(Mago Almanac Excerpt 5) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A) Free PDF available at Mago Bookstore.

THE 28-13-7 INTERPLAY

How does the number, 28 (days), for the lunar cycle come about? Why is it 28 days and not 29 or 30, the latter implicated in the traditional lunar calendar of East Asia? It appears that 28 days is a value closer to the moon’s sidereal period (about 27.3 days) than the synodic period (about 29.5 days). Or is it that 28 days points to the median between the synodic lunar cycle and the sidereal lunar cycle? To answer these questions, it is important to note that a value in the Mago Time captures an inter-cosmic biological cusp/juncture derived from the matrix of sonic numerology. Distinguished from the patriarchal measure of time fixated into a solipsistic space, it makes visible the interconnectedness of all bodies. It never stands as an isolated single occasion.

The 28 day, 13 month calendar has to do with how we perceive the moon. There are two ways of understanding the lunar cycle; the sidereal period and the synodic period (see Figure 2). The synodic period refers to the time, about 29.5 days, that we on earth see the moon complete one round of revolution, e.g. from the full moon to the full moon. In contrast, the sidereal period refers to the actual time, about 27.3 days, that the moon takes to complete one round of revolution. While the synodic time is measured relative to the Earth (the observer’s position is on earth), the sidereal time is measured relative to the distant “fixed” stars (the observer’s position is far out at the distant stars). Since the distant stars are considered at rest, the sidereal period is taken as a universal value, not affected by the location of the viewer, we on earth. There is, apparently, a discrepancy between the lunar cycle that we on earth see the moon return to the same phase and the lunar cycle that the moon actually completes a revolution. The former is based on our observation of the moon’s phases, whereas the latter is based on the moon’s actual orbital motions. The two differs basically because all celestial bodies, the moon, earth, and sun, in the solar system are in motion. It is not just the moon that we watch revolving but Earth also revolves around the sun. We are watching the movement of the moon on a moving vehicle, earth, so to speak. Therefore, the moon has to travel about 2 more days in order for us on earth to see it in the same phase (see the green portion in Figure 2 part). At the position A of the moon in Figure 2, the moon is in line with the sun and the distant stars, which is a new moon. In the position of B (the new moon), the moon is in line with the sun but not with the distant stars. The right hand line of the green portion in line with the distant stars is where the moon started as a new moon. The moon has traveled about 2 more days to be in line with the sun. That is why the synodic period is about 2 days longer than the sidereal period.

When it comes to “the lunar calendar”, moderns tend to think of it as the waxing and waning phases of the moon (29.5 days, the synodic period). The problem lies in that, following the synodic period, people see nothing beyond the moon’s phases. They overlook the fact that the moon rotates and revolves on its own axis and around the earth approximately 13 degrees every day. The synodic lunisolar calendar is a navel-gazing vision. Attending to the moon’s phases may seem benign. However, that is a planned pitfall; the synodic lunisolar calendar with 12 months in a year is here to supersede the 28 day, 13 month gynocentric calendar. Its irregularity with the number of days in a month (29 or 30 days with about 11 extra days for intercalation) is an inherently critical flaw. Its inaccuracy when incorporated within the solar annual calendar (approximately 365.25 days) stands out. Seen below in the table, the synodic lunar track results in as many leap days as a total of 44 days for 4 years, whereas the sidereal lunar track has 2 days for 4 years. The synodic lunisolar calendar undercuts the moon’s given capacity – guiding earthly beings into the intergalactic voyage of WE/HERE/NOW. In it, both the moon and women are, glorified and objectified by the viewer, cast under the male voyeuristic eye. On the contrary, the sidereal lunisolar calendar, based on the cyclic synchrony between the moon and women, offers the lens to the interconnectedness of all bodies in the universe.

Sources prove that the sidereal lunation is, albeit esoterically, known across cultures to this day. Through the comparative study of ancient cultures of Babylon, Arabia, India and China, W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) observes the substantive difference in dynamic between the two lunation tracks, the synodic and the sidereal. He notes that the moon’s orbital motion, apart from the sun’s, charts out the celestial sphere as the 28 Mansions. I have learned that the 28 Mansions or 28 Constellations of the Moon is a popular form of the 28 day and 13 month Magoist calendar, widely circulated among East Asians especially Koreans from the ancient time. Yeats’ following insights corroborate the Budoji’s explication of the Magoist Calendar in general and the faulty nature of the patriarchal (ancient Chinese) calendar in particular. He rightly observes that the use of the sidereal lunation cycle is older than that of the synodic lunation cycle. He goes further, by expounding the 28 Mansions of the Moon based on the sidereal period in comparison with the 12 signs of the Zodiac, to say that the synodic lunation period determines the annual cycle into 12 months.[13] His insight that the annual 12 months cycle is derived from the synodic lunation period is in point. The 12 months calendar is a patriarchal invention intended to replace the earlier 13 month sidereal calendar. According to the Budoji, the 12 months calendar based on the moon’s phases (29 or 30 days) was invented by Yao, ruler of ancient China, in an effort to justify the establishment of his own rule (read patriarchal monarchy).[14] In the course of history, the Chinese synodic lunisolar calendar has overshadowed the 28-13 luni-gyno-solar dynamic of the Magoist Calendar. In that sense, the synodic lunar calendar is as misguiding as the Gregorian solar calendar. Both attempt to derail human cultures from the Mago Time.

