astrologers

"The sun moves towards south or north along the ecliptic every moment. Therefore, the direction [determined by the Indian circle method] appears to be incorrect. The corrected direction will be [obtained by applying a correction] further by [using] the R.Sine of the declination.The difference of the R. Sine of the sun’s declination at the time of the shadow’s entry and exit [to and from the level circle] is multiplied by the hypotenuse [of the shadow] and divided by the R.cosine of the terrestrial latitude. The result is [the correction in terms of ] angulas etc. One should shift the western mark to the opposite direction to the sun’s course (ayana). Otherwise, one should shift the eastern mark to the same direction of the sun’s course. [Thus] the correct east west line is [obtained]."

"We should not be ashamed to acknowledge truth from whatever source it comes to us, even if it is brought to us by former generations and foreign peoples. For him who seeks the truth there is nothing of higher value than truth itself."

"We ought not to be ashamed of appreciating the truth and of acquiring it wherever it comes from, even if it comes from races distant and nations different from us. For the seeker of truth nothing takes precedence over the truth."

"An astronomer must be cosmopolitan because ignorant statesmen can not be expected to value their services."

"Let me not seem to have lived in vain."

"Simplicibus itaque verbis gaudet Mathematica Veritas, cum etiam per se simplex sit Veritatis oratio."

"Sed adhuc supersunt aliae superstitiones, quarum secreta pandenda sunt, ... ut et in istis profanis religionibus sciatis mortes esse hominum consecratas."

"But there really are not any spheres in the heavens...and those which have been devised by the authors to save the appearances exist only in the imagination, for the purpose of permitting the mind to conceive the motion which the heavenly bodies trace in their course and, by the aid of geometry, to determine the motion numerically through the use of arithmetic...Of course, almost the whole of antiquity and also very many recent philosophers consider as certain and unquestionable the view that the heavens are made of a hard and impenetrable substance, that it is divided into various spheres, and that the heavenly bodies, attached to some of these spheres, revolve on account of the motion of these spheres. But this opinion does not correspond to the truth of the matter..."

"Those who study the stars have God for a teacher."

"For it is now quite clear to me that there are no solid spheres in the heavens."

"When on the above mentioned day [November 11], a little before dinner...I was returning to that house, and during my walk contemplating the sky here and there since the clearer sky seemed to be just what could be wished for in order to continue observations after dinner, behold, directly overhead, a certain strange star was suddenly seen, flashing its light with a radiant gleam and it struck my eyes. Amazed, and as if astonished and stupified, I stood still, gazing for a certain length of time with my eyes fixed intently upon it and noticing that same star placed close to the stars which antiquity attributed to Cassiopeia. When I had satisfied myself that no star of that kind had ever shone forth before, I was led into such perplexity by the unbelievability of the thing that I began to doubt the faith of my own eyes, and so, turning to the servants who were accompanying me, I asked them whether they too could see a certain extremely bright star when I pointed out the place directly overhead. They immediately replied with one voice that they saw it completely and that it was extremely bright. But despite their affirmation, still being doubtful on account of the novelty of the thing, I inquired of some country people who by chance were travelling past in carriages whether they could see a certain star in the height. Indeed, these people shouted out that they saw that huge star, which had never been noticed so high up. And at length, having confirmed that my vision was not deceiving me, but in fact that an unusual star existed there, beyond all type, and marvelling that the sky had brought forth a certain new phenomenon to be compared with the other stars, immediately I got ready my instrument. I began to measure its situation and distance from the neighbouring stars of Cassiopeia, and to note extremely diligently those things which were visible to the eye concerning its apparent size, form, colour, and other aspects."

"Reach me down my Tycho Brahé, — I would know him when we meet, When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet."

"It's important to mention here the still unseen planet Vulcan, the true ruler of Virgo, since its discovery is said to be imminent."

"Many astrologers feel that Vulcan, the planet of thunder, will become visible through telescopes within a few years."

