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Hi Eddy--While each of us needs to make up our own minds about astrology in general and re: its particular forms, I would just like to suggest some alternative perspectives. I should say that I am a sceptic about most things in life, astrology included. I frequently question it, but it is a hobby I am passionate about, so I am one of these people who would probably continue to do astrology even if I saw uncontrovertible proof that it was bogus.

I have that astrology-and-science site bookmarked!! 8) I am especially impressed by the articles on that site by Geoffrey Dean, about research "artefacts" in astrology. I am also familiar with the "Barnum Effect", which is basically about the power of suggestion in getting people to believe that hoaxes are true. It also seems that people's emotional state has some effect on the timing of their deaths, such that if people believe they are going to die at a certain point, they are more likely to do so. There may be a medical explanation for this. Happy people live longer, because there are biochemical changes in the body when people are feeling either happy or stressed, and the happy ones are more conducive to health.

This is why I wouldn't get into death prediction, although it was a stock-in-trade of traditional astrology in the past.

But to postulate that astrology never works, is also an untested hypothesis. I am not saying you have done this, but this is really an extention of the astrology-basher's position. I prefer to keep an open mind, which I think is, in its ideal state (vs. less-ideal reality), more of the position of the scientist than the true-believer or the opponent of astrology.

I also disagree that astrology should be restricted to psychologists or people with counseling credentials. There's a lot of bad psychology and counseling out there, for one thing. Remember Sigmund Freud, who just couldn't believe that his patients who were incest survivors and neurotic on that account were actually telling the truth? Throughout the ages, there have been wise men and women with funds of common sense, dispensing kitchen-table advice. Also, I worked for over 30 years for large employers, and they had protocols about advice-giving in various contexts for employees who needed to give advice as part of their jobs.

It is hard to protect gullible people from themselves, and it is hard to do away with all scam-artists. I would rather see practicing astrologers get bona fide astrology credentials before they charge for their services.

Geoffrey Dean, in The Moment of Astrology, talks about "wrong" charts giving useful information with many examples; usually arguing that there was actually something radical (in the astro, not political sense!) about a chart not for the moment in question having something useful to say. But then, if "wrong" charts do give "right" information, then what is the argument here? That some sloppy astrologers are actually psychic?

I have never believed in a deterministic or fatalistic type of astrology!!! I don't know which astrologer said this, but I think it's correct: "The planets impel, but they do not compel." I believe in a choice-centered astrology, in which there are certain energies and probabilities afoot, but in which I also have choices to make about how I function within them.

Eddy, so far as I can make out, life is full of "blind men" leading one another about. This isn't a problem restricted to astrology. Political leaders? Members of the clergy? Health care professionals who make mistakes? Teachers? the justice system? I don't think astrology has to be held to a lower standard than other areas of knowledge, but I don't think it has to be held to a higher standard, either.

If I am going to worry about my planets above or below the horizon and being "unevolved", then I am also going to worry about going to hell because I am not Catholic (or fill in the blank with another faith), getting abducted by UFOs, or getting run over by a bus. An astrologer can also give people good advice and indicate the positives in their horoscopes.

Eddy, I will say that I always enjoy your posts--they are so informed, thoughtful, and non-confrontational.

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Eddy wrote:
If astrology is immaterial, why relate it to physical things that obey the law of physics?
Ever heard of analogy? It's manifold, "multi-potential"; this principle of connectedness doesn't mean a strict, linear tie between the Above and the Below.
Wouldn't soul matters be better of without the mathematical/phyisics part of astrology, ephemerides etc.
The fact that astrology has an astronomical basis (its system of reference) doesn't imply any kind of causality or materialism ("rays from the stars", etc.). Essentially it's not a natural science. It's more close to the arts, to literature, poetry (to the humanities), to religion, to philosophy - and can disclose similar (not measurable, metrical, though valid and effective) truths.
However there must be some basis otherwise nobody can tell if there's a difference between Venus and Saturn.
The common ground of the different concrete manifestations is the archetypal (abstract) image, i.e. the planetary symbol and its connotations. Venus and Saturn both are connected to the skin; yet, there is a big difference between shutting yourself off from others and opening yourself to someone.
Can astrology tell the sense of life and happiness?
It can help a lot - because it's dealing with their source, the psyche.
If yes, can an astrologer distinguish the happy person from a series of anonymous charts.
Astrology is a teleological system or philosophy. It can show to every individual the necessary and best way to reach their goal (Self).
The degree of happiness has been researched. Good health, enough to eat, a place to live in, friends increases the sense of happines..
Do you need everything quantified? (That's boring.)

