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Edward W. Profile picture
Edward W.
@edwardW2
"(T)he very foundations of our studies: The recovery and the study of texts as they are, regardless of our tastes and prejudices"- O.Neugebauer.
Oct 23 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
someone pointed out that considering Surya and Helios to be two separate deities is tantamount to saying that there are two different suns: one for Indians and one for Greeks. Buddhism itself is pretty happy to absorb polytheist gods, albeit holding them to be inferior to buddhas. in Chinese Buddhism, the Jade Emperor is considered to be the same as Brahma.

Daoist Scriptures in turn suggest that the Jade Emperor is himself a buddha.
Sep 25 • 24 tweets • 3 min read
Since the Public has demanded a translation of the Malaysian Taoist Assocation's condemnation of mediums, here is my very rough translation:


Image 8月8日刊登在《星洲日报》《言路》版，题目作《这些迷信的父母都病得不轻》的黄翠娴女 士的专栏文章，内容主要是控诉“父母束缚着年幼的孩子‘成全’乩童往自己孩子嘴里投含血唾液”的作法不仅不合卫生，而且有迷信之嫌。
On august 8th, in sin chiew Jit Poh, there was published an article entitled
Oct 19, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
this video gives a very good piece of advice regarding Classical Chinese: You should not start with the big classics like the Analects or Laozi, but rather tackle simpler , less ambiguous literature, like stories and narratives- even 19thc chinese tr. of western books... for, As much as the analects may be culturally important, they are written in a very hard, archaic form of chinese (which even I struggle with!) that is also ambiguous to boot: there have been millennia long disputes on what passages even mean.
Nov 6, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
I have my doubts about this interpretation; we are probably missing something; the ancients may not have physically eaten semen and mucus. it might very well have been a kind of visualisation exercise. daoist visualisation exxercises can get really trippy- things like visualising the gods that dwell in various parts of the body, nurturing numinous embryos etc- thus imagining you are purifying your own cum would probably be not out of place
Nov 6, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
if you want to stop thinking of whatever you are currently thinking please listen to this incredibly eldritch and spiritually numinous recitation of the heart sutra by soto zen monks 般若心経 IF that is not enough then listen to their recitation of the great compassion mantra which would cause all manner of evil ghosts (and humans I should add) to flee
Nov 6, 2022 • 25 tweets • 8 min read
let us learn how to determine whether the moon is full or not just by looking at a wheel chart The average chart casting software looks something like this: a whole crowd of planets and lines. for the purposes of our current exercise none of these matter except for the sun ⵙ (circled dot) and the moon ☽ (creor the phases of the moon are nothing more than the moon
Nov 6, 2022 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
this is the customary coloring of signs on astrology charts in the west. so the 3 signs of the element fire (aries, Leo, sagittarius) are colored red, and so on.

knowing this you can easily spot if planets are trine: if they are trine, the colors of their signs are identical so, for example if you wish to see if mars(♂️ in the chart below, at the 7 o'clock position) is trine anything, notice that he is in gemini♊️, which is yellow.
Nov 4, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
if I set up a religious charity* this is how I will choose the board of trustees each year.

*thinly disguised ancestor worship trust for me and my parents aims of Edward's ancestor worship trust
> monthly daoist and buddhist sutra recitation (w/ English translation so educational)
>offerings of food to ancestors viz myself and my parents and their parents (public can participate; hire professor to explain what on earth is going on
Nov 4, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
the interesting possibility is the reverse: only very little of what was found in the textbooks was actually used in practise. After all, we moderns may have things like Chiron and the vertex, but how many astrologers use those in their interpretations? one thing that has struck me when I see astrology being 'applied' is the technical simplicity of a lot of these things. I have seen half-hour podcasts dedicated to nothing more complex than analysing aspects the moon is making...
Oct 11, 2022 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
It seems the portrait is also Sir Christopher's horoscope: The ring surrounding his portrait is made of animals of the zodiac, and directly underneath each are figures- presumably the personified planets.

