaps renewed Indonesian volcanism will be a precursor of the predicted Earth-changes period when man will be required to return once again

    This reading seems to parallel closely Phylos's assertion that "America, the glorious, together with the rest of the world, will meet worse woe than Atlantis, "though not by water but by fire." But the grim reaper of Phylos’s fire is “solar heats,” not increased volcanism. This fact invites us to review briefly the influence of cosmic rays and solar flares on Earth’s climate.

    Cosmic "rays" are composed of highly energetic particles -- mostly protons and atomic nuclei -- that strike the Earth from space. According to one expert, "The simplest interpretation of their origin is that the highest-energy cosmic rays come from our galaxy, from sources in the large galactic halo."¹ But others, studying the origin and make-up of extremely high-energy cosmic rays think that such rays are made up of a new, extra-galactic subatomic particle. G. Farrar and P. Bierman studied the five most energetic cosmic rays ever detected on Earth and found that their origins were in five compact quasars, or "quasi-stellar radio sources." These quasars are among the most powerful sources of energy in the universe. The nearest is four to five billion light years away; the furthest is 13 to 16 billion light years away.² Perhaps these are the same quasars that emitted the cosmic rays that powered the Atlantean "super-cosmic ray".

    Climatic Effects. Recent evidence indicates that cosmic rays influence Earth's climate. H. Svensmark of the Danish Meterological Institute has found that during the most recent 11-year activity cycle of the Sun, Earth's cloud cover was more closely correlated with the flux of cosmic rays coming from our galaxy than with the Sun's radiance. "Apparently, the solar magnetic field interacts with the cosmic rays. When strong, the Sun's field blocks more cosmic rays, which ionize air molecules in the lower atmosphere and in this way are thought to contribute to cloud cover and other weather-related phenomena."³

    Cloud cover has been found to be 3 to 4 percent greater at sunspot minimum (cosmic ray maximum) than at sunspot maximum.⁴ And an indirect mechanism for cosmic ray effects on clouds has been elucidated by B. Tinsley.⁵ Finally, N. Calder, in his new book, The Manic Sun,⁶ claims that solar effects on global warming are clear. They are caused by changes in the amount of cosmic rays, and are large enough to invalidate the work of others, who attribute most of the warming to human effects, such as carbon-dioxide emissions to the atmosphere.

    Now this work on cyclic changes in the flux of cosmic rays seems to resonate with the following passage in 1602-3 where we read:

    The word paramount implies "one superior to all others with which we are familiar." And indeed, scientists have concluded that 1998 was the warmest year of not only the decade, but quite possibly, of the millennium. The reading implies that the effects of this paramount solar cycle are part of Earth's evolution, as our Sun and planetary system moves into new spheres of galactic influence. And we will all be affected by the new influences. Does this mean that Earth's climate will begin to change greatly, or erratically? Will climate changes cause food shortages? And will increased cosmic rays -- known to produce slight genetic alterations -- have a significant effect on subsequent generations?

    Finally, we turn to Phylos's vision of "solar heats," predicted to occur about now, here at the end of the Piscean Age. Phylos describes the outbreak of a worldwide conflict that

    But Phylos's vision may be mitigated! Consider Cayce's response to a person's question about whether Phylos's vision of the end of the Age was "based on truth, especially in its forecast for the United States."

    The Fire Next Time. It is difficult to assign a date in the future to this intimated burning of the Earth. Mentioned only a single time in the readings, the statement in 3653-1 about the next destruction of the Earth by fire seems not to fit with the many other Earth-change readings that suggest instead many catastrophic seismotectonic events directly ahead. But some say that this reading does fit with the Sun's "paramount" activity mentioned in reading 1602-3 above. That activity is to occur during the peak of the solar-cycle maximum between 1998 and 2003.

    Note that on September 24, 1998, a geomagnetic storm occurred that measured 8.6 on a scale of 0 to 9. A storm of this intensity is seen only a few times per decade. The storm originated from an intense solar flare, one so strong that it blew some of Earth's atmosphere into space. "This storm may be the harbinger of the next solar maximum due to peak in the year 2000," said Rice University Professor, J. Freeman. And C. Seife asks,⁸

    As to why a superflare has not occurred on the Sun in recorded history is unclear. "I think a consensus is emerging that our Sun is extraordinarily stable, suggests G. Gisler, an astronomer at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. We seem to have found a star that is extremely stable and friendly to life -- or we are just on a star that happens to be stable right now and will not always be so."

