I had an astronomy teacher who argued that the ancient Babylonians should have divided the circle and the heavens by factors of ten. Intellectual hubris. He knew nothing about number theory much less symmetry. I had intended that most of this academic stuff was going to end up in an appendix along with the pure math. But the story needs a villain, and nothing makes a better antagonist than a misinformed tyrant.
Besides college, I went to "The Mercury Academy." I was able to take classes in Palmistry, Astrology and Ceremonial Magic. (Hogworts had nothing on us.) Maestro explained that the Babylonians did astrological charts for every birth in the kingdom as a sort of census. Astronomical observation has it's origins in many cultures. But the resultant use of the uniform divisions of time and space we owe to the early Bronze Age Babylonians; Twelve months / Signs / Hours (Solar), Seven days / Week (Lunar?), Sixty Minutes / Seconds, Three hundred and sixty degrees / Full Rotation of a Circle.
But when they observed that, "People born at the same time, in the same place, Had extremely similar palms along with both the fine line and deep line markings. Resultantly, there was no need to do everyones chart, they invented the ephemeris. They took clay hand print tablets for each birth in the Kingdom, which are still being dug up in the ancient capitals of Bagdad and Ur. The corresponding dates and data were marked onto the moist clay using the Cuneiform script of the early history.
I'm going to put my own work on the elegance of these accepted demarcations of directionality and time in the appendix as I'll need to use extensive tables of numbering systems to be able to explain why any other approach would have been irrational. I will say that the resultant math has yet to be replaced by anything other than "RADIANS." (Trigonometry anyone?)
The interpretive medium of astrology is an oracle. But popular superstition has inclined people to want to think that it is actually an objective medium. Carl Jung writes the preface for "The Book of Changes," {Wilhelm / Barnes translation}, Where he speaks on "SYNCHRONICITY." He asserts, there doesn't have to be any causal link connecting the positions of the planets and human events. The "Coincidence," is one of meaning. The acausal significance of signs and symbols are what has meaning. If you look at the statistics and games theory of astrology the randomizing effects of astrological mapping provide data, Enumerative Partitioned and Symmetrically Coalesced.
As often as a good or bad omen can correspond to what the stars might say, Fatalistic Determinism is a total cop out. Many, (most, ) psychics hate my guts. I don't play by the unspoken rules of bias and presumption. But I think it is still one of the best parlor games, and I think if you can appreciate the metaphor then it does make intuitive sense. We are entering the season of DEATH. Halloween is ruled by Saturn, father time, the grim reaper, the big bummer. In the Easter we worship the spring of the rising light, etc. Good solid metaphors, worth the learning just for understandings sake. Personally I'm not as offended by the casual believers as much as by the arrogance of the intellectually constipated people on both sides of the popular prejudices.
