waybread wrote: Hi Mike--we seem to have crossed some wires here.

I would not venture to say out of 10 "mystery couples" in blind chart readings which 3 couples were not married and were randomly paired. Was this some kind of red herring you tossed my way?

I explained this earlier. Having 3 non-married relatively randomly sampled couple just adds to the complexity of the study. This is not necessary we could just have the 7 sets of 2 charts and ask the astrologer to guess which marriage was the odd one out.

You make your point again about the ''experienced astrologer'' should be able to say which one was the most incompatible and on this basis chose the failure, as it were.

Since this experiment is unlikely to occur we should probably let any further discussions as to what would happen rest here.

However I don't think astrology is bogus if an astrologer can?t do this as I see astrology as about a way into discussing what you might call a consciousness which can?t be found on a blind chart, that's all really. A blind chart would not tell you enough about the person or couple to say whether or not the marriage is going to be successful. This is my point here, or rather the point of quite a few ''experienced astrologers''.

It?s interesting you mention Robert Hand as I?d have thought he might agree with me more than you ?

GR wrote:

Mike N wrote:... if an astrologer responded to a client saying the marriage was difficult by saying this is clear from the chart then this type of astrology was not only poor but hopefully very uncommon.

Hi Mike N,

You ... don't read these forums very often, do you?

HI Gabe,

I don't read the Horary or Sports boards,or once in a blue moon, and will tend to avoid certain Mundane threads and other threads that seem to be a little 'youthful'. So perhaps 30% of the posts at a rough guess.

Thanks Waybread, for the appreciation.
Yes I understand the passionate feeling and this also applied to me and a few years ago I would never have believed to be where I stand now. Just like a label on a peanutbutter jar that's impossible to tear of loosens easily after a few hours in a bucket of water my belief in astrology weakened as I read more on negative results and the explanation of psychological effects. Don't read too much in it, or the same might happen to you . I know you come from an academic background, so you too realise that our society would be nowhere without science.

The blind leading the blind is indeed not only restricted to astrology, nor are the 'blind' silly or very gullible people. Academically schooled persons too can be misled. Here's an article about simulating crime suspects. I already translated it with the google translator machine: here For those who'd like to practice their Dutch, here's the original text. All professionals can be misled. That's why the somewhat cold and sterile emotionless statistics and tests are useful. According to economists in 2008 a crises started. In 2009 I got a job and never had got paid better before. For me there was no crises but a period of boom. Would it be justified if I say that there's no crises simpy because I didn't experience it that way?

Richard,
Yes, I've heard about analogy and with the doctrine of signatures example a few posts ago I showed that analogy is often fallacious and can even be harmful. Applied to astrology I can't understand why Leo is courageous and related to kings just because the animal lion is one of the stongest hunting animals and lord of the savanna. If you find this a not so good example, this looks like what many astrologers believed and what Sextus Empiricus criticized in the 2nd/3rd century already, http://www.astrology-and-science.com/h-sext2.htm .

Different people/cultures see different things. To western astrogers Mars is related to war and iron (swords) because it's red. To the Chinese though Venus is the 'Big White' it looks like blinking metal (and is related to that element) shining sword in the Sun and thus related to war and a malefic. So nothing incommon with our benefic Venus of love. To the Chinese Saturn is also related to high age but not a malefic but rather related to wisdom. For the Babylonians Mars was the great malefic and planet of death while Saturn was only related to storms.

Richard Vetter wrote:

Wouldn't soul matters be better of without the mathematical/phyisics part of astrology, ephemerides etc.

The fact that astrology has an astronomical basis (its system of reference) doesn't imply any kind of causality or materialism ("rays from the stars", etc.). Essentially it's not a natural science. It's more close to the arts, to literature, poetry (to the humanities), to religion, to philosophy - and can disclose similar (not measurable, metrical, though valid and effective) truths.

I didn't refer to causality, nor did I mean that, sorry if it appeared so. When you give meaning to squares in the chart and to planets then you depend on ephemerides, and therefore depend on the material. I already said that the essential difference between astrology arts is the choice that is made. Poets chooses the words and painters choose the colour paint in astrology the moment of birth makes the choice. That actually is my objection of relating astrology (and the mathematical positions) with language, arts, poetry etc. By the way, what do you think of my proposition to use astrological symbols in counselling without using a natal chart?

