ANCIENT
SCIENCE, MODERN SCIENCE
Introduction. Characteristics of modern Physics (classic).
The renewed Physics of century XX. Ancient
science watched from the present. Doubts in the interpretation of facts:
Medicine as example. The necessary
encounter between ancient and the science.
Notes. Recommended readings.
Introduction
1)
The last investigations of science historians grant a main role to
Astrology as a vertebral column structure of many other fields of the knowledge
until centuries XVII and XVIII; remember that Astrology was taught in the
European universities until the great scientific crisis of that epoch. Astrology’s
hegemonic role is several times millenarian;
the maximum development and splendour that has reached till present time
can be located in
2)
Astrology passed later to the West trough Asia Minor and
Slowly we have attended the
publication of works of those who dared to speak again about the influences of
stars, to work in consulting or casting horoscopes and writing predictions for
newspapers, magazines, etc. During
the decade of 70’s took place the first astrological Congress in
But the way to walk is
still long, very long...
Scientists, generally
speaking, do not want to hear to talk about Astrology at all; they usually feel
aversion, some by ignorance or historical inertia, others because the only thing
which they know about the subject are the horoscopes in the newspapers, some
colourful personages that even have arrived to be well known in mass media, etc.
On the other hand, so
lamentable or more than the previous thing is that some people that knows about
Astrology feel aversion by modern science and they think that his knowledge
nothing has to do with Physics, Biology and other disciplines in its present
university version.
When there are two so
clearly separates sides, both must take a step if they want to approach one to
the other; in order to be understood, it is necessary first to be listened to.
In respect to the astrological side, if all that tradition does not renew
and updates within the general trends of modern science, will be reduced to a
marginal small group with some influence in very close social sectors, but null
or little repercussion towards the outside.
It is necessary to break
with the dogmas which many people still carry adhered - by fear, ignorance or
laziness to the effort that it requires to do so - if it is desired to advance
and to surpass the trauma of the rupture that happened three centuries ago.
In any case, the progress of the knowledge will follow its way
pushed by the insatiable human curiosity, because not only exits
objective conditions for a new formulation of Astrology, but that the own
dynamics of events makes reasonable the conjunction with present knowledge.
Remember here the following
writing of Galileo to Kepler, disgusted by the attitude of the orthodox ones of
his time, the scholastics:
You are first, perhaps
the only one, who after a patient investigation, you have given complete credit
to my affirmations... What would
you say of the most important philosophers to those who I have offered myself
hundreds of times, by own will, to teach my studies to them, and that, with the
sluggish obstinacy of a serpent after eating, never has allowed in watching the
planets or the moon by means of the telescope?
(1)
Characteristics of
modern Physics (classic)
From its maximum splendour
in Babylonia to the practical extinction of the science of the influences of
stars in Europe have passed more than 2,000 years; the Physics that arose with
Galileo, Kepler, Newton and all wise people who came after them, with the
unstoppable height of its principles and their enormous successes, took less
than three centuries to be questioned. In
fact, today is known it as Physical Classic and has restricted applications.
Newtonian Mechanics allowed
so amazing and revolutionary advances that some got to think that was something
really definitive; such success caused that other parts of Physics and Chemistry
were explained reducing everything to mechanical terms. But between all
conceptions of the founders they were not left but mathematical expressions,
thus arising what today we called mechanicism, reductionism, rationalism,
positivism, etc., very moved away from the original intentions and feelings of
his initiators.
This science, that we can
call " modern " was born in centuries XVII-XVIII, and was
characterized (and still do) by the following points:
a)
Decomposition of the systems for its study and description in independent
parts, as well as separation of phenomena of others; that is to say, is based on
the analysis and the quartering of the parts.
For example, in Medicine it gave origin to the Anatomy as we know it (of
Greek anatomein, " to dissect").
In Astrophysics the Earth is considered as suspended in the space and we
can make abstraction of any class of influence that comes from outside (its
weakness makes it negligible).
Caricaturing a little this
point of view, the myth of Frankestein could be a reality in the future; joining
pieces of different corpses and welding them suitably, we could revive and have
a new person.
b)
Mass (m), time (t) and space (s) are absolute variables and independent
to each other, so it is the sensation received by any mortal in his common
experience. The universe is made of
particles and empty space (that in Mechanics; Electricity introduces the concept
of electrical charge).
