Robert Hand and Post Modern Astrology
Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 2:02 pm
This ought to get things rolling 
The following four points are a summary of the issues Robert Hand raises in his postmodern astrology talk that I?m going to discuss. There are other things in the article, but let?s keep it to this for now:
1) There is the broad subject ?traditional astrology,? i.e. the astrology that existed prior to, roughly 1700.
2) There is the astrology that began with Alan Leo, and included subsequently Dane Rhudyar, Reinhold Ebertin, et al that began to use astrology for what he calls ?self actualization?
3) That latter astrology lacks a strong foundation and as a result there is a lot of fuzzy language and fuzzy thinking that goes into it particularly by its lesser practitioners. At its worst, it can mean anything to anybody. At is best it provides ?self actualization.?
4) A balance needs to be struck between the contemporary traditionalists, who are attempting to recreate traditional astrology, and the modern or 20th century astrologers for the benefit of astrology.
It should be noted that in his background explanation, probably for time considerations in his talk, Hand leaps from his arbitrary but generally accepted date of 1700 to the late 19th early 20th century era. But something happened here that still affects astrology that was not developed by Alan Leo, Dan Rhudyar, et al. Astrology was taken from the natural world to the occult world. Early 19th century astrologers like John Varley and John Worsdale practiced very much in the mold of William Lilly, and stayed in the natural world. But in the English Astrologer ?Raphael,? in Patrick Curry?s words, ? ? we pass from Varley?s study in London, with its real enough twilight, curious books and bits of fruit pie, to a study mainly of the mind. And not just Raphael?s mind for, through his pioneering efforts, the astrologer as Romanticized magus, bearer of ancient esoteric knowledge (or an incomprehensible legacy of superstition), became the dominant image of astrology in the age.?
[A Confusion of Prophets, Patrick Curry, Collins and brown, 1992 page 46.]
Not only his age, but, with the help of ?spiritualism? it morphed into the astrology of the 20th century, which allowed such things as Theosophy, hypothetical planets, asteroid worship, new age gibberish, psychic readings and ?intuition*? to find their ?natural? home in astrology.
Hand skims over this or actually sweeps it aside in order to concentrate on more, for lack of a better word, ?rational? belief systems within astrology, and by doing so makes his argument more plausible. But can he wish those things away so easily in order to accomplish his goal that he describes as: ?? [a] need to strike a balance between the modernist?s attitude and the traditionalist?s attitude[?]? I doubt it. The more fanciful practitioners are not going to let go of the dominant attitude typified by ?Neptune is anything we want it to mean,? all that easily. It?s too ingrained.
Secondly and perhaps more importantly, why would we want to do such a thing? Such a balance indicates sufficient commonality exists between the traditional and the contemporary. Yet by Hand? own admission, he notes:
A better name for psychological astrology is ?pop psychology astrology?. Pop psychology is to psychology as Sun signs are to astrology, and maybe not even that sophisticated. And here we must at least note, that the study of psychology is not the same thing as psychotherapy, which is the practice of what is studied by psychologists. Psychotherapy is usually practiced (in the US) by people with Master?s degrees in social work. Psychologists (PhDs) handle more serious cases of mental illness, and if the problem is physical in origin, psychiatrists (MDs) get involved, although the fields do overlap. What passes for psychology in the practice of the astrologers I?ve seen is a mixture of ?I?m OK ? You?re OK? and pep talks. There is little or nothing in the typical contemporary astrology book that is not better articulated in each of the first three books taken off the shelf at random in the self-help section of any bookstore.
The first question that needs to be answered is this: Does 20th century astrology provide a benefit that is not better handled elsewhere? Now don?t fall off your chairs, but I think the answer to that question is, ?yes,? but I can?t dignify 20th century astrology by honestly associating it with psychology or psychotherapy. At its zenith it is self-help. And this can beneficial, particularly if it saves a client from spending enormous sums of money and enormous amounts of time with a psychotherapist when they just have the blues and maybe need a little (and the operative word is ?little?) insight. The question of whether or not many astrologers can do this competently is beyond the scope of this essay.