If Venus and Saturn can be related to skin, then this should be testable by looking in the charts of people with skin diseases. Even in the allegorical sense, people with thick-skin, or any kind of expression can be tested. If I say that blonde women are less intelligent than brunettes, this can be tested.

The degree of happiness has been researched. Good health, enough to eat, a place to live in, friends increases the sense of happines..

Do you need everything quantified? (That's boring.)

I don't need everything to be quantified but I realise that I would feel much less happy if I were in bad health, had nothing to eat, be homeless and lonely. Most people usually don't realise what good health means lose it. So to a certain extent happiness is quantifiable.

(The link to your new article only shows the title in an index. I saw there's the German version on your website. 'Der subjektive und projektive charakter der Astrologie'. Is it the same? If I have more time I'll have a look.)

*****************************
I just put a line here because after I had finished the part below, I saw that here's a significant change of the course of my points. Above the line is rather technically related and below it I got more to the inner related.

However I believe I understand what you mean, Richard. You probably refer to a more profound spiritual need that goes deeper than the quantifiable. As we probably will disagree on many things I try to see the points of agreements. I think we have in common that there are elementary things like investigating the meaning of life. My philosophically motivated problem with issues is that since astrology is related to cycles, a philosophy related to cycles would be a less free one. Call it a kind of Buddhist view of trying to get redemption of the cycles of reincarnation. Returning desire attract the souls to a new incarnation in the Buddhist view. Although I'm not sure about reincarnation, the cycle concept of transits (and in fact every prediction technique) and our souls being repeatedly affected by them implies the attachment of the soul to them. I have the same view towards religion. I'm not anti religious but in my opinion the devotion in religion should not be related to cycles and places, like the yearly Christmas, the weekly Sundays in church or daily praying on certain times. If there's really a god, this would be a being that transcends time and space. Therefore to me orthodox religion and astrology appear like the externals of being and not the inner of being.

So rather than using astrology as a guide on the spiritual path, to me astrology always seems to have stood in the way of the spiritual path. I therefore welcome science, research and statistics, which are an aid in the detachment. This means that science doesn't necessarily goes accompanied coldness or non-spirituality but rather is an aid of discerning the inner from the outer. I don't feel associated with the debunking type of sceptics always on the lurk to combat the mysterious.

Even if the results would have been positive, my ambivalent feelings towards astrology and cycles would probably have been the same. Just compare the ancient hermeticists view with the gnostics view. The former saw the planets as 'good' and usable as guide for the spiritual, while the latter saw the planets as 'evil' and as things to be avoided. Perhaps my position would rather have been the gnostics' view. However I can also see the planets as things neither good or evil but not being the guide in the spiritual.

I think our discussion takes mainly place on the details and when I started I had the feeling that the discussion might never end. I'll leave it at this because I don't have a lot of time. Although we probably will differ on the matter I hope we can go different ways in good mutual understanding. I don't intend to challenge you or other astrologers to prover you're right. There's a very useful side on what you all are doing. I simply take another way. Many ways lead to Rome so perhaps we all meet there some day.

Mike N--

Your point about asking an astrologer to judge which couples are not married in blind chart is not a good test for astrology because astrology is not capable of providing an answer to this question. Astrology cannot address questions whose answers cannot be read off horoscopes. An experienced astrologer, however, should be able to tell which married couples are compatible or incompatible.

Mike, I have something over a hundred astrology books in my collection, not counting what one might pull off the Internet and magazine and academic articles I've saved. I've been studying astrology off and on for about 20 years.

To both Eddy and Mike N--To the extent that you retain an interest in astrology, please-- read a lot of charts for people--very easy to do with today's Internet forums. Not to do so is like criticizing a recipe in a cookbook or a menu in a restaurant without ever having tasted the food. The more I get into astrology, the more I think this interaction with real people with real problems in real time is just crucial to understanding astrology.

