Instructor: Wayfarer
Date: August 17, 2019 (Saturday)
Seminar: Topic: Introduction to Tibetan astrology- Saturday, 17 August, 2019 at 7:00pm/1900hr New York Time — text format in the PSC #lecture room (Discord) — Instructor: Wayfarer — Search LECTURE89
Wayfarer: Right, speaking of lectures
Rose Cinderfall: whoa..
Wayfarer: Getting me mad about capitalism is free, it’s the only free thing on this earth, but not what I’m trying to do today lmao
Rainsong: Thanks, ThunderGladiator
Wayfarer: So, I’m not just giving one talk in 2 weeks, I’m giving … two talks. For those of you not familiar with my business, I teach psychic stuff but I also do traditional Tibetan astrology.
ThunderGladiator: @Rainsong wlc
Wayfarer: In fact, I do three things, because I also do consultations &c. but that’s just an extension of my normal stuff here.
Wayfarer: So, astrology is something sort of … psi adjacent. It hangs out in the same sorts of new age spaces and, as prognosticators, astrologers also hang out around diviners and magic, which are other psi-adjacent topics.
Wayfarer: But to be clear, this lecture is entirely self-indulgent, in that I’m just gonna ramble about a thing I know too much about and get a feel for the scope I want to cover at this festival.
Wayfarer: I will make an attempt to make it relevant to psi-stuff here and there, however. If nothing else, it’ll be informational.
Wayfarer: Next week, I think I’ll return to the topic of psi as skill development and pull in some research from a book I got last weekend that has been informative for my PK practice stuff, but this week, it’s turtle astrology.
Wayfarer: But this week…Tibetan astrology! So, first, some background: Tibetan astrology is a combination of cultures coming together. Tibet is situated between China and India. Tibetans considered the Chinese their spiritual inferiors, but they considered India their spiritual superiors. The Tibetan word for Sanskrit literally means “the good language.”
Wayfarer: Their astrology reflects this geographic situation, and is divided into two schools, called kar-tsi and nak-tsi. “Tsi” means “calculation,” and refers to how astrology works. Karpo and Nakpo mean “white” and “black” respectively. This is not a reflection on their value, but rather refers to regional dress. Indians generally wore white, and so India is called “gyakar” or “land of white,” and Chinese traditional dress was darker, and so it became “gyanak” or “land of black.”
Wayfarer: Kartsi is essentially Vedic astrology. It has some Buddhist elements that have been added, but in terms of calculation, it’s all drawn from the Kalachakra tantra. As such, I won’t spend much time on this. It is also generally reserved for religious calculations and not something people commonly do.
Wayfarer: Naktsi is the interesting bit, and less common in the West. You can find a Vedic astrology basically anywhere in the West, and our own Western astrology is related to Vedic astrology (though significantly less sophisticated, especially today where the charts are all calculated without regard for precession or so on)
Wayfarer: So, naktsi is also called jungtsi, which means “elemental calculation.” This is important because it doesn’t mean “astrology.” That’s the Western term generally, but for the most part the movement of celestial objects that jungtsi is concerned with is really limited. We care about the sun, the moon, and the Earth. We also care about 27 or 28 “lunar mansions” which are like mini-constellations, but only on a very technical level.
Wayfarer: The Tibetan calendar is lunisolar. Months are lunar cycles, years are solar cycles. Every fourth year you get a double-month to reset the calendar. The new year starts on the first full moon after the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere.
Wayfarer: This is because Tibet’s in the Northern Hemisphere and so is China so we don’t really fuck around with the fact that the Southern Hemisphere is in opposite-land with regards to seasons.
Wayfarer: In addition to these natural cycles, there are bigger cycles. The main cycle is 60 years, comprised of 5 elements and 12 animal signs.
Wayfarer: Most people are familiar with the animal signs from Chinese restaurant placemats. I used to tell people the lifespan-calculations for their animal signs, but Tibetan shit is super negative and I felt kinda bad charging people to just completely roast them.
Wayfarer: I think the worst one is the water cow, if I recall correctly, and the story there starts with “water cows have fat bodies and are exceptionally stupid.” And it gets worse from there!
