TransmaniaconMC wrote:Regardless of where this thread ultimately needs to be filed
My apologies in advance if this post shouldn?t be here, possibly deviating either from the meaning of this forum section or from Andrew's subject. I just will see and follow whether and/or where the thread is moved to another section. However, I believe that Morrison's view on rulerships has no origin in tradition. I believe that the rulerships as they classically always have been can be explained. I don't claim that I'm right, nor do I have sources for the theory but I see some connections between things.
While, like Morrison, I also had been playing now and then with the issue how rulerships could have been meant originally, I finally don?t think these were original classical. For instance I once believed that since there is symmetry in the rulerships, that Taurus with the rulership of Venus should be the first sign of the zodiac, having the ?mirroring? line of the rulerships through the solstice points. I further believed that this should have the roots in about 2000BCE. However signs and rulerships weren?t defined as such that early. I therefore think that Morrison?s view, notwithstanding how interesting alternative views can be, is not an original classical one either.
In another forum I once had written down some thoughts about how the rulershipsmight have been formed. This was in fact part of a very large post of which another topic I made some thoughts on at this forum (origin of exaltations
http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4554 ) formed another part.
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From Greek astrology we have the rulerships we still use today. The placement of the planets as rulers in the signs Cancer to Capricorn is a depiction of the Thema Mundi. It was believed that the seven ?planets? were in these signs when the world was created.
I believe that there could also be another relationship. The seven ?lights? in the following order, Moon, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn was one of several ideas of orders of planets. This one (Moon being closest to earth) was called the
?Egyptian? order (with sometimes Mercury?s and Venus? places swapped). The more known
?Chaldean? order was, moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. (Jim Tester, ?A History of Western Astrology? p.166). I believe that there are some links of the Egyptian (rulerships) order with some other ancient Greek thoughts. In Richard Hinckley Allen?s ?Star Names, Their Lore and Meaning?, Cancer ?according to Chaldean and Platonist philosophy, it was the supposed Gate of Men through which souls descended from heaven into human bodies p. 107. The opposed sign Capricornus was the ?Gate of the gods? through wich the souls returned after death, p.136. There is also a google books version of Hinckley Allen?s book
http://books.google.com/books?id=x4qVPl ... ver&dq=sta r+names In the centuries BC the midsummer solstice point was somewhere close to the middle of sidereal Cancer and the midwinter solstice point close to the middle of sidereal Capricorn.
With the idea of the Babylonian southern most ?path? related to death/underworld in mind the link of the midwinter point/ Capricornus and death is made again. More cultures linked the midwinter point with death (and birth, return of the sun) Many graves of Bronze age Britain were directed to the south and also in a sense that on midwinter?s day the sun would shine in the grave trough some tunnel. Interesting part of the Platonist view is that the soul returned to the gods/heavens instead of the underworld. From the middle of the 1st millenium BC several ?mysterycults? rose which viewed the human soul as a divine ?spark? imprisoned in the flesh and this material world. Some of these cults, which usually only revealed their secrets to initiated members, taught reincarnation. The belief was that by living a pure life one could unite the ?spark? soul with the divine principle up there. I believe to have read somewhere that souls ?coming? to earth before birth, resided on the moon, which brings us back to the rulership of the moon in Cancer, the highest sign. After passing the summer solstice point, the sun descends, the day grow shorter until it reaches the lowest point in the winter solstice. A symbolic death but also symbolising a new life when the days grow longer. In an analogous view after birth the human already starts to die and after death is ?born? again in the heavens. The ?beginning to die immediately after birth issue? is part of Stoic thought (J. Tester, p.32). Stoicism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism was one of the most popular beliefs some 2000 years ago. One of the main principles of Stoicism was that everything was ruled by fate.
I think the ?empty? signs on the opposite side to the Cancer to Capricorn were given to the planets in a ?mirror image? to symbolize some travel of the soul to the Moon again to be born again. In this view man?s attachment to the physical world would last in a cycle till final liberation of the world.
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Whether this is the correct view or not, it leaves the traditional rulerships as they are and in this view Morrison?s idea of two ?adjacent exaltations? Moons to the Sun can?t be reconciled with either the concept of the Thema Mundi or that of the Egyptian order of the planets.
On the other side I think Morrison is not to be blamed on this point. He died in a time when mass use of the internet was scarcely out of the egg and the same was the case with the translation projects of the classical works. However his promotion of the use of asteroids initiated an almost unstoppable movement, since astronomers discover thousands of asteroids each year now. Sometimes I think that this excessive growth and the hand in hand growth with it of overpsychologisation in astrology for this part revived traditional astrology as a counter effect.
