Origins of the astrological constellations
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Are the constellations merely arbitrary observations that people started to do work with and which then became an integrated part of some thought system, or do they actually have topologically important properties? And in that case, naturally, what properties?
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@Malaclypse said
"Are the constellations merely arbitrary observations that people started to do work with and which then became an integrated part of some thought system, or do they actually have topologically important properties? And in that case, naturally, what properties?"
The evidence is that the zodiacal divisions (12 equal zones measured along the ecliptic) are actual facts of nature.
But the images put on the star patterns are essentially useful projections by observers spying fanciful designs.
Different cultures have labelled these differently. I have a lecture I used to give a lot that shows the different symbols varying cultures have placed on the zodiacal zones, and identifies the common archetypal essence behind each set - showing that different cultures have been attempting to express a single idea for each sign, but have used different synmbols to do it.
You might want to read some of the introductory essays on <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.solunars.net">www.solunars.net</a><!-- w -->
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Thank you as always, Jim!
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I would like to piggyback on this thread because I have a related question.
Tropical astrology often becomes very hazy about the signs: using decans and cusps to smooth interpretations.
Do "cusps" apply to Sidereal? My general understanding is "no."
I am specifically curious how this applies to out-of-sign aspects. What about a conjunction between, for example, 29 deg Cancer and 01 deg Leo? How could planets in those two signs still be "in sync" with each other, as a conjunction would imply? Wouldn't the idea of a cusp-like blend be necessary?
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@Escarabaj said
"Do "cusps" apply to Sidereal?"
Nope. Not a single second of arc.
"I am specifically curious how this applies to out-of-sign aspects."
Aspects are entirely separate from sign placements. Whether it is "in" or "out" of signs that have the same aspect relationship, two planets (say) 3°19' from exact opposition to each other are still closely opposite each other, even if one is in late Sagittarius and the other in early Cancer (for example).
In your Cancer-Leo conjunction example: No, there isn't a cusp issue per se; but each planet has its own sign influence. Mars in Cancer conjunct Venus in Leo is going to be, foremost, a Venus-Mars conjunction; but (as separate data) there is also a Mars in Cancer influence, and a Venus in Leo influence.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Malaclypse said
"Are the constellations merely arbitrary observations that people started to do work with and which then became an integrated part of some thought system, or do they actually have topologically important properties? And in that case, naturally, what properties?"The evidence is that the zodiacal divisions (12 equal zones measured along the ecliptic) are actual facts of nature."
What evidence is there in nature of 12 divisions?
I always assumed it was the moons in the year but it's closer to 13.
Is it related to the dodecahedral field of the Human, Earth, and Universe? -
@Middleman said
"What evidence is there in nature of 12 divisions?"
I wrote that the evidence showed that they are "facts of nature." I suspect you took that as, "I can see it in nature." I meant, though, that the method of science discloses them as actualities, meaning that they exist in the actual, natural world.
The studies in question are summarized in introductory essays on <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.solunars.net">www.solunars.net</a><!-- w --> in the "General" section. A detailed publication of them, though, would take a fairly thick book that nobody has written - those of us that have been involved in them tend to know the dozens of different places they can be found (often obscure), and so the intro essays just mentioned are somewhat brief summaries.
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@Escarabaj said
"I would like to piggyback on this thread because I have a related question.
Tropical astrology often becomes very hazy about the signs: using decans and cusps to smooth interpretations.
Do "cusps" apply to Sidereal? My general understanding is "no."
I am specifically curious how this applies to out-of-sign aspects. What about a conjunction between, for example, 29 deg Cancer and 01 deg Leo? How could planets in those two signs still be "in sync" with each other, as a conjunction would imply? Wouldn't the idea of a cusp-like blend be necessary?"
In my personal experience, I've found that cusps apply in a variety of instances. For instance: a Virgo native with the sun in the first degree is apt to have traits Leonian in nature. Generally the cusps do not apply, and I myself am inclined to follow tradition in this respect, were it for the fact that I've seen so many natives , especially on the Leo/Virgo or Cancer/Leo cusp, disprove the rule that cusps do not apply.
A further complication to this matter is the fact that Mercury often lies in an adjacent sign to the sun.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Middleman said
"What evidence is there in nature of 12 divisions?"I wrote that the evidence showed that they are "facts of nature." I suspect you took that as, "I can see it in nature." I meant, though, that the method of science discloses them as actualities, meaning that they exist in the actual, natural world."
