Skyscript Astrology Forum

Theory is when you think you know something but it doesn't work.
Practice is when something works but you don't know why.
Usually I prefer to combine theory and practice: nothing works and I don't know why.

Martin Gansten wrote: Tue May 07, 2024 6:22 am

james_m wrote: Tue May 07, 2024 12:36 am i don't agree with martin - 'modern western astrology is the anomaly.' different cultures practiced ( or practice) astrology differently as well - indian astrology for example...

It wasn't a value judgement but a statement of historical fact. Basically you can pick any two astrological authors from any period in history prior to c. 1700 CE and from any cultural area to which horoscopic astrology had been transmitted, and they will have more in common than either will with 20th-century western astrology, both in outlook and in terms of techniques used. Whether one sees this as a sign of evolution or degeneration is a different matter.

Indian astrology is anomalous in some respects as well, and partly for the same sort of reason as modern western astrology: an incomplete transmission leaving lacunae that needed filling. But I would argue that the Indian tradition is still closer to what we may call the historical mainstream than the modern western variant is. (And you are right that the term 'traditional astrology' is modern. Before the modernizing project headed by Alan Leo set in, it wasn't needed. It was just called astrology.)

I just wanted to comment that while acknowledging significant differences across historical periods and cultural areas in astrological practices is crucial, it's equally important to recognize the role of nuanced evolution rather than resorting to simplistic narratives of evolution or degeneration.

Indeed, suggesting that any two astrological authors from pre-1700 CE would share more commonalities than with 20th-century Western astrology overlooks the dynamic nature of astrological development within distinct historical and cultural contexts. Astrology, like other fields of study, undergoes multifaceted changes influenced by diverse factors such as cultural dynamics, technological advancements, and philosophical shifts.

Moreover, characterizing modern Western astrology as a degeneration from a supposed "historical mainstream" disregards the intricate history of astrology within the Western tradition. While figures like Alan Leo certainly influenced modern approaches, it's overly reductionist to dismiss contemporary Western astrology as a departure from historical norms.

In fact, modern astrology has been marked by innovation, with the emergence of new techniques and schools of thought such as Cosmobiology and KP Padhatti, among others. These developments represent a continuation of astrology's dynamic evolution, with practitioners exploring new avenues and approaches to the craft.

Likewise, while Indian astrology faces unique challenges stemming from historical transmission issues, it's misleading to portray it as inherently closer to an idealized "historical mainstream" compared to modern Western astrology. Both traditions have evolved over time, shaped by multifarious cultural, religious, and philosophical influences.

It's vital to dispel the notion of astrology as a static tradition. Rather, astrology, like any other body of knowledge, undergoes ongoing evolution, adaptation, and reinterpretation. Rather than oversimplifying differences as a binary of evolution versus degeneration, a more fruitful approach involves engaging with the diverse range of astrological traditions with an open-minded curiosity and a commitment to nuanced exploration.

Furthermore, it's worth noting that during the Islamic Golden Age, the Islamic empire played a pivotal role in preserving and transmitting the astrological knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome to the West. Islamic scholars translated and preserved numerous Greek and Roman astrological texts, which would have otherwise been lost during the turmoil of the early Middle Ages in Europe. This transmission helped to preserve and revitalize Western astrology, contributing to its continued development and evolution over time. Therefore, the influence of the Islamic empire should also be acknowledged in understanding the historical continuity and evolution of Western astrology.

AJ wrote: Wed May 08, 2024 11:38 am Indeed, suggesting that any two astrological authors from pre-1700 CE would share more commonalities than with 20th-century Western astrology overlooks the dynamic nature of astrological development [...]

No it doesn't. Saying that A and B are more similar than either A and C or B and C doesn't imply anything being static or idealized, etc. Nuance is good, but not getting so lost in details that we can't see the wood for the trees, or the longue durée for the isolated instances. Extracting generally applicable knowledge from a study of particulars is arguably what any sort of scholarship (or science) is about.

Furthermore, it's worth noting that during the Islamic Golden Age, the Islamic empire played a pivotal role in preserving and transmitting the astrological knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome to the West.

Exactly. And to the east, for that matter.

martin, ( i think ) you are essentially saying astrology developed in a very straight and narrow line from it's inception and it got off the straight and narrow at the turn of the 20th century.. or maybe it was when those pesky outer planets ur-ne-pl were discovered, lol.. maybe you'd like to start a wee bit earlier with placidus who dropped profections to replace them with secondary progressions, or perhaps morinus who also took exception to a number of prevalent ideas in the european astrology community at the time?

from reading abu mashar, his approach was to throw everything in, (including the kitchen sink), and yet you imply they were all following the same general astrological approach... i just don't see it that way...i will give you this - they were all mathematicians or astronomers of some sort for sure.. i think the way you're framing history is a very limited viewpoint ( based on texts available of course!!) towards the past... people and astrologers don't do things in straight lines to keep the ''one true astrology © '' adherents happy... human beings don't work like that and neither did astrologers.. and the universe keeps revealing new surprises to the open minded as well..

buy hey! lets blame alan leo, ''modern'' astrologers, or chris brennan as the case may be for leading the 'one true astrology © ' adherents down the wrong road, lol... clearly the last century of astrology was an anomaly!! and the next one will be too!!! we continue to see life and astrology differently which is as it should be... - minus the value judgments - great of course...

