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RodJM wrote:Just as well! I get annoyed no end when I see western astrologers downplaying the sheer power of the Sun as symbolised in astrological charts. Glad to see the importance of the Sun as the creator of life and thus existence... period! No sun = No life, its a no brainer..
The founders of ancient astrology had limited perception of reality of existence as we now know it today. How could they have it any other way? They only did what they could at the time.
One could argue that we are no closer to, and perhaps further away from, any sort of grasp of "reality" today. Being able to measure the effects of something to a minute level does not equate to an understanding of it.
Remember, these are civilizations that thought the earth was flat! :lol:
Ah, they really didn't. You might want to read up a bit on that.
http://www.esmaraldaastrology.wordpress.com

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Hi, Rod-- actually some of the ancient Greeks figured out that the earth was round: the "flat earth" idea is kind of a myth that we moderns have about people in the past. The Greeks miscalculated the actual size of the earth, but they knew it wasn't a big pancake when they saw the masts of outbound ships disappearing below the horizon, learned that daylight varied with latitude, and so on.

They also knew the sun was big and important, but for ancient agriculturalists living in a dry or seasonally-dry climate, water was terribly important to their celestial calendars, as well. The Egyptian calendar was pegged to the onset of the Nile floods-- it wasn't strictly solar. Rain was crucial to the ancient Greeks: see, for example, Hesiod's Works and Days that preceded the development of horoscopic astrology.

People in hot desert or seasonally rainless countries (like Babylon, parts of India, the Mediterranean, Persia, and Egypt) are well aware of the sun's destructive capabilities in ways that people who live all their lives in temperate climates can't imagine.

The ideas that water signs are the "fruitful" signs for planting (whereas sun-ruled Leo is "barren") and that the supreme father-gods (with whom the planet Jupiter was identified) might be a weather god rather than a sun god seem instructive.

This is why I am reluctant to read our modern science-class knowledge or medieval northern European sensitivities back into Hellenistic astrology and its forerunners. We do have to try to understand seasons and celestial objects as the ancients understood them.

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Waybread wrote:
The Greeks miscalculated the actual size of the earth, but they knew it wasn't a big pancake when they saw the masts of outbound ships disappearing below the horizon, learned that daylight varied with latitude, and so on.
Actually, the calculation made by Eratosthenes (c. 276 BCE?c. 195/194 BCE) was remarkably close to the actual circumference of the earth.

http://www.windows2universe.org/citizen ... _size.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8On7yCU1EjQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8cbIWMv0rI


Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

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RodJM wrote:Just as well! I get annoyed no end when I see western astrologers downplaying the sheer power of the Sun as symbolised in astrological charts. Glad to see the importance of the Sun as the creator of life and thus existence... period! No sun = No life, its a no brainer..
The founders of ancient astrology had limited perception of reality of existence as we now know it today. How could they have it any other way? They only did what they could at the time.
Konrad wrote:
One could argue that we are no closer to, and perhaps further away from, any sort of grasp of "reality" today. Being able to measure the effects of something to a minute level does not equate to an understanding of it.
Really? before an argument clarifying what "reality" is, we should define the meaning of the word so as not to promote ambiguity. Semantics will invariably come into it.
Libra Sun/ Pisces Moon/ Sagittarius Rising

Re: The nature of the sun and ancient astrology

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waybread wrote:This thread spins off from these two, on Uranus and on the sun in traditional astrology:

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 1a55b8d88d

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 0949#60949

If a moderater prefers to move this thread from "philosophy and science" to "traditional" that's fine, although I envision something more philosophical and scientific, rather than a focus on techniques.

My principal fascination with traditional astrology is in looking at the origins of horoscopic Hellenistic astrology. Your milage may vary! My own involves looking at the classic (pun intended) Greek and Latin texts, as well as contexts of the environments in which Hellenistic astrology emerged. Key themes include:

1. The Egyptian and Mesopotamian theological and astronomical background; and potentially, allied streams from Persian, Jewish, and Indian sources.

2. The Greek philosophical and scientific background prior to and coinciding with horoscopic astrology.

3. An idealist approach, as to how the early astrologers would have understood the sun, given their cultures, locations, habitats, and climate. (Idealism is a philosophical position that explanation is based upon understanding people's thoughts in the contexts in which they lived.)

4. How might the above considerations inform our understanding of astrology today?

Out of such a discussion, I hope that broader-based understanding of the methodologies of traditional astrology can emerge.

Also, I hope that the focus need not be too time-centred, as Hellenistic astrology was foundational to the astrologies that followed it.
Questions one through three concern the history of astrology, and although I claim no special expertise in that area I'd be interested in any insights you or others might have to offer. For four, however, I'd have to say, "Not at all." It's one thing to trace the evolution of astrological thinking and practice. That's essentially history of science, and is fascinating in its own right. But questions such as, What's true about astrology? and What's true that might conceivably be called astrology but hasn't been discovered yet? and How can we best go about discovering such things? can't be usefully pursued on the basis of what astrologers used to believe or, for that matter, what most of us believe now.
Article: After Symbolism

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You are right, Mark, about Eratosthenes-- it was Columbus who under-estimated the size of the spherical earth.

Hi Spock--

I appreciate your thoughts on my OP question #4. I guess it depends upon how one views the matter of explanation in astrology. Why do we do somthing this way and not that way? History gets at the "why" questions.

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waybread wrote: Hi Spock--

I appreciate your thoughts on my OP question #4. I guess it depends upon how one views the matter of explanation in astrology. Why do we do somthing this way and not that way? History gets at the "why" questions.
To an extent we can use the history of astrology to discern what astrologers have believed at various times. To a lesser extent we might be able to discern why they believed what they believed. But history per se cannot tell us what we should believe in the here and now. That is, it can't tell us if there really are correspondences between earth and the heavens, or if so which factors correspond to each other and in what ways ways they correspond. At best it gives us possibilities to check out, but if we check them out via the methods of our predecessors we'll get no further than they did in determining the reality and nature of "astrological effects." Knowledge progresses not merely by adding new facts to our existing "stockpile" but also by developing new and more sophisticated ways of determining facts. This is the sense in which astrology is backward compared to other established knowledge fields.
Article: After Symbolism

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Hi Spock-- history doesn't tell us what we "should believe." It can explain why we believe what we do.

What do you believe about the nature of the sun in the horoscope? Why do you believe that? Chances are you didn't invent your beliefs ex nihilo. Your beliefs will in part be based upon what you've read, and these readings will in part be based upon astrology's "deposit of faith."