Wayfarer: So I don’t tell people that stuff anymore and it’s not really meant for adults, it’s meant for family planning so you know what to watch out for with your kid.
Wayfarer: Tibetan astrology is eminently practical. Western astrology tends to be interested in esoteric psychology. The most popular readings are natal charts, for some damn reason, and then horoscopy, and people rarely do electional astrology at all. Fuck I mean Discord doesn’t even recognize “electional” as a word.
Wayfarer: Tibetan astrology, on the other hand, focuses on very practical matters. Will I make any money this year? How much? Where should I travel to make the most money? If I have a kid, will they be a total shithead? And so on.
Wayfarer: In this, too, it accentuates the negative. For Tibetans this is seen as a positive. That is, if you’re being told that everything will be sunshine and roses, what good is that? What do you do with that information?
Wayfarer: It’s like yesterday it was all over the news that Elizabeth Smart, who was abducted a few years back? Her dad came out as gay. And that’s… who gives a shit? Why is this news? What are you supposed to do with that information?
Wayfarer: Tibetans treat astrological calculations that are positive the same way. “Everything will be fine…” okay…? So? What should I do then? So the calculations tend to be focused on obstacles.
Rainsong: Seems logical
Wayfarer: These obstacles are assessed in 4 (sometimes 5) aspects: life-force, physical health, wealth and influence, and “luck” or general fortune. Sometimes “la” or “soul” but this is mostly only pertinent for medical calculations which I don’t do because we have physicians in 2019.
Wayfarer: It’s important to look at the time where these things are used and I am pretty confident medical astrology basically exists because sometimes you can’t get a hold of a doctor but hey, you’ve got an astrologer here and they know some shit about elements, maybe they can get something.
Wayfarer: Okay that’s not fair, your body also goes through cycles like the planet and so where your la is located is still something that means you’ll be more likely to get an injury to your leg than to your arm or whatever but still it’s 2019, just go see a doctor I mean goddamn.
Wayfarer: Also I’m not trying to get sued for malpractice here.
Wayfarer: Anyhow, we mostly are interested in the 4 aspects I mentioned before — life-force, health, wealth, and luck — for obstacle calculations. Medical astrology is its own thing.
Wayfarer: What are we actually calculating, then? Well, when you’re born you’re born under a sign with two parts: an element, and an animal. I’ll use myself for an example: I’m a fire tiger. From that, we immediately know the wealth element, because that’s the cycle-element: my “wealth” is “fire.”
Wayfarer: We also know the life-force element, with a little knowledge, because the life-force element is the native element of the animal sign. In my case, that’s “wood” because Tigers hang out in wood in the East.
Wayfarer: I should probably have mentioned manual calculation in the actual lecture by this point, and definitely I should have shown a sipa-ho so standby
Wayfarer: this is the only one I can find that has the damn element colors right for the directions lmao
Wayfarer: Peep that dapper turtle in the middle
Wayfarer: That happy fella is Turtle Manjusri
Wayfarer: https://media.karousell.com/media/photos/products/2018/07/13/sipaho__tibetan_thangka_of_protection_1531481162_1ee9bf371_progressive you can see him bigger here I think
Wayfarer: You can see on his stomach that he’s got a couple of circles going around with different colors.
Wayfarer: The center is called the mewa seal. It’s a magic number square, identical to the seal of Saturn in its default state. The numbers migrate around in what’s called the “flying crane cycle.” Each year a different number is in the middle.
Wayfarer: The second cycle out is called the parkha, which is how Tibetans ended up settling how to write and pronounce “ba gua,” which are the 8 trigrams of the I Ching.
Wayfarer: Those are used for directional calculations, essentially feng shui.
Wayfarer: Around that is the thing we’re talking about, just a bunch of animals.
Wayfarer: The turtle’s head is in the south, the tail is in the north, the left side is in the east, the right is the west. In the south is fire, in the north is water, to the east is wood, to the west is iron. In the ordinal directions the element is earth.
Wayfarer: The animals proceed starting from Tiger and moving clockwise: tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, bird, dog, pig, mouse, cow
Wayfarer: These alternate gender: tiger is male, rabbit is female, and so on.
