VMs: New Member: Comparison to Medical Astrology Text

[Pamela Richards <spirlhelix@xxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings!

I am a new member interested in the VMs primarily
because I am studying medical astrology of a similar
historical period.

Someone has raised the interesting suggestion that
some of the characters in the document may be
astrological glyphs for the 12 signs or the Zodiac,
the four elements, etc.  I believe this is worth
pursuing.  Please forgive me if this has already been
discussed, but I wonder if anyone has looked at
portions of texts of contemporary medical astrology to
see how many times single glyphs appear instead of
phonemes.

Here are two paragraphs from Richard Saunders' _The
Astrological Judgement and Practice of Physick_, in a
section cautioning the practitioner when to begin or
not to begin a therapeutic treatment according to
astrology.  All the lexical items within parenthesis
are expressed with a single glyph.  This example is
from is published material; due to the restricted
number of glyphs in typeset, a manuscript might be
expected to have an even higher number of single
glyphs, particularly in a chart or in crowded areas
accompanying illustrations:  

The (Moon) in (Aries), it is caused of thin and subtil
yellow Choler and Flegm; if the (Moon) be in
(conjunction) or application with (Mars), of if (Mars)
be the Lord of the (twelfth) in the New of the Moon,
of Lord of the (6th) in the wane, it causeth yellow
jaundices, and over-flowing of Choler in the Liver
from the Gall.

. . . .

And when it happeneth so, that (Mars) or (Sun) be the
lord of the (6th), (10th), or (12th) house, or lord of
the hour, it is so much the worse and harder to be
cured, or not to be cured at all, because it is in the
extremity of the (4th) degree; and if you go about to
cure it, you must beware you minster not in the hours
of the (Moon), (Mars), or the (Sun), but in the hour
of (Venus), she being in (Gemini), (Libra), or
(Aquarius), or in the hour of (Jupiter), being in
(Cancer), (Scorpio), or (Pisces), or in the hour of
the (Sun), he being in (Gemini), (Libra), or
(Aquarius); the (Moon) in (Scorpio) or (Pisces),
appling to (Venus) or (Jupiter). Neither must you put
(Aries), (Leo), or (Sagittarius) in the Ascendant, or
the (Moon) in (Aries), (Leo), or (Sagittarius), but in
a weak Sign and place of the Heavens, where she doth
not behold the (sixth) House, not the Ascendant, nor
the lord of the (sixth) house, but she may behold the
lord of the ascendant. Neither shall you put (Aries),
(Leo), or (Sagittarius) in the (sixth), but in some
cadent house, of this kind of Flegm is salt, hot and
dry, clammy and burning, and the Party must be cured
with cold and moist Medicines in the (4th) degree, if
it be in (Sagittarius), and in the (third) degree or
in (Aries) or (Leo); for it is of Flegm and Choler
commixt.

. . . .

Of course, there are other possible abbreviations for
words often repeated, such as Lord of the sixth, Lord
of the fifth, etc., which some present-day astrologers
notate as L6, L5, and so forth.

What I'm hoping to demonstrate is that many
astrological locations, relationships, and bodies are
referred to using a single character rather than a
spelled-out word.  Since reference to astrological
matters may be expected throughout the document, this
liberal use of single-character glyphs could apply to
the botanical and pharma sections of the document as
well as the astrological sections. 


Any or all comments are welcome!

Hope this is of some interest.

Warmly,

Pam


=====
"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing, than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."


		
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