Skyscript Astrology Forum

I have been thinking about this since I read it, because it has bothered me. It has taken me a bit of time to mull it around in my mind to work out exactly what bothered me about it, and how to respond.

spock wrote: If, as I contend, there's a blind spot here inculcated by astrological training, it's no surprise that astrologers regularly say they don't see it, yet inferring its existence explains a lot that's otherwise inexplicable. If astrology works as obviously as most astrologers think it does, it should be easy to objectively demonstrate that it does. But it isn't, and this is a source of surprise and even consternation for many astrologers. There are lots of ways to unconsciously fudge. Readers, whether using crystal balls, tarot cards or astrological charts, are expert at picking up clues in ways they're not at all aware of themselves, nor is the client. If astrology works as obviously and unequivocally as we think it does, five competent astrologers studying a detailed history of a given person should be able to come up with the same rectified time. But this sort of thing just doesn't happen, and it would be sensational news in astrological circles if it did. Objective evaluation, and research conducted with the expectation that it will be objectively evaluated, can lead to an astrology that works obviously and can objectively be demonstrated to do so.

I think the reason this bothered me was that I think that we have to really consider what we are doing as astrologers, and what the point is. With very few exceptions, I will rarely do a chart for someone who needs "convincing" that astrology is useful. I am currently moving from astrology as an avocation to astrology as a vocation...so, I may have to change that policy somewhat, unfortunately, but maybe not. The reason for this policy is that, frankly, doing a proper job with a chart analysis is time consuming and a lot of work. I am not going to do that amount of work (without being paid, or even if paid, for far less than the amount of work I have done is worth, if one considers a fair hourly wage) for someone just as a curiosity or side show.

While there are many uses for astrology, when one is consulting with a client, one is usually doing so to give advice. In giving this advice, it is very helpful to have input from the client, so one knows what type of advice she is seeking. Few lay people know enough about astrology to be able to say, "I need a horary" or "I need a year forecast." To not do so is to do a lot of effort that may or may not be helpful. Here is an example. I did a year forecast, in writing, for a friend as a gift, and I was rather specific about dates and these things. The friend was barely interested in the work I did at the time, because she did not like manage her life on that type of a schedule. I met with her again a year later, and actually most of what I predicted turned out to have come to pass at the times I predicted. That was a good learning experience for me...for two reasons. On one hand, I have a lot more confidence in my ability to make reasonably accurate predictions; on the other hand, I have learned the lesson that I need to be careful to understand what a client is looking for.

I suppose I can look to the chart to try to predict what the client wants, but that is an added layer of work and effort!

The most useful consultations I have done have been when I have known precisely what is on the client's mind, so that I can look to their chart (or switch to a horary or electional, if that would be more appropriate for the task at hand), in a more precise manner. For example, I would read a chart much differently for someone who is grappling with a change in career path than for someone who is having relationship difficulties. A chart can give answers...but one must ask it the right questions!

I do not think of this as "fudging" at all, and I think that this adds an air of distrust and suspicion that does not need to be there. I will also sometimes ask questions when I am trying out a new technique that I have learned. I usually test it first on my own chart, and charts I already have....but sometimes, there are interesting things in a chart I am working with that coincide with things I have been learning. I am quite clear that it is a new technique, and that I am "testing" it (in an admittedly cursory way). I often learn more when I am wrong than when I am right...so I value the times that I am wrong! There is a convention in Classical/Traditional Astrology that one is always a student of astrology, no matter how much one has previously learned or how much experience one has. There is an element of humility and honesty with that, which is very important in our discipline.

With respect to inaccurate charts, I, myself, always do a cursory check to verify that I have the right chart, particularly when I get birth times like 10 o'clock that seem too even to be right. I also check when there might be a Daylight Savings Time issue. I have only undertaken one full rectification for a chart that I did not know the time at all (my grandmother's). I don't know how well I did, because I never had my work truly verified (although, my mother..also a student of astrology...did agree with my analysis for the most part). On the other hand, I do use rectification techniques to refine charts. The primary reason for testing charts is that I don't want to do a lot of work on a chart that turns out to be the wrong chart. There have been several instances where I have started working on a chart, and it seemed wrong. In those cases, I have gone back to the person, and asked them to double check the time. When I have done this, there has only been once when the person has confirmed that the time was right (although I still treated the chart a bit gingerly and confined my advice to what could be obtained without much reference to houses). Every other time that has happened, the person has come back and said that they had the wrong time. One example was when someone's mother confused the time of her birth with her sister's.

On the other hand, I think that "tests" to prove astrology is viable as a craft are not only demeaning, they also create an expectation of astrologers that is much higher than we expect of other professionals. Now, lay people may still have these expectations, but it is up to us as astrologers to educate them as to what astrology can do and what it can not! Lay people have these expectations of other professionals as well. I have some friends who are medical doctors that have related amusing stories of patients calling them on the telephone, saying something like "I don't feel well," and expecting the doctor to guess what was wrong with them from that information alone.

