Digest Number 552

[Guest guest]

>Message: 1

> Thu, 22 May 2003 10:20:20 -0000

> " Zorak " <apocalocust

>Re: Back to Basics

>

> , Therese Hamilton <eastwest@s...>

wrote:

>> Hello Western Siderealists,

>>

>> I continue to be bothered by the fact that siderealists continue to

>> proclaim that Cyril Fagan discovered the one true ancient sidereal

zodiac,

>> but no one on this list has yet shown any real evidence for this.

 

The proof is in the eating.

I prefer the term 'rediscovered' a few other siderealists do.

The Fagan-Bradley (Allen) SVP was a joint effort.

 

This link may answer some questions on their arrival at the point. (see

below)

 

http://users.cwnet.com/~sidereal/mag/babylon.htm

 

Jack Sirildo Contreras

Western Sidereal Astrologer

 

The links text,

 

Ken Irving wrote:

 

If the issue is Bradley and his adjustment, there was nothing wrong with

his methods of arriving at the ayanamsa adjustment per se, nor anything

mysterious, as they are laid out reasonably enough in the " Unveiling a New

Tool " article. They are best described as empirical, as he was combining the

kind of chart eyeballing astrologers often use to rectify or to try out new

methods with the completely common and very applicable statistical method of

a least-squares fit. He did cardinal solar and lunar ingresses for as many

disasters and other events as he could find in public sources like the World

Almanac, noted those planets or configurations appropriate to the event in

question, then calculated what adjustment of Fagan's ayanamsa would be

necessary in order to bring these to chart angles in each case. Having done

this, he then used the method of least squares to arrive at a single

ayanamsa adjustment, the 6'05 " . Least squares begins with the assumption

that a series of points represent a single curve (or in this case, a line)

but are themselves removed from the line due to errors of measurement or

other unknown factors. The method finds the line or curve such that the sum

of the squares of the distances of the individual points is a minimum. I

don't recall how fully Bradley explains this for the benefit of readers, but

he certainly does say what he's doing, and in general terms tells us enough

about the data he used for anyone else to follow the same procedure.

 

There are quite a few criticisms that can be made of this, depending on how

close or far away to astrology itself one is, as we have no measurable basis

for knowing that either astrology or sidereal ingresses " work " in the first

place. However, there was no need for Bradley to consider this, since he was

arriving (albeit by the seat of his pants) at something which provided a

basis for further work which could be done via more precise statistical

methods. On that score, his later work, I would say he failed, though this

is not to say someone else would if they did the things Bradley seemed

incapable of doing as an astrological statistician. As a scientist, Bradley

was decidedly uneven - he was best in a true scientific environment, and

worst in an astrological one. The reason is simple, as in a scientific

setting he had the benefit of peer review and personal guidance from

scientists who were genuinely impressed with his wide range of knowledge and

abilities. In the astrological world, on the other hand, he was facing an

audience that was easily impressed by graphs, tables and numbers and didn't

know enough to ask even basic questions about what he claimed nor the energy

or education to do their own work to prove or disprove what he had done. In

particular, most of the studies he later did on professional groups and

signs are pretty lame, as he often does not tell us enough about what he is

doing nor where he got the data. I have, however, seen support for certain

claims he made pop in the work of other people, some of whom probably have

never heard of Bradley, so while casting a jaundiced eye in his direction, I

don't dismiss anything he said out of hand.

 

I knew Bradley personally, by the way, all of perhaps one month, as he was

dying when I was first hired to work for American Astrology and degenerated

pretty quickly after I got there. I had about two or three conversations

with him, mostly on magazine business. (Gary) Duncan I talked to on the

phone about half a dozen times over the years between 1974 and the year he

died. Obviously the two had a very contentious relationship, and I have long

considered it as mainly due to a kind of envy each had for the other.

Bradley was a brilliant creative scientist with absolutely nothing but self

training, while Duncan was an equally brilliant mathematician with a good

formal education. Duncan, however, was not able to see to the center of a

problem and then figure out some way to approach it in a scientific manner

in the way Bradley could. Bradley produced a great body of work, much of

which constitutes a kind of magnificent wreckage, while some is quite good

and solid (as pointed out above), but the problems are mainly due to his

lack of formal education in my opinion. In the astrological world, Duncan

produced little but claims about what he was going to do someday and gossip

about what an untrustworthy fellow Bradley was, both personally and

scientifically, though I have had people tell me of mentor-like help he gave

them in their studies. In his day job as programmer Neil Block, I would not

be surprised if Duncan had a more solid record, but that is the kind of

thing that would probably be found only in the memories of those who worked

with him, which is too bad.

 

Finally, as for the Fagan-Bradley ayanamsa, there is not the least doubt

that by whatever means it was arrived at it precisely matches the Babylonian

value, and I have seen nothing in the historical record to seriously dispute

that, nor to dispute Babylonian astrology as the point of origin of the

modern zodiac. So even if Bradley was following his intuition more than

anything else (He once opined in print prior to " New Tool " that it made more

sense to consider Aldebaran and Antares, at 15 degrees of their respective

signs, as prime fiducials than it did to use Spica at 29 Virgo. His

adjustment came closer to doing this than Fagan's original ayanamsa did), he

and Fagan still arrived at a historically viable figure, and may have done

so ahead of the academics. In considering this, one has to take account of

the fact that while later on there was little really sound scientific

support for the Fagan- Bradley value, the historical support came not long

after the publication of Bradley's " New Tool " article, in the form of Peter

Huber's Ueber den Nullpunkt der Babylonische Ekliptik, " for which Bowser can

provide the exact reference. Huber's value for the year -100, arrived at by

considering ingresses of planets into the Babylonian sidereal signs, is, for

all practical purposes, the same as Fagan-Bradley - about 1 minute of arc

different, well within the limits of rounding error.

 

Ken Irving

Sun, 22 Nov 1998 11:49:43 EST

[Guest guest]

At 02:04 PM 5/23/03 -0700, Jack wrote:

>I prefer the term 'rediscovered' a few other siderealists do.

>The Fagan-Bradley (Allen) SVP was a joint effort.

>

>This link may answer some questions on their arrival at the point. (see

>below)

>

>http://users.cwnet.com/~sidereal/mag/babylon.htm

>

>Jack Sirildo Contreras

>Western Sidereal Astrologer

 

Thanks, Jack. Interesting article. It will go into my 'sidereal' folder

(printed).

 

Therese