VMs: What do you think about Eight?

[Pamela Richards <spirlhelix@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, Nick!

I'm between your lines below.


--- Nick Pelling <nickpelling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

For example, I can't 
comfortably place the VMs' 360-degree zodiac pages as
a tool for 
psychological astrology at all - it's far more likely
to be a 
late-medieval 
predictive system, derived from the same (probably
Arabic transmitted) 
school from which Pietro d'Abano's works sprang.

I agree the astrology can't be "psychological".  Wrong
historical time.  Nick, what do you make of the
consistent divisions of 360 degrees by eight?  I've
never seen this in Western astrology.  What could
there be eight of?

I will post a link to some information about "eight"
later on today.

<Overall, I think that makes the VMs hard to reconcile
with post-1600 astrology (and most post-1500
astrology, too) where that kind of medieval 
thinking has been stripped right out. The question for
the VMs' zodiac section is this: if it's expressing
some kind of astrological secret, 
what is that secret? Steve Ekwall's belief that it's
predicting male births (based on the time of
conception) seems as good as (if not better) any 
other... interesting!>

Yes, but if so, I find that difficult to reconcile
with Rudolph II's interests, since his only children
were out of wedlock and he died without an heir. . .
.unless he was simulaneously fascinated and revulsed
by the thought of producing more male children. . . .
or perhaps he intended to sell the document to someone
who wanted its contents more than he did. 
Speculation.

I'm going to start with "eight" to try to find what's
unique about this astrological conundrum.  I would
love to hear from anyone who has some ideas.

Warmly,

Pam


> 
> You mentioned astrological alphabets: I set in
> motion a thread on this 
> theme in 2001, with my "Astrological Alphabet
> Hypothesis" (AAH) - the basic 
> idea was that (as with numbers), as we can't see
> astrology anywhere in the 
> VMs, perhaps it's everywhere, embedded in the
> alphabet itself. IIRC, I 
> found the "17 x 4" ring on f57v suggestive of being
> a sequence of signs and 
> planets, but I'd need to review that evidence again,
> it's a long time ago...
> 
>
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.voynich.net+AAH
> 
> BTW, I'm currently looking for the document I wrote
> summarising the AAH at 
> the time, & will post a link to the list when I find
> it (time to power up 
> my old PC, etc).
> 
> FWIW, I now see medieval-to-early-modern astrology
> not in terms of court 
> astrology (ie directing affairs of state, like
> Frederick II & Nancy 
> Reagan), but rather as a diffusely-located
> middle-class activity, for those 
> seeking empowerment & self-advancement - where the
> (slightly more) modern 
> middle-class zeal for information is just a
> rationalised version of the same.
> 
> Therefore, the Church's pressure on astrologers to
> move away from fatalism 
> & determinism (which ultimately produced Ficino and
> modern psychological 
> astrology, so moving from 'prediction' to
> 'predilection') effectively 
> disempowered the middle classes, removing their
> aspirations to power by 
> undermining their perceived means to achieve it. And
> the same goes for 
> magic (both demonic and natural) - for example, the
> middle section of 
> William Eamon's (1994) "Science and the Secrets of
> Nature" (which I've 
> mentioned before on-list) has a fair bit on how the
> Church explicitly saw 
> the expansion of natural magic and the related
> "naturalism" as threatening 
> its control of its middle-class power-base, which I
> think is all part of 
> the same overall story.
> 
> I don't know of any good books that cover this kind
> of "social history of 
> astrology" (any recommendations, anyone?), but this
> view does impact on 
> where you place the VMs in the web of history. For
> example, I can't 
> comfortably place the VMs' 360-degree zodiac pages
> as a tool for 
> psychological astrology at all - it's far more
> likely to be a late-medieval 
> predictive system, derived from the same (probably
> Arabic transmitted) 
> school from which Pietro d'Abano's works sprang.
> 
> Overall, I think that makes the VMs hard to
> reconcile with post-1600 
> astrology (and most post-1500 astrology, too) where
> that kind of medieval 
> thinking has been stripped right out. The question
> for the VMs' zodiac 
> section is this: if it's expressing some kind of
> astrological secret, what 
> is that secret? Steve Ekwall's belief that it's
> predicting male births 
> (based on the time of conception) seems as good as
> (if not better) any 
> other... interesting!
> 
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
> 
> PS: nice Lilly site:
> http://www.skyhook.co.uk/merlin/
> 
> 
>
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=====
"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing, than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."

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