A binary star system?

Philip Coppens

Cruttenden’s Lost Star of Myth and Time argues that our solar system is part of a binary star system. His material is reinterpreted with the material of The Canopus Revelation, with some intriguing possibilities as an outcome.

In Lost Star of Myth and Time (2006), Walter Cruttenden argues that our mythological records indicate that our solar system is part of a binary star system. This would mean that our sun has a “companion” star somewhere out there. Cruttenden’s quest in origin relies on The Holy Science, by Swami Sri Yukteswar, written in 1894. Yukteswar outlines his belief in a cyclical history of the world based on the precession of the equinoxes. This period of time is found in many cultures and is at the origin of many myths. The first such observations were highlighted in Hamlet’s Mill, by Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend. In more recent years, Florence and Kenneth Wood have shown, in Homer’s Secret Iliad (1999), that the cycle of precession also is at the origin of the Iliad and that the main fights are the waxing and waning of the constellations.
In short, our ancient forefathers were extremely intrigued by the precession of the equinoxes, which science states is due to the Earth’s wobble, which has a periodicity of approx. 25,920 years. For Cruttenden, precession is more: “I read that the Great cycle of ages, and the phenomenon of precession itself, was supposed to be the result of our Sun revolving around a ‘dual star’. In modern terms this would mean that our Sun is part of a binary system, gravitationally linked to another star.”

In my research, resulting partly in The Canopus Revelation, I refer to the Great Year and Perfect Year, but did not draw any firm conclusions, for a number of reasons. One of these was that the Great Year and Perfect Year are not necessarily the same, that the Great Year does not necessarily have to be the precession of the equinoxes, and that in fact the Perfect Year seems to suit this cycle better. I will repeat these observations shortly.
Also, I personally felt that it was somewhat bizarre that ancient cultures, as they apparently knew of the precessional cycle, placed so much weight on what is, science tells us, nothing more than a wobble of the Earth. Though it is great to know, it is not of any major importance to become the cornerstone of so many myths. The Earth wobbles, so what? Though it means that constellations would cyclically appear and disappear, the myths knew they would return.

In Cruttenden’s framework, the “precession cycle” is however not the duration of the wobble of the Earth, but the time it takes for our sun to pass through an area of space, on its course around the core of this binary star system. Cruttenden outlines many “errors” in current thinking about the precession of the equinoxes, which I will not repeat here. I will only point out that he argues that there are many anomalies in the duration of this cycle, whereby every few years, new components are added to the equation, so that the equation continues to correspond to the visible – real – cycle of precession. But, in short, Cruttenden argues that science is now engaged in self-endorsing a theory that has obviously been falsified many times over.
Cruttenden argues that the solar system is revolving in a vast 24,000-year cycle around a companion star. “As it does, the Earth is carried through a magnetic or electromagnetic (EM) field of another star. […] At times in this cycle human development and consciousness are positively affected, achieving an almost enlightened state; at other times they are in decline, growing dense and barbaric – but inevitably awakening again with the next arc of celestial motion.” This is therefore linked with the various myths, which speak of a past “Golden Age”, and the prediction that such an age will recur in the future.
If we are part of a binary system, the orbit of the solar system around the core would be – most likely – an oval, whereby the solar system – and our Earth – would periodically find itself closer or farther from this core. Cruttenden argues that the distance from this core and the path of the solar system will move us through different electromagnetic fields, resulting in different “ages”, cycles – or as some cultures call it, “suns”. In short, Cruttenden’s theory provides a logical framework which neatly incorporates the beliefs of many ancient civilisations, which spoke of recurring cycles of times, rather than the linear process of cultural development which is in scientific vogue today – and which Cruttenden demolishes in his book.
Observation: we should note that even if Cruttenden in the end may prove to be wrong, that in itself does not invalidate the possibility that some ancient cultures believed we were part of such a binary system. For a culture that discovers that the moon revolves around the earth, the earth around the sun, the question of whether the sun revolves around something else should be deemed to be completely logical. And as we begin to understand that ancient cultures did possess a heliocentric view and that this knowledge was only lost in certain parts of the world between ca. 300-1500 AD, the binary star hypothesis has great validity.

Cruttenden goes in search of a sister star for our sun, and a “centre” around which both these stars revolve. He promotes several possibilities, with a specific emphasis towards Sirius as our sun’s sister, and a (small) possibility that Sirius B could be the centre of the system – though he himself considers it more likely that a black hole elswehere, as yet undiscovered, would be the area around which we circulate.
In The Canopus Revelation, I highlighted material about how Canopus and Sirius indicated the depth of the Abyss, and that the description of this Abyss was using the same words modern astrophysicists used to describe a black hole. I also linked this with the great cycles of time, namely the Great and Perfect Year. In the section “Sirius and the Great Year”, I quote from the work of Robert Briggs, who described both Sirius and Canopus as “They control time – time does not control them.” This suggests that both stars had some specific importance for the ancient Egyptians that exceeded the other stars, whereby the two stars were “timekeepers”, i.e. control the calendar.

