Display posts from previous
Sort by

85 by zoidsoft
Tom wrote:So what is happening amongst our own regarding this gigantic misunderstanding is quite predictable even as it is undesirable. And no, I have no idea what to do about it.
When companies develop bad reputations, they simply dissolve the company and form a new LLC under new management, etc...

I think that the subject is doomed to suffer an ignominious fate and perhaps it is better that it is an occult subject that shouldn't have a high profile (Valens seems to suggest that this should be the case). History has shown that people can't agree on it any more than they agree on religion. I think Christianity or Islam is similar to what astrology would become if it was accepted into the main stream, but it's already too political with many agendas. When religion succeeds to the level of becoming a mainstream belief, then there is a tendency for it to shut down rational thought.

To some people astrology comes across as a religion which says what each person is likely to become and people will fight statements like this if they aren't followers. Even the mainstream religions don't go quite this far and to some, this might seem like big brother stepping in to say how one should live one's life... I think that is at the root of skeptic emotions about this subject and why they hate it so much.

Looking at all of the people who suffered an identity crisis because of this news, those of us who care about how this subject comes across might want to re-think what it is we are doing. However if we are subject to fate as Valens would say, none of this is in our control.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

86 by Mike N
Curtis.

Are you aware of Schmidt's position on, in the right hands, a set of Tarot cards being, or not being, able to achieve the same/similar ''outcomes'' as a Horoscope ?

87 by Paul
The scary part is that even prominent astrological spokesmodels are getting it wrong in their refutations by saying that the sidereal zodiac is affected because it's based on constellations.
I would imagine that they are referring to precession though, rather than Ophiuchus.
For that matter, they can't read a chart that comes without an aspect grid and are shocked at those of us, who seemingly by magic, can look at a chart alone without benefit of lines or grids, and not only see aspects, but can tell whether the aspects are applying or separating.
The problem is that anyone can call themselves an astrologer. If they 'know' any scrap of astrology at all they can label themselves as astrologer. Imagine if that was true of doctors or scientists or lawyers.
The astrologer, an unnamed woman, claimed she had no need of looking at the chart and instead performed a reading by simply placing her hand on the chart.
Well at least she was a hands on astrologer
There is a woman in the United States Congress who, on TV when looking at photos taken from the Mars Rover wanted to know if it could go to where the astronauts planted the flag.
Silly, everyone knows MTV landed on the Moon.
http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/com ... n-moon.jpg

88 by Tom
>I think that the subject is doomed to suffer an ignominious fate <

I posted on an astrologers' Face Book page, the following thought: that this subject had a silver lining in that it forced more knowledgeable astrologers to revisit their texts. He liked that. It also forced less knowledgeable astrologers to get some information they might not have otherwise bothered to get.

Sun sign groupies aren't going to bother to try to understand and those always looking for something new, might resent that some of us defend the worldview that allowed the creation of astrology. But to the extent that all of us were forced one way or another to explain what we know to be true it was a good thing as it served as a refresher course of some basics. I quoted this:
"Of the four seasons of the year, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, spring exceeds in moisture on the account of its diffusion after the cold has passed and warmth is setting in; the summer, in heat, because of the nearness of the sun to the zenith, autumn more in dryness, because of the sucking up of the moisture during the hot season just past; and winter exceeds in cold, because the sun is farthest away from the zenith. For this reason, although there is no natural beginning of the zodiac, since it is a circle, they assume that the sign which begins with the vernal equinox, that of Aries, is the starting point of them all, making the excessive moisture of the spring the first part of the zodiac as thought it were a living creature and taking next in order the remaining seasons because in all creatures the earliest ages, like the spring, have a larger share of moisture and are tender and still delicate."
[emphasis added]
This is Ptolemy and he is clearly talking about the seasons not the constellations. He notes Aries begins at the vernal point not the beginning of the constellation Aries. It should settle the argument permanently, but it won't. There is too much ignorance to overcome.

