Skyscript Astrology Forum

No it doesn't. They'll carp that you were 45 minutes wrong on the time so therefore the entire prediction was invalid. Or you'll tell them something so accurate that atheist-materialism aside, they'll cross the road and start making the sign of the evil eye when they see you.

I guess the second way does shut them up but you certainly won't win any popularity contests from it.

So - don't make predictions for atheist-materialists. Don't even talk to them about astrology if they fancy themselves debunkers.

I'm not keen to try to prove astrology by statistics anyway, and outside of very limited applications, I don't think it's possible. We're talking two entirely different worldviews and they don't match well. Plus if the would-be debunkers (and it's always them) don't know the first thing about astrology....remember STARBABY?

Thanks, Steven, for your very thoughtful post. I'm going to interlineate some thoughts. (Your thoughts are too interesting, and my reply is long, but I want to address your points and explain mine.)

steven wrote:

Statistical tests study the meaning of undetermined universal significators and usually find that universal significators are meaningless.

It is especially the statement that universal significators are usually meaningless that, in my opinion, quit wrong. The determination of planets is in three ways: naturally, accidentally and specifically. Their indications and significance is based on these three elements. Their universal or "natural" significations are just that; universal.

It's worse than you think. But I also have to correct something. I should have said that undetermined universal significators are meaningless. According to Morin they are always meaningless--and tests usually find them to be. Actually what I should say is not "meaningless"--but that they mean nothing: no thing. And I should qualify: They have no actual and effective meaning until determined to particular meanings and effects in the houses of the chart. They refer to a repository of potential meanings, all the meanings in the category they rule. So you're right I was wrong in stating it carelessly.

Morin talked about it (in translation) in these terms:

No planet can cause or indicate anything in the horoscope except according to these methods of determination. Astrologia Gallica, Book 21, p. 4. (Trans. Baldwin 2008).

But the Sun does not have any influence on earth, or any animal born on it, except very generally, but not specifically--as on the health, profession, etc.--because no such specific influence exists except that which is brought about through these houses. Astrologia Gallica, Book 21. (Trans. Baldwin 2008), p. 10. (emphasis supplied)

For example, the Sun stands for the health, the father, the rank or position, etc. But because this analogy is based on the essential nature of the Sun and the influence of the Sun is completely universal and indifferent, the Sun could not by analogy alone indicate the health any more than it could the father, the husband, the king, or the position, although the Sun's naure does indicate the persons or circumstances which are illustrious, public, and distinguished, rather than obscure and of little importance. But because of this general indifference one could not assume the Sun means any one of these things more than another. If it were taken to stand for everything--that is, the father, husband, position in life, etc.--everyone would agree that that would be absurd and contrary to experience. Astrologia Gallica, Book 21.(Trans. Baldwin 2008), p. 18. (emphasis supplied)

Lots of quoted words, but they are revealing, and also point to places in the text for easy reference.

Morin said that universal significators mean everything in the category they rule, but mean nothing in particular until they are determined to meanings by the houses of the chart. As the signs work through the planets in Morin's system, the planets' influence is realized through the houses. So, yes, universal significators mean everything in the category they rule, but those meanings are potential until actualized through the houses.

steven wrote:But that testimony may be (and I can't lay any percentage on how often) weaker than its accidental or specific just as often as not!.

This is an interesting point. Morin said that a planet's natural meanings are actualized only as they are determined to meanings and effects through the houses. In consideration of planetary nature (universal significations), celestial state (essential dignities, plus more, like retrograde, combust, etc., which remain universal because still undetermined through the houses), determinations through the houses (accidental significations) Morin put emphasis on how those different considerations function rather than how much they each influence. How much is about strength of position in the chart (e.g., angular, disposing key planets, etc.).

Nature is the first consideration in Morin's system. It is by a planet's nature that we see first whether the matter of the house(s) it influences will be realized or not before we use the factors of state to qualify nature, and strength of position to quantity nature's effects.

steven wrote:This is why trying to prove anything statistically, perhaps could be measured but absolutely not with the methods presented so far. A statistical method would have to be able to seperate and show clear lines between the differences that occur in signification. That is a very difficult thing to do since one might arrive at a type of profession, for example, because of the testimony of the lord of the 10th and another with the same type of profession where the indications are because of an angular planet joined to another. Because there is no "one" and only means of determination, then how do you separate and distinguish a characteristic?

Morin does not ignore natural significations, just read his delineations. I can show you dozens of examples of real people who have the same type of work (for example I have many charts of architects and engineers), and no two of them are alike in their determinations! But if you consider all the elements that we are reminded by the ancients to use, then we will find that charts are individuals and are each unique but give "similar" indications.

Yes, I completely agree. This is an important point, and one that traditional astrologers get, as your comments suggest, by thinking about how we do the art.

