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Analytic vs imaginal labelling
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22
comments (22 topical, editorial, 0 pending)
Alternative words
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4.00 / 1
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#22
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by Ray Murphy (
ray@urania_post.office
) on Thu Aug 29th, 2002 at 02:56:51 EDT
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Axel was saying:
In the "Pisces" thread Lorenzo Smerillo wrote:
C*M*F* is so much more sensible than Pie-seize. Who needs all this cute zoo and myth-0-logical droppings anyway: are we astrologers or left-over wannbe ecologists of the phatasmagorical?!"
There are those who will mask all of nature. For them there is...no Paris, but a capital of the Kingdom. - Pascal, Pensées.
I agreed with most or all of Axel's post regarding the use of certain language for various purposes.
It brought to mind the dying maple leaves in their various stages of decay, plastered all over tourist brochures - or I suppose they could be viewed as "beautiful autumn colours".
Same for the tomato; at what point in its decay process, is it most suitable for eating - or should we be just thinking of how nice and ripe they are, rather than the cold hard facts?
Ray
Babylonian
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#19
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by LSmerillo (
kajamanu@rdn.it
) on Mon Aug 19th, 2002 at 22:23:24 EDT
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KG
I see no contradiction. Neugebauer does
not
write 'always' but does write 'hardly ever.' This seems to me very clear English. I am quite aware of the Rochberg material. Fact remains that there were Hellenistic Greek astrologers using the fixed star measurements and thus following the more ancient Babylonian practice which was in place long before the zodiace measurement system was devised in the 5th century. There are numerous examples of cuneiform horoscopic texts evidencing the fixed star system, see Rochberg, and Sachs.
I do not see your point at all. Both fixed stars and zodiac are simply measurement systems. They are not 'essential' or 'ontological' or 'meaningful' in themselves, just tools, as are inches and centimetres.
feliciter,
Lorenzo Smerillo
Babble on
by Axel Harvey,
08/20/2002 13:26:20 EDT (
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Babylonian
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#17
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by LSmerillo (
kajamanu@rdn.it
) on Mon Aug 19th, 2002 at 03:21:32 EDT
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The article to which ML refers is actually, O. Neugebauer, 'The History of Ancient Astronomy, Problems and Methods', JNES 4, 1945:1-38 =
Publications of the Atronomical Society of the Pacific
, 58,(380), 1946: 17-142, at 37-38 =
Astronomy and History
, Springer Verlag, New Yorky, Berlin etc., 1983:53-54.
The passage KG quotes from
Considerations
is properly referenced as O. Neugebauer,
Studies in the History of Science
, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, 1941, p. 16.
The Babylonian 30/12 +5 claendar was used for 'business transactions, payment of interest etc.' (ON, in
Isis
37, 1947:37).
The use of this claendar is amply attested. The Seleucid lunar calculations were referenced to find the correspondant date of the civil claendar in this. As in Egypt, both calendars co-existed and were used without conflict. Neugebauer also sees their development as having the same simple mathematical average at base; cf. O. Neugebauer, 'The Origin of the Egyptian Calendar,' JNES 1, 1942: p. 398:
'the fact that the 30-day months are by no means peculiar to Egypt but play a very important role also in Mesopotamia';
p. 400-401
It is amply testified from Babylonia sources... beside the real lunar calendar there was a schematic calendar of twelve months of 30 days each, regardless of the moon... But it is interesting to see that this schematic year was also in use in astronomical texts. Solstices and equinoxes are listed as falling on the fithteenth of the Months I, IV, VII and X, although everybody knew that the dates in the real lunar calendar would be totally different in almost all cases... This use of the schematic claendar in an astronomical context is especially important: it demonstrates clearly that the schematic dates do not represent an attempt to approximate as closely as possible the real facts but merely constitute a way of expressing future dates in round numbers according to a general scheme whose exact relation to the real lunar calendar remains to be established later on when actually needed[;'
cf., also Neugebauer,
The Exact Sciences in Antiquity
, index s.v. lunar calendar, etc.;
v, ibid., p. 102-103:
'The zodiac was hardly ever more than a mathematical idealization needed and used exclusively for computory purposes. Actual positions in the sky were expressed until the end of cuneiform writing with reference to well known bright stars.'
Now, THAT is a tom-cat of Twelve amongst the pigeons, isn't it, Marilynn?
