Skyscript Astrology Forum

(continued from Nov. 5)

Continuing from my previous post, based on the premise that we can create a better astrology than we've had in the past, I'd like to offer some suggestions as to how we can contribute to that end. I'll start with my contention that "if astrology is not analyzable into constituent elements, with the validity and meaning of each element separately determinable, if it can only be approached as a whole, it could not in principle have been discovered and developed via observation (nor is research now or in the future possible)." Waybread, in your response directly below mine you say:

waybread wrote:Spock, some science/social science phenomena can be analysed via single variables, but I lot of it can't be-- and so it isn't. To fall back on ecology, ecologists work with complex systems. Autecology is the study of the organism or species in relation to its biotic and physical environment, but synecology looks at interactions within assemblages of species and their physical environments. No one organism or ecosystem over time or space ever replicates itself exactly, but this is a big "so what?" to ecologists. In modeling plant and animal communities, they further try to address feedback loops and change over time.

And so on. Let's not overthink this. I think in some ways you're comparing apples to oranges and in other ways treating my statement as a denial or potential denial of the points you make in this post, which I don't disagree with but which don't necessarily engage with the point I was making, which is if astrology can be seen only as an undifferentiated whole observation can have nothing to say. Perhaps the problem is the way I put it, because in an earlier response to Paul you made what looks to me like the same point:

waybread wrote:Paul, the idea that a moment in time will never be replicated is true on one level but not on another.

I just opened Hand's Planets in Youth cookbook. It tells me that Venus opposite Saturn means, "you feel extremely lonely....you may feel unworthy of love..." So even though the moment of time that gives birth to someone with Venus opposite Saturn is unique, enough people are born with Venus opposite Saturn, presumably showing this personal quality, that the author felt he could generalize for millions of people on the planet with this placement.

The entire basis of astrology is that certain placements can be generalized, despite the uniqueness of each human being. Otherwise it would be hard to do any sort of astrology.

Which is what I meant. Venus opposite Saturn is not the whole of any person's chart, and if we can only deal with charts as a whole, if we can't in principle ascertain what a given element (in this instance Venus opposite Saturn) contributes to the whole, "it would be hard to do any kind of astrology." The question is, how do we generalize? It seems to me we should collect instances in which a given placement or transit is the only common factor and ask, what's the common denominator in those instances that can potentially be attributed to that factor? The best of the so-called cookbooks, Grant Lewi's Heaven Knows What (aspects) and Astrology for the Millions (transits), Robert Pelletier's Planets in Aspect, and Robert Hand's Planets in Transit (maybe also his Planets in Youth, but I can't say because my copy is missing), appear to have followed this method. Certainly Lewi did. More usually astrologers reason out, on the basis of the symbolism of the two planets, what the aspect or transit ought to mean. Thus in Noel Tyl's Integrated Transits the entry for Saturn-Mars begins, "Saturn represents cold, Mars represents heat. Extremes come together: patience and impulse, caution and aggression, seriousness and recklessness." If we reason out interpretations in this way, rather than simply observing what the people who share the configuration have in common, the principle of GIGO comes into play. Our prior beliefs, the handed down ideas about what each planet "means", are the input, and the output is those same prior beliefs. We haven't learned anything new and have perpetuated whatever mistakes those prior beliefs may have encompassed.

With transits we cannot only compare different people's experiences, we can also compare the same person's experiences at different times, as the transiting body squares, opposes, squares and conjoins its own place or that of another body or the birthplace (i.e., our own body). For instance the turning points in Sigmund Freud's theoretical views coincided regularly with Saturn transiting hard-angle natal Mercury. (See article below for details.) In studying those periods it seemed to me that what was common about them was doubt, a lack of certainty in his views. This makes sense, because when we're not sure we're more open to alternatives, maybe even to the point of looking for them. What was especially striking, because it suggested I wasn't just imagining this rhythm, was that Freud himself mentioned it. Ernest Jones in The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud states, "The year 1905 was one of the peaks of Freud's productivity, which, as he once half-jocularly remarked, occurred every seven years."

For each life history we should approach the material with the attitude that we don't know what a given transit is supposed to mean. We should simply be open to the experience of rhythmicity. If we're sufficiently steeped in the details of that life history to see a rhythm or rhythms running through it, we can then ask ourselves, what is "it" that's recurring regularly? Do this for enough life histories, so that we can get multiple instances of the same rhythm, and we can gain a more general sense of what effect to expect in any given life. A website at which different astrologers could deposit observed patterns, along with their source(s) (preferably published biographies), so that the conclusions of different researchers could be both critiqued and combined, would be a great resource.

(still continued)

Spock, I have a lot of interest in complex systems. I wonder if you are constructing science more narrowly than many scientists do.

The thing is, with complex systems, sometimes taking out one variable for analysis might just throw the rest of the system out of kilter. Sorry to fall back on ecology, but physics that simplifies the messiness of real life in the laboratory doesn't seem to be such an apt comparison. Let me give you an analogy.

Consider how plant and animal species co-evolved with their predators, prey, parasites, and competitors. Species have symbiotic relationships via commensalism and mutualism. And then depending on your time scale the members of these assemblages are changing over time and even evolving differently. They may be changing spatially, with the invasion of new species. Maybe human impact of one sort or another is a major variable. The physical environment and biotic habitat is important. So scientists who work with complex systems develop ways to look at them more holistically.

