Here is Patrick Curry's reply to Liz Greene:

http://www.cultureandcosmos.org/abstrac ... dance.html

I hope Greene puts her article up in the public domain for the benefit of the wider astrological discussion.

While we are on this topic there is this pricey but very interesting looking book on Divination edited by Patrick Curry. It contains the article by Dorian Greenbaum I mentioned above:

http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409405559

Mark

lihin wrote: Klaudios Ptolomaios was obviously aware of these problems when he wrote the Tetrabiblos. Although he used the then current names for constellations, he rigorously sought to avoid basing essential astrological definitions on ex. gr. their shapes and mythologies. He defined the essences of wandering stars (planets) in terms of the Aristotelian elements Fire, Air, Water, Earth and of the fixed stars by their comparative planetary attributes.

Ptolemy's great achievement was to present a coherent and rational model of astrology, shorn of any element of divination. Astrology was dressed up as natural-science and so assumed to have the objective predictability of the movements of the planets on which it was based.

Unfortunately, at this point in the early 21st century, astrologers have now had to admit that the clothes Ptolemy hung on astrology do not really fit....

Geoffrey

Geoffrey wrote:

Ptolemy's great achievement was to present a coherent and rational model of astrology, shorn of any element of divination. Astrology was dressed up as natural-science and so assumed to have the objective predictability of the movements of the planets on which it was based.

Unfortunately, at this point in the early 21st century, astrologers have now had to admit that the clothes Ptolemy hung on astrology do not really fit....

Well put. The fact that Ptolemy was also the author of the Almagest, the greatest work on ancient astronomy also added immeasurably to the scientific respectability of his astrology. This added to his clear , systematic manner of presentation of astrology in the Tetrabiblos made it appear a causal science synonymous with the movements of the planets. Hence we see the same causal Aristotlean outlook underpinning both the Almagest and Tetrabiblos.

Not surprsingly both the Arabs and later Latin Europeans adopted astrology as part of the generally understood 'science' of the ancient world. Without Ptolemy's influence I wonder how much of the ancient astrological sources would have been preserved? Another major figure we tend to forget was Galen who tied astrology into the ancient understanding of medicine. This influenced both Islamic and Christian thinking which saw this as part of the more respectable 'natural astrology' along with mundane astrology related to weather prediction. The Christian medieval objections to astrology were spiritual or philosophical not empirical i.e. the alleged influence of malevolent demons (St Augustine) or the perceived negative influence of predictive astrology on the exercise of freewill (Thomas Aquinas)

Mark

Geoffrey wrote:Patrick Curry talks about a "dialogue with a divinity" as the process of divination, implying that the astrologer has an active role in creating the final revelation. But an oracle is a person through whom the divinity speaks and so takes a much more passive role in the process. Is this really how you see yourself Juan?

No. I think if you read my explanation you will realize there is nothing "passive" in it.

Juan

Juan wrote: No. I think if you read my explanation you will realize there is nothing "passive" in it.

I did and I would agree...

Geoffrey

Geoffrey wrote:

No. I think if you read my explanation you will realize there is nothing "passive" in it.

I did and I would agree...Geoffrey

The idea is not an oracle in the ancient (or greek) sense, but what an oracle can be to us today, understanding that our psychic constitution today is different from that of the past. Instead of passively voicing or channeling something external to the astrologer, there is a conscious or deliberate cooperation between the personalities of the astrologer and the client so that "meaning" finally appears in the form of "a presence" (=the light of the deity). Ultimately the weight falls on the linguistic ability of the astrologer, hence my preference for the word "oracle" (meaningful voicing or utterance of the constructed meaning = the interpretation).

Juan

Mark wrote:I see Dorian Greenbaum has used the term 'Stochastic art' in one of her articles . This seems to fit rather well with your view of astrology which sees it as a process relying on mathematical principles within a less determinist paradigm.

I am not familiar with the concept. Thank you for pointing it out.

Juan

Good evening,

Mr Geoffrey wrote:

"Unfortunately, at this point in the early 21st century, astrologers have now had to admit that the clothes Ptolemy hung on astrology do not really fit...."

