Skyscript Astrology Forum

Hello,

MarkC wrote: However, I find the argument by some that Ptolemy?s distinctive stance on many issues makes him somehow peripheral to the hellenistic tradition quite unconvincing.

To be honest I don't believe Ptolemy woke up a morning and invented a new branch of astrology separated from "hellenistic" astrology.

As everybody in writing his book he talked about techniques he found most effective, discarded the ones he found ineffective, and omitted the ones he was unsure, or he did not have any expertise.

When I attended my lessons, talking about different subjects teacher said this is Ptolemy and this Vettius Valens without problems, quoting both.


In Italy there is not this war between hellenistic astrology and Ptolemy one, so there is something I surely miss.

Margherita

MarkC wrote:

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.

I was just browsing through this interesting thread, and there are a few issues that were raised that I wanted to comment on, although I wanted to ask you if you could clarify this statement for me first Mark.

Are you referring to what I call the 'sudden invention hypothesis' that Holden, Pingree, and especially Schmidt are proponents of, which is contrasted with the 'gradual development' arguments that Hand and Campion make? That is to say, the notion that Hellenistic astrology represents a singular invention sometime around the 1st or 2nd century BCE vs. the notion that it developed more organically over an extended but overlapping time period?

Or are you referring to other arguments about the provenance of certain doctrines and techniques in particular?

I have attempted to take more of the middle ground in some of these debates, since each has its own merits, so I am curious know if it is the case that I do somehow come off as being more of a staunch proponent of one argument or another. In some instances I may very well be willing to make a number of concessions, although to some extent it does depend on which issue is being called into question in particular.

I wanted to ask you if you could clarify this statement for me first Mark.

Are you referring to what I call the 'sudden invention hypothesis' that Holden, Pingree, and especially Schmidt are proponents of, which is contrasted with the 'gradual development' arguments that Hand and Campion make? That is to say, the notion that Hellenistic astrology represents a singular invention sometime around the 1st or 2nd century BCE vs. the notion that it developed more organically over an extended but overlapping time period?

Or are you referring to other arguments about the provenance of certain doctrines and techniques in particular?

Hi Chris,

Sorry for the delay replying. I dont tend to see these points as completely separate. The general impacts on the specific. In other words if you hold to a rapid explosion type theory based on almost exclusively Greek ideas that inevitably affects how you perceive the development of specific techniques.

I would prefer to discuss this topic in non-personal terms rather than stating I am against one astrologer or for another. I am more interested in trying to understand what the primary sources are actually telling us rather than attacking or defending anyone's pet theory.

To do that I feel we need to look not just at specifically astrological texts but general historical sources for this period of early astrology.

However, in regards the provenance of techniques I do feel there is sometimes a tendency to overemphasize the unity of early hellenistic astrology and underestimate its pluralism. House systems is just one example.

On the historical issue I am not sure if I like using the label 'gradualist' . This implies astrology moves forward like the glaciation process. Incredibly slowly and imperceptably. In contrast to this I think astrology has had many periods when its techniques have taken a progressive spurt forward. What I question is whether the the undeniable leap forward astrology took in 1st or 2nd century Alexandria was based on an almost totally indigenous hellenistic astrology or whether it was the product of the creative cross fertilisation of Greek, Mesopotamian and Egyptian ideas.

Thus rather than typify the discussion as simply rapid vs gradualist I prefer the distinction of culturally exclusivist vs hybrid?

I think the rapid development theory focusing on purely Greek sources ignores a lot of historical evidence to the contrary that states Greek astrology was heavily influenced and indeed founded on Mespotamian astrology. If this was not the case why are so many classical sources repeatedly telling us this? Is it more likely a 1st century writer has it wrong or a 21st century scholar trying to put together the historical jig saw without many of the original primary sources?

Another issue i dont agree with is the idea of a rigid distinction between e Mesopotamian and Greek astrology as if these things were completely separate things. In actual fact following the conquests of Alexander the two worlds came together so its hardly incredible that late Mesopotamian astrology was a major influence on Greek and hellenistic Egyptian thought.

I will give specific examples of what I mean later but I thought I owed you some kind of provisional reply.

