Skyscript Astrology Forum

Michael wrote:Mr. Revilla, your position seems arrogant and juvenile because you are supposing that traditional astrologers are wrong and you are right.

Traditional astrology is not my field and I haven't said a word about it. But I have questioned some things that some traditional astrologers assume about Pluto and the recent debate about its astronomical classification, which is the object of this thread.

Here are my constributions so far to the thread:

1-) while labelling Pluto a "planet" or a "dwarf" or whatever should not have any importance to astrologers --everybody in this thread seems to agree on that-- there is an angle to this that is being overlooked: the realization that Pluto belongs to a class of which there are many others and which --as more are discovered-- will make it harder for astrologers who use Pluto to keep ignoring them.

2-) a priori dismissal of Kuiper Belt objects of relatively small size and high eccentricity and inclination (like Pluto, or marginally smaller than Pluto) as "astrologically insignificant" is based on ignorance and prejudice rather than on serious research, and mirrors the attitude of many astrologers when faced with the problems introduced in Astrology by this new class of objects.

3-) if we use an approach based on only 7 planets that has been perfected over centuries or millennia, to analyze a chart made of not 7 or 10 but of 50 or 700 planets, the mind looses focus... not because using those elements is wrong or because their astrological significance is very little, but because we are using a wrong approach, we are using old tools and inadequate techniques.

4-) acknowledging the astrological power and significance of very small objects in the Kuiper belt that have not even received a name yet, violates many of the "principles" dear to many traditional astrologers. Like Pluto, these objects have a collective and group side but also a very personal psychological side, and like Pluto, they can be extremely powerful depending of how they are positioned in a chart.

5-) Not every astrologer is inclined to try and experiment with the new. That is an expression of certain psychological traits, of the personal preferences and talents of each astrologer, part of the multitude of viewpoints (and ideas about what are the "fundamental astrological principles) that by necessity exist in Astrology.

Juan

I disagree with three of your
five points. And due to your
presumption of intellectual
superiority I'm going to do
a rebuttal of those I
disagree.

1. I think that the labeling
of a planet does affect astrological
meaning because astrology is
based on concepts fundamented
by the collective unconscious rather
than on scientific data.

2. The apriori dismissal of kuiper belt objects in
astrology is a matter of methodology and not of
ignorance or prejudice as you say.

3. This is nonsense. Adding more planets to the
mix won't make astrology better. Even heard of
the adage quality is more important than quantity.
Traditional astrology is very useful and powerful
not old or inadequate as you are saying.

4 & 5. I agree with those points.

Michael wrote:1. I think that the labeling of a planet does affect astrological meaning because astrology is based on concepts fundamented by the collective unconscious rather than on scientific data.

Yes. Labels and classifications have cognitive and social consequences. If I decide to call you "juvenile an arrogant", that will influence others who do not know you yet, and who may come to think that you are this or that based on that label. But once they got to really know you, that label wont't have any effect on them.

2. The apriori dismissal of kuiper belt objects in astrology is a matter of methodology and not of ignorance or prejudice as you say.

One or several particular astrological methodologies may exclude them, just like there are others that include them. I am not arguing this. Each astrologer uses the astrological model with which he or she feels more comfortable, or thinks is most useful for the task at hand. But to proclaim as an absolute astrological truth that they are insignificant per se regardless of which model one may be working with, is only ignorance and prejudice.

3. Adding more planets to the mix won't make astrology better. Even heard of the adage quality is more important than quantity. Traditional astrology is very useful and powerful not old or inadequate as you are saying.

Yes, I agree, but you are assuming that working with a large number of planets means "adding them to the mix", i.e., to keep working within the same astrological paradigms. I already mentioned that the mind "looses focus" and that meaning dissolves away into meaninglessness and superficiality when one does this.

To avoid this regression into triviality and meaninglessness, you must develop new methods, new paradigms, new approaches to interpreting a chart, new concepts of what "a chart" is. In particular, you must device techniques for selecting which are the ones to use in a specific context, so that you can work only with what you need and discard the rest in order to keep the analytical focus tight and sharp.

You can read more ideas on the use of Occam's Razor when working with (e.g.) centaurs here:

http://www.expreso.co.cr/centaurs/essays/razor.html

Juan

...there is an angle to this that is being overlooked: the realization that Pluto belongs to a class of which there are many others and which --as more are discovered-- will make it harder for astrologers who use Pluto to keep ignoring them.

