An Astrology Exchange/Challenge

[PixyMisa]

Because not all astrologers are Richard Tarnas! Just because he has a PhD doesn't give him any authority to talk about statistics - he is a historian, and (you're going to hate this), a Piscean to boot. From an astrological point of view, his Pisces Sun trine Uranus in Cancer correlates very well to his rather nebulous, poetic, "imaginatively cultivated" intelligence which easily (the trine) sees patterns in history (Cancer).

Astrology - that thing that doesn't work, right?

Anyway, I have given you all the benefit of the doubt about Gauquelin and empirical testing in general and prepared to just say that empirical evidence doesn't exist. The Gauquelin story is a nightmare - first we have the man doing the research, then someone else saying that he fuddled it, then someone else saying no he didn't, and then the poor man commits suicide.

The research is certainly biased and worthless. Whether that was due to fraud or simple incompetence is largely irrelevant.

Kenneth Irving, in his Planetos website has summarized the drama quite succinctly, I think, but I'm not surprised that astrologers, who tend to be more artistically inclined than interested in statistics, have just put the whole episode on a back burner, hoping that someone else might finally verify the Mars effect, while they get on with simply saying that astrology cannot be tested, and move on to discussing the metaphysical/philosophical/artistic side of astrology, which I'm looking forward to doing.

Astrology does not work. The metaphysics/philosophical/artistic side of it is therefore garbage.

 

[PixyMisa]

The advantage of astrology as world-view, though, to me, is that it raises my consciousness from the limitation of affiliating with any one of the pairs of opposites that we see in non-metaphysical worldviews, for example the liberal or conservative camps.

The disadvantage is that it leaves you mired in worse nonsense than comes out of any mainstream political group (except for the Texas State Board of Education).

Because astrology is about (supposed) hidden Natural Laws, it is somewhat similar to science, which is about demonstrable natural laws.

It is the opposite of science.

An example of this would be the principle of karma. No one has proven karma, but in principle it is the counterpart of Newton's second law (the one about equal and opposite reaction).

As I said, the opposite of science. Instead of forming distinct and precise hypotheses and checking them against the evidence, you make stuff up and then fudge the evidence to fit.

And because the laws of astrology are (supposedly) universal, they free us from the sort of morality derived from culturally biased religions.

No.

It only contradicts the scientific worldview by being hidden or "occult", as mentioned above, but astrology actually contains the principle of science within itself. This principle is symbolized by the planet Saturn.

Astrology is a travesty of logic and reason, the polar opposite of science and all intellectual honsesty. It contains not a trace of science or its principles. Your absurd statement about Saturn is a perfect example of this.

 

[PixyMisa]

'm not surprised that astrologers, who tend to be more artistically inclined than interested in statistics

You mean, they're a bunch of delusional crackpots and out-and-out frauds?

 

[PixyMisa]

Ideas, imagination, thoughts.

Ideas, imagination, and thoughts are all material.

 

[PixyMisa]

I'm happy to accept that astrologers tend to have active imaginations as making up all that old garbage for centuries isn't easy. I tried writing a satirical horoscope for a student paper back in the day and ran out of inspiration after about four months.

Just create one month's worth, and then recycle them but shift them to the next sign each month.

Oops, there I go giving away trade secrets again...

 

[PixyMisa]

Before we go any further, I'd like to clarify that when I say astrology, I am really talking about what is known as "esoteric" astrology

"Esoteric", from "sot", meaning drunkard, and "Eric", Middle-Engish slang for a viking (Eric being a common viking name).

So esoteric astrology is astrology as interpreted by a slarmied Norseman.

which in turn is based on kaballah

Borrowed from the old Aramaic term qwubl, meaning the residue left at the bottom of the jar after a batch of beer has gone bad.

which supposedly is a "map" of consciousness.

As interpreted by viking raiders drunk on spoiled beer.

And consciousness contains everything - it is the universe/"God", time, space, nothingness, eternity, thoughts, memories, the physical world.

Or, y'know, it's just something that goes on inside our heads.