Patriarchal cultures have rendered the 28 Mansions as a mere thing of an astrological or astronomical chart. Consequently, its calendric nature has been made esoteric. People look at the astrological chart of the 28 Constellations but do not see it is the gynocentric calendar with 28 days (month), 13 months (year), and 7 days (week) embedded in the sky. of celestial bodies. It takes occultists to discover and pass along the knowing. Among them is France Barret (1770–1780), the late 19^th century English writer. Barret notes that the 28 lunar Mansions encodes the 13 month calendric nature. He also pays attention to the fact that 28 Mansions is grouped in four seven constellations (4×7).[15] That is no ordinary feature of the 28 Mansions. Sub-divided into four mansions of the seven constellations, the 28 Constellations encrypts the 7 day week sub-calendar forming the 28-13-7-4-52-1-364 scheme.

That the 7 day week sub-calendar is derived from the 28 Mansions of the Moon (28-13 calendar) remains esoteric at best. In fact, both the 7 day cycle and the 28-13 calendar are part of the 28-13-7-4-52-1-364 scheme in Nine Numerology. The 7 day week cycle, made possible by the matrix of the 28-13 calendar, at the same time works as a centripetal building block of the 28-13 luni-centric calendar. Traditionally known as the Seven Stars/Constellations Calendar (七星曆 Chilseong-ryeok) among ancient Koreans, the 7 day week sub-calendar originates from about 2,700 BCE during the period of Danguk (3898 BCE – 2333 BCE), the second oldest confederacy of nine sub-states founded by Goma, shaman ruler of Old Magoist Korea. According to the Handan Gogi, the Seven Stars/Constellations Calendar or the Seven Cyclic Divine Rituals Calendar (七回祭神曆 Chilhoe Jesin-ryeok) explains the origin of the names of seven weekdays, referring to the daily veneration to the seven celestial bodies, the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn.[16] Also identified as the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper in another tradition, the etiology of the Seven Stars/Constellations Calendar presupposes its inter-cosmic and periodic nature.[17] Characteristically, it is adopted by any calendar used today including the 12 months calendar. For example, the Gregorian Calendar uses the system of the weekly 7 days. So does the Sinocentric lunisolar calendar. The 7 day week cycle adopted by the 12 months calendar lends the latter, otherwise intermittent with a number of monthly days (28, 29, 30 or 31 days), a look of regularity. A patriarchal calendar, by its self-claimed identity of the calendar, can’t afford to do away with regularity but adopt the 7 day week regularity. Put differently, the gynocentric calendar lives on to this day in and through all calendars that adopt the seven day week cycle.

The 29.5 day lunar calendar has prevented us from seeing what the moon actually does. The moon revolves about 13 degrees daily for 28 days, as Earth revolves about 28 degrees monthly for 13 months. The 28-13 interplay is best explained by a phenomenon called the tidal locking between the earth and the moon. The moon, tidally locked with the earth, has the same period for its rotation and revolution, about 27.3 days. Such tidal locking results in the lunar synchronous rotation, an effect that the moon keeps the same face turned toward Earth throughout its revolution. This means that the moon has reached, over the course of a geological time, at the point where it rotates about 13 degrees (360 degrees divided by 27.3 days) on its axis per day and orbits about 13 degrees around Earth (360 degrees divided by 27.3 days) per day. The moon’s tidal locking corresponds with Earth’s revolution around the sun, about 27.7 degrees per month (360 degrees divided by 13 months).

In summary, the 28-13 interplay in the Magoist Calendar codifies the synchronous co-relation between Earth and the moon. Earth’s rotational motion determines a day (one rotation means one day) by which the lunar motion of rotation and revolution about 28 days is determined. The lunar motion in turn determines Earth’s revolution around the sun as 13 months (13 months x 28 days = 364 days, excluding the intercalation of one day). This is how Earth’s one year, 13 months, is determined, based on the moon’s 28 day orbital motion around Earth. And the annual 364 days stands as a regular cycle of one year, to be supported by one intercalary day annually (365 days) and another one intercalary day in every fourth year (366 days).

To be continued.

(Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang)

Notes

[13] See “The Mansions of the Moon”, W. B. Yeats and “The Vison”: The Arabic Mansions of the Moon, accessed July 12, 2017, http://www.yeatsvision.com/mansions.html#Mansions/.

[14] I discuss the Budoji’s criticism of the patriarchal lunar calendar based on the moon phases (29 or 30 days) in my forthcoming book, Magoist Calendar.

[15] See Frances Barret, The Magus or Celestial Intelligencer (1801), 153-6, accessed July 12, 2017, http://www.renaissanceastrology.com/mansionslistbarrett.html#E/.

[16] I have taken the Handan Gogi as the second most important text of Magoism. See Handan Gogi, trans. Seungguk Im (Seoul: Jeongsin Segyesa, 1986), 65, 174, 198.

[17] Its identification with the Northern Dipper is most explicitly expressed in the traditional Korean game of Yutnori whose board refers to the 28 Constellations of the Moon.