Informação: Natal e Ano Novo 2020

 

O Sol Negro, a Luz da Escuridão, Jung e a Psicologia Profunda: Exemplo Textual

 

Marlan, S., 2005, The Black Sun: The alchemy and art of darkness,11-2.

  Jung’s exploration was influenced by the seventeenth-century alchemist Mylius, who refers to the ancient philosophers as the source of our knowledge about Sol niger. In several places in his collected works, Jung writes of Sol niger as a powerful and important image of the unconscious. To consider the image in the context of the unconscious is both to recognize its vastness and unknown quality as well as to place it in the historical context of depth psychology and of the psyche’s attempt to represent the unrepresentable. Imagining Sol niger in this way is to see it in its most general sense, but Jung has also extracted from the alchemical literature a rich and complex, if scattered, phenomenology of the image. The black sun, blackness, putrefactio, mortificatio, the nigredo, poisoning, torture, killing, decomposition, rotting, and death all form a web of interrelationships that describe a terrifying, if most often provisional, eclipse of consciousness or of our conscious standpoint. 

  The nigredo, the initial black stage of the alchemical opus, has been considered the most negative and difficult operation in alchemy. It is also one of the most numinous, but few authors other than Jung have explored the theme in its many facets. In addition to the aspects just described, Jung also finds in this image of blackness a nonmanifest latency, a shadow of the sun, as well as an Other Sun, linked to both Saturn and Yahweh, the primus anthropos. For the most part, Sol niger is equated with and understood only in its nigredo aspect, while its more sublime dimension—its shine, its dark illumination, its Eros and wisdom— remains in the unconscious. 

  I imagine my work on the black sun as an experiment in alchemical psychology. It is concerned with this difficult and enigmatic image and with our understanding of darkness. My contention is that darkness historically has not been treated hospitably and that it has remained in the unconscious and become a metaphor for it. It has been seen primarily in its negative aspect and as a secondary phenomenon, itself constituting a shadow—something to integrate, to move through and beyond. In so doing, its intrinsic importance is often passed over. This attitude has also been perpetuated in alchemy, which places darkness at the beginning of the work and sees it primarily in terms of the nigredo. Yet in its usage of the black sun there is a hint of a darkness that shines. It is this shine of the paradoxical image that captures my attention. How is it possible to imagine a darkness filled with light or a shine that contains the qualities of both light and darkness? 

  Jung has noted that darkness “has its own peculiar intellect and its own logic which should be taken very seriously,” and it is my intent to give darkness its due—not to rush beyond it but to enter its realm to learn more about its mysteries. To turn toward darkness in this way is an odd reversal of our ordinary propensity. To more fully understand the turn toward darkness it is first important to pause and consider how much the historical primacy of light has infused our understanding of consciousness itself. 

  The image of light and its corresponding metaphor of the sun are fundamentally intertwined with the history of consciousness. Our language demonstrates the pervasiveness of these images, and it is difficult to envision a way of thinking that does not rely on them. In myth, science, philosophy, religion, and alchemy we find these metaphors widely disseminated. Our language is filled with metaphors of illumination: to bring to light, to make clear, to enlighten, and so on, all serve in these and in many other contexts.

Marlan, S., 2005, The Black Sun: The alchemy and art of darkness. College Station: Texas A & M University Press.

A Lua, a Deusa Selene, os Carros Celestes, a Fertilidade e os Casamentos: Exemplo Textual

Ní Mheallaigh, K., 2020, The Moon in the Greek and Roman Imagination: Myth, Literature, Science and Philosophy, 13-5.

The image of the celestial deities Helios and Selene traversing the sky either on horseback (usually Selene) or driving a horse-drawn chariot (usually Helios) was ubiquitous in ancient visual culture. Their mobility –they are always in transit– emphasized their inseparable connection withthe passage of time. The most conspicuous of the images that survive, arguably, are Pheidias’ sculptures of the birth of Athena on the eastern pediment of the Parthenon in Athens (428BC–432BC), which showed Helios’ chariot springing up over the eastern horizon, while on the otherside Selene’s tired horses sank over the west. This traditional imagery also infiltrated private spaces on cups and jars, objects whose circular shape androtation could re-enact the motions of the celestial deities, as Squire has argued for Tabula 4N. Although never regarded as one of the major Greek gods, Selene was identified with other goddesses such as Artemis and Hecate and Aphrodite of the Heavens. She was also worshipped in more intimate, domestic settings, on which level her importance was probably pervasive.

The Moon’s phases were critical markers for religious worship of many different sorts. Religious festivals tended to cluster around the full Moon, no doubt in order to avail of the light it offered for nocturnal celebrations; in the eighteenth century, similarly, the learned society of the ‘Lunar Men’would hold their monthly meetings on the same evening in order to take advantage of precisely these conditions. It is for this reason that a Greek epigrammatist hails the Moon as‘Selene, friend of all-night festivals’, and a fragment of Sappho’s poetry describes women gathering around an altar at full Moon (‘the Moon appeared full,/ and they stood around an altar...’). As we shall shortly see, this was likely to have been the occasion for the ritual that was celebrated in one of Alcman’s enigmatic Spartan songs as well. The new Moon was also important for a variety of purposes, e.g. the collection of debts, while both new and full Moon were considered propitious for weddings: in the case of the full Moon, probably because of the implications of fertility, while the new Moon was significant for marking the transition from an old cycle to the new. These associations conspired to make the‘old and new Moon’in theOdyssey a particularly ominous time for the return of Odysseus to his household, bringing with him the exaction of debts, the transition from the old regimeto the new and the reunion of husband and wife.

