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“Arab astronomers from the eleventh to the fourteenth century established a broad-based research tradition aimed at reforming the Ptolemaic (geocentric) planetary model. These astronomers—in both Eastern and Western Islam—wanted a theoretical planetary model that conformed to what really is. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the combined efforts of the Marâgha School of astronomers, capped by the work of Ibn al-Shatir, finally arrived at a planetary model mathematically equivalent to the Copernican model of a century and a half later. But having arrived there, Ibn al-Shatir and his successors failed to make the leap to the heliocentric view—the leap that distinguished the Copernican achievement—and thereby failed to achieve the philosophical and metaphysical transformation that we call the scientific revolution.”

Pasted from <http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/decline_of_the_decline_of_arabic_science/>

(This is actually a quote from another article:

Toby E. Huff, The rise of early modern science: Islam, China, and the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 87.)

Another Excerpt from The Faust Book. Faust explains the true nature of the stars.

“The Faust Book seems to be a very early novel written during the Lutheran church squabbles (1568-81) or shortly thereafter. It comes down to us in manuscript (Historia vnd Geschicht Doctor Johannis Faustj des Zauberers) written in clear hand by a professional scribe in Nuremberg, still in very good, unused condition, and also as a 1587 imprint from the prominent Frankfurt publishing house of Johann Spies.”

Pasted from <http://lettersfromthedustbowl.com/msE.html>

Concerning the Stars
XIX
“A prominent scholar in Halberstadt, Doctor N. V. W., invited Doctor Faustus to his table. Before supper was ready, Faustus stood for a while gazing out the window at the Heavens, it being Harvest time and the sky filled with stars. Now his host, being also a Doctor of Physic and a good astrologus, had brought Doctor Faustus here for the purpose of learning from him divers transformations in the planets and stars. Therefore he now leaned upon the window beside Doctor Faustus and looked also upon the brilliance of the Heavens, the multitude of stars, some of which were shooting through the sky and falling to the earth. In all humility he made request that Doctor Faustus might tell him the condition and quality of this thing.
Doctor Faustus began on this wise: My most dear Lord and Brother, this condition doth presuppose certain other matters which ye must understand first. The smallest star in Heaven, although when beheld from below it seems to our thinking scarcely so big as our large wax candles, is really larger than a principality. Oh yes, this is certain. I have seen that the length and breadth of the Heavens is many times greater than the surface of the earth. From Heaven, ye cannot even see earth. Many a star is broader than this land, and most are at least as large as this city. –See, over there is one fully as large as the dominion of the Roman Empire. This one right up here is as large as Turkey. And up higher there, where the planets are, ye may find one as big as the world.”
Pasted from <http://lettersfromthedustbowl.com/Fbk2.html>

The Third Question
XXII
“But I still do not understand, spake the Doctor from Halberstadt, the action of the stars, how they glitter, and how they fall down to earth.
Doctor Faustus answered: This is nothing out of the ordinary, but an everyday happening. It is indeed true that the stars, like the Firmament and other Elementa, were created and disposed in the Heavens in such a fashion that they are immutable. But they do undergo certain changes in color and in other external qualities. The stars manifest superficial changes of this sort when they give off sparks or little flames, for these are bits of match falling from the stars–or, as we call them, shooting stars. They are hard, black, and greenish.
But that a star itself might fall–why this is nothing more than a fancy of mankind. When by night a great streak of fire is seen to shoot downward, these are not falling stars, although we do call them that, but only slaggy pieces from the stars. They are big things, to be sure, and, as is true of the stars themselves, some are much bigger than others. But it is my opinion that no star itself falleth except as a scourge of God. Then such falling stars bring a murkiness of the Heavens with them and cause great floods and devastation of lives and land. “
Pasted from <http://lettersfromthedustbowl.com/Fbk2.html>”

Check out http://lettersfromthedustbowl.com/Fbk2.html.

An Excerpt from The Faust Book

“The Faust Book seems to be a very early novel written during the Lutheran church squabbles (1568-81) or shortly thereafter. It comes down to us in manuscript(Historia vnd Geschicht Doctor Johannis Faustj des Zauberers) written in clear hand by a professional scribe in Nuremberg, still in very good, unused condition, and also as a 1587 imprint from the prominent Frankfurt publishing house of Johann Spies. “
Pasted from <http://lettersfromthedustbowl.com/msE.html>

DOCTOR FAUSTUS HIS HISTORIA
HERE FOLLOWETH THE SECOND
PART ADVENTURES & SUNDRY
QUESTIONS
His Almanacs and Horoscopes
XII

“Doctor Faustus, being no longer able to obtain answers from his spirit concerning godly matters, now had to rest content and desist from this purpose. It was in those days that he set about making almanacs and became a good astronomus and astrologus.

He gained so much learning and experience from the spirit concerning horoscopes that all which he did contrive and write won the highest praise among all the mathematici of that day (as is, after all, common knowledge by now). His horoscopes, which he sent to great lords and princes, always were correct, for he contrived them according to the advice of his spirit as to what would come to pass in the future, all such matters falling duly out even as he had presaged them.

His tables and almanacs were praised above others because he set down naught in them but what did indeed come to pass. When he forecast fogs, wind, snow, precipitation, etc., these things were all quite certain. His almanacs were not as those of some unskilled astrologi who know of course that it gets cold in the winter, and hence forecast freezes, or that it will be hot in the summer, and predict thunderstorms. Doctor Faustus always calculated his tables in the manner described above, setting what should come to pass, specifying the day and the hour and especially warning the particular districts–this one with famine, that one with war, another with pestilence, and so forth.”

A Disputatio, or Inquiry Concerning the Art of Astronomia, or Astrologia
XIII
“One time after Doctor Faustus had been contriving and producing such horoscopes and almanacs for about two years he did ask his spirit about the nature of astronomia or astrologia as practiced by the mathematici.

The spirit gave answer, saying: My Lord Fauste, it is so ordained that the ancient haruspices and modern stargazers are unable to forecast anything particularly certain, for these are deep mysteries of God which mortals cannot plumb as we spirits can, who hover in the air beneath Heaven where we can see and mark what God bath predestined. Yes, we are ancient spirits, experienced in the Heavenly movements. Why, Lord Fauste, I could make thee a perpetual calendar for the setting of horoscopes and almanacs or for nativity investigations one year after the other. –Thou hast seen that I have never lied to thee. Now it is true that the Patriarchs, who lived for five and six hundred years, did comprehend the fundamentals of this art and became very adept. For when such a great number of years elapse a lunisolar period is completed, and the older generation can apprise the younger of it. Except for that, all green, inexperienced astrologi have to set up their horoscopes arbitrarily according to conjecture.”

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