Human Evolution and the Lunar-Solar Cycle
(The Influence of Temporal Rhythms on Social Behavior)
Written by Franz-Stephan Beyer
Translation by Jenny J. O’Brien
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Contents
Human EvolutionDays and Nights
The Cycles of Celestial Bodies
Information through Light
The “Power” of Information
“It’s written in the Stars”
The Meaning of the Constellations of the Zodiac – a New Interpretation
Individual Biographies
Individual Characters – Specialization
Why seven years?
What happens after birth?
Social Cognition
How Behavioral Characteristics of the
second Half of Life could have come into Being
Putting the Puzzle Pieces Together
Compendium
Human Evolution
It is difficult to explain such a complex phenomena. If one concentrates on a few or even a single element in the process, one easily runs the risk of thinking that they have found “the philosopher’s stone.” Some authors have succumbed to such a pitfall. It is my modest intention to try to explain a phenomenon that has concerned me for nearly thirty years and which in this period has lead me to many different fields of study. I wanted to see how my idea fits in the scientific worldview and if contradictions in the big picture could be found. I ask the reader to put the final picture together for themselves. To aid the reader in doing this, in the following, I offer the puzzle pieces I have found.
What is it all about? It is about you and me and all the others. It is about human beings their diversity, and the question, how we came to exist on this planet. However, it isn’t about the mantra-like repetition of explanations that already fill entire libraries. It’s about a connection that to the best of my knowledge isn’t in any library.
What has been overlooked? It isn’t very long ago that humans believed they were a very unique creation from God and had nothing else to do with other species on earth – plants and animals - other than that these other species were a source of food. Since Charles Darwin this notion has been coming apart at the seams little by little, and attempts have been made at getting on the right track. Meanwhile, scientists agree that we are not the only of our kind that came to exist in the history of the earth. We are however the only form of our species that did not die out. Apparently we came to be along with our ancestors in Africa. Africa is the melting pot where different human species continuously originated. There, in Africa, our distant relatives can be found – chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas – and even our further removed relatives such as many ape and Prosimian species. Together, we belong to the biological category of primates.
It was outrageous in his time when Charles Darwin expressed the idea that human beings were related to these “foolish” apes and had simply taken another evolutionary trajectory. Today, no one would be appalled by this statement – at least not in the scientific community.
Evolution is a historical process, which isn’t predictable, because the dependent variables are so various, that at any time many different paths become available. However, from a historical perspective, one can reconstruct paths that evolution has taken. We cannot say with one hundred percent certainty, how it was in exact detail, but we can say, how it could have been. If at some point in the future, findings that were unknown to us reveal themselves, our picture of evolution might have to be changed, but that doesn’t mean that we have to get rid of the first picture it all together.
During the reconstruction of the evolution of humankind something has been overlooked, or at least its impact has not been recognized. I’m referring to the length of days within the seasonal and environmental circumstances in equatorial Africa, as compared with those in the North, where our ancestors migrated. Near the equator the days and nights are approximately the same in length: about twelve hours of day and twelve hours of night. In northern Africa and even more so upon leaving the continent, our ancestors experienced days that varied in length very clearly according to season. There were long summer days and very short winter days.
Why is this change of environment of such great importance? Mind you, nothing on earth changed. But human beings migrated into an area, where the environment was completely different than what they were used to, which changed their experiences relatively quickly. Here we have go on a bit of a tangent and I will explain the importance of day and night for living things.
Day and Nights
There is a field of research that has, up until now, only gotten limited public attention; it is Chronobiology. A pioneer of Chronobiology was Jürgen Aschoff, who incidentally was a student of the influential behavioral biologist, Konrad Lorenz. The prefix “chrono-” or time – lets us know that it a temporal phenomenon which deserves our attention. Why do we sleep at night and are active during the day? It isn’t a law of nature, and even so owls, bats and tarsiers, behave exactly in the opposite way. Could life have evolved in complete darkness? We are aware of life forms that live in complete darkness. They were able to adapt to darkness over long periods of time, but probably could not have originated there. For life, energy is needed and the primary source of energy on earth is the sun, whose rays hit earth. All plants get energy from the sun and turn it into sustenance through photosynthesis. Because all over the earth – outside of the frozen poles – there is a 24-hour rhythm of brightness and darkness, to which plants have adapted. In 1759, Johann Gottfried Zinn conducted an interesting experiment with a kidney bean plant. The kidney bean lifts its leaves and turns them towards the suns light. Overnight it lets its leaves hang down again. Zinn wanted to know if the plant would raise its leaves and let them fall even when kept in darkness over a long period of time. It was possible that the plant was only animated and thus raised or let its leaves fall in response to sunlight. The plant raised and let its leaves hang down even over a long period of darkness. From this point on a distinction has been made between exogenous and endogenous rhythms. Exogenous rhythms are those of the environment (external) and endogenous are the inner working rhythms of an organism.
Not only can exogenous and endogenous rhythms be differentiated in plants, but also in animals and people. Animal trials followed Zinn’s experiment and then experiments with humans were carried out (incidentally already mentioned Aschoff) to explore the functioning of the “internal clock,” (also known as body clock) as the endogenous rhythm is commonly known. Similar to Zinn and his kidney bean plant, the exogenous day and night rhythm was able to be isolated in humans through experiments in bunkers deep underground. The way the test subjects organized their daily routine under the conditions was documented. They didn’t have a clock, a radio, a television, a daily newspaper, telephone or any other social contact with the outside world. The results show that the 24-hour rhythm continued to work, but little by little grew longer to almost a 25-hour rhythm. The body clock is thereby an imprecise instrument. If the researchers had left a television in the bunker, on which the evening news would be shown at 8pm every evening, the body clock would have stayed on the 24-hour rhythm.
How is it that the internal clocks of animals are so precise, even though they don’t watch the evening news at exactly 8pm? How did early human beings keep time when there was no television, and didn’t wear watches on their wrists? For exactly this purpose there is a special organ in the brain – the suprachiasmatic nucleus – which uses light received through the eyes in order to synchronize endogenous with exogenous rhythms. Mind you this pin-sized group of cells is not a clock, but an organ for reception for light/dark rhythms of day and night. Our whole body sets our internal clock with the help of many different rhythmic functions, which have completely different cycle times. The body clock is, for my purposes, synchronized with the outer world’s 24-hour rhythm and is referred to in science as circadian rhythm. “Circa-” exhibits the imprecise nature that occurs with lack of synchronization and “-dian” tells us that the 24-hour day is meant.