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dima

i am a student of astrology and have been for over 50 years.. not professional and as martin can attest - definitely not academic! its a hobby for me.. i gravitate towards natal and mundane and have somewhat of an aversion towards horary.. i like reading and trying different systems out.. maybe i haven't back tested them enough - that is something i will never know...

i like working with solar returns and have been captivated by the idea of the muntha - the profection lord and where it lands in the solar return lately, or for the last few years too.. i dig transits and think they are an easy straight forward way to get into astrology, and i still think they offer great insights that all these cool trad techniques cant touch, lol!! i have been working with the sidereal zodiac the past 5 or so years and feel it is more accurate for me anyway - then tropical.. but, i still use tropical too...

another idea i got captivated by maybe 8-10 years ago was the importance of the moons nodal axis... i can't believe what an idiot i was for overlooking this as i feel it is a hugely important facet of any astrological insights to be gotten...

i have considered a lot of different techniques - converse data, solar arc directions which i like, and other various direction methods.. my work is mostly focused on trying to understand myself and others better... i feel natal astrology is helpful for this... i suppose i could mention other ideas too that i remain open to, but some ideas i think are lost to the ghosts of the past and although people can claim they work -some of these ideas don't work for me.. i am a bit of an anti-authoritarian and like to take pot shots at people in power ( or who think they know more then they do), lol... pluto square my ascendant and a few other things probably explains that.. but it also defines my astrological approach too..

james_m wrote: Wed May 08, 2024 4:19 pm martin, ( i think ) you are essentially saying astrology developed in a very straight and narrow line from it's inception and it got off the straight and narrow at the turn of the 20th century..

No, I never said that. But if one reads reasonably widely, it is easy to see (in fact, almost impossible to ignore) that basically everyone before the Theosophists came along had the same/similar ideas about what astrology was for (chiefly, predicting future events), and that some of the techniques used for that purpose were in regular use for nearly two millennia, including (1) direction by primary motion, calculated by more or less sophisticated methods, and (2) what is now known as profection, advancing significators by one sign per year. This is not an opinion but fact, verifiable by anyone willing to take the trouble of actually reading the texts. It is also a fact that there were historical techniques that were not widely known and practised, including so-called zodiacal releasing, and I never contested that.

I did define 'traditional' astrology as before c. 1700. Morin and Placidus both wrote about half a century before that, but they were outliers: their ideas didn't gain popularity for quite some time. And it was only in the 20th century west that you could credibly claim to be an astrologer and not know at least something of (primary) direction, or not do prediction at all.

martin

okay... thanks for elaborating... it now sounds like you want to say there was a terrible fork in the road thanks to the theosophists! the theosophists where in the same window of time as sigmund freud, and perhaps the advent of modern psychology feeds into this too?? instead of focusing on ''predictive'' astrology, they sublimated, or subverted the overall direction of astrology ( around the time of the discovery of neptune that master of ambiguity!).. well that is one popular criticism of ''modern'' astrology is that it was more focused on the psychological, as opposed to the predictive, but that is not entirely true...

i will give you this... prior to a certain time, especially prior to the 1970's, the fact that most everyone involved in astrology required strong mathematical skills goes without saying.. in fact, i first learned how to do charts without a computer.. i had an ephemeris, a book of tables and a book on time changes of the world in order to work out charts... this all changed radically moving forward with the advent of computers and popular astrology programs which is where we are today... but again - so many changes have taken place in the past few hundred years, it would be difficult to lay blame, or put the burden of astrology going in a different direction all on a group of people like the theosophists... i think it would be more helpful to frame it within the larger sweep of changes that take place culturally and don't just involve astrology... again the discovery of neptune in this same time area is interesting..

but, i get what you are saying is how primary directions were an important feature of astrology prior to the 1800's and perhaps fell out of popularity ( over a wide window of time?) at the same time astrology became more popular! and perhaps this has to do with the mathematical abilities required to do primary directions.. on a personal note i have found there are plenty of options with primary directions to help a person get lost in a miasma of data and wide windows of time, very quickly... bottom line - in my limited forays into pds, they have been unfruitful... and what i have seen of others work haven't been confidence building either.... if primary directions were such an important aspect of the past, one would think astrologers today who have access to doing them would be showing the merits of them.. but sadly - no one is doing this, or not from what i have seen... and, if ''predictive'' astrology is so central to the history of astrology, why is it i see so little of this? outside of indian astrology ( vedic to some) which clearly has a focus on predictive astrology - it is missing from what i see... there is a lot of hindsight astrology, looking at an event - past tense, and explaining it astrologically, but no one showing primary directions at work in a predictive manner future tense.... i am happy to blame all the ''traditional'' astrologers too, as if they are using this technique in such a central and convincing manner and it is working so well for them, why do they continue to keep their work hidden away from others? my take is - it ain't happening... people and astrologers move on, if they can't demonstrate the usefulness of their techniques publicly or even privately among their fellow astrologer friends on an astro board like skyscript....

