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A considerable amount of the research into the 'Star of Bethlehem' has assumed that it was a unique celestial event. Such an approach, however, has overlooked the possible celestial information contained in the other features of both... more
A considerable amount of the research into the 'Star of Bethlehem' has assumed that it was a unique celestial event. Such an approach, however, has overlooked the possible celestial information contained in the other features of both nativities of the gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke. This paper considers these other attributes. It adopts an archaeoastronomical and astrological approach to both narratives using the sky for the period of 07-06 B.C.E. as a primary document, as well as the Mesopotamian and Hellenistic astrological literature of the time. In the case of the Matthean pericope-the stories in Matthew's gospel-this approach suggests that the Star of Bethlehem is the title of a story rather than a single bright apparition. In the case of Luke's pericope it reveals that the attributes of the shepherds, angel, and the notion of a manger or a place for animals can be viewed as a Mesopotamian-influenced sky-watching discourse.
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Astrologers are assumed to be a group of people whose lives are dictated by the stars. This position has been encouraged by ad hominem twentiethcentury polemics where the astrologer is portrayed as a person of questionable mental ability... more
Astrologers are assumed to be a group of people whose lives are dictated by the stars. This position has been encouraged by ad hominem twentiethcentury polemics where the astrologer is portrayed as a person of questionable mental ability who takes no responsibility for their life. These assumptions have been informed by the definition of fate from the Classical period of Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE). In contrast, my research among English-speaking astrologers revealed that their lifestyle was one where beliefs about the nature of fate varied considerably from Cicero's views and that they used their beliefs in three ways: as an aid for their spiritual development, as a tool for personal reflection, or as a means for life-planning. The astrologers in my research actively engaged with their lives using their beliefs about fate, understanding it like a life companion rather than a life dictator.
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R commended Citatio Henty, Liz, Bernadette Brady, Darrelyn Gunzburg, Frank Prendergast, and Fabio Silva. 2017. "Editorial–Culture and Cosmos." In The Marriage of Astronomy and Culture: Theory and Method in the Study of Cultural... more
R commended Citatio Henty, Liz, Bernadette Brady, Darrelyn Gunzburg, Frank Prendergast, and Fabio Silva. 2017. "Editorial–Culture and Cosmos." In The Marriage of Astronomy and Culture: Theory and Method in the Study of Cultural Astronomy Papers from the 2016 SEAC Conference. Conference of the European Society for Astronomy in Culture edited by Nicholas Campion, 1–10. Bristol: Culture and Cosmos & Sophia Centre Press. doi:10.21427/D7V23S
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In the north of Wales, there are 105 churches that have stonework dated to the thirteenth century or earlier. Of these, only twelve are oriented to face the summer solstice sunrise. Additionally, all of these solstitial churches are... more
In the north of Wales, there are 105 churches that have stonework dated to the thirteenth century or earlier. Of these, only twelve are oriented to face the summer solstice sunrise. Additionally, all of these solstitial churches are located in the northern-most counties of Wales, near or around the valleys which flow beside the Snowdonia Mountains or to the east of the mountains. The twelve solstitial churches take their landscape into account and, thus, vary considerably in their azimuths in order to align to the actual sunrise of the summer solstice. In such terrain, one would expect a wide and diverse collection of western declinations, yet these twelve churches fall into three distinct regional bands of western declination. The twelve solstice churches have western declinations that align them either with the winter solstice sunset (this is the natural alignment) or with the period of early February or early November. With all the churches fitting into these declination patterns...
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This paper considers how the union of sun, landscape, and architecture contributed to the siting of Welsh Cistercian abbeys. From August 2014 to March 2016 the authors surveyed and measured the orientation of all Cistercian churches with... more
This paper considers how the union of sun, landscape, and architecture contributed to the siting of Welsh Cistercian abbeys. From August 2014 to March 2016 the authors surveyed and measured the orientation of all Cistercian churches with extant foundations in Wales, as well as the elevations of their surrounding landscapes. Using methodologies drawn from cultural astronomy, analysis of this data revealed that through the intentional orientating of the abbey within the local topography, each church formed a relationship to the sun's light on theologically significant days. Other notable observations include the emphasis on sunsets and the west, the focus on the astronomical equinox rather than the Julian calendar equinox, and the solar position on Michaelmas and/or Saint David's Day. The implications of these results for wider debates in the field of Cistercian studies are then discussed.
