16
Bogdan, if you are going to quote someone, it's best to use their actual words (with quotation marks) rather than place your own twist on what the person says which can change the meaning of that person's words. Even a single word can shift meaning. That's the problem with the concrete nature of words.

As I'm very aware of how even a small change in wording can shift the meaning of a person's thoughts, I frequently quote precise passages from web sites or books.
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

18
Therese

Your table/chart doesn't require understanding of your personal preferences or any idiosyncrasies at all - therefore do not feel compelled to justify your particular preferences. We don't need to understand any of this to examine how you have noted a pattern in linking exaltations and domicile.

The pattern stands on its own.

19
Paul wrote:Therese

Your table/chart doesn't require understanding of your personal preferences or any idiosyncrasies at all - therefore do not feel compelled to justify your particular preferences. We don't need to understand any of this to examine how you have noted a pattern in linking exaltations and domicile.
Paul, my replies weren't meant to relate to the rulership/exalation chart I posted. I didn't like to be misquoted on sign polarity, which is another topic. When I develop a topic such as polarity over time, I back up what I say with the research of professionals (unless I say otherwise). So I'm not talking about "personal preference" as polarity is discussed on my web site.

As astrologers we need to read and understand the work of professionals in other disciplines. There is way too much of "I see it this way" among astrologers rather than any reference to research work in other fields to support our opinions.
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

20
Therese Hamilton wrote:As astrologers we need to read and understand the work of professionals in other disciplines. There is way too much of "I see it this way" among astrologers rather than any reference to research work in other fields to support our opinions.
Hi Therese,

about the sentence which I quote above, I would like to say that I share the same opinion as yours. If it is possible, one should always base his/her research in the research of other credible authors.

However, I see that you based your research of this topic on the book of John Gray. As it is widely known nowadays, Mr. Gray is not a credible research source: He took a PhD degree from an unaccredited school by correspondence, and no one has been able to have access to his PhD dissertation (if any). In all serious Universities, the Msc and PhD dissertations are publicly accessible. You can read about that in his Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gray_ ... _author%29), and in numerous web sites if you google it.

Moreover, it is also widely known that Mr. Gray's book does not contain any references to credible research, nor does he provide any information about doing any peer-reviewed (or not even peer-reviewed) experiments. He does not provide descriptions of any research at all, and his results for that research.. (source: the book itself)

Finally, current research contradicts the basic assumption behind the separation of genders according to common-sense (and Mr. Gray's book). This study (http://www.psych.rochester.edu/people/r ... s_2012.pdf), published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (by credible authors in a credible peer-reviewed publication) pretty much contradicts the pseudo-research by Mr. Gray.

The authors of that study tested a lot of variables on a significantly large sample, and instead of finding large gaps between males and females considering those variables, they found linear gradations, indicating that more often males and females share the same traits, instead of what the common-sense would expect to belong only to a specific gender.

As you may read in the paper introduction, they found that there was a clear gender separation on specific variables such as physical attributes (strength, hair size, etc.). But for psychological attributes, they could not find a clear separation: "the dimensionality of gender indicates that these differences are inappropriate for diagnosing gender-typical psychological variables on the basis of sex".

So, to make myself clear, I'm not inferring anything about your current work. I just would like to say that you should be better off to base your research on the type of research which I'm mentioning..


Regards,
Jo?o Ventura

21
Although off-topic, I thought this deserved a brief comment:
jventura wrote:In all serious Universities, the Msc and PhD dissertations are publicly accessible.
This is not necessarily the case: in many places, the copyright of a thesis is considered to belong to the author (who may decide to publish it as a regular book), and the decision of whether or not to make it publicly available therefore rests with the author. This is the case at my own university, which takes itself very seriously. ;)
https://astrology.martingansten.com/

22
Martin Gansten wrote: in many places, the copyright of a thesis is considered to belong to the author (who may decide to publish it as a regular book), and the decision of whether or not to make it publicly available therefore rests with the author. This is the case at my own university, which takes itself very seriously. ;)
Hi Martin,

I guess you have a point here!

However, I was not referring directly to the subject of copyright, which, as far as I know, no University claims the full copyright for a Thesis publication. In my University (FCT/UNL), although the University claims part of the copyright, I do not lose the rights over my publications.

Unfortunately this is has not been the case for (some) publications at conferences, where some publishers request full copyright to the authors (one is Springer, widely known for its Notes on Computer Science). Fortunately, the tendency has been for open access publishers, and that problem with the copyright is diminishing..

Now, regarding the open access, I must assume you are right. On my University, and many of the Technical Universities for which I am aware of their procedures, clearly state that they reserve the right to publish the dissertations/thesis, and they usually do publish them. On my University this is compulsory - for instance, this is the link for my MSc dissertation: http://run.unl.pt/handle/10362/1786.