Ní Mheallaigh, K., 2020, The Moon in the Greek and Roman Imagination: Myth, Literature, Science and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cheque Oferta: Natal 2020

 

Neste Natal e com estes tempos incertos, ofereça a quem precise de orientação uma Consulta de Astrologia ou Tarot.

Dadas as Consultas Presenciais estarem suspensas, a consulta será realizada à distância através de Skype, Google Meet ou Zoom.

O Cheque Oferta tem uma Validade de 6 meses, estando a consulta sujeita a disponibilidade de agenda e a marcação.

Assista ao vídeo de apresentação das consultas em http://rodolfomigueldefigueiredo.blogspot.com/2020/11/apresentacao-das-consultas-de.html

Conheça as várias modalidades de consulta e consulte os seus preços em

https://rodolfomfigueiredo.wixsite.com/astrologia-e-tarot/consultas

ou

http://rodolfomigueldefigueiredo.blogspot.com/p/consultas.html

Para adquirir o seu Cheque Oferta utilize os vários contactos à disposição nestes sítios ou envie mensagem privada. 

Uma Consulta Profissional para Qualquer Parte do Mundo.

#RMdFChequeOferta #RMdFConsultas #RMdFAstrologiaeTarot

Cardano, a Dignidade e Influência Astrológica e o Espírito Crítico: Exemplo Textual

Ernst, G. 2001, “ ‘Veritatis amor dulcissimus’: Aspects of Cardano’s Astrology” in Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe, 48-9.

  Cardano felt compelled to admit that the situation was genuinely difficult and that the critics of astrology had it all too easy. The discipline had in fact been discredited and corrupted, and by its own practitioners. Cardano condemned not the art, but the artisans: they were the ones who failed to bring to its study the attention, effort, and mental profundity a discipline of its nobility and difficulty required. Moved either by greed or by ambition, they claimed to possess knowledge that they did not have and promised to give answers that an astrologer could not provide. They continually invented new expedients, taking shameless advantage of the ambiguous and profitable area of “elections and interrogations.” One particularly greedy and ignorant astrologer, for example, had forced Ludovico Sforza to follow minute rules, even making him and his courtiers ride horseback in rain and mud. 

   Astrology, Cardano admitted, was not an “absolutely precise” form of knowledge, endowed with absolute certainty and rigor. But that did not mean that it was “a superstition, a form of prophecy, magic, vanity, an oracle or a presage.” It was a natural, conjectural art that set out to formulate probable judgments about future events. There was no reason to deny the legitimacy of doing so, especially when it was granted to doctors, sailors, farmers, and miners. 

   The one basic presupposition on which astrology rested was the reality of the influence that the celestial bodies exercised on the sublunary world.These influences, obvious in the case of the sun and the moon, which werethe supreme rulers of the life of the universe, undeniably also belonged by extension to the planets and the stars, which had the same basic nature. Cardano discussed the question of these influences at length. He tried bothto prove their existence, with a plethora of examples, and to identify the paths by which they were propagated and the ways in which they affected the sublunary world. Only repeated observations could provide the basis for a body of theory as elaborate as that of Ptolemy, which could be confirmed, enlarged, and corrected in its turn by the observation of further facts.

Ernst, G. 2001, “ ‘Veritatis amor dulcissimus’: Aspects of Cardano’s Astrology” in Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe, ed. W. R. Newman & A. Grafton, 39-68. Cambridge, MA/ Londres: The MIT Press.

Apresentação das Consultas de Astrologia e Tarot

 

Saturno e a Melancolia - A Origem das Qualidades Saturninas: Exemplo Textual

 

Klibansky, R., E. Panofsky & F. Saxl, 1979, Saturn and Melancholy,137-8.

The Greeks at first developed the planetary doctrine transmitted to them in classical times in a purely scientific direction. In this, an astrophysical viewpoint seems from the beginning to have been adopted simultaneously with the purely astronomical. 

Epigenes of Byzantium, who is thought to have lived in early Alexandrian times and therefore to have been one of the oldest mediators between Babylon and Hellas, classified Saturn as "cold and windy". The epithet "cold", according both with the planet's great distance from the sun and with the god's great age adhered to Saturn throughout the years and was never questioned. The property of dryness, implied by "windy", on the other hand, came into conflict with the fact that Pythagorean and Orphic texts described the mythical Kronos as just the opposite, namely, as the god of rain or of the sea; and this accounts for the fact that in later, especially in astrological literature, we so often encounter the singular definition "natura frigida et sicca, sed accidentaliter humida", or something of the sort - a contradiction which can only be explained, if at all, with the help of laborious argumentation. 

Whether it was really Posidonius who reduced the elemental qualities of the planets to an orderly system, we would not venture to decide, but it would be safe to say that it was, within the framework of the Stoic system that the doctrine was efldowed with its full meaning. Not till the formation of a cosmological system in which the opposites heat and cold determined the basic structure of the universe, did the qualities hitherto more or less arbitrarily tributed to the stars reveal a general and universally applicable law of nature, valid for both heavenly and earthly things and therefore establishing for the first time a rationally comprehensible connexion between the one set and the other. To Saturn, which was cold because of its distance from the sun (whether the Stoics thought it moist or dry we do not know), everything cold on earth was first related and finally subordinated ; and it is clear that this embodying of planetary qualities in a universal framework of natural laws must have brought the basic tenet of astrology, namely, the dependence of all earthly things and events upon the "influence" of the heavenly bodies, considerably nearer to Greek thought. 