Edit: An article of mine just published:
"The subjective and projective character of astrology" -
http://www.astrologicalassociation.com/ ... /11-01.pdf
Last edited by Richard Vetter on Tue Jan 04, 2011 11:02 pm, edited 3 times in total.
http://astroinfo.astrologix.de/english.htm

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Hi Mike N--

If an astrologer got 10 pairs of charts in a totally "blind fashion", s/he couldn't distinguish married couples or long-term partners from randomly matched charts. You can't tell whether two people's paths crossed in life from their horoscopes. You could make some intelligent guesses from their birth locations and ages, but no more than that.

I think Carl Jung claimed to be able to correctly match charts from amongst his clients, but I doubt that he had the birth times and I don't think his results were duplicated.

The modern astrology techniques of assessing compatibility for couples that I know about are: (a) doing a decent reading of the individual charts to see what the people are like as marriage/partner material; (2) synastry, where you compare inter-aspects between charts; and (3) composite charts. (I prefer mid-point composites, but there are other types.)

So if these techniques work, then a knowledgeable astrologer should be able to distinguish happily and unhappily married couples.

However, you would need some kind of standardized procedure to get the couples to evaluate their marriages in the same way, and the astrologer would have to know what was the interview procedure or questionnaire used, so that s/he works with the same criteria as the couples.

You would have to decide if you are willing to work with a sliding "happiness scale" or you only want to work with couples who seem more entirely black-or-white happy or miserable. Once in a while, too, you could get a marriage where one spouse thinks everything is fine, but the other spouse is secretly nursing bitterness. A good astrologer should be able to pick up on the specific types of internal problems a couple is likely to face, but these wrinkles indicate why you would need to be nuanced about such research.

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waybread wrote:Hi Mike N--

If an astrologer got 10 pairs of charts in a totally "blind fashion", s/he couldn't distinguish married couples or long-term partners from randomly matched charts. You can't tell whether two people's paths crossed in life from their horoscopes. You could make some intelligent guesses from their birth locations and ages, but no more than that.

I think Carl Jung claimed to be able to correctly match charts from amongst his clients, but I doubt that he had the birth times and I don't think his results were duplicated.

The modern astrology techniques of assessing compatibility for couples that I know about are: (a) doing a decent reading of the individual charts to see what the people are like as marriage/partner material; (2) synastry, where you compare inter-aspects between charts; and (3) composite charts. (I prefer mid-point composites, but there are other types.)

So if these techniques work, then a knowledgeable astrologer should be able to distinguish happily and unhappily married couples.

However, you would need some kind of standardized procedure to get the couples to evaluate their marriages in the same way, and the astrologer would have to know what was the interview procedure or questionnaire used, so that s/he works with the same criteria as the couples.

You would have to decide if you are willing to work with a sliding "happiness scale" or you only want to work with couples who seem more entirely black-or-white happy or miserable. Once in a while, too, you could get a marriage where one spouse thinks everything is fine, but the other spouse is secretly nursing bitterness. A good astrologer should be able to pick up on the specific types of internal problems a couple is likely to face, but these wrinkles indicate why you would need to be nuanced about such research.
The scenario I presented you with would be quite a standard challenge set an astrologer who made a claim of this type. I informed you 7 of the 10 couples were married. You are now informing me, I think, that you could not tell which of the 7 pairs from the 10 were married / romantic couples, and which 1 of these 7 were unhappy?

Are you not as such going back on your claim that you can tell if a couple are compatible from the 2 blind charts?