While an astrologer actually has a better chance of guessing than a doctor in these instances (as she could cast a chart for the time of the call), these are rather unreasonable expectations!

Myriam Hildotter wrote: .....I think that "tests" to prove astrology is viable as a craft are not only demeaning, they also create an expectation of astrologers that is much higher than we expect of other professionals. Now, lay people may still have these expectations, but it is up to us as astrologers to educate them as to what astrology can do and what it can not! Lay people have these expectations of other professionals as well. I have some friends who are medical doctors that have related amusing stories of patients calling them on the telephone, saying something like "I don't feel well," and expecting the doctor to guess what was wrong with them from that information alone.

While an astrologer actually has a better chance of guessing than a doctor in these instances (as she could cast a chart for the time of the call), these are rather unreasonable expectations!

Myriam, I have a very different impression. Astrologers are oh-so- quick to point out mistakes in the medical profession by way of justifying astrology, but given the millions of prescriptions, procedures, consultations, &c taking place daily on the planet, I don't think we can assume that an astrologer's success rate is any better than a doctor's.

Obviously some doctors are more skilled than others; but they do have professional means to weed out the incompetents.

This argument has been made for the past two millenia: sure, some astrology is inaccurate, but so are medicine and navigation, and nobody is picking on them. This is really a "two wrongs make a right" argument; whereas, if doctors really are so inaccurate, it is an argument for improving the quality of medicine, not for justifying the current state of astrology, which is very uneven.

Because just anybody or his uncle can claim to be an astrologer with no knowledge whatsoever, the professionals range from highly credible and accurate people, to ignorant fraudsters.

Would you want a doctor to perform brain surgery on you if she hadn't passed her medical school, internship, residency, and qualifying board exams? Neither would I. Yet somehow some astrologers seem to feel that their background is comparable. And many resist the qualifying exams offered by major professional associations.

As you know, a doctor isn't going to give a diagnosis or course of treatment based upon an "I don't feel well" comment.

I find nothing demeaning in the possibility of testing astrology's truth claims. If they can stand up to analysis, well good for astrology. If they cannot stand up to analysis, we need to do some soul-searching.

What are we afraid of?

My personal belief is that a good test isn't going to be based upon particular cookbook techniques, however; because modern western, traditional western, and Vedic astrologers can all produce good results; yet with entirely different methods. Sidereal vs. Tropical astrology should make us question more deeply the process by which particular horoscope placements seemingly mean particular manifestations.

waybread wrote:
Myriam, I have a very different impression. Astrologers are oh-so- quick to point out mistakes in the medical profession by way of justifying astrology, but given the millions of prescriptions, procedures, consultations, &c taking place daily on the planet, I don't think we can assume that an astrologer's success rate is any better than a doctor's.

Obviously some doctors are more skilled than others; but they do have professional means to weed out the incompetents.

This argument has been made for the past two millenia: sure, some astrology is inaccurate, but so are medicine and navigation, and nobody is picking on them. This is really a "two wrongs make a right" argument; whereas, if doctors really are so inaccurate, it is an argument for improving the quality of medicine, not for justifying the current state of astrology, which is very uneven.

Because just anybody or his uncle can claim to be an astrologer with no knowledge whatsoever, the professionals range from highly credible and accurate people, to ignorant fraudsters.

Would you want a doctor to perform brain surgery on you if she hadn't passed her medical school, internship, residency, and qualifying board exams? Neither would I. Yet somehow some astrologers seem to feel that their background is comparable. And many resist the qualifying exams offered by major professional associations.

As you know, a doctor isn't going to give a diagnosis or course of treatment based upon an "I don't feel well" comment.

I find nothing demeaning in the possibility of testing astrology's truth claims. If they can stand up to analysis, well good for astrology. If they cannot stand up to analysis, we need to do some soul-searching.

What are we afraid of?

My personal belief is that a good test isn't going to be based upon particular cookbook techniques, however; because modern western, traditional western, and Vedic astrologers can all produce good results; yet with entirely different methods. Sidereal vs. Tropical astrology should make us question more deeply the process by which particular horoscope placements seemingly mean particular manifestations.

W,

I once referred to people in the medical field as "butchers and poisoners." I then explained this: "I was describing the phenomenon of that field, not the persons. Surgery oftentimes equaling unnecessary butchery that does not solve the problem. Pharmaceutical concoctions invented nowadays that are worse than the disease, etc. The lack of success in modern medicine is normally not publicized by the press whose only purpose is to control people's minds. Rather the medical doctors and their theories are portrayed as 'leading edge and advanced.'"

Actually, the state of the field of medicine is absolutely dismal, but people are programmed to think the opposite about medicine. It was this mind-control programming in people that I was pointing at, because I oftentimes have seen people blathering about how great modern medicine is and its credential system, as well as the need for professional standards such as medicine has, in the field of astrology.