"Alone among the sciences, astrology has spanned the centuries, and made the journey intact. We shouldn't be suurprised that it remains by us, unchanged by time—because astrology is truth—and truth is eternal."

"By the end of the 16th century with the work of Viète and especially during the first half of the 17th century in the work of Harriot, Fermat, and Descartes, mathematicians began to treat algebra more symbolically, eventually adopting a notation that readily lends itself to making algebraic computations."

"... He was among the first Europeans to acquire a working knowledge of a North American language—in this case, —and by means of it to understand and record indigenous culture at the time of first contact with Europeans. Outgoing and amiable, he made friends with the people, hunted and feasted with them, learned their methods of agriculture, canoe building, and fishing, and clearly enjoyed much about their way of life. As a general rule, he recorded what he saw with the detachment of a physicist and the engagement of a linguist and ethnologist, describing rather than judging religious practices and cultural ceremonies that were completely alien to him, and observing in context the details of Algonquian life."

"There is an herb which is sowed apart by itself & is called by the inhabitants Uppówoc: In the it has divers names, according to the several places & countries where it grows and is used: The Spaniards generally call it Tobacco. The leaves thereof being dried and brought into powder: they use to take the fume or smoke thereof by sucking it through pipes made of clay into their stomach and head; from whence it purges superfluous & other gross , opens all the pores & passages of the body: by which means the use thereof, not only preserves the body from obstructions; but also if any be, so that they have not been of too long continuance, in short time breaks them: whereby their bodies are notably preserved in health, & know not many grievous diseases wherewithal we in England are oftentimes afflicted."

"Long before Rome or Greece or Israel was even heard of, the mountains of India point back to an age, of learning beyond, and still beyond. From the astronomical calculations that the figures in the Ir temples represent, it has been estimated that the Hindu understood the Precession of the Equinoxes centuries before the Christian era."

"Looking back to the earliest days of the history of the known world, we find that the first linguistic records belong to the people under consideration, and date back to that far distant cycle of time known as the Aryan civilization. Beyond history we cannot go; but the monuments and cave temples of India, according to the testimony of archaeologists, all point to a time so far beyond the scant history at our disposal, that in the examination of such matters our greatest knowledge is dwarfed into enfantile nothingness - our age and era are but the swaddling clothes of the child; our manhood that of the infant in the arms of the eternity of time."

"To consider the origin of this Science, we must take our thoughts back to the earliest days of the world's history, and further more to the consideration of a people the oldest of all, yet one that has survived, and who are today as characteristic and as full of individuality as they were when thousands of years ago the first records of history were written."

"I allude to those children of the East, the Hindus, a people whose philosophy and wisdom are every day being more and more revived."

"People who in their ignorance disdain the wisdom of ancient races forget that the great past of India contained secrets of life and philosophy that following civilizations could not controvert, but were forced to accept. For instance, it has been demonstrated that the ancient Hindus understood the precession of the equinoxes and made the calculation that it [a complete cycle] took place once in every 25,870 years. The observation and mathematical precision necessary to establish such a theory has been the wonder and admiration of modem astronomers. They, with their modem knowledge and up- to-date instruments, are still quarrelling among themselves as to whether the precession, the most important feature in astronomy, takes place every 25,870 years or every 24,500 years. The majority believes that the Hindus made no mistakes, but how they arrived at such a calculation is as great a mystery as the origin of life itself."

"That servant who is claimant of Divine knowledge but seeks peace in other than God, is entrapped in severe affliction. But when comely he seeks forgiveness of the Almighty, his affliction is eliminated."

"Excess of knowledge does not make one great scholar, rather savant is that, who acting on his knowledge adheres to Sunnah may amount of his knowledge be little."

"If the claimant of Divine knowledge does not alienate himself from the common folk, Allah Most High separates him from His mercy making him lustful, so much so people hate him. He loses world and faith."