To some I extent I fear current debate around hellenistic astrology is too inward looking and too narrowly focused on hellenistic astrological texts. There is a risk this may be mirroring older scholarship on the history of astronomy which gave all the credit to the Greeks at the expense of the Babylonians. For example look at J.L.E. Dreyer's ''A History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler" . Its a great book and very useful. However, as a lover of all things Greek his attitide tended to grossly underestimate the role of Babylonian astronomy in influencing Greek ideas.

We now know that major figures like Hipparchus had access to Babylonian astronomical research. If Greek astronomy did this why should we accept their astrology was created almost ex-nihilo?

Mark

This is maybe an inflammatory view but I consider it possible the "explosion" in Egyptian/Hellenistic horoscopic astrology may not be fundamentally different from the explosion of Arabic parts in Islamic astrology, the explosion of dasha systems in India or the contemporary explosion of asteroids and aspects. The KISS principle has somehow always appealed to me in astrology, so now I'm researching a sidereal whole sign approach (also if one believes in the precession of the equinoxes having a historical and cultural influence one can also form theories about how this may have influenced astrology itself).

CJ wrote:This is maybe an inflammatory view but I consider it possible the "explosion" in Egyptian/Hellenistic horoscopic astrology may not be fundamentally different from the explosion of Arabic parts in Islamic astrology, the explosion of dasha systems in India or the contemporary explosion of asteroids and aspects.

I think this is a correct view. Although I agree with Mark that many foundations of Hellenistic astrology have their origin in Babylonian astrology (like the exaltations), I also believe in some progress through "explosion" development.

I believe this sudden progress is related to inventions. With the development of spherical trigonometry two millennia ago many calculations could be performed (for example in the use of primary directions) instead of crude estimations. Likewise the invention and use of the computer made astrology and many techniques attainable to many. Some fifty years ago nobody would have considered for a moment to use hundreds of asteroids but with the availability of computers ephemerides for these objects got available and were an inspiration for some to use. Another example is the view that some house systems 'fit' more to certain individuals than others (it is believed that there are 'Regiomontanus' people and 'Campanus' people etc. all fitting to some psychological type ascribed to the system). Computers made this comparison much easier.

MarkC wrote: I dont tend to see these points as completely separate. The general impacts on the specific. In other words if you hold to a rapid explosion type theory based on almost exclusively Greek ideas that inevitably affects how you perceive the development of specific techniques.

I agree, and I don't see the two issues as separate either. I just wasn't sure if you were thinking of some general historical statements that I made at one point in time, or if there was some specific technical argument that I made which gave you the impression that I was a strict 'sudden inventionist', such as the post about the origins of the exaltations on my blog for example.

MarkC wrote: However, in regards the provenance of techniques I do feel there is sometimes a tendency to overemphasize the unity of early hellenistic astrology and underestimate its pluralism. House systems is just one example.

Yes, this is definitely a prevailing tendency at this point. Certainly it has its pros and cons. I think that some of the work that can be done in comparing parallel passages in different authors and identifying common sources raises interesting pieces of evidence for a sort of continuity, and it can also help to explain points of divergence in the tradition. However, the view that the entire tradition was completely unified and coherent in the beginning but then sort of devolved from there can lead to a sort of technical and conceptual myopia that forces one to downplay or overlook areas of discontinuity or divergence. Somehow there has to be room for both approaches.

MarkC wrote: On the historical issue I am not sure if I like using the label 'gradualist' . This implies astrology moves forward like the glaciation process. Incredibly slowly and imperceptably. In contrast to this I think astrology has had many periods when its techniques have taken a progressive spurt forward. What I question is whether the the undeniable leap forward astrology took in 1st or 2nd century Alexandria was based on an almost totally indigenous hellenistic astrology or whether it was the product of the creative cross fertilisation of Greek, Mesopotamian and Egyptian ideas.

I don't think that anyone really doubts the indebtedness that the Hellenistic astrologers had to the earlier Mesopotamian and Egyptian astrological traditions. I think that the main question is exactly how much was inherited from the previous traditions, versus how much was developed subsequently from the synthesis of those traditions that occurred in the Hellenistic period. Some degree of cross-fertilization is a given. However, that does not tell is if the Mesopotamian astrologers had developed a full-fledged aspect theory, if they used houses, planetary rulers of signs, time-lords, etc. That is to say, aside from the techniques and concepts that we do know were inherited from the earlier traditions (the zodiac, decans, twelfth-parts, natal astrology, etc.), what do we say about the techniques that do not have known traditional antecedents?