To answer the question on whether we (or I in this case) would want an unqualified neurosurgeon butchering myself? No. Neither would I want a qualified neurosurgeon butchering myself. Also, there have been many astrologers throughout history who have more study and knowledge and experiences as the average butcher/surgeon, i.e. there have been many astrologers throughout history who have been more educated than the average medical doctor. Perhaps someone has been amongst the wrong astrology crowds for themselves...

The reason I mentioned the dismal state of medicine is not to suggest that because the dismal success rate of medicine is so low, therefore a low success rate in astrology would be acceptable also.

Rather, the reason I mentioned the dismal state of affairs in medicine is to illustrate how a 'prestigious' field such as medicine, has these illusions associated with it, whereas astrologers are portrayed as ignorant superstitious relics from the dark ages and oftentimes portrayed as ignorant in every other aspect of life as well - even without knowing what the success rate of astrology is or is not. This is why I mentioned medicine in the past, to show how the powerful effects of propaganda on people's minds and the spell of that particular propaganda in Western society which the poet (Ginsberg) described in his poem: Television was a baby crawling towards its death chamber.

In other words, my mentioning of the dismal success rate in modern medicine was to point out the inconsistency with attaching high prestige and generally higher incomes in association with practitioners of a field in a dismal state of affairs, and it is only a result of propaganda and an artifical value invented by the people who created insurance (whether through government or corporations) and healthcare plans, and the red cross, etc. A helpful description of the details involved in creating these health and red cross type organizations can be found in a text titled: Why Is Your Country At War and What Happens To You After the War by US congressman Charles August Lindbergh - this text is available online and describes some of the invention of propaganda of which had an equivalent counterpart in the US as in the UK and this in combination with certain other events of the 20th century (the age of lies) that has helped to create the illusionary inferior slave mentality people have today in association with doctor and patient relationships. Try to self-medicate without the permission of the so-called authorities and see what happens, for example. They even stoop to using voluntary or forced extortions of money to hire propaganda artists to write lies about alternative healthcare systems and such, to frighten people into not trying alternative healing. They even hire people to write laws outlawing alternative healthcare, not because they were concerned about the welfare of the peasant but to keep the wealth (and therefore power) in that system. They eliminated their competition and created a system to guarantee themselves a high income relative to the rest of the populace, which can only work for so long within richer states which own other vassal states through various nefarious means, but that era is ending now. I doubt we will recognize this planet before the century is over.

If I were going to a butcher or doctor or an astrologer I would study the matter on my own first, in order to decide if the doctor or astrologer were even qualified enough to be worthy of my time and needs. In comparsion, many people apply to schools, but I am the only person I know who has investigated schools to see if they were even qualified to teach me, for example ( - No, that strategy is not something that can be learned in school, and, no, it is not referring to the normal state of knowing less with age or of being aware of how little one knows with age).

Anyone can feel free to test astrology to their heart's content. Why would that bother me or anyone?

Varuna, I am not going to respond to your personal attacks, as you have no idea what has been my experience with the medical profession. It has been sufficiently extensive, from several perspectives, for me not to need a stranger telling me I've been somehow brainwashed by it. It is regretable that your personal experience has been so negative.

waybread wrote:Varuna, I am not going to respond to your personal attacks, as you have no idea what has been my experience with the medical profession. It has been sufficiently extensive, from several perspectives, for me not to need a stranger telling me I've been somehow brainwashed by it. It is regretable that your personal experience has been so negative.

Waybread,

Sorry, I did not intend to attack you, only ideas you uphold, and so I removed any uses or terms as reference to yourself so it would not appear to be a personal attack. I will try to refrain from attacking your ideas too for a season, which are usually the antithesis of mine, since it would be just as boring if everyone wrote and thought like me.

I think besides our attitudes towards the concept of authority which are radically different, our concerns are also different.

For example, your concern seems(?) to be that someone would not be frightened or misled by a visit to an astrologer. Whereas, it does not matter to me in the least what kind of advice some people may give or get, since it is all just words, and if those words of advice are terrible it will eventually be a learning experience for all involved. If some people spend years being worried about this or that because of harmful advice, then eventually I would think the person would grow and learn from those years of being worried by wrong or harmful advice.

I think our difference here is that I personally study astrology for my own personal edification to understand certain aspects of reality (not just in the human realm) better and not to counsel people using astrology.

Waybread wrote: It is regretable that your personal experience has been so negative.

I agree, so we agree on something, except I accept it internally but not externally through writing where I return it to the world ethers through this peculiar habit of writing online. However, this is not merely anecdotal of which I write, in my case, if you were trying to portray it as that, since anyone who studies medicinal systems and who is exposed to the medical system (for years) in different western countries as I have been, will know that which I wrote is true. Our medical system (and knowledge level) has a long ways to go, before it can be considered decent, but no one should take my word for it, and should investigate the matter for themselves to decide.

Myriam Hildotter wrote: On the other hand, I think that "tests" to prove astrology is viable as a craft are not only demeaning, they also create an expectation of astrologers that is much higher than we expect of other professionals. .

