more thoughts on Astrology as an oracle by Michael Erlewine here:

http://actastrology.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=8

Juan

Juan wrote:more thoughts on Astrology as an oracle by Michael Erlewine here:

http://actastrology.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=8

Juan

I was going to mention that forum. Unfortunately an invitation is required to join in.
All the big wigs are there-Steve Forrest, R. Schmitz, Erlewine.

Good afternoon,

As anyone is free to opine anything at any time in the name of 'astrology', one can assert, of course, that astrology is or should be an oracle.

At Wikipedia, one reads the following introductory text on 'oracle':

"In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination.

The word oracle comes from the Latin verb ?r?re "to speak" and properly refers to the priest or priestess uttering the prediction. In extended use, oracle may also refer to the site of the oracle, and to the oracular utterances themselves, called khr?smoi (???????) in Greek.

Oracles were thought to be portals through which the gods spoke directly to people. In this sense they were different from seers (manteis, ???????) who interpreted signs sent by the gods through bird signs, animal entrails, and other various methods.[1]"

Here is "Oracle", image of a 1884 painting by the Englishman Mr John William Waterhouse:
Positions of fixed and wandering stars are not explicitly mentioned but perhaps might be included amongst the "other various methods". Appropriate training to become an 'oracle-astrologer' might include exercises in practical mediumnity, practical seership, gazing into crystal balls, (self)induction of states of hypnotism and other trances, 'animal magnetism', judicious uses of psychedelic substances, etc., although, according to the above text, such faculties are not identical to 'direct communication from the Goddesses and Gods'. However, they might be good preparations.

One apparent advantage is the disengagement of 'astrologer-oracles' from responsibility for 'channelled wisdom' so obtained. In cases of erroneous data from divine oracles, a Goddess or God is responsible.

Whoever feels inclined to oracle-astrology is of course welcome to pursue such a training and let us know the outcomes, ex. gr. if the results obtained through 'high, deep divine intuition' are more reliable than those gained by sober delineations of astrological charts according to pre-determined sets of rules.

Best regards,

lihin

In this particular picture by Waterhouse, the high priestess is motioning to the other women to keep quiet while she strains to hear the utterances of the oracle - which in this case is a severed head, pickled and spiced...

I think for most astrologers, this would dedication to our art above and beyond any ambition to which we might reasonably aspire.

As I noted in an earlier posting, the passive nature of an oracle, through whom the divinity is speaking directly to the people, means that "oracle-astrologer" is probably an oxymoronic statement.

For a more informed discussion of divination in astrology, look at "The Moment of Astrology" by Geoffrey Cornelius.

Geoffrey (but not Cornelius)

Geoffrey wrote:As I noted in an earlier posting, the passive nature of an oracle, through whom the divinity is speaking directly to the people, means that "oracle-astrologer" is probably an oxymoronic statement.

Divinity does not speak directly to people in an oracle, the utterance requires a translation, an interpretation, performed by someone else or by the person asking the question. This interpretation is never "passive", and corresponds to the astrologer's construction of meaning during a reading. The role of the astrologer (or at least one aspect of it) is that of a translator.

Juan

in the absence of having a copy of geoffrey cornelius's book 'moment of astrology', one might enjoy reading a paper by kirk little titled 'defining the moment'..

the quote below is from page 53/54 of a 59 page pdf file.

http://www.astrozero.co.uk/articles/Def ... Moment.pdf


...."This ethical decision
to judge or withhold judgment lies at the heart of divinatory
astrology. It is endorsed by the aphorism: A te & a scientia, ?By
you and by the science?129. For Cornelius, this aphorism becomes a
vehicle for reconnecting astrology to its divinatory roots, by bridging
the philosophical divide between the ?subjective? judgments of the
astrologer and the ?objective? methods of their art/science.
Throughout Moment, one of Cornelius? central concerns has been to
examine what he perceives as the frequently misleading distinction
in Western philosophy between the subjective and objective worlds.
His desire to unite the subjective and objective realms through
astrological divination clearly demonstrates his affinity for a practice
style rooted in the philosophy of the I Ching and the precepts of Taoism.

His critique of Ptolemaic astrology ultimately hinges on his
desire to unhook astrology from the materialistic assumptions,
which since at least Ptolemy, but especially since the 17th century
have defined the limitations of the scientific mentality. This same
mentality has shackled the imaginations of astrologers as well and
contributes to some touchy ethical practices. In a ?scientific?
Ptolemaic astrology of causes, the astrologer is limited in the
inferences he can make by a scientia or the accumulated knowledge
of the ?science? of astrology. By extension, any astrological
judgments made under such deterministic pretenses pose a heavy
ethical burden for the astrologer, because they leave the role of the
client in a very diminished state."

Good evening,

Since this thread is supposedly about 'visual astrology' and we have more or less agreed that 'visual' means directly accessible to unaided human sight,

given that whatever is so accessible is 'material',

have we not a valid basis to assert that:

'visual astrology is material astrology'?

In so doing, however, we might recall that the word 'matter' has its origin in the Latin mater (mother) and that matrix means 'womb'? In its extreme ideological form 'materialism' is a fundamentalist, dogmatic Goddess religion.

Klaudios Ptolomaios, methinks, built his astrological system mostly upon the Aristotelian natural philosophy of the qualities Hot, Cold, Dry and Moist, the elements Earth, Water, Air and Fire and on attributions of qualitative elemental combinations to the seven 'wandering stars'.