I know that different cultures have different mystical beliefs, but within the mystical belief known as kaballah, there are definite principles represented by the spheres on the Tree Of Life, which correspond to the "planets" (bodies) of astrology, and secondary modes of expression for those principles, represented by the signs of the Zodiac.

Except for the part about the two giant squirrels who periodically harvest them and store them away for the winter, a tradition that is not commonly upheld in modern astrology texts.

Together, these describe how our consciousness works, and have done for thousands of years.

Snowed-in drunken Norwegian squirrels wearing spiked helmets and throwing acorns at passers-by.

Yes, I've had days like that too.

The subconsious mind, for example was understood way before Freud "discovered" it a hundred years or so years ago, and the mental processes of concentration, discrimination, analysis, etc. were all described by the planets and signs.

And also by humours and vapours and demons and fairies and whatever the hell else they could find to blame their personal shortcomings on.

Not every astrologer has studied the kaballah, or the tarot, which is a synthesis of these principles, put into picture form, and formulated in the 1200s.

And makes for quite an interesting game of 5-card stud. Really. Give it a try.

But most astrologers, if they have studied any occult sources of the subject, give the same associations to specific planets or signs.

Which couldn't possibly be because they're all reading the same damn books.

Except for the few who get into the good stuff, with the squirrels in.

For example, Mercury is the planet of the intellect, and the signs that it rules, Gemini and Virgo, are highly mental signs.

Completely mental, one might say.

The difference between them is that Gemini rules discrimintion

Those bastards!

whereas Virgo rules analysis. I don't think that anyone could confuse Venus and Mars or Jupiter and Saturn

Venus is the bright white one, Mars is the dim red one.

although it's unfortunate that Tarnas didn't describe them very well in the video.

You do know that we've landed on two and sent probes to all four, right? We've had little robots scouting around the surface of Mars non-stop for the past several years. (Here's to you, Spirit and Opportunity!)

As mentioned before, I would have described their symbolism more distinctly.

Not that it would have made the slightest bit of difference.

Maybe I'm not explaining it properly.

Somehow, I don't think that's the problem.

On the Tree Of Life, there are 3 pillars - a right or pillar of mercy, a left pillar of severity, and a central pillar of mildness.

And nesting in the right pillar, a dove; in the left pillar, an egret (transcription error, we're stuck with it now); and in the middle pillar, a kakapo.

The right hand pillar is the "immaterial" world of light, inspiration, desires, and BELIEF

The right pillar bears pink grapefruit and honey-roasted peanuts from the same branch.

and the left hand pillar is matter, justice and intellect.

The left pillar bears potatoes.

The scientific method uses our intellects to observe the material world and form theories about laws.

Err... What?

It has nothing to do with belief, or personal desires.

Correct. You win a chocolate-dipped strawberry from the middle pillar.

Scientists might be inspired with certain ideas, but the actual process of science is very much to do with this left hand pillar, which is topped by the sphere represented by Saturn.

Yes, though as it happened, this meant the car company, not the planet. By the time the mistake was discovered it was too late.

Ask any astrologer which planet most represents your sentence "science....is not subject to interpretation" - it's Saturn.

I asked ten of them.

Two said Saturn. (Well, actually, one of those said Satan, but I'm assuming that's an accent.)
One said Jupiter.
One said Polyhymnia.
One said, and I quote, "Phnglui mgwlnafth Cthulhu rlyey wghnagl fthagn."
The other five all said "That will be fifteen dollars for the first five minutes."

The rings around Saturn, by some sychronistic law of nature, represent this limitation of science to strict justice.

What about the rings around Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune?

The language of (esoteric)

(Drunken viking.)

astrology is not trying to be "better" than science (if that is your concern)

No, that's not our concern. Trust me, that's not our concern!

it is just, as a philosophy, assigning science to its place in the larger picture.

Beaned on the bonce by a walnut shell thrown by an inebriated Scandanavian tree-rat?

OK, I've stopped!

Damn, I was just getting warmed up!

 

[Akhenaten]

Damn, I was just getting warmed up!

And you're going great. Thanks.