While an astrologer actually has a better chance of guessing than a doctor in these instances (as she could cast a chart for the time of the call), these are rather unreasonable expectations!

I wonder if it might surprise you Myriam to discover that statments like these are why intelligent people in the main perceive Astrologers as uneducated abusive fruitbaskets? Have you read ''Under one Sky'' ?

Can I just remind everyone to be respectful to one another even when disagreeing with their views. I've read a few heated remarks here lately, some of which have been edited.

waybread wrote: Obviously some doctors are more skilled than others; but they do have professional means to weed out the incompetents.
...
Because just anybody or his uncle can claim to be an astrologer with no knowledge whatsoever, the professionals range from highly credible and accurate people, to ignorant fraudsters.

Would you want a doctor to perform brain surgery on you if she hadn't passed her medical school, internship, residency, and qualifying board exams? Neither would I.
..

I find nothing demeaning in the possibility of testing astrology's truth claims. If they can stand up to analysis, well good for astrology. If they cannot stand up to analysis, we need to do some soul-searching.

What are we afraid of?

Hi Waybread

Can you explain your analogy a bit more here? I'm curious why having received training or passing some qualifying board exam suggests anything whatsoever about the truth claims of astrology or their testing?

Would you rather a qualified astrologer (as dictated by the passing of some exam I presume) work with you rather than a non-qualified one to the same extent that the consequences would be somehow comparable to neurosurgery?

For me, the point isn't "what are we afraid of" and more "why would we bother?". Really if scientists are interested in examining the claims of astrology then they should. That doesn't somehow mean that unless they do so that our claims should be automatically taken as suspect or as false. I think, for most astrologers, the feeling is that scientists are not going to offer a fair account of astrology and its claims so why waste time jumping through hoops for no reason? Not everyone even agrees that astrology can be tested using the scientific method. You said earlier that "Horary astrology should lend itself perfectly to objective, external testing. Either the missing cat is located or it is not.
" - but whilst it may be open to statistical analysis, it won't be open to scientific testing using the scientific method. I cannot imagine being able to have repeated experiments on a given horary and having double blind trials with it for example.

My attitude, and I suspect many would more or less agree, is to let scientists do whatever investigation they wish. But it would seem silly if we told people to ignore what they see for themselves just because someone with a PhD didn't give you the seal of approval yet.

spock wrote: Readers, whether using crystal balls, tarot cards or astrological charts, are expert at picking up clues in ways they're not at all aware of themselves, nor is the client. If astrology works as obviously and unequivocally as we think it does, five competent astrologers studying a detailed history of a given person should be able to come up with the same rectified time. But this sort of thing just doesn't happen, and it would be sensational news in astrological circles if it did. Objective evaluation, and research conducted with the expectation that it will be objectively evaluated, can lead to an astrology that works obviously and can objectively be demonstrated to do so.

We know many if not most Astrologers schemas and notions are delusions, this is evident in the use of different Zodiacs and House systems. But what else do we know? The minimal testing which has occurred in this field was mainly conducted many years ago and, if memory serves, assessed the abilities of a handful of Astrologers who at the time were embracing Rudhyar, Tyl et al ?modernist? conceptions. This 'modern' astrology was subsequently seen as naive, simplistic, even abusive by the emerging Psychological and various Neo Traditional schools of thought. The merits or lack of these late 70?s / early 80's schemata?s, albeit at times profoundly different, have not to my knowledge been even minimally assessed. It may be were this to happen both are found wanting, and from a Chronobiological perspective would likely be as they entertain teleological causalities largely unrelated to stellar realities.

How this can be tacked is a problem in that as far as I know the leading lights of the Psychological and Neo Traditionalist movement have not expressed any interest in objective evaluation and currently most Psychologists regarded Horoscopy as superstitious nonsense with little interest in testing, or funding to be able to do so, the various claims. So it may be bypassing the bulk of Astrology circa 2013, or post 1980, and studying Naturalistic phenomena in the light of current Psychological knowledge is the only option available for the serious investigator.

waybread wrote:

spock wrote:[ If astrology works as obviously as most astrologers think it does, it should be easy to objectively demonstrate that it does. But it isn't, and this is a source of surprise and even consternation for many astrologers. There are lots of ways to unconsciously fudge. Readers, whether using crystal balls, tarot cards or astrological charts, are expert at picking up clues in ways they're not at all aware of themselves, nor is the client. If astrology works as obviously and unequivocally as we think it does, five competent astrologers studying a detailed history of a given person should be able to come up with the same rectified time. But this sort of thing just doesn't happen, and it would be sensational news in astrological circles if it did. Objective evaluation, and research conducted with the expectation that it will be objectively evaluated, can lead to an astrology that works obviously and can objectively be demonstrated to do so.

Spock, I agree with what you wrote. Criticisms of astrology's (in)accuracy have been going on for 2000 years. The "rebuttal" is often that it is such a complicated topic (which it is) that it is difficult for the non-masters to get it right.