Hart deFouw makes this point in his Jyotish classes. So does Douglas Kyle Pierce in ?Reconciling interpretive and statistical significance?. In M. Pottenger (ed.), Astrological Research Methods, Vol. 1: an ISAR Anthology (pp. 113-117). Los Angeles: International Society for Astrological Research (1995). Pierce urged that researchers study groups that are ?homogeneous with respect to their astrological signatures rather than to their observable behaviors.? He said that researchers should ?base?research goals and methods on the thoughtful examination of astrological principles.?

Astrology is for predicting (using the word in a broad sense rather than to distinguish approaches to or views of astrology) from the chart what we will see in the world--with a fruitful and necessary interactive relationship in which the astrologer looks from world to chart to world and back again time after time. I think Deb suggested in this string or another: That astrologers don't work in a vacuum in which the chart is set apart from life. (This may turn out to be a reason statistics can't catch us doing what we do--because statistics has to isolate and hide things and maybe won't be able to see enough of what astrologers do, anymore than ones who hold the dissecting knife see the antelope run when they dissect the corpse).

Astrology is not for looking at the world and guessing what the chart might be. Of course we do that. I can't imagine an astrologer who doesn't do that--as a way of life. But we're not judging a chart when we do it. We're seeing the universal symbols play through life. There's also the special case of rectification, which, for similar reasons if I understand, Atlantean, you mention as a way to deal with this problem of statistical test design which is about how statistical researchers cast their questions and design their tests the wrong way round.

Eysenck and Nias in Astrology: Science or Superstition (1984) failed to make this distinction when they prescribed what kind of test astrology must pass. (That was their idea--I don't think astrology has to pass any kind of test except that it's done well and right and works for the purposes for which we use it in life.) That prescription, or the ideas underlying it, have defined the basic approach to tests that purport to test astrology--and they've been the wrong approach.

steven wrote:This is what irritates many people today who read these ancients texts; one astrologer tells us to look at one thing and another tells us to look at another. Has it ever occured to someone that either are valid under certain conditions? - and people give up on traditional because one technique does not work 100% of the time. This is consistent with the thought that instead of trying to cast rules into stone, we have to know many circumstances and the results of those particular circumstances and weigh them all to each nativity which is unique in itself and unlike any other.

Yes, again I completely agree. This multiplicity of techniques is like having a tool box filled with everything a guy or gal might need to fix any sink or bathtub that has a leak. Techniques are our tool box stuffers. But, as you say, we need to know what they do and how to use them, how to prioritize and weight them, and how to use them along with other techniques. This is why method, and theory, become important--and a teacher who points the way and repeatedly demonstrates the method in various circumstances, and why we need to make constant cross-reference to life. And cosmology becomes essential for this reason as well, as also the accompanying philosophical and ethical systems in which astrology is culturally and traditionally embedded. All these factors tell us how to array and use the stunningly rich collections of techniques that clamor in the traditional texts.

One way to address this problem of the multiplicity of techniques reported in traditional texts is through principles of exegesis. Jyotish shastra is written in poetry, and needs to be read as such. It is also a cardinal principal of Jyotish tradition that the teacher and the teachings of a lineage add to, interpret and show us how to use the texts. Hart deFouw emphasizes this point in his Jyotish classes.

As you said, Steven: "A statistical method would have to be able to seperate and show clear lines between the differences that occur in signification." Again, I completely agree with you. And it goes to the heart of what I want to communicate. We start with a method set within astrological theory, cosmology and natural philosophy, and use it systematically according to principle and rule in a structured approach. It's not the techniques that tell us which technique to grab in a given moment from the tool box. It's the method, and the skill and instinctual knowledge that becomes deeply ingrained in how we see and relate to a chart. There are clear lines, and they lie in the theory and particularly in the method, not in the techniques.

steven wrote:I stopped trying to justify astrology a long time ago. Because even if I could devise a statistical approach which took consideration of all the factors of "determination" or "disposition", still the modern scientific mindset would never accept that I understand something because of "wisdom". So I'll let people continue to argue and theorise on the subject. As for me I just continue to practice it, everyday and on real live people and their problems and victories.

I should just get a little emoticon that specifically means: "I agree with you completely, Steven" because that's again true.

I completely agree that astrology doesn't need to be justified. I do think that we need--I might say even desperately need--clear understanding and, most important, use of astrological method, and clear theory, cosmology and natural philosophy to put the great art to the best use--and understand what the heck it is we're doing with it. True, different ones of us can do different things, and thank goodness for that. But in my view we need to understand what we're doing and put it into perspective that clarifies our worlds and our art. I think traditional astrologers are the ones who understand what that would mean and get a sense of what that would look like.

These to me are foundations of astrological practice. Ptolemy devoted the first three chapters of Tetrabiblos to foundations, or preliminaries, of astrological doctrine and practice. But it's the edifice built on the foundations that we care about, and how we live in and with it.

