Skyscript Astrology Forum

Paul, you seem to be going around in circles on some of your points. I feel that I've clearly explained the sidereal zodiac (as I understand it) in my articles and on posts here. I'm not willing to linger any longer on your fixation with static/dynamic/outward moving, for example. I simply don't have the time or mental energy to keep defending my view as I really do feel that I have clearly outlined the main points of the sidereal zodiac.

I've often been complimented on my clear thinking and logic. If you perceive a lack of logic, I believe that is your problem rather than mine. There are many different types of astrological minds, and it's an accepted fact that few astrologers agree with each other.

For me the I Ching does a good job of describing Yin and Yang in the two hexagrams I quoted. I relate those two hexagrams to Solar and Lunar symbolism. So it might be helpful to review that post (on page 4) as a reflection of my perspective.

Later today I'll try to find time to more carefully read over your posts. If there are any new thoughts in them I'll attempt a reply. To be honest, Paul, I find your thought processes to be confusing. This happens if one person's Mercury doesn't synchronize with the other person's. My Mercury is at 27 tropical Scorpio (5 degrees sidereal which is an astrological area). Where is your Mercury?

I do feel it's time for you to present your understanding of the tropical zodiac, and then to look at individual charts. But you don't agree with that approach as discussion seems to be your forte. My patience wears thin with endless discussion. That has never been my way. I'm a pragmatist.

By Monday I have to begin preparing for a once-in-a-blue-moon several day family reunion here at my house, which will probably be followed by a week's exhaustion.

Having very limited time this week, I?m beginning my reply with only the concepts of Yin and Yang. (Suggestion: I don?t have the mental stamina to read through and reply to long posts in one sitting. It?s best to keep posts shorter and to the point for faster replies.)

Yin and Yang:

Paul wrote (quoting Dane Rudhyar):

The Astrology of Transformation by Dane Rudhyar

The Yang Way
Yang type of activity is essentially outgoing, forceful, and aggressive. It is archetypally associated with the "masculine" attitude and character.

This is a very imperfect understanding of Yang. The concepts of Yin and Yang as such originated in China. This is why I posted direct quotes from the I Ching on page 4 of this topic. In Yang are the concepts of strength, power, persistence, rulership and duration as well as motion in time and creative action.

This is why Hexagram 1: The Creative relates well to solar symbolism which in turn can be related to Odd or Male signs of the sidereal zodiac. (Number symbolism points to this relationship as well. When there is time I want to open a topic on numbers and the zodiac.)

Force and aggression weren?t part of the original concept of Yang. Only outgoing can be somewhat related to the creative action of the I Ching. Force and aggression are traits of Mars rather than the Sun. The Sun shines brilliantly, and it's up to others to receive or reject that light.

The Yin Way (Rudhyar)
The Yin type of response to what life brings is essentially receptive and adaptive. It is archetypally associated with the feminine attitude and character.

This definition fails to mention the Yin principles of relationship and action in conformity with the situation: that is, willingness to be led and linking with others. Receptivity and adaptability I?ve correctly placed with the Even or Female sidereal signs. In general receptivity and the ability to adapt can be related to the Moon. These concepts are described in Hexagram 2: The Receptive.

So in any discussion of Yin and Yang it?s necessary to return to the original Chinese sources to gain a full understanding of these concepts.

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Note: I've neglected to mention that in my understanding of Aristotle I've used professional academic papers which I have in hard copy in my office. I didn't cite specific sources due to the effort of typing the publication details. These can be provided upon request.

Therese Hamilton wrote:Paul, you seem to be going around in circles on some of your points. I feel that I've clearly explained the sidereal zodiac (as I understand it) in my articles and on posts here.

Well I do think we ought to get to the bottom of the masculine feminine thing which is why I keep focusing on it, we obviously have some miscommunication as you say. Because I am not sure why anyone would not consider it a massive problem if their version of the principle does not tally with a quote from something like the classics article I cited. I would have thought this would really have stopped you in your tracks and reviewed the concept more thoroughly and carefully. Especially as I am explaining my own concept of gender differently than you assumed the Tropical astrologer might.

Do you see what I mean? Considering this appears to be a major factor for sidereal-tropical as per the discussion here I would have thought we would do well to get to the bottom of it. You may have described as you see the sidereal zodiac, but remember you are also talking about the tropical zodiac.