Klibansky, R., E. Panofsky & F. Saxl, 1979, Saturn and Melancholy. Nendeln/ Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint.

Mimésis (Poesia)

Rembrandt, Harmenszoon van Rijin, Scribe sharpening his quill by candlelight, c.1635.
Weimar: Kunstsammlungen.
https://www.wga.hu/

Mimésis

Textualizada a viagem

Da palavra um êxtase

E de chegada o verbo

Corria da letra a sílaba

06/06/2020

RMdF

A Roma Imperial de Augusto e a Ascensão do Signo de Capricórnio: Exemplo Textual

Barton, T. S., 1994, Power and Knowledge: Astrology, Medicine and Physiognomies under the Roman Empire, 40-1.

Astrology was firmly constructed as a legitimator with Augustus’s establishment of the principate. The Iulium sidus belonged to the realm of traditional omens, but the princeps’s publication of his birth sign on coins to be seen all over the empire accorded astrology a new, superior status. Suetonius says that Augustus made his horoscope (thema) public and issued a silver coin with Capricorn, his birth sign, on it. He attributes Octavian’s confidence to a consultation with the astrologer Theogenes in 44 b.c. and sets the publication of the horoscope some unspecified time soon afterward. As Libra was Augustus’ Sun sign, there has long been some debate about the role of Capricorn: both signs are given prominence by the poets. Bouchd-Leclerq and others argue that it was the “chronocrator” of the month of conception (the sign designated as presiding over that month), despite Suetonius’ specification that it was his birth sign. Meanwhile, Riess (1896) and others argue that, as the sign in which the Moon was at the hour of the birth, it was the determining “birth sign.” Gundel (1926) argues that it was the sign in which Augustus’s “Lot of Fortune” was to be found as well as where the Moon was, which would help explain the cases in which Capricorn is to be found portrayed with the attributes of Fortune and Manilius’ use offelix of Capricorn. 

Whatever Capricorn’s precise relation to Augustus’s birth, it is probably significant that it was seen as the birth sign of the Sun, in that the winter solstice takes place in Capricorn. According to Suetonius, he was bom just before the sun rose. As Dwyer (1976) points out, a clever astrologer could have suggested to the young Octavian that Capricorn was an auspicious sign for this reason. Given the associations the princeps cultivated with the sun and Apollo in the early years, it fits well Dwyer himself suggests that, on the basis of Nigidius Figulus’ commentary on the sign of Capricorn, it is to be associated with Pan and his role in restoring the rule of the gods, saving the world from the tyranny of the Titans. He goes further and suggests that, before Actium, the theme of the righteous revenge of the son is implied by the myth narrated by Nigidius. Thus, Capricorn may have first of all symbolized Octavian’s just revenge on the killers of his adoptive father, Julius Caesar, and, only after Actium, liberation from tyranny. Capricorn is also associated with rule over the West in the poets. Dwyer connects Capricorn’s rule over the West with Aeneas’ westward journey. In addition to all this speculation, it is worth noting that Augustus’s principate was inaugurated under Capricorn.

Kraft (1967), who provides photographs of several examples, argues that the appearance of Capricorn on coins from at least 41 /40 B.C. onward is to be linked in another way with Octavian’s careful self-presentation. He claims that the sign was used first of all against Mark Antony. The first surviving coin with the sign of Capricorn may have been minted by Q. Oppius, the praefectus classis (prefect of the fleet) based at Cyrene in 41/40, a partisan of Octavian, who set Capricorn by the head of the Venus of the Julian family, sometimes with the half-moon.Glass pastes and cameos with Capricorn on them, mainly Italian, were also produced before Actium. Examples show Capricorn with a bearded Octavian; or a young Octavian’s head over a ring (Caesar’s signet ring, pointing to his heirship), with Capricorn, com ears and a poppy; or with a child riding on its back over the waves, identified as Octavian and dated to the 40s. Hölscher even identifies one depiction of Capricorn on a glass paste as dating from the period of reconciliation with Antony, as Octavian’s head is placed above the intertwined signs of Capricorn and Leo, Antony’s conception sign. But the sign only played a small role in the public presentation of Octavian before Actium. The first appearance of Capricorn on Augustus’s own coins in 28 B.C. was on the obverse of a denarius (silver coin) from the Eastern mint, together with Augustus’s head, with the crocodile of Egypt and the legend Aegypto capta (Egypt taken), referring to the victory over Antony. Aurei (gold coins) and denarii of the same type followed, while from 27-20 b.c. tetradrachms (coins worth three denarii) from Asia showed Capricorn with a cornucopia on its back.

Barton, T. S., 1994, Power and Knowledge: Astrology, Medicine and Physiognomies under the Roman Empire. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

No Trono de Eurínome (Poesia)

Francken, Frans II, The Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite. 