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Stars are ubiquitous; the Sun and Moon are singletons. The Sun and the Moon visually dominate the sky. They change in the amount of light they produce, either monthly or yearly. They also rhythmically change how they embrace the horizon,... more
Stars are ubiquitous; the Sun and Moon are singletons. The Sun and the Moon visually dominate the sky. They change in the amount of light they produce, either monthly or yearly. They also rhythmically change how they embrace the horizon, creating a measure of time and seasons. In contrast, the stars are many and their light is small. Their place in the sky is fixed and, ignoring precession, their relationship to the horizon is constant, always rising or setting at the same point. They are different in almost every way to the luminaries, in their multiplicity, light, fixed spatial relationship to each other and fixity in a landscape. These distinct characteristics mean that the stars are a catalyst for sky narratives quite different from those of the luminaries. The most easily recognisable stellar sky narratives are the constellation stories. The multiplicity of the stars produces a scattering of lights across the night sky according to a fixed pattern which, to the human mind - wit...
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Astrologers are assumed to be a group of people whose lives are dictated by the stars. This position has been encouraged by ad hominem twentieth-century polemics where the astrologer is portrayed as a person of questionable mental ability... more
Astrologers are assumed to be a group of people whose lives are dictated by the stars. This position has been encouraged by ad hominem twentieth-century polemics where the astrologer is portrayed as a person of questionable mental ability who takes no responsibility for their life. These assumptions have been informed by the definition of fate from the Classical period of Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE). In contrast, my research among English-speaking astrologers revealed that their lifestyle was one where beliefs about the nature of fate varied considerably from Cicero’s views and that they used their beliefs in three ways: as an aid for their spiritual development, as a tool for personal reflection, or as a means for life-planning. The astrologers in my research actively engaged with their lives using their beliefs about fate, understanding it like a life companion rather than a life dictator.
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This special issue offers an insider’s perspective on the practice of astrology in the contemporary world. It builds upon the second issue of the JSRNC published in 2007, which focused on astrology investigating the religion-nature nexus.... more
This special issue offers an insider’s perspective on the practice of astrology in the contemporary world. It builds upon the second issue of the JSRNC published in 2007, which focused on astrology investigating the religion-nature nexus. Bron Taylor argued that the role of the journal was a scholarly commitment to ‘a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary, taboo free inquiry’ (Taylor 2007: 5) and thus accepted that the consideration of the nature of astrology was a worthwhile academic endeavour. From this second issue a question arose. The editor Michael York asked, ‘In terms of religion, nature and culture, the sociologist’s concern is the wish to understand how astrology is used. How does it impact on religious perceptions, on cultural institutions and on how we picture the universe?’ (York 2007: 146). This special issue of the JSRNC picks up on York’s question and offers an insight into astrology’s culture-nature-religion link through the exploration of a community that incorporates an alternative epistemology.
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This paper assumes a cultural astronomical perspective and argues that the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts with their religious intent contain descriptive naked-eye astronomy. It makes this case by examining the annual dynamic movement of the... more
This paper assumes a cultural astronomical perspective and argues that the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts with their religious intent contain descriptive naked-eye astronomy. It makes this case by examining the annual dynamic movement of the stars which were classified by Ptolemy in the first century C.E. as the phases of the fixed stars. In doing so it identifies and addresses a blind spot in the literature with regards to star phases. To help remove this blind spot this paper proposes a set of unambiguous terms which acknowledges and separates the two star phases of Arising and Laying Hidden and Curtailed Passage. The paper then turns to the utterance of the Pyramid Texts and shows how the dynamic narrative of the star phases appear to be the foundation of the stellar theology described in these texts. For this reason the paper contends that the texts contained in the pyramids of the third millennium B.C. E. contain descriptive naked-eye astronomy and can be defined as a set of astrono...
