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(Sun, 7 Nov 1993 06:31:37 GMT)Imagine yourself in a lifetime 8,000 years ago in Bharat (India.) At night, wrapped in a high priest's cloak and using several ingenious sighting instruments, you track the stars emerging from twilight and the east-to-west arc of the six pastel-hued planets. Behind their physical properties are invisible Dev(as), for the cosmos is not dead matter, but alive with creative mind forces. You are privy to an intuitive science that states the geometry of the heavens reveals detailed patterns in the affairs and natures of humanity. As an adept of the Yog(a) arts and sciences you explore the truth that man and cosmos mirror each other. Man's celestial consciousness contains the cosmos. The cosmos synchronizes with the terrestrial layers of that consciousness -- body, emotions and intellect.
Astrophysicist Percy Seymour synchronizes with data and testable theory. The scene above, perfectly realistic, is too supernatural for his taste. But he knows nature functions at super-refined levels. As an expert in planetary magnetism he thinks parts of astrology work through four features of nature: magnetism, harmonic resonance, genetics and neurology. He knows that astrology evolved from ancient astronomers keenly observing the natural order of the sky over many centuries to establish systems of agricultural and sacerdotal timing, weather and eclipse prediction. By deduction they tied that data to the events and natures of humanity. Unwittingly, Seymour says, they had stumbled into the currents and surf of the magnetic sea of the solar system that constantly washes over Earth's atmosphere and the human nervous system.
According to his theory, the alignment of the planetary/solar magnetic fields creates a magnetic tonal chord on Earth that plays into the neurological development of the fetus. The moment of birth is determined by the special tone of a rising planet the fetus is genetically attuned to, a DNA inheritance from the parents. The individual remains attuned to that particular planetary alignment for life.
Seymour's theory embraces reality. Not only is the rising planet an indicator of the characteristics in the fetus but so are the unique combinations of the planets formed at key epochs in the life of specific DNA molecules through the generations preceding the individual.
SKEPTIC TO SEEKER
Dr. Seymour's ideas are fleshed out in his book ASTROLOGY: THE EVIDENCE OF SCIENCE, published in 1988, three years after he had converted from being an intractable skeptic on astrology to seriously seeking its mechanism. By taking the frontiers of magnetic astronomy into the realm of astrology Seymour has alienated or startled most of his scientific peers. From the Western astrological community has come a lukewarm reception -- they aren't avidly seeking scientific sanction and feel his model applies rather arbitrarily to a very small percentage of he astrological art.Most Vedic astrologers are presently unaware of his ideas or book. And though they would agree that his magnetism model is extremely limited, the very fact that it exists as good, bold science would help bolster their position in Bharat. JYOTISH, world's original and most time-tested prediction science, has been under constant harassment by the modern Bharatiye scientific/humanist community, although one of the top national science and technology awards last year went to an astrologer. Though Jyotish enjoys immense usage and popularity, millions of Hindu youth are being swayed to a skepticism and a materialist worldview. Gayatri Devi Vasudev, daughter of astrologer-laureate Dr. B.V. Raman, calls this the "scientific temper" in her angry new book ASTROLOGY AND THE HOAX OF "SCIENTIFIC TEMPER."
Dr. Percy Seymour lives in Plymouth, U.K. A relaxed, thoughtful man in his early fifties, who wears glasses, sweaters and tweed and smiles with a child's freshness, Seymour teaches astronomy at Plymouth Polytechnic and is Director of the William Day Planetarium. "I believe I am unique in being a fellow of the Royal Astronomers Society and a member of the Astrological Association." He is not an astrologer though. "My own specialty in astronomy is the magnetic field." A textbook he wrote, COSMIC MAGNETISM, was critically applauded, and polished his reputation. He laughingly points out that the same theories he applies to astrology appear in the textbook.
At the Marine Department he teaches the theory as well. Tidal physics is a linchpin in astrology work as it accounts for the Moon's tidal simulation of Earth's magnetosphere and for the large-scale amplification of relatively weak magnetic forces from the other planets.
Dr. Seymour is also among a handful of professional scientists endeavoring to wed the esoterics of sub-atomic quantum physics to the mysteries of the paranormal. His second book is called THE PARANORMAL, A KEY TO COSMIC REALITY. Not that he took off his scientific parachute, but he excitedly talks about landing in other realities that modern science cannot account for. "I think that there might well be another level and this is what the astrologers are saying. My theory can explain what some astrologers are saying. I can't explain what all astrologers are saying. It might well be that they are seeing a level of reality or sensing reality in a deeper way than the scientists can. I don't rule out that possibility. I am trying examine that possibility in my next book [on astrology]."