In a discussion on the Great and Perfect Year, I extensively quoted from Censorinus. In his discussion on the Great Year, Censorinus, in De die natale, wrote: “On the other hand, the Egyptians, in the formation of their Great Year, had no regard to the moon. In Greece the Egyptian year is called cynically ‘dog-like’ and in Latin canicular, because it commences with the rising of the Canicular or Dog star, to which is fixed the first day of the month which the Egyptians call Thoth.” He also added that the 1,461st year was called the Heliacal and by some, the Year of God. I concluded that Censorinus thus identified the Great Year as the cycle of 1460 years, which is at the basis of the Egyptian calendar, and which is linked with Sirius.
So where does this leave the Perfect Year? Censorinus, again in De die natale, had this to say: “There is also a year which Aristotle calls Perfect, rather than Great, which is formed by the revolution of the sun, of the moon and of the five planets, when they all come at the same time to the celestial point from which they started together. This year has a great winter called by the Greeks the Inundation and by the Latins the Deluge; it has also a summer which the Greeks call the Conflagration of the world. The world is supposed to have been in turns deluged or on fire at each of these epochs. According to Arestes of Dyrrachium, it was 5552 years; according to Heraclitus and Linus it was 10,800; according to Dion it was 10,884; according to Orpheus it was 10,020; and according to Cassandrus it was 3,600,000 years. Others have though it infinite; and that it would never occur.”
I – and no doubt everyone else – has read the above statement as a cycle within the solar system. But this is not a correct reading, as it specifically reads “by the revolution of the sun”. What revolution of the sun? The sun revolves around what? Cruttenden’s binary star hypothesis can explain this problem.
Furthermore, we note that all estimated durations of this cycle are largely compatible with the precession of the equinoxes, or divisions thereof: 24,000 divided in half or in quarters, i.e. roughly 12,000 years and 6,000 years. Cruttenden does argue – in my opinion too forcefully – for a known duration of this cycle, but this is mainly due to his (in my opinion) over-reliance on the dates given for these cycles in the Indian tradition. I would like to argue that the cycle will be roughly 24,000 to 26,000 years. Furthermore, if this path is indeed an oval formed by a binary star system, measuring this cycle is not an easy task, as the path is elliptical and hence objects are likely to speed up when closer to the core, and slow down when further from the core. Determining the length of the cycle requires knowledge of where you are on the elliptical path, designating your speed based on the precessional shift of the stars, and extrapolating the speed on the path further and closer from the core, in order to calculate the exact total duration. One final observation on its duration should note that Censorinus himself said that some believed it would never occur, which in the reading of a binary star framework suggests that some may indeed have doubted the validity of this Perfect Year and the “binary star hypothesis”.
However, in parallel with Cruttenden’s sources used in his book, Censorinus also argues that this Perfect Year is divided into ages, “This year has a great winter called by the Greeks the Inundation and by the Latins the Deluge; it has also a summer which the Greeks call the Conflagration of the world. The world is supposed to have been in turns deluged or on fire at each of these epochs.” Cruttenden believes that this summer/winter imagery is linked with the movement to and away from the core of the system and Censorinus’ texts thus follow his independently identified observations.

To quote from The Canopus Revelation: “So Censorinus noted that the Great Year of Sirius was not linked with cataclysms. But there was a ‘Perfect Year’, which was linked with disaster, with inundations, with stories of how the salt water had invaded fresh waters. The waters of the Abyss had broken. The cosmic tree had been felled. Canopus had been unable to hold back the waters of chaos. Censorinus writes about this ‘Perfect Year’, but it is clear that the available evidence he has is far from clear. He has read and heard various accounts, all somewhat different. Although he seems to exclude Canopus as being a player in this ‘Perfect Year’, we should perhaps consider the logic that the combined motions of Sirius and Canopus might be controlling this ‘Perfect Year’.” In short, the above material is on the same line of argument as that used by Cruttenden, specifically on the “cycles of time”. It differs from Cruttenden in that it distinguishes between the Great and Perfect Year, and that it brings in additional material that argues that Canopus is important in defining the path of the solar system around the core – which I believe ancient accounts referred to as the “Abyss”.
Cruttenden and I have argued independently that certain alignments open up the Abyss, a black hole. I have shown material that this alignment was calculated and visualised by Sirius and Canopus, which measured the depths of the Abyss – the black hole.

To further quote from The Canopus Revelation: “In astrology, Sirius and Canopus are associated with evolutionary affairs of Earth and Humanity, and herald potent global experiences. Canopus is specifically responsible for the evolutionary development of entire planetary systems, whereas Sirius holds specific responsibility for Earth.” This fits perfectly within the binary star hypothesis, as outlined by Cruttenden. In short, it argues that Canopus plays the most instrumental role in the determination of orbit around the centre of our star system: the Abyss.
Let me state that I do not by default subscribe to the notion that Canopus is part of this binary star system, or that Sirius is. What I do argue is that these stars were used to determine the path, and calculate the calendar, the time/duration of the path.

