The Behenian Fixed Stars

Kwaw, I feel like a dingdong. I found/remembered a BIG argument in support of your Algol/Sun theory. I can't believe I hadn't thought of it before.

The Gorgon is a solar symbol. Full stop. And I knew this, but hadn't been thinking of Algol as the Gorgon's Head, because Demon/Devil was so enticing. Duh! Even the Greeks said it was. I fact, a lot of comparative religion types think that Medusa was originally an expression of Athena's destructive solar aspect and that the later Aegis placement was a way of allowing her to retain destructive power without compromising her balanced sanitized post-cthonic role as an Olympian. That said, I don't know if I'm totaly sold on Algol/Sun, but this makes a hefty argument in its favor. As you say, it's foolish to exclude any option. Staying outside the box and all that.

Trouble is... and this is where I think the need for a speculative pattern is haunting me. We're talking about the 15 Behenians, but we still have those 7 Wanderers. I've been playing with this in a few different versions (which I'll post as PDF charts shortly): the dopey literalist model and the more obscure systematic, "mystery school" model and something else. And as I've been futzing, I starting to think it comes down to where the 7 planets fall. In a way, identifying the planets in the Trumps speculatively should be easier and a little less unfamiliar because we've all seen so many versions of same. With 7 trumps assigned (roughly) to planets, then the 15 remaining could be mapped variously against our Behenii...

Anyways, the thing with Algol/Sun in the literalist model is: Why isn't the Sun the Sun? As Pendu says, doesn't that make good clean sense?

Still the Gorgon's head is universally acknowledged as a solar symbol. And If we use Rosanne's Beehive model, it does create one nice correspondence. On the other hand, the Marseille order isn't standard until LONG after the iconography has been established, so I take Pendu's suggestion seriously about not adhering strictly to TdM order.

On another related note... While digging around for more Gorgon/Sun material, I was looking at the Denderah Zodiac, which dates from Ptolemaic times circa 100BCE, and I think y'all may kill me, but I've spotted several Behenian Stars there AS FIGURES, with the depictions vaguely Mesopotamian in character. And the planets are depicted in their exaltations (which I've just learned is known as hypsomata) Now, not to get all Elvis/Atlantis/Chariots-of-the-Gods about it, but since the source of the Decans is Egyptian, and the fixed stars are observed and catalogued in a Egyptian Zodiac relief in Babylonian style, and Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos is the cornerstone of Western Astrology, and depictions of astrological symbols are strangely consistent across cultures and eras (Schiffanoia anyone?) ...

I think I'm going to try a speculative Behenian-to-Trump assignment that favors (gulp) the late Egyptian sculptural Zodiacs. NOT because I think Tarot came from Egypt, but because there are so many tantalizing archaelogical threads about the iconography of these stars, and Egypt does have so much data passing through it until the Romans ride in and muck it up. I just hope I can find enough. Why oh why didn't I start doing this research back when I was at Columbia and grants fell from the trees like pears? Frankly (though I feel like I should be wearing a foil pyramid hat to say it) wouldn't it be fascinating if we could come up with an unprovable but tantalizing suggestion linking Egyptian star worship and the iconography of the trumps?!?!

Eek. Big foil hat.

So I need a little time to hash it out, but I'm shooting for 3 completely different attribution models rendered as PDF charts to shred and discuss and revise. I'm learning a ton by going through this with y'all... So many thanks for getting me so jazzed.

INcidentally, Kwaw, you're exactly right about Alkaid: NOT Major, Minor. Duh. That's what I get for typing fast with no sleep. From what I can tell Alkaid is Eta Ursae Majoris at 26 Virgo 56, but I'll keep looking. I'm slightly bummed that it doesn't appear on that astrolabe, but then again, it is only one beautiful astrolabe.