Yes, that's the normal rebuttal, and it's valid but only up to a point. If astrology is really too complicated to be tested how could those complexities have been discovered in the first place? I see two answers. 1) We don't have to test everything at once. We can test what each factor contributes to the whole. If we insist that the elements of the whole can't be individually evaluated we're simultaneously admitting that astrology couldn't have been discovered based on observation. Since the chart taken as a whole, or the transits, progressions, whatever taken as a whole never repeats, observation of undivided wholes cannot tell us what works and what doesn't. But if we allow that, for instance, Saturn conjunct, square or opposite natal Venus has occurred a number of times in any individual life, and a vast number of times if we consider multiple lives, it's quite reasonable to expect careful, rigorous observation to tell us what if anything that transit regularly contributes to the whole. We can, of course, test astrology as a whole by testing astrologers under carefully controlled conditions, but so far such tests have had equivocal results. Again, if astrology works as obviously and as unequivocally as most astrologers seem to think, such tests should have astrologers obviously and unequivocally coming up with the right answers.

2) I think much of the complexity of astrology is an illusion. Ask yourself what's the result of the multiplicity of factors and techniques, of the slipperiness of symbolism, and of the delineator supplying the wording for both symbolism and event, such that he or she can hardly fail to make them fit together? The result is an astrology that can predict virtually any event for virtually any time for virtually any chart. It's analogous to an ephemeris maker whose calculations are so open-ended that for a given date he can account for Mars being in any of 21,600 degree-minute locations. Since Mars will in fact be in one of those places his predictions will always be "right", but not usefully so if he can't tell us where Mars won't be, which is to say if he can't tell us the only place Mars will be.

Modern astrology and its predecessors are exactly equivalent to that imaginary ephemeris maker's dilemma, which is if you predict everything at once you haven't actually predicted anything at all. But as long as the ephemeris maker is able to remain unaware that he could explain Mars being anywhere at all, or manage to not see the implications of that fact, he'll be able to maintain the illusion that "ephemeris making works for me". Prediction means not just saying what will happen but also what won't happen. It means narrowing the possibilities to one or a few, something astrology in its present form is very poor at doing.

Michel Foucault in "The Confession of the Flesh" (In Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings 1972-1977) writes:"From around 1825 to 1830 one finds the local and perfectly explicit appearance of definite strategies for fixing the workers in the first heavy industries at their work-places....so that you get a coherent, rational strategy, but one for which it is no longer possible to identify a person who conceived it." I wonder if it was ever possible, even in principle, to identify such a person. I suggest that such a strategy need not be conceived at all but rather evolves into being. Natural selection works on variation, and at some location(s) a combination of practices must have co-occurred with desirable benefits from the viewpoint of the industrialist. Humans being really good at mimicking, that model would have spread.

I think astrology's multiplicity of factors, slipperiness of symbolism, etc. is similarly a "strategy" that evolved into being, with no specific originator and no awareness of astrologers that it even exists. They learn this "strategy" by exposure to paradigms, example delineations, in which we learn how to do something by example without being aware of the underlying factors involved in doing it. But the upshot, which I expect statistical testing to continue to confirm, is that most of astrology's factors and methods are bogus. I include in that category signs, houses and rulerships, progressions and directions, return charts, and symbolism itself, pretty much everything outside of aspects and transits. (You can account for an amazing variety of phenomena with only a few factors.) And I expect statistical studies, to the extent that we refrain from trusting them only when they tell us what we want to hear, will confirm this.

Statistics, interestingly, would have some useful applications. A given technique doesn't expect that A has to correlate with B 100% of the time. Rather, A has to correlate with B at some pre-specified level, above random chance. With a big sample of charts, we might think we found something solid if a correlation between some astrological variables and verifiable life experience or character traits obtained, say, 75% of the time.

The problem with astrology is that we don't think statistically. Something in a cookbook is supposed to work consistently. If I get a chart reading, I'd like to think it is completely accurate, not at the level of 75%.

I expect that a valid technique, properly understood, would have A correlating with B 100% of the time. People misunderstand how statistics works. It enables us to tease out the effect of a single factor in a multiple-factor situation. The Mars effect is a perfect example. Mars in a plus zone, which I think more accurate data will show to be Mars in hard-angle aspect to the birthplace, gives the person who has it a better than average chance of achieving eminence in sports if he happens to be an athlete, but not much better than average because it's obviously not the only factor that affects eminence. If it was an athlete who had it would be eminent, and an athlete who didn't wouldn't. Clearly there are other factors that affect eminence, but we don't even need to know what they are. As long as we base our study only on where Mars is the other factors can be assumed to vary randomly.

Hence if an athlete scores high enough on the other factors which influence eminence he might be eminent despite not having Mars in the appropriate location. And if an athlete scores extremely low in almost all the other factors that influence eminence he might not be eminent despite having Mars in the appropriate location. The difference between a random distribution and the Mars distribution for eminent athletes is simply an indication of how big (not very big) a factor Mars is in determining eminence.