We will see immediately
that these simplifications are equivalent to assure that the Earth is in rest
and all the sky turns around us (first perception, evident in itself if we do
not think more). Some people was
burning in the bonfires because they affirmed the opposite, and is know from
centuries ago; in other words, the sense common in science is the less common
and trustworthy of the senses.
c)
Understimate the weak interactions (it was not considered that it could
be decisive). For example, the
radiation of a planet, or their gravity, to be so remote of us and to be so very
small, does not have the smaller relevance and its influence is null for the
Earth (and by the way, Astrology is a vain belief).
d)
The sum of the parts is equal to the total, as a house is the brick set
that forms it. This can be useful
for simple systems, as a mixture of gases, dissolutions, etc., but not
applicable for alive beings in their complexity (we return to Frankestein).
e)
The observer is independent of the observed thing; maybe its judge, who
design and interpret scientific experiences.
f)
The universe is led to thermal death (principle of Clausius, constant
increase of entropy in the universe). In
astronomical matter, that Principle has a great relevance, because the Solar
System was considered a perfect and confirmed clockwork; Newton Mechanics
explained almost everything with an exactitude unknown until century XVII and
was able to predict the existence of new planets, that, indeed, were calculated
and observed (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto). It only failed the Mercury position, that accumulated 42´´
of arc in a century (an error minimum, but verifiable).
The renewed Physics of
century XX
In these rather
Metaphysical convictions lived our sciences men when everything changed at the
end of century XIX and began the XX:
Indeed, in the
beginnings of the present century [ XX ] was very extended between the
scientists the belief that the Sun exerts a decisive influence on great part of
the phenomena of our Planet and that the investigations of Physics of the Earth
it was necessary to orient them towards a more exact knowledge of this influence
of the Sun on the Earth (2)
The Ebro Observatory Ebro
has been one of the few Spanish scientific institutions pioneers in its field,
in fact an exception in the panorama of end’s century XIX and beginnings of
the XX, because by the faith that had their Jesuits founders in which the
terrestrial Physics ought to be related to other elements of the Solar System:
Shortly before the 1905
eclipse, the famous professor Frank Bigelow visited the Observatory, of which he
only had vague notice. When
explaining Father Cirera to this gentleman, specialist in cosmic meteorology,
from the top of the Meteorological Tower the
object of the different Magnetic pavilions, Seismic, Electrical pavilion and
Astrophisicists, watching them from there, turning towards Father Cirera, with
noticeable admiration and expressive gesture, said to him: " How have you been able to pass me ahead?
I thought to make a similar Observatory in the
In those same initial years
of century XX some physical laws revealed inapplicable to the microscopic world
of atoms (quantification of the energy, Planck, 1900); those small oscillators
do not emit nor absorb any amount of energy, but multiple of an elementary value
(quanta). In fact, the energy and the frequency of a microscopic
oscillator are related by the equation E = h.f (E=energy, h= Planck’s constant,
f=frequency).
In 1905 Einstein published
his works on Restricted Relativity, according to which mass (m), time (t) and
space (s) are not absolute magnitudes, but relative and interdependent. In fact, mass (m) and energy (E) are proportional, and the
proportionality constant is the square of the speed of light:
E = mc 2
Being
invariable the speed of light, time, mass and space depend of the speed
whereupon the observer moves.
In 1916 Einstein published
an ampler version, the Theory of Generalized Relativity; here the gravitation is
no longer considered as a remote force (
The introduction of this
theory in astronomical calculations allowed to explain and to correct the
observed error of 42´´ of arc in the Mercury orbit;
in the same way it predicted the curvature of rays of light near of great
masses, and also the red-shift of atomic spectrums when entering its light into
the gravitational fields, which was verified experimentally.
In the same way, the famous equation E=m.c 2
was
required in the II World War to make the atomic bomb, and after in the use of
nuclear energy.
Another characteristic of
the novel Physics arisen from Einstein is the importance that is granted to the
observer, little or nothing had in account in the last centuries, and, as we can
see, fundamental in ancient science.
The ancient concepts
continued their radical transformation with the proposal and later discovery of
the duality wave-corpuscle (Louis de Broglie, 1924) and the Heisemberg’s
Principle of Indetermination (1927).
Electrons and other particles are interpretable also as waves, can be described
in undulatory terms and undergo phenomena characteristic of the waves as
diffraction, etc.; on the other
hand, exits an indetermination in the atomic world that makes inapplicable here
the Newton’s laws. If we know
accurately where an electron is we commit an appreciable error in the
measurement of its speed, and then we cannot draw its trajectory.
The same it happens with other pairs of variables called "
conjugated ".
Previously (1905) Einstein
had interpreted the photoelectric effect considering the light had corpuscular
nature (the energy of the light wave is accumulated in small " packages
" called photons), so that, when hitting on external electrons of atoms,
they are able to extract them if they have energy enough (frequency).
The developments of
Electrodynamics and Quantum Mechanics took to consider applicable Newtonian
mechanics only in very restricted conditions, being the last a particular case
of the former; it disappears the notion of " emptiness " that was
substituted for a continuous space-time where the fields are always present, so
that there where these become more intense, the particles arise (mass and
electrical charge).