Wayfarer: This is important, because the years proceed in male-female pairs. This is the earth pig year. Last year was earth dog. Next year will be metal mouse.
Wayfarer: Then metal cow, and then water tiger.
Wayfarer: Why that progression? Well, the elements are not the Indian elements, if you haven’t keyed to that, but the Wu Xing, or five elemental system that comes from China.
Wayfarer: The Western or Indian elements are diametric. Fire ascends, water descend, earth is fixed, air is dynamic, etc. etc.
Wayfarer: The Chinese elements are not related in this way. Instead, every element has a mother, a child, a friend, and an enemy.
Wayfarer: Using fire as an example: fire’s mother is wood, its child is earth, its enemy is water, and its friend is metal.
Wayfarer: Why?
Wayfarer: Well, wood gives birth to fire, obviously. Then it burns up and turns to ash. Water puts out fire. Fire melts metal. Your enemy is who can destroy you, and your friend is who you can destroy.
Wayfarer: Earth’s mother is fire, its child is metal, its enemy is wood, and its friend is water. Metal’s mother is earth, its child is water, its enemy is fire, and its friend is wood. Water’s mother is metal, its child is wood, its enemy is earth, and its friend is fire. Wood’s mother is water, its child is fire, its enemy is metal, and its friend is earth. And that brings us full circle to fire’s mother is…
Wayfarer: When we’re doing obstacle calculation, at its most basic, we’re looking at the elemental relationships. If your birth element is fire, then your wealth is likely to suffer in water years. It will be best in wood years. It will be pretty good in metal years. It will be mixed in earth years. And in fire years, it will be bad – generally it’s bad in our own year.
Wayfarer: I haven’t mentioned health and luck because those ones use special calculations to arrive at.
Wayfarer: Health in particular uses a “key” that’s based on the relation of the birth element to the animal sign element, and luck is fixed to certain animal signs but not in any kind of sensible way.
Wayfarer: (It’s a strict rotation of the “three friends,” so tiger, horse, and dog are iron because they are; pig, sheep, rabbit are fire; mouse, dragon, and monkey are wood; and bird, cow, and snake are water. Sorry that took a minute to type, I memorized all this shit in Tibetan and have to go back in my head sometimes with nitty-gritty like that)
Rainsong: No worries
Wayfarer: And the “health” aspect has to do with the relation of the power element to an element arbitrarily assigned to those animals (the “key”), so my animal sign (tiger)’s “key” is water. Water’s friend is fire (my power element) so my health element is fire. I’m … that’s just way too much granular detail to teach in this format but I just want to establish the basis. It obviously won’t make the cut for the lecture lmao
Rainsong: That’s part of the purpose of a works-in-progress session, to sort out those kinds of issues
Wayfarer: So, when we have our life-force, health, power, and luck elements, we can do a straight calculation down the years.
Wayfarer: This year is the earth pig year, and the elements for this year are life force: water health: wood wealth: earth luck: fire A fire tiger is life force: wood health: fire wealth: fire luck: metal
Wayfarer: We can make a prediction of obstacles like so: life force: wood’s mother is water (very good!) health: fire’s mother is wood (very good!) wealth: fire’s child is earth (mixed!) luck: metal’s enemy is fire (very bad!)
Wayfarer: So this year is good for my life force and health, I shouldn’t have major illnesses and I should have good energy levels and so on. My wealth can be mixed, and my luck is bad. And then we go through the book and we look at what we should do about that.
Wayfarer: In this case, we make offerings of thanks for life-force, we generally don’t worry about health, but we definitely need to do certain propitiatory practices for wealth, should be doing wealth summoning rituals and so on, and for luck in this case I need to be doing rituals for my enemy-defeating god and reciting the lawsuit-pacifying sutra and so on.
Wayfarer: And since most people aren’t Tibetan Buddhist, I work with them to figure out rituals from their own religious traditions that work for them to accomplish essentially the same thing.