I've often been complimented on my clear thinking and logic. If you perceive a lack of logic, I believe that is your problem rather than mine.

Therese I am not trying to insult you here so I apologise if that came across. I am trying to take the points as you make them and weigh them up, but if I don't understand or follow them, then it could be that I'm misunderstanding it, or it could be that the argument lacks logical merit. I haven't merely perceived a lack of logic with regards the rulership problem, I've explained it and shown where the problem is with it. This is not a commentary on your mind generally, but rather on the points I was addressing.

o be honest, Paul, I find your thought processes to be confusing. This happens if one person's Mercury doesn't synchronize with the other person's. My Mercury is at 27 tropical Scorpio (5 degrees sidereal which is an astrological area). Where is your Mercury?

I'm not sure why this matters Therese, I think we can discuss a problem without examining our natal charts. For what it's worth my Mercury is 19? (Tropical) Gemini.

So it might be helpful to review that post (on page 4) as a reflection of my perspective.

Therese, this was deliberate, you mentioned this then immediately after asked me to: "briefly list of what you expect from Male and Female tropical signs", and upon returning to being asked for another example, I figured I may as well take Rudhyar's yin/yang one. You may not agree with it, but it's how I understand the concepts in relation to gender in astrology.

I do feel it's time for you to present your understanding of the tropical zodiac, and then to look at individual charts. But you don't agree with that approach as discussion seems to be your forte. My patience wears thin with endless discussion. That has never been my way. I'm a pragmatist.

Therese after asking me if I read all your posts, I'm going to have to ask the same back as I've already explained why it's inappropriate to present an understanding on the tropical zodiac in the sidereal forum. I would have thought that was kind of obvious. I will explain concepts if there's some disagreement or lack of clarity such as with my posts on masculine and feminine and continuing clarification and explanation of gender. However I note that when I do this I am accused of repetition and endlessly long posts.

Paul wrote:

Because I am not sure why anyone would not consider it a massive problem if their version of the principle does not tally with a quote from something like the classics article I cited.

The reason being that the academic articles I have on Aristotle take a different approach to active/passive. These articles were the source of information in my Triplicities article.

This is a confusing topic even for academics. The I Ching is a safer source of symbolism. I set out to find links to the articles, but they have disappeared. I can perhaps try to scan the relevant pages when I have time. I always print out important articles as they can disappear at any time from the Internet.

I figured I may as well take Rudhyar's yin/yang one. You may not agree with it, but it's how I understand the concepts in relation to gender in astrology.

Well, that is good to know! Now I understand where you stand on gender.

I've already explained why it's inappropriate to present an understanding on the tropical zodiac

I don't think it's inappropriate because that helps to explain why you may see my views as incorrect or lacking in logic or whatever...

I have always assumed you meant that the tropical zodiac must have changed over time to match precession. Because in your opening paragraph you make the logic that the sky's energies don't change depending on which astrologer is looking at it, but instead it is the same. The only way for that to be true, if we ignore that one astrologer is simply just wrong, is that tropical changes in line with precession.

Perhaps that's the answer to the entire zodiac riddle. There really is only one astrological zodiac, and we have to figure out which one it is. Zodiac signs aside, I do believe that certain cycles related to the solstices and equinoxes are valid. But cycles are not zodiac signs as such.

Maybe that's where the various posts on this topic are heading. Must we finally tackle the question if two astrological zodiacs actually exist? Then the question is not "Which zodiac is better?" but "Which zodiac is real?"

Therese Hamilton wrote: The reason being that the academic articles I have on Aristotle take a different approach to active/passive.

I wonder if you could cite/quote from the articles which support the view of active/passive that reflects your view of masculine/feminine.

The I Ching is a safer source of symbolism.

But keep in mind it is more likely Aristotle that forms the basis of active/passive and not the I Ching, it is the reason I presume that you mentioned Aristotle in the first place. The I Ching may reflect how you understand gender in astrology, much like I understand it, in part, as described by Rudhyar and the things I have said in my previous posts, but we shouldn't assume a direct equality with Aristotle's passive/active intellects.

Well, that is good to know! Now I understand where you stand on gender.

Right, taken by itself it isn't enough. Really I just wanted to find a topical astrologer who likewise links masculine/feminine to that idea of yang/yin which we can relate to sun/moon if we want. Hence I'm trying to show that this idea isn't unique to the sidereal zodiac for example.