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Within the history of science questions have been asked as to the source of Galileo's approach to his natural philosophy. This paper addresses these questions through a consideration of Galileo's astrological papers known as the... more
Within the history of science questions have been asked as to the source of Galileo's approach to his natural philosophy. This paper addresses these questions through a consideration of Galileo's astrological papers known as the Astrologica nonnulla. This paper argues that the Arabic style of astrology used by Galileo was in itself a challenge to Aristotle's physics. This style of astrology emerged in the 9 th century in parallel with Islamic occasionalism and was focused on recording the changeability of the planets in the heavens and reducing them to a number value. This reductionism was undertaken to achieve a level of predictability in the believed incalculable Aristotelian sub-lunar realm. This paper suggests that this style of astrology provided Galileo with the thinking space which allowed him to work outside the Aristotelian dominant world view.
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From as earlier as the period of the ascension mythology of the Old Kingdom of Egypt humanity has created stories of divine beings. These beings are those who upon their deaths ascend to the gods or they are beings that act as... more
From as earlier as the period of the ascension mythology of the Old Kingdom of Egypt humanity has created stories of divine beings. These beings are those who upon their deaths ascend to the gods or they are beings that act as intermediates between the gods and humanity. Generally an analysis of these stories takes the path of biblical studies, theological debate, or in the case of the Egyptian texts, a consideration of grammar and the acceptance of a lack of understanding of intention (Faulkner, 1969 [2004], viii). However, this paper offers an approach to these stories from the perspective of cultural astronomy and it examines the nature of one of these narratives with an understanding of naked eye astronomy and an awareness of the potential forastronomy to be mythopoeic.
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This paper introduces a case study of The Sophia Centre's MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, UK. Initiated in 2002 as a campus-based degree with fifteen students, the MA has been taught... more
This paper introduces a case study of The Sophia Centre's MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, UK. Initiated in 2002 as a campus-based degree with fifteen students, the MA has been taught online since 2008; its current student body numbers seventy-five. The strategies adopted in moving to online delivery are identified and evaluated. It is observed that these were influenced by an entrepreneurial philosophy imported from the private sector. While at first glance the differences between a campus-based and an online degree seem obvious, on closer inspection these differences become blurred. Key factors in implementing successful online course delivery are recognised as being the construction of a virtual campus to mirror the brick-built campus in functional terms to facilitate learning and encourage students and their tutors to establish online identities and build community. The particular importance of the curriculum is noted. Criteria attributed by different commentators to so-called niche degrees are considered. It is concluded that the MA can be described as a niche degree by virtue of the facts that its student body is diverse in age; may or may not use the degree for leveraging their careers; that its specialised curriculum links it with a special interest group which is geographically diverse and hence exclusively accessible online. Contrary to some criticism of an entrepreneurial influence on higher education, it is concluded that this style of an online niche degree harks back to a medieval academic model.
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The constellation images with their historically persistent nature and adaptability fulll many contemporary delnitions of culture. From the earliest Elamite seals of the fourth millennium to the list-maps in the lrst century CE through... more
The constellation images with their historically persistent nature and adaptability fulll many contemporary delnitions of culture. From the earliest Elamite seals of the fourth millennium to the list-maps in the lrst century CE through Ptolemy's Almagest, the constellation images became established in Western cultures. With the invention of printing and the age of the great star atlases from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, the constellation images continued to display cultural resistance by cartographers to Gothicise, Christianise, politicise or simply remove them. This resilience has shown that the constellation images are in fact a living gallery of human history with images ranging from the Palaeolithic to the modern world. Furthermore, with their acceptance across a diversity of people and nations, the constellation images today have come to represent a form of world culture, in that they constitute a culture of humanity that is not linked by tribes, clans, nations, religions, or languages.