Statistical tests are a tool of knowledge. So are other things?like tarot cards, for example. I don?t need tarot cards to confirm astrology, even though they do confirm it in their very use of astrological symbols. If statistical tests don?t confirm astrology, it says something about the limitations of statistical tests, and/or the nature of astrology and its practice. I do care that we have clarity in discussions of astrology, including in discussions of astrology?s relationship to statistical tests. I have a sense of needing to to sort out the state of astrology as it burgeons into new life with all the wonderful work that?s going on now in traditional methods. I?ve needed to think through these things. For me, straightening this out for myself is like cleaning up the desk to set to work. I think we astrologers have a somewhat cluttered theoretical and methodological desk.

There?s another reason that this topic began to seem important to me. It is this: Statistical tests proceed as though the practice of celestial arts that is often referred to as ?modern astrology? is the art. By approaching astrological theory and method as a question about the problem with statistical tests, my hope is that not only statisticians and testers but also astrologers will begin to formulate different questions and see things in a somewhat different way. Astrological theory would benefit, and so method and practice would benefit.

Those who design statistical tests don?t make a distinction between the traditional art that reflects cosmos and modern celestial arts that make unstructured, unmethodical, unsystematic and undetermined use of universal significators tied only incidentally and when the spirit moves to the houses of the chart. Many people prefer the energy and suggestiveness of the symbols themselves to their highly structured, rule-based, methodical, saturnine, artful and crafty use. But such an approach will never be something that statistical tests can grasp.* It may be they can grasp something of the traditional art--which won't matter to many practitioners who know what they're doing and don't much care what anybody else thinks about it. I entirely respect that attitude, and once my desk is clear, likely will pretty much settle down and only tidy up now and then.

*It just occurred reading this over to purge errors if I can, that this may be related to questions about horary, which it seems to me sits in a very interesting relationship to these questions, as the posts in this string show. Horary uses a lot of structure and rules yet we use it as the spirit moves--which is not to say we don't use rules before judgment. I would call traditional horary scientific because it reveals the structure of cosmos. And our relationships with charts and people born with those charts also always includes, after the method is honored, the rules applied and many considerations sorted and weighed, how the spirit brings it all to life.

olivia wrote: It wouldn't hurt if the scientists understood the astrology, either, but it's not something you can pick up overnight.

I completely agree, Olivia--but I would take it a little further: Researchers must be properly educated, well versed and skilled in the method they seek to study before they are competent to study it. How would it be if I set out to test Einstein's theory of relativity and I never got past high school algegra and flunked out of trigonometry and have never heard of calculus. Well, I could try, but I wouldn't be a very good choice to run those tests.

(I do apologize for the length.)

Thanks for your thoughts, Steven, and for those of others as well,

Penny

In defense of Morin, I'd like to point out that he was an astrologer and scientist of great repute, had had been in service of Cardinal Richelieu for almost 20 years and was known for the accuracy of his predictions (often mean, such as predicting the time of death to his enemies). So I do not agree that his only contribution is that he reiterated what the ancients were saying. His main argument that the local determination of the planets is the most important in judging the nativity, is hard to argue with. And, the only positive statistical tests of astrology have to do with local determination of the planets (i.e. them being on the angles of the chart in Gauguelin's tests.) I think it depends on the perspective. If you are interpreting the subjective and psychological states, than the general indications are valuable, but if you're interpreting the practical experiences and events in life, than local determination is more crucial.
With that said, I agree that Morin discounted some techniques that do have verification in experience. For e.g. he considered secondary progressions a pure fiction. In my experience (limited as it is), I saw that the Sun Venus aspects in sec. progressions indicated marriage in many cases of my clients and friends.
Astrology is highly symbolic and it is a divination system. So sometimes I wonder if it is similar to divining on tea leaf or cards, the intuition of the reader (astrologer in this case) simply picks up the associations between the symbols of the chart. So, I think some causality is there (i.e. the planet A causes the effect B), but it is much more systemic, and there is a lot of hidden connections. The intuition of the reader synthesizes the symbols that seem meaningful into something of coherence.
Anyway, I much appreciate this discussion, as I'm writing my dissertation on symbolic meaningfulness of astrology and wonder myself why statistics have not validated it more. I like the "dimensional ontology" view proposed by Frankl. If you look at a three-dimensional object from a two-dimensional point of view, you'll only see the partial or distorted view of it. It seems to be the case with applying statistics to astrology. Still the practical experience of astrologers confirms it on a daily basis.