Private collection 

https://www.wga.hu/

No Trono de Eurínome

Arconte de espuma e voragem

Eleito senhor do mar sem rosto

Ó tridente servo da deusa ninfa

Rainha da água mãe do tempo

Libertai no nosso fim a origem

Memória longínqua da criação

Da senhora trono seu novo rei

Libertai no nosso fim a origem

Um uterino mar de nascimento

Ó equino servo da deusa sereia

Criadora do mundo do humano

Libertai no nosso fim a origem

04/06/2020

RMdF

Seleuco e a Prova da Antiguidade do Heliocentrismo: Exemplo Textual

Russo, L., 2004, The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why it Had to Be Reborn, 311-2.

   Seleucus of Babylon, already encountered on page 88 in connection with the infnity of the universe, was an astronomer from the second century B.C. about whom not much else is known. But Plutarch offers a very interesting testimonium, whose import appears to have been neglected by historians of science: 

Was [Timaeus] giving the earth motion . . . , and should the earth . . . be understood to have been designed not as confned and fixed but as turning and revolving about, in the way expounded later by Aristarchus and Seleucus, the former assuming this as a hypothesis and the latter proving it?

The passage refers to two types of terrestrial motion, rotation and revolution. The verb ἀποφαίνομαι appearing at the end of the passage allows different possibilities for what Seleucus actually did, but the contrast with "as a hypothesis" clearly implies that he found new arguments in support of these motions.

   To state, as Seleucus did, that the sun really is fixed and the earth is moving is equivalent to stating that planetary stations and retrogressions don't just disappear under the assumption that the sun is stationary, as Aristarchus said, but that they really don't exist. That retrogressions and stations are merely apparent is repeated by pre-Ptolemaic Latin sources, including Pliny and Seneca, suggesting that the notion of heliocentrism as a physical reality, far from being exceptional, was well-known. Thus we might hope to find traces of Seleucus' proof in the literature.

   One argument in favor of heliocentrism is what we reconstructed in Section 10.7 based on a passage of Seneca. With the sun as the reference, the planets' motion admits a simple dynamical description, where centrifugal force balances attraction. In a geocentric model this is not so easy to do: if the planets are attracted by the earth, why wouldn't they fall when they stop in the sky? And if not attracted by the earth, why don't they go off forever? One is tempted to deduce that only the motion around the sun is real. Since classical literature contains no other arguments in favor of heliocentrism, it is reasonable to conjecture that the proof that Plutarch attributes to Seleucus is based on the argument just given, which is reported by Seneca.

Russo, L., 2004, The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why it Had to Be Reborn. Berlim/ Heidelberg/ Nova Iorque: Springer Verlag)

A Procedência dos Decanos (Decanatos) e as Origens Egípcias do Horóscopo (Ascendente): Exemplo Textual

 

Greenbaum, D. G. & M. T. Ross, 2010, “The Role of Egypt in the Development of the Horoscope” in Egypt in Transition, 153-4.

Although no ascendant appears in the corpus of extant Babylonian horoscopes, this lack does not negate the cuneiform birth charts as examples of natal astrology. The earliest evidence connects Egypt to the introduction of the ascendant in astrological practice. Balbillus, whose antecedents were probably Egyptian, provides the earliest non-Babylonian literary charts containing cardines in Greek. Balbillus wrote in the first century CE, but his charts were cast for 72 BCE and 43 BCE. The earliest documentary chart containing cardines, Ashmolean D.O. 633, appears in a Demotic context and astronomically corresponds to 38 BCE. The date of composition was probably some time after this date. Barring lacunae, however, subsequent Demotic charts generally contain at least an ascendant. Greek charts follow this standard of composition. In pOxyrhynchus 235, the diagram for a chart dated between 15 and 22 CE contains perpendicular horizontal and vertical lines which divide the circular form of the diagram into quadrants. The author clearly labelled the ascendant, midheaven and lower midheaven angles; though the horizontal line indicates the setting cardine, there is no label for it.

Because of Balbillus’s probable origins, the Demotic context of Ashmolean D.O. 633 and the Egyptian provenance of pOxyrhynchus 235, the cardines display an early and strong connection to Egypt. In fact, the cardines – specifically the most important cardines, the ascendant and midheaven – relate to known Egyptian astronomical practices. A first century CE chart which equates the decans with “36 bright horoscopes” (λ̅ϛ̅ λάμπροι ὡροσκόποι) hints at the practices which may have prompted astrological interest in these positions.45 Before discussing this chart, along with other texts which call decans “horoscopes”, a brief overview of the decan system in Egypt, in particular the origin of rising and transit decans which correlate best with the astrological chart, will be useful.

Greenbaum, D. G. & M. T. Ross, 2010, “The Role of Egypt in the Development of the Horoscope” in Egypt in Transition: Social and Religious Development of Egypt in the First Millennium BCE, ed. L. Bareš, F. Coppens & K. Smolarikova, 146-82. Praga: Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague.

Abu Ma'shar, Al-Kindi, a Grande Conjunção e o Conhecimento por Revelação: Exemplo Textual

 

North, J. D., 1989, Stars, Minds and Fate: Essays in Ancient and Medieval Cosmology, 63-4.

  Abu Ma'shar's work on conjunctions seems to have been much influenced by his teacher al-Kindi, the first great philosopher to have written in the Greek tradition in Arabic. Al-Kindi firmly believed that knowledge through revelation and prophecy is superior to the truths of unaided reason. He wrote on astrology, and, in a letter which is still extant, attempted to predict the duration of the empire of the Arabs on the basis of planetary conjunctions. Broadly speaking, the rarer the conjunction affecting political and religious events, the more potent its force. This is the doctrine central to my survey, and al-Kindi's editor, O. Loth, thought it began with him.

