I think Tom's point is pre 1700 there was no ''gender relations''. I assume this to be in these days Men were Men and Women were Women or something like this. Afterall in the old texts are there any delineations of hermaphrodite transexuals with a penchant for engaging in Diversty modules at the local college? These days, alas, 'gender relations'' is a pivotal concern whenever a Horoscope appears in front of me.

Could it be that you guys misinterpret the term "gender relations"? They've existed since Adam and Eve. Their study would include social interactions between men and women, different conditions faced by men and women, and factors that influence these relationships.

Hard to see how one would do synastry without considering gender.

Actually, the Hellenistic astrologers did have material on the native's sexual proclivities as expressed in their horoscopes. Ptolemy, for instance, says how to determine if the native has a preference for boys.

Lithin has posed a reasonable question, which is how gender concepts in Antiquity might have influenced the formulation of the third house in astrology.

Actually, Tom, a "moderate" approach might be simply to move this thread to another board. Some of the issues we've raised would be just as appropriate to the philosophy or general boards.

I don't think any of us has been disrespectful of traditional astrology here. Maybe I missed something.

I also note that Deborah Houlding started an interesting thread on the earliest historical mention of a female astrologer, so it isn't as though the history of astrology or women in astrology are forbidden topics on this forum.

Kirk wrote:The issue that I really wanted to dive into, but didn't, is that the thing in this age is to take most anything and pick it apart. To stand outside of, apart from, the topic lying on the examination table and cut it into pieces. The reason I was tempted to pursue that in this thread is because that's the spirit of discussion I was sensing here. Traditional astrology as objectified topic or subject - something to grab hold of and roughly handle.

I underlined with bold what I see to be Martian approach. Well pointed!

Hey, Kirk, I'm trying. Strictly metaphorically, of course.

Good morning,

What is left of the Hellenistic "House of the Goddess" in Mediaeval astrology is the house of joys of the Moon.

Can anyone quote any Mediaeval astrological text that mentions 'Goddess' or 'Goddesses'? Having looked myself and asked some competent people to help search, the result to date is nil.

Since we know that ancient Greek and Brahman cultures were predominantly patriarchal, we could perhaps somewhat limit the scope of discussion to possible pervasive, distorting influences of absolute monotheistic theologies in Mediaeval astrology.

An example of such influences is the translation of Dorotheus via Arabic. For someone even somewhat familiar with Islamo-Arabic civilisation, many of the interpolations are obvious. No Hellenistic author closes nearly every subject with "Insha Allah" (God willing) or "Allahu Ahalam" (God knows [better]) nor does he begin a text with the BismiLlah (in God's name). Presumably the Divinity referenced is the Demiurgos.

Quite probably Hellenistic astrologers might tell us that without due acknowledgement and reverence of The Many, one of Whom is Aphrodite, ones understanding of astrology is probably impaired. Some Hindu astrologers are known to open chart analyses and consultations with an invocation of Ganesha (Hermes). Some books on Indian astrology begin with such an invocation.

Best regards,

lihin

lihin wrote:Some Hindu astrologers are known to open chart analyses and consultations with an invocation of Ganesha (Hermes).

Of the many things I have reacted to in this thread, this is the one I can't refrain from commenting on. I really can't see any reason at all, historical or otherwise, to equate these two deities. Apart from their divinity, they have precious little in common.

As for medieval Muslim and Christian authors editing out Graeco-Egyptian references to goddesses (and multiple gods): what did you expect? Astrology has always adapted to its ideological environments: Stoicism, Aristotelianism, monotheism, karma doctrine, Theosophy, depth psychology, etc, etc. But as few if any astrologers today will insist on the importance of Abrahamic monotheism for doing traditional astrology (the only one I can think of is John Frawley), rebelling against such an idea seems rather quixotic.

Good afternoon,

The question is not at all which, if any, of the cultural and religious environments of astrology were 'right' or 'wrong' but rather to trace and mark such influences in horoscopic astrology. This might possibly cast doubt on the efficacy of bracketing all non-modern horoscopic astrology as 'traditional'.

The equivalence of Ganesha to Mercury does not originate with me. If it is erroneous is beside the question which is to ascertain the differences between Hellenistic and Mediaeval astrologies and to what extent such may be attributed to the shift from Heathen to absolute monotheistic religions.

Has any reader of this thread ever seen a reference to 'Goddess' or 'Goddesses' in any Mediaeval astrological text?

To avoid possible misunderstandings, i mention that i do not propose to reassign genders to astrological symbols nor to introduce additional astronomical objects of female gender in order to attain an astrological gender balance. The concern is that the pervasive influences of absolute patriarchal monotheism in Mediaeval astrology might have in instances like 'House of the Goddess' to some extent censored, tilted, slanted or biased the underlying astrological principles independent of religions. Fortunately, if we wish to do so, we may be able to recognise such instances and to conclude accordingly, restoring the Hellenistic view where appropriate.

Best regards,

lihin

lihin wrote:The equivalence of Ganesha to Mercury does not originate with me. If it is erroneous is beside the question [...]

