Exegesis Volume 07 Issue #014

In This Issue:

From: L:Smerillo
Subject: [e] Re: exegesis Digest V7 #13

From: "Roger L. Satterlee"
Subject: [e] Re: exegesis Digest V7 #12


Exegesis Digest Thu, 31 Jan 2002


Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 09:00:53 +0100
From: L:Smerillo
Subject: [e] Re: exegesis Digest V7 #13

There is nothing that the sacred cows of astrology fear more than a bit of intellectual hardnosed argument, a bit of citation of historical facts to counter their clouds. They really do dislike reading and following up references, they really do dislike having to learn languages, they really do like dislike most anything which is outside of their narrow slit of heavenly Glory. They tend to think that they can explain Everything and the Whole Universe and The Meaning of Life by twinkling a few stars on a piece of paper, or by juggling their viewing glass to provide a new kalleidodscopic picture (try this technique!). There are even those who opine, with all the careless naievite of the Besoted, that astrology is what the astrologer does and when he does it and this is because the astrologer is a Person In Touch with the Cosmos through the Act of Divination... yes, I am refering to Geoffery Cornelius.


 > >The discourse between Lorenzo & Roger has seemed like a couple of jackdaws
 > >squawking at each other in different dialects. The subject is mythistory,

Wrong the discussion is about what historical and philological studies have demonstrated over the last 200 years.


 > >The issue is the reality of Homer. Did he exist? We'll never know. Did he
 > >write the Odyssey? Same answer. Can that book be deconstructed to reveal
 > >different authors? Depends who you ask.

Depends on whether they are a reliable source or not. There are criteria for what one would accept as sound knowledge and evidenciary argumentation. S. has failed to provide those. His theories are Clouds.


 > >Roger seems to believe that the literary work exhibits the style of an
 > >individual that correlates with certain astrological features he has cited.
 > >Such advocacy suffers from the assumption that subjective correlations will
 > >be shared by others.

All is not a matter of subjectivity. Astrologers like subjectivity, because 1) it is the latest, along with post-modernism, catch buzz word (they still haven't recovered from their embrace with the Medusa of psychology); 2) it gives them an excuse for never thinking anything through in any other terms but their own soi-dissant astrological terms, and then they can always apply the General Principle of the Kalleidoscope Effect, assuming yet another form of relativity and post-modernist deconstructed subjectivity (I think this used to be be called woolly-headedness).


 > >Lorenzo seems to believe that the unreality of the
 > >single author named Homer has been established as fact. Assertion of the
 > >`fact' suffers from the assumption that proof need not be provided to
 > >demonstrate that it is a fact rather than subjective belief.

Do you really want me to give you a course in Homeric scholarship, complete with an obligatory 60 page bibliography you have to read? Do you really think that considered and reasoned scholarly concensus is so 'subjective?'


 > >One might observe that any literary deconstruction, performed in the ivory
 > >towers of acadaemia, that suggests a multiplicity of authorship, is mere
 > >intellectual artifice. It rests upon grounds no more substantial than those
 > >occupied by the interpreting astrologer.

This is what I mean. See above. I've never seen any astrologer state so clearly the manifesto of their own illusion.


 > >All it has going for it, when it
 > >opposes the view of any individual astrologer, is the weight of any
 > >consensus that it may have obtained. Generally, any such consensus will not
 > >have been measured; therefore it can rightly be dismissed as hearsay by
 > >anyone not inclined to be impressed by it. Bystanders may be impressed by
 > >the suggestion that a considerable consensus exists, but any such assertion
 > >may be empty of substantial content, merely an idle boast issued for reasons
 > >of ideology or academic turf-protection.

If it were not so clear that you have a very large axe to grind and a heavy chip on your Atlean shoulders, then some form of discourse could continue.

feliciter,

Lorenzo Smerillo


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From: "Roger L. Satterlee"
Subject: [e] Re: exegesis Digest V7 #12
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 21:56:35 -0500

"[..] Urania is the handmaiden of Clio, not the reverse. When Urania
 > >takes the upper hand, there is but phanatasy, fiction, and dumb chaos.
 > >Which is why she is kept our of the Parnassian Groves. Mad, bad, and
 > >dangerous to know. [..]"

The Muse of Astronomy serves the Muse History. I'll buy that...:)

Lorenzo reminds me of an important idea, one which I often forget is not as common as I would by nature expect. My conception of astrology allows me to think any god or goddess as being itself a story, a cultivated collective fiction, and yet another a collection of parts--a conglomerate of certain emphasized collective ideas or ideals. It is my assumption that, unlike the gods, the planet symbols of astrology have no cumbersome mythic images. The planets can be useful as a means to analyze (deconstruct) any of the god figures. The properties of selected planets can help us to see a formula at work in the characteristic images and the traditional motives of whatever gods one chooses to examine. The stories of gods interacting serve the astrologer best as examples of planets in aspects from various signs and so on. For example, if a particular god is said to wear the colors red and black, then astrology's Mars and Saturn are an emphasized part of that god's *formula*...this, regardless of whatever culture projects whatever deities for whatever purpose. Thus "Urania" (above) may or may not have astrology's planet Uranus emphasized: the malefic confusion cited, for instance, may easily be more of an emphasis on astrology's Saturn and Neptune, as purely abstract properties and or qualities.

Rog



Original Message


From: "Listar"
To: "exegesis digest users" Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 2:00 AM
Subject: exegesis Digest V7 #12


 > >exegesis Digest Tue, 29 Jan 2002 Volume: 07 Issue: 012
 > >
 > >In This Issue:
 > >#1: From: L:Smerillo
 > >Subject: [e] Re: exegesis Digest V7 #11
 > >
 > >----------------------------------------------------------------------
 > >
 > >Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 03:01:52 +0100
 > >From: L:Smerillo
 > >Subject: [e] Re: exegesis Digest V7 #11
 > >
 > >If you want a date for the redaction of Od. read Gregory Nagy, look at
 > >the Oxford Classical Dictionary, or ML West's new editior in the Tuebner
 > >series (but he wrote that in Latin),the debate is long. The closest date
 > >for redaction, which is what you seem to talking about, is c. 600 BCE.
 > >There is a myth that Homer was blind. It is on the same level of
 > >creditiblity as Peter Pan.
 > >
 > >Otherwise I have no idea of what you are speaking in the rest of your
 > >message. Urania is the handmaiden of Clio, not the reverse. When Urania
 > >takes the upper hand, there is but phanatasy, fiction, and dumb chaos.
 > >Which is why she is kept our of the Parnassian Groves. Mad, bad, and
 > >dangerous to know.
 > >
 > >feliciter,
 > >
 > >Lorenzo Smerillo
 > >
 > >
 > >_________________
 > >>In as much as great works of art are seldom if ever created by committee,
 > >>I think there probably was a single individual born about 800 BC who collected
 > >>what he liked best from his culture's folk literary legacy, and made a work of
 > >>art concerning the Odyssey. I assume it was a late, mature, work of art which
 > >>may have been completed by an aging man who might have lost his sight along
 > >>the way. There are times which just happen be more seminal than others...
 > >
 > >
 > >------------------------------
 > >
 > >End of exegesis Digest V7 #12
 > >*****************************
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 > >
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 > >


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End of exegesis Digest V7 #14

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