Skyscript Astrology Forum

martin

thanks for sharing the paper you wrote.. i enjoyed it.. language is complicated and it changes over time, and yet people settle on a use of a word without necessarily thinking of all the possibilities for the use of the word...

i think the 'art' has to do with how an astrologer is guided and the choices they make based on any number of considerations.. one would be the house system, or the zodiac and etc. etc. - generally the choices are plentiful.. as we saw in the 2024 usa election process, many different approaches were taken and different results from the same or similar approaches also produced different results... one might like to say astrology is 'scientific' but it seems 'art' is a better word to describe the process..

unless a better term comes along, i think 'art' is a good one for describing astrology.. maybe that partly explains why lilly thought so too??

Fidibus wrote: Wed Nov 20, 2024 4:23 pmIf you say astrology is just art then an horoscope hasn't any objective truth but only the projection of the soul who looks at it.

For me any art has the potential for higher knowledge than science has. I didnʼt use the term ”just” because of that and so to my knowledge didnʼt the elders. (Sorry, Martin, I didnʼt read your text yet but I will.) Furthermore I do not believe in objective truth which can be known. Highest truth is beyond objectivity, itʼs no object.

Martin Gansten wrote: Wed Nov 20, 2024 5:21 pm The term art in earlier astrological sources is often misunderstood.
https://www.academia.edu/43648581/Ars_T ... _in_a_Name

Being my self an artist I appreciated your thoughts very much. And funny all the meanings of “art” I still find present in today's western societies.

But back to the original question ”What is the true purpose of studying astrology?” I can only answer for myself: To understand and learn from the objective world creates a sense of detachment and a resolution of identifying with objects including oneʼs own body and person.

Georgius wrote: Thu Nov 21, 2024 8:00 am

Fidibus wrote: Wed Nov 20, 2024 4:23 pmIf you say astrology is just art then an horoscope hasn't any objective truth but only the projection of the soul who looks at it.

For me any art has the potential for higher knowledge than science has. I didnʼt use the term ”just” because of that and so to my knowledge didnʼt the elders. (Sorry, Martin, I didnʼt read your text yet but I will.) Furthermore I do not believe in objective truth which can be known. Highest truth is beyond objectivity, itʼs no object.

Last summer I saw from my balcony the cat of my neighbour eating a bird. Was this an objective truth or just my subjective feeling?

Fidibus wrote: Thu Nov 21, 2024 3:13 pm Last summer I saw from my balcony the cat of my neighbour eating a bird. Was this an objective truth or just my subjective feeling?

Maybe it is more accurate to say it was a subjectiv truth and an objective feeling.

This kind of ”truth” is just a perception processed by the mind (your mind) . In my opinion this is not really truth appart from an every day meaning of this term. And the accompaning feeling was another object to your perception.

Maybe an event chart could give an enlarged point of view. This is astrology for among other utilizations.

The present all too often succumbs to the temptation to deny the fact of what is objectively given. This is then turned into a subjective finding, i.e. its truth is denied, I think, it's a disease of the late modern period.

ad a) The tree is objective.
ad b) Its colour green is objective.
ad c) Like the other philosophers born in Pisces (Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Jaspers et al), Berkely was a skeptic and relativizer.

Lunlumo wrote: Fri Nov 22, 2024 4:45 am […] objective […]

I consider this discussion quite futile. What means the term “objective”? What means “truth”? What means “reality”? What means “actuality”? That has to be clarified first otherwise we speak about different things. And it is obvious that we do already. For instance I would agree that tree and color are objective (both) and real (at least the tree) and deny that they are true.

This discussion has come a long way from the original question, but to reconnect it with astrology, I for one would agree that an idealist ontology (broadly defined, that is, the position that reality and consciousness are in some sense coterminous), lends itself much more easily to the validation of astrology than a materialist ontology. If the universe is basically mind, we would expect it to contain meaning and symbolic correlations.

As for subjective and objective, I find the original scholastic usage of those terms more useful than the current (vaguer, and more or less opposite) one: objective being is that which exists (perhaps only) as an object of awareness, whereas subjective being exists as a subject of awareness. In that sense, the greenness of a leaf is certainly (only) objective.

And speaking of trees and Berkeley naturally brings Ronald Knox's anti-Berkeley limerick and its anonymous riposte to mind:

There once was a man who said 'God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad.'

Dear Sir, Your astonishment's odd.
I am always about in the Quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be
Since observed by yours faithfully, God

My advice would be to look outside yourself and try to apply it to possibly help others. Why, just this week I helped someone using astrology to cope with the loss of a loved one and they were very grateful.

I would never use astrology to predict the weather, unless maybe i was trying to find out if some sort of natural disaster were to occur or not. I think that's when you are approaching obsession and that it may be an unhealthy, overuse of divination. You would hear similar advice with other wiser divination users though, such as tarot or mediumship. Imagine contacting a deceased loved one to ask them about the weather! I think astrology should be used for important questions, in general. If you have other ways to find the information readily, why seek divination in the first place? Is it to test it? Is it to test yourself? Surely there are deeper, more meaningful or thorough ways to achieve that.

It may also be that you need a break. With anything that someone overuses, its good to do a fast and see how you feel about it after detaching for a while. I have taken years long breaks before.