Science, including Ptolemy's astrology, is by definition falsifiable. In another thread we have seen, for example, that the geographical centre of the earth has, according to studies of 2003, has moved about 300 km NNW compared to Ptolemy's data. If the above statement is meant to imply that astrology is, by definition and necessity, unscientific, i disagree. The statement lacks, methinks, a 'some' or 'many' before "astrologers".

Since astrology lost its status as an academic discipline during the 18th century in Europe, anyone is free to call her- or himself 'astrologer' and to opine anything and everything in the name of astrology. In my humble opinion, therefore, there is no 'astrology', only astrologies.

Best regards,

lihin

OK Lithin, we are definitely headed into the realms of philosophy here and if our moderator want to pull the plug on these discussions continuing here, I will fully understand.

lihin wrote: Science, including Ptolemy's astrology, is by definition falsifiable. In another thread we have seen, for example, that the geographical centre of the earth has, according to studies of 2003, has moved about 300 km NNW compared to Ptolemy's data. If the above statement is meant to imply that astrology is, by definition and necessity, unscientific, i disagree. The statement lacks, methinks, a 'some' or 'many' before "astrologers".

Science, as understood in the modern day, is underpinned by the philosophical system known as 'Logical Positivism'. The main tennets of Logical Positivism are firstly, that any scientific theory which describes the real world is only an approximation and can never fully describe 'reality'. Secondly, it follows that experimental measurements of 'reality' always take presidence over theory. So, if experiment disagrees with theory, it is the theory which is wrong. The progress of science, then, is towards an increasingly detailed and complete understanding of the universe - but by definition a full and complete understanding will never be reached.

So it is that the theory of epicycles which Ptolemy set out in the Almagest for the movements of the planets is an approximation - and rather a crude approximation when set against the precision of modern day experimental astronomy. The theory of epicycles was based upon an understanding of the cosmos which we now know to be incorrect. (And was suspected of being incorrect even in Ptolemy's day).

You quoted a latitude and longitude of a geographical centre of the earth for Ptolemy's day, based on Ptolemy's description, to the nearest minute. Given that the meridian was based on end points as large as the Arabian Gulf and the Sea of Azov, were you justified in doing that? I don't think so. But it was on this basis that you now claim the geographical centre has 'moved' compared to modern measurements. You might equally claim that the planets have 'moved' since Ptolemy's day as the positions of the planets in Ptolemy's time, as calculated using modern planetary theory, do not concur with those predicted by Ptolemy's epicycles. A more justifiable conclusion would be that given the precision of the data available to him and the power of the mathematical methods Ptolemy had at his command, his results both in astronomy and geography were an approximation which - in the manner of scientific progress - have been improved upon during the intervening two millenia.

Now, if astrology is also a science, as you say, then it is justifiable to claim that Ptolemy's astrology was also an approximation, and that Ptolemy's astrological principles and methods are capable of being corrected, improved and refined. However, based on statements you have made recently here and elsewhere on these forums, you seem to be of the opinion that modern authors do not have much to say about astrology and the problems we have with astrology today are due to a lack of understanding of Ptolemy's writings. This is to treat Tetrabiblos as revealed text rather than a philosphical tract, and so approach Ptolemy's astrological writings in a quite different way to Almagest or Geography. If astrology is strictly a science, as you say, then this approach is not justifiable.

And, as you say, if astrology is strictly a science, then by definition it is testable to determine if it is false or not. On that basis there is no doubt. Astrology has been tested. It is false. At least, what has survived after a truly heroic effort during the last half of the 20th century to test the principles and methods of astrology scientifically, is but the faintest shadow of the rich tradition we know as horoscopic astrology.

It was following the failure to achieve a scientific credibility for astrology that the current revival of interest in traditional or classical astrology came about. Compared to the value-free astrology widely practiced in the late 20th century (in the West, anyway) the ancient aphorisms were black-and-white rules which were more easily testable. But 20th century astrologers were merely repeating what Gadbury has strived to do three hundred years earlier, and with the same result.

As things presently stand, there is now a huge body of research which has in essence turned up a 'null' result for astrological principles and, with the greatest respect, if there are some astrologers out there who still think astrology is a science that in principle has the same obective credibility as physics or chemistry, they are in a boat heading up that that great river in Egypt - denile.