But that doesn't mean the Mars effect is weak. It simply means it doesn't correspond to eminence per se. We get closer to the effect of Mars per se if we ask, what traits does that person have? That was the basis for the Gauquelins' follow-up series of studies, and roughly speaking the Mars effect person is better at getting going and keeping going, at pushing himself to maximum effort when he's exhausted and others are dropping by the wayside, at working harder than others. Gauquelin called it iron will, I've been calling it unlaziness, which I suspect means pretty much the same thing. While our understanding of that trait is still imprecise enough to be confused with, say, the conscientiousness of Saturn conjunct or trine Venus, it comes closer to being something we should expect to coincide almost every time with the appropriate Mars location. The phrase "appropriate Mars location" suggests there are two things that we need to know more about to get a tighter correspondence, the precise nature of the effect itself, and the precise location of Mars that predicts it. Both are approximations at this time.

I'm not up on the literature about statistical tests of astrology, but I would think the number of variables to be examined simultaneously would be huge. (10 or 7 planets x 12 signs x 12 houses x 5 or 6 major aspects x .....) It's no good, further, saying Venus in Scorpio means X, if X can be trumped by some other chart factor, like the moon in Sagittarius.

We would certainly need some sort of protocol in which chart variables could be rank-ordered by importance; which is where I think advice from professional astrologers as to how they operate, would be valuable. Then perhaps a researcher could develop a model based on their methods as to how the process actually works-- for them.

There's no need to examine all these variables simultaneously. That's precisely what statistical analysis frees us from having to do, by randomizing all of the variables save one, and thus makes it possible to determine what that variable considered by itself contributes to the whole.

There is something more at work here, which is the subjective process taking place in the mind of the astrologer.

My own belief is that someday psychologists will know a lot more about psi abilities, and how divination methods plug into them.

I'd say that subjective process is the learned cogntive process I've described above and elsewhere via which the astrologer convinces herself that astrology, whatever its level of development or lack of same, "works for me". I think psi abilities play little if any role in divination methods, astrological or otherwise. I'd say it comes down more to the games people play, or in our case the games astrologers play. Divination is the appearance of magic, but in reality I don't think magical effects exist. I do think there's a lot more to astrological consultation, psychological consultation, any kind of consultation involving a knowledge base, than the knowledge base itself, and that this "lot more" involves abilities ? reading the situation, reading between the lines, reading the client's body language, picking up on various clues ? that are subtle and difficult to see, and ordinarily invisible to the consultant herself. But I also think that improving the knowledge base itself, even though it's far from the sole determinant of the consultational outcome, makes the consultant more effective.

Spock said:

If we insist that the elements of the whole can't be individually evaluated we're simultaneously admitting that astrology couldn't have been discovered based on observation.

Exactly! I agree that astrology could not have been discovered based on observation! That has been part of my point all along. I would imagine Varuna would agree with me on this. This is why I see applied astrology as a traditional science, not a modern one.

There are just things that make no sense if we believe astrology was "discovered" by observation of the natural world in the manner of modern science. For example, it is clear that the Ancients had extensive knowledge about the precession of the equinoxes. It is clear from all of the religious symbolism that marked the changing of the "Ages." There is plenty of it in the Judeo-Christian written tradition alone! If the Ancients were superstitious, primitive people, how could they measure (by observation) a 26,000 year cycle? How could they measure it in any case, without the technology that we have?

I am trying not to repeat myself, because it really does not do much good in any case, but as I said before, in the Ancient World, applied astrology was the lowest application of the high knowledge of cosmology. Astrology/Astronomy/Cosmology were studied to understand the workings of the world of the Divine and to be in harmony with the Law of the Divine.

One of the misconceptions about Ancient Astrology is that individual horoscope techniques were "discovered" around the time of the Chaldeans. In the Ancient World, astrology was used by Temples to time religious festivals and for ruling Monarchs in the governance of their kingdoms. There was little use for common people to have horoscopes read for them, because they were under the instruction of their families, their priests, and their rulers. Individual horoscopes were the democratization of this discipline.

I have read that this was the case in China. The Chinese zodiac we know of is the astrology for commoners. There was another astrology that was used by the monarchs and temples. I have heard that this was lost after the Communist takeover. I am sure that if it has been retained, the secrets are guarded in Temples, and they are not for the uninitiated.

I believe that cosmology/astrology is revealed knowledge from the Divine that has been passed on in a very broken form over the generations. While I do believe that observation has and does play a role in applied astrology, particularly in the late Iron Age. Observation, however, is secondary to the craft, not primary.

When I say that astrology is revealed knowledge, we must understand that not everything in astrology is of the order of Divine revealed knowledge. There are levels and levels to astrological knowledge.

High knowledge would be that Mars is the planetary representative for the Divine Aspect of Protection, Will (and Free Will), and the Conflict between Good and Evil. In his lower form, Mars is the ruler of conflict in general. Of similar high knowledge would be that Venus is the planetary representative for the Divine Aspect of Love, in all of its forms. (The association has gotten watered down in astrology to mean romantic or physical love, but really Venus represents all forms of love).