 

[dafydd]

It seems to me that enough evidence has been presented here to convince even a die-hard believer that astrology is about as useful as a chocolate teapot,but that's probably just wishful thinking on my part.

 

[Cuddles]

As another note on Chaos theory (and this would also apply to astrology if we assumed there was actually some way of measuring 'everything'):

As far as I understand it, in complex systems predictability is very hard (hence Chaos theory), but one of the main issues is that, even if you had the most amazing computer that could calculate every part of the system in question, you would still need to know the starting state of the system in order to be able to generate entirely accurate data.

Thus even if we could measure every tiny atom in our weather systems with an unbelievably powerful computer, we could never calculate perfectly without knowing how the system had operated from the start of the earth's weather. Which we would obviously never be able to know.

Just to come back to this point, which I don't think anyone commented on, this is not correct. The initial state of the system does not refer to some absolute initial state, but simply the state at the point you start your model/calculation from. In the case of weather, it would be perfectly fine to start with an exact measurement of everything right now, without having to know what happened when the Earth first came into existence.

For example, take one of the classic demonstrations of chaos, the iterative formula: x_n+1 = 2x_n²-1
Start with a value -1 < x < 1
Depending on the starting value, it can converge to a single value, oscillate between two or more, or walk all over the place with no apparent pattern (chaotically in fact, hence the name). There's all kinds of fun behaviour that can be seen with this, but the point relevant here is that the history of x is irrelevant to future values of x. If you input a value of x = 0.37622234, it doesn't matter if that's a value you've arrived at by iterating the formula 1000 times already, or if it just happens to be the first number that popped into your head - the behaviour of the system after that point will be identical. The same is true for any chaotic system, including the weather.

 

[Aquila]

Quote:
Together, these describe how our consciousness works, and have done for thousands of years.

Really? Do you have any evidence to support this claim, or is it more confirmation bias and wishful thinking? See, once again you are trying to make scientific claims based on non-scientific principles.

JREF has a thread going at the moment about the Emerald Tablet of Hermes/Thoth. Despite your debunking, this treatise is supposed to describe the process of our self-conscious minds, from starting to have an idea to manifesting the finished result. Tarot key #1, The Magician, also summarizes this process in visual form (please see pic below)

Again, this is only true for the branches you have claimed to study and for only one or two occult sources. If you look outside to other cultures, there are different meanings for the planets. Heck, half of the cultures outside of the Arabic sphere of influence have completely different groupings/meanings to the stars. Once again, you are assuming that the meaning you assign to the planets are the "true" meanings...

The "Western Esoteric Tradition" or Ageless Wisdom as it is called actually covers sources other than Judaism, being the root of Islam and Christianity too, and having parallels with Hinduism. The Inner Holy Planets of kaballah are the same as the Indian Chakras for example.

As for star groupings, this is all part of predictive astrology and less to do with the esoteric or "inner" astrology which focuses on planets and signs. The planets are supposed to be the chakras and the 12 signs rule 12 areas of the human body. The "microcosm" of the human being is meant to mirror the "macrocosm" of the universe/God (similar to a fractal maybe?)

Why is it topped by Saturn? As far as I can tell, it is because someone lost in the mists of time said it was, and every work that built on what that one someone said happens to agree (tautology).

No, it's all done with numbers. The Saturn sphere is the 3rd sphere from the top. The first sphere represents the indivisible/ineffable "God". The second sphere represents the first principle that we can be aware of about this 1st principle, and that is light. The 3rd principle is this condensation of light into matter, achieved through the "feminine" principle of Saturn - also known as the "divine womb of creation".

And, as a philosophy, it is unable to have its premises tested, so you have no real idea if this is what it really means, or if this is simply what one person thought it meant, and everyone else in your branch of astrology has accepted that. It is no more accurate than stating that all dogs are brown, and everything else follows from that.

So you have said before, but you are still doing it. Pardon me if I remain skeptical of this.

You are right. There is no means of testing any of this philosophy empirically. It can only be tested subjectively, through the process of "initiation". And this is probably why the teachings of Ageless Wisdom were confined to secret societies.