Sorry if I misunderstood, I thought you meant the evidence of the number of divisions not evidence of astrology's validity.
So why is it 12 and not 13 in sync with Luna?
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@Middleman said
"So why is it 12 and not 13 in sync with Luna?"
I dunno - especially since astrology, until relatively modern times (say, the last 1,500 years) was substantially more lunar than solar.
Except... that question presumes that the zodiac is of terrestrial origin. I don't think so at all - it can't be. It's inherently celestial. I think it most likely that this "twelving" would be observed on any planet in the universe, or in open space, and has nothing inherently to do with humanity, earth, this solar system, etc.
PS - The Moon orbits the Earth in 27.3 days, which means that, in 365.25 days, it will complete 13.4 cycles. But the time between two consecutive New Moons is 29.53 days, so 12.4 are completed. The lunar argument from the synodic p.o.v. (the most likely cycle used) supports twelving far more.
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@JPF said
"In my personal experience, I've found that cusps apply in a variety of instances. For instance: a Virgo native with the sun in the first degree is apt to have traits Leonian in nature."
Uh... what I can say? ... you've just given a great anecdotal justification for the Sidereal zodiac.
Those people who have the sun in the early degrees of (say) Tropical Virgo actually have the Sun in (Sidereal) Leo. It's no wonder they show Leo traits!
Those is a frequent early point by people with Tropical backgrounds encountering the Sidereal. It's one of the examples of how the Tropical zodiac actually fails. (The best evidence is statistical - but even the anecdotal fails.)
"A further complication to this matter is the fact that Mercury often lies in an adjacent sign to the sun."
That's another last-ditch (or, sadly, sometimes first ditch) argument; but look closely at it. Your statement is only relevant if you give the Mercury-sign comparable weight to the Sun-sign.
In no fashion (in any system) does the Mercury-sign deserve that kind of importance. It has a significance - a very targeted, narrow significance - which does not include an overall description of the character. Its importance compared to the Sun-sign or Moon-sign is very tiny.
For a discussion of Mercury's sign placement (Sidereal, of course), see:
olunars.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=74 -
@Jim Eshelman said
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@JPF said
"In my personal experience, I've found that cusps apply in a variety of instances. For instance: a Virgo native with the sun in the first degree is apt to have traits Leonian in nature."Uh... what I can say? ... you've just given a great anecdotal justification for the Sidereal zodiac.
Those people who have the sun in the early degrees of (say) Tropical Virgo actually have the Sun in (Sidereal) Leo. It's no wonder they show Leo traits!
Those is a frequent early point by people with Tropical backgrounds encountering the Sidereal. It's one of the examples of how the Tropical zodiac actually fails. (The best evidence is statistical - but even the anecdotal fails.)
In no fashion (in any system) does the Mercury-sign deserve that kind of importance. It has a significance - a very targeted, narrow significance - which does not include an overall description of the character. Its importance compared to the Sun-sign or Moon-sign is very tiny."
I was speaking in Sidereal terms. I haven't practiced Tropical astrology for some time. From a *non-Tropical *perspective I find that a native whose Sun lies on the cusp is apt to partake of both natures.
Also, a native with the Sun in Leo and Mercury in Virgo is apt to be much different than Mercury in Leo or Cancer. Such is my experience.
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I'd agree there is at least some difference - but when I group all the people in my files per Sun-sign divided by Mercury sign (as if it were three different versions of the same Sun-sign), the groups aren't easily distinguishable from each other.
The one place I'm aware of what looks like a cuspal influence is in the first pentade of Sagittarius. For a few years, I actually thought there was a Scorpio bleed-over - then I realized that the Galactic Center is at 2 Sagittarius, and all of the "hub-like" Scorpio traits I was seeing in very early Sag were apparently the effect of conjunction with the GC. This was confirmed when the hub-like people all turned out to have their Sun within a degree and a half of 2 Sag 06 - it didn't persist in the earliest half degree of Sagittarius.
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@Jim Eshelman said
" The one place I'm aware of what looks like a cuspal influence is in the first pentade of Sagittarius."
Having a lover with the Sun in first degree Virgo has made the whole cusp thing brutally personal. Not only does she think herself Lord of the Manor, but she sees fit to clean every corner of it! I could cite my mother, also, whose Sun is so graciously resplendant in the last degree of Aries. But let's not get into that...