It seems he has most planets between Sagittarius and Aquarius There seems to be no clearer image of that portrait online, but zooming in, it seems he has Saturn in Aquarius (black-robed figure eating what seems to be a baby= Cronus = Saturn). He has one other planet in Capricorn which I can't identify tudorsociety.com/20-november-15……
Oct 10, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
new dating profile:

hewwo senpaiiiiis ( ；´Д｀)
I might be a virgo o(*////▽////*)o
but can u plz devirginise me (⁄ ⁄ ⁄ω⁄ ⁄ ⁄) uwu uwu uwu
mitsloan.mit.edu/press/mit-sloa… [譯]
本是處女座 (⁄ ⁄ ⁄ω⁄ ⁄ ⁄)
欲化蕩婦座 o(*////▽////*)o
Oct 10, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
This is interesting. Either the paper is based on a false premise [using an unrepresentative sample etc], or western astrological techniques have penetrated far deeper into china than one would expect. I should clarify. china has its own indigenous systems of astrology that are altogether very different from western astrology. chinese websites give free readings in the indigenous bazi system, often to a high degree of detail.
Oct 9, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
hot take that the invention of the telescope- might have depolarised the observational forms of astronomy like this: astronomy becomes so fixated on the properties of celestial bodies that how they appear directly to earth- rising and setting and so on- falls into the background yes of course, we now know that Saturn has rings and Jupiter has moons, but does this mean that information about when Saturn is burnt in the rays of the sun, or Jupiter retraces his steps across the sky less valuable?
Oct 9, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
This is actually interesting, considering that in later china at least, there was a massive taboo on eating dogmeat. books.google.com/books?id=2KEsA… Image Likewise in Buddhist and Daoist rituals, there is the concept of 三厭：the three detestables: ：Gray Goose 雁、Dog 狗、"blackfish" 烏魚。which are tabooed for practitioners baike.baidu.hk/item/%E4%BA%94…
Oct 9, 2022 • 18 tweets • 9 min read
(h/t @DrFrancisYoung)
The red paper is a horoscope of some sort. It is done in the eight characters/bazi method. The main 'body' of the horoscope (second img) says (reading right to left0
乙卯
戊子
丙寅
甲午 ImageImage The rest of the inscriptions of the paper are a jumble of dates. here is what is found on the right-hand side
十一月初七日午[時] (the last character is fragmentary)
11th month, 7th day, Horse [hour?] Image
Sep 20, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
this thread also has interesting implications for the religious traditions and their revivals more generally. An interesting example of this comes from Buddhism, specifically the history of the Medicine Buddha sutra, as recounted by master Chuk Mo = Zhumo 竺摩
archive.org/details/202204…. The Medicine Buddha sutra was first transmitted to China in the Tang Dynasty... ImageImage
Sep 20, 2022 • 23 tweets • 10 min read
What little I know about the I Ching:
A thread compiled for @MichaelMjfm and his learned friends.
The I ching is probably one of the very few Chinese mantic methods that have transferred to the west relatively intact. This is probably because of the translation done by Wilhelm Of the I ching into German- which was then translated into English by Baynes. This translation was what fuelled its great popularity. Fortunately it is available online www2.unipr.it/~deyoung/I_Chi…
Sep 19, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
we need a medieval astrological lapidary analysis of the imperial state crown bbc.com/news/uk-628782… According to Christian astrology ( i am using @DeborahHoulding's very convenient annotated edn here skyscript.co.uk/CA/#read)
The Sapphire belongs to Saturn;
The Adamant or diamond belongs to Mars
The Ruby belongs to the Sun
Sep 19, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
It is bizarre to think that these two passages- from the Zhuangzi and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn respectively, are referring to the same plant- the tree of Heaven/Alianthus
ctext.org/zhuangzi/enjoy…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ailanthus… Huizi said to Zhuangzi, 'I have a large tree, which men call'There's a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it The moral that they derive from the plant is completely opposed: in the Zhuangzi, the Ailanthus' longevity is due to the fact that it is completely useless; on the other hand, in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the tree's hardiness and capacity to survive in adversity is praised
Sep 19, 2022 • 20 tweets • 6 min read
This article is intriguing, but more so when you consider its practical implications, In brief, it appears that the kind of altered states of conciousness - the holotropic states- you get when you consume psychedelics, is dependent on the transits you are having... So, for example, a person taking psychedelics under a 'Saturn-Pluto transit' one sees saturnine things, like fear, death, dread; under Jupiter-Uranus transits one sees more jovial scenes- new vistas, new breakthroughs &c.
Sep 19, 2022 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
EARTHCOW WATERCOW 水牛 is the water buffalo
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%B0%B4…
FIRECOW 火牛 is the Transistor en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%81%AB…
WOODCOW 木牛 is a kind of wheelbarrow invented by Zhuge Liang
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wooden_ox
GOLDCOW 金牛 is the zodiac sign taurus
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%87%91…