But yes, one does take a personal risk in so doing.

Hi Eddy,

thanks for your answer.
At first I thought you are just another one of those ignorant and destructive sceptics...
Of course astrology can function as an an obstacle to freedom and spirituality; but it can also serve as a tool/ rocket in getting there.
AIS, to me astrology primarily is type of a psychology.
As such, you surely can use its archetypes without relying on the birth chart (which is done e.g. by the Jungian psychologist Lutz Mueller).
In my view science usually wants to explain the world without any God; moreover, they try to deny him (or the Tao/ sense of the creation; BTW, statistics are based on such a nihilistic presupposition).
Cycles - well, everything on earth is cyclic; beginning with its daily revolution.

My article's German version is some years older, but principally the same.

Best wishes

waybread wrote:Mike N--

Your point about asking an astrologer to judge which couples are not married in blind chart is not a good test for astrology because astrology is not capable of providing an answer to this question. Astrology cannot address questions whose answers cannot be read off horoscopes. An experienced astrologer, however, should be able to tell which married couples are compatible or incompatible.

So here you are saying they could not eliminate the 3 non -married couples easily , but they could identify the incompatible 1 from the 7, if only the 7 were used. ?

Hi Richard,

In defending the statistics I might have appeared that way. There's a large spectrum with the extremes from the uttermost sceptic to the dotingly believe all astrologer. I think I can place myself in the middle with my doubts during practising years and my Kepleriean view (no signs, no houses, only aspects). I just hopped a bit over to the more nonbelieving side however retaining belief in spirituality. And I still believe in that other untestable issue: the paranormal, like clairvoyance and telepathy, and as far as I feel now I'll keep believing in that.

There's an expression, the extremes meet. As in politics the extreme right and the extreme left meet in the use of violence to attain their goals. Such a thing can be seen in the sceptics to astrologers spectrum. I see it as a spectrum with all kinds of gradations. For example the behaviour of the Comit? Para to disconfirm Gauquelin's results were contrary to all rules of scientific research and peer review, a cardinal sin in science. It's here under 'Artifacts of procedure' (again an astrology-and-science article . It was written by Geoffrey Dean, he seems an honest man to me, otherwise he wouldn't have mentioned it.)

In summary, the three skeptic groups took every opportunity to plant doubt, to ignore Gauquelin's efforts to control artifacts, and to question his integrity, while neglecting to observe agreed procedures. In general they behaved less like scientists and more like a secret society with an agenda. In 1982, after a careful evaluation of the arguments on both sides, the psychologists Hans Eysenck and David Nias (in Astrology Science or Superstition) concluded against the skeptic groups as follows:

"far from showing the impartiality popularly associated with science, critics have gone out of their way to demonstrate bias, prejudice and hostility. ... We have come to the definite conclusion that the critics often behaved in an irrational and scientifically unusual manner, violating principles they themselves have laid down, failing to adhere to their own rules, failing to consult the Gauquelins on details of tests to be carried out, or failing to inform them of vital points of the results. We have not found any similar misdemeanour on the part of the Gauquelins, who seem to have behaved throughout in a calm, rational and scientifically acceptable manner, meeting criticism by appropriate re-analysis of the data, by the collection of new data, however laborious the process might have been, and by rational argument. We do not feel that the 'scientific' community emerges with any great credit from these encounters" (p.202).

On the other extreme side there are the impostors who take advantage of the distress of people in need and make a lot of money with it. Since a while there's Astro tv on the Dutch commercial television. I saw it for a moment last week and that's really bogus. From many scientist's point of view all or most astrologers are like this, so I can understand their view too.

In my view science usually wants to explain the world without any God; moreover, they try to deny him

Not all do this. In the past many scientists were christians (or other kind of religion) and saw their research as a fulfillment of their religious duty, medicine to serve mankind etc. or knowing the works of creation. Another benefit is that through science one will at least know what God is not. While in the past people feared thunder as being the voice of the god(s) in anger. Now we know that it's electrical discharge. While magical thinking has its fascinating side, we should be careful not to romanticize it. Just think of the fear of hell induced to people during so many centuries and even for small 'offences'. Max Weber's Entzauberung/Disenchantment got accompanied with a feeling of loss of our sense of mystical poetry (you should know I like William Blake's poetry a lot). However it has also been of benefit to society by liberating us from the oppressing aspects of (institutionalized) religion. Here too we should find a balance between extreme materialism and losing the sense of reality.

