Periodic Behaviour of Human Societies and Climatic Cycles

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana (1863 - 1952)

The goal of my exhaustive research since the 1980s has been to establish that there has been a discernible pattern to the growth of diverse world cultures over millennia, which make history dynamic in the present day. A secondary aim is to find a pattern in the evolution of capitalism that will be of benefit in the future. In my previous book, Ebbs and Flows of Ancient Empires, I outlined a template of cultural behaviour that had been followed by ancient dominant cultures 2500 BC–AD 1400. There were definite cycles of dominant, just, and prosperous cultures. Late in the period, there were signs of democracy in Greek Athens and the Roman Republic that did not survive military imperialism. That phase in human history was too early to discuss an actual capitalist system, even if some of the seeds had already been sown.

The period of history covered in this book, AD 1400–2100, will present the framework of history in order to identify the dominant culture over global geographic regions in any given period of time. I do not offer any apology that my understanding of dominant cultures might be different from that of some historical scholars. It appears to me from literary research that each academic scholar has produced his or her version of the truth, gleaned from records with more emphasis on historical figures and events filtered through the prevailing culture of the author.

I define culture as being a natural way of life in which activities, distinctive to a particular society, are unconsciously accepted by the people in that society as normal behaviour. Eating raw fish is natural in the Japanese culture, as is drinking fermented mare's milk in the Mongolian culture. Neither of these actions is natural in the American culture, where eating a huge slab of meat, undercooked from the rear end of a castrated bull, is commonplace. The Australian barbecue of the slab of meat is also natural in the southern continent but is basically alien to the English weather and culture which was dominant in the world when the Australian culture was born.

This book would be of no use to practical men if it were only a chronological history of historical cultures, without presenting lessons that can be learned to advantage from that history, in the present day and for the future. I hope to demonstrate in this book the possibility that a dominant culture, whether that of city/state, nation, or corporation, produces similar phases of behaviour throughout the long course of time.

There is also the possibility that societies of men have been stimulated into action by natural phenomena, in particular, changes in climate. There have been great prehistoric cataclysms, like the volcanic eruption that destroyed the Cretan island of Thera c1628 BC, that have caused huge disruptions to human society. The movement of Scandinavian tribes south around the sixth and seventh centuries BC was apparently due to a mini-ice age which made life above the Arctic Circle intolerable. Cold weather stimulated the migration of Cimbrians from Jutland circa 120 BC. The Germanic tribes moved south and west circa AD 400, again due to a severe cold climate which froze the Rhine.

I shall examine in this chapter whether climatic and some natural phenomena occur in cycles, as Earth travels through space in conjunction with other cosmic bodies in a largely cyclic motion. I shall use the research of a radical academic, Dr Raymond H Wheeler, who theorised that major climatic change throughout history has been cyclical, with a major effect on man's behaviour.

Cycles

In my previous book, using the academically accepted chronology, I assumed that the Egyptian Middle Kingdom reached its height c1950 BC. Babylon peaked under Hammurabi c.1750 BC (near the time of the Hyksos invasion of Egypt). The Minoan Middle Kingdom peaked c.1550, in the same era as the Hyksos were expelled. The Egyptian New Kingdom declined from c.1380. The Assyrian Middle Kingdom lapsed into uncivilised behaviour, even by ancient measures, c.1120 BC, and the New Kingdom peaked c.620. A Phoenician peak c.950 BC (similar to the Hebrew zenith) suggested a possible pattern of recurring peaks of civilisations at two-hundred-year intervals.

When I was earlier researching the theory that ancient oriental philosophy could be combined with modern occidental technology for strategic financial warfare, I discovered many long-cycle theories by scholars. As long ago as 1100 BC, the ancient Etruscans spoke of the Great Year, which they estimated at 1,100 Earth years. They were not far wrong, when their cycle came to an end c.87 BC. Such reckoning would presuppose an end to the civilisation after the Etruscans as c.AD1013AD, which was, in fact, the era when invading Vikings and their Norman descendants dominated southern Italy. The next major civilisation in the Etruscan cycle would be due for termination c.2113.

The German philosopher, Oswald Spengler (The Decline of the West, 1918), maintained that there was a definite cycle of cultures that lasted approximately 1,500 years. Spengler theorised that the pattern formed a curved sloping "S" formation (an angled sine curve), in which the early part of the rise was slow (springtime, about five hundred years), the full, often rapid growth (summer and autumn, about eight hundred years), then the last period in which growth was frozen (winter, about four hundred years). Spengler and his American interpreter, Edwin F. Dakin (Today and Destiny, c.1940), identified the period AD 1800– 2000 as the early part of the winter phase of the current cycle, in which money and democracy would dominate western culture. On their reckoning, the third millennium AD, which has now commenced, should see a rise of "Caesarism" (oligarchic dictatorships) and fading of liberal democracy.

