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waybread wrote: I believe you are referring to an ad published in 1975. Most of the people who would have signed it are either retired or dead. My point, however, is that astrologers need to get beyond their upset with it. Bashing science and scientists who signed the thing in 1975 isn't somehow going to elevate the status of astrology today.
The mentality of that "old ad" is alive and well today - I am not upset by it nor am I upset by the science communities general attitudes towards astrology. It makes no difference to me, I sort of popped into this thread to suggest that "for every force, there is an equal and opposite counterforce," and to suggest that the premises of the discussion do not apply to everyone who studies astrology. Neither am I trying to elevate the status of astrology. When I originally came to this forum I believed that astrology looks ridiculous with two different zodiac signs with the same planetary rulers and this needs to be investigated. Nowadays, I do not care what astrology looks like, nor do I want to elevate it. In fact, I am lately tending towards thinking the more obscure astrology is the better.

waybread wrote: You wrote, "...This 'scripture' from the ruling priests of the 'church of science,' written by those who dare to call themselves scientists, was signed by 186 scientists including 19 Nobel Prize winners - which shows the value of the Nobel Prize.

"Are you accusing me, or anyone here, of "hating all scientists"?"

Ummm, erm, how would a reasonable person interpret your posts? They weren't qualified. Rather, you have used extreme generalizations.
You should have been the first to notice that I was writing about scientism and attitudes therein, and not scientists nor science.

waybread wrote: Varuna2, the pharmacopeia of westerners in the 19th century was based largely on centuries of herbalism in their own societies. (See, for example, Culpepper.) They didn't steal it from shamans. Many cures used by First Nations people in North America were readily shared, as they were simply common herbal remedies.
You will notice that I stated: "They 'stole' the ideas of the ancients and synthesized the chemicals and tried to patent them."

Notice that I did not qualify which ancients, and then later I wrote: " They collected the information of traditional healing from shaman types around the world"

I include "shaman types" as the source of numerous common herbal remedies regardless of which culture they were found in.

Also, I was playing with the idea of 'stealing ideas' based on their own values and not of my own. The ancients and shamans typically freely shared their ideas (but not always -sometimes people needed to be qualified to receive certain teachings), so for some people to try and patent or "take ownership" of other's ideas which were freely given to them, and make it a legal crime for others to benefit from the said ideas, or use those ideas and profit from them as well, is why I used the term "stole."

------------

To Morpheus: This is a complex issue, but in the context of recent posts on this thread, these notions of 'stealing ideas' and 'plagiarizing' etc. are sometimes not symptoms of a healthy human being, rather they are a sign of a socially unacknowledged neurosis, and sometimes they are a blind spot in the person(s) who use those terms, sometimes covering up symptoms of ego-wounds. If you have a personal problem with me, then state your grievances directly either in public, or likely it would be more appropriate via pm so others do not need to deal with your personal issues and vendetta towards me, rather than casual unaddressed sniping posts. If you do not have a personal problem with me, then nevermind, but something tells me that you do, it seems rather obvious that you have a personal problem with either me or Mark, but I have reason to think it is me.

"Its a modern mindset for an individual to claim glory by inventing a host of new ideas - anciently, respectability and reputation came from showing knowledge of pre-established principles and the works of older sources. A well informed expert might venture an opinion or two but their expertise was first established by demonstrating their knowledge of older works. Ptolemy certainly acknowledged the influence of Hipparchus." - Deborah Houlding

See the following link for the source of the above quote:

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic ... c&start=15

---------------------

Back to Waybread:

Incidentally, I have never met a person who was not an indigenous person of this earth, and therefore who qualify for 'indigenous human rights' just as much as any other groups of 'indigenous people'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaratio ... us_Peoples
waybread wrote: I think the logical problem is that you have a few negative anecdotes, or perhaps a few articles on abuses, so then you tar entire professions and professionals with the same brush, using inflamed rhetoric. I've had knee replacement surgery which made a hugely positive difference in my quality of life. My surgeon is no "butcher." So I might equally marshall anecdotes that counter yours, but where does this get us?

