The Issue of the Cross

I was rereading René Guénon’s “Symbolism of the Cross”, trying to understand it better (it’s a difficult book, part of a difficult trio — with “The Multiple States of Being” and “Man and his Becoming according to the Vedanta” — in which he explains metaphysics in a more “theoretical” way).

I didn’t get, the first time I read it, that in the fourth chapter, he screws up the Cross of the Directions of Space. So, I decided to do a video on it.

The problem in his explanation - he’d hate to hear it, but that’s the truth — lies in the fact that he was a man of the 20th Century, with 20th-Century astronomy in his mind.

If we look at the Cosmos and try to picture it in our minds as people did a couple of centuries ago, it gets clearer.

I have a course on the basics of the Celestial Mechanics according to the ancients, which can be bought here.

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I wanted to write a bit more on that, but I don’t have time today. Please let me know if you want me to.

Meanwhile, here are some more old Quora answers, with a complete Quora blog text at the end.

How can I consult a free astrologer?

I don’t know, and I don’t care. I have never seen any free astrological service that I would recommend. Good luck, anyway.

In Astrology Transits, What house do we use to relate to our job, the 6th or the 10th(MC)?

Not just in transits, in astrology in general: job, work, career, these things are 10th house issues. The 6th house is the house of people that work for you, a totally different thing.

Is astrology a science or superstition?

Neither. The options are not the only possibilities.

Is gastronomy a science or a superstition? Is carpentry a science or a superstition? Is poetry a science or a superstition?

Astrology is a technique (what the ancients called an art). It is most definitely not a science in the modern sense.

Your question is probably intended as “Does astrology work or not?”, and the answer is, of course, yes, it does.

How long does the moon spend in each zodiac sign?

2 days and a bit less than a half. She goes through the Zodiac in 27 days and some hours. Just round up to 28. If it were 30, that would mean she stays in each sign for 2 and a half days.

Thoughts on Aquarius women? Are they dumb?

Let’s see.

You just made one of the single most stupid comment I have read, and I’ve been around for a while. I don’t think I can say that you are stupid just because of that. It would be unfair, everyone has their bad moments.

Now, why would I say every women, born on a certain 30-day period, around the world, every year, is dumb?

Just forget this nonsense. If you want to be educated on “sun-signs”, and stop making this embarrassing comments, please read this blog post:

ON SUN-SIGNS

I’ll write this as the standard answer to all sun-sign-related questions.

First, a couple of disclaimers: I am a Western astrologer. I’m not answering for Indian astrology - there are many astrologers here on Quora who could do that (although I think most of them would agree with me).

More than that, I am what many people call a traditional astrologer. I don’t like that word, but I’m not a modern astrologer. I am aware that some of them use sun-signs in a different way, and that they put more value on it than I do. I mean no disrespect to any of them (there are some good ones around here, and you can ask them what they think about that), and I think our views are not that different in this regard, but I have to say things as I see them.

Let’s start, then.

A little astrological background information.

Astrology is a symbolic art based on four main blocks.

The first block are the signs.

They’re 30° divisions of a thing called the Zodiac, which is a belt on the celestial sphere.

They are qualities, places, or adjectives. In astrology, signs neither do nor suffer anything. They just qualify and influence the second building block, the planets (the other two main blocks are the houses and the stars, about which we will not talk here).

The planets are the cosmic agents. They’re the ones that do and suffer things.

Among them, the most easily recognizable is the Sun¹.

It is the king of the planets, and has many significations according to this status: the father, the king, the boss, the Spirit, God, etc. It is one of the significators of the person in the birth chart.

Sun-signs

Since the Sun is so special (and since its movement is easy to track - it goes around the zodiac in one year, covering one sign each 30 days, more or less), one guy named Alan Leo popularized the Sun-sign character delineation, which goes more or less like this:

1) Divide people in twelve groups according to the sign the Sun was in when they were born. Each group got the name of the sign in question. So, people born when the Sun’s in Aries are called, in this classification, Aries, etc.

2) Ascribe to each group some characteristics - or some adaptations/distortions, depending on the case - of the Sun when it’s on them. Add some personifications of the qualities of the signs themselves, and add some inventions.

This, of course, ignores the rest of the birth chart. Moreover, it ignores the actual position and condition of the Sun. The signs are not homogeneous. There is a world of difference between the Sun being at 1° Libra and 23° Libra. It ignores the aspects the Sun makes with other planets, the stars that may or may not be conjunct it, etc.

But the more important: The Sun is not the person. The person is the entire chart, but more specifically the ruler of the ascendant, the Moon and only then the Sun. In fact, the Sun is the person in some techniques (revolutions, directions, progressions, etc), but in the birth chart itself it is more related to other things (the person’s father, the stuff related to any house it may rule, etc) than to the native. The person’s body and appearance? The ascendant and its ruler. The person’s emotions? Mainly the Moon.

“Does it mean that the sign the Sun is in has nothing to tell us?” No. The signs, as I said before, are modifiers. By being in one of them, the Sun behaves differently than in any other. But it doesn’t tell anything about appearance, money, family, accidents, sex-drive, and very, very little about love, vocation, spirituality, etc.

So, the answer to “Why Does SIGN A care so much about X?” is It doesn’t.

The answer to “How do I make this SIGN B guy love me?” is don’t see him as an “Aries”.

The answer to “I’m a SIGN C. What do I have to do to get rich?” is Get a job.

The answer to “Why are SIGN D women so beautiful?” is Because you’re blind.

I hope I have cleared this out.