From: eshin@ddsw1.mcs.com (Eshin-Fun)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.sabaean,alt.pagan,alt.magick,alt.astrology
Subject: Re: Old Stars, New Stars  (was Re: HALLOW'EEN)
Date: 2 Oct 92 12:06:26 GMT
Organization: ddsw1.MCS.COM Contributor, Chicago IL
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3

>>pciszek@nyx.cs.du.edu (Paul Ciszek) writes:
: eshin@ddsw1.mcs.com (Eshin-Fun) writes:
: 
: >In the year 2170 B.C. is the date at which the Pleiades really opened the
: >spring season by their midnight culmination.
: 
: In which case, the culmination of the Pleiades is now about two months out of
: synch with spring.  My point stands; stellar relationships with the seasons
: that worked for the ancients won't work today.<<

Exactly!

: 
: >Unfortunately too many people have forgotten the stellar relationships that
: >have influenced our societies throughout the world. Only now is science
: >begining to make an effort with "Archeoastronomy" to recognize that "fact".
: 
: "Only now?"  Astronomy has always been recognized as the oldest science.
: There is nothing new about using ancient records to reconstruct past super-
: novae or metoric impacts.  Heck, how do you think they noticed the precession
: of the equinoxes in the first place?


Unfortunately astrology (knowledge of the stars) remained as title for the
Astromancer (divination by the stars) forcing the use of a new name
Astronomy for those that calculated the movement and observed the position
of the celestial phenomena.


: 
: >Before "newspaper" horoscopy and "star war" sensationalism, farmers could
: >recognize the stars and they worked the field, planted and harvested
: >according to celestial observations that helped to grow their crops. Ask
: >that of any farmer or a "Farmer's Almanac".
: 
: And once upon a time astrologers actually made observations and based their
: divinations on stellar and planetary positions.  This practice declined,
: and today they use data that is about two thousand years out of date; my
: point was that it is possible for certain aspects of astrology to become
: enshrined in tradition and then left behind by the equinox precession.  If
: you continue to associate the culmination of the Pleiades with the vernal
: equinox, you are no better than those newspaper astrologers-- but it sounds
: like you know better.


The origin of a tradition does not justify the error that humanity sustains.
The point of my article was on the origin not justification that it was
still correct.
In the middle ages to view the stars was considered a felony and the habit
to depend on written data may have given to the practice of depending on out
of date data. This is why there was so much of a controversy when "Sidereal
Astrology" came out of the closet some years ago Becasue it depended on the
actual stellar configuration of a native at birth rather than the Ptolomaic
configuraions that were too all outdated by the precession of the
equinoxes.


: 
: >Hmmmmm..perhaps your urban influences have dulled your senses....
: 
: If you mean reading books has made me nearsighted, the answer is yes.  But
: a good pair of glasses and a clear Colorado night give me a better view of
: the stars than most people ever see.  Here, seeing the "dark" side of the
: crescent moon illuminated by earthlight is the rule rather than the
: exception.


I apologize for the apparent condemnation. I suppose it was merely a reflex
having the experience of so many eager admonitions so readily shared by
"children" on the net.
But this is no excuse, at least I can offer one thing mine critics lack, and
that is a contrite apology.

: 
: BTW, a meteorite supposedly landed in Denver today.  I have yet to get the
: details.  Does the person who owns the property it landed on get to keep it?
: 
: --
: Paul Ciszek, pciszek@nyx.cs.du.edu | No nation was ever drunk when wine was
:                                    | cheap.   -- Thomas Jefferson<<

I don't know for sure. But I believe that the government claims ownership of
it as with oil found on an individual's property. But then again I believe
that relative also with the laws of the state in which it fell.


"Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what
happens to him" [yet another Sabaean axiom]

then again... 
"If..men cannot always make history have meaning, then thhey can act so that
their own lives have one." Albert Camus


Eshin-Fun
Newsgroups: alt.religion.sabaean,alt.pagan,talk.religion.newage