The old tendency to
dichotomize the systems and to hierarchize them in parts (dominant in the
previous centuries) also changed in second half of century XX to give priority
to the interrelation between them when studying its evolution; it arose the
Theory Dynamic Systems, applicable in Biology, Ecology, Climatology, etc. In this Theory, each small act or sum of acts within a system
causes in it a directional transformation, which must me considered at the time
of recalculate its future evolution.
In the second half of
century XX also arose the Physics of Chaos; the uncertainty is not only present
in the microscopic world (Heisemberg), but also in the macrocospic. Mechanics, that seemed to solve everything until the present,
also became impotent also to predict the evolution of relatively simple systems,
as the double pendulum (a pendulum hanging to another one, both oscillating
freely); very little variations in the initial conditions take to great
deviations between predicted by the equations and the real behavior of the
system. In fact, we know now that
the Solar System - a perfect clock for Newton, a divine machinery and therefore
immutable for the ancients - stay stable during certain time, but nothing
prevents in it that, in determined critic conditions, loses his apparent
stability to undergo a drastic and unpredictable transformation, working in a
new regime later.
The present vision is that
Order and Chaos coexist simultaneously in Nature (something as well as God and
the Devil in the past), and both conform the dynamism of the processes that
happen around us. Nature tends to the optimization of all its processes, that is,
to diminish the energy (the systems spontaneously tend to diminish it) and the
efforts (light advances in straight line, etc.).
The interrelation and dependency of the parts to each other and with the
whole are something more and more appreciated between the scientists when
interpreting the facts (the real subject of science); simultaneously, the
tendency to division and superspecialization of last decades has changed and now
we look more and more to work in teams of interdisciplinary nature, so that it
increases the number of teams of investigators who coordinate their efforts from
very different knowledge.
These new tendencies are
already giving their fruits in matters as ecology, biodiversity, climatic
evolution, etc. Today nobody longer
smiles when we consider the Earth like a superorganism in which each part work
integrated in a whole, so that only survives the species or the process (they
are stable) that tends to optimize the global economy.
It has given rise to the great Theory known as "Gaia Hypothesis"
of James Lovelock, of which
In this new vision (and so
old in ancient populations and traditional cultures) it is rooted the great
esteem that we have now by the biodiversity, and to the inverse, the fear
provoked by the increasing tendency to the extinction of species and great
ecosystems (Amazonia, Borneo’s jungle, etc.), because its relevance for the
stability of other populations. The
elephants, considered until recently destructive beings of the forests by their
enormous daily vegetal food consumption, are now considered as protectors; a
less simplistic consideration has made conclude that, given the primitive nature
of its digestive system, they give back to the soil a food little transformed,
so that the net effect in ecosystems is to increase the fecundity of the soil
with its excrements.
In another section we will
see immediately that, similar considerations in Medicine, can take us to old
conceptions about the man in their relations with the environment, Solar System
including.
Ancient science watched
from the present
1. -
Uniqueness of Nature. The
part as reflection of the whole, and vice versa
These principles [ of
Greek astrology ] can be transformed after all, in which it contains them to the
whole, that is, the idea of the essential unit of the world and the mutual
interdependence of their parts (4)
Here we are expressed with
entire clarity not only the essential foundation of Astrology of all the times,
but the one of ancient science in general.
Henri Poincaré, the great French mathematician whom could have found the
relativity before Einstein at the end of century XIX, did not think in a
different way:
Let us observe first
that all generalization supposes to a certain extent the belief in the unit and
the simplicity of Nature. For the
unit it cannot have difficulty. If
the different parts of the Universe were not like the organs of a same body,
they would not act on others, would be ignored mutually; and in fact we would not know more than a single one.
We do not have, then, to ask us if Nature is one, but how is one (5)
Therefore, it seems to be
that the new waters return to move the old mills and blow life-giving airs for
the traditional thought.
One of the things that more
surprise outside of Astrology’s world is the proliferation of different
interpretative and prospective techniques when judging an astral particular
subject; for a quick opinion this could seem sufficient to conclude that all of
them are false, but that is a too much ventured conclusion.
The same occurs with the fact that of one single or several factors of
horoscope already can be extracted a substantial part of information in many
cases, sometimes surprising.
The complex systems have
the " holographic property ", in analogy with the three-dimensional
holograms, photographies that date from years 60 and present a peculiar
characteristic. If they are broken in two parts we have two similar images, only
that with less resolution than the primitive one.
The process can be repeated, with analogous consequences.
Many of these complex
systems also have fractal properties (a fractal is a mathematical expression
that, when being represented graphically by means of computers, presents a
curious property: the part is analogous to the whole, that is to say, if the
effect of the scale is ignored, we cannot distinguish them. We can find in
Nature fractal properties in the growth of clouds, the deposits in electrolytic
cells, vegetal formations, the generation of mountains and profiles coasts, etc.