I will quote some further material from The Canopus Revelation, as it is in line with Cruttenden’s work, adding further detail to the binary star hypothesis:
“The number 30, of the First World, was linked to the Saturnalia. These were festivities linked with the Roman god Saturn, considered to be the ruler of the First World and the Roman counterpart of the Egyptian Ptah and the Greek Chronos. Saturn was also the outermost planet of our visible solar system and as such could be said to ‘measure’ it, the ‘measurer of time’, the chrono-meter.
The Ark of the Second World could be identified with Argo, if only because Argo was a ship, and it had 50 stars, the sacred number of the Second World. Both ages are linked with Sirius, which had also been a measurer of both ages. Sirius was identified with an arrow (perhaps the origin of the symbol of the arrow of time?) and was said to have caused floods. In the Babylonian New Year, Sirius was known as mul.KAK.SI.DI, ‘who measures the depth of the Sea’. Mul is the prefix announcing the star, KAK.SI.DI means ‘arrow’ and it is this arrow that is the measurer of the Deep – the Abyss. This ties directly into the myth of the salt waters of the abyss, which caused the Deluge. The felling of the tree caused the whirlpool to come into existence. This was labelled the cosmic axis, or the navel of the World. The navel is the ‘hole’ in the human body that connected its interior to the mother, its nurturer, a ‘cosmic axis’ between child and parent.
Legends state that if an arrow was shot into the opening, it caused fire. So when Sirius was measuring the abyss, dropping its arrow into it, it was said to cause fire in the Abyss. But – and this is the key aspect that got parked outside of the debate – Sirius was not the only star that made this ‘arrow’, that was part of the ‘plumb line’ measuring the Abyss. Its colleague in those tasks was Canopus, which we have already identified with the plumb line, if only in its concept of ‘heavy’. One of the reasons why Sirius and Canopus are deemed to measure the Abyss is because Canopus is situated virtually directly South from Sirius. Visually, a line connecting Sirius and Canopus would thus be considered a ‘plumb line’, with Canopus the weight at the bottom of it. As Canopus was the star of the ‘opening’, we must realise this ‘measuring of the Deep’ was not solely the work of Sirius – for the measuring would obviously take the measurement from Canopus, the ‘ceiling’ to which the waters of the Deep could rise before the cistern overflowed and deluged the fresh waters.”

To conclude with a final series of quotes from The Canopus Revelation: “So in astronomical mythology, Sirius and Canopus seemed to play with the hole Canopus was blocking. If Canopus, in the form of a tree, was felled, it opened the Abyss and its salt water: a Deluge. If at the same time Sirius dropped into the hole of Canopus, measuring the depth of the Abyss, the result was fire.
So although Sirius was principally linked with the Great Year, it should be clear that this was not a one-star show. It is when they are ‘co-starring’ that we might have the ‘Perfect Year’, the subject of little modern debate, but definitely more than worthy of Censorinus’ attention.”
And to highlight what the core of our star system is: “This brings us even further into the depths of the Abyss, for other legends stated that in the middle of the sea of salt, was an island of fire. It was in fact this fire that was deemed responsible for making the waters of the Abyss salty. Furthermore, it was the island to which the Bennu-bird of Heliopolis flew and which was linked with a new epoch.
The Abyss was the place to where the rulers of the Olden Ages were retired. It had happened to the Greek god Chronos, or Saturn. Chronos was hurled into the Tartaros, the bottomless pit, the Apsu. It was literally as if Canopus had opened the lid of its box, and Chronos had been thrown in, with the box closed again afterwards. Like a coffin. As if he was dead.”

I am, however, not infallible. I asked: “What is the Perfect Year? Censorinus gives us some information, but personally I feel his data alone is not sufficient to offer a conclusive result. At the same time, I feel that perhaps we need to read between the lines of Manetho, and that possibly periods of e.g. 25 times 1460 years, which he identified as the length of the Egyptian civilisation, might be oblique references to this Perfect Year. For the moment, however, the final answer cannot be given...” I do note that 25 times 1460 years equals 36,500 years, which is roughly 1.5 times a precessional cycle of 24,333 years, thus not too far off the 24,000 years identified by Cruttenden and within my own previously established timeframe of 24,000 to 26,000 years. I do note that fifty periods of 1460 year would thus equal three precessional cycles, and I note that the number 50 is also connected with Canopus/Argo, and thus with the Perfect Year, and Censorinus’ description of a previous age.
This also allows for an intriguing observation: the constellation of Argo, of which Canopus is the lead star, has fifty stars. Does, could we imagine that our forefathers linked one “Sirius cycle” and “noted” it down with a star of Argo; once all fifty were “ticked”, one “Perfect Year” – one “Canopus cycle” was completed? However, this is merely an initial observation, and further research may uncover more knowledge placed in ancient calendars that will bring about further enlightenment.