Further I also stated 1 of these couples were very unhappy, to the point they were seeking a divorce. To be fair to the astrologer the other 6 couples would need to be quite content in the marriage, and this would all require rigorous Psychological Assessment beforehand. Just because one couple are getting divored does not mean they are less happy than those who stay married but it is often a more objective way of assessing the quality of a relationship. In any event there woud need to be a marked difference between the 1 and the 6. Also to be fair to the astrologer the 3 non married couples ought not to be randomly sampled in case they had more of the classical compatability arrangements along the lines Jung sought to assess. He used Ptolemy's 3 sun/moon/asc claims I seem to recall. All of this background as you suggest could be shared with the astrologers, no reason not to.

You did say 'sometimes' you felt an astrologer could. But surely if they can do this sometimes then this would need to be better than chance?. So if an astrologer was given 20 sets of 10 charts with this arrangement are you still maintaining they would, or should, do better than chance?

Jung's study was replicated a few times, even by him. I could be wrong but my recollection was the stats were mixed from the various attempts. My feeling was his particular series of experiments did provide some lukewarm support for astrology. Jung, as you might know, felt an experiment of this type would not be able to provide support in a scientific sense for astrology after his deliberations on the curious outcomes.

Do you have these ?
http://www.astrology-research.net/rgcsa ... 1=1&ID=116

http://www.astrology-research.net/rgcsa ... r1=1&ID=46

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Mike, I think this is an "apples and oranges" discussion. I simply gave your hypothetical the kind of clarity that made sense to me.

I understood you to posit that 3 sets of paired charts out of the sample of 10 would not be for married couples. As I assume common law or partner relationships are be similar to marriage, I assumed you meant that these people would be paired randomly. Or did you think that the 3 pairs might have some other relationship? Of course you could get two highly compatible people who had never met one another, so my point was that a guessing game about who is married and who is not is unlikely to be worthwhile.

Did I misunderstand you here?

By "blind charts", one would first need confirmation that the couple were married, not the guessing game as to whether or not they had even met.

Once you know that two people are married, then following the procedures I outlined above should tell you whether or not they are compatible--subject to the caveats I mentioned above. As someone who has been married (2x) for about 34 years and been through marriage counseling, I don't think it helps to over-simplify whether people are totally "happy" or "unhappy" in their marriages--life is not so simple, and neither is the horoscope. Oftentimes, one or both spouses in a divorce proceeding would have been willing to stay in the marriage had the other person agreed to change specific behaviours--or simply to issue genuine apologies. Oftentimes one or both parties to a divorce still love each other.

But yes, following the procedures I outlined above should indicate basic compatibility, as well as specific points of conflict.

I qualify statements about astrology because there are so many mitigating or confounding factors in real life that astrology does not address. A horoscope in a blind reading doesn't tell you whether people are born rich or poor, members of a majority or minority ethnic or religious group, or even male or female without supplementary information; yet we know that such things have a big impact on people's lives. Also, I do not take a fatalistic or deterministic view of marriage or anything else. To me it is only common sense not to claim more for astrology than it can deliver, even in the hands of an expert.

I've done a lot of synastry, and find Jung's simple match-up to be too simplistic, but hey--if you think it works, then what are we discussing, actually? :-?

I've not seen the references--thanks for them.

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waybread wrote:Mike, I think this is an "apples and oranges" discussion. I simply gave your hypothetical the kind of clarity that made sense to me.

I understood you to posit that 3 sets of paired charts out of the sample of 10 would not be for married couples. As I assume common law or partner relationships are be similar to marriage, I assumed you meant that these people would be paired randomly. Or did you think that the 3 pairs might have some other relationship? Of course you could get two highly compatible people who had never met one another, so my point was that a guessing game about who is married and who is not is unlikely to be worthwhile.

Did I misunderstand you here?

By "blind charts", one would first need confirmation that the couple were married, not the guessing game as to whether or not they had even met.