But a part of the human
being also reflects the whole and to the inverse, this is well-known from
Antiquity; today we have the modern Cheirology as a rational science in
blossoming, which shows through the concientious observation of the hands,
clearly and accurately, some essential aspects of individual genetics, current
conditions of its organs and the health. In the same way, the diagnosis trough
the iris eye is progressively used by the doctors (in so little space there are
a precious information on the complete organism). By means of Reflexology we can
find the organs in bad conditions pushing on the feet or the hands, the ears,
etc., and vice versa, we can stimulate remote organs from those precise zones of
the body.
The versatility of a
horoscope as complex diagram reflect the holographic property of the individual,
as we can expect in a complex an unique Nature.
2. - Tuning with the
universe, resonance
If Nature is one and only
one, the parts must be united by some governing principle, present in all
phenomena that happens in our world; this principle is the one of the resonance,
known from Antiquity. Oscillators interchange energy in a significant way when
they vibrate to the same frequency (n=1, fundamental harmonic), diminishing
quickly for superior harmonics (resonance’s curve in form of Gaussian bell).
We know today that the
great climatic changes and the geologic eras have in the astronomical cycles a
cause of first order (Milankovitch’s Theory). On the other hand, we have
demonstrated throughout our work (Planets
and climate. An astrometeorological
study of climatic spells) that
the movement of slow planets plays an important role in the development of the
sequences of dry and rainy years; its
quantitative effect is little well-known (negligible for Classic Mechanics), but
the existing solidarity between the parts and their continued movement become
effective, so that they can be used in the long term in weather forecast.
We are talking about of
weak causes, and weaker still in appearance is the light of the Moon and planets;
but we must remember here that, of small that is the Jupiter radiation, for
example, it is present around us and it has power enough to excite the
electronic levels of atoms and molecules (it is not a question of intensity, -amount-
but of frequency - quality -). In fact, organic molecules of great size are
susceptible to enter in resonance (and therefore to accumulate energy) with a
wide spectrum of frequencies.
Another characteristic of
alive beings, due to its complexity, is the great necessity of internal bonds
that they need for the coexistence in balance of its diverse components (tissues,
organs and functions), which makes them more
susceptible to weaker influences when increases its degree of complexity.
These considerations open the doors, with the new perspective of present
science, to ancient conceptions.
3. - Harmony, beauty,
proportion
Consequence of the
resonance and the tuning between the parts of the Nature is the one of the
harmony (mathematically)existent among
them; when we think about " harmony " we also do it in "
aesthetic " sense and " beauty ", of parts that they assemble or
they combine to each other (fitting together).
Plato already talked about in an apparently dark text (only if we ignore
the concepts of his epoch) when deal with “the more beautiful triangle” in Timeus.
Astrology always has tried
to explain the effect of the stars by means of musical theories (music of the
spheres of which they speak most of classic authors, by " music " in
Antiquity we have to understand " Sound Physics "), and "
planetary aspects ", comparing them with musical harmonies (Ptolemy in Harmonics and
Tetrabible, Nicomacus of
Gerasa in Manual of the harmonics, Kepler
in Harmonices Mundi, etc.).
We come to a completely
pure mathematical theory of Astrology, because the fact that a wave always moves
with its trains of harmonics emphasizes the importance in Nature of natural
numbers (n = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc.) and
of simple fractional (1/2, 2/3, 4/5, etc.), as it can be verified in multiple
physical laws, where appear natural numbers (universal gravitation, Coulomb,
Stefan law’s, etc.) and we find
the same in atomic quantum numbers.
Harmonic theory is always
present in ancient science and is one of its more important elements; the only
difference with the one of present is that now we have a mathematical apparatus
much more developed and computers to deal with real waves. Jewish
Kabbalah, inheriting of Babylonian, lacked of such sophistications,
simplified the terms confusing the harmonic numbers with harmonics themselves (cabalistic
numerology).
So we have many chances of
get into de matter again and to explain facts known from Antiquity with the
tools that our ancestors never dreamed we could have.
4. - The man as a
reflection of the universe
The Physics of century XX
has granted a fundamental role not only to the observer who makes the measures
during an experiment, but also humankind as protagonist of the life.
In fact, science not only must be applied to simple physical systems
(mixtures of gases, colloids, electrical conduction, etc.), but is very
desirable that are applied to the understanding of human being and his earthy
existence. An aspect that, by the
way, was left during the last times in hands of subjects and marginal sciences
as they were a decades ago psychologists and psychiatrists, Psychology and
Psychiatry.
And nevertheless, what
nobler work can have that to unravel this mystery and be able to respond to the
sphinx questions: Who we are?
From where we come? To where
we go? "Know you yourself", it said a poster to the
entrance of Plato’s Academy.
On the other hand, what
more logical thing that alive beings are the reflection of their immediate
environment? The plants find
sustenance and food in the soil, water and light; animals also depend on them,
and of course the human kind. Our
physical support is in the Earth (foods), but as far as energy we depend
directly of the Sun, then it cannot be surprising that the ancient civilizations
were their worshippers and had it by a God (generating and supporting Nature).