My understanding of one of the salient imbalances of the current Iron Age humanity (Iron -> Mars) is its expressed, ingrained preference for the Active, Masculine, Spiritual (spiritus = Latin air) over the Passive, Feminine, Material, 'matter' usually being associated with Earth. In other words, our civilisation sorely lacks sufficient esteem for the Passive Principle. It seeks to somewhat compensate this prejudice through an ideology of Materialism.

Visual astrology, in contrast, appears material, not materialistic.

Best regards,

lihin

lihin wrote: 'visual astrology is material astrology'?

The word 'material' comes from the Latin, materia = matter, stuff. So, on a very basic level you would appear to say that visual astrology is the stars and planets which physically exist in the sky.

Well, the word 'astrology' is from the Greek astron = star and logos = knowledge. But here 'knowledge' really means the meaning of or interpretation of the stars, not their material presence or their movements through the sky. That would be 'astronomy' from the Greek astron = star and nomos = a law.

But on another level, 'material' could mean something realised, or something made real - something given physical form. When the interpretation of the astrological symbolism results in a prediction which turns out to be true - or gives insight where before there was puzzlement or lack of understanding, then what was symbolic is given physical form.

So, in this light, the 'visual' end result of the astrological process is indeed, a material astrology.

Geoffrey

Lihin wrote

Klaudios Ptolomaios, methinks, built his astrological system mostly upon the Aristotelian natural philosophy of the qualities Hot, Cold, Dry and Moist, the elements Earth, Water, Air and Fire and on attributions of qualitative elemental combinations to the seven 'wandering stars'.

Ptolemy doesn't discuss the elements in relation to the triplicities. Vettius Valens is the first astrologer to do so.

I find Ptolemy's system of applying an Aristolean type approach to the signs quite fascinating. Not least as it was rejected by medieval and renaissance astrology in favour of Galen's system. Ptolemy's system attributes quite different qualities to the signs in comparison to the approach of medieval astrology. Its a topic I have tried to get a discussion going on before but noone else seemed interested here.

Mark

Good evening,

Klaudios Ptolomaios quite probably assumed that readers of Tetrabiblos were familiar with the Almagest and educated in ancient Greek natural philosophy. Thus he did not go into detail on these subjects. His style was usually terse.

Nevertheless, we find in Tetrabiblos, Book I, Section 2, in the English translation by Professor Frank Robbins, this text:

"2. That Knowledge by Astronomical Means is Attainable, and How Far.

A very few considerations would make it apparent to all that a certain power emanating from the eternal ethereal substance 6 is dispersed through and permeates the whole region about the earth, which throughout is subject to change, since, of the primary sublunar elements, fire and air are encompassed and changed by the motions in the ether, and in turn encompass and change all else, earth and water and the plants and animals therein.3"

Best regards,

lihin

Hi Lihin,

1 Ptolemy makes no mention of the elements in relation to the signs in the Tetrabiblos. However, he does refer to Aristotlean qualities in relation to the signs and planets. However, the qualities assigned to them often differ from the approach adopted in medieval and renaissance astrology.

2 In the quote above from the Tetrabiblos we see a reference to the 5 elements of Aristotle since apart from fire, water, air and earth he has a fifth element known as the ether or quintessence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_(classical_element)

Intriguingly the aether was the non-material element. An interesting point considering your earlier statement about Ptolemy proposing a 'material' view of astrology. Ptolemy seems to follow Aristotle in assuming a non-material element as part of the fabric of the universe. Perhaps an early anticipation of dark matter.

Plato characterizes the elements as being pre-Socratic in origin from a list created by the Sicilian philosopher Empedocles (ca. 450 BC). Empedocles called these the four "roots".

In his work On Generation and Corruption, Aristotle reasoned:

Air is primarily wet and secondarily hot.
Fire is primarily hot and secondarily dry.
Earth is primarily dry and secondarily cold.
Water is primarily cold and secondarily wet.

Aristotle added aether as the quintessence, reasoning that whereas fire, earth, air, and water were earthly and corruptible, since no changes had been perceived in the heavenly regions, the stars cannot be made out of any of the four elements but must be made of a different, unchangeable, heavenly substance. Ptolemy, essentially followed this argument. Hence Ptolemy follows Aristotle in concluding comets were atmospheric, meteorological phenomena since otherwise one would have to conclude the heavens were impermanent. Hence, the sub-lunar realm was the area of change and corruption where the 4 elements intermingled while the celestial realm was eternal and not subject to decay.

Mark

Good morning,

Methinks we might be again drifting away from 'visual astrology'. Instead of mostly looking backward to Babylon, we might try and look forward to what practical visual astrology might mean today. However, unless we are content with a temporally, culturally and geographically quite limited solution, this in my humble opinion means deliberate separation of 'visual astrology' from any specific mythology, ex. gr. of the constellations. Of course i know that this would be quite painful for some astrologers, even for some specialised in what they call 'visual astrology'.

We have for example:

- light (apparent magnitude)
- colours
- positions in various coordinate systems
- rhythmic movements

Are the magnetic coordinate systems ('true' and perhaps dipolar) visible?

Although amongst the ancient Hellenistic astrologers whose works are still extant, Klaudios Ptolomaios appears to have striven more than others to establish astrology as a science, in my view he occasionally departed from his laudable intent. Such instances will, hopefully, be the subject of another thread.

Best regards,

lihin