Environmental Cosmology Online

1
Environmental Cosmology Online

The book, Environmental Cosmology, which I published earlier this year, is now freely available for anyone to read online, with an option to buy a printed copy. This book was originally available online as it was being developed and was written in response to the need for a better exchange of ideas between astrologers, philosophers, and scientists. I believe that offering the book for free will stimulate this dialectic process.

I should warn readers right away that although this book strongly supports astrology, it does not attempt to defend all of astrology. Instead, it attempts to place astrology on the strongest foundation possible. I have used Ockham's razor to trim astrology to a core of principles and theory that I believe is able to stand up against the current arguments of critics and skeptics. This puts the ball back into their court and challenges some of their own beliefs. Critics and the astrologers who engage in constructive discussion need to come up with new arguments and more finely tuned responses than have been used in the past. In the process, some of the less supportable ideas on both sides will necessarily fade away. Such a process of friendly exchange will help to strengthen astrology and reshape it into a better working tool, better able to do what it is supposed to do.

Some astrologers will be disappointed that Environmental Cosmology does not support the Age of Aquarius concept. On this issue it sides with the critics. However, the book does support the view that a New Age has started based on other astrological factors. Another issue of potential concern is that compatibility based on sun sign is not supported. I have seen too much contrary evidence in my own practice and I accept the scientific studies that have shown that traditional sun sign compatibility and marriage correlate no better than chance. Instead of sun sign compatibility, the book directs attention to other commonly used astrological methods of examining compatibility, and provides the rationality for using these methods.

Very notably, I have made no mention of planetary sign rulerships in the book. I know that rulership is a big issue, especially among horary astrologers, but it never entered my thinking while writing this book. This is perhaps because I found no natural or psychological structure that would support rulerships. Looking back on this issue, I believe that the only way to defend rulerships is by observation rather than theory. Therefore the best I could have offered would be to suggest a test. As a premise, I avoided making any experimental hypotheses in this book, and so I did not develop any thesis that would have taken that route.

Environmental Cosmology takes a distinctly axiomatic and structural approach to astrology and then matches the structural elements to corresponding areas of the social sciences. I believe the main value of the book lies in making these correspondes. But in order to set the stage for this effort, it first matches wits and reason with astrology critics. Philosophically it picks apart positions that are based on equivocal language. There is an abundance of equivocal, misapplied, and undisciplined language used in astrology arguments and this is their great downfall.

Readers should let me know their thoughts, either directly through my own site, or through the excellent forum that Deborah has set up in Skyscript.

Best regards,

KennethM
www.encosm.net