From what I understand of Hand and Campion's thoughts on this matter, they argue that many of these techniques must have been developed in the late Mesopotamian traditions prior to the visible advent of Hellenistic astrology, and that it is only through the loss of so many cuneiform and other sources that the advent of Hellenistic astrology appears to be such a sudden and drastic departure from what went before.

On the other side of the spectrum, those that argue for more of sudden invention accept that a synthesis took place between the Mesopotamian and Egyptian traditions, but that beyond that there are far too many subsequent technical and conceptual innovations that have little to no known precedent in the earlier traditions for them to simply to have been inherited wholesale. Most importantly, they argue that the systematic character of these developments implies that they were consciously or deliberately constructed in some way.

The whole debate really rests on just a few key issues, the majority of which we may never really be able to fully address due to the loss of early sources.

MarkC wrote: I think the rapid development theory focusing on purely Greek sources ignores a lot of historical evidence to the contrary that states Greek astrology was heavily influenced and indeed founded on Mespotamian astrology. If this was not the case why are so many classical sources repeatedly telling us this? Is it more likely a 1st century writer has it wrong or a 21st century scholar trying to put together the historical jig saw without many of the original primary sources?

The ancient views on the origin of tradition are a pretty tangled problem in it of itself due to a number of factors, and I'm not sure that the statements from the ancient authors themselves can always be taken at face value. Some authors do present more of what we would consider an accurate historical account of the origins of the tradition, either attributing the development of the science to the Mesopotamians or the Egyptians. However, there are just as many who present a more mythological view of the origin of the tradition, likely due to the pseudepigraphical works attributed to those figures at the time, tracing their lineage back to Hermes, Asclepius, Nechepso, Petosiris, Zoroaster, Abraham, Orpheus, etc. From that perspective I do think that we might be in a slightly better position to reconstruct the actual historical development of the subject, or at least make inferences from a broader historical vantage point.

MarkC wrote: To some I extent I fear current debate around hellenistic astrology is too inward looking and too narrowly focused on hellenistic astrological texts. There is a risk this may be mirroring older scholarship on the history of astronomy which gave all the credit to the Greeks at the expense of the Babylonians. For example look at J.L.E. Dreyer's ''A History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler" . Its a great book and very useful. However, as a lover of all things Greek his attitide tended to grossly underestimate the role of Babylonian astronomy in influencing Greek ideas.

I agree. One issue is that while some cuneiform birth charts have survived, we don't really have any technical manuals on astrology from the same period - the period after the advent of natal astrology. One of the things that people get caught up on is the fact that the extant Cuneiform birth charts just list a few planetary placements and then don't say much else, which doesn't give us much of a clue about how they actually delineated charts. What is interesting is that we would be in a similar position with the Hellenistic tradition if it was only the Greek horoscopes that had survived, since the vast majority of the non-literary horoscopes only list the placement of the planets in the signs and then say something curt at the end like 'good luck!'. Obviously this is because astrological consultations in ancient times, just as today, were primarily done orally, not written out. If it were not for the fact that actual technical manuals such as the Tetrabiblos or the Anthology survived into the present day then it would hardly be apparent from the Greek horoscopes how astrology was practiced during that period. To some extent we have to keep in mind that it is likely a similar case with the Cuneiform horoscopes.

Hi Chris,

This is really just a marker to let you know I have read your post. You make some very interesting well balanced points. I will be getting back on some of your ideas when time allows. I particularly want to take up your comment about general classical sources. However, it may be a wee while due to other commitments I have at present.

I have to state the thoughts expressed are purely my own. I haven't come across the ideas of Robert Hand or Nicholas Campion on this. However, I have just ordered Campion's book 'The Dawn of Astrology' which should hopefully set out his position. Could you direct me to where Robert Hand has written on this topic?

Equally, I have only picked up some statements by Robert Schmidt on the Project Hindsight and ACT sites. I would be interested in reading more from all these people. However, as I stated earlier I feel sound ideas should stand on their own merit irrespective of who advocates them.

Mark

my main concern in whole sign houses is in the problem of the absence of intermediate cusps in each sign. There is a way to solve this using lots but the experience shows that house cusps are as sensitive as lots. Otherwise, this is a very a straightfoward system.

Other concern of mine is the innumerable evidences that adding topic meanings to quadrant houses works fine. Lest I had been right by the wrong way... It would be nice to read any example of the colleagues of the thread.