Also, there are a pair of Pisceans who come to mind, one with Mercury in Aries, and the other somewhat crippled in Pisces. Major difference in attitudes. checks files It also appears that every one of my former girlfriends has had the Sun at a Leo or Aries cusp! Gasp!
It seems I am a sort of Astrological martyr.
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@JPF said
"Having a lover with the Sun in first degree Virgo has made the whole cusp thing brutally personal. Not only does she think herself Lord of the Manor, but she sees fit to clean every corner of it! I could cite my mother, also, whose Sun is so graciously resplendant in the last degree of Aries. But let's not get into that..."
It would be worth having full birth data to see the charts as a whole.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@JPF said
"Having a lover with the Sun in first degree Virgo has made the whole cusp thing brutally personal. Not only does she think herself Lord of the Manor, but she sees fit to clean every corner of it! I could cite my mother, also, whose Sun is so graciously resplendant in the last degree of Aries. But let's not get into that..."It would be worth having full birth data to see the charts as a whole."
It's unfortunate that not everybody knows their hour of birth. As far as the former is concerned, I have Sept. 18, 1989, Hollywood, CA, 9:26 AM. And my mother's I forget; I just have her positions jotted down in my notes. Both suns are part of a larger complex, however, so it's difficult to use the charts as evidence of a pure sun-cusp relationship. That is a major problem with Astrology: it's so easy to make an arguement for any conclusion. Even Tropical Astrologers seem to hit the mark to some extent. (This is probably because the planetary aspects remain the same, as does their place in the houses.)
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Hee hee. The Virgo girlfriend who "think[s] herself Lord of the Manor" has an Aries Moon and a close Sun-Mars conjunction.
I stayed away from complicated stuff. No reason. Seeing that she was a Virgo-Aries was enough.
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93,
"Except... that question presumes that the zodiac is of terrestrial origin. I don't think so at all - it can't be. It's inherently celestial. I think it most likely that this "twelving" would be observed on any planet in the universe, or in open space, and has nothing inherently to do with humanity, earth, this solar system, etc."
I find that very interesting.
Recently I got kinda fed up with the last 15 years of my personal experience being so uniquely weird (I feel like I'm the lone ranger), and decided to actually google a variety of number combinations and terms that my inner world can't shut up about. I thought maybe I would find some other equally loony soul who might also think they were alone. I found a bunch of info instead on 'gnosticism'. Now this is funny because although I knew nothing of that really until a few days ago (and my info is limited to wiki), I'm technically part of a gnostic order/church, but apparently whatever I thought gnostic meant (if I ever gave this thought beyond "one who knows, allegedly") isn't what I thought.
One of the unique weirdnesses I mentioned of my inner world is that after a dozen years of working (not very proactively) with what I call "the Four", where I am 4th of 4 that make up some larger identity, a few years ago they insisted I start integrating with this group of others. I was very threatened by it so it took me 3 years instead of 3 months. I came to understand they "composed me". Whereas the four of us had combined, chakras lit up and connected and branched out that Tree of Life thing in 3D, these were different; they showed me that each of them had a different small pattern of lights, like a constellation inside them. When I realized they weren't guides, and asked what to call them, they told me "Aeons." I thought this was retarded, it's a time-word and seemed inapplicable, plus IMO it sounds like some woo-woo thing made up to sound more occultish. So I ignored this, until I got it for about the 10th time, then finally apologized and started using that term.
Well it turns out that thanks to google and wiki, I just recently find that this old gnosticism sect (I assume it's long dead) has some similar model of inner-cosmology. What they are describing is just what I've been experiencing. Yet they describe it as if only 'the christ' or whatever is of this nature (4/12)--obviously if even a proletarian like me is of this nature then surely all humans are. Their doctrine is something like, there are the 4 Aeons of Light, and 12 Aeons 'compose' one. I found it kind of astounding. Apparently there's even something in there about one of the four 'hiding' so some kind of entities they call Archons wouldn't know about him--which is also interesting since I've had that exact scenario in a powerful dream about my mate/twin in the Four. (Although in theory as we are 2 and 2 on first merge, then 1, we are also 7.) I look back now on the mid-90s and I understand, thanks to better educated friends explaining it to me, that my experiences were predictable, when to me I was clueless so they were just bizarre and confusing. I think maybe I'm still kind of in that mode. I guess I kinda wish I'd known sooner, it would have felt validating. On the other hand it might also have created expectations I could do without.
