Luna

For millennia, the cycle of the moon has been a matter for serious academic discussion. Physicians and philosophers have long blamed behavioural changes on the moon’s pull and the very word “lunatic,” is derived from the idea that changes in people’s mental state are related to lunar cycles. 

Classical philosophers such as Aristotle or Pliny the Elder believed that the moon had a powerful effect on the mind and that, at the time of full moon, it could even cause madness or epilepsy.

A well-known British jurist William Blackstone (1723 –1780) wrote a legal treatise alleging that people gained and lost their ability to reason according to the moon’s shifting phases. "A lunatic, or non-compos mentis, is one who hath ... lost the use of his reason and who hath lucid intervals, sometimes enjoying his senses and sometimes not, and that frequently depending upon the changes of the moon."

Blackstone also wrote a four-volume book “Commentaries on English Law” which was designed to provide a complete overview of English law. Despite his views on the effect of the moon on those with criminal tendencies, these volumes were republished several times and had particular influence in the United States where there is a statue to him. Alexander Hamilton, John Adams and Abraham Lincoln all studied his work which remains cited in Supreme Court decisions. 

Today, the so-called “lunar effect” is still being studied. There are perhaps some bases for the belief that health and behaviour are altered during the specific stages of the lunar cycle. There are claims that the moon can affect everything from reproductive health to sleep quality because of the moon’s influence on the body’s “biological tides”. Even if we spend less time outside, there is still the possibility that we could be affected by lunar cycles because of the strength of the moon’s gravitational pull.

The most obvious sphere of the moon’s influence on planet earth is in the ocean tides and the UK has some of the most extreme tidal ranges. Spending holidays by the sea in Cornwall, I and my sisters were constantly aware of the tides if only for the benefit of very low tides to clamber further over the rocks to pick mussels. But science has shown it goes further and that several marine species have reproductive cycles that are approximately aligned to the lunar cycles.

One of the natural wonders of the world is the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. It is such a fragile, interrelated world in which spawning follows a full moon when water temperatures have risen sufficiently to stimulate the maturation of the egg and sperm bundles. The timing is also dependent on daylight hours, the tide and salinity levels in the water. It only happens at night and each species of coral spawn on different days to prevent cross-breeding. It must be amazing to see. Yesterday, July 20th, marks the anniversary of the first men on the moon when Apollo 11’s Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the lunar module Eagle at Tranquillity Base. Armstrong’s first steps on the lunar surface were broadcast on live TV to a worldwide audience and coined what was possibly the most famous phrase of the twentieth century when he spoke the words “one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Going full circle, the Apollo spacecrafts were named for one of the gods of Pliny’s and Aristotle’s times. Apollo represented truth and prophecy, music and archery, the sun, light and poetry.  

In terms of Highclere’s cycle, I publish my blog every “moon” day. In a surprising number of languages, the seven days of the week are named after the names of the planets in classical Hellenistic astronomy. These in turn were named after the gods, a system introduced by the Sumerians and later by the Babylonians from whom the Romans adopted their system. Thus Monday is  ‘Lunedi or lundi’ ,‘Dé Luain’ or moon day.