Thanks for your thoughts, Steven.

steven wrote: With regards to Morin, I have to be honest and say that on some points I agree (because he in fact is only re-iterating what many of the ancients had to say) on others I do not (his throwing out important considerations such as term rulers and changing the triplicities; whose concepts have very long histories which he is completely ignorant of).

steven wrote: A good example of his mind set and the questions it raises is found in the quote you gave above. I will remove your emphasis and add mine

For example, the Sun stands for the health, the father, the rank or position, etc. But because this analogy is based on the essential nature of the Sun and the influence of the Sun is completely universal and indifferent, the Sun could not by analogy alone indicate the health any more than it could the father, the husband, the king, or the position, although the Sun's naure does indicate the persons or circumstances which are illustrious, public, and distinguished, rather than obscure and of little importance.

The question I ask myself is on what grounds does Morin make this distinction; i.e. how can he discriminate between one natural signification and another and say these natural significations must be determined to houses while this one doesn't? His point becomes ludicrous because he turns around and does what he accuses others of doing mistakenly.

I think the point you raise here can be settled by interpretation of the words. As I interpret this passage (as translated) the words are meant to refer to Sun?s nature as it is determined in a chart?but in a kind of passing way: ?does indicate persons or circumstances which are illustrious, public and distinguished.? The local determinations are implied by ?persons or circumstances.? Thus, when in the 1st (assuming good enough state, etc.) the Sun indicates the native (a person) is illustrious. When in the 10th indicates the career (a circumstance) is so; when in the 7th, the spouse, and so on.

steven wrote: and universal significators are meaningless then what is indicated?

My error was misleading. I should have said ?undetermined universal significators mean nothing?no thing?until their meaning is determined through the houses of the chart. Then, their determined meanings are absolutely of first importance. He?s talking about bringing the Sky down to Earth. The Sky is definitely still there, and is what the houses bring down?the fish we?re out to catch in local determinations?and the Sky?s influence, which comes through the planets, is nature and celestial state. I think Tom mentioned the relationship between nature and state also in a recent post, as I recall the same one referred to above. I think he was talking about Morin?s example of Saturn in good state in the 10th. In a recent string on malefics in high honor, I think it was.

I?m coming back to edit a couple of posts I wrote in this string that failed to focus on the point I wanted to make and to say what I wanted to say. The main point I wish to make is that statistical tests as they are currently designed test astrology only by chance.

Two things make this failure of statistical tests clear. One is that astrologers who use a traditional system or approach to astrology can see that the statements tested in statistical tests as results predicted from identified astrological factors are not statements that would support the occurrences predicted in the tests. This is a practical argument. For example, astrologers would not predict a fatal accident from no more than Mars and the ascendant come together by direction or progression. Yet tests just like this Mars/ascendant/death test is typical of the design of statistical tests that purport to test astrology. Informed observation of a skilled traditional astrology who uses a method of determination tied to the wheel (or square) of houses reveals how astrology works and, therefore, something of what it would take to test it. A test that finds, consistent with traditional astrological practice, that Mars directed or progressed to the ascendant is not predictive of fatal accident does not in any way call astrology into question.

Understanding of a second failure of statistical tests? efforts to test astrology depends on a theory of astrological signification and determination. In horoscopic astrology, celestial configurations are determined to particular meanings and effects through the ascendant?called the horoscopos (?watcher of the hour?) in Greek astrology, the source of the name commonly used now to refer to an astrological chart as a whole. In a theory of astrological signification on which Morin?s method and system rest, undetermined universal significators refer to a whole category of natural meanings without distinction among things that the category comprises. Universal significators, because they refer to no thing in particular, mean and effect nothing in particular except as they are a determined to particular meanings tied to the ascendant and the wheel of astrological houses. Because statistical tests as they are designed usually test, except by chance, for the meanings and effects of undetermined universal significators, they correctly find that undetermined universal significators do not mean or effect any one or more of their natural meanings.

Researchers have assumed that they can test astrology by testing for the meaning and effect of astrology?s undetermined universal significators by using a frequentist statistical approach like that used to study, for example, the relationship between diet and body weight.

Eysenck & Nias, in Astrology: Science or Superstition (1984) depended on this analogy to assert that a frequentist statistical approach that tests undetermined universal significators is appropriate to test astrology. It is not. The practice of traditional astrology makes that clear, as does a basic theory of astrological signification and determination that Morin stated and demonstrated in his work.

Eysenck and Nias asserted this analogy as the only support for the approach they said is suitable to test astrology. Several considerations show their assertion by analogy is incorrect. I enumerate some of those reasons in the paper I cited above on astrological prediction and statistical tests.

Significant positive results in tests that tie planets to the angles of the chart suggest that Morin's theory of astrologicla signification and determination is true and that statistical tests might be designed that could test that possibility. Those tests include, for example, the tests that estblish the Gauquelin Mars effect, the Hill & Thompson redhead studies and a test and a preliminary test of angular Moon that Kenneth Irving reports.