We have eyes because
outside there is light, and we heard because we move in an acoustic ambience;
our sense of smell identifies the diverse substances, and the tact its texture.
We have bones because in the Earth there are rocks, nitrogen in proteins
because this element is present in the air and we depend closely on the water,
the most abundant compound of our planet.
Nothing prevents us to
conjecture, on the contrary, is most logical that, since the life is
characterized to diminish the entropy in alive beings, we have arrived to be as
we are by successive aggregation and complication, from the first amino acids,
the first proteins able to selfreplication itself, the first cells, cellular
organizations, etc., always evolving in a cyclical atmosphere (the sky and the
night of every day, every month, every year, each planetary cycle). For that reason it does not have to surprise that one of our
characteristics is the one to tune an external signal with extreme facility and
to connect us to its beat.
And vice versa, if there is
rational intelligence in the man brain also must have it in the outside (a
principle of order, theos or
God); and going further on, since we have two cerebral hemispheres,
one logical-rational-analytical and another intuitive and synthetic, also must
exist another non rational external reality. Logic does not explain everything,
the reality is supra-rational, and thus we see epochs and cultures in which the
other way to knowledge has been prioritized.
In fact the science of the stars was born from the interpretations that
the mesopotamics priests did of the will of the Gods in their systematic
observation of the sky (the planet-Gods were considered messenger of that divine
will).
The science of omens
(interpretation of the reality through signs or signals that happens around us)
is usually practised in India by means of the use of symbolic keys, from that
Astrology keeps a precious legacy; we
do not have to smile about this type of " divinations ", in fact, the
Swiss psychologist Carl Gustave Jung found this little known aspects of the
reality, and he denominated " acausal connective principles "
(simultaneous facts apparently unconnected for the logical-rational
interpretation). In Astrology they
are of common experience and we talk of " facts constellations ".
We can conclude that we are
an universe piece that is had falling apart of the general flow, individualizing
itself in an organized being, but not aside from the rest, neither of its
cycles, nor of their beats (ruled by the sky, we do not forget it, that it turns
without stopping above our heads). That we are an alive mirror of Nature, that
human microcosm constitutes a reflection of the macrocosmos, it is the most
logical thing of the world; on the contrary, it is aberrant to suppose the
opposite, that, unfortunately, it has been considered a fact in the last
centuries and has given rise to whichever environmental disasters we have made
in modern times (the man considered as something alien to Nature).
But today other winds blow,
and, of course, new doors are opened.
Doubts in the
interpretation of facts: Medicine as example
The success of the science
arisen from
And Medicine, which main
object is to restitute the lost health, or to preserve it in healthy subjects?
When we undertake the study of man as a whole, we attended a totally
different process. The sciences previously mentioned advanced quickly due to the
new approaches (study of simple systems, isolation of the parts and
experimentation controlled in laboratory); however, when approaching more
complex systems, specially the alive beings, and of course ourselves, the
advance revealed itself much more slow.
Pasteur found the microbial
agents responsible for many diseases, but we know today that the bacterium or
the virus is not the only cause of disease.
Fleming discovered the chemical synthesis of antibiotics and he himself
claimed against the indiscriminate use of such substances; we have learned later
that bacteria are able to develop strategies to adapt themselves to the
pharmacological attacks and to become resistant. Once again we observed that the processes in vivo are complex and are continuously reelaborating new balances
between themselves.
In the summit of modernity
blossoming we have an historical figure for science, the German doctor Samuel
Hahnemann (1755-1843), creator of Homeopathy.
A therapeutic system which, indeed, it defied (and still do) some basic
theories and models of Chemistry, as well as the ways of work habitually used by
doctors and phamacists. Homeopathy dilutes the substances beyond Avogadro’s
number (one of the fundamental constants of Chemistry, consisting of the number
of molecules contained in one mol of substance, 6.022 . 10 23
,
which with the sucusion (repeated beating of the substance diluted in
hidroalcoholic solution or lactose) power its effects of inverse way to the
indicated by chemical and pharmacological theories (the logical thing would be
that, to less amount, less pharmacodinamical effect).
Scientific method, that
claims that the facts must be interpreted, has still not solved the problem;
for many scholars it has been easier to speak of effect placebo, or still
worse, to deny the facts, just as in the case of astrological observations.
Homeopathy sinks its roots
in Alchemy (another fundamental science of Antiquity), although Hahnemann eluded
to speak from where it took the idea to create homeopathic system:
At the moment in which Hahnemann was born, the rationalist
mentality already was well intrenched with the materialist and self-sufficient
indulgence of its " syndrome of the unique world ".