I don't think it's inappropriate because that helps to explain why you may see my views as incorrect or lacking in logic or whatever...

Well my rationale for the lack of logic isn't to do with my understanding of the tropical zodiac. It's to do with non-sequitor conclusions. Because the conclusions you make are just re-affirmations of the assumption drawn from the beginning, and secondly the same logic employed could be used to justify the Tropical zodiac either. So there's picking a choosing going on. I can dedicate a post to explain that, but it's primarily seen in the 2004 article, but it remains unedited so I assume it still reflects your current view. I've already gone through it one of my longer replies, but I can do it in a smaller one.

As suggested, I have removed a few recent posts on the topic of which zodiac is the right one and why. This is a perfectly legitimate topic of discussion in itself, but it is not the topic of this thread, nor appropriate for this forum. I would suggest taking it to the Philosophy & Science forum.

Sources of Aristotle's Philosophy

Active Intellect
Philosophy:
?The active intellect was the subject of much intense discussion in medieval philosophy. The idea is first encountered in Aristotle?s De Anima in which he discusses the human mind and distinguishes between the active and passive intellects. The meaning is not altogether clear, but the distinction could be compared to that between the central processing unit and the hard drive of a computer, or possibly that between the operating system and the data files.

?The motivation for positing such an entity as the Agent intellect is that all (rational) human beings are considered by Aristotlians to possess or have access to a fixed and stable set of concepts, a unified correct knowledge of the universe. The only way that all human minds could possess the same correct knowledge is if they had access to some central knowledge store, as terminals might have access to a mainframe computer. The mainframe is the Agent intellect, the ?mind? of the universe which makes all other cognition possible...

"The more strictly Aristotelian Muslims (in particular Avempace and Averroes) wrote about how one could conjoin oneself with the active intellect, thus attaining philosophical nirvana.

?The active intellect, in the sense described, is more properly called the Agent intellect, as it is the force triggering intellection in the human mind and causing thoughts to pass from the potential to the actual. It must not be confused with the ?intellect to act,? which is the result of that triggering, and is more akin to the psychological use of the term. Another term for the final result of intellection, that is to say a person?s accumulated knowledge, is the ?acquired intellect.?

Sources:
Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis De anima ibros, ed. Crawford, Cambridge (Mass.) 1953 Latin ransaltion of Averroes? long commentary on the De Anima.

Averroes (tr. Alain de Libera), L?intelligence et le pansee, Paris, 1998: French transaction of Averroes? long commentary on book 3 of the De Anima

Essays on Ariostotle?s De Anima, ed. Nussbaum and Rorty; Oxford 1992

(Absolute Astronomy.com: Exploring the universe of knowledge)

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Gender differences noted in my 2013 Triplicity article
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/aatriplicities2013.htm
are taken from Gareth B. Matthews? ?Gender and Essence in Aristotle,? Australasian Journal of Philosophy, supplement to Vol 64, June 1986. (9 page article)

Therese Hamilton
9 September 2014
FINIS on this forum topic

Thanks Therese

Interestingly I agree with all those full sources too - notice they don't focus on a locus of control, the focus is on "operating", male, "operating to", female.

Also it's possible that in layman's terms there's no difference between a CPU and a hard drive. But see how your quote here compares the two.

In my post, Thu Sep 04, 2014 10:48 am, I suggested you got your computer analogy the wrong way around. Notice in your article you compare data files vs the hard drive, but if you compare to the quote here in full both of those were the feminine! This is the very source of my contradiction, because if you compare data files and hard drives, we have an odd comparison, and depending on perspective, the hard drive shifts and changes regularly to place in data files whilst it ought not alter the data file itself. So a weird comparison but in this case I believe that we ought to see the data file as immutable and masculine.

This solves one of the riddles for me! So I'm glad we have the full quote. Now I am sympathetic to anyone confusing one for the other but perhaps what you meant to compare was the CPU with the files instead. I strongly suspect it is and it's not a massive problem but makes sense now of something I couldn't fathom from that example. I am perhaps too sensitive to the distinctions than most readers I suspect. But I'm glad I feel we can make some progress here and perhaps you might correct that slip in the article? In one way it's a small thing, but being exacting I think it can be, to certain readers, misleading. It's just a slip of the pen as it were.

The thing we can think of when deciding which is which is on asking "what directs/controls change, or projects, or emanates" that is male. What "stores, contains or is changed/moved" that is female.