89 by Paul
Tom wrote:> It should settle the argument permanently, but it won't. There is too much ignorance to overcome.[/color]
It won't, because, perhaps fairly, the next refutation that a skeptic would make of astrology is to point out that if, by chance, astrology was instead popularised in the southern hemisphere, rather than the northern, then the other point of intersection between eclipitc and equator, which we call Libra, would in fact have taken on the 'traits' of Aries and vice versa.
Which would then beg the question as to whether the zodiac should be reversed for the southern hemisphere.

But then, from the debates I've chosen to involve myself in on certain skeptic blogs since this subject re-arose, the skeptic just moves from one point to the next, arguing that the division by 12 is arbitrary, why not 10 or even 13, and why begin at the equinox and not at the solstice, etc etc ad nauseum.

(In other words if it's not this then it's something else, sometimes people just want to refute astrology, it won't matter what logic or rationale you throw at them. Their minds have already been made up.)

90 by Paul
Ed F wrote:
Paul wrote:...
I disagree, I think the 'problem' is in educating on what astrology actually is and how it works, but we'll never manage to do that when astrologers are not given an equal voice to their detractors...
But this becomes a bit difficult when even serious astrologers, who engage in critical thinking, fundamentally disagree about what astrology is and how it works.

- Ed
That's true Ed. But perhaps if astrology really was broken down into sects like Curtis described it would be better. Or would it be worse?

(btw I, for the first time, checked out those other forums and was shocked to see posts like "western astrology uses the sidereal zodiac" etc. Kudos on your simple, straight forward posts clarifying the issue. When astrologers don't know about astrology, how can we blame astronomers for not?)

91 by handn
When astrologers don't know about astrology, how can we blame astronomers for not?
I take your point and I agree with it.

However I do think there's a world of difference between 'Professor of Astronomy at the University of Wherever' speaking to the media on a subject they have no education in, and a bunch of astrological mostly hobbyists who are self-funded and self-taught (i.e. they've probably skipped the astronomy and the history and gone straight to the interpretation) typing on an internet forum. The internet amplifies the voices of the ignorant more than the informed.

If it was a Professor of Astrology from the University of Wherever spouting rubbish, I'd be a lot more worried and annoyed.

92 by Eddy
EdF wrote: A lot of us who used to do charts manually have expressed this feeling - as you say, it's a matter of engaging both perspectives, and letting it cook over the time it takes to construct a chart.
This perhaps makes the choice of technique of secondary importance. For example the use of the arithmetical calculation of primary directions according to the Babylonian arithmetical methods of calculations of rising times of signs wasn?t really correct compared to the trigonometrical calculations http://www.antonblog.net/astrology/prim ... ons-vol-1/ but nevertheless may have given good results at the time. Perhaps the effectiveness of a certain technique partly depends on the acceptance of it by the user. Like healthy food may be good for you but you have to like the taste of it.

For example my sometimes passionately expressed aversion towards the semi-arc division usually has got its expression in some polar oddities but the deeper background is my preference of the use of ?usual? spatial coordinate systems (poles, base plane) in which I find geometrical perfection the most expressed. With a certain set of preferences based upon some geometrical philosophy in mind, it?s difficult to accept the preferences which form the basis of systems used by others.