But back to the main question, does astrology benefit if we, somehow, find a balance between self-help and traditional astrology. I think not.
First of Hand tells us:
Not all traditional astrology is excellent and neither are all its practitioners. But again Hand tells us:
This seems like a necessary first step before we determine if a balance is even useful, much less necessary. We?ve only scratched the surface of what he calls ?traditional.? If that is true, why marry up with Dane Rhudyar? If the techniques may or may not be useful, it is also true they may (or may not) eliminate the necessity of trying to decipher Rhudyar, Arroyo, et al.
He emphasizes techniques, but only touches on worldview, which is another topic altogether, but worldview is essential to understanding pre 1700 astrology, 19th century astrology, and contemporary astrology. He hints at this when he says:
Should we do that? Hand is predicting a sort of inevitable merging of traditional and contemporary astrology and pronouncing it as ?good.? Is it? It is more likely that we?ll get a watered-down version of one and a beefed up version of the other, neither of which is very good. In short we get the holy grail of contemporary populism: moderation. What is good about moderation? Are there collections of biographies of great moderates in history? Are there moderate ideas that have changed the world? Of course not. Excellence and advancement are the products of pioneering, and original thinking based on what came before. They are not the product of intellectual highballs.
Hand?s definition of postmodern astrology begins, ironically, with a traditionalist, Robert Zoller. And Hand tells us Zoller is trying to recreate medieval astrology. Couple that with Hand?s observation that there is a great deal of available information on traditional astrology that we haven?t touched yet. I see this as evidence that we, you and I gentle reader, don?t quite understand just what astrology is, much less the depths of its potential. Let?s start there, and once we?ve arrived there, then maybe we determine if it meets the needs of modern humanity, and if it doesn?t what can be done to push it along to do what it can do. And may I suggest that we begin by promising to ignore all those who trumpet themselves by declaring they have studied all forms of astrology found them wanting, and therefore developed their own system. They are impediments. Ignoring them, not incorporating them, is a great first step in the right direction
Tom
*Intuitives of all stripes please resist the impulse to have a hissy fit over my use of quotation marks and apparent disparagement of the use of intuition in astrology. Here is my position, after reading feel free to have said fit. ?Intuition? is a rapid logical deduction whose steps are so fast the conscious mind doesn?t pick them up, so they feel like a bolt from the blue. I have no problem with this sort of event, but ask how many times do people get such intuitive experiences with subjects with which they have no familiarity? I?ve had such flashes of insight with astrology, but never with auto mechanics, chemistry, or cooking. In my opinion it is a genuine talent if it happens often enough, and it turns out to be correct. My problem is when it becomes an excuse for laziness (?I don?t study; I?m intuitive) or becomes an outright fraud. Would you get on an airplane flown by an intuitive pilot? I?ve met people who have a real knack for putting symbols together in a logical form and for glancing at a chart and making sense out of it. When accompanied by genuine knowledge, this is a gift that I envy. Without the knowledge, it is a fraud.
The following four points are a summary of the issues Robert Hand raises in his postmodern astrology talk that I?m going to discuss. There are other things in the article, but let?s keep it to this for now:
1) There is the broad subject ?traditional astrology,? i.e. the astrology that existed prior to, roughly 1700.
2) There is the astrology that began with Alan Leo, and included subsequently Dane Rhudyar, Reinhold Ebertin, et al that began to use astrology for what he calls ?self actualization?
3) That latter astrology lacks a strong foundation and as a result there is a lot of fuzzy language and fuzzy thinking that goes into it particularly by its lesser practitioners. At its worst, it can mean anything to anybody. At is best it provides ?self actualization.?
4) A balance needs to be struck between the contemporary traditionalists, who are attempting to recreate traditional astrology, and the modern or 20th century astrologers for the benefit of astrology.
