Hi again Gabe,
Personally, I not interesting in what ultimately is my take on astrology, I?m interested in what the people who made astrology thought of it, what their take was and the principals that they themselves followed in establishing astrology.
See the post I quoted from Deb. This is not as easy to establish as we might hope. Inevitably there are gaps in our understanding. As we have different perspectives we tend to fill those gaps with our own pre-conceptions. That naturally colours how we perceive the same facts.
Let me put it to you this way: would you think that the Greeks, a people who are notorious for their systematic thinking, would either create astrology or develop a Bablyonian or Egyptian (actually these are the people who always get forgotten) astrology in some slap-dash sort of way? Now, there are most certainly some astrological doctrines out of both Babylon and Egypt. How they came about and what were they exactly is more of a matter for those disposed to either history or necromancy.
Now Robert Schmidt has his theory, which he hasn?t presented completely either in public or privately that I know of, that the founders of Hellenistic astrology were individuals belong to or associated with the Platonic Academy and that they devised to practically apply their understanding of Plato?s work in people?s lives in order that those lives may be made intelligible. Alas, they did not have unicorns.
I believe Robert Schmidt's theory is that the hellenistic tradition was given birth from the mind of one person or small grouping of thinkers in a relatively short time scale.
Thats such an immense topic I will pass on here rather than attempt to tackle such an enormous question buried in a post here.
You certainly can find a lot of astrological ideas latent in the writings of Plato and middle Platonist and Neo-Platonist ideas certainly influenced hellenistic astrology. Personally, though I rather feel Schmidt tends to understimate the role of Stoic and Hermetic ideas too much for me. Again this is a big topic. I have been looking into the philosophical roots of early astrology quite a bit lately. However, I would prefer to open a separate thread on this on the philosophy part of the forum.
Honestly, I question the idea of "pure transmission". It makes sense to me, that what happens later on is the combination of some of the old astrological doctrines being made more available to the profane, involving both innovations from other individuals or groups and portions of the Platonic astrological being occasionally released either delibrately or by accident.
Again I question the exclusive focus on Plato but thats an interesting point.
It sounds like the kind of view Valens would have subscribed to.
It also possible that there might be more or less cohesive groups working in the original system for a while, perhaps lasting until sometime into the Arabic period perhaps; one must remember, that when the emperor Justinian closed the Academy in 529 CE (and other pagan institutions of learning), many persons escaping persecution fled to Persia.
Astrological histories always mention this date. However, I suspect the drift started well before then. In reality the legal crack down on Paganism started well before Justinian under the reign of Emperor Theodosius I 347 ? 395 AD. As for the rest its sounds an attractive if rather romanticised notion considering the diffuse nature of the Roman Empire.
They have a point though, don't you agree? At least in that there are some pretty large gaps in how modern astrolgy goes about things, else why would you have strayed into the dark and unenlightened past?
I love history and find there is a richness of technique and underlying philosophy in traditional astrology simply lacking in modern astrology.
Its undeniably my preference. However, that is a view I have come to from personal experience. If Chiron, harmonics, asteroids or sabian symbols floats someone elses boat I am happy these days to leave them to it rather than waste energy criticising that approach to astrology.
Apart from anything else its counter-productive as it makes people feel defensive and threatened. Far better to tempt people with the box of delights traditional astrology has to offer.
Ultimately, I see astrology working through signs not causes. So I do not rule out the possibility that people applying modern methods can get meaningful results too. I can give the analogy of when I first became a Vegetarian. I went through what I would describe an 'evangelical' phase. I think I went through the same process with traditional astrology! Because my knowledge and confidence were weak I needed the anchor of pristine astrological truth in the tradition. Now I see the tradition is littered with shades of grey no matter what era you focus on. Ultimately, all astrologers, whatever label they give themselves, have to impose their choice of how they approach astrological technique and their underlying philosophy. You can never escape this even if the traditional approach initially appears to answer all our questions. The questions or questioning should never stop. If they do we should all be buried.
Personally I think the early Arabic period, say Masha'allah or al-Khayatt, for example, is probably just as fruitful as something like Valens or Ptolemy.
Ah so you are more liberal than I assumed. Sorry for painting you into a corner where you were absent!
I do believe, regardless of period, that there has to be a critical determination of who seemed to have a really good idea of what they were doing that is explainable, and who had maybe an interesting concept or technique but is otherwise full of nonsense. I do have my opinions on the matter, which in the interest of self-preservation I try to keep silent on.
Not exactly clear what you mean here sorry.
An honest question, why do you think that exactly?
Why do I question the notion that the first hellenistic astrologers hold all the astrological answers?
Many reasons:
1 Our knowledge of the sources will never be definitive
2 We have relatively little information on the philosopical worldview underlying this early period. Robert Schmidt has attempted to fill in gaps but his conclusions may be completely incorrect.
3 I suspect the early development of astrology was less focused on the the early hellenistic astrologers than is currently conceded by authorities such as Robert Schmidt and Chris Brennan.
4 While Robert Schmidt suggests one mind or small group of minds involved in developing the basic model of hellenistic astrology I remain somewhat sceptical of this theory. I suspect the process was more piece meal in reality.
5 Beyond this and more fundamentally I dont see the first generation of astrologers as similar to Buddha or Christ like figures who offered all the answers to human existence.They were fallable human beings as we are.
There is genuine scope for development and refinement of ideas when we are dealing with mortal human beings but not divine incarnations. That doesn't stop me being fascinated by trying to discover more about the earliest astrology and its techniques. See you on the ACT forum!
Mark
