Reprinted from astro.com
by Russ Von Ohlhausen
“All is number.” ~Pythagoras
What is “astrology”? What does it mean to each person who studies it, practices it, profanes or denounces it? You might think this would be a simple query that is easily answered but as many of us in the field of astrology know, there is no uniform or simple way to address this question. Is it art? Is it science? Is it a form of spiritual discipline or is it a trailhead to understanding the pathway to our higher potentials. Is the astrological-mechanism really just a mysterious operation that ‘mankind was not meant to comprehend’ or is it something that is tangible that can be explained, examined, measured and calculated just like the other fundamental forces of nature? Or, is it actually a unified amalgam of the fundamental forces that we are already familiar with through the advances in the empirical sciences.
Whenever we delve into the inner workings of Mother Nature, we always find that there is a mathematical underpinning to every phenomena. We live in a reality that is encoded with information that uses a mathematical structure. Galileo claimed,
“The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics… Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.” Galileo had the good fortune to work on both mechanics and astronomy: both problems that can be conveniently mathematicised.
Academicians, scientists and historians have seized on his statements to characterize what they feel is “true” science: according to this principle, no branch of natural philosophy can call itself a science until it has shown itself to be mathematical. The essence of the astrological language is mathematics.
The issue is two sided. Scientism needs to return to the realms of natural philosophy that it shunned in the late 17th century and take seriously the relevant questions of our physical and psychological interactions with the cosmos, while astrologers must catch up to the reality of modernity, and not merely rely on regurgitated ancient tradition but instead learn how that Living tradition can be understood through the mathematical language of nature, the same in which scientism uses.
This does not mean that because the Universe created and follows mathematical intentions that it is somehow devoid of a spiritual endeavor; in fact, quite the opposite. The mathematics that atheistic scientists use is the same language that the matrix of consciousness has divined through creation. Math is merely a recognition of the alphabet, words, syntax and grammar used to construct the Universe. Math, myth and ‘mystery’ all relate to one another and all of these converge in the scientific art of astrology.
ASTROLOGY BY DIVINE NUMBER-
The Fibonacci Entity:
The earliest known reference to the same pattern structure that was shown by Fibonacci, was referred to as the mātrāmeru. This identifiable pattern is described by the scholar Pingala in his Chandaḥśāstra, and dates to at least 200BCE in India, and possibly as early as 450BCE. At least 50 years before Fibonacci, the sequence was described by the ordained Jain monk-scholar Hemachandra. The essence of this number sequence is a linear expression of the Golden Spiral based on the Golden Number, which was well understood before the Hellenistic Period. In my studies, it has become very clear that Babylonians, Persians, Hindus, Sumerians, Athenians, Egyptians and many other cultures had made this connection prior to the Piscean Age. (By 1200CE, Fibonacci was simply rediscovering very old and lost knowledge, and describing it in a newer framework, using a number system that was created based on that very same knowledge.)
In case you do not remember, the numerical entity that we know today as the Fibonacci Sequence is the number expression of 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144… (the first twelve numbers of the sequence). The linear sequence continues to infinity, adding the two adjacent numbers to equal the following number. The further it is carried out, the closer it approaches the golden or divine proportion of 1.618 or Phi. The keystone to the expression is that through deeper comprehension of its connection to the number 9, a fundamental cosmological principle is revealed. It can also be surmised that both Vedic and Greek celestial observers and philosophers already understood this connection well, while developing the horoscopic practice. I would go even further to say that it was a foundational understanding with its origins further back into prehistory.