Just because I may seem to know a bit about this philosophy doesn't mean that I agree with it! In many ways, I do take the skeptic position about it, especially because I have seen first hand how controlling and abusive belonging to a group of "initiates" can be. I have a friend who is a "Bright", and he too thinks it is a load of rubbish, despite being Jewish, and initially thinking, like me, that it might explain our ancestral religion more insight fully than all the outer nonsense.

Tarot image is copyright U.S. Games Systems Inc.

 

[Aquila]

PixyMisa, dafydd and Zep: I hope that my reply to Hokulele keeps you amused.

 

[Aquila]

Quote:
The modern tarot deck has been traced back to 15th-century Italy and a trick-taking game called "triumphs" (tarots in French; Decker 1996). [...]

The oldest playing cards date back to 10th-century China, but the four suits of tarot and modern playing cards probably originated with a 14th-century Muslim deck (Decker).

http://www.skepdic.com/tarot.html

I have no argument with these historical facts, in they are true. The way I learned it, the tarot was compiled in Fez, Morocco in about 1200 A.D. from many different sources, including Chinese, Greek, Hebrew and Islam. Various esoteric principles were compiled into a picture book in order to preserve them in case the written treatises were destroyed. The picture book was then disguised as a game of cards.

 

[Hokulele]

JREF has a thread going at the moment about the Emerald Tablet of Hermes/Thoth. Despite your debunking, this treatise is supposed to describe the process of our self-conscious minds, from starting to have an idea to manifesting the finished result. Tarot key #1, The Magician, also summarizes this process in visual form (please see pic below)

No, the Emerald Tablet can be interpreted that way, it can also be interpreted as a recipe for creating a touchstone. That is exactly the problem with everything you have posted regarding astrology, tarot, and now alchemy, is that is requires interpretation, and there is no practical way to determine when an interpretation is incorrect.

The "Western Esoteric Tradition" or Ageless Wisdom as it is called actually covers sources other than Judaism, being the root of Islam and Christianity too, and having parallels with Hinduism. The Inner Holy Planets of kaballah are the same as the Indian Chakras for example.

No, people went looking for connections, and when there weren't any naturally, connections between the various cultures were invented. I blame Joseph Campbell.

As for star groupings, this is all part of predictive astrology and less to do with the esoteric or "inner" astrology which focuses on planets and signs. The planets are supposed to be the chakras and the 12 signs rule 12 areas of the human body. The "microcosm" of the human being is meant to mirror the "macrocosm" of the universe/God (similar to a fractal maybe?)

Law of correspondence, as JoeTheJuggler mentioned. There is absolutely no evidence that a human being mirrors the universe. Fractals are a very simple demonstration of complexity arising from basic equations, they are not an example of "as above, so below".

No, it's all done with numbers. The Saturn sphere is the 3rd sphere from the top. The first sphere represents the indivisible/ineffable "God". The second sphere represents the first principle that we can be aware of about this 1st principle, and that is light. The 3rd principle is this condensation of light into matter, achieved through the "feminine" principle of Saturn - also known as the "divine womb of creation".

Sure, why not throw numerology into the mix.

Why is Saturn the 3rd sphere? If it is by definition, we have hit another tautology. Again, it is easy to find connections in a system where people have built in connections. There is no outside evidence for claiming anything mystical regarding Saturn.

You are right. There is no means of testing any of this philosophy empirically. It can only be tested subjectively, through the process of "initiation". And this is probably why the teachings of Ageless Wisdom were confined to secret societies.

OK.

Just because I may seem to know a bit about this philosophy doesn't mean that I agree with it! In many ways, I do take the skeptic position about it, especially because I have seen first hand how controlling and abusive belonging to a group of "initiates" can be. I have a friend who is a "Bright", and he too thinks it is a load of rubbish, despite being Jewish, and initially thinking, like me, that it might explain our ancestral religion more insight fully than all the outer nonsense.

OK. If you do not agree with it, why bring it up in a thread meant to be examining the truth value of astrology?

