Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard

268 Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard

Canis Major

(big dog)

(little

dog)

Canis

Minor

Crion

(the hunter) Lepus

(the hare)

Scorpio

(the scorpion)

Ophiuchus

(the serpent-

handler)

(the

archer)

Sagit-

tarius

Corona

Borealis

(northern

crown)

with his two hunting dogs (Canis Major and Canis

Minor) and the rabbit they were chasing (Lepus). The

Scorpion was also put in the sky, but on the opposite

side, along with Sagittarius, the archer Centaur, Chiron,

whose arrow killed it. Aesculapius (Ophiucus, the “ser-

pent handler”) was placed right above the Scorpion.

Castor & Pollux

Castor and Pollux are the

names of the two bright stars in

the constellation Gemini. They

were twin brothers of Helen of

Troy but they had different fa-

thers: In one night, their mother

Leda was made pregnant both by Zeus in the form of

a swan and by her husband, King Tyndarus of Sparta.

Pollux, as the son of a god, was immortal and renowned

for his strength, while his mortal brother Castor was

famed for his skill with horses. Both brothers sailed

with Jason and the Argonauts in search of the Golden

Fleece and fought in the Trojan War. They loved each

other dearly, so when Castor was killed in battle, Pol-

lux, grief-sticken, asked to join him. Zeus placed them

both in the sky together.

Europa & the Bull

Zeus, king of the

gods, appeared to prin-

cess Europa in the form

of a magnificent white

bull. She was impressed by his beauty and gentle-

ness, and the two played together on the beach. Even-

tually, Europa climbed onto the bull’s back, and he

swam out to sea with her to Crete, where he revealed

his true identity. There Zeus seduced her, and their

children became the Europeans. The constellation

Taurus shows only the head of the great bull, with the

star cluster called the Pleiades on his shoulder. Al-

though only six of its many stars are now visible, they

are called “the seven sisters.” Perhaps one of the oth-

ers has dimmed since ancient times.

Ariadne’s Crown

Princess Ariadne was the

daughter of King Minos of Crete.

His queen, Pasiphae, had borne a

monster, the Minotaur—half man

and half bull—which Minos had

imprisoned in an underground maze called the Laby-

rinth. It was fed on Athenian prisoners. On the third

feeding, one of those chosen as a sacrifice was

Theseus. Ariadne fell in love with him, and offered

help if he would take her away with him. He agreed,

and she gave him a thread to unwind behind him to

mark his passage. Theseus killed the Minotaur, fol-

lowed the thread back out of the labyrinth, and sailed

from Crete with Ariadne. But he abandoned her on the

island of Naxos. Dionysos, god of the grapevine, found

her there heartbroken, and made her his bride and

priestess of his temple. When she died, he flung her

crown into the heavens, where it remains as the con-

stellation Corona Borealis (“northern crown”).

Lesson 9. Cosmology & Cosmogony

Cosmology (“word of the universe”) is the science,

knowledge and lore of the Heavens. It concerns itself

with the great Mysteries of Time and Space. Modern

cosmologists and astrophysicists are focusing in par-

ticular on cosmogenesis, or cosmogony: the birth of

the universe. There are two main competing views as

to how the universe began, and in one version or an-

other, each of these have waxed or waned in popular-

ity over the millennia:

The Big Bang (a finite beginning)

The oldest, and by far most popular, is the cre-

ationist theory of The Big Bang, which proposes that

the entire universe began around 14.1 billion years

ago with a vast explosion, somehow suddenly coming

into existence out of nothing. This is expressed elo-

quently in the Bible’s Book of Genesis, where the He-

brew Creator God simply declares: “Let there be light!”

The Big Bang has become an article of religious faith

for many scientists; in 1951 it even received the bless-

ing of Pope Pius XII!

There are several problems with this theory. The

first and most obvious is that, if there really was such

a big explosion somewhere 14.1 billion years ago, then

there would be a vast area of space at “ground zero”

that would be completely empty, from which all the

galaxies are still rushing away. There is no such empty

area. In all directions we look, the distribution of gal-

axies is fairly uniform, forming a kind of “froth” of

bubbles of empty space surrounded by shells of gal-

axies. It appears, in fact, as if there have been count-

less “little bangs” rather than one big one.

Another problem is that when we turn our tele-

scopes to the furthest and oldest regions of the uni-

(the

twins)

Gemini

Taurus

(the bull)

Pleiades

Corrected pages PM.p65 14 3/25/2004, 2:27 PM