The superior orders of the reality counted now so little except in the
monasteries, and the founder of homeopathy was before the paradox to have to
promulgate of scientific way a medicine based on " prescientific "
principles. To have invoked for its
procedures an alchemical source had been as if a biologist in our days presented
for his doctorate an emanationist theory - and still more, creationist- of the
universe (6)
The fact of the increase of
life years in the industrialized countries or the great advance that we see in
the development of surgical techniques does not have to dazzle us to state that,
in the evolution of Medicine as science
there is much to do yet, much more that in other branches of human knowledge.
The delay of the death date has increased due basically to the hygiene and
improvement of life conditions (potable waters, less heavy works, heating in
homes, etc.).
" To have good
intuition ", which little has to do with the " scientist " in the
sense which we give this word, continues being a very used tool in medical
doctor's offices; in the same way
subsist in Medicine a set of admitted beliefs, that they do not have another
validity that the existing consensus on them. Rapidity whereupon some medicines
are replaced by other new (and not only by commercial interests, but the
complication that supposes the appearance of undesirable indirect effect), it is
an evident sign of the precipitation and blindness with that present Medicine
works. In matter of Dietetic the opinions are very diverse, and what today it is
white tomorrow will be black and another day only God says about.
But the point our Medicine
reveals its weakness is in the lack of laws and principles on which every
science must be based:
Because of these doubts,
it have become to popularize the alternative therapies, and
people prove them in desperate and indiscriminate way.
Once arrives the disillusion of the orthodox methods, people is in the
suitable situation to evaluate, in a safe and trustworthy way, the effectiveness
and security of alternative therapies. Thus,
in contrast, it seems clear that predominant medical system has not explained
the laws and the principles that govern health and disease.
This explanation has not been planned because in fact it has not been
formulated, not even within the medical profession.
If we went back in medical history, we will find full volumes of
empirical data and experimental results, but not laws and general principles
that support them or arise from them. It
is not a disloyalty to conclude that medicine is the only branch of science that
has based its structure on opinions and suppositions instead of laws and
principles (7)
The last effort known in
making a scientific abstraction in Medicine is likely the one of the Greek
hippocratic school, between the centuries VI and V b. C., in which, by the way,
one of its parts is the Iatromathematics (astronomical medicine). This is also
the epoch in which the Greek astrology was formulated; hippocratic medicine is
based on observation and prognosis (it takes into account the movement of the
Moon and the moment in which the patient lies down or feels ill).
We are therefore before an
enormous scientific emptiness on which new buildings must be constructed.
The homeopathycal fact demands modifications in Chemistry-Physics to be
able interpret them, and the same it happens with the astrological fact, closely
bound to those holes of medical science.
Because the period of the
man life is not hazardous, neither this one grows and develop to rates marked
capriciously, nor get ill or enter into crisis following an anarchical
chronology, but following rates and cycles determined by the cyclical ambience
that it surrounds it.
Other important questions
that present Medicine does not contemplate when evaluating the health or the
disease in individuals: which is the aim of the human life? It is important to find the way of our existence, is there
some drawn path that we are called to discover?
Why the emotional state of a patient is so important for his health?
Why the mental level dominates all others in the man?
The answer to these
questions is and still do one of the main subjects of the astrological science
now, in the past and in the future.
The necessary encounter
between ancient and new science
If Astrology left the
University, and with this fact came the abandonment of many elements of ancient
scientific doctrines, it was not because it was lacked of principles, nor
because these were false or inadequate. On
the contrary, ancient science arose from a worldwide vision that already has
started to glimpse by present investigation, characterized the former by the
solidarity and inseparability of the parts, in that the totality is
interrelated. This systemic
totality is as well dominated by the Principle of resonance, and therefore by
harmony and synchronism.
The science arose of the
crisis of centuries XVI and XVII was characterized, unlike the previous one, by
the separativity principle, that prioritized the analysis instead the synthesis;
by reductionism, as much philosophical as mechanist, and by empirical
positivism (when experimentation, without a theory, hypothesis or previous
abstraction, lacks of scientific sense). In
this restricted vision of the reality the Solar System was a died machine, a
simple mechanism of great size, without defined object, inert, that blindly
obeyed the laws of Mechanics established by a group of hard headed men.
The observer, in scientific matter, was considered a mere object,
completely independent of the observed things.
We have already seen that
this particular vision of the world is now a ruined building; in the same way,
the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, that have opened our minds to a
completely different ideas about Nature, we can consider them as transition
models, because still they are not totally consolidated and finished.
We said previously that the
new scientific paradigm arisen from century XX has made us to know the
equivalence between mass and energy (Einstein);
physicists think that to describe physical systems one third variable is
still necessary, the information. We can say, to understand it better, that
Nature works as our modern computers, with its characteristic natural software,
with its own software; this opens the doors again to the ancient worldwide
vision.
Where finds alive beings
the information that put them in time with the cosmos?
