Sunday, May 16, 2021

DRUUIDICA PRINNION
(Druidical Astrology)
by Michel-Gerald Boutet

This Historical Overview on the Origins of Antique Druidical Astrology has been written with the special collaboration of Joseph Monard and David Frawley.


On the Origins of 12 sign Astrology

Twelve sign astrology, traditionally attributed to the Chaldeans, finds its origins in the shamanistic lithic cultures of Eurasia. It then reached a higher level of sophistication with the early Vedic science of the early Indo-Europeans. It was already very ancient when Hipparchus of Nicaea had catalogued the positions of some 1022 stars and 49 constellations. By this time, the ancients were already inpossession of a sky chart. They knew that their ancestral homeland was situated in the stars of the northern skies. This is why the study of stars was very important to them. The ancient seers saw themselves as star children. Zodiacal constellations were a thing long familiar to the seers of Antiquity. In 174 BCE Hipparchus identified a new star in the constellation of Scorpio. He was very eager to chart allthe visible stars, for he correctly suspected that the skies were not eternal. He made himself famous by discovering the Earth's precession caused by the oscillation of the rotational axis every 25 600 years. This oscillation affects the position of the celestial poles by causing a slow shift of the equinoxes. Around 280BCE, another Greek, Aratus of Soles, gave in Phenomenons and Prognostics, a very precise description of the skies for the practical use of navigators and farmers. Aratus, who was born in Cilicia, Asia Minor, and sometime around 320 BCE was drawing information from the work of Eudoxus (c. 370 BCE). This study was the first true scientific work on astronomy. The old constellations identified by the ancients are generally those that run along the ecliptic, those referred to as the Zodiac and which serve to mark the passing of seasonal time. They also identified the circumpolar stars, Ursa Major, then called the Great Wain with alpha Draconis as the Pole Star before 2500 BCE. From the names hinted at in the zodiac, i.e. Orion and his dog (Sirius), we can guess the general pastoral theme. Some authors believe that the oldest proofs for the antiquity of Western Astrology are to be found in the
Denderah planisphere
artefact dated before 1800 BCE and kept at the Bibliothèque nationale de Paris.

However, it now certain that the time of creation of the relief is no earlier than 50 BCE during the time of the Greco-Roman period. because of the astronomical positions of stars and planets. It was also observed that the uncharted skies without zodiacal representations run along the 36 degreeslatitude. The centre of the band coincides with the position of the southern pole in2500 BCE. This indicates that the Egyptian astronomers were drawing on a more northern tradition than their own. Bronze Age Greeceof the Minoans and Mycenaeans (ca. 2500 -1100 BCE) and Old Hittite Kingdom (ca. 1600 -1400BCE) were just above the 36th latitude. This Greek and Anatolian position rightfuly hints at a Northeastern Mediterranean origin for the zodiac


Michel Gérald Boutet
Michel-Gérald Boutet is a retired Art teacher and is an independant researcher in the fields of French Canadian, Algonquian and Celtic studies with interests in Rock Art, iconological and epigraphic studies. Studies : University of Ottawa, B.A.

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