Skyscript Astrology Forum

While our lives have changed over the centuries, I don't think that invalidates traditional astrology.

If you look at medieval techniques (for example), you're still dealing with situations you have today in marriage. In other words it doesn't make a difference if marriages were arranged then and not today in the West. The techniques themselves deal with precisely the same issues we deal with today - how many times will I get married, what will my spouse(s) be like, how will people see my marriage, will my spouse be faithful, will my spouse be good in bed, etc etc. None of these things have anything to do with medieval vs. modern marriage.

The significators aren't terribly controversial I think - Venus is women, Mars is men, and so on.

I'm not saying this to prove traditional over modern, but don't think the "our culture is different today" argument is the best one. If you feel that the entire basis of the techniques themselves are invalid, then that's a different argument.

I'm a strictly traditional astrologer, but I'd like to think I can play well with others personal opinions aside. I have them, and so does everyone else. I think modern astrology CAN be done well, and I've seen some intriguing examples. I've also seen intriguing examples in traditional, and it fits my general outlook so I do traditional astrology.

waybread wrote:... Iread in Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos III.13.159 of my Mars opposite Saturn:

"In the opposite positions he makes his subjects robbers, pirates, adulterators, submissive to disgraceful treatment, takers of base profits, godless, without affection, insulting, crafty, thieves, perjurers, murderers, eaters of forbidden foods, evildoers, homicides, poisoners, impious, robbers of temples and of tombs, and utterly depraved."

I don't think so. I've never robbed a temple in my life. Or maybe I've just missed my calling.

Hi waybread,

This part in the book is in the context of which planets are predominating over the Moon and Mercury according to Ptolemy's method, btw. Sure you're just not taking this passage out of context?

Also, pretty much everything you mentioned in your paragraph about 'medieval' childhood is still true if you're not lucky enough to live in the "First World" and thus be in the top tier of worldwide wealth and standard of living, and even here there are those whose lives are not modeled on popular bourgeoisie ideals.

waybread wrote:I've never robbed a temple in my life.

Yet.

waybread wrote: I could quote some real idiocy from modern astrologers. But then again, I read in Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos III.13.159 of my Mars opposite Saturn:

"In the opposite positions he makes his subjects robbers, pirates, adulterators, submissive to disgraceful treatment, takers of base profits, godless, without affection, insulting, crafty, thieves, perjurers, murderers, eaters of forbidden foods, evildoers, homicides, poisoners, impious, robbers of temples and of tombs, and utterly depraved."

I don't think so. I've never robbed a temple in my life. Or maybe I've just missed my calling.

These kinds of lists are examples are not exhaustive. If you read between the lines, they are just giving some examples based on planetary character that were appropriate for the time - and most are still appropriate today.

Mithra6 wrote:While our lives have changed over the centuries, I don't think that invalidates traditional astrology......

I agree! I haven't attempted to invalidate traditional astrology! And will not. My point, rather, was that one should study the social history of the periods and places occupied by astrologers of the past to know whether or not their views of marriage or much else would have currency in our world today. And surely this historical context would fascinate astrologers who turn to the past because of its ample fascinations.

If we take the example of someone's date of marriage, how many traditional astrologers living in the West would predict that a young woman would marry at the age of 16--if not already have had her first child by then? Yet this would have been common in many past times and places. Wouldn't applying the technique of predicting marital age yield age ranges that were reasonable in the past but not today?

In classical times, the prevalence of slavery gave fidelity in marriage a whole different meaning than it has today. In the European Middle Ages the status of marriageable aristocratic women as pawns in their fathers' political aspirations needs to be considered; just as at a lower social level, farm owners looked to consolidate family land holdings through advantageous marriages. For peasants, pregnancy before marriage was the norm, as a means of ensuring the couple's fertility. Not so much that they could get along nicely, as wife-beating was also normed, but just that they could reproduce farm labourers.

There is probably something of our present-day belief in romantic love somewhere in the above, but these are not issues that most westerners are concerned about today.