Confucian scholars have been aware of cycles for millennia. From ancient figures, Dr J S Lee, (The Periodic Recurrence of Internecine Wars in China, 1931), suggested that two complete and one incomplete eight-hundred-year periods of Chinese history since 221 BC show striking parallelism in their periods of peace and disorder. Towards the end of the cycle, rivalry between North and South would be intensified, causing a change of dynasty from North to South. The next cyclical change is due early in the third millennium, and, if on schedule, political affairs would suggest that Shanghai or the claimed southern province of Taiwan will be involved. Such a major change would need to be triggered by a major crisis, which might well have a financial origin.

Well before Confucius, the Chinese believed that all natural phenomena could be governed by the rhythmic alternation of the fundamental forces of yin and yang, in which time flows through beneficial and adverse periods that can be represented by the movement of a sine curve.

Ancient Babylonian astrologers recognised similar cyclical patterns over long periods of time, but before I get too far into my theme, let me define cycles. A cycle is simply a regularly occurring sequence of similar events. Cycles can be short-, intermediate-, or long-term in length. The sun rising every morning and setting in the evening is a cycle – a very short-term cycle in all our lives. The day represents the rotation of the earth in a cycle of approximately twenty-four hours, which has changed little in millennia. The four seasons, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, are phases of another short-term cycle lasting in totality the solar year of approximately 365 days which the Earth takes to rotate around the sun.

These cycles can be graphically represented also by a sine curve; by combining the daily rotation-cycle curve with the seasonal sine pattern, one can get an illustration of average temperature. One might even forecast a likely temperature for a given time of day on any given date, with the knowledge that other factors would mean that the forecast could only be approximate.

I have included above the sine-wave description of a rhythmic cycle, early in this chapter, to indicate that time flows forwards in a sine wave (lazy "S" wave) and not as a circle, from the Greek root of which the word "cycle" is derived. The cycles I seek to identify are rhythmic cycles which have relatively regular time periods between the troughs and troughs and/or peaks and troughs. The degree of amplitude of peaks and troughs can and does vary in rhythmic cycles, so that with current technology, one cannot identify accurately the exact cyclical turning points, neither in time nor amplitude. However, I hope that I will demonstrate that one can use the cyclical rhythm to make cyclical projections to indicate likely timing of a change of trend, even over centuries.

Daily, annual, and monthly cycles have been observed by human societies for millennia. Herodotus reported that in 341 generations of Egyptian kings/priests, the sun had twice moved from rising in the east to rising in the west and then back again. Ancient priests gained political power from their ability to calculate the times when seasons change, when planting should take place, and when harvesting should occur.

According to ancient Egyptian records, the Earth has had in the past a 360day solar year. Dr Velikovsky has theorised that the 365.25 solar day year came into being in the eighth century BC, when the Earth's orbit was nudged by Mars. December 25 was respected for millennia as the time when the sun was furthest from Earth, so that various gods were worshipped to ensure the return of the Sun to Earth. Christianity usurped that ancient day for its religion as the birth date of Jesus Christ, who could then be said to be responsible for the return of the sun to Earth.

The ancient Chinese, Hebrews, and Mayans used a lunar cycle in their calendars. There was a 13 lunar-month, 384-day year. In Chinese calculations a complete long-term cycle was 360 years – 90 years hot-dry; 90 years hot-wet; 90 years cold-dry; 90 years cold-wet. I can also note that three complete lunar long-term cycles (3 x 360 x 384 days) equates to 1,136 solar years, close to the Etruscan super-cycle.

In their calendar, the Chinese still use the monthly lunar cycle as the moon rotates around the earth in approximately 29 days. The Western world now uses a more even mathematical monthly model so as to avoid conflict with the solar year. All women in the world are aware that their biological clock operates on a lunar cycle of approximately 29 days, and many societies have relied on forecasts of that cycle to control population numbers.

Fishermen throughout the ages have been aware that the moon produces high and low tides of bodies of water from which they make their living. Modern American scientists have recently discovered that the Moon's effect on Earth is more far-reaching. Major earthquakes and volcanic eruptions have been found to occur at or near the New Moon phase, against statistical odds of such clustering of 1 in 10 million.

