Skyscript Astrology Forum

Paul:
Sorry, I am not following. You are saying that the reason that Pluto is assigned to Aries rather than Scorpio is because of X - but I missed the part where we reduced our set of signs from 12 to 2 and were left with only two candidates for Pluto's assignation - either Aries or Scorpio. I also do not follow why Sidereally Mars in Aries is 'inward' and how or why this relates to Pluto.

Paul, Therese uses "outward" and "inward" to denote signs she thinks are introverted and extroverted. Generally, tropical astrologers think that the masculine signs (Aries, Gemini etc.) are extroverted while the feminine signs (Taurus, Cancer etc.) are introverted.

On her website Therese makes the masculine signs introverted while she makes the feminine signs extroverted. She does this by pointing to stereotypical notions of male and female behavior and assuming those reflect introverted and extroverted characteristics. She describes women as effusive and needing external validation and describes men as having some mystical direct access to a universal standard of values.

Men and women aren?t really like that, neither in their actual behavior nor in the mythological archetypes. Behaviorally, according to research as far back as the 1940s, the differences in male and female personalities and aptitude are minimal. And in myth, women represent primal forces beyond human control like creation, destruction, birth, death, music, Dionysus, the body, the emotions, darkness, and the unconscious. Men on the other hand represent ?culture?, what is controlled by humans, such as preservations, customs, the mind, the plastic arts, intellect, light, and conscious decision.

She then goes into Aristotle's metaphysics of "hot", "cold", "dry", "wet" and assumes those describe introversion and extroversion also when Aristotle himself makes no such inferences.

These arguments are the crux for her theories.

Paul:
We assign Uranus to Aquarius, not because of myth or because of a reference in a persian text, but due to astronomy of being the planet next furthest out in the sequence. As the outer planets have now moved into the lunar hemisphere, we can use that hemisphere as the basis for this approach. It would have nothing to do with preference for deciding that the lunar hemisphere is more to do with personal growth and connecting the outers to it somehow, and rests just upon the necessity of where the astronomy places it.

Speaking of assigning extra planets, why are the new planets assigned to only one sign? It doesn't make any sense. The traditional planets have been assigned in pairs, so why not the new signs also? I have the suspicion that when Uranus was discovered astrologers just thought, ?Uranus is like Aquarius? and just went with it. But that is my suspicion.

Therese:
I don't think so. I see the observations of tropical astrologers as a valuable gift to astrology that has helped me at least better understand sidereal signs. Each historical age or nation has helped to complete the astrological picture. India has preserved sidereal calculations, but has never bothered to observe the actual behavior of signs.

Actually, the Vedic descriptions of the signs are not a carbon copy of the tropical astrology signs. Some do, but most don?t. They don?t even use the outer planets.

What makes tropical astrology more accurate anyway? Its descriptions of the signs don't resemble the original descriptions and have a jargon of ideas that are simply made up and don't belong anywhere in the original source material. And tropical astrology doesn't even keep up with the actual locations of the signs. Which system is really denying observation?

Bogdan574 wrote: Paul, Therese uses "outward" and "inward" to denote signs she thinks are introverted and extroverted. Generally, tropical astrologers think that the masculine signs (Aries, Gemini etc.) are extroverted while the feminine signs (Taurus, Cancer etc.) are introverted.

Thanks for the context Bogdan, as it happens, this doesn't affect what the wheel is showing anyway, but it's interesting to know.

Speaking of assigning extra planets, why are the new planets assigned to only one sign? It doesn't make any sense. The traditional planets have been assigned in pairs, so why not the new signs also? I have the suspicion that when Uranus was discovered astrologers just thought, ?Uranus is like Aquarius? and just went with it. But that is my suspicion.

Yeah I wondered that too, but then the luminaries both get one sign each so we obviously have a precedent where we can make especial exceptions for varying reasons. Perhaps the outer planets can get the same treatment.

As for Uranus with Aquarius, you may find the discussion currently taking place on the philosophy section interesting:
http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8075

Actually, the Vedic descriptions of the signs are not a carbon copy of the tropical astrology signs. Some do, but most don?t. They don?t even use the outer planets.

Right, but then Therese hasn't said she's using Vedic descriptions, she states she uses a sidereal zodiac, but the sidereal zodiac can be used by non-vedic astrologers as well. At any rate it is not actually important, in contradiction to Therese's opening post - I discuss why in my previous posts and Therese seems happy enough with that logic.

And tropical astrology doesn't even keep up with the actual locations of the signs. Which system is really denying observation?

I don't think this is the right place to get into debating (once again) the tropical and sidereal zodiac. Both the tropical and the sidereal zodiac have a real basis in something astronomical, even if that something is radically different from one another.

I think we should be careful of turning this thread into a polemic against one zodiac or another.