Wayfarer: The other cycles we do similarly, mewas, parkhas, log-men, etc. to make a much more robust calculation. We can use all those results to take an average that can change that result. And there are other little detail things, like this year is an “earth door” year for me, and I need to not be digging in the earth. I had to dig a foundation for a building earlier and it resulted in some problems for me. I usually do not calculate or pay attention to my own astrology because that shit drives you crazy lmao
Wayfarer: Each mewa has its own element (1, 6, and 8 are white = iron, 2 is black and 3 is blue = water, 4 is green = wood, 5 is yellow = earth, and 7 and 9 are red = fire) and each parkha has its own element based on its corresponding direction (north is water, northeast is earth, east is wood, etc.)
Wayfarer: So those influences temper strict yearly calculation to give a bit more detail.
Wayfarer: These calculations, of course, apply to a whole year. Each month also has an element and animal, and each day as well. Months get weird because they start from the tiger month of the year prior, so this year is earth pig, so tiger month was metal, rabbit was metal, then dragon is water. The day starts on the element that is the child of that month’s element, on tiger for male months and proceeding clockwise, and on monkey for female, preceeding anticlockwise. Elements proceed in sequence and not doubled. Nobody does this just look at a damn calendar.
Rainsong: 😀
Wayfarer: But yeah the first day of this year would be the Wood Tiger day of the Water Dragon month of the Earth Pig year 2146 of the 17th cycle.
Wayfarer: Today is the Metal Dragon Day of the Fire Bird Month of the Earth Pig Year 2146 of the 17th Cycle.
Wayfarer: based on that we could, in theory, calculate the best hours of the day for someone by taking the hourly cycle (child of the day element starting from the rabbit “hour,” the time when you can see the lines on the palm of your hand by daylight when you hold your hand out in front of you) for this or any other day.
Wayfarer: So, why would we ever do this? Well, if we’re nomads who don’t have calendars, and we think that advanced mathematics are literally magic because again, we’re steppe nomads, this cycle works no matter what so long as we know at least one year’s element/animal, and how many years ago that year was, and so long as we can see the moon.
Wayfarer: It’s not eminently practical to use today. It does work, even with the lunar mansions I ain’t even got into, and I’ve verified this using for example google skymap, but it’s 2019 and every living human has a cell phone with a calendar function. But!
Wayfarer: We can use this to determine our best hours, best days, and so on. It’s good for decision making. There are also good days for travel, bad days for travel, and so on and so on
Wayfarer: Okay I promised to make this relevant to the life of an energy worker somehow so…
Wayfarer: A lot of magic people use elements in their programming. Elemental composition shapes a lot of a thing’s expression. But the Western elemental system is based on oppositions, not dynamic relationships.
Wayfarer: Using the five elements we have here and that cycle and relationship, it’s entirely possible to get way more dynamic compositions and relationships. So…what if elemental magic…but with different elements?
Wayfarer: That’s it, that’s all I got. Go hog wild. Oh also I guess for an energy worker doing energy work elementally with activities that have favorable elemental days is a good thing.
Wayfarer: So if you’re doing uh something that is water-y then a metal day is good for that.
Rainsong: The ceremonialists and witches calculate for particularly auspicious times to do their stuff, don’t they? Can see that being useful
Wayfarer: Also “why the hell is metal the mother of water” bugged me for like, a week when I started with this stuff until I realized that it’s condensation and steppe nomads would definitely have thought that water was just comin’ out of nowhere.
Rainsong: Makes sense
Rainsong: I take it from your ‘higher maths’ comment, that there isn’t a large amount of calculus involved in this kind of ‘astrology’
Raggiedmon: Thank for lecture
Rainsong: Hi, Raggied
Raggiedmon: Ello
Raggiedmon:
Rainsong: Good to ‘see’ you 🙂
Rainsong: Wayfarer: Thanks for the seminar. Interesting stuff 🙂
Wayfarer: They do but they usually have those calculations based on their own calendrical systems. But! The witch-y folks tend to use the same luni-solar calendar.
PatchesTheCoydog: Thanks lecture(question was going to ask was about if did similar things to western astrology in terms of using times best to make talismans and stuff or if things were done to make up for afflicted timings in ones chart but you then covered that in affirmative it seems)
Wayfarer: I did see you typing and I’d love to discuss it actually after this thing resets, it’s been demanding a reset for a few minutes brb
Clovers: That mother, child, enemy and friend thing is beautiful