The Cycles of Celestial Bodies
Why does the day have twenty four hours? For a start the division of hours has been completely arbitrarily determined. The day could be determined just as well with a different number of hours. The number 24 is in this respect quite feasible, because it is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 12. Twelve will play an important role later. How did this stretch of time that we know as 24-hours come to be? The earth makes one full rotation on its axis in 23 hours and 56 minutes. After this period of time a star can be seen in the same place in the sky. It isn’t of interest for my purposes here where and when any number of stars can be seen in the sky, but where the sun is. Why is the sun’s appearance so different from other stars in the sky? That is because our earth also rotates around the sun over a year’s time. That’s one angle degree a day. Therefore, the earth has to turn daily a bit more so that the sun can be seen in the same place in the sky as it was the day before. In order to account for this little bit more 4 minutes are necessary to differentiate the sun’s cycle of appearance from a star’s cycle. Astronomers differentiate between star time and sun time by speaking of either sidereal or synodic periods. In the following, I will only refer to synodic periods because our lives have little to do with the stars, but very much to do with the sun.
On its way around the sun in 365 ¼ days, the earth turns on its inclined axis towards and away from the sun. This creates the four seasons in the northern hemisphere and the rainy reasons at the equator. In the regions further north of the Arctic Circle the days and years merge into one another. This special case will not be discussed here because people couldn’t live there before very recently. In summary, the days and years are caused by the earth’s rotation and its movement around the sun. The sun has two effects on the earth. The first is through strong radiation, which supplies us with energy through light. The second effect is the great force of attraction which holds the earth in its orbit.
Not far from us is another massive celestial body, the moon. Through its relative nearness, its force of attraction acts even stronger on the earth than the sun which we can perceive through the changing of tides.
Twice daily people on the coasts can experience the ebb and flow of the tides. Why twice and not once the way day and night are experienced? Floods occur when the earth turns to face the moon and when it turns away from it. The earth and moon are part of a double system whose focal point, around which the system itself rotates, lies in the earth. That is why flood not only prevails when the earth is turned towards the moon as a result of the moon’s gravitational pull, but also when centrifugal force creates a second flood swell when the earth turns away from the moon. These two flood swells go around the earth daily because the earth also turns on its axis. The tides appear not every 24 hours, or rather every 12 hours, but from day to day about 50 minutes later, meaning every 12 hours and 25 minutes. This is because the moon moves a bit to the east from day to day, and the earth then has to move a bit further as well. This additional bit of the earth’s rotation takes 50 minutes.
Those finding it difficult to imagine may take comfort in the novel by Jules Verne Around the World in Eighty Days. On his eastward bound trip around the world, Phileas Fogg counted one day more than his betting partner who stayed home in London. Therefore, he believed that he lost the bet of traveling around the globe in eighty days. But because of this one day, technically he won – that was the point of the novel.
The moon orbits the earth in 27.3 days (sidereal period of revolution). As already mentioned with regard to length of days, it isn’t important for us to examine our relationship to the stars, but rather to the sun. Therefore, the synodic period of revolution is also important. It is 29 ½ days long – as mentioned before. In this period of 29 ½ days the bright phases of the moon repeat themselves, as well as the different tide ranges in the ocean. Both physical phenomena – the moon phases and the range of tides – are a result of the dual workings of the moon and the sun. In terms of the phases of the moon, it isn’t as though the moon radiates light, but rather we see it illuminated because of the sun’s rays which hit it. Sometimes we see the moon clearer or less clear based on the angle from which the two can be seen from earth. Similarly with the tides, the angle between the view of the sun and that of the moon is a determining factor. Sometimes the sun and moon pull in the same direction, and sometimes they pull away from each other. Hence we can observe spring tides, which yield very high tides, while other times we can observe neap tides, which are characterized by low water tides.
Both the sun and moon have visible affects on the earth, but the time cycles of movement are completely independent of each other. Neither day nor year, nor moon phases, nor combination of all three yield whole number results when put in relation to each other. This difficulty hasn’t only been a headache for the calendar makers since time immemorial. Living things adapt their behaviors to these cyclical phenomena, and so have a similar problem.
Let’s summarize these numbers (with their many decimal places):
◦ Days last 24 hours (artificially determined, therefore a whole number)
◦ Tide cycles follow each other every 24.8412 hours
◦ Years are made up of 365.2422 days
◦ Months consist of 29.5306 days
◦ Years consist of 12.3683 “real” months (12 months in a year – artificially
set)
Information through Light
There are many reasons why a living organism would adapt its behavior to dramatic or even less dramatic changes in their environment. Plants are dependent on energy supplied by sunlight. Therefore they follow a day/night rhythm for their energy obtaining process, photosynthesis. They also follow the change of summer to winter in areas see big changes over the seasons. Plants and trees lose their foliage in winter, bloom and produce ripe fruit in other seasons.
Animals have also adapted their behavior to the changing environment. Cold-blooded creatures need the warmth radiated from the sun and have to, therefore, comply with the day/night rhythm. But even warm-blooded animals are affected by the day/night rhythm. They are then either diurnal (active in the day) or nocturnal (active at night). Animals obtain energy through chemosynthesis, a process in which they eat energy-rich organic food which is then chemically broken down in their bodies and provides them with energy. Organic food in the form of vegetation or other plant-based foods are not always available over the course of the year, because plants are dependent on sunlight. Based on this, a complicated interconnectedness occurs through which animals are forced to conform to rhythmic behavior.
Even though animals are not dependant on sunlight as a source of energy, they still use it to adjust their behavior to changing environmental conditions. Sunlight has for animals therefore, an informational value. The ability to see better in sunlight than in darkness is not necessary for diurnal behavior which is sufficiently demonstrated by bats, owls and tarsiers. Besides food intake and energy production, creatures have another important task to which their behavior is devoted. This task is procreation.
Procreation doesn’t necessarily have to do with sexual acts. When plants open their flowers to the world and let pollen be carried by the wind or insects to other flowers, one would not identify this process as being sexual in nature. Similarly one wouldn’t speak of sex/sexuality when describing the process of spawning in which females drop their eggs (often in a cavity) where the males pour sperm over them (for instance in silversides). In both cases the success of fertilization is dependent on both female and male reproduction cells coming together at the same time and place.