At the very least, researchers who sought to test horoscopic astrology would need to (1) test in accord with basic astrological theory and method and, therefore, test the meanings and effects of astrological signatures as they are determined by the horoscopos and through the wheel of houses; (2) test a system of astrology with the system intact; (3) proceed with a structured approach to the chart that prioritizes and weights factors in a manner prescribed by and appropriate to the system tested, and (4) imitate as well as possible what an astrologer does. It is at least conceivable that this latter requirement might be sufficiently well simulated with some kind of computer simulation of the use of astrological theory, method, system, principles of weighting and prioritization, approach to the chart, rules, techniques and judgment?something like the kind of thing that a computer chess program does, perhaps.

The focus of the argument is on horoscopic astrology. It uses natal astrology to make its argument for simplicity?s sake?and because one branch of astrology is sufficient to make the basic point. The point I wish to make is neither that astrology can nor should be testable with statistical methods, nor that astrology needs to be proved in any way except by its practice as a way of life. The point I wish to make is that has not been tested by statistical methods. The design of statistical tests along frequentist statistical lines fails to represent astrology and therefore fails to test it.

This argument about statistical tests of astrology and astrological determination raises questions about what cosmos is and how astrology relates to cosmos.

Penny

It wouldn't hurt if the scientists understood the astrology, either, but it's not something you can pick up overnight.

(.....) Researchers must be properly educated, well versed and skilled in the method they seek to study before they are competent to study it. How would it be if I set out to test Einstein's theory of relativity and I never got past high school algegra and flunked out of trigonometry and have never heard of calculus. Well, I could try, but I wouldn't be a very good choice to run those tests.

There may be quite a few researcher who tested astrology with only a cookbook at their disposal, however people like Geoffrey Dean and Rudolf Smit were professional astrologers with clients, before they quit astrology. Arthur Mather was an amateur astrologer.

The following was something I found very interesting from a sociological point of view.

As a person I have very little respect for the man . (Morin)

(.....)

I will not emulate or follow someone devoid of any of the virtues necessary to give real understanding and wisdom of the human condition.

I don't want to argue this standpoint but I'd like to point out that I believe this shows the difference between the objective and the subjective view on astrology. If a certain astrological technique would statistically be proven to be working, then this would be a fact to be viewed separate of the one who taught it. In science Isaac Newton for example is said to have been an unpleasant man who had people sent to the gallows, however modern society would (technically) have been nowhere without his science.

On the other side when people teach a certain religion, then it is much more important how the teacher is. How can people take a priest seriously if he teaches certain moral values but doesn't live by these values himself. (The values though need not to be an absolute truth provable by science, they only have to be believed and maintained by the priest and believers, like premarital virginity, abstinence of porc etc.)

So the objective view of astrology, studying the technical part is much more dissociated from the one who teaches it than the subjective view. In the latter case a sympathetic teacher with high moral standards is almost necessary.

Eddy wrote:There may be quite a few researcher who tested astrology with only a cookbook at their disposal, however people like Geoffrey Dean and Rudolf Smit were professional astrologers with clients, before they quit astrology. Arthur Mather was an amateur astrologer.

Hi, Eddie,

I just reread all the posts in this string. Practicing astrologers have weighed in with reasons based on their astrological practice that lead them to suspect, believe or know that statistical methods cannot capture what they do. I ,made a partial summary of them for myself just now to collect different astrologers? thoughts about this question. (If anyone would like me to post it, I'd be happy to.) It?s quite a rich and well-reasoned, experience-based statement of views, many of them taking the view that astrology is either difficult, impossible, or certainly quite unusual as a thing to test with statistical methods.

These are practicing astrologers? views, the views of people who?ve spent a long time not only doing the art, but studying it, thinking about it, talking about it, using it for life and making it a way of life. All of them are questioning how and whether statistics can capture astrology. Some reject the idea, especially for horary, based on what they know about what works in what they do.

I mentioned before in this string that Rudoph Smit published an essay on his website, I believe it?s called ?Astrology, My Passion? or a similar title, in which he made a brief report on something that he considered to be a test of astrology. His report provides a clear and simple example of a glaring problem in attempts to test astrology. Mr. Smit started to collect charts in which Mars and the ascendant came together by progression (it may have been only conjunctions, but I don?t recall). He looked for fatal accidents among those charts and found that there was no statistically significant relationship between the ?astrological signature? and death by accident. This lead Mr. Smit to doubt astrology.

No practicing astrologer who knows the art believes that a progression in which Mars and the ascendant come together is likely, without more, to signify fatal accident. The idea contradicts ?experience and reason.? I haven?t tried to count up, and wouldn?t know how, but I suspect that if this were a basis on which to predict death, the streets in every place where people who have Mars in their birth charts congregate would be littered with corpses pretty much all the time.

Here?s a set-up for some questions:
1. Mr. Smit made a study of whether death by accident is statistically associated with the Mars-ascendant progression he mentions.
2. He found that it is not.
3. No astrologer would predict fatal death from this Mars-ascendant progression.
4. Mr. Smit concluded that his ?test? called astrology into question.