It should be noted that in his background explanation, probably for time considerations in his talk, Hand leaps from his arbitrary but generally accepted date of 1700 to the late 19th early 20th century era. But something happened here that still affects astrology that was not developed by Alan Leo, Dan Rhudyar, et al. Astrology was taken from the natural world to the occult world. Early 19th century astrologers like John Varley and John Worsdale practiced very much in the mold of William Lilly, and stayed in the natural world. But in the English Astrologer ?Raphael,? in Patrick Curry?s words, ? ? we pass from Varley?s study in London, with its real enough twilight, curious books and bits of fruit pie, to a study mainly of the mind. And not just Raphael?s mind for, through his pioneering efforts, the astrologer as Romanticized magus, bearer of ancient esoteric knowledge (or an incomprehensible legacy of superstition), became the dominant image of astrology in the age.?
[A Confusion of Prophets, Patrick Curry, Collins and brown, 1992 page 46.]
Not only his age, but, with the help of ?spiritualism? it morphed into the astrology of the 20th century, which allowed such things as Theosophy, hypothetical planets, asteroid worship, new age gibberish, psychic readings and ?intuition*? to find their ?natural? home in astrology.
Hand skims over this or actually sweeps it aside in order to concentrate on more, for lack of a better word, ?rational? belief systems within astrology, and by doing so makes his argument more plausible. But can he wish those things away so easily in order to accomplish his goal that he describes as: ?? [a] need to strike a balance between the modernist?s attitude and the traditionalist?s attitude[?]? I doubt it. The more fanciful practitioners are not going to let go of the dominant attitude typified by ?Neptune is anything we want it to mean,? all that easily. It?s too ingrained.
Secondly and perhaps more importantly, why would we want to do such a thing? Such a balance indicates sufficient commonality exists between the traditional and the contemporary. Yet by Hand? own admission, he notes:
He also notes:The language of 20th century astrology as a language tends to be imprecise, vague, inarticulate and unclear.
What benefit can come of such a balance? It seems as though modern astrology is the one leaning over way too far as it has insufficient roots to stand on its own. Hand?s answer is:?Modern astrology has had one really tragic flaw in addition to its inarticulate language: its complete lack of a philosophical foundation rooted in any coherent philosophical or spiritual tradition of the world, except in the case of Jyotish?
First we root modern astrology with the tradition, and then we keep its good stuff to meet the needs of modern humanity. This is an enormous proposal, but let?s put aside the hyperbolic goal of helping all humanity with astrology. The assumption is that the ?self actualization? that occurs within modern astrology has profound benefits. That ?self actualization? is what is commonly called ?psychological astrology.? Is psychological astrology all that profound or all that beneficial??So, 20th century astrology we keep, in so far as it speaks to the needs of modern humanity.?
A better name for psychological astrology is ?pop psychology astrology?. Pop psychology is to psychology as Sun signs are to astrology, and maybe not even that sophisticated. And here we must at least note, that the study of psychology is not the same thing as psychotherapy, which is the practice of what is studied by psychologists. Psychotherapy is usually practiced (in the US) by people with Master?s degrees in social work. Psychologists (PhDs) handle more serious cases of mental illness, and if the problem is physical in origin, psychiatrists (MDs) get involved, although the fields do overlap. What passes for psychology in the practice of the astrologers I?ve seen is a mixture of ?I?m OK ? You?re OK? and pep talks. There is little or nothing in the typical contemporary astrology book that is not better articulated in each of the first three books taken off the shelf at random in the self-help section of any bookstore.
The first question that needs to be answered is this: Does 20th century astrology provide a benefit that is not better handled elsewhere? Now don?t fall off your chairs, but I think the answer to that question is, ?yes,? but I can?t dignify 20th century astrology by honestly associating it with psychology or psychotherapy. At its zenith it is self-help. And this can beneficial, particularly if it saves a client from spending enormous sums of money and enormous amounts of time with a psychotherapist when they just have the blues and maybe need a little (and the operative word is ?little?) insight. The question of whether or not many astrologers can do this competently is beyond the scope of this essay.
But back to the main question, does astrology benefit if we, somehow, find a balance between self-help and traditional astrology. I think not.