In the light of the stars, without no doubt, specially the one of the
Sun. Until arriving at the actual
man, in all our previous stages - from first molecules, passing through the
primitive beings and all phyilogenetic sequences - we have evolved in that
cyclical environement; let us
remember that the light has incidence on the atomic and molecular planes
(excitations in the electronic levels of atoms and resonances with the chemical
bounds in molecules); although the wake intensity of a planet radiation, Mars
for example, can seem insignificant to us, it have always been there, and this
fact can compensate its weakness.
These and other similar
considerations have allowed to formulate to Demetrio Santos their
"Astrological Principles ":
FIRST.
The ambience influences the alive being: this is the result of his previous and present influences.
We have the organs or systems in parallel to the corresponding outer
influences.
SECOND.
The main action of the stars on the living being is caused by the
luminous range of the radiation. Its
variation in intensity and cromatism produces the biological transformation,
causing the evolution of molecular
and organic structures.
THIRD. The
biological systems are in tune, of the outside, their own internal frequency:
A)
Each frequency of the chromatic spectrum operates at atomic-molecular
level.
B)
Every period of repetition in intensity or cromatism of the light
modifies the system or organic supermolecular structure corresponding to that
period.
QUARTER.
The intensity and the variation of the luminous flux cause the
transformation and activity of the biological being.
A)
The intensity determines the number of elements of the transformed
structure.
B)
The variation or gradient expresses the speed of transformation.
C)
It is taken generally as favourable within the limits of organic
operation, the positive variation; as unfavourable the negative.
FIFTH.
The formation of a biological set implies its partial isolation of
ambience; this reinforces its characteristic cycles, that must fit together to
the exteriors to survive. In itself becomes a field of propagation of biological
waves (8)
Demetrio Santos has also
developed his Theory of the Fundamental Equations, of which great part of the
elements traditionally used in Astrology is deduced mathematically (Zodiac,
Houses, aspects, etc.). Before this
attempt to formulate Astrology scientifically, a scholastic of century XX dared
to write the following thing:
In the essential... he
ignores the scientific method systematically and he even mixes in his more
complicated calculations, magical elements (as the signs or aspects) with
mathematical elements of theoretical undulatory calculation...
I don not hidden my
deception by the intellectual poverty of similar reasonings...
By the way, I would like to know how a planet located to enormous
distances exerts a differentiated chemical effect on two cells different from
the human body here, in the Earth. Nor
the boldest science-fiction writer it has dared to never dare to use a so
foolish argument...
Like all astrologers,
Demetrio Santos makes sharp affirmations without bothering itself in offering
any demonstration. And still worse,
develops a complete doctrine corpus, apparently complex and difficult from the
mathematical point of view, over nothing at all (9)
In a brief summary we can
say that for the vision of this Spanish astrologer the Zodiac is an undulatory
field and important facts take place in the Earth when there are configured
planetary aspects in the sky, that are not magical elements, as Toharia says (he
did not read or did not understand the Santo’s Theory), but the positions in
which the divergence of the different planetary harmonics is Maxima (and
therefore we can expect for the crisis or transformation in the system tuned to
them). From this theory it is
deduced that the square aspect (90°) is
generated before in the resonance plane (harmonics 1 and 2) a little before, to
82 °, a
fact that also had been observed by some ancient authors (Hermes, Ben Ezra, John
of Seville…), although the majority of present astrologers has not considered
it. Somehow, Santos Theory proposes
new facts to discover, which guarantees as a modern in the terms demanded for an
abstraction physical-mathematical.
We can find a very
different vision from the one from Demetrio Santos in another Spanish astrologer
that it has worked with the same aim, the research of a physical-mathematical
formulation that explains the astral influences observed from Antiquity. The
Spanish mathematician Miguel García Ferrández, using the planetary positions
as points of a wave and applying the Fourier Harmonic Analysis, has prioritized
the existing analogies between some formulations of Quantum Mechanics and
traditional horoscopes. It could sound it pretentious or visionary to some
people; but they are not possible to be demolished with a phrase, pronounced
from the uncertain pedestal that gives diplomas and official recognitions, the
work and patient research, but mainly honest, of many years; the truth, sooner
or later, finishes recognizing itself, and the vain words, as the medals that
some granted to others and vice versa, will be swept away by the wind:
Months ago I discovered
(1997) that the function of planetary wave had a narrow relation to the counts
from aspects. From the mathematical point of view it is not an exceptional
profit, it could be made any student of Mathematics.
From the astrological point of view it supposes the difference between
moving blindly in a puzzle of astral charts, progressions and directions, or
having a quantifiable function to consider the probability of events...
... In Physics, the wave function of a mechanical-quantum system is a
complex function which square is interpreted like the probability of obtaining
certain results in a measurement (10)
That is to say, the aspect
between the planets and other points of an astral chart is interpreted in this
model like probability that it happens an event.