Paul, I want to clarify my current views of polarity. I don's use the terms introversion and extroversion. In various places I've posted what I believe to be the correct sidereal understanding of polarity. As I cannot keep track of what I have posted where, below in a nutshell is my understanding, based on solar and lunar principles. For a summary review of my views of polarity and the trigons, please see:

http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/aatriplicities2013.htm

SIDEREAL SIGNS:

Solar principles:
Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, Aquarius (in general the ecliptical area of tropical female signs)
Active orientation: motivation and creative energy drawn from within (the psychological mainframe)

Lunar principles:
Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn, Pisces (in general the ecliptic area of tropical male signs)
Passive orientation: social and networking motivation; outward focus (as data is moved into the internal psychological computer)

So I'm using a different perspective of solar and lunar principles. I believe this is important to understand. These principles are discussed on my web site with example data and biolographical notes of real people taken from the Gauquelin book on American charts:
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/apolar1.htm

And specifically on sign polarity, male and female traits:
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/amalefe2.htm

(As I haven't reviewed my older articles in a long time, if I used the terms introversion and extroversion, I don't believe they are accurate descriptions of sign polarity in either zodiac. I think I'd better take some time for reading and editing!)

Bogdan, if you are going to quote someone, it's best to use their actual words (with quotation marks) rather than place your own twist on what the person says which can change the meaning of that person's words. Even a single word can shift meaning. That's the problem with the concrete nature of words.

As I'm very aware of how even a small change in wording can shift the meaning of a person's thoughts, I frequently quote precise passages from web sites or books.

Here is the table of polarity traits from my web site polarity article: http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/amalefe2.htm

The article is largely based on John Gray's (Ph.D.) best selling Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus (Harper Collins, 1992)

Therese

Your table/chart doesn't require understanding of your personal preferences or any idiosyncrasies at all - therefore do not feel compelled to justify your particular preferences. We don't need to understand any of this to examine how you have noted a pattern in linking exaltations and domicile.

The pattern stands on its own.

Paul wrote:Therese

Your table/chart doesn't require understanding of your personal preferences or any idiosyncrasies at all - therefore do not feel compelled to justify your particular preferences. We don't need to understand any of this to examine how you have noted a pattern in linking exaltations and domicile.

Paul, my replies weren't meant to relate to the rulership/exalation chart I posted. I didn't like to be misquoted on sign polarity, which is another topic. When I develop a topic such as polarity over time, I back up what I say with the research of professionals (unless I say otherwise). So I'm not talking about "personal preference" as polarity is discussed on my web site.

As astrologers we need to read and understand the work of professionals in other disciplines. There is way too much of "I see it this way" among astrologers rather than any reference to research work in other fields to support our opinions.

Therese Hamilton wrote:As astrologers we need to read and understand the work of professionals in other disciplines. There is way too much of "I see it this way" among astrologers rather than any reference to research work in other fields to support our opinions.

Hi Therese,

about the sentence which I quote above, I would like to say that I share the same opinion as yours. If it is possible, one should always base his/her research in the research of other credible authors.

However, I see that you based your research of this topic on the book of John Gray. As it is widely known nowadays, Mr. Gray is not a credible research source: He took a PhD degree from an unaccredited school by correspondence, and no one has been able to have access to his PhD dissertation (if any). In all serious Universities, the Msc and PhD dissertations are publicly accessible. You can read about that in his Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gray_ ... _author%29), and in numerous web sites if you google it.

Moreover, it is also widely known that Mr. Gray's book does not contain any references to credible research, nor does he provide any information about doing any peer-reviewed (or not even peer-reviewed) experiments. He does not provide descriptions of any research at all, and his results for that research.. (source: the book itself)

Finally, current research contradicts the basic assumption behind the separation of genders according to common-sense (and Mr. Gray's book). This study (http://www.psych.rochester.edu/people/r ... s_2012.pdf), published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (by credible authors in a credible peer-reviewed publication) pretty much contradicts the pseudo-research by Mr. Gray.

The authors of that study tested a lot of variables on a significantly large sample, and instead of finding large gaps between males and females considering those variables, they found linear gradations, indicating that more often males and females share the same traits, instead of what the common-sense would expect to belong only to a specific gender.

As you may read in the paper introduction, they found that there was a clear gender separation on specific variables such as physical attributes (strength, hair size, etc.). But for psychological attributes, they could not find a clear separation: "the dimensionality of gender indicates that these differences are inappropriate for diagnosing gender-typical psychological variables on the basis of sex".

So, to make myself clear, I'm not inferring anything about your current work. I just would like to say that you should be better off to base your research on the type of research which I'm mentioning..


Regards,
Jo?o Ventura

Although off-topic, I thought this deserved a brief comment:

jventura wrote:In all serious Universities, the Msc and PhD dissertations are publicly accessible.

This is not necessarily the case: in many places, the copyright of a thesis is considered to belong to the author (who may decide to publish it as a regular book), and the decision of whether or not to make it publicly available therefore rests with the author. This is the case at my own university, which takes itself very seriously.