    A Prehistoric Solar Conflagration? P. LaViolette is the author of Cataclysm! Compelling Evidence of a Cosmic Catastrophe in 9500 B.C. (Starlane Publications, Schenectady, NY 12309). His book alleges that around 12,600 B.P. (years Before the Present), the Earth experienced catastrophic alterations due to a "solar conflagration event." He relates the strong global warming that began around 14,650 B.P., and the evidence of wild swings in Earth's geomagnetic field, to the arrival of a galactic superwave that caused huge flares to erupt from the Sun. These flares may have occurred off and on until about 12,700 B.P., after which the sun quieted down until now.

    The basis of LaViolett's hypothesis lies mainly in his working backward from research by N. Mörner on magnetic signatures in dated layers of a sediment core from Gothenberg, Sweden. In 1977, Mörner published a now famous paper in Quaternary Research entitled "The Gothenburg Magnetic Excursion." Mörner's core data record a 180˚ flip in Earth's geomagnetic pole around 12,700 B. P. Such a flip could be the product of extremely strong solar-flare activity. And this suggested to LaViolette that solar flares were responsible for burning the Earth and melting the ice sheets. But melting of the continental glaciers actually began in the central U.S. around 18,500 years ago, some 6,000 years earlier.

    LaViolette says that the history of the global conflagration has been passed down in the survival myths of many peoples. He also provides evidence that the intensity and direction of Earth's magnetic field "fluctuated irregularly from about 15,800 to 14,200 years ago. A particularly major geomagnetic excursion occurred around 14,200 B. P., when the Earth's north magnetic pole abruptly flipped southward to point to an equatorial mid-Pacific location for around 10 to 50 years."

    But this excursion took place right in the middle of the period between 19,400 and 11,900 B.P. when the Cayce readings suggest that the Earth was undergoing a pole shift, or a "shifting of the activities of the Earth itself.” (644-1) This shift, whatever its nature, was caused by the enormous man-induced eruption brought forth from the bowels of the Earth itself (364-11). This man-induced eruption caused a portion of Atlantis near the Sargasso Sea to go "into the depths." One might expect all sorts of unusual geophysical phenomena to be taking place for thousands of years during such a shift, including excursions of the geomagnetic field.

    As for what the Sun was doing 12,000 years ago, recall that reading 5757-1 clearly states that humankind itself affects the Sun by the nature of people's thoughts and actions. This must have been the case in the latter days of Atlantis as well, some 15,000 to 11,900 years ago. Defiance of God led to societal turmoils, misuse of the powerful crystals, and volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Nothing even remotely resembling a super galactic wave was ever mentioned in the readings. Nor is there anything about a solar conflagration event, although who is to say that one did not occur?

    Consider the climatic jolt just recently documented from studies of ice cores. It occurred 14,700 years ago. "Temperatures in Greenland jumped 5˚C in less than 10 years--twice the warming that greenhouse gases are predicted to cause in the coming 100 years."⁹ Was this due to a sudden, massive shift in ocean circulation, or to a jerk in an otherwise smoothly proceeding pole shift, or to a solar conflagration event? Research continues. Time will tell.

    Now according to reading 884-1, the climate on Atlantis changed significantly during the 19,400 to 11,940 B.P. period of progressive destruction.

    I suggest that this climatic change was due to a gradual pole shift of perhaps 10˚, as the North Pole moved from a position in northern Greenland to its present position, tracking -- roughly -- along the 37˚W meridian. I thought that such a pole shift could be the meaning of "the shifting of the activities of the Earth itself." But perhaps something else was meant. The point here is that reading 884-1 does not suggest that solar flares were the cause of the changed Atlantean climate. But the readings suggest that a pole shift commenced in 19,400 B. P. and progressed over a few thousands of years. And such a shift would provide the answer to a long-standing question in the geosciences. How do we explain the rapid onset of melting of the ice sheets in Europe, Asia, and North America that began around 19,000 B.P.?