Once you know that two people are married, then following the procedures I outlined above should tell you whether or not they are compatible--subject to the caveats I mentioned above. As someone who has been married (2x) for about 34 years and been through marriage counselling, I don't think it helps to over-simplify whether people are totally "happy" or "unhappy" in their marriages--life is not so simple, and neither is the horoscope. Oftentimes, one or both spouses in a divorce proceeding would have been willing to stay in the marriage had the other person agreed to change specific behaviours--or simply to issue genuine apologies. Oftentimes one or both parties to a divorce still love each other.

But yes, following the procedures I outlined above should indicate basic compatibility, as well as specific points of conflict.

I qualify statements about astrology because there are so many mitigating or confounding factors in real life that astrology does not address. A horoscope in a blind reading doesn't tell you whether people are born rich or poor, members of a majority or minority ethnic or religious group, or even male or female without supplementary information; yet we know that such things have a big impact on people's lives. Also, I do not take a fatalistic or deterministic view of marriage or anything else. To me it is only common sense not to claim more for astrology than it can deliver, even in the hands of an expert.

I've done a lot of synastry, and find Jung's simple match-up to be too simplistic, but hey--if you think it works, then what are we discussing, actually? :-?

I've not seen the references--thanks for them.
I could have been clearer. Having been in this experimental world on and off for so many years I may assume certain things are just taken for granted in these types of discussions. Such as the need to clearly identify which couple was unhappier, and why.

With the 3 randomly sampled couples they would simply need to be of similar age and to have been born near enough to one another creating the stronger possibility that they could be married.

The discussion started after me pointing out to Eddy if an astrologer responded to a client saying the marriage was difficult by saying this is clear from the chart then this type of astrology was not only poor but hopefully very uncommon.

You came in and said you felt if the couple?s charts were in front of the astrologer, not with the couple, s/he could say if the marriage was 'difficult'. You described this as basic synastry.

This led to my question out of 10 charts could an astrologer identify the marriage that was in trouble. In reality the astrologer would need to avoid picking 1 of the 6 happily married ones as if they selected from the 3 random couples they could argue the toss about their astral incompatibilities more effectively.

I don?t think an astrologer could do this and am pretty sure to date they haven?t demonstrated, in controlled conditions, a capacity to do so. (Not that most or even the majority would claim they could). I think you are being quite clear here in suggesting an astrologer, who you feel has these skills, would avoid picking one of these 6 happily married couples more often than a sceptic would anticipate.

As to Jung you are misrepresenting his study here. Jung may have been the most sophisticated synastry astrologer of the 20th century for all I know. However in this study he was simply interested in whether this idea of Ptolemy?s? was supported by various samples of married couples.

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Mike N wrote:... if an astrologer responded to a client saying the marriage was difficult by saying this is clear from the chart then this type of astrology was not only poor but hopefully very uncommon.
Hi Mike N,

You ... don't read these forums very often, do you?
Gabe

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Hi Mike--we seem to have crossed some wires here.

I would not venture to say out of 10 "mystery couples" in blind chart readings which 3 couples were not married and were randomly paired. Was this some kind of red herring you tossed my way?

As I said earlier, you could have 2 people who would be highly compatible if they met, but they didn't. Even being the same age and being born in the same place is no guarantee that these two people would find each other. As I like to joke, "Hey, I'm an astrologer, not a mind-reader."

But once you controlled for a bunch of this-and-that, as per my suggestions a couple of posts ago, basic astrological techniques should allow an experienced astrologer (another control here!) to say something about a married couple's compatibility and incompatibility.

I believe in India, where some marriages are still arranged between strangers on the basis of astrology, it would be really interesting to follow up and see how things worked out!

Mike, I don't see a problem with an astrologer saying that a marriage looks difficult. As you are probably aware, there are professional astrology associations that publish codes of ethics. I looked through these once and didn't find any that prohibited their members from discussing marital difficulties with their clients. The goal of a well-intended astrologer would be to help couples in difficulties.