First of Hand tells us:
This is a fascinating observation that will cause many moderns, should they consider it, to faint dead away. In other words, the tools exist within the tradition to practice ?psychological astrology.? He notes that it wasn?t done and goes on to explain why, but passes over the elephant in the living room. Traditional astrology gives us the tools to work with the mind.?Why did the tradition ? at least the branches of it I have mentioned ? not deal with the issue of self-actualization. They did have the tools if they had had the philosophical reasons for doing it.?
Not all traditional astrology is excellent and neither are all its practitioners. But again Hand tells us:
? We have not fully digested traditional astrologies ? to use the proper term ? we have not mastered the techniques. For example, the predictive techniques of Hellenistic astrology, and even some of the predictive techniques of medieval astrology are still not widely used or experimented with. They may turn out to be not too useful; they may also turn out to be a major break-through. I do not really know, but until we have actually systematically examined them we don?t know.?
This seems like a necessary first step before we determine if a balance is even useful, much less necessary. We?ve only scratched the surface of what he calls ?traditional.? If that is true, why marry up with Dane Rhudyar? If the techniques may or may not be useful, it is also true they may (or may not) eliminate the necessity of trying to decipher Rhudyar, Arroyo, et al.
He emphasizes techniques, but only touches on worldview, which is another topic altogether, but worldview is essential to understanding pre 1700 astrology, 19th century astrology, and contemporary astrology. He hints at this when he says:
What is the (universal) astrological worldview? This is important, assuming it exists. How is it different from the contemporary worldview? If these questions can be answered we will have the philosophical basis for all astrology that he seeks. But, and this is the point of his talk, we lack internal consistency and need to get it together. How we go about getting it together is the problem.?Something is talking to us, and things that talk must be alive and conscious. The idea that life and consciousness are epiphenomenal is the exact reverse of the astrological world view. This is why we are heretics. And by all means, let us remain so!
Should we do that? Hand is predicting a sort of inevitable merging of traditional and contemporary astrology and pronouncing it as ?good.? Is it? It is more likely that we?ll get a watered-down version of one and a beefed up version of the other, neither of which is very good. In short we get the holy grail of contemporary populism: moderation. What is good about moderation? Are there collections of biographies of great moderates in history? Are there moderate ideas that have changed the world? Of course not. Excellence and advancement are the products of pioneering, and original thinking based on what came before. They are not the product of intellectual highballs.
Hand?s definition of postmodern astrology begins, ironically, with a traditionalist, Robert Zoller. And Hand tells us Zoller is trying to recreate medieval astrology. Couple that with Hand?s observation that there is a great deal of available information on traditional astrology that we haven?t touched yet. I see this as evidence that we, you and I gentle reader, don?t quite understand just what astrology is, much less the depths of its potential. Let?s start there, and once we?ve arrived there, then maybe we determine if it meets the needs of modern humanity, and if it doesn?t what can be done to push it along to do what it can do. And may I suggest that we begin by promising to ignore all those who trumpet themselves by declaring they have studied all forms of astrology found them wanting, and therefore developed their own system. They are impediments. Ignoring them, not incorporating them, is a great first step in the right direction
Tom
*Intuitives of all stripes please resist the impulse to have a hissy fit over my use of quotation marks and apparent disparagement of the use of intuition in astrology. Here is my position, after reading feel free to have said fit. ?Intuition? is a rapid logical deduction whose steps are so fast the conscious mind doesn?t pick them up, so they feel like a bolt from the blue. I have no problem with this sort of event, but ask how many times do people get such intuitive experiences with subjects with which they have no familiarity? I?ve had such flashes of insight with astrology, but never with auto mechanics, chemistry, or cooking. In my opinion it is a genuine talent if it happens often enough, and it turns out to be correct. My problem is when it becomes an excuse for laziness (?I don?t study; I?m intuitive) or becomes an outright fraud. Would you get on an airplane flown by an intuitive pilot? I?ve met people who have a real knack for putting symbols together in a logical form and for glancing at a chart and making sense out of it. When accompanied by genuine knowledge, this is a gift that I envy. Without the knowledge, it is a fraud.