    The Cayce readings can be interpreted to suggest that the ice sheets were moved into progressively warmer climatic zones by a gradual pole shift that began with the accidental destruction of much of Atlantis in 19,400 B. P. As the poles continued to shift over the next 7,500 years (until 11,900), many of the geophysical catastrophes catalogued by LaViolette could have occurred. This does not mean that superflares were not produced on our Sun in those days. Indeed we might expect same, in view of the readings' suggestion that rebellious humans can produce disturbances on the Sun proportional to the degree of their denial of the God force in man and Nature.

    Consider, then this final reading (820-1) on the reason behind and nature of the enormous eruptions on Atlantis, beginning around 19,400 years ago and extending until 11,900 B.P. See if it doesn't give us a hint, also, as to the possible origin of those "outside forces" that impacted Earth in 1936.

    Do we have here the answer to the meaning of "outside forces to the Earth in '36?" Were they of the unseen forces from those hierarchies of Intelligences that have been given "rule over activities in the various forms in the Earth?" In a reference to karmic penalty, Phylos says that "Man is his own judge and executioner." This seems to be but a paraphrase of Cayce reading 5148, near the beginning of this article.

    Recall that faith (pistis) in the New Testament means more than belief. It means understanding on a level other a literal one. The mistake of being unfaithful, as in reading 5148, is that lack of faith leads to an inner condition that requires us to repeatedly encounter "adverse" experiences until we can understand life in a new way.

    Most scientists do not believe in any life after death -- or reincarnation for that matter. They are an example of faithless people today. That is their Saadducee-like leaven of falsity which Christ said to beware of in Matthew 16. Indeed, most scientists cannot countenance "soul development."

    All this leads us to a Cayce Earth-change reading (1152-11, 08/13/41) given for a New York City woman wondering where to live and what to do. She was a person full of faith.

    And what is the extent of that power? In 1931, a male musical conductor asked Cayce for information "in order to be sincerely convinced that we are contacting the highest forces" (2897-4, 08/14/31). When the man asked if the entranced Cayce could contact a specific disincarnate individual, as a means of proving Cayce's high powers, the reply was startling:

    Here we have described for us the scope of the power of the activity of the Son of God (or "Son of Man" as Jesus spoke of himself) in the affairs of our lives today.

    The above reading continues, with archangel Michael again being questioned directly.

    This exchange between the creature and the archangel has a significant bearing on our recognition and interpretation of both psychic and scientific signs of coming Earth changes. Who amongst us can know a true sign when he or she encounters one? And once recognized, who can properly interpret the import of a sign for humankind? Only those who have "done in the body what entitles him [or her] to same."

    The following reading (1602-5, 11/28/39) was given for a 41-year-old housewife who listed her religious preference as "Truth." It answers further our questions, asserting in one place that

    The request that the woman posed to Cayce was, "It has been indicated that the period immediately ahead is one of change in many fields -- politically, economically, and geologically. Will you clarify these predictions for me, and give directions for me at this time....?"

    There are indeed questions that we might have of those "groups and individuals who have acted and who are to act as a counterbalance" to the happenings in the Earth since 1939, the date of this reading. Among them are: "Why did you allow the following to happen: WWII, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Gulf War of 1990, America's brutal treatment of Panamanian civilians in the 1989 'Noriega War,' the Bosnian War, the holocausts in Germany, Cambodia, and Africa, and America's torching of its own citizens at Waco? Did humanity suffer these horrors because we are a selfish, stiff-necked, and adulterous generation, unable to change for the better without going through the fire?"

    If so, then perhaps we will need Earth changes to purge us of our seeking after the false gods of materialism, pleasure, and power. For we do understand that "matter, mind, body, learns only through experience" (5148-2, 5/29/44). And many of us may need the experiences of Earth changes for our souls' growth, to show us the folly of preoccupation with the sensual side of life.

There is an interesting Cayce reading (5757-1) on the cause of sun spots, and their effects on the Earth and humanity. Among the lines worth citing are these: 

Evidence For Mankind's Effect on the Sun? 