Waybread,
I always felt reluctant to read charts on the internet. I did it sometimes and sometimes right and sometimes wrong. Another very unsatisfactory thing I experienced on another forum a few years ago is that quite a few times I spent a lot of time on a chart and the person with the question never bothered to answer. I'd rather stick to people I can speak 'live' with. Notwithstanding the results I noticed that doing this internet reading can exhaust my energy because you concentrate on the person and somewhat take over some of the problems of a person. It's different from people sitting next to you. It might be something telepathically and one should be careful in doing this. People are different so perhaps I'm more sensitive to it than others. However I might try to develop a system to use the astrological symbols without natal charts. Perhaps I'll experiment a bit with this, at least if friends etc. would feel for it.

One final thing to explain my point I made previously. When I mentioned William Blake somewhere in this post I remembered that several years ago I found that connecting our archetypes to planets and their cycles felt like 'imprisoning the deities'. These deieties and archetypes sprang from humankind/earth and might better be here near us. William Blake wrote in his poems a lot about religion and the troubling side of institutions. Here's a poem of Blake in which I see expressed my ambivalent feelings towards astrology (and the possible risks of institutionalised astrology).

William Blake - excerpt from: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/blake_ma.html

William Blake wrote:The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could percieve.
And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country, placing it under its mental deity;
Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood;
Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.
And at length they pronounc'd that the Gods had order'd such things.
Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.

Mike, Yes. I am sorry that I cannot seem to explain myself more clearly. But "once more, with feeling!"

I assume that what you mean by the pairing of charts of people who are not married, is that these people are randomly paired: we are not talking about BF/GF, live-in, partner, or common-law relationships. We are talking about two people who have no contact with one another.

So you tell me--by what astrological techniques should an astrologer be able to say whether 2 people are married or not? I don't think there are any.

Some might disagree, because you might get by looking at likely/unlikely times for people to get married and then match up the charts that way, but some people choose a wedding date simply because they have a one-weekend window that works for everyone in both families, even where an astrologer might advise against it.

We might find two randomly selected people in paired charts to be highly compatible, should they ever meet. But if they never actually met, no marriage. And blind chart readings cannot tell you whether they actually met or not.

So to do a study of synastry's hits and misses in discerning compatible or incompatible married couples, you would have to start with actually married couples.

I think it would be hard to develop a legitimate control group if this is what you are after, and I don't think you would use randomly paired people.

Eddy--An astrologer has to develop a thick skin, for sure. But after 17 years of studying astrology out of books, with only the occasional chart reading; and 3 years of chart-reading on two other Internet forums, I would say the past 3 years have taught me as much as the first 17. The heavens are only one part of the astrology equation. Real people with real issues in real time are the other. This is why medical school graduates are required to have a lot of hands-on experience with real patients before they can be licensed to practice medicine, or getting an architect's license requires a fixed number of hours of applied work. You find this in many professions.

So I don't mind your saying that you became convinced that astrology doesn't work, but it doesn't sound as though you gave it a fair chance.

However, hopefully you can apply your wonderful aptitudes to mundane astrology, or financial or weather forecasting with individuals safely tucked out of the way.

Also, we cannot discount the many religious scientists. We find them not only in church-sponsored universities, but also walking the corridors of secular institutions. A metaphorical view of religion can be highly compatible with science. I have a M. S. (M. Sc.) degree, so I really appreciate how science functions. I also believe in God, but I do not accept religious dogmas, creeds, or literal readings of most scriptures. Problem solved.

waybread wrote:Mike, Yes. I am sorry that I cannot seem to explain myself more clearly. But "once more, with feeling!"

I assume that what you mean by the pairing of charts of people who are not married, is that these people are randomly paired: we are not talking about BF/GF, live-in, partner, or common-law relationships. We are talking about two people who have no contact with one another.