"Whoever genuinely trusts in God when dealing with himself will also trust in God when dealing with others."

"Patience is adherence to the ordinance of the Book (Quran) and the Sunnah."

"Theophrastus Paracelsus rediscovered the occult properties of the magnet—“the bone of Horus” which, twelve centuries before his time, had played such an important part in the theurgic mysteries—and he very naturally became the founder of the school of magnetism and of mediaeval magico-theurgy. But Mesmer, who lived nearly three hundred years after him, and as a disciple of his school brought the magnetic wonders before the public, reaped the glory that was due to the fire-philosopher, while the great master died in a hospital! So goes the world : new discoveries, evolving from old sciences ; new men—the same old nature! p. 71/2"

"The church of Rome has never been either credulous or cowardly, as is abundantly proved by the Machiavellism which marks her policy. Moreover, she has never troubled herself much about the clever prestidigitateurs whom she knew to be simply adepts in juggling. Robert Houdin, Comte, Hamilton and Bosco, slept secure in their beds, while she persecuted such men as Paracelsus, Cagliostro, and Mesmer, the Hermetic philosophers and mystics—and effectually stopped every genuine manifestation of an occult nature by killing the mediums. p. 100"

"I have had occasion recently to look into the history of animal magnetism and hypnotism, and have been greatly struck by the way in which, for a hundred an fifty years, the world has refused to take serious cognizance of the discoveries of Mesmer, Braid, Esdaile, and the rest."

"In the large curative establishment founded by Mesmer at Vienna, he employed, besides magnetism, electricity, metals and a variety of woods. His fundamental doctrine was that of the Alchemists. He believed that metals, as also woods and plants have all an affinity with and bear a close relation to, the human organism. Everything in the Universe has developed from one homogeneous primordial substance differentiated into incalculable species of matter, and everything is destined to return thereinto."

"You are at the head of the committee which the government sent to M. d'Eslon's house, in order to witness the evidence of my discovery, and to judge its efficacy. When Mr. d'Eslon approached me and when I saw fit to let him glimpse a few elements of the system of my knowledge, I made him give his word of honor that he would never make public, without first having obtained my permission, the small number of new ideas that I might confide in him. M. d'Eslon has since signed a statement in which he recognizes that animal magnetism is my property, and that to make use of it without my consent is to be guilty of an offense as odious as it is punishable. However, in spite of his oaths and the statement which he signed, M. d'Eslon has not only dared to use my property for himself, but he has found men who were not afraid to share the spoils of my discoveries with him. Thirty-six doctors, from what I have been told, came to him looking for a system of knowledge about which he should be silent, and which he could not impart to them without breaking a code of honor... Like you, Monsieur, the world is my judge; and if the good that I have done can be forgotten, and the good that I wish to do can be obstructed, then I will have posterity to avenge me."

"The secret of healing, he maintained, lies in the knowledge of correspondences and affinities between kindred atoms."

"Find that metal, wood, stone, or plant that has the most correspondential affinity with the body of the sufferer; and, whether through internal or external use, that particular agent imparting to the patient additional strength to fight disease -- (developed generally through the introduction of some foreign element into the constitution) -- and to expel it, will lead invariably to his cure. Many and marvelous were such cures effected by Anton Mesmer. p. 24"

"Ever since Mesmer's death at the age of eighty, in 1815, the French and English "Faculty," with some honorable exceptions, have ridiculed and denied the facts as well as the theories of Mesmer, but now, in 1890, a host of scientists suddenly agree, while wiping out as best they may the name of Mesmer, to rob him of all his phenomena, which they quietly appropriate under the name of "hypnotism," "suggestion," "Therapeutic Magnetism," "psychopathic Massage," and all the rest of it. p. 28"

"The Academy disbelieved her most eminent Scientists and proclaimed Mesmerism a delusion... Even now when experiment has amply demonstrated that "Mesmerism" or animal magnetism, now known as hypnotism (a sorry effect, forsooth, of the "Breath of Cybele") is a fact, we yet get the majority of scientists denying its actual existence. Small fry as it is in the majestic array of experimental psycho-magnetic phenomena, even hypnotism seems too incredible, too mysterious, for our Darwinists and Haeckelians."