Not to an intelligent discussion of the nature of astrology, that's for sure.
Rather than me telling you that you have misunderstood me, I will state that I have not been clear in explaining, so it does not seem like I am putting the onus on you, which is a common debate tactic.

When you accused me of placing groups on a 'blacklist' I merely listed off a few arenas and professions which are given the illusion and mantle of societal authorities, and that so-called blacklist could have been far longer. It was not a blacklist of groups I despise, quite the contrary. The common thread through them all is that they are portrayed as "experts who know the warp and weft" of the world and the peasants are trained to bow down to these experts. That was the phenomenon I was addressing. In other words, certain principles behind scientism.
waybread wrote: So Varuna2, what is it that you actually like about science or scientists?
This thread is not about me and my feelings about science or scientists, and so I will decline to comment further.

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varuna2,

varuna2 wrote:
To Morpheus: This is a complex issue, but in the context of recent posts on this thread, these notions of 'stealing ideas' and 'plagiarizing' etc. are sometimes not symptoms of a healthy human being, rather they are a sign of a socially unacknowledged neurosis, and sometimes they are a blind spot in the person(s) who use those terms, sometimes covering up symptoms of ego-wounds. If you have a personal problem with me, then state your grievances directly either in public, or likely it would be more appropriate via pm so others do not need to deal with your personal issues and vendetta towards me, rather than casual unaddressed sniping posts. If you do not have a personal problem with me, then nevermind, but something tells me that you do, it seems rather obvious that you have a personal problem with either me or Mark, but I have reason to think it is me.
I have neither against you nor against Mark anything. None of my post in this thread is directly or indirectly related to any of the posts made by you or Mark in Skyscript. I actually had one discussion with Mark and he appeared more knowledgeable than me and he bore with me nicely in that thread

:lol:

I also enjoy posts made by you. So you can count me as your fan.
Regards

Morpheus

https://horusastropalmist.wordpress.com/

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waybread wrote:Great post, Spock! :'

I would just suggest that even traditional astrology has evolved over time. The "cookbook" delineations of character in Hellenistic astrology have to be seriously modified for today's world. I would call it "neo-traditional astrology" except that nobody else does.
Thanks, waybread. I agree that it has evolved over time. The traditionalist values the 'tried and true' and distrusts change. Because change occurs so gradually and imperceptibly in a pre-empirical enterprise it's difficult for him or her to realize that astrological knowledge hasn't been handed down unchanged but has evolved. The neo-traditionalist, unlike the traditionalist, isn't satisfied with the way things are and, due to an historical awareness of ancient practices, realizes change has occurred. However, s/he sees it as descent from an original, fully formed truth rather than as progress from primitive beginnings. (I like the term neo-traditional astrology because it implies not just resistance to change but a principled return to an earlier way of doing things.)

What interests me is, how does a pre-empirical enterprise become empirical? Part of the answer, I think, is it occurs when the empirical content reaches a certain level. Prior to that an objective awareness of the lack of content would lead to a loss of faith in the enterprise. Adherents who are prematurely and too rigorously empirical will become ex-adherents and cease to contribute to astrology's further development. Those who remain adherents will normally do so by rejecting or minimizing the relevance of empirical techniques such as statistics, as has been the case with many astrologers in the wake of the last half-century or so of disappointing statistical results. They trust their subjective sense of validity ? 'it works for me' ? over objective evaluative methods that seem to say it doesn't.

But all those negative results don't actually say that astrology doesn't work. They just say that the specific beliefs being tested don't work. If many of them are rough approximations of valid beliefs, which I believe is the case, that wouldn't show up in a statistical test. They must be sufficiently close approximations, which the Gauquelin results apparently are. I think a comparison of, for instance, Saturn key words with empirically derived descriptions of Saturn age transits will show that those verbal associations and our current general sense of Saturn transit effects is superior to anything that can be found in ancient astrology, which in turn was probably superior to its antecedents. And the reason for that superiority is a kind of empirical drift or selection, in which some verbal associations, even when applied in a non-empirical fashion, work a tiny bit more easily than others. That tiny difference will have no discernible effect on the outcome of a given delineation but, given enough astrologers and enough time, will drive the evolution of astrological ideas toward the results that can be gained from actual empirical observation of correspondences between astronomical configurations and astrological 'effects'.