If your job is to monitor and promote the well-being of a wildlife population, for example, you can't somehow take it out of context, because its status will depend upon many other relationships. How is its food supply doing? What is the status of any human impacts? And so on and so forth.

Imagine a horoscope like an assemblage of species that interact in various ways.

I think a horoscope works holistically; and it does so in the context of the native's culture, gender, ethnicity, religion or lack of one, &c. and these are all variables that we cannot read off a horoscope.

This is very different than calling an ecosystem or a horoscope an "undifferentiated whole." They are differentiated, and in obvious ways. But I don't think you will get what you are after if you isolate variables from their contexts; because this isn't the way they function in reality.

This isn't to say that horoscopes cannot be analysed, along with the non-horoscopic variables that affect our lives; but it is to suggest broadening our perception of what types of research might best model how astrological interpretation actually works.

I've got a shelf full of astrology cookbooks, and for the most part, they are extremely helpful..... until you start finding pairs or trios of interpretations that are diametrically opposed to one another. Stuff like, "With the moon in Taurus you love stability." "With the sun in Gemini you thrive on diversity and novelty." So what is a person with these placements actually like, notably if there's a stellium in Cancer over in the next house?

Just as with my ecosystem example, these placements modify one another in some fashion. Moon in Taurus will express itself differently if the sun is in Gemini or Capricorn, for example. Their effects are synergistic.

And this is where the "art" of synthesis comes in. Somehow an astrologer has to manage seemingly contradictory data bytes and see how they make a life for the native. I think a computer program could replicate a lot of this synthesis, but I don't think it is going to come from looking at simple variables in isolation. I think it is going to come from modeling what it is that astrologers actually do in a successful horoscope reading.

Please don't get us started on Sigmund Freud. He deliberately misinterpreted a lot of his data because he couldn't handle the possibility of incest in polite Viennese society, and his work was not scientific. Was the study you cite based upon a complete fishing-expedition of astrology in of Freud's life and work? Or did the researcher start from a clear sense of what he expected to find?

I think that we could take a sample of people who knew no astrology, and give them some dates, and ask them what happened then, independently of them having any knowledge of astrology. You might get into difficulties with the ethics of research with human subjects, however; because you would sort of have to tell them what you were up to. Then you have to deal with the problems of selective memories, poor memories, and the fact that most people don't keep day journals.

Celebrity biographies are even more problematic. They tend to be highly selective and skewed.

I scanned the article you linked, but didn't see how the anecdotal transits it tracked varied significantly from what symbolically-oriented astrologers do.

I dunno, Spock. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Have you got the capacity to actually conduct a study the way you want to do it? If you can produce significant results, I will applaud you.

By practicing astrology, we are trying to read what is written in the sky - a Mercurial activity. Hence astrologers and the art of astrology are traditionally signified by Mercury.

Symbolically speaking, Mercury never departs from the Sun more than 27 degrees in ecliptical longitude: Hence the Sun signifies the lord, while Mercury represents his servant. Now us astrologers (Mercury) are simply servants to the Creator (Sun). In earlier times, astrologers mostly worked for kings and nobility (also Sun). But even if we work for a mortal king - in the end it is still God giving us orders, since it is his stars that lead us to judgement.

The Lord himself is symbolized by the Sun, supreme ruler amongst the stars, obviously the brightest and biggest of them all. Anything in the cosmos we live in seems to be dominated by the Sun. The Sun is the ruling day-light: While he's over the horizon, we can barely see any of the other stars, all of them being outshined. It is as if he occupied the heaven all for himself. Even the night is defined by the Sun's absence (regardless of the Moon's position). The Sun is the indicator of the seasons, responsible for spring, summer, autumn and winter. He is the only object in the sky to move steadily on its path, the ecliptic - with constant speed (no station, no retrogradation) and no deviation in latitude. Hence the Sun's path can be regarded as the universal guideline of cosmos: Aurea mediocritas! (gold=Sun). If the Sun represents God, then the ecliptic can be seen as God's path - the other planets try to follow in the Sun's footsteps, but can't keep on the straight line, due to deviations in latitude and speed.

Astrology can't be an end in itself. To put it frankly, our desire is to recognize the universal truth, or in other terms, the divine will which is symbolized by the Sun. It is not us, but the Creator who set the stars and the planets in the sky. By interpreting astronomical phenomenons we hope to understand what the Lord has planned for us. Finally we come to realize that mankind (Mercury) is servant to its Creator (Sun). In a nutshell, this is what astrology is about.

"In the first place, consider and admire thy Creator, and be thankful unto him [...] How many pre-eminences, privileges, advantages, hath God bestowed on thee? thou rangest above the heavens by contemplation, conceivest the motion and magnitude of the stars: thou talkest with angels, yea, with God himself"

(William Lilly, Christian Astrology, To the Student in Astrology)

We can upset our Creator by not following his guideline, or acting against his orders - but then we must take the consequences, too. Of course, we can also be wrong in our judgement. If we are wrong, this is due to our own human frailty: Errare humanum est. Hence Mercury, the significator of mankind, also rules error and lies. Just as J. B. Morin said: For the angels it is very easy to judge a chart correctly, but not so for us.