SYNCHRONIZED STAR MEN
Seymour is following the scientific method of looking for a cause/effect chain to explain astrology. Some material forces and/or arrangement of matter (gravity, electromagnetism, nuclear energies, Sun/planets/Earth/Moon orbital relations) cause a specific and predictable type of personality and life pattern. This is called "causality." An example of causality would be if a Hindu believed that the Gods associated with the planets -- the Navagrah(as) "nine planets" -- somehow projected their will and whim to shape the good and unfortunate details of a person's life. This causal belief would be raw superstition.Jyotish contains the most subtle and exacting astrological system in the world. It functions within the realities of Karm(a), reincarnation, the inner worlds we occupy at death and two Chakr(as) of our soul-body: th first Chakr(a) of memory, time and space and a high Chakr(a) that houses our total Karm(ic) sequence. The stars or Gods don't dictate events or character. We act with absolute free will, but also face the results of previous acts of free will -- our teaching Karm(a). Jyotish is like a video we choose to put in the cosmic tape deck of our Karm(ic)/psyche patterns for the present life. It reveals future events. As a video tape can be altered or erased, we can revise the pattern seen through Jyotish by modifying our subconscious through a Dharm(ic) lifestyle and by Yog(ic) Sadhana(s).
The vast majority of contemporary astrologers from both the East and West systems do not see or look for, from science, causality in astrology. Their perception is that astrology would not exist or work if it was constrained to material causes and effects. This is indicated by the fact that Seymour's model touches only two very simple astrological conditions. Rather, astrology is acausal, or operating under a non-cause/effect reality that transcends yet includes the material forces and forms of the cosmos. Another astrophysicist, Michael Shallis if Oxford University, who examined astrology in his book ON TIME says, "Astrology is an acausal system, even though it contains the continuity of the causally connected motions of the planets. To search for its origins and power by looking at those causal parts is of course a mistake and an ignorant mistake . . ."
Acausal is a slippery, abstract concept that astrologers rarely themselves use. Many practitioners use the term "synchronicity." This means on one level that the cosmos is synchronized to the psychic environment and being of man, and on another more inclusive level, all life and all insentient forms and all event/occasions are synchronized to each other both physically and and psychically. In this richly intuitive view astrologers speak of correlations, correspondences and connections that jump through time and known material laws. The result is the highly nuanced and accurate interpretation of not only birth charts (which Seymour's theory partially supports), but of other major regions of astrology: horary (from the Sanskrit Ahoratr) charts and Muhoort (auspicious timing evaluation.) Synchronicity also says that astrology functions whether you are on earth or Pluto, or in another galaxy.
A fascinating beauty of synchronicity is that it does not exclude discoveries such as Dr. Seymour's. Indeed, he more modern science unveils of natural laws, the more they conform to mystic wisdom with its fundamental force of infinitely varies yet seamless God consciousness.
PLANETS IN THE MAGNETIC SEA
Dr. Percy Seymour's theory of solar system magnetism as a mechanism for astrology is based on two different science studies: one, a huge statistical analysis conducted by French psychologist Michel Gauquelin of professions and personality types that correlated to the rising planet influence predicted by astrology. the other study come out of a series of important but hushed investigations conducted in the U.S. into the effects of planetary alignments. A man named Nelson, investigating orbital relations to see if he could predict bad radio conditions for the Radio Corporation of America, discovered that the planetary aspects of conjunction, opposition, square and trine degrees -- the classic "power" alignments in astrology -- did correlate to radio disruptions. Later studies by NASA confirmed that the alignments affected the huge magnetic field of the Sun, triggering violent solar flare-ups. These spewed intense bursts of the so-called solar wind (ions, electrons, photons) into Earth's magnetic field. The beautiful aurora borealis are produced by this billowing solar wind hitting our atmosphere.Gauquelin's statistical work with rising (also the midheaven, setting and opposite midheaven) planets uncovered a handful of strong correlations:
Using Gauquelin's findings, Seymour added his own expertise in planetary magnetism and tidal theory to the Nelson and NASA planet aspect data. Other scientists have measured the gravitational an optical/heat effect of Mars, Sun and Moon, claiming that the Sun overwhelms any such planetary fields.
Dr. Seymour's theory envisions the planets swimming through the Sun's magnetic field and solar wind in a continuous interplay of orbital alignments, magnetic resonances and planetary tidal forces which tremendously boost the amplitude of magnetic music, just as the shape of a bay will increase the effect of the Moon's pull on water from 2-3 feet to a fifty-foot tide. The classic major and minor Drishti (aspects) of astrology are h same as those that create the most compelling magnetic/tidal "chords" as he calls them. Earth's magnetic field -- the magnetosphere -- is 20-30 times the planet's size, its response to other magnetic tones and tidal forces jumping up to 10,000 times at its periphery. Earth rings like a bell in harmony with the solar system chords. Life is bathed in and neurologically programmed (particularly during fetal development) by this music. The four main angles of a rising planet to earth are especially potent. The rising planet triggers the final birth exit. Each individual is genetically calibrated to a particular rising planet and planetary combinations. This attunement is active through the entire life.
Seymour explains, "We know our nervous system is actually electric currents. The fluctuations of the geomagnetic field cause changes in the neuro-network. What I am saying is that the relative position of the Sun, Earth and other planets is causing a very complex tune to be played on the magnetic field of Earth. We are genetically tuned not to receive the whole symphony but to respond to a certain melody. We are genetically tuned to respond to th magnetic tunes of the Moon, of Mars, of Saturn and so on. It also tells us how we might respond in future life to certain positions of the planets. They might predispose us in certain ways when we have the tunes that we first heard in the womb."
Jai Maharaj, (jai@mantra.com)
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