   In order of the slowness with which they traverse the zodiac, Saturn comes first (29.5 years), followed by Jupiter (11.9 years) and then Mars (1.88 years). Roughly speaking, Saturn and Jupiter meet every twenty years, while Mars meets with Jupiter about every two years and with Saturn marginally more often. Although it is impossible to be very precise without being inordinately tedious, we can say that the conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter which are separated by a triple period, that is, about sixty years, will occur rather less than ten degrees apart. They can therefore occur within a single sign (30°) of the zodiac, if the first of the trio is close enough to the beginning of the sign. The character of the sign in which the conjunction occurred was thought to be important, but for the moment we need not go into details. Since the three signs in which successive conjunctions occur are likely to be equally spaced, comprising what is called a triplicity, three suitably chosen conjunctions in a series will be associated with one triplicity - which like the signs themselves was thought to have characteristic properties (fiery, earthy, aery, or watery, and so on). he successive conjunctions, occurring every 20 years, are simply the 'great conjunctions' of the title of Albumasar's book. There was also defined a coniunctio maior, which took place every 240 years, and a coniunctio maxima, which occurred every 960 years. The definitions of these were frequently misunderstood. Bacon, for example, gives a very hazy account in his Opus maius, and leaves us with the impression that he was paraphrasing Albumasar very carelessly. I will explain the periods of 240 and 960 years briefly, and those whose sympathies are with Bacon may omit the next paragraph. 

   Albumasar opens his Great Conjunctions with a detailed and rather precise account of the mean movements of Jupiter and Saturn, which we can summarize by saying that the conjunctions marked '0' and '3' in the series on the accompanying diagram will be thrice times 2°25'17"10'"6'v apart, or about 7 1/4º.11 We begin as near as possible to the beginning of Aries, in the fiery triplicity. Conjunction number 13, however, will fall into a new triplicity. If we reckon 20 years between great conjunctions, then the 'greater conjunction', when we pass from one triplicity to the next, should happen after 260 years; or, as Albumasar has it, the conjunctions may stay within a triplicity for about 240 years. They will then, by a loose extension of the argument, be in other triplicities for three similar periods, making 960 years in all, after which they will return to the original triplicity. Coniunctio maxima is that conjunction which marks the return to Aries. By virtue of the retrogradations of the planets in practice, and the fact that the figures quoted for the angles are not convenient sub-multiples of 360°, the argument is not precise and not worth discussing in any greater detail.12 What matters is that henceforth those who wished to find patterns in history had three convenient historical periods to conjure with, namely periods of 20, 240, and 960 years.

North, J. D., 1989, Stars, Minds and Fate: Essays in Ancient and Medieval Cosmology. Londres/ Ronceverte: The Hambledon Press.

Da Clepsidra o Vendaval (Poesia)

 

Bellini, Giovanni, The Feast of the Gods, 1514. Washington: National Gallery of Art.

Da Clepsidra o Vendaval

Entram sem rosto denso

No antiquário da história

Na poeira das afinidades

Nos recantos da alegoria

Recuperando do passado

Das ruínas os estilhaços

Os fragmentos de um ser

Da memória resgatados

19 de Maio de 2020

RMdF

Kleper, a Astrologia e os seus 1.170 Horóscopos

 

Rublack, U., 2015, The Astronomer & the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for his Mother,135.

In the late sixteenth century, people usually explained personalities through astrology. Astrology formed a routine part of elite education, and was part of many universities’ curricula. Kepler, too, had learnt to cast horoscopes and predict the weather in Tübingen as part of studying mathematics, which in turn was integral to studying theology and the arts. During his career, he went on to compile a vast collection of more than 1.170 horoscopes for over 850 individuals. Although commissions from clients near and far provided him with welcome additional income, Kepler also collected horoscopes and data from a broad range of other practitioners in order to study them. When news reached him of an illness or the death of a particular person, he updated his records in order to verify his predictions. Horoscopes of famous, or ordinary, ill-fated people, such as a woman executed in Tübingen for infanticide, were closely scrutinized for patterns and causes. This immersed him in contemplating many different biographies. It made him curious about others. Anything but a distant academic dissociated from ordinary lives, he mined this information as a tool of empirical observation, so as to understand human nature through the movements of the stars.

Rublack, U., 2015, The Astronomer & the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for his Mother. Oxford/ Nova Iorque: Oxford University Press.

A Relação Saturno/Lua a partir da Leitura de Liz Greene do Liber Novus de Jung: Exemplo Textual

Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus, Elijah and Salome.

Greene, L., 2018, The Astrological World of Jung's Liber Novus: Daimons, Gods and the Planetary Journey,75.

Like Elijah, the Scholar lives in isolation with his daughter, far from the world with its extraverted, banal life. Unlike Elijah, he is neither a prophet nor a magus; he is a grief-stricken recluse, echoing Ficino’s association of Saturn with grief as well as solitude. In the ‘small, old castle’, the hall is lined with ‘black chests and wardrobes’ – a colour Jung associated directly with Saturn – while the Old Scholar’s study reveals ‘bookshelves on all four walls and a large writing desk, at which an old man sits wearing a long black robe’. The sheets in the tiny chamber in which Jung is offered a bed are ‘uncommonly rough’, and the pillow is hard. Associations of the colour black with Saturn abound in antiquity as well as throughout the medieval and early modern periods, and today the association still lingers in the present-day attribution of black gemstones such as jet, obsidian, and black onyx to this planetary god.