At another level, the result is analogous to which arrives Demetrio
Santos; in a similar way explained
Kepler himself in Harmonices mundi (century XVII).
Another thing that Miguel
García notices in their works is that the ancients, that had an incipient
mathematical apparatus, knew to manage them to add waves before the complex
numbers were discovered; so it is the case of the Arabic Lots, some
prescriptions apparently lacked of sense that we can see in numerous medieval
authors, and now already we are able to rationally understand:
If we denote the
Ascendent by a complex number A; p1
represents
the Moon position and p2
the
Sun position in a diurnal birth chart, the complex product A x p1
x
p2
is
exactly the Lot of Fortuna (11)
In the field of climatic
variability forecast, we ourselves have assimilated the constant turn of planets
around the Earth to a gigantic oscillator; in this model the Solar System is
taken as an immense clockwork machinery, which is moving with its turn all the
sets that, by resonance, remain connected with the Earth.
Nobody will be able to deny us that the annual climatic cycle is
consequence of the Sun’s movement (we take geocentric coordinates); to neglect
the presence of the Moon and the other planets, by weak that can be its
influence comparatively, is an enormous conceptual recklessness, after we have
said on existing solidarity between the constituent parts of a complex system
and the uniqueness whereupon Nature works.
In fact, we have
interpreted great number of climatic spells of century XX from this point of
view, which has allowed us to predict some others months ahead.
The way for the convergence
between ancient and the new science is ready;
it can take one, two or more generations, and hardly will be hampered
this profit for the humanity. The old will throw sprouts, and the trauma of
centuries XVI and XVII will be definitively surpassed.
The adolescent, on the other hand, will return to home once reached the
adult age.
Notes
1. -
Letter of Galileo to Kepler. Quoted
in Foundations of modern Physics. Gerald
Holton and H.D. Roller. Editorial
Reverté, S.A. Barcelona, 1972. Page. 178.
2. -
P. Ignacio Puig, S.J. The
3. -
Idem previous text, pág. 11.
4. -
Auguste Bouchê-Leclercq. L'astrologie
grecque CAP I, pág.
2. Réimpression of l'édition
of
5. -
Henri Poincaré Science
and the hypothesis. Introduction,
pages. 14-15. Espasa-Calpe, S.A. Madrid, 1963.
6.
- Whitall N. Perry. Alchemy in Homeopahy.
Jose J. of Olañeta, Editor. Palma
de Mallorca, 1995. Page.
10.
7. -
Georges Vithoulkas. The
laws and principles of Homeopathy in its practical application Ediciones
Paidós Ibérica, S.A.
8. -
Demetrio Santos Santos. Astrological
principles, gradients and Fotoecliptics Houses Ediciones
Jose Lopez Villa. Zamora, 1992.
Pages. 11-12.
9. -
Manuel Toharia. Astrology. Science or
belief? Mac Graw-Hill.
10.
- Miguel García Ferrández.
Harmonic suite. Astrological Investigation
Notebooks number 6, MERCURIO-3 Barcelona,
1997. Pages 149-150.
11. -
Idem previous text. Pages.
150-151.
Recommended readings
L'harmonie du cosmos.
Jean Kepler. French
translation in charge of Jean Peyroux. Editions
Bergeret.
Of the very certain
foundations of astrology Johannes
Kepler. Gracentro.
Investigations on
astrology Demetrio Santos
Santos. Editora Nacional.
Theoretical astrology.
Fundamental equations Demetrio
Santos. Barath Editorial.
Physical
astrology Demetrio Santos. Barath Editorial. Madrid, 1988.
Harmonicas.
Claudius Ptolomeo. Translation and notes Demetrio Santos
Santos. Miguel Gómez Ediciones.
Malaga, 1999.
Astrological principles,
gradients and Fotoecliptics Houses Demetrio Santos Santos.
Ediciones Jose Lopez Villa. Zamora,
1992.
Harmonic suite Miguel
García Ferrández. Astrological
Investigation Notebooks nº 6 MERCURIO-3
.
Laws
and principles of Homeopathy in its practical application The
Georges Vithoulkas. Ediciones Paidós
Ibérica, S.A.
The Alchemy in the
Homeopathy. Whitall N. Perry. Jose J. of Olañeta, editor. Palma de Mallorca, 1995.
Foundations of the
Modern Physics Gerald Holton,
H.d. Roller. Editorial Reverté,
S.A.
Dictionary of History of
Science W.F.
Bynum, E.j. Browne, Roy Porter. Herder
Editorial.
Order and chaos.
Books of Investigation and Science. Diverse articles and
authors. Prensa Científica..
Barcelona, 1990.
The
clock of
Fractal Geometry.
Algoritmics and representation Javier
Barrallo Calonge. Anaya Multimedia.
Madrid, 1993.
Astrology
and Science: Two Worldviews
searching for a Synthesis Jesus
Navarro. Sophia Centre,