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In the north of Wales, there are 105 churches that have stonework dated to the thirteenth century or earlier. Of these, only 12 are oriented to face the summer solstice sunrise. Additionally, all of these solstitial churches are located... more
In the north of Wales, there are 105 churches that have stonework dated to the thirteenth century or earlier. Of these, only 12 are oriented to face the summer solstice sunrise. Additionally, all of these solstitial churches are located in the northernmost counties of Wales, near or around the valleys which flow beside the Snowdonia Mountains or to the east of them. The 12 solstitial churches take their landscape into account and, thus, vary considerably in their azimuths in order to align to the actual sunrise of the summer solstice. In such terrain, one would expect a wide and diverse collection of western declinations, yet these 12 churches fall into three distinct regional bands of western declination. The 12 solstice churches have western declinations that align them either with the winter solstice sunset (this is the natural alignment) or with the period of early February and early November. With all the churches fitting into these declination patterns, this paper presents an argument for the origin of this apparent intention-ality, based on the history of the region. The Isle of Anglesey, in the Roman period, was one of Europe's major Druidic centres of learning and the Druids' naked-eye astronomy skills are evident in artefacts such as the Coligny Calendar. Based on this background, this paper suggests that the original fifth-or sixth-century churches, which were later rebuilt in stone, appropriated pre-existing sacred sites. Thus, today, these Welsh historical churches appear to have preserved, in their medieval walls, older non-Christian orientations.
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The union of sun, landscape, and architecture contribute collectively to the siting of Welsh Cistercian abbeys. By taking into account the topography rather than a symbolic horizon 1 to identify the exact sunrise point, and by using the... more
The union of sun, landscape, and architecture contribute collectively to the siting of Welsh Cistercian abbeys. By taking into account the topography rather than a symbolic horizon 1 to identify the exact sunrise point, and by using the sky as one of its primary sources, this paper proposes that there was a deliberate intention to orientate Welsh monasteries by embracing their individual landscapes. Landscape itself, Belden Lane argued, has agency when story emerges through the blend of culture, sky, and earth, for the human role in completing the task for jointly perceiving a given landscape is to tell its story, to weave a narrative that embraces the energies of land and sky in suggesting common meanings only discovered together. 2 It is this story that we sought to find in our research, albeit in this case a monastic one. Our team consisted of an anthropologist (Brady), a medieval art historian (Gunzburg), and an archaeologist (Silva), all of whose training overlaps within the field of cultural astronomy. In order to investigate the sun's role in the building of these monastic centres, between August 2014 and March 2016 the orientation of twenty-three Welsh monastic sites, as well as the elevation of their surrounding landscapes, was surveyed and measured. We will first discuss the dilemma that the direction east posed to scholars in the ancient world when orientating sacred buildings. A detailed discussion of the methodology used and related astronomical terms follows. The findings are then presented and examined with regards to the orientation of these Welsh Cistercian abbey churches. From our research four common themes emerge: the importance of the landscape in understanding the orientations of the abbey churches; the emphasis on sunsets and the west; the focus on the astronomical equinox rather than that of the Julian calendar equinox; and the solar position on Michaelmas (September 29 th) and/or Saint David's Day (March 1 st). * The authors would like to acknowledge the fieldwork funding of the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture (Faculty of Humanities and Performing Arts, University of Wales Trinity Saint David) and the support of CADW in researching these sites. We are appreciative of Pamela Arms-trong for her fieldwork assistance. We would also like to thank Janet Burton for comments on previous drafts and her support of this project, as well as Terryl N. Kinder and the Editorial Board of Cîteaux who gave us such generous feedback and advice. 1 That is, a theoretical flat horizon. 2 Belden C. lane, Landscapes of the sacred: geography and narrative in American spirituality (Baltimore, MD/London 2001), p. 58. 99505_Citeaux_t67_02_aBrady et al.indd 275 21/03/17 09:30