The air in the room is heavy, and the Old Scholar seems ‘careworn’. He has given himself tirelessly ‘to the material of science and research, anxiously and equably appraising, as if he personally had to represent the working out of scientific truth’. In this description Jung seems to be recreating the portrayal of Saturn given by a long list of astrological authors over many centuries, but in an extreme and highly personalised form. Jung at first believes the Old Scholar leads ‘an ideal though solitary existence’. Although no image of him appears in Liber Novus – only his stone castle – his description mirrors Waite’s image of The Hermit in the Major Arcana of the Tarot, standing alone in a barren, mountainous landscape with a lantern and a staff. 

But the Scholar, although he belongs to the same chain of senex images as Elijah, is a sad and self-destructive figure. His personality is lopsided, and he seems to personify what Jung experienced as his own rigidity of intellect – the same rigidity that ‘poisoned’ the giant Izdubar. The Scholar is ‘petrified in his books, protecting a costly treasure and enviously hiding it from all the world’. The old man keeps his daughter imprisoned, fearful of allowing her to confront the dangers of worldly life. (...)

Greene, L., 2018, The Astrological World of Jung's Liber Novus: Daimons, Gods and the Planetary Journey. Londres/ Nova Iorque: Routledge.

Os Eclipses e as Observações de Gregos e Babilónios: Exemplo Textual

Steele, J. M., 2000, Observations and Predictions of Eclipse Times by Early Astronomers, 95-6. 

There has been much debate over the years concerning the source for the Babylonian observations in he Almagest. As I have suggested above, Ptolemy probably obtained them from Hipparchus. But how did Hipparchus come to possess them? Did he travel to Babylon himself and persuade a Babylonian astronomer to translate the records for him, as has been suggested by Toomer (1988: 359)? Or was knowledge of Babylonian astronomy widespread among Greco-Roman astronomers? Certainly, Babylonian mathematical astronomy must have been known fairly widely. The Oxyrhynchus papyri show that astrologers both used and understood Babylonian ACT methods, and there is nothing to suggest that the Oxyrhynchus material would differ from that which would have been found in any other medium size city had the conditions for survival of papyri been as good. But the transmission of actual observations is a different matter. To be of any value in determining, say, some parameter of a lunar theory, not just any lunar observation will do. Eclipses, of course, are the most useful, but even then what one really needs are eclipses fulfilling tions. Furthermore, these conditions certain condiare in part dependent upon the theory that one is developing. Thus, a Greek astronomer wanting to use Babylonian eclipse observations would probably have to obtain a long run of records, from which he could select certain ones at a later date. 

The Babylonian records described by Ptolemy range in date from 721 BC to 382 Be. Even if these represent the earliest and latest reports available to him, Ptolemy must have had access to records covering a period about 350 years. Furthermore, this list of eclipses must have been fairly complete. It has generally been supposed that the original source for these records was the Babylonian Astronomical Diaries. However, there are good reasons for doubting that this was the direct source from which Hipparchus made his compilation. A typical Diary covers a period of six months, during which there will be one, or occasionally two, lunar eclipse possibilities (i.e., observations or predictions). In compiling a collection spanning 350 years, therefore, one would have to consult about 700 tablets. It seems unlikely that a Babylonian astronomer would read through all of these tablets, even if they were all preserved, and then explain them at the request of a visiting Greek. There is, however, another ready-made source which would have been of much greater use to Hipparchus: the large compilation of eclipse records, preserved in part on LBAT * 1414, LBAT 1415 + 1416 + 1417, and LBAT *1419.

Steele, J. M., 2000, Observations and Predictions of Eclipse Times by Early Astronomers. Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media.

Do Vazio um Haiku (Poesia)

Bril, Paul, Pan and Syrinx, 1620-24. Paris: Musée du Louvre.
https://www.wga.hu/

Do Vazio um Haiku

Sem as gentes mar imenso

A paz o grito desesperante

Da desumana e bela cidade

13 de Maio de 2020

RMdF

Da Tempestade um Haiku (Poesia)

Rubens, Hero and Leander, c.1605. 

New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery. 

https://www.wga.hu/

Da Tempestade um Haiku

Crepitado o vento do norte

De um tempo a passagem

O agora fumegante do chá

9 de Maio de 2020

RMdF

A Caverna das Ninfas, as Portas do Sol e da Lua e o Thema Mundi: Exemplo Textual

Akçay, K.N., 2019, Porphyry's On the Cave of the Nymphs in its Intellectual Context, 146-7.

The Sun’s and the Moon’s paths are essentially the same in the same direction: the Sun’s route is the ecliptic, as previously noted, while the Moon is inclined at approximately 5 degrees to the ecliptic. The Moon’s crossing of the ecliptic from South to North symbolises an ascent and its crossing of the ecliptic from North to South symbolises a descent. The Moon’s crossing points of the ecliptic, the ascending node (ὁ ἀναβιβάζων σύνδεσμος) and the descending node (ὁ καταβιβάζων σύνδεσμος), are also related to the lunar nodes depicted as the Mithraic torchbearers with raised and lowered torches in the tauroctony (De Antro 24.13-25.1). As Beck rightly observes, the Sun’s rays has a function of apogenetic power, and its characteristics such as superior, high/up, heat/fiery, male are compatible with the ascending path of the soul, whereas the Moon asthe nearest to the Earth is inferior, down/low, cold/eartly, female.