A better and surprisingly simple way to perceive patterns ‘hidden’ in number sequences is by using the principle of ‘indigs’ or integral digits, (similar to digit sums or digital roots). Many of you who use numerology as a divinatory practice are already familiar with sum variations of digit sums. In using indigs, one computes the integer pattern down to a single digit (rather than creating a two digit number), regardless of digit placements in the number to ascertain the fundamental root integer. Example: 377= 3+7+7≡17≡8 (rather than creating a two digit number). Also, with fractions such as 33.75 = 3+3+7+5≡18≡9
Through this method the first twelve number connections to 9 are discovered. The first number to equal indig 9 is 144 (1+4+4≡9), the 12th number of the sequence. Also, the total of those first twelve Fibonacci numbers added together is indig 7, consequently the next set of twelve numbers adds to indig 2. The sum of all the digits in both the first two sets of twelve numbers is 9. Furthermore, the first two sets of twelve numbers when added into each other as pairs equal 9, looking something like this: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 4, 3, 7, 1, 8, 9, 8, 8, 7, 6, 4, 1, 5, 6, 2, 8, 1, 9
Fibonacci Sequences of 12 Pairs Repeating
This pattern of integer sequence integral digits is repeated every 24 numbers (12 pairs) infinitely, and is the prime “cosmological simplex” pattern in nature. Through the use of these pairings, when applied to astrology, the ecliptical Zodiac can be understood as another expression of the Golden Number.
THE PERFECT CIRCLE
When this closed sequence set of 24 numbers is converted into circular form (“The Perfect Circle”), simple geometric patterns and equations are easily seen. Applying addition to sets in the series signs, trines, squares, oppositions, sextiles, decans, the planetary ladder, antiscia, contra-antisica, and virtually every principle at the heart of astrology can be found… in every system, in every culture, in every era.
This natural pattern is the foundational substructure on which the Zodiac, and all other dynamic energetic pattern interaction takes place.
THE FOUNDATION FOR THE ZODIAC-
Natural Systems of Order
It is my conjecture that the ancient starting place for all astrological systems was the axiological understanding of this elementary numerical association realized in ‘natural philosophy’, despite what we in the West may call this ‘numerical entity’ today. That connection to our astrological foundations was either taken for granted over time or simply lost, as astrology’s place in society waxed & waned in the progress and decay of various cultures over the last two millennium. The understanding of its actual connection to nature became classified as “supernatural”, along with all studies of metaphysics, and was subsequently demonized in the early heyday of material sciences.
As a new emerging world culture begins to compare notes with our ancient pasts around the globe, it becomes clear that the foundation for this ‘golden connection’ is literally everywhere. It was not invented nor created, it was ‘discovered’ and described – and is now being rediscovered. It is the prime “cosmological simplex” – the fundamental pattern inherent in all of nature, that merges the expressions of all energy (and subsequently matter), and consciousness on all dimensions and levels of reality.
What most mathematicians, scientists or astrologers do not know, is that the Fibonacci sequence is a cyclical repetition of numerical expression rather than merely an infinite linear numerical set. That fact, that its cyclical nature is not understood in our time, has limited all sciences – both in that of scientism & that of meta-science – from grasping its key importance to fields of study of all unified dynamic systems.
The integral nature of 12 pairings within ‘one cycle’ of the Fibonacci sequence (whether the pairings are adjacent, opposite, at angle or a variety of other ‘harmonic’ combinations) seeks to achieve a mathematical balance within itself from all points in the cycle. This dynamic is the key to understanding the geometry of a sunflower, the bifurcation of leaves on a tree or the polar pair structure of the Zodiac. It is the same reflexive interactive energy system at work. The Zodiac, as we know it, is merely a symbolic way to represent this energetic pattern and what qualities the 12 adjacent pairs manifest, atomically, molecularly, biochemically, physiologically and psychologically.
“By number, a way is had to the searching out and understanding of everything able to be known.” Giovanni Pico della Mirandola – Italian Renaissance scholar
When the ‘perfect circle’ is viewed through an astrological lens, and inspected in closer detail, one can begin to see all of the mathematical and geometric mechanisms utilized by astrologers, as well as a variety of lesser understood structures within varying astrological schools of thought.
For example, the ‘planetary ladder’ is clearly part of the numerical structure of pairings only when viewed along one axis that also corresponds to certain fixed position in the number sequence.
An example of astrological associations within the Zodiac Fibonacci circle.