Here are my questions:
1. Is this good science and good reasoning?
2. Does this make sense as a way to test astrology?
3. If results of a test are entirely consistent with astrological principles, practice and rules, do those results call astrology into question?

My answer to these questions is ?no.?

I?d like to ask you a question, Eddy, if you feel that you?d like to answer it. As a person interested in modern scientific views and methods, how would you answer those questions? Or, how do you think that Mr. Smit or Mr. Dean or their colleagues should answer those questions, applying good reasoning to a good assessment of the facts?

This has nothing to do with Mr. Smit personally and is in no way an ad hominem argument. It's just that the example he gave is a clear and simple instance that highlights what I see as the most glaring error--so big and bright and simple that we didn't see it right away--in statistical tests of astrology.

Penny

Hi Penny

many of them taking the view that astrology is either difficult, impossible, or certainly quite unusual as a thing to test with statistical methods.

It would appear that 'astrology' here is being limited to the kind of astrology that deals with individuals (person-centred astrology or whatever you want to call it). I agree this kind of astrology doesn't lend itself at all to statistical testing, being far too vague with too many variables.

When this subject has come up in the past, it has often been suggested that mundane astrology might be more appropriate for statistical testing. On this thread in fact several people have mentioned weather and sports predicting, both of which would come under this category. Financial astrology also perhaps? I'm not saying it can be done, but it might stand a better chance than natal and horary.

Hopefully your hobby horse isn't too blinkered to consider all areas of astrology

Ficina wrote:It would appear that 'astrology' here is being limited to the kind of astrology that deals with individuals (person-centred astrology or whatever you want to call it). I agree this kind of astrology doesn't lend itself at all to statistical testing, being far too vague with too many variables.

Hi, Ficina,

What I?ve wanted to do is step back from questions about which branches or techniques of astrology are most suited to test, and make a point about method.

The point I want to make is: That statistical method?s failure to grasp astrological method is the problem with statistical tests.

A number of astrologers who posted said that or something like it in one way or another. Some of those who posted said that it may be possible to test some branches or techniques. Others said that it may be possible, but identify a number of reasons that it would be very difficult in any case. Others think it?s impossible. Others don?t care about statistics?perhaps the wisest approach so as not to let it take time from the art itself.

But your comment relates to something I was thinking when I was thinking about Steven?s last post. I was thinking that with so much being discovered, how can astrologers recognize the value of all that comes within the tradition, and make sense of how it all relates. It?s all in the world of astrology, so it?s part of our world. All astrologers have a deep drive to understand our world(s).

It seems to me that method is key, and it seems to me that astrologers who made comments here were saying that in different ways.

Method is the thing that modern science most focuses on, and lauds itself for. They?ve put a lot of thought, observation, practice and argument into figuring out the terms of their method. The fruit of that has been quite a lot of clarity within the terms of their enterprise that has helped them in many areas of their vast (and very well funded) undertaking. And a lot of technology, and a deeply limited?limited to the point of deluded?view of what is?if they take their enterprise to define cosmos and all that cosmos is.

Modern science took over for astrology in the 17th century, as much or more than it took over for religion even. And it took over the terms that astrologers used to talk about cosmos and reshaped them to its purposes. Now it seems that looking at what modern science has done with what astrologers knew and did for many centuries can help unwind us from confusions and limitations of a modern scientific view.

One problem is that we don?t have common terms in which to talk about astrological foundations (or preliminaries)?the thing Ptolemy addressed in the first three chapters of Tetrabiblos.

Method is different from systems of astrology, and both are different from rules and techniques. Within one method many systems can thrive. ?Method? comes from the Latin methodus, which comes from the Greek for ?pursuit of knowledge, mode of investigation.? ?System? comes from the Latin syst?ma, ?musical interval, the universe?, from the Greek for ?organized whole, constitution, musical interval.? It comes from the Greek root for ?to set up.? The prefix is syn-, ?together.?

A method is a pursuit of knowledge and a way to investigate. A system is an organized whole that is set up together. One method?which I take horoscopic astrology to be?can accommodate many systems. Systems stand together or they fall apart. But methods aren?t like that. They have more room.

I think this helps understand something that has seemed hard to understand within astrology. Different systems can rub elbows just fine within the method of astrology?including systems that use one zodiac or the other, different techniques, different rules or different triplicity rulers. That?s because they are different systems?though they use the same method.

I find Morin?s system to be extraordinarily powerful, more so the more I learn of it and use it. But the point I wanted to make about statistics and astrology, and therefore about astrology, is a point about method. Morin analyzed, explained and demonstrated astrological method in a wonderfully clarifying way. He may have thought his system replaced other systems. I don?t think so, and I don?t think anyone needs to think that to use Morin?s system. I do think he told us something about astrological method that is extremely valuable.