Plants, therefore, open their flowers at certain times of year and often certain times of day. In 1745, based on this observation, Carl von Linne made a flowerbed in the form of a clock which indicated when the flowers would open at each time of day.
There are several examples of animal species whose egg-production is regulated by the moon. The most famous example is the Palolo-worm. Another good example is the California Grunion – a type of silverside – this species deposits their eggs on the beach during high tide, where they can develop over the next days undisturbed by the waves of the sea and protected from predators until the next high tide when the little fish can swim into the sea. The reproduction process of Horseshoe crabs is also regulated by the tides. A terrestrial example is the nightjar or nighthawk. The nighthawk doesn’t have to deal with changing tides, but rather the light of the moon. It broods in a nest on the ground in the safety of darkness on moonless nights. When the eggs hatch the nighthawk hunts by the light of the moon to feed the hungry chicks.
The evolution of the egg, as we can see in the example of bird eggs, is characterized by a tendency of becoming independent of wet conditions. In viviparous species, the body of the mother provides the wet conditions, which protects the eggs from drying out. The moon cycles don’t play as big a role for these highly developed egg production processes, however are not entirely lost. Why is the ovarian cycle of modern woman so similar to the lunar cycle? Is this only coincidence? I believe it could be a remnant of ancient hereditary. Living things orient their behavior on the cycles in their environment, which are caused by the movement of the three celestial bodies – the sun, the earth, and the moon around each other. Their “timing” has remained constant for billions of years, which is why appropriate behavioral adjustments could have been guided by them. If primary influences, such as heat and cold, wet and dry important for adjustments of certain species, then the light of the sun and moon became an important source of timely information and meaning for more developed species.
The “Power” of Information
From physics and chemistry, we are accustomed to dealing with matter and energy and know what causes adhere to which effects. In biology, the study of life, we are confronted with “forces” whose origins can be found in certain information but don’t necessarily have direct causes. Information is, in fact, bound in material or energy carriers – for example, the fragrance molecule of a female butterfly ready to mate, the sound wave of a courting capercaillie (wood grouse) or a sheet of paper with a message – but the energy or the information’s “material” isn’t used up when it creates a reaction in the receiver. The energy for its conduct is constituted by the living being itself. Every behavior is triggered by internal or external stimuli. Stimuli are information. But not all incoming information is evaluated as cues. For many living things, a whole network of circumstances has to be fulfilled before a reaction occurs. Does life interrupt physical and chemical laws? Of course, not. But we should not attempt to understand Biology by searching for monocausal stimuli.
The most important information source for the experience of time in living things is – as I said before – light. Under natural conditions, it is the light of the sun during the day and moonlight at night which gives living things their orientation to time. People have over time diminished the moon’s nightly power with artificial light sources, but for billions of years of evolution that was not so. The effects of the moon on living things do not come from an unexplainable ghostly force, but instead the moon carries reliable information about the passing of time. Every living thing interprets this information differently and some simply ignore it. Therefore, certain general rules of the moon as circulated in esoteric circles may be seen as nonsense.
It is likewise with the sun. When the sun rises early in the morning, we end our nightly relaxation, brush our teeth and sit ourselves down at the breakfast table. We do not have to, but we do. We could, if we wanted to, sleep in a very long time. There isn’t a mandatory physical connection between the time information and the behavior. The sun doesn’t wake us early in the morning, but rather our body clock. The sun carries the information about time which calibrates our body clocks daily.
To illustrate this relationship with an analogy we can think about modern clock making. Our mechanical or electronic clocks move because they have their own energy sources and time-keeping mechanisms. Some keep time quite accurately, while others have to be reset quite frequently. Then there are radio-controlled clocks. They too have their own energy sources and mechanisms for time-keeping, but they also receive information from radio stations, which in Germany is sent from near Frankfurt am Main, once a day with the exact time and they calibrate themselves.
This “radio clock” principle has existed in nature for billions of years and uses as a calibration signal, light. The receiving organ for this calibration signal in humans is the suprachiasmatic nucleus.
“It is written in the Stars”
People who believe in destiny often use the phrase “it is written in the stars.” Others use the phrase rather tongue in cheek, knowing that such is not the case. This phrase speaks to the power of prediction as advertised by astrologers, who argue that our destiny can be read in the constellations of stars and planets. Science has suffered great harm at the expense of this superstition because a serious employment of behavioral adaptations of organisms to the cycles of the sun and moon tend to automatically be seen as esoteric and expressions of superstition.
I would like to explain what is really “written in the stars.” Stars and planets are only visible at night when it is dark on earth. While planets change their place in the sky, they are also called “wandering stars.” The stars that stay in place are called fixed stars. Because stars are spread out very irregularly in the sky, our ancestors in prehistoric times drafted the constellations and zodiac signs as a way of orientation. In the northern hemisphere, we can only see the northern constellations. The “southern cross,” for example, is not possible for us to see. Conversely, there are other constellations that we can see every night because they never disappear under the horizon, the circumpolar stars. The Big Dipper or the Cassiopeia belong to this group of stars. Then there are the twelve constellations of the zodiac. They lie near the ecliptic and divide the night sky from east to west in twelve sections. The ecliptic is the imaginary plane through which the earth moves in its yearly rotation around the sun. Near the ecliptic we can see the planets wander because the sun and planets are part of a disc that we call the solar system. Therefore, the planets move through the constellations which also form the zodiac signs.
The zodiac signs are called Aries (the ram), Taurus (the bull), Gemini (the twins), Cancer (the crab), Leo (the lion), Virgo (the virgin), Libra (the scales), Scorpio (the scorpion), Sagittarius (the quadruped marksmen), Capricorn (the goat with a fish tail), Aquarius (the water carrier), and Pisces (the fish), and can be seen in this order following an easterly direction in the sky. As dictated by nature, we can only see the section of the zodiac that is presented to us in the darkness of the night sky. Therefore, the visible part of the zodiac constellations moves around us in the course of a year and we can recognize the different zodiac signs in the different seasons. Of course, we can gather information about the seasons (time of year) by whether the leaves are beginning to grow on the trees, or if it’s warm enough to go swimming outdoors, or the leaves are brightly colored and falling, or if everything is covered in snow. But think about life in the African savannah where such seasonal characteristics do not exist. There one can orient themselves fairly well on the constellations in the sky.
