amelia wrote:
Hence Lilly's interpretation may just include such negative bias. Maybe for the oppressed and the underdogs, that we never get to read, the comet was a sign of a chance for change for the better.

Lilly was a great astrologer, I'm not discussing this.
The point is I believe these prophecies written between XVI and XVII century are more political propaganda than real astrological ones, and moreover they are copied and pasted from a text to another, from an astrologer to another, changing some minor detail.
This is well documented by scholars.

It's exactly what Umberto Eco - who has some credit inside academia I believe- describes in the Focault's Pendulum when he talks about accusations against Templars or the unfamous Sion Protocols, they are copy and paste documents used by different parties, generally enemies.

This is more than preserving the astrological tradition, it's just what people desired to hear. As you know these almanacs were sold for little money so everybody could buy.
So - but it's just my opinion- I would consider the astrological work behind them, but I would happily ignore any Muslim attack or new Age of Redemption.

Margherita

Lilly was a great astrologer, I'm not discussing this.

Totally.

I was just stating that we should read Lilly, like every historical text, within the context in which it was written. As you say the context of the older astrologers was propaganda. When Lilly quotes the older astrologers we should bear in mind both his context and theirs.

I think we have reached the same conclusion.

For every ruler who dies another takes their place, so this way the comet merely represents a change of regime/dominant ideology. That would not always be such a shame.

I agree. Comets were as you suggest feared by upholders of the status quo and sometimes welcomed by those wanting to change it. Its the half empty or half full glass isn't it? When Roman emperors put restrictions on astrological activity it was often explicity related to predictions connected to comets. During the reformation Luther and Melchanton saw comets as signs of God's wrath at the Roman Catholic Church. At the same time Luther was incensed that comets were used to justify social change he disapproved of such as the Peasants Revolt!

Comets were often used for quite political reasons. Astrologers were not above such bias at times themselves either. Although this kind of prejudice is more stark when you deal with the less skilled type of astrologer. Both Royalists and Republicans used comets to justify their cause during the English civil war. Astrologers like Lilly and Gadbury had their own political agenda in that respect.

I think a more helpful way to look on comets is as heralds of social transformation. However, we also start from a position that just about every culture on earth has negative associations connected to comets. Its not just a classical view.Its also found in China, India, The Aztecs and Incas. As nearly all societies were traditionally based on a titular figure of an Emperor/King its not hard to see how an unpredictable, and inexplicable astronomical event like a comet was perceived as a symbol of social change that could be a direct threat to those in power.

More recently, though some authors have claimed human fear of comets is about a folk memory of previous impacts on earth. There certainly have been such impacts in the past such as for example the Tungusta impact of 1908 in Siberia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

Another issue is that throughout history those wanting to predict the end of the world can choose comets as convenient hook. The issue of conspiracy theories and apocalyptic predictions are nothing new under the sun. They have been a part of human history for a long time. Comets have been used to take advantage of people's basic fears and insecurities in times of social instability or social stability. In addition religious beliefs are sometimes incorporated to bolster such anxiety. For example many Christian evangelicals today rely on sources such as the reference to 'The Star Wormwood' falling to earth in the book of Revelation as a symbol of the 'end times'. This is sometimes explicitly interpreted as a comet or asteroid. However, this is nothing new as you can find woodblock images of such things by Albrecht D?rer on this theme during the late 15th and early 16th century.

I have been researching the history attached to all the naked eye comets since 1900. Sometimes there are prominent deaths or assasinations of leading public figures. Then again what year goes by without some world leader dying or being voted out of office? The skeptics would say predictions with comets rely on a common social phenomena and human gullibility in the face of suggestion.

Certainly with a naked eye comet every couple of years and a 'Great Comet' every 10-15 years comets are a much more common phenomena than many people seem to appreciate. I rather fell into this trap myself in my initial interest in comet Lulin. I now realise there have been several brighter and therefore more astrologically significant comets over the last few years alone.

In some situations I think the message of the comets was quite worrying and a portent of major social upheavel and even bloodshed. For example the unprecedeted series of bright comets before World War I. However, I also think comets can represent more neutral significant political developments such as the creation of an independent India, China and the founding of the European Union.

amelia wrote:
I think we have reached the same conclusion.

true
Margherita

For what I understood it's the exact reason why Cardano cuts a long story short and says that Ptolemy gives no such importance, because it was difficult to delineate where the comet was, and when and which direction it travelled...

Yes I am beginning to form the same opinion. For one thing we now know one of the most striking features of comets is the presence of two tails. Most comets exhibit two tails. One the ion tail ?a stream of gas emitted by the comet whose atoms have been stripped of an electron by the solar wind. The other tail is the dust tail. In the case of Hale-Bopp the ion tail was reported by observers to be a beautiful blue colour. Moreover, many comets in both the western and Chinese tradition are reported as having multiple tails......Deciding which tail is pointing where and when is quite a challenging proposition.