I wouldn't say "person-centered" except in the sense that the ascendant is the person and horoscopic astrology is traditionally ascendant centered--centered on the horoscopos. So in that sense, yes.

But it's more like "microcosm-centered." Its fundamental committment is to seing the whole person living in the person's whole world. (Not every detail of course, a matter left to god.) It uses derived houses (turning the wheel)--in a powerful and beautiful way--in order to flesh out the native's world. It insists on seeing the whole chart--and especially the ascendant, midheaven and the Lights--in order to see any part of it. Every bridge strut needs a bridge.

I don't share the view that 'modern astrology' is psychological and traditional astrology is not. I think 'modern astrology' departs from astrological method, and that traditional astrology knows better than to leave the person out of the person's world. The chart shows the person living in the person's unique world.

Thanks for your comment. I hope this clarifies.

Penny

I hope this clarifies.

Yes and no I think I understand where you're coming from when you differentiate between method and systems or different branches of astrology. However, I am still somewhat concerned that your examples throughout have focused on astrology relating to individuals. For example:

Its fundamental committment is to seing the whole person living in the person's whole world.

and

The chart shows the person living in the person's unique world.

This is not true of an event chart for example or the chart of a currency.

All astrologers have a deep drive to understand our world(s).

'Some astrologers...' would probably be more accurate, but I don't think people's motivations are the issue here - or are they? Perhaps it's the only thing that (some) astrologers and scientists have in common!

Olivia wrote:No it doesn't. They'll carp that you were 45 minutes wrong on the time so therefore the entire prediction was invalid. Or you'll tell them something so accurate that atheist-materialism aside, they'll cross the road and start making the sign of the evil eye when they see you.

I guess the second way does shut them up but you certainly won't win any popularity contests from it.

So - don't make predictions for atheist-materialists. Don't even talk to them about astrology if they fancy themselves debunkers.

yes it does. I've looked at an secular individual's chart for a few minutes that I had never met before and told them about their childhood sexual abuse.
they shut up.

This thread touches on a number of thought provoking topics and I know I'm late jumping into the discussion but hope you don't mind my going back to the use of statistics as a means of 'proving' or 'justifying' the use of astrology.

The biggest factor hindering the application of statistics is not in the nature of astrology itself but in our own understanding of astrology; astrologers agree on very little even when they class themselves in similar groups i.e. Hellenistic, traditional, medieval, modern, etc. It seems everyone who studies astrology comes to it with their own ideas of why it works and all complain that those who went before are rarely clear in explaining how it works.

Valens texts are replete with bitter complaints about the ancients not stating things clearly; Ptolemy claimed delineation was "to confusing, difficult and too indefinite"; Morin is no exception. There are some, like Bonatti, Schoener, Lilly, who repeated what earlier astrologers said and then added their own thoughts on what worked and there were others (Ptolemy, Abu Ma'shar, Placidus, Morin) who tried to make sense of what earlier astrologers said, tossing what they believed didn't work, adding what, in their experience, they believed did work all the while believing they were restoring astrology. Yet, with each newly translated text, we find older reasoning and techniques that the restorers were either unaware of or simply didn't understand.

Astrologers today are no different and therein lies the rub. It is impossible to statistically test what we can't agree on. Penny's idea that Morin's approach would provide a good starting point is valid; however, as Steven pointed out, it would need to be expanded to include elements Morin tossed out i.e. the terms. For my part, it would also need to include profections and lots. There would need to be a clear definition of all technical terms, rules of determination in radix charts, clearly defined techniques, etc.

In a nutshell, the community would have to come to at least temporary agreement on certain basic elements and techniques as well as establish valid testing criteria. A tall order, and even jumping this hurdle may not be enough to convince the world of science that astrology is, in fact, a science and not a pseudo-science.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt to come up with clear definitions, well defined techniques and valid testing criteria; only that it is naive to think it will change anything either within or without the astrological community. In the end, it is impossible to prove a negative, any astrologer who insists on one method will not be deterred from using it because one study shows it doesn't work; any non-astrologer will not be convinced of astrologies scientific basis because one or two or three studies show one facet of it does work. Human beings are, if anything, irrational and stubborn in their beliefs.

penny seator wrote:

Eddy wrote:Here?s a set-up for some questions:
1. Mr. Smit made a study of whether death by accident is statistically associated with the Mars-ascendant progression he mentions.
2. He found that it is not.
3. No astrologer would predict fatal death from this Mars-ascendant progression.
4. Mr. Smit concluded that his ?test? called astrology into question.

Here are my questions:
1. Is this good science and good reasoning?
2. Does this make sense as a way to test astrology?
3. If results of a test are entirely consistent with astrological principles, practice and rules, do those results call astrology into question?

My answer to these questions is ?no.?

Hi Penny,
I read Smit's 'Astrology, My Passion' and indeed he mentions the tests.