We have to be careful about imagining the past (or very culturally different presents) in ways that did not actually occur. I think we respect the past and its people by not assuming without some social history research that they "were just like us." Ditto for traditional people in developing nations.

So I am by no means arguing that traditional astrology doesn't work; merely some concerns about how one ports it into modern life. And as deficient as modern astrology might be as a set of techniques, it has the one advantage of being more calibrated to our time.

GR, I am not sure I fare any better in infilling Ptolemy's Moon/Mercury delineations. Even his "good" placements contain some pretty sardonic character traits alongside the nice ones.

handn, I am not sure where the closest temple is to where I live (in a remote valley in western Canada) but probably at least a 5-hour drive. Maybe more like 8 hours. I think this would be a Mormon temple. It is just too much trouble to get there. And then their security is really tight. Ditto for piracy. I am just too far from the coast. But yikes, Mithra! I hope you're not suggesting Ptolemy kind of got it right so far as my character is concerned, even if we take homicides and poisoning more metaphorically?

. . . one should study the social history of the periods and places occupied by astrologers of the past to know whether or not their views of marriage or much else would have currency in our world today. . .

If we take the example of someone's date of marriage, how many traditional astrologers living in the West would predict that a young woman would marry at the age of 16--if not already have had her first child by then? Yet this would have been common in many past times and places. Wouldn't applying the technique of predicting marital age yield age ranges that were reasonable in the past but not today?

But an astrologer living now would predict marriage for a person living now, not then. Just because prediction techniques may have been used in a past culture that practiced marriage at 16, or 13, doesn't mean that those same techniques require the practice of marriage at that age in this current culture. If a current-day astrologer is using those techniques for the chart of someone in a distant current-day culture where they do have marriage at that age ? let's say possibly in Africa or on a Pacific island ? then that astrologer can very well predict the possibility of marriage and children at such a young age.

In classical times, the prevalence of slavery gave fidelity in marriage a whole different meaning than it has today.

Did the prevalence of slavery in the American south until the mid-19th century give fidelity in southern marriage a whole different meaning than it has today?

Kirk

waybread wrote: If we take the example of someone's date of marriage, how many traditional astrologers living in the West would predict that a young woman would marry at the age of 16--if not already have had her first child by then? Yet this would have been common in many past times and places. Wouldn't applying the technique of predicting marital age yield age ranges that were reasonable in the past but not today?

Understanding history is important, but it doesn't change how the techniques work - though sometimes you have to use context, but then again astrology always took context into account.

Using marriage as an example, I haven't run into a situation where I predicted marriage at 16 using medieval techniques. Actually you use several techniques, but if I see a young marriage, I use some common sense. Medieval techniques don't say things like "if planet x is in house y, they will marry at 16". Young is young, just like tall is tall, though those things vary in culture and time. You run into this in physiognomy. You might say someone is pale. You take race in to account. A pale African American is darker than a pale caucasian, but pale is pale no matter what.

Re: Ptolemy, again you have to take planetary character into account. I don't know anything about your chart, but Ptolemy is saying if you have two malefics opposed, you have trouble, and here are some examples. Thats it. For the same reason if you use Ptolemy's section on births, you don't tell a mother that they will give birth to a "monster", and this might not even happen. However, you can be sure birth will be problematic.

Mark wrote:....Modernist astrologers tend to put implicit faith in the 'newness' and innovation of contemporary astrology. There is often the assumption that ancient and medieval astrology is 'outdated' and no longer relevant to us today. Another common assumption is that traditional astrology is pre-psychological and therefore trapped in a more fatalistic , event focused perspective. At the other extreme traditional astrologers can typify modern astrology as a diluted or corrupted version of an earlier 'golden age' where astrology had attained a higher level of technique and philosophical self consistency....
Does anyone else recognise these kinds of attitudes? Do we accept these kinds of assumptions are built on myths? If they are what are the implications for how we view other approaches to astrology? Ultimately is this an issue of subjective taste and temperament rather than any objective criteria?