More soon,

Scion

I have been trying to see this pattern of 21 +0, and I have come to the conclusion that these Behenian stars list are a depiction of a ziggarut of seven planes. They seem to be a tower of 2 stars and 1 planet on each plane, that describe by Gemstone/Plant and star each plane or platform. For example Arcturus and Alphecca governed by Jupiter- level 2 or platform of the ziggarut. Jasper and Topaz in the middle east are red/brown on the Sacred Mountain. The Sacred Mountain is the vertical Bond or axis between Heaven and Earth.
Apart from this thought and how the number 7 was seen through the ages and the division of the Major Arcana into three groups I cannot see the connection.
So I am no longer going to try and connect them. It would seem to me that Algol is directly above Sirius in this Star list and you wind up the tower accordingly. I appreciate all the work Kwaw and Scion, and as near as I can make out I need to go back to the Christian/Judaic depictions to make sense of the sequence. Tower of Babel anyone? ~Rosanne

Iwent back to Joseph Campbell on this....
Joseph Campbell in his Masks of God books says that there is archaelogical evidence supporting a direct link between Mesopotamian ziggurats and the pyramids of Egypt. Campbell also states that from Egypt, the Mesopotamian culture was passed on almost simultaneously on two separate fronts to Crete and India. From India it reached China and from there it crossed the ocean to the pre-columbian societies of Central and South America, which could explain the similarities between ziggurats and Mayan pyramids.
Campbell further explores the geometry of the ziggurat and its philosophical and spiritual repercussions. According to Campbell, ziggurats first appeared during a sudden scientific and philosophical golden age where such other discoveries were made such as the invention of the wheel, the discovery of the calendar and astronomy, as well as the invention of the written word. For Campbell these are all related.
The Earth needs 365 days to make a single revolution around the Sun, which is also an approximation of the number of degrees in a circle. Ziggurats, like all pyramidal structures, have a square base which could be encompassed within a circular area. The square base theoretically represents the additional five days. The five days can be seen in the four points of the square as well as the fifth point in the middle, which is the point of the square's equilibrium as well as the point of equilibrium of whatever circle that encompasses it.
The fifth point represents the bridge to heaven represented by the circle, a universally considered symbol for infinity and perfection, and the terrestrial world in turn represented by the square. The highest point of a pyramid is a projection of the square's center point. This can be interpreted as the earth's highest point being heaven's lowest.
and also found this link which makes sense to me.....
http://www.skyscript.co.uk/7bodies.html
I wish it was about Tarot Though ahhh well nothing is lost and I have enjoyed this particular journey. ~Rosanne

Wait, Rosanne! The journey isn't over... (I'm hearing Thelma Houston: Don't leave me this way!)

Damn! I knew if I said the word Egypt in here, people would head for the hills and the discussion would look like it had jumped the shark.

It's not woo-woo mystical, Akhenaton-was-an-alien Egypt, I promise. It's post-Alexander, Roman, syncretic Egypt... the Hathor temple at Denderah is a fusion, which is why I think we might find some interesting Behenian star iconography. I'm just trying to identify other Behenian tradition that we can review and consider as we shuffle through the things we've assembled... so that there's more to go on than the names and a few patchy star myths. I just want something a few thousand years older than the Palazzo Schiffanoia that has some star images.

And barring any consideration of Decan zodiacs reliefs, I'm especially interested to hear about your 7 tier, "planet ruling/matched with two Behenian's" idea which gets very close to something I've been supposing frm a different angle. It reminds me of something Ayumi posted elsewhere about Planets exalted and in detriment. Each tier would be one of the seven wanderers and their exaltation and detriment as fixed stars. Speculate with me. Just for kicks, Rosanne, what do you think that 7tiered ziggurat might look like, which stars with which planets and in what order? I'm dying to see what you come up with.

Calendar divisions, and stellar myth isn't too far afield from emblem books and Renaissance cosmology; Tarot could relate. I think it might still be about Tarot.

We need you. Thelma needs you.

Scion

Scion I never thought the word Egypt would frighten me off! No NO No! Me who thinks the Phoenicians had stone Tarot!!
What scares me though is that THELEMA needs me! No it does not and I do not need THELEMA! Have you not read that I think Thelema is a curious Cat? Monkey? You will have certain members rushing in to spar with me and I am but a frail woman I would have to kill the thread.
Anyways when I get my scanner up and running again I will show you my etchings hehehehehe.
Seriously The nearest I can get is an astronomical clock. Or a ziggurat.
Every time I stack up Kwaw's astrolabe I get a Star tower with stages. Then you look at the minerals and herbs and you get stages too! Pleiades on the list has the Moon and Mars/fennel/Silver/Rock Crystal. The top of the ziggurat. It has seven stars- (well it has more, but by eye you can see seven) Fennel the herb has a stem that branches off seven times before the flowerhead, and each edible branchlet has seven fronds. It is attributed with longevity, strength and vigour and is and has been commonly eaten world wide with fish (Pisces) so it would naturally go on level 7 Pleiades Earths highest point the heavens lowest- but I have to stand on my head to get that where Pleiades comes into the sky and can be seen, when the rains come. So this list must be an aid to memory. So your Egyptian Stars seems an OK direction to go in- but like my Phoenician Abjad it really is not Tarot.~Rosanne

Scion said:

The Gorgon is a solar symbol. Full stop. And I knew this, but hadn't been thinking of Algol as the Gorgon's Head, because Demon/Devil was so enticing.
Scion

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And the home of the gorgons 'is on the farthest side of the western ocean', that is where the Sun sets; fitting in with the reference perhaps in the cards image [if that is what it is] of heliacal setting of Algol when the sun is setting in Gemini. We have an explanation then of both sun and gemini symbolism in the card; if we should take it just literally as the Sun, why Gemini? Or are the two figures referencing not Gemini but the 5th house whose cosignificator is Leo?

Looking forward to the PDF charts BTW

I found quite a lot of stuff in relation to Sun/Gorgon but the good stuff all seemed to require JSTOR access, which I don't have

Kwaw

kwaw said:

We have an explanation then of both sun and gemini symbolism in the card; if we should take it just literally as the Sun, why Gemini?

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Perhaps because in ancient Greece and Rome, the Sun god Apollo was the Olympian who presided over the month of May and in popular tradition the sign of Gemini.

Leto's twins! And to keep it in the realm of Renaissance magic, Ficino relies heavily on the ascription of the Olympians to the zodiac from Manilius...

The Greek sun was also a partially malevolent force. Apollo was also a god of Disease (arrows of plague). And contrary to the Victorian redux, Persephone's sojourn below didn't create winter... it created summer, when the blazing sun kills everything it sears. More to support Algol there.

Something else occurs to me here... the trumps were untitled. The "Hermit" started out as Kronos, then Gobbo (hunchback) and then became Hermit. The trump of Moon and Sun were given those titles later. So maybe we're making a mistake not just by (as Pendu said) relying on TdM order, but also, relying on TdM titling. So for Hanged Man we should be thinking Traitor, and for Tower, Lightning or Arrow. Hmmm...

Seven Ages of Man and the Seven Planets

Scion said:

Trouble is... and this is where I think the need for a speculative pattern is haunting me. We're talking about the 15 Behenians, but we still have those 7 Wanderers.

Click to expand...

Kwaw

I can't seem to leave this alone. I have discovered something interesting, If you start at say Pleiades and go in the opposite to my initial spiral you get a consistent rising period Pleiades to Aldebaran is 10 days. So I stuck that into google and I found what are called Zigpu Stars- 15 are used for Helical risings and settings. Pleiades to Algol is 35 days. Algol is the Kidney star of the Stag-known as 'The Great Destroyer ' and is on the path of Solar eclipses along the elliptic.
~Rosanne
I like that Chart- so The Sun is Death?