It therefore leads to the following problem:
zoidsoft wrote:It's a real headache for programmers because it is getting to the point that we have to create a custom program for every astrologer because no two astrologers use the same techniques. This is why Schmidt said that there needs be a solid philosophical foundation laid.
But I think it will be almost impossible to get to a commonly shared technical foundation. Some namely wouldn?t find themselves/their views represented in a certain philosophical foundation.
All successful fields have set standards for accreditation so that one can say who is a "doctor" and who is not.
The problem with this comparison is that there?s a consensus on many basic factors in medicine while this is absent in astrology. Although I?m a proponent of research in astrology, I can understand that the up to now negative results leads to rejection. On the other side when I read in Koen van den Moortel?s Astro-logics ( http://www.astrovdm.com/astro-logics3.pdf p.6) that
the article wrote:The same kind of reports was (and is) used commercially though. It has to be mentioned
here that similar experiments have been done with descriptions written by psychologists, and also there, the results were not at all positive, which means that also their theories need some improvement
, I realized that not only astrology is subject to failure. Psychology, economy, law and all kinds of social related studies have their weak immeasurable sides so for a standard of accreditation astrology should rather look in these areas than in the factual realm and subscribe a code of ethics as in the Association of Professional Astrologers International. For the code of ethics see: http://www.professionalastrologers.co.uk/ethics.htm
One of the factors contributing to this climate is the idea that everyone has a right to their opinion and some vague notion that goes along with it is that everyone's opinion should be treated equally. This couldn't be more wrong. As Alan White likes to say, everyone has a right to their own opinion, but not their own facts. Astrology needs a foundation of facts to survive.
If a natal chart delineation would be done according to Morin?s or a horary according to Lilly?s methods and written down, I have the feeling that an astrologer of the Morin/Lilly school who reads it will recognize its applications just like a student of literature can recognize styles of writing of several eras. The difference with astrology is that literature doesn?t require facts where astrology does to a certain extent. The difficulty with astrology therefore is that there?s a need for some consensus whether which ?literature? is the correct factual one. The recent Pluto poll which gave very different results, displays how difficult it can be to discern which experience is fact. More concrete predictions may be easier to research but classical astrology usually was not that fatalistic as that a certain prediction would happen but rather could happen. The non-occurrence of events could be explained by this but in turn this makes it harder to discover facts. This view causes that the occurrence of events easily will be attributed to chance, especially when predictions for the same person/state contradict each other. Modern astrology which sometimes can be interpreted as more fatalistic than ancient astrology (?during Pluto?s transit through the 4th house you will experience troubles concerning your childhood?) may not perform much better because of the difficulty of measuring the experience.
Tom wrote: Even if they have so what? There is more than one prominent modern astrologer who has glibly informed all who pay attention that he has studied all forms of astrology and realized none of them were right, so he changed things his way.
But this is the case throughout astrological history. It?s done by a usual procedure: first listing techniques and explaining what others do and then discard the use of it and come with the ?correct method?. In almost any astrology book with some technical explanation, different house systems are discussed and discarded ending up with the one to use (usually Placidus). Ptolemy already did such things:
Ptolemy wrote: However, the number of years, determined by the distances between the prorogative place and the destructive planet, ought not to be taken simply or offhand, in accordance with the usual traditions, from the times of ascension of each degree, except only when the eastern horizon itself is the prorogator, or some one of the planets that are rising in that region. For one method alone is available for him who is considering this subject in a natural manner ?
Tetr. III 10. Robbins. A similar discussion he did with the terms. I personally don?t reject change, provided it is done in a coherent way and doesn?t consist of an endless addition of objects or mixing of techniques alien to each other, which is all too often the case nowadays.
zoidsoft wrote: History has shown that people can't agree on it any more than they agree on religion.
Perhaps the realm of religion is the safest place for astrology, there it can?t be argued unless it collides with nowadays concepts of reasonability (see code of ethics, mentioned some sentences ago).
When religion succeeds to the level of becoming a mainstream belief, then there is a tendency for it to shut down rational thought.
Very true, it therefore would worry me a lot if astrology would gain such acceptance that major decisions would depend on it. In Keith Thomas? Religion and the decline of magic an example of a case is given about a thief was searched based upon a horary question. In some communities it was (until recently) usage to arrange marriage according to astrology (see for example Steven E. G. Kemper - ?Sinhalese Astrology, South Asian Caste Systems, and the Notion of Individuality? in The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 38, No. 3 (May, 1979), pp. 477-497). Hopefully it will never happen that a man applying for a job as a primary school teacher will hear that he has been rejected for the reason that he has a natal chart that probably makes him to abuse young boys, "Venus in the domicile of Mercury, with Mercury badly situated, makes pederasts." Rhetorius the Egyptian p.121 Even astrologers wouldn?t like to live in a society ruled by astrology. This also counts for classical astrologers in modern society who also have been raised in the standards of modern rational thought.
Tom wrote: This is Ptolemy and he is clearly talking about the seasons not the constellations. He notes Aries begins at the vernal point not the beginning of the constellation Aries. It should settle the argument permanently, but it won't. There is too much ignorance to overcome.
Although the siderealists don?t use the constellations but also a rather schematical representation, they would disagree with Ptolemy?s rationale. The origins of the meanings of the signs lay in a period when precession was unknown. Therefore astrology was not sidereal or tropical, but sidereal and tropical. Only after the discovery/acceptance of precession, the different symbolical views had to go separate directions.
Paul wrote:
Tom wrote:> It should settle the argument permanently, but it won't. There is too much ignorance to overcome.[/color]
It won't, because, perhaps fairly, the next refutation that a skeptic would make of astrology is to point out that if, by chance, astrology was instead popularised in the southern hemisphere, rather than the northern, then the other point of intersection between eclipitc and equator, which we call Libra, would in fact have taken on the 'traits' of Aries and vice versa.
Which would then beg the question as to whether the zodiac should be reversed for the southern hemisphere.
This doesn?t necessarily need to make someone a skeptic. Astrologers themselves have asked such questions and thought about what should be done in the southern hemisphere and Kepler didn?t use the division in signs because it was not a ?natural? division. I?ve always found myself in Kepler?s views on this. And although I can be quite sceptical myself (I was almost about to kick out all astrology) you can still practice astrology and ask yourself such questions.