These are the OP questions to which I attempted to respond. Taking Mark's points in order:

1. I don't think ancient and medieval astrology are irrelevant today. I argue that it is important to avoid a presentist approach to past astrologies. Presentism is a kind of historical fallacy of interpreting the past through our own cultural lenses without considering past authors' own cultural context; or even of tailoring what we write about the past to suit what we want to promote today.

Mithra, at the risk or incurring your ire, is it fair of me to suggest that you don't really practice a whole-cloth traditional astrology, but rather that you apply a set of techniques developed in the past to current astrological questions? And to the extent that we argue that Ptolemy didn't really mean that someone like me with Saturn opposite Mars (and moon opposite Mercury) would literally be a murderer or temple-robber, that is the extent to which we modify and modernize his material to suit our present sensibilities. I don't fit any of Ptolemy's descriptors for this aspect.

Kirk, of course slavery in the American South affected marriage! I chose the older example because I wasn't aware of antebellum southerners who wrote about astrology.

As per the thread on Rafael Nasser, ed., Under One Sky, neither modern nor traditional techniques seem to fare well in "blind" chart readings. So if we want to say, "Well of course Maud (age 10) isn't going to marry at age 15 even though that is what her chart strongly suggests;" then we begin to uncouple astrological counseling from the correctness of a technique that would predict it.

2. My readings in traditional astrology are admittedly sketchy. [Just as I suspect some traditional astrologers today have not studied in depth the modern astrology they criticize.] The fatalism seems clear in many astrological authors, even well into the 20th century. Cultural context for this? With Hellenistic astrologers we might look at astrology's links to stoicism. We kind of have to wait for the 18th century to get an idea of the liberation of the common man; or the common individual as a viable social unit.

3. I think some modern astrology is a dilution of the techniques of the past, and a pretty thin one, at that. On the other hand, modern astrology includes a lot of new material; and some of it produces decent results. I can't think of too many other bodies of knowledge or technologies that have not moved well beyond their ancient or medieval origins; so it is hard for me to understand why astrology should not take advantage of recent work, as well.

If people love the astrology of the past, that's super, but I don't understand why it should be a basis for criticizing astrology developed today. In comparison, some people love playing the harpsichord, so it wouldn't make sense to scoff at them simply because we now have pianos and electric keyboards.

Mark wrote: Its not that uncommon for a member to decide to delete a post here. The moderator can then come along and remove it completely. Still, I agree it would be extremely interesting to hear Robert Schmidt's views both as a philosopher and astrologer.

Mark

If they were deleted by a moderator then you may not again! I can't imagine why he would have deleted them.

If they were deleted by a moderator then you may not again! I can't imagine why he would have deleted them.

Hello Howard,

As a moderator myself here I can assure you that posts are not deleted on Skyscript in an arbitrary way. This is done either when a member removes their own post leaving it blank or a post is in breach of the forum guidelines that all members are expected to abide by. As I never saw the transient post you refer to I cannot comment beyond that.

Rather than speculate further on this matter I would suggest it is more productive for us all to move on and concentrate on the very interesting contributions we can all read in this thread.

regards

Mark

And to the extent that we argue that Ptolemy didn't really mean that someone like me with Saturn opposite Mars (and moon opposite Mercury) would literally be a murderer or temple-robber, that is the extent to which we modify and modernize his material to suit our present sensibilities.

It is quite often clarified now, Rob Hand, I believe, being one who discusses it, that the older authors considered extremes of manifestation, whereas the modern approach is to look for averages and common manifestations. We now want to know what a Mars-Saturn opposition usually indicates in a natal chart. The old astrologers would illustrate what a high-gear Mars-Saturn opposition could indicate when intensified by various chart factors. Ancient and medieval astrologers looked more to the 'worse case', modern astrologers look more to the 'common case'.