Porphyry’s primary concern about the association of the gates of the Sun and the Moon with the two celestial openings of Plato in Republic 10 is ethical, rather than suggesting simply an astrological interpretation. The ascending path towards the Sun can be compared to the escape of the liberated prisoner from the Platonic cave, representing a choice towards a philosophical life instead of slavery to the material world. The path through the Sun symbolises the bright side of the soul under the guidance of its rational part, as is the case with the diurnal houses of the seven planets; similarly, the path through the Moon can be considered to be a symbol of the dark side of the soul under the guidance of its irrational part, as is the case with the nocturnal houses of the seven planets. 

Akçay, K.N., 2019, Porphyry's On the Cave of the Nymphs in its Intellectual Context. Leiden/ Boston: Brill.

O Castigo de Tirésias (Poesia)

Pietro della Vecchia, Tiresias transformed into a woman, 1626-1678.

Nantes: Musée d Arts de Nantes.

O Castigo de Tirésias

Do falo agora vulva

A ofídia desmedida

Cego o sábio gesto

De Hera a punição

Como mulher viveu

Tirésias o adivinho

26 de Abril de 2020

RMdF

Criação (Poesia)

Boucher, François, The Birth of Venus, 1740. Estocolmo: 

Nationalmuseum. 

https://www.wga.hu/

Criação

Atrás do tempo___________

________ segue a madrugada

No humano a palavra vencida

Agora eleita imagem repetida

Traduzindo de Narciso a água

_______________________

Vence pois o autor a obra sua

Tornado ele relíquia a vaidade

________ e perdendo-se hoje

A obra-prima _____________

De liberdade origem a criação

_______________________

Segue solitário atrás do tempo

O autor a obra uma madrugada

3 de Maio de 2020

RMdF

De Abril a Maio (Poesia)

Parlamento Português (Wikipédia)

De Abril a Maio

Confinado o Abril

Imenso é o nome

De ser Liberdade

Nas suas gentes

Ontem o amanhã

Mas na sua casa

Hoje p'ra sempre

De Maio primeiro

Esperança nossa

De labor um leme

Direito a trabalhar

Sem deixar de ser

A luta a dignidade

Em Abril em Maio

19 de Abril de 2020

RMdF

O Deus da Lua de Harã, as Observações Astronómicas Sumérias, Assírias e Babilónicas e a Génese da Astrologia Genetliacal: Exemplo Textual

Green, T. M., 1992, The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran, 42-3.

  Although there are records of observation of the appearance and disappearance of the planet Venus as early as the seventeenth century B.C.E. (during the reign of Ammisaduqa at Babylon), prior to the eighth century B.C.E., the only clearly demonstrable scientific interest in charting the "wandering stars" is found focused on the moon and the sun; and, in fact, it was only beginning with the reign of Nabonassar (747 B.C.E.) that accurate records of eclipses were kept and that the reports of the court astronomers were regularly recorded. Certainly the importance of the moon in the interpretation of various celestial omina (including the meteorological) had developed quite early in Mesopotamia, but by the very nature of the lunar cycle, these forecasts could not be long-range.

  In any event, divination through celestial phenomena was just one aspect of prophecy; much more popular during the Babylonian and Assyrian periods were incubation and haruspicy. Even that royal champion of the Moon god, the sixth century B.C.E. Nabonidus, was commanded to restore the temple of the Moon god at Harran through a dream. Further support for this view is found in the seventh century B.C .E. copies of the collection of celestial omens known as the Enuma Anu Enlil, which is dated in its earliest form to around 1000 B.C .E., and probably contains even earlier material. Most of its contents may be considered to be descriptive rather than analytical; only one quarter of the omens may be regarded as ''astrological,'' i.e., specifically concerned with the stars and planets. Yet, within two hundred years of Nabonassar, a shift in interest may be observed, for a cuneiform tablet dated 523 B.C. E. indicates the ability to calculate the monthly ephemerides of the sun and moon, the conjunctions of the moon with the planets, and of the planets with each other, and eclipses.

  Despite these relatively rapid advances, however, Neugebauer has posited a date no earlier than the fifth century B.C. E. for theregularization of the solar-lunar intercalated calendar, which knowledge would be necessary for the development of a genethialogical astrology. It was Naburimanni, a "descendant of the priest of the Moon god," who early in that century devised the lunar computational tables, used to determine the true date of the full moon, by which at least lunar eclipses might be predicted. It has been suggested that the growing interest in the astral deities and astral prophecy in the Near East during this period was a direct consequence of the conquest of Mesopotamia by the Persians, whose own religion contained many astral elements. 

Green, T. M., 1992, The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran. Leiden/ Nova Iorque/ Köln: E. J. Brill.

A Melothesia Babilónica: As Origens da Astrologia Médica

Geller, M. J., 2014, Melothesia in Babylonia: Medicine, Magic, and Astrology in the Ancient Near East, 79.