The transition implied in my second paragraph, between a pre-empirical and empirical enterprise, is conceivably occurring now, albeit it won't run its course in a day, a month, or even a year. Today's astrological theorists have resources that were unavailable until recent decades, including a deeper understanding of psychology (especially developmental psychology), natural rhythms (i.e., chronobiology), history and biography. A full empirical description of hard-angle Saturn age transits, as opposed to the word associations we presently use, is already at hand in the work of cognitive developmental psychologists Jean Piaget and Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky. The difference in the child's reasoning in the preoperational (age 2 to 7) and concrete operational (age 7 to 12) stages in Piaget's developmental scheme is a clue to what happens during the transition between them, and that transition coincides in time with Saturn opening square its natal place.

Vygotsky's developmental scheme explicitly includes transition periods. In Chapter 11, The Crisis at Age Seven, in The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky: Volume 5: Child Psychology, he describes a child who is moody, capricious, affected, artificial, even phony, who has lost the childlike naivete and directness of the preceding period. Elsewhere he describes how at (the turn to) age 3 (Jupiter square its natal place!) speech splits into two streams, the original speech-for-others and a new function, speech-for-oneself. The 3-year-old talks to herself when trying to accomplish a difficult task, saying things like: 'It go there now. Push it. Not that way. Close it.' Because she leaves out verbal clues that would enable others to make sense of what she's saying Piaget called it egocentric speech, and explained it as the child's inability to put herself in the shoes of others when she talks. He argued that as the child becomes better able to take the viewpoint of 'the other' egocentric speech dies out and the child communicates more intelligibly.

Vygotsky noted that this kind of speech actually becomes more telescoped and more unintelligible as the child grows older, and that it is more ubiquitous when the child is dealing with especially difficult tasks. It disappears at age 7 but Vygotsky argued that it doesn't die out, as Piaget thought, but goes underground and becomes silent speech, the familiar thinking in words that goes on in our heads all the time. He suggests that the child's speech-for-oneself becomes more telescoped as she grows older because when she's talking to herself she doesn't need the verbal clues, who 'he' or 'she' stands for, what 'it' stands for, that would be necessary if she were talking to others. Neither does it need to be out loud. What happens at 7 is she realizes she's talking to herself ? when speech-for-oneself first emerges the child doesn't realize this ? and this is when the 3-year-old's out-loud thinking becomes silent. In essence the 3 to 7-year-old always thinks out loud and is therefore transparent. Only at 7 do we acquire the capacity to dissemble.

At 7 we see the emergence of what Freud called the ego, Jung the persona, Maslow esteem needs, Erikson industry vs. inferiority and astrologers the Saturn effect. That effect has a characteristic periodicity. Just as red light and blue light are different visual wavelengths, Mars effects, Jupiter effects, Saturn effects and Uranus effects are different temporal wavelengths. The Saturn effect is that part of the psyche that comes to the forefront, or pulsates, at 7?-year intervals. The 7-year old seems affected and phony because she's just now learning to have a public self, a self that she aspires to be and that affects her (also newly emergent) sense of self-esteem. Adults seem less affected because they're more experienced and skilled at presenting a public facade. Note that past and present cultures the world over begin the child's formal training at this age. In Sparta boys were sent to the barracks to learn men's work, soldiering, at this age, and girl's were taught women's work. In medieval Europe this is the age at which children were put out as apprentices. It's not that this 'just happens' to be the age at which various societies have decided to train their children, but rather the earliest age at which children can hold themselves to a task and be productive. ('College age' coincides with Uranus opening square its natal place for similar reasons.)

Note that conscientiousness, duty, ambition, limitations and restrictions, terms we relate to Saturn, are, while not full descriptions of the Saturn effect or part of the psyche, nonetheless relevant to it and an indication of the empirical selection or drift I referred to earlier. Note that Hellenistic astrology's Saturn-related terms are also reminiscent of the effect described here, but less clearly. The evolution of astrological ideas was going on prior to the Hellenistic period and continued after it, up to the present day. Another point to consider, which is implicit in the preceding and now needs to be made explicit, is that astrology predicts motivations, not external events or developments. I came to this conclusion years ago because it seemed to fit observation and dissolved the fate vs. free will problem. But it's encouraging that Vygotsky is entirely explicit that what changes when a new developmental phase begins is the child's motivation. The new capabilities the child develops is due to the emergence of new motivations.