I would like to present my thoughts on three topics that have been raised in the course of this thread.

Male and female traits

Paul wrote:

The thing we can think of when deciding which is which is on asking "what directs/controls change, or projects, or emanates" that is male. What "stores, contains or is changed/moved" that is female.

This is quite a good definition. However, Therese's outlook is basically correct, too. The thing is that the two of you are each focussing on one of the two complementary sides of each gender.

To elaborate on this statement, I will present my own theory which is based on an amalgamation of concepts from Astrology, Spiritual Alchemy and Alternative Physics.

Alchemically, the Male or Yang principle is symbolized by Sulphur, which is of Solar nature and synonymous here with the centripetal, concentrating and conserving force.

The Female or Yin principle is represented by Mercury, which is of Lunar nature and synonymous with the centrifugal, emanating and changing force.

However, as phycicist and Tesla researcher Tom Bearden argues, a stored or contained potential energy will be released as a moving force. Vice versa, a dissipated force may be condensed in a form which Bearden calls negative energy or time reversal (I assume a connection with retrograde motion), which has indeed been demonstrated experimentally.

Doesn't the white Yang ?fish? contain a black Yin ?fish eye?, and vice versa?

Applied to this current debate, I propose that my definitions actually reconcile the stands taken by Therese and by Paul, respectively; the former talking about the two gender's internal nature, the latter about how this nature externalizes itself in concrete action.

Male and female in the zodiac and in human gender

Czech gynaecologist and psychiatrist Dr. Eugene Jonas did extensive research on the effects of the Sun and the Moon on conception and gender determination. He found out that:

a) conception occurs when the angular relationship between the Sun and the Moon mirror the relationship they have to each other in the mother's chart;
b) a child's gender depends on whether the moon is positioned in a ?male? or in a ?female? tropical sign at the moment of conception.

Jonas' initial study of 400 cases showed an accuracy regarding gender determination of 83-87%. Later research enhanced the precision to an impressive 98% (M. Rubin: ?Lunar Sex Cycle?, in: American Astrology, July 1968, p. 365).

For further information, see for example:
http://astroelite.com/article/astrology ... ity-en.asp

Psychological traits attributed to the signs

Not part of ancient astrology? Off the top of my head: Look at Tetrabiblos, book 3: ?On the Soul.?

The psychological descriptions given in ancient texts are pretty much the foundation for modern formulations. It is however conceivable that the influence of some prominent fixed stars coloured the ancients' views in this regard, so their precession may have led to secondary shifts in the psychological traits that the signs are attributed with as well.

Interesting summary, Michael, but I can't reply on this thread at this time except (quoting from Dean's Recent Advances in Natal Astrology):

"Jonas' work has led to considerable controversy...The following account shows that there are serious objections to Jonas' theory and that the majority of independent studies have failed to confirm it." (p. 477)

The discussion of research goes on for five pages.

Next week it might be interesting to open a male/female topic. For myself, I have very little time until Tuesday, and I have signed off this thread.

Michael Sternbach wrote: Applied to this current debate, I propose that my definitions actually reconcile the stands taken by Therese and by Paul, respectively; the former talking about the two gender's internal nature, the latter about how this nature externalizes itself in concrete action.

I think the problem may be more with the wording used. When we describe masculine as fixed, we lack a sense of movement or dynamism, whereas what we really mean is immutable. That's where I think the problem is more. Also by focusing on movement outward we might say masculine focuses outwardly, but this shouldn't be confused with is centred outside. That's the other problem I think. That would be my summary of the confusion here.

I look forward to any new topic on masculine and feminine, but I'm not sure which forum would be the best place for it, perhaps the Philosophy forum.

Paul wrote:I think the problem may be more with the wording used. When we describe masculine as fixed, we lack a sense of movement or dynamism, whereas what we really mean is immutable. That's where I think the problem is more. Also by focusing on movement outward we might say masculine focuses outwardly, but this shouldn't be confused with is centred outside. That's the other problem I think. That would be my summary of the confusion here.

Yes, the wording in this context is tricky, but I think that you are basically saying the same thing like me - the masculine principle in its ground state being immutable and centred inside but externalizing itself as an active and moving force. Vice versa for the feminine principle.

I look forward to any new topic on masculine and feminine, but I'm not sure which forum would be the best place for it, perhaps the Philosophy forum.

I look forward to this, too. The Philosophy forum looks like the most suitable place for such a topic.