But I do hope that this small imprecision of my part does not ruin the rest of my argument.. :)


Regards,
Jo?o Ventura

23
jventura wrote:
However, I see that you based your research of this topic on the book of John Gray. As it is widely known nowadays, Mr. Gray is not a credible research source: He took a PhD degree from an unaccredited school by correspondence, and no one has been able to have access to his PhD dissertation...
Thank you for this information, Jventura! Looks like I've been out of the loop for awhile. I'll do some research on Mr. Gray. However, I've collected various research articles which make basically the same points as many in John Gray's books. His books would not have been best sellers if his message didn't speak to many readers and relate to their own experience. His work may not be so much pseudo research as careful observation of behavior.

Also there is a dichotomy between the more developed countries where genders are tending to grow closer together, and underdeveloped counties where gender separation is much greater. I'd say that polarity principles are very real but have a wider application than simply the physical gender identity of men and women.

I have to admit however, that I've been amazed at how women have been moving into previously male dominated sports like half pipe skiing and snowboarding at the Olympics. The world is changing at a very rapid rate. Those of us who are older have seen massive changes, but younger generations may be seeing only the contemporary side of the picture.

Even if Gray's differences may be tending to disappear in developed countries, there are still the two diverse polarity principles that I've outlined in the chart copied from my web site. These solar and lunar principles exist throughout cultures and centuries, and are found in the I Ching, for example. (This is noted in my articles.) It would be an interesting discussion to look at the lives of individuals whose birth charts heavily emphasize one sign polarity over another.

It would probably be a good idea to shift polarity as such away from physical gender and more toward two different types of psychological functioning.
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

24
Hi again Therese,
Therese Hamilton wrote:His books would not have been best sellers if his message didn't speak to many readers and relate to their own experience. His work may not be so much pseudo research as careful observation of behavior.
we should be careful to draw the immediate conclusion that something is true only because it is widely available/known. An historical example is "the earth is not round" "fact" of the middle ages. A more modern example is the Availability Heuristic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic) which was widely researched and states something like "The availability heuristic operates on the notion that if something can be recalled, it must be important"..

As a side note, one should be surprised by the amount of research which demonstrates that many of the behaviors of human beings are "predictably" irrational. Most of the initial work in this area is by Economics Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman and his Prospect Theory. A good book to start (and based on real empirical research) is Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely.
Therese Hamilton wrote: Also there is a dichotomy between the more developed countries where genders are tending to grow closer together, and underdeveloped counties where gender separation is much greater.
It sounds plausible to me. Can that be backed up with some research?
Therese Hamilton wrote: I'd say that polarity principles are very real but have a wider application than simply the physical gender identity of men and women.
Yes, that seems to be one of the conclusions of the paper which I linked in my previous post.
Therese Hamilton wrote:
It would be an interesting discussion to look at the lives of individuals whose birth charts heavily emphasize one sign polarity over another.
This, backed up with a solid approach and some numbers is what I would call a good empirical research.. :)

Therese Hamilton wrote: It would probably be a good idea to shift polarity as such away from physical gender and more toward two different types of psychological functioning.
That is also one of the conclusions of the paper I've linked, i.e., there does not seem to exist correlation between physical gender and psychological gender traits. But that does not eliminate the notion that some traits may be more "masculine", others "feminine". Maybe it is the names "masculine/feminine" that should be changed to something other?

If you proceed with your research, maybe you could look at the paper I've mentioned, and see the attributes they worked with, and see how they are measured. For instance, "Empathy", which traditionally one would consider more "feminine" than "masculine" is measured through a "Interpersonal Reactivity Index" survey (link here.

(Please note that I come from a Computer Science background, so I am way out of my area of expertise here, regarding subjects of Psychology for which I am just a curious amateur..)


Regards,
Jo?o Ventura

25
Jo?o Ventura wrote:
Therese wrote:
There is a dichotomy between the more developed countries where genders are tending to grow closer together, and underdeveloped counties where gender separation is much greater.

Jo?o replied:
It sounds plausible to me. Can that be backed up with some research?
That's funny! Just read a daily newspaper published in a cosmopolitan area, and you'll find all the evidence you need. It's the section called "World News." My primary reference is the daily San Francisco Chronicle and sometimes an Internet article or two. Since this is an astrological forum, it's best to simply look at biographies in the context of birth charts.
Therese wrote:
It would probably be a good idea to shift polarity as such away from physical gender and more toward two different types of psychological functioning.

Jo?o replied:
That is also one of the conclusions of the paper I've linked, i.e., there does not seem to exist correlation between physical gender and psychological gender traits. But that does not eliminate the notion that some traits may be more "masculine", others "feminine". Maybe it is the names "masculine/feminine" that should be changed to something other?
The polarity traits I've outlined can easily be called "solar" or "lunar."
If you proceed with your research....
My research was basically finished some years ago. My current study involves biographies and birth charts.
...maybe you could look at the paper I've mentioned, and see the attributes they worked with, and see how they are measured. For instance, "Empathy", which traditionally one would consider more "feminine" than "masculine" is measured through a "Interpersonal Reactivity Index" survey

That trait and others aren't really part of the basic polarity question. "Empathy," for example, would be linked to Venus astrologically rather than sign polarity. These deeper psychological traits are all planetary as the Gauquelins showed us. This is one of the major areas where astrology goes off the track. Simply because a sign happens to be associated with a planet, astrologers then transfer traits of that planet to the sign. Or often vice versa as well. It's all muddled.
(Please note that I come from a Computer Science background, so I am way out of my area of expertise here, regarding subjects of Psychology for which I am just a curious amateur..)
Then we don't have a level playing field. I have two psychology degrees (University of California at Berkeley, California and San Francisco State University) plus a teaching degree. I was a counselor and therapist before I decided I'd learn more and be able to contribute more to astrology by the study of astrology itself.