Why is scientific classification so important? It doesn?t matter what group we put Pluto into, or whether it even belongs to a group. There aren?t and won?t be any others of the same class as Pluto. Pluto?s the one that was discovered over 75 years ago and was called a planet for all those years. Pluto?s the one that was known for years as the little planet way, way out there at the edge of the solar system. Pluto?s the one that received its name from the contribution of a schoolgirl through public participation in its naming, and remained a favorite planet of kids (I think my memory serves me well here).

Pluto has appealed to the human imagination from the beginning, not as the member of a class, but as Pluto. That could be the key to it all. When Pluto was demoted those grown-up school kids defended their favorite planet ? and most of them aren?t astrologers. Have any of those other new things out there even come close to Pluto?s effect on the public? They mostly kind of get a yawn, don?t they? Folks are fond of Pluto. Some people do have their imaginations tickled by asteroids and other objects or points, but the overall effect is diffuse and diluted. There are too many. It?s possible to pick and choose, but they can all easily be left behind. Pluto, however, has been able to capture, contain, and powerfully present to us the magic and mystery of a body outside of the inner circle, the club. For most of us it?s nearly impossible to completely leave Pluto out of a chart. We may not use it in delineation, but at some point we will at least become aware of its location. The Outsider persists.

Pluto grabbed the human imagination from the beginning of its known existence. So did astrology. Some things beguile and fascinate. Yes, this all surely seems silly to those who must start with a proper classification. My unscientific hunch is that those people aren?t temperamentally suited to astrology. But that?s sheer opinion; i.e., something pleasurable to say.

Yes. Labels and classifications have cognitive and social consequences. If I decide to call you "juvenile an arrogant", that will influence others who do not know you yet, and who may come to think that you are this or that based on that label. But once they got to really know you, that label wont't have any effect on them.

Interesting example. With your calling someone "juvenile and arrogant", some people who don?t know him but do know you may possibly not be strongly influenced by your words. However, they may now have a very different opinion of you ? someone they may have known for years. They come to learn that their previous label and classification of you, based on years of experience, was wrong. In this case, the label and classification of someone does not influence the opinions and actions of others toward that person, but causes the others to rethink and correct their label and classification of the speaker. Not creating a classification, but destroying a classification.

Kirk wrote:Why is scientific classification so important? It doesn?t matter what group we put Pluto into, or whether it even belongs to a group. There aren?t and won?t be any others of the same class as Pluto.

Why are classifications important? I will leave this question aside.

Pluto has its own individual history unlike any other other, it has its own imprint in the collective memory, and you have summarized some of the characteristics of this imprint. But you can use the same argument to characterize as unique and a class of their own Uranus, Neptune, the 4 asteroids Ceres-Pallas-Juno-Vesta, Chiron, etc. They all have unique histories and characteristics.

What you say about Pluto, that it has been alone for 75 years and that it "has appealed to the human imagination from the beginning, not as the member of a class, but as Pluto", applies even more to Uranus, which was alone and very, very distant (at the time) for more than 80 years before Neptune was dicovered.

The first 4 asteroids were unique and isolated for a long period of time, they were called "planets" for 40 years during which they left their imprint as a class of their own, and Chiron.. well, it was soon called "a maverick", a class of its own, and it has also left its unique characteristic imprint in Astrology, regardless of the sympathy or antipathy we feel for its use in delineation.

The class of the "plutons" or icy dwarfs to which Pluto belongs, i.e., objects like Orcus, Ixi?n, Varuna, Sedna, Quaoar, Chaos, Logos, etc. are also very unique and individual each in their own way. They also have their own astrological history of discovery and of formation of their individual, unique meaning. I a few decades from now others will be able to write about them in ways similar to how you are writing about Pluto now.

Have any of those other new things out there even come close to Pluto?s effect on the public? They mostly kind of get a yawn, don?t they?

Yes. But the "effect on the public" is a result of the amount of press coverage it receives. Do astrologers judge the astrological significance of an object by the amount of press coverage it receives?

Pluto, however, has been able to capture, contain, and powerfully present to us the magic and mystery of a body outside of the inner circle, the club. For most of us it?s nearly impossible to completely leave Pluto out of a chart. We may not use it in delineation, but at some point we will at least become aware of its location. The Outsider persists.

Now you are not referring to the public but to astrologers. What you say is a result of the time (75 years) that astrologers have considered Pluto a planet that belongs in any astrological chart. How many years after Pluto's discovery do you think it took astrologers to get used to (or be able to) include it in charts? Astrologers' attachment to Pluto is a result of decades of use and planetary "status". To talk in the same way about the newly discovered objects about the size of Pluto in its orbital vicinity or beyond, you would have to let pass at least 2 generations of astrologers.