If it is logical to assume that the moon, earth and sun can produce cycles which affect humans, then other cosmic bodies might also produce cycles that have a less perceptible effect. Such cosmic cycles are of longer duration than would be noticed by the majority of population, but have been calculated by priests, astrologers and astronomers. Priestly mathematicians in ancient societies could gain much power if their calculated cyclical forecasts proved correct, so it is also logical that long cycles would be kept secret from the general population. It is also rational to assume that later priests, who believed that all matters earthly and cosmic occurred due to the grace of one god, might seek to demean any long secular cyclical theories.

Modern astronomy is overcoming its fear of the fate of Galileo to produce evidence of long cycles. In the third millennium after Christ, the Church and politicians might even admit that secular cycles exist.

Planetary Cycles

Modern man has three cycles on which to base some stability; the daily spin of the planet Earth; the revolution of the Moon around Earth which produces the lunar month; and the revolution of the Earth around the Sun which produces the solar year, and the four seasons. As well as those movements of the Sun, Moon and Earth, most people are aware that the other seven planets in the solar system rotate around the sun at various speeds, even though not much attention is paid to planetary movement by busy modern man. Ancient peoples, without computers and television, were much occupied with the planets from which much of religion was derived.

The planet closest to the Sun is Mercury with a short solar year of 88 earth days. Next from the Sun is Venus, the closest planet to Earth with a year of 224 earth days. Mars with a year of nearly two Earth years (687 days) is Earth's outside companion. The larger more distant planets are Jupiter (solar orbit 11.86 Earth years), Saturn (29.45 years), Uranus (84 years), Neptune (164.45 years) and Pluto (248.5) years.

Two lesser known planets with long elliptical comet-like orbits have been identified in the last few decades - Chiron and Nibiru. Chiron was sighted in 1977 orbiting between Saturn and Uranus around the sun in a revolution of 49-50 years. Astrologers call Chiron a planet, but astronomers have labelled it an asteroid.

Nibiru, sometimes called "Planet X" was known to Sumerian astronomers/ astrologers in the fourth/third millennium BC. Even now, not too much is known of Nibiru which was sighted by IRAS satellite in 1983 with a 3500-3600 year elliptical orbit three times further from the Sun than Pluto. The closest orbital point of Nibiru to the sun, called perihelion, was calculated to be the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter last visited c.100BC-0BC. Further information is needed before scientists will theorise about Nibiru, but astrologers suggest that it might have been the bright light in the sky reported at the time of the birth of Christ. Future generations might have to wait another millennium before theories are proven or disproved, that Nibiru was responsible for a collision that produced the asteroid belt, and the disruption to Earth's atmosphere that produced the deluge known as the Great Flood c.3200BC.

The movements of planets have been used for millennia by astrologers to determine future human activity, but the scientific age and a multitude of populist astrologers have caused the general population to pay less heed to these informed mathematicians. Astronomers have started to pay more attention to astrological research and examine some scientific effects of planetary movements on Earth.

Meteorologists in the National Climate Analysis Centre have incorporated the cycle of sunspot intensity into computer algorithms. In the three hundred year long history of documented sunspot activity, peaks in the number of sunspots have been identified every fifth of the average eleven year period - a relative peak every fifty five years. The last major peak commenced in 1976 which suggests c.2031 as another.

In the 1970s, Chinese astronomical research came to light suggesting that the combined magnetic forces of the planets, when in synod (conjunction in a narrow area), could influence the actions of the sun, and cause sunspots and flares which would cause climate change on earth. Labelled the Jupiter Effect, the combined pull of solar planets in the same segment of the heavens as Jupiter (300 times the mass of earth) was calculated to affect Earth 1980-93 in the type of combination that could occur in an approximate cycle of 1000 years.

Changes to the earth's magnetic field were measured during that period, and further calculations suggested that the gravitational effect of Jupiter on solar radiation, was linked to the well-researched eleven year average sunspot cycle, and in conjunction with Saturn, had produced weather effects in a 179 year cycle since 1600AD. The Jupiter/Saturn Effect 179 year cycle was used to predict a San Francisco earthquake in 1982, which did not occur as forecast. However quakes did occur in Los Angeles in 1979, the eruptions of volcanoes Mount St. Helens (Washington 1980) and El Chichon (Mexico 1982). This suggested that a planetary conjunction theory of volcanic and solar activity had some validity.

Climatology is not yet a science, but evidence is growing that climate records can be matched with the historical record of the sun's fluctuations. Chinese scientists have the benefit of 5000 years of climate records, as well as social history and some astronomical data over a similarly long period. Analysis of these records suggests that a number of cold and warm spells coincided with planetary synods. Such research has recently been eclipsed by the political debate over Global Warming because of burning fossil fuel.