What is Precession?
 

Precession is referred to as the Grand Year, the Universal Year, the Year of God, the Platonic Year and the cycle of equinoxes. To explain what a Grand Year is we must first explain what one year on Earth means. This is simple since we humans know that what we call a year is equivalent to the time required by the Earth to rotate completely around the Sun. This is about 365.25 days.

However, while moving around the Sun, the Earth is simultaneously turning around its axis, describing the surface of a cone. While one of the ends of the Earth’s axis remains relatively fixed, the other follows the path of a circle. In view of this movement, the vernal point slowly moves along the celestial wheel. Seen from Earth, it looks as if it were moving backwards. In any case, the time required by the Earth’s axis to make a complete orbit around the axis of the ecliptic (one grand tour of the celestial sphere whose plane passes through the twelve constellations) is 25,920 Earth years. That is to say, the vernal point will return to the same position on the Zodiac after moving during 25,920 terrestrial years. This is called a Grand Year or a year of zodiacal precession.

When 25,920 years are divided by twelve, the number of constellations, it is seen that a Grand Month (an astrological era) lasts 2,160 terrestrial years. That is to say, 2,160 years are required by the vernal point to cross one sign of the Zodiac and to enter the next one.

Hence, the deduction that the Earth’s axis does not have a fixed position in relation to the celestial vault and the stars. It moves one degree of the ecliptic every seventy-two years, the length of a human life. Therefore, Ursa Major, Vega and Alpha Centauri in the past did not have the position we are acquainted with today. Thousands of years from now, other constellations will have taken their place.

– Was precession discovered by Plato (428/427–348/347 B.C.)?

Even if precession is referred to as the Grand Year and the Platonic Year, science has at its disposal facts revealing that precession was known since before Plato. He was simply diligent enough to carry out research in ancient libraries and sufficiently cultivated to understand the essence of old legends.

According to them, the Akkadians who ruled over Mesopotamia until 2,344 B.C., at the time the Sumerians conquered Mesopotamia, knew the path of Anu, the god of the Heavens. The path of Anu is, in fact, a system of twenty-three stars and constellations known at that time.

On a stone slab now located in the tourist city of Bogaz-Köy dating back to the same period, an inscription appears among others which states: “The beginning of spring is in Taurus.”

On the cupola of the temple of the goddess Hathor in Denderah in Egypt, constructed on the ruins of an even older temple, a circular Zodiac is drawn (on display at the Louvre since 1919) on which it says that the beginning of spring is in Gemini. All this gets even more astonishing when archeologist Schwaller de Lubicz explains that the circular Zodiac of Denderah reveals the ancient Egyptians to have known that the position of the constellations changes approximately every 2,200 years. They knew what precession was. The question comes up, however: was this knowledge theirs or had they inherited it from their predecessors? Indeed, contradictory opinions exist regarding which period the Zodiac of Denderah dates back to. Certain scientists say that it goes back only as far as 2,500 B.C. Others are convinced that it is several thousand years old. Still others affirm that it is about a hundred thousand years old and that it links us directly to Atlantis.

Consequently, to say that Plato is the one who invented precession seems quite naive. Especially, if one considers that the vernal point moves so slowly (one degree of the ecliptic in seventy-two years) that its movement cannot be noticed during a human being’s lifetime. Scientific interpretations to the effect that it was cavemen who began “reading the stars” are not serious. The ones closest to the truth are most likely those who believe that people at the dawn of our civilization received astrology as a form of knowledge that was already developed. Indeed, in order to create it, enormous amounts of knowledge concerning how the Universe functions and concerning human nature are required. Above all else, a profound and universal spirituality is necessary. You must recognize that these attributes are hardly what we associate with the idea of cavemen.

 

 
 

 
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