Some people do have their imaginations tickled by asteroids and other objects or points, but the overall effect is diffuse and diluted. There are too many. It?s possible to pick and choose, but they can all easily be left behind.

Anything new in Astrology is by necessity "diffuse and diluted". When Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto were discovered their astrological meaning was for years or decades "diffuse and diluted" (the meaning of Neptune still is) because nobody was sure what it was astrologically or how to use it. The "there are too many" is a problem that has to be faced in search of solutions, not a justification to act like the ostrich.

Juan

The first 4 asteroids were unique and isolated for a long period of time, they were called "planets" for 40 years during which they left their imprint as a class of their own,...

On page 1 of this thread I wrote:

In an age long ago, when I was 9 years old and in the 4th grade, we made models of the Sun and planets and hung them from the hall ceiling. First came the Sun, then Mercury, and out to Pluto. There was an attempt to make it all somewhat to scale: little Pluto was way, way down the hall. The Sun and its 9 planets (counting Earth, of course). This was the basic knowledge taught in schools worldwide for years.

So where were those asteroids in my 1960s childhood? They never made it into our impressive hall display. Was I cheated? I don?t even remember hearing their names until much later. Not much of an imprint.

The class of the "plutons" or icy dwarfs to which Pluto belongs, i.e., objects like Orcus, Ixi?n, Varuna, Sedna, Quaoar, Chaos, Logos, etc. are also very unique and individual each in their own way.

Your ?etc.? says it all! 'And so forth and so on.' And on, and on...Don?t forget the several thousand asteroids. After all, they exist, therefore they must have astrological meaning. This is high-anxiety astrology ? the inability to ever catch up. Maybe Pluto, with its seniority and familiarity, is the perfect spokesman and representative of symbolism for the group. Do we really need every individual body of a minor group? I completely reject the idea that each one individually has astrological significations that are important enough to spend valuable time on.

The "there are too many" is a problem that has to be faced in search of solutions, not a justification to act like the ostrich.

The problem is the embarrassment of riches and the grabbing at everything. Pluto?s best contribution may be as a boundary-marker, as a warning of the furthest limits before astrology self-destructs into thousands of useless fragments. That kind of fits its acquired astrological meaning, don?t you think?

Kirk wrote:Pluto?s best contribution may be as a boundary-marker, as a warning of the furthest limits before astrology self-destructs into thousands of useless fragments.

... or changes.

Juan
.

So what Juan Revilla is proposing
is the folowing: selecting among
let's say 15 "planets", 7 that serve
for the specific inquiry. So it's some
sort of meritocracy rather than a
aristocracy of 7 or 9 planets, or worse
yet a mediocracy of 100..... planets.

It is not possible to work with a new tool if we don't know how to use it, or to reach sensible conclusions about the place of the plutonic icy dwarfs in Astrology --discovered 2 to 7 years ago-- by comparing them with an astrological tradition of more than 2000 years that has no place for them.

Since their astrological role is not known, working with them can be only experimental or in a context of research on what their astrological characteristics might be. To pretend to use them in consultation or profesional astrological work before having mastered their practical use is the equivalent of treating Astrology as if it were child's play.

Before they can make their way into astrological culture like Pluto has done, a number of astrologers have to take them seriously and start experimenting with them, trying to find answers and solutions to the questions and problems they represent.

Here is the qualitative research methodology I use in my own work.

One starts by defining a population. The population with which astrologers work almost exclusively are symbolical entities and cultural artifacts such as "event", "person", "biography", "relationship", "life", "experience", "interrogation", "inauguration", "consultation", "psychological complex" or dynamics, "process", "political entity", "nation", "business", etc., which the astrologer studies by means of conventional models or "charts".

The population must be chosen so that:

1- it can be charted in terms of a (or the) most significant moment, i.e., a specific time is known which is accepted as representing the artifact. Some events do not lend easily to be reduced to a single moment of time or chart, and are made of a series of them over an extended period of time (weeks or months). These "extended time" cases can also be part of the study, but they are incorporated at a later stage through theoretical sampling.

2- the chart or moment chosen must have the planet very focal or "central", critically "at the core", so that the artifact which it represents (biography, event, etc.) informs us about the planet, speaks and says things about this planet, it is its "incarnation". The selection is done in terms of 1-degree or less conjunctions or oppositions of the specific planet and the Sun, and when the hour or time of the day is at least approximately known, conjunctions to the Moon are added.