So there is my question. A house cusp has a share of significance in delineation. a planet aspecting a house cusp is effective in describing the form the houses' matters will manifest, lest it has not any dignity there.

To me, a house without cusp is like a TV without antenna, or a greek lot without exact degree... without a cusp, how can it accept the planets' "signals?"

If I should draw a conclusion to that quagmire, would be something like the equal house system adapted to an whole sign perspective, another way of division some jyotishs had already devised. but I would be in a theoretical island since none of the hellenistic astrologers had devised such a house system.

Indeed, my astrology is a mish mash of abu mashar, valens, rhetorius and bonatti... orange juice shaked with pizza and haggies!

Rodd wrote: So there is my question. A house cusp has a share of significance in delineation. a planet aspecting a house cusp is effective in describing the form the houses' matters will manifest, lest it has not any dignity there.

Give the wealth of cusp-based house systems I would be more cautious about asserting that cusps are beyond doubt effective.

Rodd wrote: To me, a house without cusp is like a TV without antenna, or a greek lot without exact degree... without a cusp, how can it accept the planets' "signals?"

Indeed cusps seem to be useful in this view of astrology, in particular when analyzing transits to the natal and seeing them as a kind of astrological "weather-map". However it's my understanding the ancients only used sign ingresses and conjunctions as transits, I've read somewhere the Greek for word transit means passing over (and the traditional Indian system also only has these kind of transits).

Giving more emphasis to house placement than cusps seems to support an astrology where not every area of the life is equally deterministic all the time, some areas are just not particularly good or bad but more indifferent. And in real life I believe most people have most of the time only a crisis affecting one life area at a time (unless it's at least to some extent self-initiated such as nervous breakdown through stress or alcholism etc.).

Give the wealth of cusp-based house systems I would be more cautious about asserting that cusps are beyond doubt effective.

It is not a rare ocurrence to find most of the cusps of different quadrant systems in approximate degrees. If we stick to the concept of orb, that assumption would not be a challenge. I think the discussion is focused on using a whole sign approach without the intermediate sensitive points versus a quadrant house usage.

Giving more emphasis to house placement than cusps seems to support an astrology where not every area of the life is equally deterministic all the time, some areas are just not particularly good or bad but more indifferent. And in real life I believe most people have most of the time only a crisis affecting one life area at a time (unless it's at least to some extent self-initiated such as nervous breakdown through stress or alcholism etc.).

Crisis are not shown merely by aspects to house cusps. It is a intrincated combination of different predictive technics which will give to the astrologer the sense of importance of an celestial event representing a crisis. I do not use then in that way; instead, I am advocating their use in natal delineation, although the immediate outcome of this consideration is the spreading of the cusp's usefulness also in predictive technics.

Rodd wrote: Crisis are not shown merely by aspects to house cusps. It is a intrincated combination of different predictive technics which will give to the astrologer the sense of importance of an celestial event representing a crisis. I do not use then in that way; instead, I am advocating their use in natal delineation, although the immediate outcome of this consideration is the spreading of the cusp's usefulness also in predictive technics.

I guess I then just have a different philosophy. I do not belive Jack Welch or Bill Gates were fated to be rich and one need to find an aspect to some cusp to explain their career, they got rich through hard work and self-initiative. But say Gates' fortune in marriage or geeky appearance is something he has not influenced as much himself.

EDIT: For the record I should maybe say I believe Venus and Mercury have been interchanged at some stage (not so much the meanings) and Welch does seem to have an exalted Mercury in the 10th sidereally. But a total determinist would also have to explain his 2nd, 11th, 9th and 4th house etc.

I think we must address to house cusps as we are adressing on lots. After all, aren't they all based on the horizon? The vast majority of the lots are cast from the ascendant.

One thing, however, is to discuss intermediate house-cusp significance; another is the "free will versus fate" discussion. I think we are messing up two separate issues.

On the other hand, I am now spelling out a different sense of your argument. The significance of house division is likely linked to the conception of topic determination.

If we rely too much on fate, every issue of our lives would have its counterpart in a house system; if we stick to an uncertain sense of free will, there are less motives to use intermediate cusps. This argument sounds coherent, however, if you do not use so much lots for every life topic you ant to know, yet greeks and arabs had so much of them in their practice.