In a series of articles I have discussed the spiritual context for the upcoming Oneness Celebration at the Venus Transit early this summer. Yet another aspect that also deserves to be discussed is the astronomical and scientific importance of the transit. The history of observations of Venus Transits essentially goes back to 1639 when a Venus Transit was, as far as we know, for the first time directly observed. Yet, already in 1631 an observation had been attempted based on a prediction made by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler from his three laws of planetary movements. In and by itself this was at the time an important feat, since it meant the first direct verification of these laws, which were the first mathematical laws of nature known to man. In a sense then the correct prediction about the exact timing of these Venus Transits served to cement the new scientific world view. This emerged as humanity came to be influenced by the Thirteenth Heaven of the Mayan Long Count that was established in 1617. In science it should be possible to make predictions about the future and the Venus Transit of 1639 was maybe its first tangible success.

By the time of the next pair of Venus Transits, in 1761 and 1769, Isaac Newton was already in his grave and science had come to earn a place as the main, overriding paradigm of human thinking and seemed to be successful everywhere. Through the laws of Newton it was evident that nature could be understood. This was the time of the Enlightenment in European philosophy and most everyone with some standing in society was practicing some form of amateur science. The Venus Transits of 1761 and 1769 provided an excellent opportunity for this mentality and the task defined by Edmund Halley, the discoverer of Halley¹s comet, to use these transits for measuring the distance to the sun came to be the first international collaboration project in science. This in fact also meant the birth of American science the first instance where the British colonies in the West were able to assert an independent capacity for scientific studies.

Although the results were not a resounding success, it was possible for the collaborating observers to make an estimate of the distance to the sun that was reasonably exact. The Laws of Kepler and Newton had already allowed astronomers to determine the relative distances between the planets, but it was not until now that the absolute distances between them became known with certainty. Until the measurements at these Venus Transits had been completed the size of the solar system was anybody¹s guess. The measurements at these transits proved that astronomical distances were on an unfathomable scale compared to the everyday experience of human beings. As the distances within the solar system became known the human view of the cosmos expanded. All future studies of distances in the universe, to remote galaxies and so forth, came to be built on the measurements made at this pair of Venus Transits.

At the beginning of the Planetary Underworld in 1755 the frame of human consciousness thus expanded and the Venus Transits gave the impetus to this expansion that would continue throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. As we now, since 1999, have entered another Underworld, the Galactic, the Venus Transits will gain a new importance in the scientific community that will lead us to a further expansion of our frame of consciousness. This pertains to the search for extraterrestrial life.

A crucial aspect of this search is the study of extrasolar planets, planets that are revolving around other suns than our own. Although indicative verifications of the existence of such planets were made already in the mid-90s, it was not until in August of 1999, the first tun of the Galactic Underworld, that decisive evidence came forth that there indeed exist planets revolving around other stars than our own sun. This evidence was in fact provided by studying not only the cyclical perturbations of the positions of distant stars, but also the variation in their output of light. A small such variation of the output of light is always caused by a planetary transit because it blocks some of the light from a star. Since the variation in the output of light followed the same cycle as the perturbation in the stellar position the existence of an extrasolar planet was for the first time proved in 1999 by observing what in fact was a transit in front of a foreign sun.

The field of study of extrasolar planets has now become a field in science that attracts a lot of attention especially because of its potential relevance in the search for extraterrestrial life. After all, if we are ever to verify the existence of such life the most plausible place to look is at planets in solar systems other than our own. The interesting thing here is that the upcoming Venus Transit on June 8, 2004 may again come to have a very special role in science for expanding our communications and the framework of human life. Since the first evidence for the existence of an extrasolar planet in fact came from the observation of its transit in front of a star astronomers in many places are now preparing themselves to use the upcoming Venus Transit as a testing ground for developing methods for detecting small, earth-size, planets revolving around foreign suns. If such methods could be developed with accuracy and precision it would mean that also a planet the size of the Earth (Venus and Earth have almost exactly the same dimensions) around a foreign sun could be detected. It is quite reasonable to assume that planets this size are the ones that are most likely to harbor life.

The results of this effort on the part of the astronomers are of course unpredictable, but they indeed point to the possibility of a very significant expansion of our frame of life in the years ahead. If earthlike planets around foreign suns with oxygen gas are detected it would be demonstrated that we do not inhabit the only planet in the universe which harbors life. Yet, of course, even as such planets are detected the problems as to how to communicate with their inhabitants will remain. Since the very closest of our neighboring stars, alpha centauri, is located at a distance of about 4.2 light-years from ourselves it will be impracticable to communicate with the inhabitants of extrasolar planets by means of electromagnetic fields. And so, if the upcoming Venus Transit does give rise to methods that are superior to those that currently exist for discovering life-harboring planets other than out own, then it is almost certain that the only way we will have at our disposal for communicating with their inhabitants is the development of methods for telepathy whose speed are not limited to the speed of light. In this way the Venus Transit may come to be the activating factor that truly makes the Galactic Underworld Galactic and ushers us into the expanded frame of consciousness that we are now meant to have. It seems again as if Venus Transits may precipitate advances in human communication and collaboration; in this case also in the direction of extraterrestrial contacts. This is another aspect of Oneness, the Oneness with the Galaxy and beyond.

A discussion of the Venus Transit as an occasion for developing techniques for discovering exoplanets may be found at http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/venus_transit.html

The spiritual celebration that will be taking place at the Venus Transit has the web page www.onenesscelebration.com, where those that arrange gatherings may communicate.

Carl Johan Calleman
cjcalleman@swipnet.se