What is then written in the stars? Nothing more than in which time we are currently living. And how does that determine our destiny? The answer is also very simple, with time our environment regularly changes and we have to grapple with these changes. That is our destiny.
The Meaning of the Constellations of the Zodiac – a New Interpretation
If the zodiac constellations tell us something about which time we are living in, then it would not be so erroneous to think that humans born at the beginning of the year differentiate characteristically from those born towards the end (in fall, for example). The characteristics of each sign were assigned by astrologers. This assumption can easily be tested. In the southern hemisphere spring and fall occur at opposite times of the year, therefore those born in the springtime in the northern hemisphere should have similar characteristics as those born in fall in the southern hemisphere. However that is precisely not the case. Crucial to the argument is the fact that the signs that don’t differ between the two hemispheres. The conclusion can only be that it’s all nonsense, and so is the general opinion. However, if one traces the matter closely it becomes clear that the whole thing is not nonsense. The character properties that are attributed to the different zodiac signs line up just so that they reflect fundamental social ties in the various phases of human life and in order. This cannot be a coincidence.
I would like to describe what I mean briefly: After birth, everyone goes through childhood which is only possible to survive through the protective efforts of their parents. After approximately seven years the behaviors of both parties change. The grown child is sent to school and the child’s proper upbringing and formal education is the focus of the efforts made by both parents and teachers. After about seven more years things change once again. The young person, which the child has become, starts deciding for themselves and refuses to unconditionally follow the will of their parents, who grudgingly accept. The young person begins alienating themselves little by little. After this youth phase, the person is full grown and ready to, together with a partner, have children of their own, who will also be completely dependent for approximately seven years. Effectively, the grown children take over responsibility. The experiences of growing up and becoming an adult will repeat themselves in the next generation.
Following an average seven year rhythm, in which deviations in individual cases are observable, years past though the above described life phases as follows: childhood, growing up, youth, protecting/looking after, education, and alienation. Forty-two years pass in this example. In every life phase typical behaviors can be recognized which are mirrored in the characteristics of the six zodiac signs from Aries through Virgo and in this order. As I said before: this cannot be coincidence.
A person’s life isn’t over at age 42. For women, menopause can soon be expected, which suggests that by nature, propagation is no longer desirable at this point. It is also true that only in exception cases are children bestowed on men of this age. What is the typical content of the second half of life when one follows the seven year scheme in the range from 42 to 84 years of age? Can the old interpretations of the zodiac assist us? To keep in line with the analogy, the remaining six signs from Libra (the scales) to Pieces (the fish) can provide food for thought. What behaviors of the younger generation correspond to those of the older generation so as to fit the characteristics of the sign of Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius, and which to Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces?
I recognize herein the functions of the social superstructure. We shouldn’t think about modern management structures, but instead imagine how it was before there were books, universities or internet search engines. There were the elders, who had accumulated broad knowledge over many years of experience and functioned, in a sense, as data storage systems. The most trusted had the most societal power. Only the wisest could carry this responsibility but also had to fight for it and defend it against adversaries. How could these experiences, skills and knowledge be transferred to the next generation? There comes a day when responsibility and power, must go on in the next generation. It doesn’t happen from one day to the next because the young have to learn over a long period of time from the elders. The younger have to work for the elders and with them. The other way around, the older ones need to build trust their potential successor, to see them as capable to succeed them. Competing ideas must be fought against. For these takeovers and transfers of power from generation to generation, a similar behavioral sequence begins to emerge in the second half of life as existed in the first half for the succession of generations through birth and child rearing.
The characteristics of the signs Libra (scales), Scorpio (scorpion) and Sagittarius (quadruped marksmen) reflect the behavior of a potential successor seeking a post of responsibility over a time period of three times seven years. The temporal variation gets bigger statistically because variations accumulate from step to step.
The loyal behavior of one who wants power from the very beginning corresponds to the characteristics of Libra. Then a more intense combative phase follows in which the interests of maintain and gaining power between the elder and the younger can be interpreted and which is characterized in the sign of Scorpio. And finally, in the third phase, sole and unlimited power is acquired by the youth as characterized by Sagittarius. From the side of the elder, we can find typical characteristics for behavior in the sign Capricorn, who although seeking assistance ambitiously holds on to power. In the middle phase of the exchange of power is the sign Aquarius. The behavior here comes from the practical exercise of power in the form of withdrawal, but still “tutoring” and granting power by giving it. In the last phase, power is conclusively transferred. The elder gives up all claims, which is reflected in the characteristics of Pisces. Not infrequently, death sealed the deal.
The first six life phases: childhood, growing up, youth, protective phase, raising, alienation, are followed by six phases in the second half of life: desire for power, fight for power, possession of power, maintenance of power, the giving of power, and loss of power. In every one of the second six life phases typical behaviors emerge and they are mirrored in the characteristics of the six zodiac signs from Libra to Pisces and exactly in this order. I dare repeat myself: This can’t be coincidence, can it?
Out of the above explained connections, I have created a table in an effort to provide clarity. It is a generation-scheme. This chart puts the acknowledgements of the astrological zodiac signs in order with new, but also comprehensible and easily observable significance.
Individual Biographies
The new interpretation of the Characters of the Zodiac and the generation-scheme shows that age appropriate behavior is, on the one hand, oriented on a timeline but also, on the other hand, dependent on the influences of a social partner, younger or older generations respectively. Especially formative influences occur in childhood when certain traits are ascribed to the child. These traits are then with the child their whole life long and become a part of their character.
Often these characteristic correlate with their date of birth. Because formative influences of the social partners, usually the parents, play an important role, this correlation is superimposed on these unpredictable influences. Besides different dominant characters, I have found through the analysis of many biographies of famous personalities that there is also a dynamic component of individual age-dependent behavior. Here the approximate seven-year periods emerge once again, which I have shown in the above table. Interestingly, the characteristics of the particular life phases slide on the timeline without changing their order. Wholly individual biographies result in this relatively simple manner.
For example let’s take, a person born at the end of August, in the sign of Virgo, like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (August 28th, 1749). The zodiac sign, Virgo is characterized by the behavior typical of parents who alienate themselves from their child who has reached the life stage, youth. If someone is shaped by these inner motivations of behavior in childhood, then a character that has trouble forming lasting human bonds might come into being. Goethe was such a character. This characteristic can be seen as a sort of time stamp at the beginning of his life program. All subsequent seven-year life phases are then superimposed on a time-shifted program. In the example of Goethe, it is as if his life program slid through the timeline by 35 years, because the “alienation” phase does not occur in the first seven years of childhood, but is instead expected between 36 and 42 years of age. Goethe studied law and was at the age of 28 in the service of the secret council in Weimar. Then he became director of the Chamber of Finance and superintendent in a mine. His inner drive was that of a person 35 years older than he was, namely a person of power who must struggle to maintain that power (like that of Sagittarius and Capricorn). Then came an interesting change in Goethe’s life. After his 36th year, he began to concern himself with scientific themes. His social position, a position of power, became uninteresting. His new interests were flora and fauna, meteorology, the classics, and he practiced social criticism. The tendency of this type of behavior is typical for the sign Aquarius. Age-appropriately (36-42) Goethe found himself in the phase of alienation, but superimposed on his behavior was the 35-year-shifted “program-point” with the behavioral motivation of imaginative Aquarius under the new interpretation of “giving power.” Here, while others concern themselves with work, one gives advice and concerns himself/herself with more interesting things.
Throughout all these observations and interpretations, the assumption that typical behaviors are temporal phenomena is increasingly present. But behavior isn’t only a temporal phenomenon, because if it were, we would actually be able to; at least in an abstract form based on tendency, predict it. It is then, more like the weather. With the weather, one can say exactly when summer and winter will be, but can’t make any long-term forecasts of the actual temperatures, rainfall, wind speeds, etc.
Individual Characters – Specialization
Because people come into the world all throughout the year and don’t have a preferred time of year for birth, as is the case in many animal species, every person possesses a completely individual phase-order between their individual biography and the environmental light cycles of the sun and moon. The result is that wholly different characters can be formed, because light cycles activate innate cues and the associated behavioral motivations. In particular, the imprints of childhood provide a significant share of the individual character. What is the result of this? If the people of a social community differ significantly according to their preferences of behavior, this automatically leads to specialization. Everyone does what they like to do, and therefore are good at. Talents do not develop because the person has a certain gene containing this talent, which other people do not have, but instead people develop their talents according to preferences ascribed to them by light cycles. Since the time of birth, the “light of the world” at that time, is an immutable part of a person. This can lead to misinterpretation of what is genetically innate, and what was obtained through the timing of their birth. In the animal world we can also find specialization. Honeybees, for example, perform very different tasks, which include: building honeycomb, breeding, feeding “babies,” cleaning, defending the hive from predators, and of course, the diligent collection of nectar. But there isn’t an individual life-long specialization process; instead all the bees perform each task at a certain age. The order of all necessary work is depicted in the life program of the bee. It is different with humans. In the life program of humans, every age range calls for a certain type of behavior. However, the reservoir created through different imprints on a life provides motivation for specialization. Therefore it was possible for humans to build social structures, which finally flowed into a spiritual and cultural revolution (Michael Tomasello). People have professions – animals do not.
Why seven years?
The fact that behavior in the animal kingdom is a phenomenon of time isn’t astounding to most because we can observe it everywhere. Bats sleep in the day and hunt at night. Bears sleep through the entire winter. Bees organize various types of work on the basis of age. Trees flourish leaves in spring and drop their foliage in fall. The migration of herds in the Serengeti occurs according to the rainy seasons. Many animals deposit their eggs on the shores of the sea after the tide goes out. Migratory birds fly south in winter and fly back in spring to their breeding grounds in the north. All are directed by their body clocks and these clocks are set by and synchronized with the light of the sun and moon. This light gives information about the 24-hour day, about the seasons. It gives information about the tides (when spring tides and neap tides will occur) because it can be read in the light of the moon phases. Periods longer than a year, however cannot be read. How then do humans define their seven-year life stages?
Naturally, it might also be that these rhythms are free swinging, since the seven-year-rhythm can strongly deviate from the average when looked at on a case by case basis. Even still, there is evidence of a coupling with environmental rhythms. This evidence originates in Astrology; a fact which is unimportant because the thought process is can be justified by scientific explanation. The Chinese astrology system uses a completely different monitoring system than the European one and another calendar. For them there is a twelve year cycle in which people are born into certain characters. The twelve are allegorically related to animals like in the zodiac and are ascribed certain characteristics. These animals are dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, pig, rat, ox, tiger, and rabbit. It cannot be coincidence that the order of the descriptions of characteristics is in the exact same order as ours. That means that this order fits perfectly to the generation scheme I mentioned before. In the European zodiac 12 months are characterized, in the Chinese zodiac there are 12 years, and in my generation scheme there are 12 seven-year-life stages.
It is important to mention that the Chinese use, for their purposes, a so called “bounded moon calendar,” which means that the beginning of the year always falls on a new moon and it still agrees with the solar year. This is only possible through the insertion of intercalary months. This fact suggests that orientation over multiple years is provided by the sun and moon together. What is the use of twelve-year cycles when we are searching for seven-year periods? At this point we have to take another tangent into Astronomy.
The year has 365 days. The synodic months have 29 ½ days. Twelve months are then 354 days long. There is a difference of 11 days (365-354=11). For example, the full moon will shine 11 days earlier in the coming year than in this year. In the third year an additional intercalary month has to be inserted to keep pace with the solar calendar. Not until 19 years pass, will the full moon shine on exactly the same day as in this year. This nineteen-year cycle is called the Meton Cycle after the Greek, Meton (5th Century BC), who didn’t discover this cycle but was able to explain it mathematically. We have evidence that people knew about this cycle at least 4000 years ago, perhaps even longer. Therefore, from this point on I will use a more neutral term for it, namely lunar-solar cycle. In this 19-year period, seven leap months have to be added so that 12 years have 12 months, and 7 years have 13 months. Here we are confronted with a curious, but very important coincidence, which is that the difference between the whole numbers 19 and 12 is 7, and that we have to calculate for the addition of 7 months in this period. If we firmly define a moon year as having 12 months, when we look at this moon year within a solar year we see a shift of 7 months. If the moon had a slightly smaller or slightly bigger orbit around the earth, then these numbers would not match.
And now back to the question, why then are these calculated 7- year periods in our lives so important and why are there 12 different ones? There are animals that can live to be as old as people, or even older, for example the Galapagos tortoise or the Bowhead whale. But there is no living being that has such a long time available to grow up as a person. The ontogeny of humans lasts about 20 years. As I have already explained in the generation scheme, this time to grow up can be divided, from a social point of view, into three basic developmental phases: childhood, initial education (growing up), and youth. Entry into school, confirmation, or other coming of age traditions are the cultural recognitions of this life stage. It isn’t so long ago that under German law young people came of age (an age of responsibility) at 21 instead of 18 and the judiciary branch of government still recognizes today that there is a “growth process” between 18 and 21, whereby under certain circumstances a minor charge may be given. Such policy and procedure protocol are not made without reason. If we can find constant social behavior in each of the seven-year life stages, then each of these characteristic behaviors, considered the other way around, represent a time span of seven years. In other words, one can count these characteristic behaviors as if they were seven years. This allows for the balancing of the 19-year lunar-solar cycle with these individual 7years. When we subtract the 7 years we get 12 years. These 12 years make up the cycle that the Chinese apparently observed. This balancing I have represented with the equation
where the term L19 symbolizes the lunar-solar cycle, i7 symbolizes the average/mean of individual developmental steps. The term S12 represents the social cycle because that is a characteristic that can be determined for an entire age group (people born in the same year).
Although this equation looks quite simple, it’s quite difficult to imagine what actually occurs. And perhaps it isn’t clear yet what this has to do with leap months. Therefore, I have created a visual simulation in which 19 different colored spheres move in a circular plane (like an orbit) and change their color seven times along the way. There are 12 colors taken from the color wheel and lined up in their logical order. A sphere’s color changes when it is confronted with a leap month. Thereby it should also be clear that the leap months act as trigger points at which in a sense the cogs of our body clocks are adjusted.
One can see the simulation in one of two ways. The first is by following a sphere, which represents a birth year change its color seven times over a 19 year period to represent an adaptation in the body clock.
The second view point can be seen by watching a certain fixed point as the spheres pull passed. The twelve colors repeat themselves after 12 years – quod erat demonstrandum – just what I wanted to prove!
(To find the animated simulation, visit the internet address: www.lunisolarzyklus.de/index.php./Simulation)
What happens after birth?
Now that we have a model based solely on scientific principles, we can confidently close the file on the validity of the ideas presented in the zodiac. As a “thank you” to the muse “Astrology” we can confirm that there is grain of truth in the zodiac, but that by and large the kind of reading of tea leaves that occurs in the prediction of our love lives and financial situations is nonsense. In particular, Astrology ignores the influence of social partners and environments, and cannot therefore make any serious predictions.
Before I move on to talk about these social influences, I would like to call to mind the simulation model once again. It shows that within the 19-year lunar-solar cycle every twelve years a typical character can be produced and these characters mirror life stages with an average of seven years. If a person comes into the world at a certain time, then in a sense, the sphere carousel jumps into motion and comes into contact with people at different ages and “coloring.” Through social interaction, in terms of the model, a person takes a beginning color. The time-keepers, the sun and the moon cannot pull off characterization on their own. This characterization is only possible in the social context of a generation.
Now, in order to answer the question what in fact happens to a person after birth, I have to speak about social influences. The time of a person’s birth defines the phase position of their personal biography in relation to ambient light cycles. From this moment on, when the baby first sees the light of day, in the truest sense of the expression, their brain entirely automatically makes a connection to many (if not all) perceptions of the current prevailing light situation. Their brain takes diversified content and automatically and unconsciously sorts it into a structure that reflects multiple levels of time. There are natural light-dark changes in the rhythm of a 24-hour day. In a natural case, without too much interference from artificial light, the light of the moon phases at night can be perceived by the child as well. The moon phases do not only differ through the stages of the moon but also throughout the 24-hour day, in which the moon is brighter in the evening and less bright as morning approaches. Next the child perceives the variation in brightness according to the seasons.
Against the backdrop of this successive and increasingly solid structure of time in the child’s brain, the child observes their social environment. All kinds of things happen here, but not random things fit into this structure of time. Only the things that repeat themselves regularly fit into this time structure. We have to remember that the brain learns when inputs to a system cause the same pattern of activity to occur repeatedly. The set of active elements constituting this pattern become increasingly strongly interassociated. (Hebbian learning principle). Everything that fits into this time structure forms an overall picture. Because every person is born at a different time and reach the light cycle at a different phase, everyone develops a different overall picture (different structure) in their brain even when they experience exactly the same circumstances as another. This first structure forms the basis for further life stages and is continuously extended. At the moment of birth, nothing decisive happens, but rather the birth date defines the relationship of the phase in which an individual biography begins to the ambient light cycle once and for all the rest of the person’s life.
Social Cognition
From a neurological point of view, cognition occurs when different areas of the brain “fire” together. This fact is justified in the physiology of the brain and does not need to be further explained here, but rather simply mentioned as an important fact. This rule results from the Hebbian learning principle: neurons that fire together, wire together. A person has a lot of time available to get to know the people in their social environment. As already explained the brain orders all its perceptions in different levels of time. These levels of time are naturally only part of a model. They are not physically demarcated areas. If a person observes their social environment, they perceive the different age groups therein with their different behaviors. And so as a person changes over the years, they also perceive the changes occurring in others.
And here we come to an all-important point: Because these changes through life stages occur on average in increments of seven years, social observations are arranged so that they regularly fit together with the 19 year lunar-solar cycle according to the previously stated equation
. This can only function in seven-year biographical
steps, and therefore is only possible in humans. Thus people could
develop a biographical consciousness and an awareness of themselves.
Without the regular firing of neurons, social cognition could not have
occurred. How Could the Behavior Characteristic of the Second Half of Life Come into Being?
A consciousness of self can develop in chimpanzees or dolphins. They can, for example, recognize themselves in a mirror. Consciousness cannot be the reason people feel an urge to share their knowledge and experiences in the second half of life. On top of that people strongly insist that their ideas and instructions be followed; that opposing ideas be attacked. No other animal declares war in the name of religion or ideology or quarrels over philosophical points of view.
Still one can find bitter battles in the animal kingdom. Clashes arise out of access to food, a suitable mate, or the caving out of territory. People feud over food, territories and sexual partners as well, and in addition, matters of who is right and wrong. The law is in the hands of those in power. In the animal kingdom, we are in fact familiar with power struggles, fighting rivals, but typically the object of the struggle is privilege, the privilege to copulate with as many females as possible.
Something about the second half of life must have to do with reproduction, because otherwise the timing of the life phases in the second half of life would not clearly resemble the phases in the first half, in which the focus is quite obviously genetic reproduction and rearing of children. Why should a person be so interested in reproducing their experiences and knowledge for the next generation? The learning of young from their parents through imitation can also be seen in animals. In this case, the interest and the drive lie with the child and it is a purely egoistic drive, according to Richard Dawkins, an “egoistic gene.” Animals never instruct their young as actively and purposefully as humans. Only humans do this just so.
Such a complicated behavior, one more spiritual in nature, cannot have happened by chance or come into existence quite suddenly. It must have been that an already existing program was converted for new use. Although sexual behavior offers us an idea, if it had changed, it would be gone now. Most can confirm this. But there is actually a scenario which allows for the transition of the sex drive into a spiritual drive. Next, a short journey into the lives of cats:
A well known fact is that our house cats come from African wild cats and go into heat twice a year. Conversely the wild cats of this region (Germany) only produce young once a year, which is the case for many other species in this region. Their African heritage could have remained intact because the young born in autumn were able to survive in the warm homes of people. Wild cats in the area were and still are not as lucky and therefore only produce young one time per year. We can determine that the circumstances in Africa of two meteorologically very similar 6 months periods in a year produced a sexual drive which is active twice a year, whereas in the north the sexual drive is only activated once.
We should try to carry this insight over to humans, who also came from Africa and met with changing seasons in the north. In doing that, the second sexual drive might have transformed into an intellectual drive including corresponding temporal triggers. The merry month of May would not have existed in Africa. This sounds somewhat impractical because women are known to be able to conceive monthly. But sometime in the distant past, when our great-great-great-great ancestors lived, it must have been different. And as we now know, heredity, in the form of our genotype, forgets nothing. How could this scenario have transpired? Naturally, here one can only speculate. The problem is that evolution did not have much time available. The migration of our ancestors first occurred approximately 40,000 years ago. At first I speculated with the effect of “jumping genes,” which Barbara McClintock discovered in corn plants. She was initially considered totally crazy, but got the noble prize for her work in the end. But it seems quite daring to compare corn plants with people.
Currently, my favorite theory hinges on a mixing scenario with Neanderthals which could have taken place in the Middle East. There is evidence that our African ancestors and Neanderthals lived there together for some time. The Neanderthals had lived for hundreds of thousands of years in the northern region of the globe while our African ancestors still had their internalized Africa time structures. According to the research of Svante Pääbo and his team in Leipzig, modern humans carry a small part of the Neanderthal genome. Interestingly, this is not true for humans in Africa, who lived south of the Sahara. Previous studies by the same team on Mitochondria passed only through the female line could not prove any involvement with Neanderthals. That means that Neanderthal men must have impregnated our female ancestors from Africa. In addition, we also know from other studies that very few women could have been our ancestral mothers (Bryan Sykes: The seven daughters of Eve). So if it were possible that there was sexual contact between these two species, the resulting offspring would have possessed advantageous properties that characterize modern man and we are all decedents of these hybrids. All other ancestors would have died out. This hypothesis has one drawback: Sub-Saharan Africans are modern humans.
Geoffrey F. Miller discusses a very plausible possibility of how intellectual abilities could have arisen in modern man in his book, The Mating Mind: How sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature. But why it is that when humans migrated away from the equator and out of Africa, relatively suddenly a genuine intellectual and cultural explosion occurred is not explained in his book. I’d like to follow up his theory with my own which includes the synchronization of social behavior with the lunar-solar cycle. As I wrote earlier, the “sorcerer’s stone” does not exist. There are many.
Putting the Puzzle Pieces Together
At the beginning I warned the reader that I would provide the puzzle pieces that I have found, but that they would be expected to put the pieces together for themselves. Unfortunately, there is no other way. In a compendium I have specified all facts and findings without comments again.
Possibly this will help the readers to pass in review what they have read before and to put together the puzzle to perceive the complete picture.
Compendium
The Importance of the Lunar-solar cycle for Human Evolution
A Summary of Facts and Findings
The origin of time, as experienced on earth, lies in the rotation of the earth, and its rotation around the sun, as well as the moon’s rotation around the earth. The days, tides and years have their origins in these rotations. In addition to these movements the obliquity of the epileptic is a necessary condition for the effects of time cycles. (The precession of the earth’s axis will not be discussed in this context due to the length of the subject matter).
Differing among the three cycles mentioned are both gravitational as well as illuminating effects of the moon, which depend on its angular position relative to the sun. Therefore, the effects of this fourth cycle are variations in the tides (spring and neap tides) and the different bright phases of the moon (syndonic months), are to some extent a collaborative effort of the sun and moon. The Solar year (with 365 days) and the twelve-part moon year (with 354 days) are only comparable (commensurable) within the 19 year lunar-solar cycle (Metonic cycle). This fifth cycle results from cooperation of forces of the sun and moon.
All of the cycles can only be experienced by organisms in the form of whole numbers, which causes the problem of commensurability. This difficulty was solved through the insertion of leap days and leap months in different calendar systems. Simpler organisms have apparently found unconscious forms of adaptation.
The evolution of life is a random process which results from the interaction between the abiotic, biotic and social environment. Coincidences in single cases occur unpredictably, but in large numbers with predictable distribution of values and averages. Therefore the content of genetic material of living organisms is the result of averaging – the genotype – meanwhile the individual organism develops under the influence of individual accidents – phenotype.
Successful adaptation of cyclic growth and behavior of living things to environmental rhythms is stored in genes. Here, environmental influences as well as the evolution of the genotype as a mass phenomenon affect statistical average values.
When life forms first began to emerge, the sun’s rays were the only source of energy. Therefore light also acts as innate orientation for the rhythmic adjustment of all living things. Light sets in motion decisive cues and motivations for innate reactions and behaviors in living things. It synchronizes the exogenous with endogenous rhythms.
Longer development phases, which were caused by the increasing complexity of living things, have gradually taken into account the cycles of the sun and moon in their behavior program. Annual and lunar cycles are responsible for causing (generative) reproductive behavior, both in combination and individually.
Complex cues and motivations form through specific functions of the central nervous system. Nerve networks grow because of repeated simultaneity of nerve irritation (Hebbian learning rule). Innate cues are similarly saved in nerve networks, which come to be through genetic growth controls. They give rise to the roots of the following individual growth network (synaptogenesis).
Human biographies are characterized by their social histories. In addition to (generative) reproduction, a motivation to disseminate one’s cultural heritage arises. This is done on the basis of power structures.
The innate drive to reproduce went through a modified revival in humans where in the second half of life it transformed into a drive to share experiences, knowledge and with that culture. The new and compulsory motivations in the second half of life came to be, hypothetically, as humans spread out from the equatorial zone of Africa, where both halves of the year were quite identical, to regions where the light rhythms over the course of the year were asymmetric.
The human biography is based on 12 innate behavioral complexes which in turn came out of the long process of ontogenesis in offspring. The statistical average 7-year developmental steps of children demanded that adult behavior adjust in 7-year steps as well according to the key-lock principle. That is shown in the generation scheme below.
The
evolution of behavior is always oriented on both the triggering
stimulus of light as well as other relevant environmental triggers.
Originally, light was the only rhythm generator, then the priorities of
our internal cues shifted with the increasing complexity of ecosystems
which allowed for other perceptions of the environment. Finally social
and cultural formations came to dictate behaviors.
With the arrival of average 7-year developmental increments during the ontogenesis of humans, the light rhythms of the sun and moon reached commensurability. Through the supplementation of the fifth time-keeping cycle (the 19-year lunar-solar cycle) to the time cycles of day and night, the tides, lunation, and years, not only a chance for cultural evolution, but an internal drive perceived as compulsion occurred and could have been mirrored in human social behavior. This time-keeping lunar-solar cycle operates differently than all previous stimulus-response patterns of living things, in that is characterized not only by individual interactions with the environment, but through the relative orientation of one’s own behavior on the behavior of their social partners. Social cognition and a biographical consciousness developed. Hereafter, humans developed further at this same pace.
The comparability (commensurability) of the cycles originated through the relationship of the whole numbers 19, 12 and 7, namely 19=7+12. The nineteen year Lunar-solar cycle runs parallel with the statistically average 7-year cycles of Individual development (of every human being in parallel), resulting in a 12-year behavioral cycle of partnerships or human Social relations. The relationship of facts is symbolically represented by:
In that all cycles undergo a 12-part behavioral structure for completion, the social cycle also meets the requirement of the 12-phases. The statistically average times remained permanent because behavioral elements and timing of the lunar-solar cycle are coupled with motivational cues.
The progress of the 7-year individual development corresponds with the 7 time shifts of the 7 additional lunations during the 19-year lunar-solar cycle. The accident appears here again with the number 7 regularly and continuously synchronizing all cycles involved.
Individual specialization within social communities occurred through active instruction, the leaving behind of objectified experiences (cultural goods) and individual life accomplishments in order to cope with the exponential growth of knowledge. Through the formation of diverse characters under different conditioning phases of light rhythms, different aptitudes and motivations provided for specialization. This takes place through phase-shifted early activation of twelve life-periods (and their inherent motivations for behavior), which are from birth latent (see generation diagram). Accordingly, individual biographies unfold.
With increasingly civilized time structures shaping ways of living (sun calendar, weekly rhythm) and the use of artificial light at night, the natural environmental triggers for innate behavior were replaced. The unadulterated effects which occur shortly after birth and influence the individual’s life-long character are the only evidence for my theory of social and cultural rhythms. Nevertheless this in conjunction with historical accounts should suffice as explanation for the unique path human evolution has taken.
With the arrival of average 7-year developmental increments during the ontogenesis of humans, the light rhythms of the sun and moon reached commensurability. Through the supplementation of the fifth time-keeping cycle (the 19-year lunar-solar cycle) to the time cycles of day and night, the tides, lunation, and years, not only a chance for cultural evolution, but an internal drive perceived as compulsion occurred and could have been mirrored in human social behavior. This time-keeping lunar-solar cycle operates differently than all previous stimulus-response patterns of living things, in that is characterized not only by individual interactions with the environment, but through the relative orientation of one’s own behavior on the behavior of their social partners. Social cognition and a biographical consciousness developed. Hereafter, humans developed further at this same pace.
The comparability (commensurability) of the cycles originated through the relationship of the whole numbers 19, 12 and 7, namely 19=7+12. The nineteen year Lunar-solar cycle runs parallel with the statistically average 7-year cycles of Individual development (of every human being in parallel), resulting in a 12-year behavioral cycle of partnerships or human Social relations. The relationship of facts is symbolically represented by:
In that all cycles undergo a 12-part behavioral structure for completion, the social cycle also meets the requirement of the 12-phases. The statistically average times remained permanent because behavioral elements and timing of the lunar-solar cycle are coupled with motivational cues.
The progress of the 7-year individual development corresponds with the 7 time shifts of the 7 additional lunations during the 19-year lunar-solar cycle. The accident appears here again with the number 7 regularly and continuously synchronizing all cycles involved.
Individual specialization within social communities occurred through active instruction, the leaving behind of objectified experiences (cultural goods) and individual life accomplishments in order to cope with the exponential growth of knowledge. Through the formation of diverse characters under different conditioning phases of light rhythms, different aptitudes and motivations provided for specialization. This takes place through phase-shifted early activation of twelve life-periods (and their inherent motivations for behavior), which are from birth latent (see generation diagram). Accordingly, individual biographies unfold.
With increasingly civilized time structures shaping ways of living (sun calendar, weekly rhythm) and the use of artificial light at night, the natural environmental triggers for innate behavior were replaced. The unadulterated effects which occur shortly after birth and influence the individual’s life-long character are the only evidence for my theory of social and cultural rhythms. Nevertheless this in conjunction with historical accounts should suffice as explanation for the unique path human evolution has taken.