Re: VMs: Pleiades Occultation Further Date Refinement

[Dennis <tsalagi@xxxxxxxx>]

Pamela Richards wrote:

> Here's some information from a webpage about
> Hildegard:
>
> http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/hildegarde.html

	I had seen this.

> Migraine and its symptoms are all subjective
> phenomena.  Evidently the reason that an eminent
> neurologist like Dr. Sachs is able to make a claim
> about Hildegard's condition and her works is because
> she shared in detail her subjective experiences
> (visions, illness, etc.) in her writing.

	You are quite right.  Kennedy and Churchill discuss this 
point in detail.   What is known about Hildegard's life 
history and her verbal description of her visions also 
support a migraine diagnosis.

> In the case of the VMs, we have no such evidence
> before us--we cannot speak with such certainty about
> the origin of these drawings unless we know the VMs'
> contents, the author's intent in writing and its
> provenance in detail, along with a few other factors
> like the state of the author's health--and have in
> hand a description of the subjective experience which
> led to these drawings.

	Yes.  It's also true that many migraine images (sawtooth 
'fortification spectra, blurry blobs, star-like phosphenes) 
are universal shapes, making it that much more difficult to 
diagnose migraine in the VMs author.  In the absence of any 
real knowledge of the author's personal experience, one 
would have to look for several features of the imagery that 
match the migraine syndrome.

> In addition (speaking of subjective experience), I
> find the leap from the "extinguished stars" of
> scotomata to an assumption that the artist would be
> inspired to record groupings of stars as the result of
> a visual migraine to be unfounded.  I'm a trained
> artist, I experience migraines, and my subjective
> experience has been that I have never felt impelled to
> draw pictures of my visual migraines.  I'm usually
> rather sick and can't even stand light in my good eye.
>  The other eye, which has experienced the scotomata,
> is temporarily blinded.  My visual memory of the
> phenomena, if I look back upon it, is that it
> constantly changes.  I see no points of light which
> remain in my mind as a grouping of stars.  These are
> very poor conditions drawing groups of stars, or
> anything else.  

	Thank you for your informed opinion!  That gives it very 
considerable weight.  I never had that kind of experience 
myself.

> In addition, in my adult years since being diagnosed
> with visual migraines, I have carried out a number of
> artistic subjects which do not resemble migraines, and
> I although I don't imagine Dr. Sachs or other eminent
> experts would be interested in them, I suggest they
> would never know from viewing them that I am a
> migraine sufferer.  Like many artists, I attempt to
> see things as others view them in order to convey them
> in a way that can be "read" by the viewer.
> Temporary aberrations like visual migraines are not
> helpful to my intention.

	I do wish to point out that 'migraine art' is almost a 
recognized genre.  Do a search on 'migraine art' and see 
what comes up.

	I haven't the time to pursue this right now, but 
Hildegard's images don't match too well with the other 
migraine art I've looked at.

> I would like very much to have enough information
> about the provenance of the VMs, its content and its
> intent to make a clear statement about the author's
> health conditions.  Let's hasten the day.

	I am not at all sure of the migraine hypothesis. 
experience.  At this point it is simply a hypothesis which 
may prove useful.

	I certainly do not mean to belittle your experience, 
Pamela!   I do not think we can dismiss the idea at this 
point, though.

Dennis
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