This thread has gone off topic as the focus is how the outer planets or gods might relate to signs of the zodiac. For further discussion and illustration of polarity a new Polarity thread would be more appropriate.

Thank you for your replies, Jo?o. I'm sorry that my time is very limited, and for now I don't really have time or energy to check additional articles and research. At this stage in my life I primarily study horoscopes and sometimes test principles via statistics. I have little patience with the endless rhetoric and argument that fills astrological forums. I don't understand why there is so little discussion of biographies, birth charts and real life events and behavior.
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

26
Yeah I wondered that too, but then the luminaries both get one sign each so we obviously have a precedent where we can make especial exceptions for varying reasons. Perhaps the outer planets can get the same treatment.

As for Uranus with Aquarius, you may find the discussion currently taking place on the philosophy section interesting:
http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8075
But the luminaries, in spite of their differences, are fundamentally a pair. They both represent the self, the ego, and personal creative power. And furthermore it seems the other planets are distributed as a pair based on the luminaries. It also seems very arbitrary to me that the outer planets are distributed only on Solar half (Uranus to Aquarius, Neptune to Pisces, Pluto to Aries) rather than the Lunar half. The Lunar half distributions of the extra signs would proceed as Uranus to Capricorn, Neptune in Sagittarius, Pluto in Scorpio. I don't see why the Lunar half isn't given extra planets.

California Pacific University

27
Here is some information on California Pacific University from which John Gray reportedly received his Ph.D. The school was located in San Rafael, California which tends to be a locale for innovative educational concepts and movements. The first conferences on Vedic Astrology (Jyotish) were held in San Rafael. (I happened to have lived near that area which is north across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.)
------------------------------------------------

For the legality of CPU degrees: http://columbiapacificuniversity.org/

The Columbia Pacific University .org Website attempts to provide an accurate and comprehensive background resource for employers, state and local governments, and academic institutions regarding the validity of academic degrees awarded by Columbia Pacific University over the last twenty-six years.

This Website has been developed independent of any principals associated with Columbia Pacific University and therefore is not affiliated with, and does not represent, Columbia Pacific University in any manner.

"CPU (Columbia Pacific University) degrees awarded before June 25, 1997 are legally valid. Your degree, and any credential or license you received by virtue of the degree, should not be (negatively) affected. CPU had legal approval to operate (in the State of California) until June 25, 1997, and the degrees it issued (conferred) before June 25, 1997 are legal (valid)." Source: Bureau for Private Post secondary and Vocational Education (BPPVE) - State of California - 400 R Street, Suite 5000, Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 445-3427
Fax (916) 323-6571 bppve@dca.ca.gov

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

Type Non-traditional; Distance Learning
Location San Rafael, California, USA

Columbia Pacific University (CPU) was an unaccredited nontraditional distance learning school in California. It was founded in 1978 by Richard Crews, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, and Lester Carr, a former president of Lewis University, and operated with state approval. Distance learning and education authority John Bear gave "high marks" to the school in his 1982 "Bears' Guide to Non-Traditional College Degrees, 8th edition."

CPU was closed by California court order in 2000.[5] The court also ruled that CPU had granted degrees legally between 1978 and mid-1997, a period when it was approved for operation by the State of California.
CPU alumni acquired all rights to the CPU name and registered a "Columbia Pacific University" non-profit organization in Delaware. The CPU Press continues its publication program.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

However, as to the organization (CPPVE) that closed down CPU:

"In conclusion, it is only fair to mention that the Governor of California (Pete Wilson) closed down the CPPVE after its treatment of CPU, stating that he couldn't allow such the renegade bureaucracy to continue after being caught carrying out the reprisals and vendattas it was caught carrying out against California schools."
http://www.degreeinfo.com/general-dista ... legal.html

From the same forum:
"I guess I should wade in here, given the mention of my name. Answer: Columbia Pacific U degrees are fully legal and California state approved until June of 1997. That is the month when the administrative court in California sided with the state's CPPVE decision to not reapprove CPU. The current California department (the BPPVE) will back up what I have just written. Whether the degree will be recognized in another state is another matter..."

Earon Kavanagh

End of quotes

As someone commented on a forum (I've lost the reference...), John Gray could care less about any of this as he's laughing all the way to the bank. His messages have spoken to millions as reflected in world wide book sales and conferences. He does belong to accredited psychological organizations as noted on book jackets.

So John Gray is not an outlaw in professional psychological circles. For myself, I stand by what he has written about gender differences which I've adapted to astrology in regard to solar and lunar principles.
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm