61
Matt

You're a rarity. You're also correct CA is a beginner's book, but since our background and mindset is so far from Lilly's it looks more like an advanced text. I wonder what it would be like learning from it from scratch today?

Tom

62
Tom, if you get any additional insights about General Patton from the book, please share them with us.
Papretis,

It is a lengthy book, but I intend to do just that. This author spends more time on Patton's childhood than other biographies, and he relates a couple of interesting characteristics of his subject. I was surprised to learn that, as a child he was dotted on by his aunt and his mother to the immense displeasure of his father. In short he was spoiled.

Also as a result of his learning disabilities, he didn't begin formal schooling until age 11. He had such a difficult time in school, he took to memorizing everything he could. In some subjects this is helpful, like history, in which he excelled. In others, like math, it is useless. Having a strong memory is a melancholic trait.

Because of his memorization of everything, he developed a trait many of us ignore: preparation. He prepared for everything he possibly could. He was observed in Normandy examining the terrain with maps trying to memorize them in 1913! He believed he would one day fight in that area and he wanted to be ready.

Tom

63
Tom,
In short, my journey through that field is probably typical of people who ended up where I am. No one starts with traditional astrology. In fact, to my knowledge, there is no contemporary book on traditional astrology that is intended for absolute beginners. One Kevin Burk wrote something along those lines, but when he included Chiron, I think it lost its bearings.
Or would it be more accurate to say when Chiron came in you lost your bearings? I see the next challenge for astrologers as being what to do with these newer objects. I lost my bearings when people started writing about Chiron more seriously and precisely in the mid-90?s. It took me a few years to see how it might add something to the chart and explain behaviour that other chart factors were unable to.

Astrologers are human beings so experience the same psychological processes as any one else. They like schemas and get attached to these. Plus you have the paradigm shift dynamics.
My real problem has more to do with what passes for psychotherapy. The study of psychology, that is the study of human behavior, is fascinating. Lately I'm coming around to the idea that instead of concentrating on Jung, or Freud or Adler we need to pay more attention to Pavlov. I know people who say they benefited greatly from their own psychotherapy. I don't think it should be outlawed.
Why are you assuming Pavlov and Behavioural Psychology aren?t referred to where appropriate? One problem with this model is that it rejects astrology. The idea is human beings are essentially a Tabula Rasa (blank slate). The early behaviourists would have felt they could change someone?s temperament quite easily. Innate dispositions of this type are probably nonsense, human beings behaviour is the product of? learning? experiences and so on.

The reason Psychological Astrologers are more attracted to depth psychological models of the Mind is that these allow the possibility of astrology. Particularly Jung and his original thoughts on the Collective Unconscious, archetypes and his Model of the Mind.

The other thing that occurs to me as why people are put of by Psychological Astrology is the way it needs to focus on the darkness and bleakness of the human condition, although the idea is facing this will enable more light and hope to materialise. In some cases at least.. Before the ?unconscious? was discovered, as it were, we could adopt a more polyanna vision of ourselves and the future.


Kirk,
What is missing is a 'heart-of-the-matter' concise definition or description of the phlegmatic temperament, a neutral statement. There are 4 types, which blend together to form a system of describing human temperament. Phlegmatic is one necessary element of that system, so we should therefore be able to list the essential qualities it contributes to the system without moving on to a discussion of 'fixing' phlegmatics with heat and strong malefics
I agree, to date we seem to have a very broad and vague sense of this temperament. My aim here is to compare it to the water type and try and see what the relationship is, and to do so requires more precision. However it doesn?t surprise me that various historical authors, or posters here, have different slants after all it's an 'idea' not a fact and we have plenty of history to factor in. Personally I can see the relationship now, to some extent at least. I would like to see a 5,000 (approx) word essay on each temperament with some modern examples of each discussed.


Papretis,
In fact it seems that the phlegmatic type fits quite well with the Jungian Sensation type. The more I study charts, the more it seems that all the traditional temperaments fit with the Jungian types ?like hand in glow?, but not in the way Jung or Greene thought. Melancholic charts embody the Thinking type with its strictness and need for control as we will see later. Probably sanguine is then the Feeling type and choleric is the Intuitive type
I think you are really taking a radical view of this here, Greene is openly saying the Air type is a combination of Gemini, Libra and Aquarius. (Whether she was aware of the fact that early temperament ideas included things other than the 3 signs linked to each element, is another matter).

As such the 4 Psychological types need to be compared to the ?common? meanings for the 3 signs in each element. This of course is assuming for example, the modern meaning of Gemini resembles the traditional, which I think it does, although of course it has been modified here and there. The signs in each element that have really been modified are those that have been linked to the outer planets.

I surprisingly found Psychological Types online. For me if you read the whole extracts on the Introverted and Extroverted thinking type the Air signs come through more than the Earth signs.
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jung/types.htm

65
Or would it be more accurate to say when Chiron came in you lost your bearings?
Billy when I read things like this I think you're going out of your way to miss the point. The book is supposed to be about traditional astrology. There is nothing traditional about Chiron, therefore, when it introduced Chiron, it lost its way. If he was writing about modern astrology, it would be different.

"There are three kinds of objects in the Cosmos: planets , space dust and hallucinations" - Robert Hand

Why are you assuming Pavlov and Behavioural Psychology aren?t referred to where appropriate?
Once more, you missed the point. I never said or implied that. The piece, with added emphasis, that you quoted said:
I'm coming around to the idea that instead of concentrating on Jung, or Freud or Adler we need to pay more attention to Pavlov.
That is, pay more attention than we do now. As for the reasons etc, they have more to do with current events than they do with astrology. I never implied an "either or" attitude.

Tom

66
yuzuru,

why are you taking Jupiter as the Lord of the Geniture of Cobain? There's many dignified planets in Cobain's chart (which is interesting as such), but I would disqualify Jupiter because it's retrograde and I see that as quite a big accidental debility.

Mars, Venus and the Moon would be better candidates IMO. Mars has a lot of dignity being in its own sign, triplicity, bound and face, but it's in the 2nd house by Alcabitius houses and in the 3rd (cadent) whole sign. Venus is exalted and angular, but it's conjoining Saturn. And the Moon is in its own sign and just arrived in the 10th house, being in the 11th whole sign. The Moon is also unafflicted by malefics. I would choose the Moon, maybe.

With the Greenbaum system I get Cobain as phlegmatic/melancholic. Fits quite well.

68
Billy when I read things like this I think you're going out of your way to miss the point. The book is supposed to be about traditional astrology. There is nothing traditional about Chiron, therefore, when it introduced Chiron, it lost its way. If he was writing about modern astrology, it would be different.
You can look at the chapters and first 60 pages on google books. He seemes to get into quite a few 'modern' ideas and has somethng of a 'modern' perspective.

Anyway my point was about schemas, so for you it lost its way.
Once more, you missed the point. I never said or implied that. The piece, with added emphasis, that you quoted said:

Quote:
I'm coming around to the idea that instead of concentrating on Jung, or Freud or Adler we need to pay more attention to Pavlov.


That is, pay more attention than we do now. As for the reasons etc, they have more to do with current events than they do with astrology. I never implied an "either or" attitude.
Are you talking about Pavlov's Dog temperament theory and its relationship to the humors?

I'd have thought Pavlov has had, and continues to have more, at least indirect, influence on Psychological theory and practice than these 3 depth psychologists.

So could you clarify what your point is as to who needs to pay more attention to Pavlov.

69
yuzuru wrote:yeah you are right, moon is probably a better candidate than jupiter.
Jupiter is interesting as such because it signifies Cobain's wife Courtney Love. Retrograde planets signify rebellious and insubordinate conduct! (Sorry, this is heading away from the main subject).

70
Papretis wrote:woodwater,

according to the Greenbaum method you're predominantly phlegmatic/sanguine.
why phlegmatic? Isnt capricorn a melancholic?
I only have Moon and Neptune in water. Venus,sun and Mars are in Capricorn, gemini is rising and mercury,saturn and jupiter in aquarius near the MC

71
Hi woodwater,

you have the Moon in watery Pisces, you're born in the phlegmatic season (winter) and you have the first lunar phase. Many astrologers see the first phase as sanguine, but I'm with Ptolemy in this and see it as phlegmatic. The Sun sign doesn't contribute to the temperament as such.

Billy,

the influence of the signs comes from several things of which only one is the element. The Air signs are more or less ruled by Earth planets: Gemini is ruled by Mercury which most ancient authors see as cold and dry; Aquarius is ruled by Saturn, definitely a cold and dry planet; and Libra is ruled by Venus but its exaltation ruler is Saturn. Also the elementary rulers of Air are Saturn (the day ruler), Mercury (the night ruler) and Jupiter (the participating ruler). So there's a lot of Mercurian/Saturnine influence in the Air signs, but that doesn't make Air less hot and moist as an element. The temperament takes both signs and their rulers into consideration.

Someone noted that one thing between traditional and modern astrology is that the signs need not to have similarity with their rulers. The actual influence comes from the combinations. So, if you see cool detachment in Air signs, you may be looking at their rulers, not the signs itself. If you have a planet in a sign and the ruler of the sign is aspecting that planet, it definitely gets the nature of the ruler. It's not simple but requires looking at what happens in a chart: whether there's receptions or not, etc.

72
Many astrologers see the first phase as sanguine, but I'm with Ptolemy in this and see it as phlegmatic.
I'm flipping pages around in Greenbaum's Temperament book trying to learn this stuff way too quickly.

On page 19 she has a chart with the 4 qualities listed down the left: hot, cold, wet, dry. Listed are NOT the 4 temperaments but the qualities that are blended to create the temperaments. Each quality has listed after it an associated angle, solstice/equinox, moon phase, planet phase, planet(s) and season as assigned by Ptolemy. New Moon is listed with the quality Cold. First Quarter = Wet. Full Moon = hot. Last Quarter = Dry.

Ptolemy seems to have only given a quality to each Moon phase and not a temperament as we know them, which is a blend of qualities. The phlegmatic temperament is a combination of wet and cold. But the first phase which you say Ptolemy called phlegmatic he apparently only called cold. The whole affair gets more complicated with such things as wet becoming hot, etc., but it at least appears to be incorrect to flatly state that Ptolemy equated the Moon's first phase with the phlegmatic temperament.