 

[Aquila]

OK. If you do not agree with it, why bring it up in a thread meant to be examining the truth value of astrology?

I do not agree with the way that Ageless Wisdom has been used by people with power complexes. It has been "borrowed" from Judaism and organized into secret societies like the Rosicrucians and Freemasons, with initiation ceremonies and vows of secrecy. It has been turned into an "old-boy" network at best, and an abusive holier-than-thou system of one-upmanship at worst. But I still think that there still might be some profound truths about consciousness underneath all that political stuff.

What about the so-called "Law Of Attraction"? You have probably all discussed this but how does science explain the phenomenon?

I think that Rhonda Byrne, in her book, The Secret, tried to make the process of visualization and the law of attraction available to a world-wide audience, so that one didn't have to join some group or take vows of secrecy. As you probably know, she was just taking the principles that were written down in Wallace Wattle's book on how to get rich, which she reportedly found in her grandfather's attic. There were many such authors at the beginning of the 20th century, and their works fell under the umbrella term "New Thought".

Tarot would illustrate the principle of the Law Of Attraction with The Magician - or astrological Mercury (posted above) and the next tarot key The High Priestess or astrological Moon, which represents our sub-conscious minds. The former plants a seed in the "Virgin substance" or mind stuff and Imagination (key 3, The Empress - a pregnant woman) results. Tarot symbolizes "spiritual psychology" because what we do with our minds is supposed to be a mirror the big/cosmic picture of creation.

What do skeptics think of the Law of Attraction?

 

[Aquila]

Ideas, imagination, and thoughts are all material.

Please explain.

 

[Sledge]

I'm not sure I understand Aquila's point. It seems to be "Astrology doesn't do anything and this is how it works." What am I missing?

 

[Akhenaten]

What do skeptics think of the Law of Attraction?

I have no idea, since my application for accreditation keeps being rejected, but speaking on behalf of all the people who don't live in Cloud Cuckoo Land, I'd say at best it's complete bollocks and at worst a really obvious con that would only work on extremely stupid/greedy/lazy people.

I'm not sure I understand Aquila's point. It seems to be "Astrology doesn't do anything and this is how it works." What am I missing?

The other seventy billion words that you could have used to say the same thing.

Allow me to be the first to offer thanks for that kindness.

 

[Sledge]

I try keep things as simple as possible. Why use a hundred words when one will do?

Unless one is trying to confuse the issue, of course.

 

[dafydd]

I do not agree with the way that Ageless Wisdom has been used by people with power complexes. It has been "borrowed" from Judaism and organized into secret societies like the Rosicrucians and Freemasons, with initiation ceremonies and vows of secrecy. It has been turned into an "old-boy" network at best, and an abusive holier-than-thou system of one-upmanship at worst. But I still think that there still might be some profound truths about consciousness underneath all that political stuff.

What about the so-called "Law Of Attraction"? You have probably all discussed this but how does science explain the phenomenon?

I think that Rhonda Byrne, in her book, The Secret, tried to make the process of visualization and the law of attraction available to a world-wide audience, so that one didn't have to join some group or take vows of secrecy. As you probably know, she was just taking the principles that were written down in Wallace Wattle's book on how to get rich, which she reportedly found in her grandfather's attic. There were many such authors at the beginning of the 20th century, and their works fell under the umbrella term "New Thought".

Tarot would illustrate the principle of the Law Of Attraction with The Magician - or astrological Mercury (posted above) and the next tarot key The High Priestess or astrological Moon, which represents our sub-conscious minds. The former plants a seed in the "Virgin substance" or mind stuff and Imagination (key 3, The Empress - a pregnant woman) results. Tarot symbolizes "spiritual psychology" because what we do with our minds is supposed to be a mirror the big/cosmic picture of creation.

What do skeptics think of the Law of Attraction?

What ''ageless wisdom''? This is the JREF,not the David Icke forums.

 

[dafydd]

I'm not sure I understand Aquila's point. It seems to be "Astrology doesn't do anything and this is how it works." What am I missing?

It's a puzzle to me too,one minute he sounds rational and then next he's spouting new age woo.