It is erroneous, or at least distinctly odd; noting this is surely not more off-topic than introducing it in the first place. It would interest me to know who first came up with it.

which is to ascertain the differences between Hellenistic and Mediaeval astrologies and to what extent such may be attributed to the shift from Heathen to absolute monotheistic religions.

Of course the shift from a religious environment that included goddesses to one that did not relates to the lack of later references to the 'house of the goddess' in astrology. (Incidentally, the presence or absence of goddesses has little or nothing to do with patriarchy.)

I think there is a cultural context that is missing in these discussions.

When they call the Ninth House the House of the God, they are referring to the official religion of the Roman Empire, i.e. the cult of the emperor as a divine figure and to the Olympians.

When they call the Third House the House of the Goddess, they are referring to the so-called "populist" religions of syncretistic nature that were so common in Hellenistic Egypt and the Levant generally, and which centered around goddess figures such as Isis, Astarte, Cybele, and so on.

Thus the spritual world of officials, rulers and lawgivers is contrasted with the spiritual world of the common people.

I doubt if the loss of this paradigm has anything to do with patriarchal invasions. The sharing of information with post-Soviet archaeologists has established beyound any doubt that there was never any feminist utopia invaded by drooling hoards of patriarchal Indo-Europeans on horseback. Even Marija Gimbutas, the author of that whole world view, admitted that new excavations had proven her wrong; but books such as "Chalice and the Blade" which exemplified that world view were making so much money that Gimbutas' retraction was relegated to scholarly journals read by practically no one.

Instead, the loss of the paradigm of 9th House = official or state religion = rejoicing of the Sun in contrast with 3rd House = popular or goddess oriented religions = rejoicing of the Moon most probably vanished for a different reason. Astrology fell increasingly into disrepute in late Roman times when Christianity became a major power. By the time the Arabs rediscovered Hellenistic astrology, they lived in an almost entirely monotheistic world where the old polarity of God and Goddess was no longer applicable. So the ancient doctrine remains in medieval astrology only in a mild form with the 9th as the rejoicing of the Sun and the 3rd as the rejoicing of the Moon.

Good points, Kenneth! I posted above on problems with Eisler's and Gimbutas's theories.

Just wondering: what is your source that the 9th house was the Roman emperor? I've not come across it.

I think Apollo is a strong contender for the 9th, due to his association with prophecy, a 9th house matter. Then Manilius gives the 9th and 3rd as "brother and sister" which would form a mythological pair with the moon goddess Diana/Artemis.

I do think we have to acknowledge that the house meanings in Antiquity are so multiple and varied that we can't look to a single source of origin, however. The third house as goddess-moon-brothers-travel is a case in point. I can kind of see where each of these might have come from, but they don't all lead to the same explanation.

And this diversity is entirely consistent with how ancient religions operated. They tended to be inclusive and syncretistic if something semed sacred or to have merit. A preoccupation with logic or consistency is a more modern concern.

Part of the reason, as you indicate, is that the state religion and the beliefs of the common people were often miles apart.

If we postulate that houses originated in Egypt, on the grounds that they were unknown to Babylonian astrology and the Greeks had nothing comparable, then we also get an interesting pair with the third and the 4th house.

The 4th is the house of the father. There is a lot of Egyptian religious lore about the soul of the deceased sun, god, pharoah,-- and subsequently of ordinary people-- making a passage through the afterlife in which which the deceased actually assimilates with the father-god, be it Ra or Osiris, depending upon the time and place. This completes the initial stages of the soul's post-death journey-- essentially the old existence is left behind in the 4th house of endings.

Osiris makes a pair with his sister-wife Isis. She was associated with the moon, although not primarily so, as far as I can tell. As a great agricultural goddess and mother of Horus, she makes sense for the 3rd as the common people's deity.

Probably the best consort for Ra is the cow goddess Hathor. Hathor was also a goddess of the afterlife who refreshed the souls of the dead.

Hathor has all kinds of astronomical associations-- perhaps most popularly in the Dendarah zodiac in the temple of Hathor. Hathor was a goddess of childbirth, and here we get the association of the soul, having become one with the Father in the 4th house, emerging from the childbirth goddess in the third, continuing through the 2nd house "gates of hell" [here in the sense of an exit ramp from the death experience] and emerging as the new birth in the 1st house. Because Hathor also ruled over joy and earthly pleasures, the Romans conflated her with Venus, but this is probably a misreading of her more diverse character.

Joanne Conman has argued that the Egyptians actually didn't believe that their afterlife world was an underworld, underground. So far as I can make out her schematics, I think the afterworld ("dwat") was located in the farth north, among the northern constellations.

Good morning,

This may well be off topic.

If one enters 'Ganesha Mercury' into a search engine, several results showing a connexion appear. Here is the first one that came up for me:

http://zer0dmx.tripod.com/gods/ganesha.html

In might be useful to limit our investigations here to cultures directly involved with horoscopic astrology. Otherwise we might digress to myriads of manifested religions amongst innumerable ones 'in potentia' that have come and gone since humanity's inception. The average life span of a religion is an extremely small fraction of that of our solar system with its planets moving in rhythms very similar to those we observe today.

Best regards,

lihin