Finally, implicit in the preceding is an answer to the question with which James opened this thread, is astrology an art or science? That question, however, is improperly posed. While art is a category, the creation of aesthetic objects, science is only a level within a category, that category being the pursuit of knowledge. Astrology is not an art, except in the figurative sense of being the 'art of' something. It's the pursuit of a kind of knowledge. It's pre-scientific because science is arguably a developmental level in knowledge producing enterprises (much as adolescence succeeds childhood), a level of epistemological maturity that astrology has not yet attained. I like to think that it's getting there, though, and that our children or grandchildren might someday read of the conceptual and methodological revolution in which astrology, at long last, joined its 17th century brethren in becoming a new science. (Such a change will also involve a coherent explanation of how it is that astrological effects came into being and can exist, which I haven't said much about here but which can be found in the article referenced below.)
Article: After Symbolism

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hi spock,

the title of the thread i started was 'astrology - art or science?'

in the content of my first post i said that i thought it was a bit of both. it seems that some folks think the only way towards knowledge is thru science as opposed to art. that is interesting to me as i see the different approach as stimulating a different part of who we are, both equally valid, but different.. one might be able to be mapped more logically, while the other seems to rely on something different and less 'logical'.. i think it is the fallacy of science or those that emphasize a certain type of thinking - scientific, over artistic, that wants to put one above the other.. it is like saying we will resort to logic as the king of the method for attaining knowledge over a more artistic approach.. at least this is how i read your comments.. what about the idea that both means of practicing and attaining wisdom and truth require the cultivation of both science and art as a means to a deeper understanding of life, and back to the topic - astrology in particular? to suggest the only way to attain knowledge is thru science seems very short sighted to me..

now we get into semantics and say science means knowledge so i am confusing things here with the idea of art being some other window into the universe that is an important window to a greater understanding of the universe to which i would say - science hasn't spent much time looking into art as it is incapable of studying it in the logical manner that is it's strength and crutch..


spock wrote: Finally, implicit in the preceding is an answer to the question with which James opened this thread, is astrology an art or science? That question, however, is improperly posed. While art is a category, the creation of aesthetic objects, science is only a level within a category, that category being the pursuit of knowledge. Astrology is not an art, except in the figurative sense of being the 'art of' something. It's the pursuit of a kind of knowledge. It's pre-scientific because science is arguably a developmental level in knowledge producing enterprises (much as adolescence succeeds childhood), a level of epistemological maturity that astrology has not yet attained. I like to think that it's getting there, though, and that our children or grandchildren might someday read of the conceptual and methodological revolution in which astrology, at long last, joined its 17th century brethren in becoming a new science. (Such a change will also involve a coherent explanation of how it is that astrological effects came into being and can exist, which I haven't said much about here but which can be found in the article referenced below.)

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Yes, a big problem is that some people think that science-is-to-logic as art-is-to-irrationality.

Of course, this can happen, but some art is highly logical. Think of the insistence on structure in a sonata or a sonnet! Then there's "junk science," known for its irrationality. History and legal studies can be highly logical and empirical yet nobody calls them scientific.

Spock, I am not quite sure I follow your reasoning. Which is to say, your ideas are familiar to you and probably entirely correct, but new to me.

Astrology seems to have had its share of empiricism since ancient people in Mesopotamia started tracing the movements of planets against the calandar of fixed stars. On the other hand, equating planets with gods or their omens seems highly non-empirical.

The more I study astrology and why it should work, if it does, the more I am coming around to the ideas of the Neo-Platonists who started Hellenistic astrology, although as yet I understand them imperfectly.

Put differently, any body of knowledge, be it art, science, or one of the humanities, starts with assumptions and suppositions. These are the basis of the rest of the knowledge-edifice. Some assumptions are a lot more tenable than others, because we can go back and verify them. Others are more clearly a product of the human imagination and desire to order the world and thereby make sense of it.