Also, of high knowledge would be that a square is an aspect of conflict, as it is the aspect associated with the number 4, which is the number of manifestation and conflict. In the study of metaphysics, numbers existed before there were things to be numbered. Mathematics is also/or can also be a spiritual discipline containing much in the way of deep metaphysical and spiritual Truth. Sadly, modern education has watered mathematics to utilitarian purposes as well.

Of a lower order of knowledge, we can say that Mars square Venus, would indicate tension between love and war. Lower still would be that Mars has an orb of 7 degrees with moiety of 3.5 degrees, or that we should not use degrees, but whole signs to measure the aspect.

The lowest form of this knowledge would be predicting that one's husband will be sent off to war based on this aspect. From this perspective measuring astrology from the ability of astrologers to predict, would be trying to prove higher forms of knowledge from lower applications of said knowledge. I am happy to measure individual techniques and the ability of astrologers from "testing;" however, one can not prove high knowledge from studying lower forms.

Interestingly enough, the higher the knowledge, the more agreement that there is among varied sources. There is little disagreement as to the meaning of Mars. The meaning of Venus (and Mercury, for that matter) has been greatly watered down over the ages; however, the essential meaning remains the same.

I would say a lot more, but I expect that this is a large piece to chew upon for those who have a different view of these things.

(to continue)

Myriam Hildotter wrote:A traditional science is one that starts from metaphysical principles. These metaphysical principles have been passed on to us through tradition. For these purposes, I am defining tradition as what has been passed down to us from our ancestors. The science part of traditional science is the application of the metaphysical principles to the physical world. Tradition itself tells us that the physical world is one of flux and change. One of the changes is our consolidation into matter through the gunas or Ages of time.

The problem with using metaphysical principles rather than empiricism as a starting point is that agreement with the former can only be arbitrary. Presumably two sets of eyes see the same thing when they look at the same object, but if we start with something other than observables anyone can say anything he or she wants to. There's no way to determine which utterances are right and which wrong.

I think that astrology holds up *very* well as a traditional science; much, much better than as a modern science. Astrology *works* because the planets are physical representations of higher metaphysical principles. There may also be physical "causes" that we find, such as the Moon's influence over the tides and our hormones; however, these are co-existent with the metaphysical explanation, they do not replace that explanation.

Since it has never existed as a modern science there's not much basis for comparison. But if you consider other knowledges, including astronomy, with which astrology was inseparably linked for almost 2000 years, it looks better for modern science. We no longer believe that the earth is at the center of the cosmos. We no longer believe that the cosmos itself is as tiny and bounded as our distant precedessors had it. Unless you believe that the cosmos is tiny and bounded, with the earth at the center, I'm not sure how you could fail to acknowledge that modern astronomers are right and their ancient predecessors wrong, that modern astronomers know a lot more about the cosmos than they did. Yet traditionalists appear to believe that with astrology, a more subtle and difficult kind of knowledge than astronomy, our ancient predecessors knew more than we do. I don't see how that makes sense.

As I said before, Platonic/Traditional thought is very much aware of the physical world as the place of flux and change. Actually, it is *more* aware of it than modern science is, which thinks that it can extrapolate information about the past using information obtained in the present. I do not know *why* this is so, even on its own terms.

I don't know that it's so, other than you just saying it is. Much of the information obtained in the present is of processes we have no reason to believe differed in the past. Was rain rainier or the sun sunnier in the past than in the present? Does water erode rock differently than it used to? But scientists don't in fact exclude information from the past. Historical references to "a year without a summer" are closely examined and compared to other findings, for instance deep soil samples or ice cores, to suss out past catastrophes. The difference is, they take the earlier writers' words as evidence that something happened, but they don't necessarily accept at face value those wroters' explanations of what happened.

Modern science has learned, for example, that the Newtonian laws of physics only "work" at the size and speed that we experience the world in. Things get very strange at the size of galaxies and atoms or at the speed of light! The more modern science learns about the physical world, the more questions come up.

I'm not quite sure what your point is here. The less we know the less we realize how little we know. The more we know the more we're aware of how much we don't know. It didn't occur to Newton, or to any of his contemporaries, to explain motion near the speed of light. Therefore his theory did not need to take that into account. When it did occur to Einstein he found that Newton's theory didn't cover the full range of phenomena and was therefore wrong. Someday Einstein's theory of General Relativity will be found to be wrong. That doesn't mean science is lacking. It means it continually supplants earlier understandings with newer ones that have greater scope and accuracy.

My main quibble with the modern scientific approach is one of priority! I would START with a proper education in Traditional metaphysics. Modern science has thrown out and dismissed the study of Traditional metaphysics, for no good reason other than what later philosophers have said! Just because one *starts* with an understanding of metaphysics does not mean that the education ends there. Then, by experimentation and trial and error, we see how these principles find application to the physical world.

