Mithra6 wrote:In the case of West, it was also the fact that there was no other evidence of an earlier civilization and the fact that the Sphinx has a lot of collateral evidence pointing to the established theory.

Fomenko is another ball of wax. Granted I haven't read his books and my opinion thus far is based on a Wikipedia article, but the whole story seems convoluted and far-fetched. One example Wikipedia cites is the fact that we have Greek and Roman coins spread out from Britain to India. For Fomenko's theory to be correct, it would take a truly unrealistically vast conspiracy to accomplish that.

It is amazing what one can accomplish simply by omission. No evidence means false, acquittal. The statute of limitations from a historical context... What if you could see farther into the fog of history? There were almost certainly civilizations of some type that we do not know about simply because it was so long ago that no evidence survives. Just because the fog prevents you from seeing beyond it, does not mean that there is nothing beyond the fog.

As for Fomenko, I don't agree with his complete re-write theory, but his statistics still stand and prove that there was some sort of tampering that took place. If the only thing that a scholar ever does is cite fact and teach, they never amount to more than an echo of those who created original works.

But I don't think this thread is about Fomenko.

Its drifted quite a bit, so can further posts keep to the main topic of the thread. If anyone wants to say more about Fomenko, from an astrological context, please start a new discussion in one of the other forums.

As for Crane's balking at Schmidt's translation of zoidion as "image" it will become clear when the platonic metaphysics are understood. It is not just that this picks up one of the meanings in the lexicon for zoidion, but it has broader implications. What did Plato say you can do with an image? If you just use the word "sign", then the metaphysics will be lost. For instance, can you say why one would look at the anticia degree of a planet? Use the word image for the zodiac signs and with an understanding of platonic metaphysics, it becomes immediately obvious. When you take the grouping of concepts together, a larger picture emerges which proves the existence of organization and methodical thinking. I won't spoil Mr Schmidt's argument here and divulge the larger picture, but let you think about it for a while. Each concept has a role and place within the larger whole and they all fit together with each concept filling in a piece of a puzzle from the Thema Mundi. Use the word sign, and you are buried in secondary intentionality and you will see trees, but no forest. Nominalism is akin to Alzheimer's disease and will rob you of direct connections to what you are trying to understand.

One of the things I like about the way Schmidt has explained things is that once you grasp the principles of metaphysical reality, using only logic one knows what one should look for in a chart and why and what each concept represents in that reality in the world. Astrologers are currently divorced from this kind of understanding and work with a chart as if it is an algebraic equation where you plug in your variables and get an answer, but have no proof for why one should use the equation and why you would use one equation over another. For instance, typically astrologers will look at lots, houses and planets and mix the 3 together as if homogenization is a sensible thing to do (Grapes and Apples produce "Grapples"). But in the Hellenistic framework, which of these you look at for a given topic depends upon the metaphysics that are invoked.

I don't particularly see a problem with using Heliac and Selenic if only for the sake of being consistent.

In Definitions and Foundations, Schmidt only scratches the surface of what he has told those of us who have attended his workshops. There is far more material that has not yet come out.