Just to give an example from the natural sciences, the Linnean names and ordering of species, and the science of taxonomy/systematics in which they are embedded, are products of the imagination and the human need to order plants and animals into some kind of logical sequence. There are no such divisions in nature. We know this because various societies have named and classified species differently, and even biologists frequently reassign organisms to different taxa. If evolution means anything, species are constantly undergoing selective changes. We only imagine that there is a correct or incorrect Latin name for a fixed species due to mutual consent by biologists.

Astrology seems to be based more strongly in this imaginative realm of assumptions and suppositions, collecting and ordering facts to fit into a scheme that is probably more theological or philosophical at its base than the modern sciences.

For example, astrology got its start by societies thinking that the planets were gods, or that people had an unalterable fate given at birth (which the planets could reveal.) Collected facts that went into an ephemeris or Hellenistic astrology cookbook were slotted into a a pre-existing imaginative foundation.

Another problem is what constitutes proof, validation, confirmation, negation, falsification, or what-have-you in astrology. Individual astrologers or even different camps of astrologers may disagree-- and vehemently so-- on technical matters and interpretations, but astrologers really haven't developed a set of standards by which some information stays in the discipline and some does not.

Even though they are not scientists, many humanities scholars and practitioners of applied fields (such as accounting) do have discriminatory standards.

52
What an interesting thread. I have been reading through this thread, but I will admit that I have not read every post thoroughly.

I think that this thread really represents a false dichotomy - art or science. From a classical or traditional perspective (meaning, in this case, pre-Enlightenment), art and science are not separate, but are intertwined.

When discussing science (even in the modern context), I think one needs to make the distinction between the scientific method and the scientific worldview. I believe in and admire the scientific method; I think that the scientific worldview is false in premise, and is actually contrary to the scientific method.

The scientific method is a tool. One formulates a theory and uses observation and repetition to test one's theory. Astrology does not really lend itself well to the scientific method, because it is hard to isolate features in a chart and because no two charts repeat themselves. On the other hand, I think that a bit of a modified approach to the scientific method is useful in astrology in shifting through a rather broken tradition and in recognizing that we do live in a different world than previous generations.

The scientific worldview is that everything must be able to be verified with the senses, technological enhancement of our senses, or by rational extrapolation from our sense data in order to be true. The scientific worldview denies that there can be anything in existence that can not be perceived or extrapolated through sense data. This is a modern misuse of the scientific method. By definition, the scientific method can not give us any information about what is beyond that which can be perceived or extrapolated from sense data.

Astrology is deeply threatening to the scientific worldview. For this reason, I really doubt that modern science would accept astrology no matter how much evidence was presented which would "prove" astrology. For astrology to "work," there must be something at play beyond that which can be arrived at through sense data, which shatters the entire scientific worldview.

My own belief, which I think is as close to a traditional belief system as possible for someone raised in the West in the modern era, is that astrology "works" because it is a reflection of the Divine Harmony of the Cosmos. I do not believe that astrology was "invented" or "discovered" by rational means, but it has been passed down to us from the beginning of time by our ancestors. It has been passed down in a VERY broken and disjointed form, and of course, we live in a much different world than our ancestors.

This is why older ideas and methods are generally more reliable than newer ones. This is not a hidebound resistance to change, but an acknowledgement that our ancestors were our superiors and knew more than we do. This acknowledgement is seen as wrong in the Modern West, but this was something that was accepted as true all over the world, and was even accepted in the West to a large extent prior to the Enlightenment.

If one believes that the truest wisdom is that wisdom that has been passed down since the beginning of time, I think it sheds a lot of light on why the Ancients and shamans freely shared their knowledge. I think it was because it was not *their* knowledge, but knowledge that had been passed down to them.

In this vein, I think it makes no sense to talk about the concept of "plagiarism" with respect to Ancient Wisdom. To the ancient way of thinking, original principles generated by an individual were worthless. The value of principles was judged by how close they were to those principles that have been passed down from their ancestors. It really is a different way of looking at things.