Anyway, to me it is really beginning to seem like maybe that whole concept of "every man and every woman is a star" might be a great deal more ... ah, literal, than seems possible to my logical mind, at least outside meditative states. I was thinking it was just me, but after seeing this stuff is actually recorded from some time ago, now I'm wondering if maybe there is something to that and it really does relate to what you might call the larger, more complex structure of souls, group souls, whatever. Maybe my Aeons really ARE constellations on some level, and I'm the solar star. The meditations I've had that drop me into some kind of space are sometimes very powerful. I had one experience where I understood that a universe was "an idea incarnate." We're part of that so maybe it's all based on the same core idea (number/fractal/pattern).
So what I'm (finally) getting to is this: maybe it's all sort of holographic. Maybe we are created in 12 somewhat fluid... er, pieces, although that's SO the wrong word, I know... and maybe our galaxy has 12 constellations because we do as well, and the "as above, so below" thing just gets taken to a literal extreme that you have to be seriously altered state to... take seriously, maybe.
"Seeing that she was a Virgo-Aries was enough."
Funny. I don't know much about astrology. I have a friend serious about it for many decades who did my natal chart once. I have four planets including sun and mercury in virgo; both venus and mars in scorpio; aries rising; taurus moon. So far all I've gotten out of that is that it's probably good for blaming something on.
I'm hoping to address a lot more of astrology in archetype work but the last Tarot card I did kicked my ass and took me six months to get fully through (Knight of Wands) -- that's what I get for letting my inner guide suggest one, she probably picked the hardest one in the deck or something LOL -- so at this rate I'm going to need to live for several centuries to cover even half the topics I'd like!
93 93/93
RC -
I love the conceptual language you've discovered with... what do you want to call it? ...the "rest of yourself."
It's very difficult to comment on other people's experiences and sometimes unwise. There are several root concepts in there that I can definitely relate to after some pretty crazy experiences of my own, and my hunch is that there are others here who can relate as well. For me, it was especially the bit about the constellations and us being more "literally" stars than might make sense in language of the left-brain. "Constellated consciousnesses" might work better, to spin a word from Jung.
For me, though, it was as if all sorts of information had been stuffed down in my unconscious and sealed up tight. When it all finally came out, technically speaking, ...I went nuts for a while and almost lost my wife and blew my life apart! And that was only last year, so... lol... what does it mean that I can relate to you?
Like I said, it's difficult to comment on other people's experiences, but I couldn't stand to see you put all that out there and not have anyone respond.Peace.
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RedCairo,
Interesting post. If science is your thing you might want to look at something called the "holographic principle" - and you mention the term "holographic" - I'm not sure if that is your intuitive description or whether you've been reading science textbooks recently! To me, The holographic Principle it is the most thelemic scientific principle I've ever come across.
In Layman's terms, basically, scientists have a problem describing matter inside of a black hole because it collapses to an infinitesimally small point. We can no longer think of atoms, quarks or strings as being fixed sizes of arbitrary units to describe space, so we have to look at the gravitational boundary of the black hole (the event horizon) and plot arbitrary units on that spherical gravitational boundary in order to describe the matter in the black hole.
What scientists found was that they had to also apply this mathematical schema to an object that was collapsing into a black hole (imagine a room collapsing in on itself due to it's massive gravity for example, where the walls are defined as the boundary and onto which are mapped aribrary units describing the matter inside the room), and that the old physics schemas didn't describe this scenario properly. Moreover they can also apply the schema to ordinary space-time as a valid mathematical description, (but never had to do this in the past because the old models worked just fine).
The implication is that the way we think of space as being these fixed sized unit of matter is incorrect, rather we should see it as a projection from the boundary of an arbitrary area of space inward to the centre. Nuit and Hadit! The perceived and the perceiver! Now physicists are cautious to say that space-time really IS a kind of hologram (probably for fear of ridicule at this point) so they're just saying that mathematically this is a better model. I say that that is so probably because it really IS so but the mainstream always takes it times with revolutionary ideas. I cannot think of anything more awesome than 'proving' Thelemic principles scientifically.
Anyway, that's the scientific side of things. On the mystical side, do some research into Crowley's vision of "the Star Sponge".