I don't know how many charts you read re: marriage questions, either as a pro, or as an amateur like myself on Internet astrology forums. Most times, you find women in a serious (or would-be serious) relationship with someone, wondering if it looks solid enough for marriage; or a wife who is upset about her marriage. The latter type already knows her marriage is in trouble. These women are asking for honest advice, and most of them handle it very well so long as the advice is thoughtful and well-intended.

Mike, at this point, all I can do is point you to the synastry books published by senior astrologers who have counseled thousands of clients and received feedback from many of them. One example would be Robert Hand, Planets in Composite. These go well beyond Jung's study. If you are familiar with them, we might continue the discussion on that level.

If your underlying belief is that astrology as a whole is bogus, well, I entertain that possibility and that's why I have argued above for more carefully crafted and comprehensive statistical studies.

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waybread wrote: Hi Mike--we seem to have crossed some wires here.

I would not venture to say out of 10 "mystery couples" in blind chart readings which 3 couples were not married and were randomly paired. Was this some kind of red herring you tossed my way?
I explained this earlier. Having 3 non-married relatively randomly sampled couple just adds to the complexity of the study. This is not necessary we could just have the 7 sets of 2 charts and ask the astrologer to guess which marriage was the odd one out.

You make your point again about the ''experienced astrologer'' should be able to say which one was the most incompatible and on this basis chose the failure, as it were.

Since this experiment is unlikely to occur we should probably let any further discussions as to what would happen rest here.

However I don't think astrology is bogus if an astrologer can?t do this as I see astrology as about a way into discussing what you might call a consciousness which can?t be found on a blind chart, that's all really. A blind chart would not tell you enough about the person or couple to say whether or not the marriage is going to be successful. This is my point here, or rather the point of quite a few ''experienced astrologers''.

It?s interesting you mention Robert Hand as I?d have thought he might agree with me more than you ?
Last edited by Mike N on Wed Jan 05, 2011 11:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

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GR wrote:
Mike N wrote:... if an astrologer responded to a client saying the marriage was difficult by saying this is clear from the chart then this type of astrology was not only poor but hopefully very uncommon.
Hi Mike N,

You ... don't read these forums very often, do you?
HI Gabe,

I don't read the Horary or Sports boards,or once in a blue moon, and will tend to avoid certain Mundane threads and other threads that seem to be a little 'youthful'. So perhaps 30% of the posts at a rough guess.

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Thanks Waybread, for the appreciation.
Yes I understand the passionate feeling and this also applied to me and a few years ago I would never have believed to be where I stand now. Just like a label on a peanutbutter jar that's impossible to tear of loosens easily after a few hours in a bucket of water my belief in astrology weakened as I read more on negative results and the explanation of psychological effects. Don't read too much in it, or the same might happen to you :o . I know you come from an academic background, so you too realise that our society would be nowhere without science.

The blind leading the blind is indeed not only restricted to astrology, nor are the 'blind' silly or very gullible people. Academically schooled persons too can be misled. Here's an article about simulating crime suspects. I already translated it with the google translator machine: here For those who'd like to practice their Dutch, here's the original text. All professionals can be misled. That's why the somewhat cold and sterile emotionless statistics and tests are useful. According to economists in 2008 a crises started. In 2009 I got a job and never had got paid better before. For me there was no crises but a period of boom. Would it be justified if I say that there's no crises simpy because I didn't experience it that way?

Richard,
Yes, I've heard about analogy and with the doctrine of signatures example a few posts ago I showed that analogy is often fallacious and can even be harmful. Applied to astrology I can't understand why Leo is courageous and related to kings just because the animal lion is one of the stongest hunting animals and lord of the savanna. If you find this a not so good example, this looks like what many astrologers believed and what Sextus Empiricus criticized in the 2nd/3rd century already, http://www.astrology-and-science.com/h-sext2.htm .