My own thought on the subject is that the best practice for astrology is to reclaim our place as one of the few traditional sciences that is still practiced in the West, rather than trying to become a modern science. As a traditional science, we study what is available of the wisdom that has been passed down from our ancestors. We then use observation and practice to shift through a very broken tradition and to determine what still "works" in the modern era. We can adjust our *methods* according to our observations; however, we learn and hold fast to the *principles* of our ancestors as much as we possibly can.

Oh dear, this has become a soapbox. I hope it has provided some food for thought, however.

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Myriam, I agree with most of what you say. And very thoughtfully and nicely stated, too!

I think that what you are calling "the scientific world view" I called "scientism" and a previous poster called "logical positivism."

I am not sure there is just one "scientific world view" because different scientists approach science so differently, from the molecular level to the breeding habits of giraffes; from highly theoretical and abstract research, to work that is very applied and often humanitarian at its core. Medical research, for example, often has the humanitarian goal of alleviating suffering.

I can think of several scientific theories that were scoffed at as "junk science" in their day, and remained curiosities, until subsequent proof was gathered. Examples would be continental drift and natural selection. Also, today, it is hard to say that scientists apprehend their topics entirely through their senses. Data now are often digital or measured by sensitive instruments rather than by human eyesight.

While we could argue that astrology "threatens" the scientific worldview as you've defined it, the vast power imbalance between scientists and astrologers suggests that any "threat" goes the other way.

Moreover, can we truly blame the scientists for the face that astrologers too often present to the public? Don't you cringe at a lot of the bad astrology that is out there? I sure do. Astrologers can be our own worst enemies, in having (for some) abandoned a rational world-view to support all kinds of unsubstantiated myths. Do sun-sign columns really help our cause, for example? Linda Goodman? Too often popular astrology appears to be written for-- and by-- the lowest common denominator.

If astrology can actually be shown to work through quantitative and even qualitative research, I do think open-minded scientists would come around eventually. They would sure come around if financial astrology can accurately predict stock market trends.

Also, as I noted above, I have known scientists who are devout Catholics, Muslims, and Jews. I have known scientists with expertise in Russian composers or an abiding love of mountaineering These aren't "rational" pursuits. Scientists are people, just as you and I are, although they are more educated and ambitious than the average person.

Astrology has the potential to speak to any human being who wonders why s/he is on the planet. Which (according to a Robert Hand lecture I saw recently) is what the Neo-Platonists who developed Hellenistic astrology were all about.

54
waybread wrote:
Also, today, it is hard to say that scientists apprehend their topics entirely through their senses. Data now are often digital or measured by sensitive instruments rather than by human eyesight.
Those measuring instruments are extensions of the senses and therefore still qualify as senses.
waybread wrote:
Moreover, can we truly blame the scientists for the face that astrologers too often present to the public?
1) Those scientists do not deserve the title of scientists and should be labeled as: humans who wiseacre on other subjects they have not studied and are rumored or known to have an interest or vocation in something usually referred to as science - in contemporary slang but not in ancient slang.

This was my point before, one cannot take some person with a societally valued position or title and use them as a valid reference for pontificating on things they do not know. If one does this, then one first needs to strip them of that title before using their words and thoughts, for example:

Dr. Weasel Nobel prize laureate in biochemistry at Oxford University said, "blah blah astrology blah blah."

Rather it should be:

Joseph Weasel some random guy said, "blah, blah astrology blah blah."

Otherwise, in a real world, the first example should show everyone how worthless the Nobel Prize is, rather than suggesting anything about astrology.

2) It makes no difference, because they, generally speaking, and minus, e.g., the ones at this forum, are against astrology on principle and by habit and cultural upbringing or cultural aping. It is a myth that science has tested astrology and found it to be false. Those few unsponsored statistical tests done have only tested some very basic things that no one who studies astrology more in depth relies on in and of itself.
waybread wrote:
Scientists are people, just as you and I are
When I see culturally sponsored research labs investigating statistically, thousands of these type of ancient astrology aphorisms, then I will agree that astrology has been tested:

"If there are malefic Grahas in the 8th, the 6th and the 12th Bhava counted from the R??i occupied by Lagn?s lord, one will leave his native place. If there are malefic Grahas in the 8th, the 6th and the 12th Bhava counted from the R??i occupied by the lord of Candr R??i, while Dharm Bhava is not occupied by its own lord, one will leave his native place by selling away his possessions and because of blemishes of his own.