93 by Paul
handn wrote:
When astrologers don't know about astrology, how can we blame astronomers for not?
I take your point and I agree with it.

However I do think there's a world of difference between 'Professor of Astronomy at the University of Wherever' speaking to the media on a subject they have no education in, and a bunch of astrological mostly hobbyists who are self-funded and self-taught .
Unfortunately in the example I saw on that forum, the poster was a professional astrologer who signed her post as "I'm Jane Bloggs of mywebsite.com" - names edited obviously.
Am I allowed say who it was?

Anyway the point I'm making is that this poster was clearly a professional astrologer, their website is set up to demonstrate her role as a professional astrologer and says that she is a Certified Member of the American Association of Professional Psychics.
This is clearly not the remark of a hobbyist. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to astrology if, by chance, she was asked to comment on the whole issue to counter refute the whole Ophiuchus/Precession subject?
Deb has alluded, for example, to the fact that it is somewhat unfair to only give one side of a view, such as with the BBC and Brian Cox, and how it would be fairer if they got a professional astrologer to be given equal air time. Personally I'd rather that they didn't if, by chance, they contacted this particular astrologer instead. As the saying goes, better to say nothing and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

So that's basically what I mean. That whole forum seems littered with misinformation (with the exception of a handful of posters, some of which post here) and really, professional astrologers seem to be getting this stuff wrong, so we can hardly blame astronomers when they do. It's embarrassing for astrology that something as simple as this is misunderstood by apparent professionals in the area.

(btw, there's a certain irony in the astrologer continuing on to describe the astronomer as a 'stupid astronomer in Minnesota', who, at least, knows his astronomy, when the astrologer doesn't know her astrology.)

94 by Deb
the poster was a professional astrologer who signed her post as "I'm Jane Bloggs of mywebsite.com" - names edited obviously.
Am I allowed say who it was?
Why not? She has already made the information public herself.

I read a few of the posts in this thread last night, and felt demoralised by some of the points being made, such as what is going on it other forums (thankfully I don't have time to read them).