Martin Gansten wrote: in many places, the copyright of a thesis is considered to belong to the author (who may decide to publish it as a regular book), and the decision of whether or not to make it publicly available therefore rests with the author. This is the case at my own university, which takes itself very seriously.

Hi Martin,

I guess you have a point here!

However, I was not referring directly to the subject of copyright, which, as far as I know, no University claims the full copyright for a Thesis publication. In my University (FCT/UNL), although the University claims part of the copyright, I do not lose the rights over my publications.

Unfortunately this is has not been the case for (some) publications at conferences, where some publishers request full copyright to the authors (one is Springer, widely known for its Notes on Computer Science). Fortunately, the tendency has been for open access publishers, and that problem with the copyright is diminishing..

Now, regarding the open access, I must assume you are right. On my University, and many of the Technical Universities for which I am aware of their procedures, clearly state that they reserve the right to publish the dissertations/thesis, and they usually do publish them. On my University this is compulsory - for instance, this is the link for my MSc dissertation: http://run.unl.pt/handle/10362/1786.

But I do hope that this small imprecision of my part does not ruin the rest of my argument..


Regards,
Jo?o Ventura

jventura wrote:

However, I see that you based your research of this topic on the book of John Gray. As it is widely known nowadays, Mr. Gray is not a credible research source: He took a PhD degree from an unaccredited school by correspondence, and no one has been able to have access to his PhD dissertation...

Thank you for this information, Jventura! Looks like I've been out of the loop for awhile. I'll do some research on Mr. Gray. However, I've collected various research articles which make basically the same points as many in John Gray's books. His books would not have been best sellers if his message didn't speak to many readers and relate to their own experience. His work may not be so much pseudo research as careful observation of behavior.

Also there is a dichotomy between the more developed countries where genders are tending to grow closer together, and underdeveloped counties where gender separation is much greater. I'd say that polarity principles are very real but have a wider application than simply the physical gender identity of men and women.

I have to admit however, that I've been amazed at how women have been moving into previously male dominated sports like half pipe skiing and snowboarding at the Olympics. The world is changing at a very rapid rate. Those of us who are older have seen massive changes, but younger generations may be seeing only the contemporary side of the picture.

Even if Gray's differences may be tending to disappear in developed countries, there are still the two diverse polarity principles that I've outlined in the chart copied from my web site. These solar and lunar principles exist throughout cultures and centuries, and are found in the I Ching, for example. (This is noted in my articles.) It would be an interesting discussion to look at the lives of individuals whose birth charts heavily emphasize one sign polarity over another.

It would probably be a good idea to shift polarity as such away from physical gender and more toward two different types of psychological functioning.

Hi again Therese,

Therese Hamilton wrote:His books would not have been best sellers if his message didn't speak to many readers and relate to their own experience. His work may not be so much pseudo research as careful observation of behavior.

we should be careful to draw the immediate conclusion that something is true only because it is widely available/known. An historical example is "the earth is not round" "fact" of the middle ages. A more modern example is the Availability Heuristic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic) which was widely researched and states something like "The availability heuristic operates on the notion that if something can be recalled, it must be important"..

As a side note, one should be surprised by the amount of research which demonstrates that many of the behaviors of human beings are "predictably" irrational. Most of the initial work in this area is by Economics Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman and his Prospect Theory. A good book to start (and based on real empirical research) is Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely.

Therese Hamilton wrote: Also there is a dichotomy between the more developed countries where genders are tending to grow closer together, and underdeveloped counties where gender separation is much greater.

It sounds plausible to me. Can that be backed up with some research?

Therese Hamilton wrote: I'd say that polarity principles are very real but have a wider application than simply the physical gender identity of men and women.

Yes, that seems to be one of the conclusions of the paper which I linked in my previous post.

Therese Hamilton wrote:
It would be an interesting discussion to look at the lives of individuals whose birth charts heavily emphasize one sign polarity over another.

This, backed up with a solid approach and some numbers is what I would call a good empirical research..

Therese Hamilton wrote: It would probably be a good idea to shift polarity as such away from physical gender and more toward two different types of psychological functioning.

That is also one of the conclusions of the paper I've linked, i.e., there does not seem to exist correlation between physical gender and psychological gender traits. But that does not eliminate the notion that some traits may be more "masculine", others "feminine". Maybe it is the names "masculine/feminine" that should be changed to something other?

If you proceed with your research, maybe you could look at the paper I've mentioned, and see the attributes they worked with, and see how they are measured. For instance, "Empathy", which traditionally one would consider more "feminine" than "masculine" is measured through a "Interpersonal Reactivity Index" survey (link here.

(Please note that I come from a Computer Science background, so I am way out of my area of expertise here, regarding subjects of Psychology for which I am just a curious amateur..)


Regards,
Jo?o Ventura