The sunspot cycle as we know it today appeared after 1715 and has continued ever since. Just prior to 1715, there was a dramatic cessation of the sunspot cycle for the 70-year period from 1645 to 1715. "Yet," according to E. Parker (Scientific American, 9/1975), "the prejudice [is] that the 11-year sunspot cycle with its thousands of spots in each cycle is the norm. During the 70 years of sunspot inactivity, observers had to wait years to see a single sunspot, whereas now there are usually a few spots showing even during the minimum of the sunspot cycle." Also according to Parker ("The Physics of the Sun," Physics Today, June 2000, p. 31), 


"The C-14 record shows that over the last 70 centuries, the Sun has been without normal activity for 10 centuries and hyperactive for 8 centuries. The other 52 centuries were variable but more or less 'normal.' The most recent quiescent period was from 1645 to 1715,  ....subsequently called the Maunder Minimum after its discoverer. The 12th century Medieval Maximum is the most recent epoch of hyperactivity, and one can only guess how the Sun behaved at that time. Such periods of abnormal activity are without explanation, as are the variations within the so-called normal centuries." 

And what happened immediately before 1645? There were two, 15-year cycles of sunspots, which coincided with the end of the Thirty Year's War. This war has been termed the most horrible episode in Western history prior to the 20th Century. "But although it did not officially terminate until the Peace of Westphalia, in 1648, peace overtures had actually begun some few years earlier, and the worst of the carnage came to an end with the conclusion of the Swedish-Danish War in 1645 -- the same year, it will be noted, that marked the beginning of the 70-year hiatus in sunspot activity" (H. Church, 1976, A.R.E. Journal, Virginia Beach, VA, 23451).

What notable evidence do we have of "man's inhumanity to man" during the 70-year sunspot hiatus? In Europe, the Battle of Blenheim (1704), and the Cossack Rebellion (1648). But there were no wars of mass destruction until the beginning of the Napoleonic Era. Oddly, in an address to the American Geophysical Union on sunspots, J. Eddy, mentioned that the 70-year lull coincided almost exactly with the reign of King Louis XIV of France, from 1643 to 1715. This king gave France the Louvre and the Royal Library, the Paris Observatory and the Academy of Science. At Versailles, he constructed a palace that became the greatest showplace on Earth. Louis XIV, posthumously named "The Sun King," reigned in a Europe that was the center of civilization. He led the Christian world out of the exhaustion of the Thirty Year's War and into an era of scientific and cultural progress, and expanding prosperity. Known as the "politest of kings," he displayed great patience with others. Is there a true connection here, between the relatively peaceful reign of Louis XIV and an almost sunspot-free solar surface? One could argue either way. Although no large wars of mass destruction occurred, France did fight four wars during Louis's reign, and dominated Europe's seas for thirty years. Because Louis XIV was but four years old when he became king, all power was initially placed in the hands of the able minister, Cardinal Mazarin, an Italian, until his death in 1661. Mazarin seems to have been a remarkable man of peace, handling as he did international squabbles and domestic problems with skill and patience. Thus, the Mazarin/Louis XIV reign may have calmed both the lead nation on Earth, and the Sun as well, during the sunspot hiatus. Or is this but a spurious speculation of convenience?

If we view European "masterpiece" paintings made during the time of the Maunder Minimum, we encounter the calming scenes of Dutch, French, and Italian landscape painters like Lorrain, Aelbert, Dughet, Hooch, Huysum, Neer, Ruisdael, and Ruysdael. Jan Van Goyen's, An Estuary With Fishing Boats and Two Frigates, was done (c.1650-56) with "colors strangely muted and extremely narrow in range;....the sails are shades of brown and the sea is calm, reflecting and complying with the subtle gray harmonies of the large sky...."

Goyen's paintings were so muted in tone that later admirers suggested that his work had actually been "faded by the Sun" (Sister Wendy's 1000 Masterpieces, 1999, DK Publishing, p. 188).

Note that the Sun was actually fainter during the Maunder Minimum by 0.4 ± 0.2 percent. Just what feelings were the greatest landscape painters of that period registering in their works? The feeling of the relative calm of society at the time, or the feeling of nature during the uniform calm of the sunspot hiatus? Or both? 

    Finally, we reflect once again on Phylos's vision of "solar heats," predicted to occur about now, here at the transition from the Piscean to the Aquarian Age. Will Phylos's vision be mitigated? Recall the response to the person's question about whether Phylos's vision of the end of the Age was "based on truth, especially in its forecast for the United States."

    Something that we can do as Americans to help with such mitigation would be to communicate the following suggestions to our congressional representatives, as based upon the information provided by Abigail Abrash in the New York Times article cited earlier:

Here is the website that tells one how to communicate with his or her congressional representatives:

The best way seems to be to write a standard letter. According to recent reports, e-mail communications are routinely ignored by congresspersons.