Rudolf Smit wrote:I tested the statement that in the charts of people who had died an accidental death, there would be a remarkable incidence of Progressed Ascendant to Mars, or of Progressed Mars to the Ascendant.

He thus tested a statement which can be found in books etc. Note that this took place ca. 30 years ago. Secondary progressions were probably the most popular prediction tools. And I believe that the progression of the ascendant is in fact a sort of primary direction which was calculated in a particular simple method. Few people had computers 30 years ago. In the '70s/'80s many books (available in the Netherlands and before Hamaker-Zondag's Jungian mission) especially the pre WWII books were of a style to be found in Alan Leo's work like 'Progressed Horoscope': http://books.google.nl/books?id=GIMfmrF ... q=&f=false There (p. 223 n?369 we see Mars Ascendant relations as harmful for health and sometimes injury) And here's an article of Gauricus' warning to King Henry II of France http://www.skyscript.co.uk/gauricus.html The primary direction of Ascendant to Mars is involved. So there were astrologers who believed in the danger of such Mars astrologers.

So your question if this is a good test then I must say that if in astrological teaching such a direction or progression is stated to be dangerous, then it can be tested. Although other factors in a chart can make that the dangerous effect is mitigated, a big number of violent death charts should show a more than average number of these Mars positions.

However often it is said that one must also look at the 'promise' in the natal chart. If it is possible to find a 'promise' of danger in the natal then it could be tested by giving astrologers a number of charts of which there are a few of which the owner had a fatal accident. If the right charts are chosen from the whole number and above chance level then there's something in it. The next thing to do would then be to find the direction or any other prediction method to find the moment of the fatal accident.

And Smit continues:

Sure, there were a few (but the word says it all: a few), hence not an overwhelming number which could confirm the textbook statement. And so it went on and on. And one can imagine that my views on astrology had sobered down somewhat. Yet, I was still a believer, simply because I had happy clients, who tended to come back. So why complain!?

The change came when he learnt about 'artifacts' like cold reading and Barnum effect. Tests have shown that these are very effective and convincing.

The reasoning seems okay and scientific. A statement is tested and turns out to be incorrect. It doesn't devaluate astrology as a whole but only this statement. I'm afraid I don't totally understand your third question. If results of a test are entirely consistent with astrological principles, practice and rules, you mean if the tests turn out to be positive? Then I would say that the researchers would be convinced that there's some value in some parts of astrology.

Or did you mean that the tests should be done taking into account the rules like you pointed out in your initial post in which you mentioned that according to Morin planets can be different according to the placements in houses and signs? This still could be tested. It might be difficult to test the rules when they can make the planets so different but these differences still would appear when the samples are big enough (over 1000 charts or so).

I'd think that Dean or Smit would also see it this way. How they should see it is somewhat different. In science the generally accepted rule is that the person who makes a statement should also prove it. Unless a theory is not proven it is not a fact but just a theory. The favourite theory model of astrology is analogy. There are some extreme analogies like the pictures of the constellations which gave name to the signs give the signs their meaning or the mythological name of a new asteroid gives the meaning to it (e.g. Chiron). Other more sophisticated analogies are the rulerships as explained by Ptolemy in Tetrabiblos Book I.

How I would view this, is a bit inbetween I think. The astrology I prefer the most is Kepler's, making use of aspects alone and no divisions of houses and signs. Kepler didn't really believe in the predictability of concrete events like the number of children or accidents. I tend to believe the same way. I believe transits etc can affect your mood. In such terms I might be considered a modern astrologer (I've also always looked at transits of the three modern planets). However I strongly dislike the deliberately obsure astrology of astrology after the theosophists and Jung. Whole books have been written on the meaning (of transits of) one planet while a few words would do, it seems that blaming your parents for 'that terrible childhood' and let Chiron heal the wounds does always work very well.

Here are test results http://www.rudolfhsmit.nl/d-rese2.htm usually negative. Since I focus on aspects, I found Peter Niehenke's negative results on aspects (?4) disappointing. I had hoped that at least these would lead to something positive.

Many other tests are focused on concrete events which predicatbility Kepler dismissed and most modern astrologers would as well. My view of an accident in relation to a transit or direction would be that the transit/direction of that moment/period might make the person more inclined to carelessness or overconfidence or simply feeling bad. In such a state the chance of getting an accident would then be higher.

I'd propose another kind of test. If Pluto transits are said to give feelings like 'driving you crazy', then perhaps it would be a good idea to look at the charts of people who were taken to a mental hospital after a nervous break down. Not that everybody who has a Pluto transit will go to a mental hospital and not that every patient will have a Pluto transit but I'd say that more than the average number of people with nervous break down would have such a transit in the chart. There were plans for tests of Pluto transits and 'difficult periods' (?8 of the research results article) but they weren't carried through. If I only had the time for such a research...