on the other hand - lets blame it all on the dumbing down of society and people in general, lol... no one expects to see someone making successful predictions publicly, although i can think of all the ego maniacs who would be happy to capitalize on the ability, if they had it..

it still feels to me as if you are living in a time bubble - like someone who is so attached to classical music and refuses to countenance the idea of jazz - or heaven forbid - popular music - taylor swift and etc!! if the 'classical' or traditional astrological ideas hold value to you - great! until someone comes along who demonstrates them in some convincing manner - astrologers will continue to gravitate towards what they find most useful and meaningful.. by the look of it - it ain't primary directions, or those who use them are being awfully quiet about their merits and definitely aren't demonstrating their value here at skyscript...

if someone can find zodiacal releasing works as a predictive tool - all the power to them.. i am reminded of some of the sayings of heraclitus... "no man steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.''

here's another one i like - ''there is nothing permanent except change.''

Martin Gansten wrote: Wed May 08, 2024 12:24 pm

AJ wrote: Wed May 08, 2024 11:38 am Indeed, suggesting that any two astrological authors from pre-1700 CE would share more commonalities than with 20th-century Western astrology overlooks the dynamic nature of astrological development [...]

No it doesn't. Saying that A and B are more similar than either A and C or B and C doesn't imply anything being static or idealized, etc. Nuance is good, but not getting so lost in details that we can't see the wood for the trees, or the longue durée for the isolated instances. Extracting generally applicable knowledge from a study of particulars is arguably what any sort of scholarship (or science) is about.

Martin:
I agree with you that comparing similarities doesn't inherently imply something is static. However, I think you misinterpret my point. I wasn't arguing against comparison, but against the oversimplification of a "longue durée" (long-term trend) where all pre-1700 astrology is seen as the same.

You are mostly right about extracting general knowledge, but lumping all pre-1700 astrologers together ignores the valuable insights gained by differentiating their approaches based on historical context.

Your analogy of comparing astrological development to A, B, and C might not be the best one to use. Astrological thought wasn't just two isolated instances (A & B) becoming similar within a larger period (C). It was a continuous evolution with significant internal changes.

Pre-1700 astrology is not a monolith. Internal development within the period holds historical and intellectual significance. I do appreciate your attempt at finding some common ground, but there is a need for a nuanced approach that recognizes changes within the "longue durée." My statement reflects a nuanced understanding of historical analysis that emphasizes the importance of considering long-term trends while also acknowledging the complexity and diversity within those trends, which actually fall under "longue durée."

You are using longue durée as an excuse to ignore internal variations over a long period of time. I argue for a nuanced approach that acknowledges both the long-term trend and the complexities within it.

AJ wrote: Thu May 09, 2024 3:58 am You are using longue durée as an excuse to ignore internal variations over a long period of time.

No. The variations are just not relevant to the point I was making, which is that the sort of astrology popular in the 20th-century western world differs sharply in certain respects, such as the inclusion/exclusion of certain predictive techniques (which is where this thread started), from every other variant. Anyone can verify this for themselves by reading the texts.

james_m wrote: Wed May 08, 2024 9:49 pm martin

okay... thanks for elaborating... it now sounds like you want to say [...]

What I wanted to say was what I did say, nothing more. To quote the Canadian author Robertson Davies (a great favourite of mine), in a lecture given more than thirty years ago:

Often these young inquirers read a book of mine — read it once, in the desperate rush which is apparently inseparable from modern education — and then they tell me what it means. Or rather they inquire about what it means indirectly [...] They look me in the eye and declare, “What you’re trying to say is . . . ,” and that is where I choke them off, roaring, “I’m not trying to say anything; I am saying it with all the art and skill that I have acquired in a lifetime of hard work.”

[I just edited that excerpt slightly to expunge a somewhat extreme expression that doesn't reflect my feelings. Apologies to anyone who read the unedited version.]

martin

there is such a thing as reading between the lines... if it's written in a book or text somewhere, then literal-ism is all that matters ( to you by the looks of it), lol..

i am given over to analogies with you... here is my latest one...

astrology like a clock was proceeding along until it stopped somewhere after the 1700's... the clock was broken... then someone fixed it with the introduction of ancient texts released in the 1990's... the clock is now fixed, lol...

its a warped view on astrological history but that is what i get from your commentary here..

Ouranos:
Didn't know the Planetdance's help file was so juicy. Will have to dig in.

James:
Forget to reply to you, will do it now.
That's interesting, your aversion to horary. If you like mundane, horary may seem to trivial, I suppose. I try to get better at both, though I'd say my horary is stronger.
I keep telling myself to learn some Vedic, one day, and give Sidereal a chance. Thus far though, it feels I have too much on my hands with "regular" traditional astrology.
Oh, moon's nodes are super important. Disregarding the fact they're a favorite amongst modern astrologers (evolutionary astrology, draconic astrology and such) and we traditionalists tend to scoff at those sometimes.
You know Ouranos is Canadian too, right? Though, I think you two are at the opposite ends of the continent.