As for the quote that KG gives, I would rather think that Neugebauer has performed a slight slip of eytmological significance. Merely because a word has a root meaning, does not mean that that meaning is carried through at all times and places. Were this to be so, whenever I called someone 'nice' I would really be saying that they are stupid, rather than precise, rather than
simpatico
, which of course does not mean that they are crypto-Buddhists.
By the same token the eytmological reasoning which Neugebauer puts forth is flawed. Homer nods.
feliciter,
Lorenzo Smerillo
Babylonian use of the Zodiac
by ken gillman,
08/19/2002 12:59:28 EDT (
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CCCLX
by Axel Harvey,
08/20/2002 13:40:58 EDT (
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Coincidence
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#16
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by LSmerillo (
kajamanu@rdn.it
) on Mon Aug 19th, 2002 at 02:46:02 EDT
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Axel wrote:
Since the division of the circle into 12 is used for a great many things, not just for reading the
significance of positions of the Sun, Moon, and Earth, why should it be related to the cycles of those bodies? Also, the fact that an idea started out by coincidence as a (perhaps) arbitrary convention in no way invalidates that idea, which must be dealt with as it stands.
My statement is, oc ourse, contextualised by the oft recited mantra that 12 is a number used in astrology because of the soli-lunar relationship over the course of a solar year. Something between 12 and 13 would of course be more accurate. This is sometimes 'evidenced' by there being 12 months and 12 signs as an undoubted equivalency, or significant symbolic coincidence, and supposed to be based on astronomical relationships as well. Interesting, but hardly the stuff of serious discussion. And numbers are many which are used in astrology, but number significance is a flattening of Pythgorean beans.
Any idea, 'A' must be dealt with in several congruent ways.
] in its own historical, textual context;
a] without the interference noise of post factum spin or nachlieben;
] as a sociological or anthropological phenomenon and
a] = 1a]
] if 1] shows that the noise of 1a] is insignificant (i.e., unjustified in the 'significance' given to idea A, then that 'significance' becomes a matter for study as 2]; but otherwise would still have to satisfy :
] a set of methods designed to describe and interpret phenomena past or present aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation.
The '12' is as the earth is the centre of the universe.
feliciter,
Lorenzo Smerillo
ab origine
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#11
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by LSmerillo (
kajamanu@rdn.it
) on Tue Aug 13th, 2002 at 23:05:51 EDT
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By the same token etymology should make us mute.
Perfection is rare virtue! But that did not stop Varro, Cicero, Gellius and Isidorus et al.
buone vacanze!
feliciter,
Lorenzo Smerillo
EAE & Calendar
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#10
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by LSmerillo (
kajamanu@rdn.it
) on Tue Aug 13th, 2002 at 23:01:17 EDT
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ML:
I would seriously doubt that your unreported reading is correct, as there can be no 'opposition' without a measurement system of the eliptic, which surely was not available to the compliers of EAE, should you be intending 'opposition' as an astrological aspect. Perhaps 'hostile' better. Even if not, it would be rather more than difficut to
see
as an celestial relationship given the horizon. But as 'opposite' would depend on 'to what,' would it not? Or it might meant 'next to.' But speculation without texts is not my forte.
KG:
Calandars are of course those known as Assyrien I and Assyrien II, see R. Labat,
Hémérologies et ménologies d'Assur
, Paris 1939; also the Babylonian calendar
Inbu bel arhi
idem, 'Un almanach babylonien (V R 48-49)'
Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale
38, 1941:13ff; idem, 'Nouveaux textes hémérologiques d'Assur',
Mitteilungen des Instituts für Orientforschung
, Band V H.3, 1957:299-345 and S. Langdon,
Babylonian Menologies and Semitic Calendars
, London 1933, see pp. 83-84 and 90-91 discussion of the terms šaputtu (script: UD.15.KAM) mahri_tu 'the first 15th day' and šaputtu arki_tu 'the second 15th day.' More precise astronomical regulation of calendarics were obtained much later in the Seleucid period.
feliciter,
Lorenzo Smerillo
EAE
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#7
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by LSmerillo (
kajamanu@rdn.it
) on Tue Aug 13th, 2002 at 18:37:29 EDT
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Should that read EAE 67?
Could you cite the text, as I am certain not everyone has it at their elbow?
LS
EAE
by Ailouros tou Dwdekawrou,
08/13/2002 20:09:48 EDT (
4.00 / 1
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UrTalk
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#5
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by Rab (
rab@peterboro.net
) on Tue Aug 13th, 2002 at 16:47:35 EDT
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http://www.astrocyclics.com
I agree with everyone, to some extent.
