Lihin wrote:

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.

Isn't that another term for astronomy? If not what is still meaningfully astrological rather than astronomical in your proposal?

Methinks we might be again drifting away from 'visual astrology'.

Its seems an eternity ago now but the original purpose of this thread was to discuss Bernadette Brady's ideas on visual astronomy. We have obviously ALL gone wildly away from that topic. However, I think the discussion has been interesting. Its raised fundamental questions about our understanding of what is going in the practice of astrology.

You have been seeking to shift the original question to your own personal agenda which is a revisioned 'visual astrology'. That is not what the original post was talking about. I dont object to your topic here but lets not pretend you are on topic any more than anyone else here.

Its ironic that you keep mentioning Ptolemy in this thread. Bernadette Brady is a severe critic of Ptolemy's effect on the astrological tradition in relation to working with stars and planets. She would certainly seek to refute your repeated assumption that Ptolemy somehow offers a guideline for visual astrology. From Brady's perspective Ptolemy is part of the problem rather than the solution. She is critical of the two dimensional focus of Greek astrological thinking.

Mark

Good morning,

As already stated, 'visual astrology' is in my humble opinion NOT restricted to Ms Bernadette Brady's, MA, the well known Australian authoress, interpretation or understanding of it. Although i use some of the tools she developed, one should be aware that they rely heavily on Babylonian mythology and thus, by definition, cannot constitute a universal visual astrology for reasons already given in this thread.

Not only images of Goddesses and Gods, glyphs for Planets, Signs and aspects, etc. but all words, mathematical formulae, astronomical descriptions and so on are SYMBOLS.

Instead of seeking to reverse what Klaudios Ptolomaios so admirably undertook, we might instead use ex. gr. the Mediaeval style of many basic astrological delineations of non-mythological, visual astronomical phenomena as examples for further development. One finds many such examples in works of Abu Ma'shar, Al-Qabisi , Al-Biruni and others.

We also find attempts to improve Ptolemy's allocations of planetary (ultimately elemental) qualities to the bright visible fixed stars by means of spectrographic analyses, for example in the French astrologer Monsieur Denis Labour?'s outstanding textbook of Western Renaissance astrology, Cours pratique d'Astrologie.

Also the US-American astrologer-author Mr Michael Erlewine has accomplished useful work in this field but NOT limited to astronomical phenomena visible to unaided human sight.

Best regards,

lihin

Lihin wrote:

As already stated, 'visual astrology' is in my humble opinion NOT restricted to Ms Bernadette Brady's, MA, the well known Australian authoress, interpretation or understanding of it. Although i use some of the tools she developed, one should be aware that they rely heavily on Babylonian mythology and thus, by definition, cannot constitute a universal visual astrology for reasons already given in this thread.

I have no objection to widening the discussion in this way. I was simply pointing out to you that you were changing the parametres of the original question which quite clearly relates to the work of Bernadette Brady.

Lihin wrote:

Not only images of Goddesses and Gods, glyphs for Planets, Signs and aspects, etc. but all words, mathematical formulae, astronomical descriptions and so on are SYMBOLS.

I think you need to expand what you mean here.

Instead of seeking to reverse what Klaudios Ptolomaios so admirably undertook, we might instead use ex. gr. the Mediaeval style of many basic astrological delineations of non-mythological, visual astronomical phenomena as examples for further development. One finds many such examples in works of Abu Ma'shar, Al-Qabisi , Al-Biruni and others.

I dont recognise what you are talking about in these Perso-Arabic astrologers. The work of these astrologers is built on the foundations of Babylonian and Greek astrology which clearly developed from a distinct cultural world view. I think you are misrepresenting these astrologers to fit your particular paradigm of how astrology should operate.

We also find attempts to improve Ptolemy's allocations of planetary (ultimately elemental) qualities to the bright visible fixed stars by means of spectrographic analyses, for example in the French astrologer Monsieur Denis Labour?'s outstanding textbook of Western Renaissance astrology, Cours pratique d'Astrologie.

I would be very interested in the full reference for this work. This sounds identical to what George Noonan proposed in his work entitled The Fixed Stars in Judicial Astrology ( 1990, 2009). When was this French work first published?

Mark