I would start with what we think we know based on empirical evidence. I would supplement that with what our predecesors have believed, whether as a history or history of science course, but I wouldn't privilege what our predecessors have believed when modern knowledge, which has eventuated in artifacts and powers those ancient predecessors would have found miraculous, is so obviously vastly superior to what the ancients knew. I take seriously Newton's dictum, which actually descends from Bernard of Chartres: "If I have seen further it has been by standing on the shoulders of giants." I like to think sometimes that if I had started at the same point I might have had some of the same insights and reached the same conclusions as Grant Lewi, whose reasoning and general approach I find so congenial. However, I didn't have to start where he started and cover the same ground. I was able to start where he left off. This is the ratchet effect, by which homo sapiens has ascended to such amazing heights. More than any other species we're able to mimic what we see others doing perfectly enough that we don't slip back from and lose it, and are then able to use that as a jumping-off point from which to go even further.

I will take a major point of contention between "Traditional" astrologers and "Modern" astrologers...the Outer Planets. I would hold that the Traditional rulerships of the planets to the signs are in the nature of metaphysical principle. This is something that has been passed down to us. We don't necessarily understand all of why these things are so, but Tradition is largely consistent on these matters. The meanings of the planetary principles are also a matter of solid Tradition. Interestingly enough, the Gauquelin research is largely consistent with the traditional meanings of the planetary principles, even if it is inconsistent with some of the techniques astrologers use. (By the way, that is one of the differences between a modern scientific approach in contrast to a traditional one....the data from the experiment does not *justify* the traditional understanding, but it is interesting, nonetheless).

That rulerships exist at all is what somebody thought up at some point. It might have seemed reasonable at the time, just as it seemed reasonable that the sun goes around the earth. That doesn't mean it's true, and I personally doubt that it is. The meanings we associate with Saturn, Jupiter et al have arguably evolved over time via a process of natural selection, hence it's not surprising that we recognize something of them in the Gauquelin results or in Vygotsky's descriptions of the changes the child goes through at age 7 or at the turn to age 3. But scattered words like conscientious and sober for Saturn, or expansive and "Jovial" for Jupiter, are one-dimensional and a pale reflection of the more three-dimensional descriptions that can be gotten from Gauquelin and especially Vygotsky. Nonetheless, those bits and pieces of meaning aren't irrelevant or trivial but show how astrological knowledge has evolved, and are arguably a jumping-off point for a more rigorous empirical astrology.

With the "discovery" of the Outer Planets, there are two questions...do they rule anything and do they have meaning. In the Traditional/Platonic approach, no, they do not and can not rule any signs. Rulership of signs is a matter of metaphysical principle. The discovery of the Outer Planets means that the solar system is not an exact replica of the metaphysical Cosmos, but that is not a problem for Platonic thought the way it is for Aristotelian thought.

The discovery of the outer planets means there's stuff the ancients didn't know that we know, which I've already suggested above. But if rulership of signs is a metaphysical principle, I can only say that principle is flat wrong due to having been founded on inadequate means.

Whether they have meaning is a separate question, and it is perfectly right and proper to use testing and research to determine this. In my own experience, and in my study of both modern and traditional astrology, I think that they reflect the lower psychic (and perhaps even demonic) realms. I think that if they are used, they are supplements to, not replacements for, a thorough study of the seven traditional planets!

That is an interesting question. I don't for instance assume that Pluto has an effect, even though it would be interesting if it did since it squares my Sun. Basically, since I think human periodicities that correspond to planetary periodicities are due to life having used planets as temporal templates around which to organize its constituent processes, the question for me is, what has evolution wrought? Which heavenly bodies has life been able to track, even if only at one point in each's orbit, and thus use as a basis for a biological clock? And I think you're right, we need to use testing and research to determine this, first by determining if an "effect" exists, by looking for matching rhythms, and eventually by determining the physical basis (the effect of blue wavelength sunlight on opsins in the eye, for instance) by which it exists.

With respect to "new" techniques, I think that there is a very high burden of proof, though. As most modern people, including astrologers, have lost an understanding of Traditional metaphysics, I think that a new technique is on inherently shaky ground. I think that true empirical evidence is quite difficult to obtain in astrology, so we may discover a correlation, but it is tricky to determine whether it is a causal or a co-existent correlation. I think that something just appearing to "work" is not enough to adopt it.

I do not completely rule them out, I just find them highly suspect!

I would tend to put the same burden of proof on all techniques, new or old, although I might tend to make that burden slightly greater for capital "T" Traditional ideas since they're so often so apodictic. I agree it's nonobvious if something is causal or co-existent but I think there are ways to sort that out. The ratchet effect in human evolution concerns not only additions to our "storehouse of knowledge" but also improvements in our ways of knowing. Astrologers might with profit study Francis Bacon's four idols, which concern the various ways in which we fool ourselves. I don't think we quite appreciate how readily and how often that happens.