Hi Sonia,
Juan, you are very confused with it all.
So am I.
I was enough clear in my previous posts...
No you were not. You have not been clear at all.
First of all you claim there is rock solid scientific evidence for astrology, but will not explain what it is. Given that virtually all scientists and most astrologers do not believe there is such evidence, the burden is on you to explain why they are all mistaken. If it has to do with the Gauquelin results, then by your standards they provide ?rock solid evidence? for the insignificance of half of the solar system symbols used by most western astrologers ? the Sun, Mercury, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto ? which show no significant planetary effects on the aspects of human behavior tested, or evidence consistent with the ?planetary heredity? model. Apart from which, the Gauquelin experiments were not about astrology; they were about celestial mechanics, statistics and a hypothesis to do with the influence of the planets on human behavior.
By your own definition, astrology ?is best understood as a celestial mirror, with the movements of the heavens presenting a mythological drama in which we see our lives reflected.? There is nothing scientific about that, to put it mildly, and if you have rock solid evidence to support it, do let us know what it is.
Also you lack a lot of information and I am sorry but I am not your teacher, this is why I insist in how important is a good training for astrologers with a modern and realistic approach of the science.
That is one of the most arrogant and rude statements I have read for a long time. The idea that you have anything to teach Juan about astrology is laughable. He has been practicing astrology since he was a teenager, and as a full time professional since graduating from college with a BA in Geography and Anthropology a number of decades ago. His comments on the metaphysical problems which astrology brings up are some of the most astute and informed to be found anywhere.
Sometimes when you?re in a hole, it?s a good idea to stop digging. You seem comfortable with your certainties, but seem incapable of engaging in any kind of informative dialogue about them. You extol the necessity of critical thinking, but don?t seem to be able to handle critiques of your ideas. You just resort to patronizing bluster and avoid addressing the issues.
Everyone call themselves an "astrologer" today after read a few books of astrology (usually crap ones), with this so low academic level we cannot hope for much more.
If you wish to raise the level of academic discourse about astrology and show us how it is done, why not start here? Many of us have academic qualifications and experience. My comments for example are based on 10 years as a research scientist and 25 years as a full time professional astrologer. Naturally, given that background, I find your claims bizarre, because astrology is so obviously not a science to anyone who has practiced both. The differences are glaringly clear, so much so that they don't require any empirical validation.
All one has to do is look up the criteria used to judge what constitutes scientific knowledge and how it is generated to immediately be confronted with a list of reasons why astrology is not a science. If you wish to claim otherwise, whether to scientists, philosophers or astrologers, you had better have some good arguments to back them up. Pontificating from on high with solipsistic opinions does not help to change anyone?s views, and only contributes to maintaining astrology as a laughing stock for its critics.
Almost 90% of classical medical methods had been discarded in modern occidental medical practice, we have a modern and effective Medicine today because among other things they were able to separate productive activities from those which are part of the history of Medicine but not longer useful or even counterproductive in modern practice.
The same happened with astrology in the west. We now have a modern and effective astronomy because ?they? were able to separate out from older perspectives what does not fit into the modern scientific model. Out went myths, subjectivity, qualities, cosmologies, and much more. The modernization of astrology removed about 90% of the classical model, and in doing so gave birth to celestial mechanics and the beginnings of objective science. What was left was thrown into the dustbin.
Astrology should recycle in the same way if it want to have progress because as it is now practiced is a complete and total mess, regardless if ancient techniques works or not, or if they are scientific or not, this is not the issue, the issue is to put the house in order.
If you want to contribute to putting the house in order, the first thing one has to do is look at the house and its contents. Do you practice astrology yourself? If you do, just think (critically) for a minute or two about the techniques that you use and what you are trying to do. Then ask yourself some questions.
?Where do these come techniques come from, and how is it that their use leads to the illumination of meaning??
?How many of these techniques refer to anything that is objectively real about the heavens? If it turns out that virtually none of them do, should I consider this a problem??.
?What am I actually doing when I practice astrology; am I subjectively interpreting ambiguous symbols with no intrinsic meaning using a process in which the symbols are mapped onto a context, or am I objectively translating data into information as a scientist does, a process in which my role is completely neutral, detached and independent of the context. Or am I doing something else??
?What is the nature of astrological knowledge in comparison to any other kind of knowledge, what kind of understanding is generated by the application of astrology, and in what way is this related to astrology?s purpose??
?What should I make of the fact that astrology is not only diverse in cultural terms, but within each cultural form there are multiple branches that have quite different characteristics both in theory and practice, as is the case for astro-meteorology, horary astrology, and psychological astrology??