It's fairly obvious that our views are unlikely to change
much, and that further discussion will only produce
elaborations on favoured themes -- unless there's intent
to reach agreement, discover common ground, or create a
synthesis. (Better proponents (than those we see here) of
constrasting views/percepts would be, BTW, not easy to find).
Lorenzo position seems to represent a tough, narrow view that
is not simply an antidote to infinitely flexible interpretation
but also a check on premature synthesis or hoped-for balance
that (in my view) cannot be achieved without more homework
and much more attention to some things he advocates.
More substantive and fruitful discussion could result, however,
from a practical rather than mainly theoretical focus. A common
research project, for example, that could be tackled variously
and individually. As it is, we do our own thing and argue from
that without benefit of a common goal and experiences.
-=Rab
http://www.astrocyclics.com
Fruit, Substance, Project
by lemnisc8,
08/14/2002 10:38:48 EDT (
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analystic vs imaginal
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#3
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by LSmerillo (
kajamanu@rdn.it
) on Tue Aug 13th, 2002 at 15:28:52 EDT
(
User Info
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Axel wrote:
...Or consider traditional measures: boards were measured in feet, horses in hands, long distances in leagues. Everything had the measure that was
appropriate to it: one wouldn't measure horses in fractions of a league, or the road from Milan to Avignon in hands.
This is precisely the point, triplicies and quadruplicies are different measures.
The quadruplicies are Aristotelean categories of matter, carried over from the Pre-Socratics, and still preserved most profitably outside asrology in charades. Triplicies are the result of Babylonian scholastic omina measurement, following the schematic (non-astral by the way) of left right, above and below, or front and back. The names of the signs are linked to nomadic weather and seasonal marker stars, when not overlaid by other more recent considerations. What a goat-fish is outside of mythological zoephantasm I would not know. The historical point of view sees all these as interesting fossils in the history of science and anthropology, but little else. The are cultural relics. I think astrology functions better without them, and with them remains at the level of the trite statement and the banal, as Bill's original Pisces post showed in a reductio ad absurbam. That the Babylonians measured the sky after the fifth century in sexagesimal notation made the development of astrological techniques mathematically possible, given the factors of 60 or 360 [as Rochberg has shown, squares, triangles and sextiles are Babylonian, not Hellensitic developments]. The choice of twelve equal thirty degree segments is the direct result of the application of the 30-day Babylonian calendar to the celstial arc. That 12 is a factor of this relationship is a mathematical coincidence and no more. It certainly does not correspond to the actual time/movement relationship of earth and sun, nor of the moon/earth.
Both modes of thought are needed.
I can see this statement is offered with no evidence.
feliciter,
Lorenzo Smerillo
Coincidence is not an argument
by Axel Harvey,
08/14/2002 10:43:53 EDT (
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Ab origine
by Axel Harvey,
08/13/2002 19:30:01 EDT (
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30-day Babylonian calendar !!!
by ken gillman,
08/13/2002 18:34:48 EDT (
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Babylonian origin of degrees, houses
by ken gillman,
08/14/2002 14:16:52 EDT (
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360, dikhu, coincidence
by Ailouros tou Dwdekawrou,
08/14/2002 15:18:20 EDT (
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Aristotlean rock, paper, scissors
by Ailouros tou Dwdekawrou,
08/13/2002 16:30:33 EDT (
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Analytic vs. Imaginal Labeling
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#1
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by Lenore on Tue Aug 13th, 2002 at 01:57:16 EDT
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Axel wrote:
It is absurd to insist that one semantic habit
should prevail; human survival depends on the
availability of different ways of grabbing
reality.
There is a time to say "Paris" and another time
to say "the capital of France". It is the same
with "Capricorn" and "Cardinal Earth". A
working astrologer must translate the sky for
differet purposes into many different possible
levels and colours of life.
Exactly. Both analytic and imaginal -- or quantitative and qualitative -- labeling are tools to help us express the multifaceted insights we gain through astrological analysis. We are not merely number-crunchers.
Mathematics lends precision to our work, but our clients come to us seeking more than precision. They seek understanding of the intangible, often the unsayable. We capture those concepts indirectly through nuance, myth, symbol and association. Astrology is extraordinary
because
of its capacity to embrace the elusive and the abstract. It does so with science and with poetry. Why would we limit our perspective to a narrow, numerical, earthly view when we have the entire universe to play with?
~Lenore
Dichotomies
by Axel Harvey,
08/13/2002 11:50:49 EDT (
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)
Analytic vs imaginal labelling
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22
comments (22 topical, 0 editorial, 0 pending)
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