Good evening,

At the beginning of Mundane Astrology, 2nd revised edition 1992, Chapter 4, The National Horoscope: Mundane Astrology and Political Theory, by Mr Nicholas Campion, one reads:

"The historical context

The national horoscope is the basic tool of mundane astrology in the modern world, yet this was not always so. Until recently mundane astrologers have relied almost exclusively on the charts for lunations and ingresses which were made specific to particular locations using techniques such as the zodiacal-geographical rulerships of Ptolemy."

In contrast to this one reads in Klaudios Ptolomaios' Tetrabiblos, Book II, Section 3, translated by Prof. Frank Robbins:

"... in the case of metropolitan cities, those regions of the zodiac are most sympathetic through which the sun and moon, and of the centres especially the horoscope, were passing at the first founding of the city, as in a nativity. But in cases in which the exact times of the foundations are not discovered, the regions are sympathetic in which falls the mid?heaven of the nativities of those who held office or were kings at the time" (bold emphasis added)

Even today, the vast majority of countries are geographically too small to cover an entire geographic region as described earlier in the same Section of Ptolemy's text. City-states were frequent in antiquity as today.

Mr Nicholas Campion had both the similar 1822 translation by Mr J. M. Ashmand and Prof. Robbins' quoted above available for closer scrutiny.

The 'national horoscope', so it seems, has been recommended for mundane astrology by Ptolemy for at least 1,800 years. He placed it into a clear hierarchical framework of mundane astrological tools.

Best regards,

lihin

lihin,,

by quoting only the first part of baigent, campion and harvey's opening to chapter 4, you do a dis-service to the book and these fine astrologers as well.. for the benefit to others who would be able to appreciate the complexities of astrology, not to mention the history, i am going to quote a little further down the page.

"the concept of nationalism, that mythology which places loyalty to the state above all other feelings, is also relatively recent, and only developed along with the institutional growth of the state which it serves.. people in former times were far more likely to identify themselves as part of a geographical area, or as tenants of a particular landlord or as adherents of a religious sect. it was therefore more important for astrologers to cast charts for the landlord, prince, king or emperor, or other leader and to assess the history and future of great world religions, then to attempt to define a horoscope for the nation itself. it was considered that the king himself embodied the nation, and charts for his birth and coronation were therefore of primary importance."

further to this, i never got the impression these authors were trying to over throw or re-write the nature of mundane astrology such as you imply.. quite the opposite.

Good morning,

Have i said or implied that the quoted book was worthless? If it were, i should not have bothered to read it. Do some people really believe that for example ancient citizens of Troy and Athens were less nationalistic and patriotic than those of current 'nation-states', only few of which are larger than a single geographical region?

On page 2 of Mr Nicholas Campion's The Book of World Horoscopes, in my experience quite a useful work, one can read:

"In 1951, six years after the war ended Carter published his Introduction to Political Astrology which is, to my knowledge, the first astrology text to include a section on national horoscopes."

Apparently Mr Campion had overlooked the, albeit terse, section quoted above in Tetrabiblos.

Best regards,

lihin

lihin wrote: Do some people really believe that for example ancient citizens of Troy and Athens were less nationalistic and patriotic than those of current 'nation-states', only few of which are larger than a single geographical region?

Actually, yes. Not Athens - but that was an exception as I shall relate:-

I would refer you to "Thermopylae: The Battle for the West" by Ernle Bradford, Da Capo Press, 1993. In 480 BCE, the Persian King Xerxes was leading the largest army the world had ever seen to finally conquer and crush the upstart Greece, and was confronted by 300 Spartans at the Thermopylae Pass. Xerxes was perplexed. Some 300 Greeks were setting themselves against his army of over half a million men - they had no hope of victory and faced certain death. Why was it that the Greeks were willing to freely sacrifice themselves? Demaratus, lately and unjustly deposed as a King of Sparta and now in the pay of Xerxes, replied that the Greeks were fighting for a principle which they held in higher regard than even their respect for Xerxes, King of Kings. Today, we see that principle in the light of a national identity (though Demaratus did not call it that) and it was this that perplexed Xerxes. This was a completely novel idea. As far as Xerxes and his army was concerned, Xerxes was Persia and the army fought for him and in fear of him.

Moreover, it was an idea that completely altered the course of history for Europe. If Leonidas and his 300 heros had not faced down Xerxes that day and given the Greeks time to reform, the brilliant super-nova that was Greek philosophy and culture would never have flourished and the development of Western culture would have taken quite another trajectory.

Like many novel ideas, the idea that a nation state had an identity separate from its ruler took time to develop and it can be argued that in the time of Ptolemy, it was not an idea that was in common currency. But once we get to the 20th century, there is no doubt that the idea of a national identity did exist and, it has been argued that when Britain stood firm against the onslaught of Hitler's might two and a half thousand years later, it was in the same spirit that Leonidas and his three hundred stood firm against the tyrant Xerxes at Thermopylae.

Geoffrey