  Unlike in Greek, there is no single text devoted specifically to melothesia in cuneiform texts,3 although Reiner has discovered melothesia in an important source, in a Late Babylonian medical commentary from Nippur (Reiner 1993: 21f.). These medical commentaries are crucial for understanding contemporary scholarship of the Persian and Hellensitic periods in Babylonia, and their significance must not be underestimated. The entry which caught Reiner’s attention is a learned comment on the typical medical phrases, ‘If a man’s spleen hurts him’ and ‘if a man’s kidney hurts him’. What the commentary explains is that the spleen is equated with Jupiter, and the ‘the Kidney-star is Mars’ (Reiner 1995: 60, Civil 1974: 336: 7). Reiner correctly concludes that the intention of the commentary is that Jupiter governs the spleen and Mars governs the kidneys, which are clear examples of melothesia, as we know from Greek sources.

  In other words, the essential elements and ingredients were available within Babylonian astronomy to construct a theory of melothesia. For one thing, within standard astronomical texts such as Enūma Anu Enlil, diseases were often connected with celestial omens, and it was an easy step to take to associate diseases with zodiacal phenomena; this idea was previously discussed by Rochberg, in her edition of a Late Babylonian tablet of lunar eclipses within the zodiac (rather than the more traditional appearance of an eclipse on a certain day of the month). (...)

Geller, M. J., 2014, Melothesia in Babylonia: Medicine, Magic, and Astrology in the Ancient Near East. Boston/Berlim/Munique: Walter de Gruyter.

Reflexão Astro-Filosófica 11

Reflexões Astro-Filosóficas

Contributos para uma Filosofia da Astrologia

#11.

   Epicteto, nas suas Diatribes, diz-nos seguinte: «– Que ordens eu te darei? Zeus já não te deu as ordens? Não te deu as tuas coisas desimpedidas e desembaraçadas? E as que não são tuas não são impedidas e entravadas? Aqui chegaste com certas ordens. (4) De que decreto precisas ainda? “Vela pelas tuas coisas por todos os meios”, “Não almejes as de outrem”, “É tarefa tua ser leal”, “É tarefa tua ser digno”. Quem pode tirar essas coisas de ti? Quem te impedirá de usá-las senão tu mesmo? E como tu impedirás a ti mesmo? Quando te ocupares das coisas que não são tuas, perderás as tuas. (5) Possuindo tais conselhos e ordens da parte de Zeus, quais tu queres ainda da minha parte? Sou melhor que ele? Mais digno de confiança? Se velares por essas ordens, de quais outras precisarás ainda? Mas ele não te ordenou essas coisas? (6) Toma as pré-noções, toma as demonstrações dos filósofos, toma o que ouviste muitas vezes, toma o que disseste para ti mesmo, toma o que leste, toma o que praticaste.» (Diatribe I.25, 3-6). O filósofo estóico do século I EC apresenta-nos um exercício espiritual, um modo de viver. Devemos, segundo esta diatribe, colocar a nossa atenção naquilo que somos, no que nos é próprio e nos convém e devemos, por outro lado, evitar, negando, o que próprio do outro e não nos convém.

   Numa perspectiva astrológica, a proposta de Epicteto representa as fundações da astrologia natal ou genetliacal. As ordens de Zeus são os decretos do destino, são as marcas da Providência num tema natal. Desta forma, de acordo com os ditames de uma natividade, cada um deve primeiro aceitar e depois seguir o que ela determina. A astrologia antiga privilegia de tal forma o tema natal que a maior parte da pronoia astrológica, ou seja, do conjunto de técnicas preditivas é calculado a partir dele e não de elementos externos, nomeadamente, os trânsitos. A profecção e a distribuição dos regentes do tempo são disso os melhores exemplo. Esta centralidade do tema natal reforça a necessidade de nos focarmos naquilo que o tema natal oferece e não invejarmos os decretos que os outros receberam. Melhor ou pior, mais tenso ou mais harmonioso, o nosso tema natal é aquilo que nos convém. Devemos assim tomar o que é nosso.

Bibliografia

Epicteto, 2020, As Diatribes de Epicteto, Livro I, trad. A. Dinucci. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra.

A Astrologia como Astronomia Cultural: Exemplo Textual

Campion, N., "Astrology as Cultural Astronomy" in Ruggles, C. L. N., 2015, Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy, vol. 1, 104 (103-16).

Astrology, from the Greek, astro-logos, is the assumption that the stars and planets contain meaning and significance for terrestrial affairs. Logos is simply translated as “word”, so astrology is, then, the “word” of the stars: the stars “speak”. However, in the context of classical thought, we may also consider that the stars possess reason or a kind of logic that can provide important information. Until the seventeenth century, the word was frequently interchangeable with astronomy, the “regulation” or “law” of the stars. Most non-Western countries do not employ different words to distinguish traditional astronomy from astrology, except where the distinction has been imported from the modern West. In India, both are jyotish, the “science of light”; in Japan, they are onmyōdō, the “yin-yang way”; and in China, li fa (calendar systems) and tian wen (sky patterns) are suitable terms (Campion 2008, 2012a, p. 100). Astrology appears to be a universal feature of human culture and may be understood as a form of cultural astronomy; an important contribution to the understanding of astronomy’s cultural uses, applications, uses, and functions; and an indication of society’s attitudes to the stars.

Ruggles, C. L. N., 2015, Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy, 3 vols. Nova Iorque: Springer.