Should Lagn fall in Budh?s Dreshkan and receive a Drishti from Candr from a Kendr, even a person born in a royal family will become artisan without any doubt, as declared by the sages. Should ?ukr be in fall, or in a Navamsh of ?ani and receive a Drishti from ?ani, while Candr and S?rya are in Yuvati Bhava from Lagn, the native along with his mother serves others.

If Candr is in the Navamsh of S?rya and vice versa, while both of them are in one R??i, the native will have an emaciated body" (random examples from a random text, the Horasara).

Then they can test the thousands and thousands of these aphorisms in conjunction with the various ancient timing techniques they are designed for, to make the statistical test even more valid.

Until then, I reject the idea that astrology has been tested and failed. I cannot imagine we would be here if astrology had failed our small personal examinations.
Last edited by varuna2 on Thu Sep 19, 2013 11:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Hello waybread,

I do understand what you are saying. I don't think I was really talking about individuals, per se, but with the overarching philosophy of our modern world.

I, too, have known some very devout scientists, and I have the utmost respect for those who make that their career.

I think that what I am talking about has to do with society in general, and the things we are taught from earliest childhood. There is an undercurrent of "in ancient times, they believed......., but now we know....." which is really the utmost in arrogance, from what I can see.

I agree that there is a *lot* of silliness around with astrology. I also think that there are some very well-meaning and sincere astrologers working with faulty tools. The sad part about this is that I also believe that within the tools of astrology are the remnants of much Ancient Wisdom that has been lost in the West.

Similarly, when I talk about the threat from astrology to the scientific worldview, I am not talking about individual astrologers or scientists. I agree that the scientific worldview is the view held by those currently in power. Frankly, I find it amazing that astrology has survived as well as it has, considering the pressure trying to destroy it. Astrology is so threatening, that it is even wiped out of history texts, when it was clear that astrology was practiced alongside astronomy all the way up until the 17th Century, even in the West.

56
Myriam, I take your points. They are good ones. I would only add that there are many parts of the world where science is not the prevailing worldview. It might be Islam, Catholicism, or the ideology of the totalitarian regime. In the southeastern US, for example, there has been a huge resurgence of evangelical Christianity, and natural selection is under attack in the public school systems. Beyond this region, I think the level of science education (or at least, the retention of science education) is sufficiently poor that I doubt that the average American is strongly influenced by the scientific worldview one way or another.

I wasn't so much trying to individualize the scientists I know as to point out the errors of criticizing "scientists" en masse for their supposed tunnel-vision beliefs, as some on this thread have done.

I agree about the dismissal of past beliefs: a sort of triumphalism of presentism. I find this frequently with people who take mythology or the Bible literally, rather than metaphorically. Usually this dismissal is based upon a lack of understanding of past ideas.

I think astrology has survived precisely because it has been under the radar for so long, or (to mix metaphors) in the shadows. I think either astrologers have to be OK with staying there, or else really have to face up to what the modern world expects of competent practitioners of any field. Never mind scientists. We expect credentials from electricians and hair-dressers. We do see astrologers who are making this effort, but I doubt that they are in the majority.

Interestingly, in the US there were many local ordinances against fortune-tellers, which included astrologers. In a precedent-setting case in California, the judge upheld the right of astrologers to practice: not because their predictions were correct, but because he viewed astrology as a freedom of speech issue, protected by the first amendment.

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Sorry, I couldn't resist.

James_m, what exactly do you mean by 'science', and what exactly do you mean by 'art'?

I'm sure there are other words that would be better descriptors: logical, analytical, empirical, methodological, creative, synthetic, intuitive, inspirational.

These words are arguably clearer, and they'll likely be easier to use.
Last edited by Larxene on Sat Sep 21, 2013 5:53 am, edited 1 time in total.