And so on.
Any astrologer who likes to engage in critical thinking will at some stage ponder questions such as these. In attempting to answer them, which is virtually impossible without actually practicing the subject, the territory they will be led into includes philosophy, the history of astrology in theory and practice, cultural anthropology, epistemology, and much, much more. This requires time and dedication, as well as an inquiring and capable mind not handicapped by certainties and the absence of doubt.
Many astrologers should remember also that we are in the year 2010, and not in the middle ages.
This is a statement straight from the mouth of someone enthralled by the concept of linear progress inherited from the 18th century western Enlightenment. In other words, the idea that progress is necessarily synonymous with improvement, and that precursor ideas which provide the foundations for modern perspectives are intrinsically inferior to modern concepts.
A corollary of this is that peoples whose world view is not equivalent to the modern perspective are unenlightened and primitive. Of course, the Enlightenment has its roots in western philosophy, and can be traced back to concepts set in motion by the Hellenistic philosophers, most notably Plato and Aristotle. The presumed birth of rational thinking in that part of the world is equivalent to the birth of western culture, and modernity is attached to it by an umbilical cord.
This notion of enlightened progress is culturally dominant, and provides the basis for a subliminal western ethnocentric bias. As far as the study of astrology as a cultural phenomenon is concerned, this manifests as a denial that the Mesopotamians practiced proper astrology, that Chinese astrology (if anyone bothers to take it seriously at all) has got it all wrong, and as for the Meso-American astrology ?well, forget it. They lived in the jungle.
Another aspect of this western ethnocentric bias is to assume that the only true and proper type of knowledge is conventional scientific knowledge. All other types of knowledge are at best of secondary value, if not worthless. Because this western ethnocentric bias naturally proliferates via normal educational means, it can become an issue for those interested in astrology, all of whom at one point went to school. It can lead one to adopt the view the view that if astrological knowledge is to be taken seriously, it has to be framed in ways that fit the paragon of knowledge, in other words that generated by science.
If such thoughts enter an astrologer?s head, it can lead to a certain amount of discomfort. After all, it is common knowledge that the planets don?t periodically move backwards in their orbits, etc. One instinctive response to this discomfort is to try and cram whatever can be crammed of astrology into the science box, but of course it won?t fit unless it?s ripped apart and turned into something else (as was the case with the efforts of Gauquelin).
Another common response is to seize upon any models from within science that provide analogous explanatory scaffolding for astrology. So during the last two or three decades astrologers have been known to assert ?The universe is a hologram ? the part contains the whole. The microcosm contains the macrocosm! Astrology is true after all!? or ?The universe is a giant fractal ? as above so below! The microcosm reflects the macrocosm! Astrology is true after all!? or draw on some other model that constitutes the latest fashion in popular science literature (without bothering to study the primary sources and the debates which they triggered).
On the other hand, an inquiring mind might possibly find their attention drawn to philosophy, and questions about the nature of knowledge and truth (epistemology) or the nature of being (ontology). They may learn about the limitations of science, it?s
a priori assumptions or beliefs, and discover that it has nothing to say about the most important aspects of human experience (e.g. love, family, relationships, justice, artistic creativity, the applied imagination, and so on).
An inquiring mind may also learn that science is only able to make statements about what can be scientifically tested. This is limited to those phenomena which can be reliably and reproducibly modeled in a laboratory context, which in terms of human experience is not a lot.
They might then realize that what they do as astrologers most commonly involves engagement with unique events and unrepeatable phenomena associated with contexts such as love, family, relationships, justice and so on. They might then find some comfort in the thought that astrological knowledge may well be in a different category than scientific knowledge, and cannot be reduced to it.
It is this latter sentence which provides a hint regarding how to ?clear up the mess? that astrology is in. The challenge is both an epistemological and an ontological one that places a focus on the nature of astrological knowledge and understanding, and the nature of astrology?s being.
According to the point of view implied above, which obviously I adhere to, promoting the idea that astrology is actually a science (apart from being wrong for a list of reasons as long as my arm) is the most direct way of ensuring that astrology remains misunderstood, and that its true nature stays obscured.
I doubt if this will make any difference to the way you look at things, as you have everything so clear, certain and doubt-free in your own mind. However, your messages provide an opportunity for me to speak to others reading this thread about these kinds of issues, which are important ones. So thanks for that.
I also don?t expect anyone else to necessarily agree with me, but I do feel driven to articulate with some conviction the opinion that anyone who thinks that astrology can somehow be corralled into the science enclosure is pissing in the wind and missing the pot completely.