My guess is that the modern emphasis on signs due to the influence of sun sign astrology has led to a simple use of each chart factor as significant on its own. Modern astrology allows easy use of single chart factors ('He's a Cancer so he's sensitive and cherishes home life'). Ancient and medieval astrology requires bringing the various factors together and building a case before making such statements. Their statements can be confusing if we approach the ancient writings in the usual modern manner of modern astrology.

Presentism is a kind of historical fallacy of interpreting the past through our own cultural lenses without considering past authors' own cultural context; or even of tailoring what we write about the past to suit what we want to promote today.
. . .

Kirk, of course slavery in the American South affected marriage!

Might this be an example of 'presentism'? I don't know whether American slavery had such an effect on marriage at the time or not, but the short statement begun with ?of course? isn't very convincing that you have understood the issue correctly ? or whether there even was such an issue. My point being that it weakens your broader argument here. That rather dismissive ?of course? and its implication that no further discussion is necessary does tend to make me want to be a more determined opponent against any criticism you may have against traditional astrology.

If people love the astrology of the past, that's super, but I don't understand why it should be a basis for criticizing astrology developed today.

The basis of criticism against more recently developed astrology is recent astrology itself. Many people have found it vague, confused, patched together and not very useful ? too content with ?He's a Cancer so he's sensitive and cherishes home life?. The basis of criticism is their experience with both recent and traditional astrology and the shortcomings they find in the recent. Personal experience in working with astrology is the basis of the criticism, not mere comparison of techniques or any belief in which one should for some reason be more accurate.

I can't think of too many other bodies of knowledge or technologies that have not moved well beyond their ancient or medieval origins; so it is hard for me to understand why astrology should not take advantage of recent work, as well.

Ancient and medieval treatment of childhood illnesses or the knowledge back then of the life found at the ocean's floor might not compare well to current abilities and knowledge, but can we truly say that such works as Aristotle's Poetics have been surpassed and are no longer relevant? The ideas and principles contained in such works may be more applicable to astrology than any technique or scrap of knowledge.

Kirk

Interesting discussion. I can see good points on both sides of this debate.

One thing that undeniably has changed since the classical and medieval period is human life expectancy. At least for those of us fortunate enough to live in an economically developed nation. Remarkably average life expectancy in the classical period was only about 28 and in the medieval period only 30. In colonial Virginia life expectancy was under 25. Obviously this varied from place to place. Existentially, this represents a very different perspective on life to modern Europeans and North Americans who have life expectancy into their late 70's.

Death through warfare , disease, famine, and extreme climatic conditions could be devastating. Extreme examples came in events like the Justinian Plague in the 6th century, the Black death in the 14th century or the Thirty Years War in the 17th century. Such social realities must have influenced the outlook of astrologers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expec ... _over_time

Its true traditional texts do sometimes seem rather black and white and fatalistic at times. A good example is Firmicus Maternus. Traditionalists usually explain such texts by suggesting such statements are simply extreme examples to demonstrate a theme. Still, I think it also has to be acknowledged this astrology was prevalent in a period were human life was often 'nasty , brutish, and short' before the modern advance in medicine and agricultural production methods. Social mobility was also much less pronounced before the breakdown of feudalism in the early modern era. Addred to this were philosophical strands that might support a fatalistic viewpoint such as Stoicism. Although, it has to be acknowledged that there were competing views on such issues even in the classical era. For example Neo-Platonist, Pythagorean, Gnostic, Mithraic, Epicurean, Christian etc.

I dont think this invalidates traditional astrology. For example horary astrology has remained very robust despite its ancient origins. The house meanings and planetary associations are flexible enough to accommodate radical social change. Indeed they have already successfully went through such an adaption in the movement from a pagan, slave owning classical world to an Islamic and later Christian feudal society. Then we see its symbolism adopting to a more capitalist, mobile society in the early modern era.

I do think Waybred has a point though that we should attempt to see traditional texts in the context of their social, religious, and philosophical context. Otherwise there is a risk of excessive literalism and over rigidity in interpreting texts application today.

Mark