So you tell me--by what astrological techniques should an astrologer be able to say whether 2 people are married or not? I don't think there are any.

Some might disagree, because you might get by looking at likely/unlikely times for people to get married and then match up the charts that way, but some people choose a wedding date simply because they have a one-weekend window that works for everyone in both families, even where an astrologer might advise against it.

We might find two randomly selected people in paired charts to be highly compatible, should they ever meet. But if they never actually met, no marriage. And blind chart readings cannot tell you whether they actually met or not.

So to do a study of synastry's hits and misses in discerning compatible or incompatible married couples, you would have to start with actually married couples.

I think it would be hard to develop a legitimate control group if this is what you are after, and I don't think you would use randomly paired people.

I have already suggested the 3 non married pairs would need to have been born within a realistic time range of each other and not too far apart. They will not know each other. Obviously if one were 78 and born in Siberia and the other 19 and born in Zaire they are likely not married. The same would need to be done for the 7 married couples to make the experiment fair to the astrologer(s).

I have also already made it ,clear in my view it would not be possible to know from 2 charts if they were happily married/compatible, let alone in a relationship.

We wouldn't need a control group in this experiment. It's a simple pick the one from 10 or one from 7 if we exclude the 3 randoms.

I can' t make this any clearer Waybread, it is a simple experiment really.

After 20 goes or so if the astros scored 6/7+ out of 20 then I think we would have to accept it would be worth repeating and get another 20 groups of 7/10 prepared.

Mike, Apparently I can't make myself any clearer, either. Pity. My point is simple.

We are talking blind chart readings, no? Two people born in the same town at the same year would not know each other if one moved away as an infant. Yet they might be highly compatible.

You might carefully screen your randomly matched pairs so that they fit some pre-specified criteria, and then if you included them you would need more than a sample of 10 charts with the percentage break-down you've indicated to really feel you'd got something, hopefully to control for experimental design flaws. Research is all about controlling for potentially confounding variables. If you don't do this, then you don't know whether your results stem from what you are actually trying to examine, or from something else.

The trouble with the study you outlined is that it doesn't sufficiently control for possibilities that could throw off the results. A test of astrological techniques should test for correlations that astrology actually purports to say something about; not for correlations that are beyond its scope. As you know, astrology does not claim to address any and all phenomena.

How much synastry have you studied, Mike--and how much synastry have you done for people? And hey, if you have decided a priori that an astrologer taking on those 20 charts would be doomed to failure anyway--then there is no point in continuing this discussion.

May I put on my ironic hat here and welcome you to the world of what I call theoretical astrology.

Our subject is a fascinating one and attracts a lot of interest but who wants to get involved in the tiresome business of actually reading charts for people, helping them with their problems and offering them guidance in life?

A while back I read a popular biog of Paracelcus. He went around Europe curing sick people. This horrified the medical establishment for whom medicine meant reading Galen and now and then condescending to peer at a phial of urine. It seems that a forum like this provides a platform for "astrologers" with a similar attitude.

There is also a status aspect here. In the last century Freud was influenced by a work on mass-psychology (sorry forget author's name). The mob has its own sub-conscious which can be manipulated. Some believe that demagogues like Mussolini studied these ideas. Later on the advertising industry caught on to it.

Now it would be gratifying to be the manipulator not the manipulated. Perhaps there is a fear among astrologers that the art could be proved to be false. Then they would be the manipulated; the one who believed nonsense because they were told to do so. Status would be found by being the wise scientist whose facts prove him to be right while the common herd are all wrong. It would feed this conceit to be the white-coated scientist looking over the shoulder of the astrological subject and pointing out where they were wrong. A lot easier than actually doing any astrology.

But who wants to be a lab rat anyway?

I could point out in a simple and astrological way why this stuff doesn't work but if opinions are so entrenched why bother?

Ho-hum

Matthew

Hi Waybread, perhaps I myself didn't give it a fair chance but it should be noted that several sceptics formerly were (full time) operating astrologers who often were respected committee members of an astrological organisation. Just have a look at the biographies in astrology-and-science site.