Different people/cultures see different things. To western astrogers Mars is related to war and iron (swords) because it's red. To the Chinese though Venus is the 'Big White' it looks like blinking metal (and is related to that element) shining sword in the Sun and thus related to war and a malefic. So nothing incommon with our benefic Venus of love. To the Chinese Saturn is also related to high age but not a malefic but rather related to wisdom. For the Babylonians Mars was the great malefic and planet of death while Saturn was only related to storms.
Richard Vetter wrote:
Wouldn't soul matters be better of without the mathematical/phyisics part of astrology, ephemerides etc.
The fact that astrology has an astronomical basis (its system of reference) doesn't imply any kind of causality or materialism ("rays from the stars", etc.). Essentially it's not a natural science. It's more close to the arts, to literature, poetry (to the humanities), to religion, to philosophy - and can disclose similar (not measurable, metrical, though valid and effective) truths.
I didn't refer to causality, nor did I mean that, sorry if it appeared so. When you give meaning to squares in the chart and to planets then you depend on ephemerides, and therefore depend on the material. I already said that the essential difference between astrology arts is the choice that is made. Poets chooses the words and painters choose the colour paint in astrology the moment of birth makes the choice. That actually is my objection of relating astrology (and the mathematical positions) with language, arts, poetry etc. By the way, what do you think of my proposition to use astrological symbols in counselling without using a natal chart?

If Venus and Saturn can be related to skin, then this should be testable by looking in the charts of people with skin diseases. Even in the allegorical sense, people with thick-skin, or any kind of expression can be tested. If I say that blonde women are less intelligent than brunettes, this can be tested.
The degree of happiness has been researched. Good health, enough to eat, a place to live in, friends increases the sense of happines..
Do you need everything quantified? (That's boring.)
I don't need everything to be quantified but I realise that I would feel much less happy if I were in bad health, had nothing to eat, be homeless and lonely. Most people usually don't realise what good health means lose it. So to a certain extent happiness is quantifiable.

(The link to your new article only shows the title in an index. I saw there's the German version on your website. 'Der subjektive und projektive charakter der Astrologie'. Is it the same? If I have more time I'll have a look.)

*****************************
I just put a line here because after I had finished the part below, I saw that here's a significant change of the course of my points. Above the line is rather technically related and below it I got more to the inner related.

However I believe I understand what you mean, Richard. You probably refer to a more profound spiritual need that goes deeper than the quantifiable. As we probably will disagree on many things I try to see the points of agreements. I think we have in common that there are elementary things like investigating the meaning of life. My philosophically motivated problem with issues is that since astrology is related to cycles, a philosophy related to cycles would be a less free one. Call it a kind of Buddhist view of trying to get redemption of the cycles of reincarnation. Returning desire attract the souls to a new incarnation in the Buddhist view. Although I'm not sure about reincarnation, the cycle concept of transits (and in fact every prediction technique) and our souls being repeatedly affected by them implies the attachment of the soul to them. I have the same view towards religion. I'm not anti religious but in my opinion the devotion in religion should not be related to cycles and places, like the yearly Christmas, the weekly Sundays in church or daily praying on certain times. If there's really a god, this would be a being that transcends time and space. Therefore to me orthodox religion and astrology appear like the externals of being and not the inner of being.

So rather than using astrology as a guide on the spiritual path, to me astrology always seems to have stood in the way of the spiritual path. I therefore welcome science, research and statistics, which are an aid in the detachment. This means that science doesn't necessarily goes accompanied coldness or non-spirituality but rather is an aid of discerning the inner from the outer. I don't feel associated with the debunking type of sceptics always on the lurk to combat the mysterious.

Even if the results would have been positive, my ambivalent feelings towards astrology and cycles would probably have been the same. Just compare the ancient hermeticists view with the gnostics view. The former saw the planets as 'good' and usable as guide for the spiritual, while the latter saw the planets as 'evil' and as things to be avoided. Perhaps my position would rather have been the gnostics' view. However I can also see the planets as things neither good or evil but not being the guide in the spiritual.

I think our discussion takes mainly place on the details and when I started I had the feeling that the discussion might never end. I'll leave it at this because I don't have a lot of time. Although we probably will differ on the matter I hope we can go different ways in good mutual understanding. I don't intend to challenge you or other astrologers to prover you're right. There's a very useful side on what you all are doing. I simply take another way. Many ways lead to Rome so perhaps we all meet there some day.