It was also a bummer to follow Matt's link where he wrote:
I see that the BBC news website has allowed a couple of astrologers the right of reply.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12207811
But look at who they have turned to again - Jonathan Cainer and Russell Grant - popular media astrologers who don't make any of the really relevant points. Russell Grant uses the opportunity once again to mention zodiacs with Arachne the Spider, just as he did when the Ophiuchus-13th-sign bunkum got splattered in England in 1995. In my article I included a link to David Plant's TA editorial at that time, which includes the comment:
First up was the popular media personality Russell Grant. Over a crackling telephone link, Russell chattered away happily about Ophiuchus and Arachne the Spider (!) and, sadly, failed to say anything of relevance at all.
http://www.skyscript.co.uk/deb/issue8_p2.pdf
Eddy, I enjoyed your post and you make a pertinent point in this comment:
The origins of the meanings of the signs lay in a period when precession was unknown. Therefore astrology was not sidereal or tropical, but sidereal and tropical. Only after the discovery/acceptance of precession, the different symbolical views had to go separate directions.
Actually I believe that precession has a longer period of discovery than is generally credited, but what we can say about the Babylonian development of the zodiac is that there are definite historical stages, where astronomy moves from the imprecise visual observation of planets against the Moon's path, to the mathematical precision of planetary movement tracked against the Sun's path; and this started with the ability to mark out the four quarters of its circle (equinoxes and solstices) before shortly afterwards leading on to the full development of ecliptic measurement. So for the Babylonians at least, the zodiac was always motivated by seasonal and calendrical considerations, (and all the early references to the zodiac are using it as a tropical zodiac, attempting to get greater alignment between astronomical cycles and the calendar). It was only around classical times that the two zodiacs co-incided most neatly, which is why we have the ancient references to the equinox moving through 15?, 12? or 8? of the constellation Aries. (But these are complex points which deserve a full argument - my 'quickpoint' here is that there is a lot of evidence to show that what came to us via Babylonian development was only ever intended to be tropical, and to act as a definition of the Sun's annual circuit, as the tropical zodiac does today).

I think the Southern hemisphere inversion of seasonal symbolism is very philosophically problematic. The only defensive principle we have is that the original view remains pertinent for the greater part of the Earth's inhabitable regions, so we can use it as the most pertinent Earth-centred influence. I know that is probably not satisfactory for many, but at the moment it seems to be the only justifiable argument on the table.

95 by mattG
To be fair to Jonathan Cainer on his own website he explained it all a bit clearer and anyway,unless anyone else steps up to be a media astrologer he is about all we have.

If someone did have the time to do this I am sure that it can't be that hard to point out the facts without patronising the general audience. A lot of us have already made the argument face to face so providing a quick sound bite to the media could be possible to a professional.

There is always the letters column in papers as well. This is not astrology but Qabalah but a relevant example. A while back when Madonna was dabbling in some dumb Kabbalah cult I write a letter to the Sun of all papers mentioning the first translation of the Sefer Yetzirah and the western esoteric tradition and blow me they published it and sent me a cheque for my troubles.

Give it a go next time.

Matt

96 by Paul
Deb wrote:
Why not? She has already made the information public herself.
From the original post on the other forum:

"No,our signs haven't changed.As Western Astrologers we use Sidereal Astrology. The confusion happened when an ASTRONOMER from a small technical college jumped to conclusions about Ophiuchus. ... I'm exhausted trying to keep up all the confusion this stupid astronomer in Minnesota has caused. I addressed the Associated Press and Susan Miller is addressing all the media sources now to correct this big blunder.... I'm Suzan Hayden of www.astrology101.com and hopefully you can spread the news with friends that nothing has changed."

So presumably she's been addressing the 'Associated Press' informing them that western astrologers use Sidereal astrology.

From her website:
"As a Certified Member of the American Association of Professional Psychics, Suzan has studied astrology in the United States, England, Ireland, and has interpreted over 12,000 charts over the last 12 years using both psychological and spiritual approaches. Suzan is also well known throughout the United States for her lectures and motivational speeches that integrate astrology with various psychological portraits of individuals past and present.."

If you knew nothing about astrology you would presume she was qualified enough to comment on the matter.
!! Read first: forum policies
Recent topics
Post Reply

Return to “Nativities & General Astrology”