Notwithstanding that failure, here we are, mulling over the minutiae of astrological methodology. We are here because we as individuals are convinced that astrology does work. We are not stupid, so how do we square the circle of a science which works but fails the scientific test? At the end of the 17th century, the widely held conclusion was that astrology was not scientific and in the face of the Enlightenment and the evident success of the modern scientific method, astrology sank into disrepute and neglect for the next two hundred years. Today, in the face of a repeat of what happened at the end of the 17th century, there is instead a growing weight of opinion that astrology is more than scientific, that there is an element of 'divination' about astrology whose description is quite outside the abilities of the scientific method as it is known today. What this 'divination' is has not been described by astrologers either, except in a poetic sense, but it is a subjective element of astrology which is a necessary addition to the objective, mathematical and calculation parts of astrology in order that astrology 'works'.

Since astrology lost its status as an academic discipline during the 18th century in Europe, anyone is free to call her- or himself 'astrologer' and to opine anything and everything in the name of astrology. In my humble opinion, therefore, there is no 'astrology', only astrologies.

What is 'astrology'? Astrology is a system whereby events here on earth are correlated to the movements of the planets and stars in the sky. In my humble opinion, all 'astrologies' have this in common and differ only in the interpretation of planetary and stellar positions in terms of events here on earth. Just as there are multiple churches of differing flavours who never-the-less all worship the 'one true God', I would humbly submit that there is only one astrology on the basis of its basic principle.

As for astrology as an academic discipline, I draw your attention to the late lamented Kepler university in the United States, whose unfortunate demise can be counted in single years rather than centuries, and Lampeter University in Wales which currently offers courses which are effectively in astrology dressed up as something more politically correct. In these days of equal opportunity and laws which do not allow discrimination on the basis of belief or creed, astrology is gradually finding a way back into academic acceptance.

However, just because astrology is no longer widely taught as an academic discipline does not mean that there is a lack of astrologers who otherwise have impressive academic credentials and are of a very high intellectual calibre. Write down a list of the world's top twenty astrologers (or anyway, the top twenty best known astrologers) and I would say that most of them will have 'Doctor' in front of their name. And as is the habit of people with 'Doctor' in front of their name, they write books to supplement their income which, in my humble opinion, are well worth reading.

And, if astrology really is a science, these modern books should have the benefit of almost two thousand years of astrological research compared to Tetrabiblos and so be preferred as astrological texts....

Geoffrey

Good morning,

Indeed, even to me it seems we have drifted off the topic 'visual astrology'. But i do not feel alone on the bench of the accused.

Let us attempt to get squarely back on topic, although i might like to reply to Mr Geoffrey's last post.

Could we try to arrive at an assessment of what precisely distinguishes 'visual' from 'non-visual' astrologies? For a starter, it seems to me that Western astrology has become increasing 'non-visual' from the Hellenistic period onwards, unless one considers 'the mind's eye' as 'visual'. Horoscopic Indian astrologies seem to me scarcely more 'visual'.

Best regards,

lihin

lihin wrote:Could we try to arrive at an assessment of what precisely distinguishes 'visual' from 'non-visual' astrologies? For a starter, it seems to me that Western astrology has become increasing 'non-visual' from the Hellenistic period onwards, unless one considers 'the mind's eye' as 'visual'. Horoscopic Indian astrologies seem to me scarcely more 'visual'.

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2711

Juan

Good afternoon,

Thank you, Mr Juan, for the link. The contents are a bit verbose for my feeble mind but it seems you said in essence (please forgive my oversimplification):

- visual = visible to unaided human sight (methinks probable that some species of night owls can probably see the planet Neptune)

- non-visual = invisible to unaided human sight.

Even in the context of Babylonian astrology we thus should, methinks, have to exclude ex. gr. equal sign borders (also 'sidereal' ones) and imputed forms of constellations as animals, mythological entities and the like from 'visual'. On the other hand, we should have to include for example the effects of light pollution on the visibility of all but the brightest celestial objects.

Best regards,

lihin