Designing a Satanic Calendar
Milchar
Calendar is not merely an instrument of measuring time; it's a way of viewing time and history in the culture that has created it. For example, using the prevailing Gregorian calendar means counting the present historical epoch from a bit more than 2000 years ago, and viewing the middle of winter (or summer in the Southern hemisphere) as the start of a new cycle of life. Months and weeks as well influence the idea of time for everybody who lives by this calendar. This is also the reason for every religion to have its own calendar, and to keep on using it despite of the fact that everybody in the world is accustomed to the Gregorian calendar now.
This can suggest an idea that Satanists should have their own unique calendar that would reflect the Satanic view on time cycles and history, and would show the astronomical aspects that could be important for Satanic occult practices. Why do we need to use astronomical tables or programs to find moon phases, for example? It's the calendar that has to show us all necessary information on any time cycles longer than one day!
However, the task of including all necessary information into the calendar is more complicated than it can seem at the first glance, because, as it's already known since the Antiquity, the solar and the lunar time cycles are disproportionate to one another. This means that we need to design a double calendar, consisting of a solar and a lunar part.
The solar cycle
It's mathematically simpler, because the dates of solstices and equinoxes coincide with the first day of an oncoming sign of the zodiac (with one exception, which is to be considered later). Therefore, we can use the signs of the zodiac as months and start a new year from the vernal equinox, which is the first day of the Aries month. The only complication appears at the moment of the autumnal equinox, which falls on September 22 or 23, while the sign of Libra begins on September 24. How can we manage this disparity? I would give a preference to astronomy rather than astrology in this issue; this means that September 23 will be counted both as the day of the autumnal equinox and the 1st day of Libra month.
In addition, we need to state the system of leap years counting. The most accurate formula for it was derived by Johann Heinrich von Mädler, a 19th century German astronomer and mathematician. He advised to add a leap day every forth year, excluding it once per 128 years; so an error of one day would accumulate only after 86,400 years! However, we have to take the practical side into account too; therefore, copying the Gregorian system of leap years will be more convenient, because a direct correspondence between dates of the Satanic and the Gregorian calendars will exist so. The Gregorian system is accurate enough for practical purposes; it produces a one-day error in 3300 years.
Thus, the solar part of the Satanic calendar will look so:
Month # of days Corresponding Gregorian dates
Aries 31 Mar.21-Apr.20
Taurus 30 Apr.21-May 20
Gemini 32 May 21-Jun.21
Cancer 31 Jun.22-Jul.22
Leo 32 Jul.23-Aug.23
Virgo 30 Aug.24-Sep.22
Libra 31 Sep.23-Oct.23
Scorpio 30 Oct.24-Nov.22
Sagittarius 29 Nov.23-Dec.21
Capricorn 30 Dec.22-Jan.20
Aquarius 31 Jan.21-Feb.20
Pisces 28/29 Feb.21-Mar.20
The lunar cycle
Building a lunar cycle in the calendar poses a task of finding an accurate proportion between lunar months of 29 and 30 days. A fine approximation can be the cycle of 49 lunar months, of which 23 will have 29 days and the remaining 26 will be of 30 days. In this case, a one-day error will accumulate in 3300 years.
The lunar new year's day is usually linked to some solar date, for the length of any period in years to be equal in both the solar and the lunar cycles. In order to make life easier for astrologists, we can choose to count the lunar new year the same way as it's being done in the Sino-Japanese lunar calendar. This means that some lunar years will consist of 13 months, and the date of the lunar new year will be counted as the second new moon after the winter solstice. So the lunar new year will always fall on a different day of Aquarius solar month.
What will be convenient with such lunar cycle is that a new moon always will come on the 1st day of every lunar month, as well as the full moon on the 15th. Other moon phases will be also easy to calculate.
For the names of the month, we can take the Latin translations of the Chinese ones:
1. Primens
2. Apricomens
3. Peacimens
4. Plumens
5. Guavamens
6. Lotumens
7. Orchimens
8. Osmanthumens
9. Chrysanthemens
10. Benimens
11. Hiemens
12. Ultimens
13, additional. Lamens.
However, the length of each month (29 or 30 days) for some particular year cannot be determined by a simple rule as it's done for the solar cycle. This difficulty appears due to the nonexistence of any simple proportion between the cycle of 49 months and the length of the lunar year (12 or 13 months), especially due to the fact that we need to link the lunar calendar to the solar event of winter solstice [1]. Therefore, calculating the lengths of month for each year based on the astronomical data will be a better solution from the practical point of view.
The era of the Satanic calendar
This is the last question we need to elaborate: what historical moment we will count as the starting point of our calendar. Certainly, Christ's birthday does not fit to the needs of Satanists. We have to find something else.
Probably, the first that you think about is the Anno Satanas era used by the Church of Satan. However, with all our respect to Anton Szandor LaVey and everything that he has done for Satanism, we should not forget that Satanism originated long before. We don't know the exact moment when somebody was called Satanist for the first time. Therefore, the best we can do is to choose something among the existing eras that can suit us the most. I think that Kaliyuga era can be exactly what we're looking for. So, our calendar starts at year 3102 before the Christian era. In my work 'Satan in History' I tried to explain why that moment was crucially important for all of us and still matters today.
How it will look like
As it's been said, the Satanic calendar will be double, consisting of the solar and the lunar part. We need to show both of them; in addition, the corresponding dates of the Gregorian calendar, used by the society, are also necessary. Therefore, the calendar will be triple in fact. Its appearance needs to be planned well to avoid any confusion.
We can use different colors and different positions of numbers to clearly discern what is where. Let's make the solar cycle the main part and show 12 solar months grouping the weekdays exactly the way it's being done in usual Gregorian calendar editions. If we use a white background, let the solar days be shown in black. The lunar days can be printed as upper right indices close to the corresponding solar dates and shown in red. Similarly, the Gregorian days can be shown in blue as lower left indices of the corresponding solar days. The borders between the lunar and the Gregorian months will be depicted with red and blue lines, respectively. Following the same principle, the names of the lunar months will be shown above in red, as well as the Gregorian months below in blue. So the calendar will be easily readable and convenient to use. We can have a computer program that generates and prints the Satanic calendar for any year we need.
[1] The shortest possible cycle with acceptable accuracy could be the one of 725 years, which, however, would require to change the system of solar leap years to a less precise one. So, the cycle of 725 years would consist of:
549 normal solar years;
176 leap solar years;
4758 lunar months of 30 days;
4209 lunar months of 29 days;
264801 days total.
Such calendar would accumulate a one day error for 1786 years, which is less precise than the Gregorian. Anyway, its main disadvantage would be just the inconvenience of using such a long cycle.
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