The description or characteristics of each case are examined or processed through analytic induction in terms of similarities with the "domain and gesture" that the orbital symbolism suggests or evokes aprioristically, one does not start completely from scratch but with the structure or mold provided by the place the orbit occupies in the solar system and the shape of this orbit, which help form the initial metaphors and delimit the initial meaning that is going to be refined and singularized.

The role of orbital symbolism at this stage is only suggestive and evocative, and does not imply an a-priori definition of the planet's meaning; however, it delimits this meaning, contrary to mythological associations which tend to propagate it through different orbital domains.

Size or mythological associations are never a factor. Orbital symbolism is the fundamental paradigm of planetary meaning as it has always been used by astrologers, and demonstrates that mythology and "name" are not necessary and in my opinion, not desirable. Both the "name paradigm" and the orbital paradigm illustrate the fact that astrologers have never started from scratch.

The cases selected must pass another filter: the events or biographies that they represent must be well documented, so that their characteristics can be derived and classified into semantic categories, keywords, dynamical explanations, etc., by means of a methodology known as "content analysis".

This approach makes it harder to find cases, but it guarantees that the reduced number of them are sufficiently critical and strong so that, no matter how different the circumstances charted by them are, and no matter how the astrologer interprets them (i.e., the meaning they are given by each astrologer can be widely different), whatever is said about them will be a reflection of what the planet represents, because the identity between the planet and the event is established a priori and cannot be contested.

The constraint of 1-degree solar and lunar conjunction or opposition defines a "signature", the astrologer then looks for the signature in charts, and doesn't need to interpret the planet, all that is required is a methodology by means of which one can make the event or biography "talk" or inform us about itself.

Once this has been done, the last step is separating the symbolism of the Sun or the Moon --which is well known-- from what they are in dialogue or conflict with. The result of this separation is the dynamical understanding of the astrological characteristics of the planet, which are later refined by means of puposeful sampling until no more refinement is needed.

Juan

It doesn't matter what Pluto is classified as -- Pluto's a celestial entity that demonstratively affects our lives -- the 492 NE/PL cycle appeared in myth before the discovery of these rocks in space -- as the Phoenix. As a stand alone presence, well Ambassador from the van Kuyper belt -- representative of a whole class of van kyperian asteroids somehow suggest the dark sinister force Pluto qua Lucifer & the demons -- I think this change in status doesn't knock him off my horoscope -- but, the moon isn't a planet either -- & if Pluto qua rep of an asteroid belt, I suggest Ceres be admitted to the horoscope under the same definition as the "official" rep of the "domestic" asteroid belt -- as such, it provides a new nuance of explication of the Proserphine myth -- some sort of force that wanders periodically between the asteroid belts

Juan wrote:Here is the qualitative research methodology I use in my own work.

Juan,

You describe a structured approach to research, which is very commendable. Few people take the time and make the effort to go through all that trouble.

It caught my attention that you don't consider size to be a factor. Surely this will be very difficult to justify in light of the myriad celestial bodies one is faced with when there is no cut-off point. One cannot deny that the Sun and Moon influence our lives much more than e.g. Pluto does. I would also submit that the five other ancient planets will outweigh the evidence of any other planet, dwarf planet, asteroid or what have you, given equivalent circumstances.

It is quite possible that there is a physical mechanism that can be associated with the various correlations we note. In fact, orbital characteristics are physical in nature, and they most likely link up with Earth through some kind of resonance. If this is the case, physical size will definitely be a factor.

On the methodology itself, I see three potential roadblocks. Selection of the most significant moment will be open to interpretation, so you will have to work extra hard to make the definitions and methodology as unambiguous as possible. Moreover, you will need to collect and analyze not just hundreds but thousands of cases in order to make your results statistically significant. This may or may not be feasible, depending on other factors. And finally, you will need to avoid selection bias; in other words, the charts selected will have certain configurations in terms of planets, aspects, signs, houses, etc. You will need to be able to prove that the distribution of these configurations is 'random', i.e. they do not affect the result.

This critique of course is not meant to discourage your efforts, quite the contrary. Not everything is worthy of criticism. Hope you will take this in a positive way.

Hi

It is a planet!

just imagine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiqkDm9UoKo about Pluto

on a serious side,

Pluto unlike everything in Kuiper belt has unusual orbit it is ecliptical it is crossing one of the outer planet'orbit.. i forgot .. could be Neptune's..

astronomers know nothign about pluto. the only photo exists of a pluto only contains a small icy spot. Until the sattilite does get to Pluto's orbit. i do not want to speculate.. nor want to .. after all, it is my ruling planet!

Cheers
CD