"About 1780, Mesmer settled in Paris, and soon the whole metropolis, from the Royal family down to the last hysterical bourgeoise, were at his feet. The clergy got frightened and cried -- "the Devil"! The licensed "leeches" felt an ever-growing deficit in their pockets; and the aristocracy and the Court found themselves on the verge of madness from mere excitement. p. 25"

"In 1774 he too happened to come across the theurgic secret of direct vital transmission; and so highly interested was he, that he abandoned all his old methods to devote himself entirely to the new discovery. Henceforward he mesmerized by gaze and passes, the natural magnets being abandoned. The mysterious effects of such manipulations were called by him -- animal magnetism. This brought to Mesmer a mass of followers and disciples. The new force was experimented with in almost every city and town of Europe and found everywhere an actual fact."

"When Mesmer arrived, Paris divided its allegiance between the Church which attributed all kinds of phenomena except its own divine miracles to the Devil, and the Academy, which believed in neither God nor Devil, but only in its own infallible wisdom. But there were minds which would not be satisfied with either of these beliefs... They had laid their legitimate desires at the royal feet, and the King forthwith commanded his learned Academy to look into the matter...."

"Bardesanes’s faith was true after his master Valentinus, the founder of Gnostic schools in Alexandria and Rome, and orthodox Christians have cursed him bitterly for it. Ephraim of Edessa, a father of the Church, writing 120 years after his death, says that he died “with the Lord in his mouth and demons in his heart”. He accused Bardesanes of being a heretic and sophist, a greedy sheep-dog in league with the wolves, and a cunning dissembler practicing deceit with his songs. If this is what a Christian saint has to say about his theology, it is something of an irony that Roman Catholic scholars are so eager to accept his geography."

"“Bardesanes was also a great student of Indian religion, and wrote a book on the subject, from which the Platonist Porphyry subsequently quoted. But it is as a poet and writer on Christian theology and theosophy that Bardesanes gained so wide a reputation; he wrote many books in Syriac and also Greek ... [and] he was the first to adapt the Syriac tongue to metrical forms and set the words to music; these hymns became immensely popular, not only in the Edessene kingdom but wherever the Syriac tongue was spoken.”"

"And thus He will bring back His world to its former aspect, so that the Cosmos will once more be deemed worthy of worship and wondering reverence, and God, the maker and restorer of the mighty fabric, will be adored by the men of that day with unceasing hymns of praise and blessing."

"But when all this has befallen, Asclepius, then the Master and Father, God, the first before all, the maker of that God who first came into being, will look on that which has come to pass, and will stay the disorder by the counterworking of His will, which is the good."

"I, Mind, Myself am present with holy men and good, the pure and merciful, men who live piously. To such My Presence doth become an aid, and straightway they gain Gnosis of all things, and win the Father's love by their pure lives, and give Him thanks, invoking on Him blessings, and chanting hymns, intent on Him with ardent love (ii, 14)."

"The pious will be deemed insane, and the impious wise; the madman will be thought a brave man, and the wicked will be esteemed as good."

"Darkness will be preferred to light, and death will be thought more profitable than life; no one will raise his eyes to heaven."

"No word of reverence or piety, no utterance worthy of heaven and of the Gods of heaven, will be heard or believed."

"But on the pious soul the Mind doth mount and guide it to the Gnosis' Light. And such a soul doth never tire in songs of praise to God and pouring blessing on all men, and doing good in word and deed to all, in imitation of its Sire (ii, 155)."

"The Sun is its father, the Moon its mother, the wind has carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse."