Exegesis Volume 2 Issue #8

Exegesis Digest Fri, 14 Mar 1997

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Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 02:37:59 +0900
From: Neil Urquhart
Subject: Re: Exegesis Digest V2 #5

>From: Aphrodette North

Hello Aphrodette [what a lovely name:-)],

>Ascertaining a person's level of consciousness is best dome with a
>patient coming out of anesthesis !!! I try not to ascertain or
>define "consciousness' within the individual as this is an
>extremely subjective space. Humankind falls short in credential to
>make this kind of judgement.

Still, avoidance of the issue is not the answer. Clearly Charles Manson and the present Dalai Lama are expressing different LEVELS of the conflicts inherent in their natal charts. The operative word here is level - you have to make a decision as to the client's level in many areas: education, sophistication, drive, materialism, ambition, wealth etc etc but not necessarily in a way that says one is better than the other. One arrives at these conclusions by asking the client a lot of questions, esp. before the consultation, and listening to the answers, observing et al. For example some questions to ask:

"Can you give me some background information about yourself? i.e. your ethnic, social, religious, familial background; a brief personal and educational history; siblings, if any, and birth orders; what you do for a living; partnership situation e.g. living together, living alone and enjoying it (or not).

Have you had an astrological consultation before?

What do you need to get from this consultation or would be useful to you to discuss right now?

What issues are coming up in your life or are you working on now?" etc etc

Consciousness can also refer to the client's degree of self-reflection, whether they consider their actions and their consequences, their inner state, whether they lash out blindly at anyone who is perceived to be standing in their way. The more unconscious the client is of his/her own actions and their consequences, the easier it is to predict what will happen in terms of outer events. The more conscious the client the more likely events are to happen on an inner level because the universe doesn't need to shake them up so much with dramatic outer events to get them to change/grow.

It is literally impossible to avoid making judgements - our conscious and unconscious minds filter all stimuli we receive - in fact it's dangerous to pretend that we don't because that's the greatest illusion of all. However we can all approach the work and our clients with loving kindness, understanding, acceptance and humility.

Again what the original statement was all about was the belief that some astrologers have that it is possible to tell the level of consciousness/spiritual development solely from the chart - that there are some planetary aspects, house positions etc that indicate spiritual development or whatever. I don't believe that - all the energy shown by the chart has the ability to be expressed by the client in it's most negative or most positive manifestation. You can't tell what they're doing with it until you get to know them and even then you may be wrong.

>As an astrologer - i find some clients appreciate predictions and
>others appreciate the psychological impact of this fine art. In my
>readings, i usually include practical as well as spiritual and
>psychological helps as indicated by areas of stress and strength
>within the chart.  I often find clients complain when readings are
>too theoretical and cannot be applied with practical guidelines.

Absolutely - again I specifically stated "astrology... should not be used SOLELY to make predictions." There is a misconception, tho', that the practical and spiritual are mutually exclusive or even opposites.

Warmest Regards,

Neil

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Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 20:00:13 -0800 (PST)
From: Matthew Ouimet
Subject: Jyotish - DigestV2 #7

Matthew:

How are you? It has been almost a year since Ouimet at Hindsite. Noted your post on Jyotish - you queried why western astrologers can't do what a good jyotish can do.

You may recall - I go to India every year. I have visited a few astrologers there. I think what jyotish has that western astrologers do not have is good press. I remember seeing a photo of David Frawley in the Mountain Astrologer - I said "my, my those eyes - now there is a Neptune trip if I ever seen one." David is of course one of the main spokesman in America for Jyotish - and does not care at all for the mingling of Jyotish with western astrology as does Dennis Harness, James Braha or Dennis Flaherty. David sent me a copy of his newspaper Modern Sage. In it he raved about this jyotish in Bombay - how from leaves he could tell you your whole life. So I made an appointment on my next round to Bombay. Well he didn't tell me my whole life - rather he fed back to me what I told him in my one hour. He then proceeded to predict my future until my death - giving me the year I would die. This was in 1992 - I was then 54. I was to have good health until I was 63 then I would have my first heart attack - I would spend three months in the hospital. My wife too would get sick around that time. I am dead by 68. Got 8 years to go - so hang around folks.

Well - I had my first heart attack when I was 55 - one year after my reading; a year later my wife developed lung cancer having part of her lung removed. So I would say this guy is just off a little - by about 8 or 9 years. I asked him what I would die from - he said a heart attack. The reason he said was karmic. In a previous life I hit a dog on the heart with a stick and killed it - so now I must die of a heart attack. He said I should work at a dog museum to work off some of this bad karma. However I should be of good jeer - I shall achieve moshka this lifetime and not have to return.

I would say "ok, fine - that is one astrologer" This is not just one astrologer - this is THE banner astrologer for one of the lights in the jyotish movement in the West. In a recent article (last year) in TMA he again mentioned this guy.

So, I am not to sure that I want western astrology to go in the direction of jyotish.

Alan Ouimet
Madison, CT

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Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 00:10:39 +0000
From: Francis G. Kostella
Subject: Precision Questions

A few questions and ideas that were rattling around in the back of my mind while reading the recent messages.

How important is precision in astrology? There seem to be a few "natural" measurements in astrology that might offer some general hints about our limits. There's the oft-quoted "a degree every four minutes". Then, there's the transit of the Sun over the horizon, when rising: the upper limb touches the horizon, the center touches the horizon, then the lower limb. I've timed this a few times and, on average, it takes about 3m40s here. On the other hand, I've never been able to time Venus as I usually can't make it out against the horizon, but I imagine that it takes a few seconds. To further complicate the "horizon issue", there's the "real" local horizon, and the apparent horizon, which is as if the earth were a true sphere. Here, up on top of the largest hill for miles I get more sunlight than my neighbor in the valley, but if I did the same sunrise chart for both of us it would show the Sun risen for both of us when that's not true.

A similar issue arises when we consider declination, specifically when crossing the horizon. Pluto is the prime example here as it is currently far from the path of the Sun, and when we consider it exactly conjunct the Sun it will generally not rise over your local horizon when the Sun does. The issue is even more pronounced when you look at a list of fixed stars in an astrology text, then look at a sky map. A great number of them are quite far from the ecliptic. We tend to project them onto the ideal ecliptic and live with that. Which might be the best compromise as I've yet to see a workable "3d" astrology. But that's getting off track a bit.

We generally accept the same physical system that astronomers are familiar with, then abstract that information into a concise form. Once it is in that form we are dealing with something other than what the astronomers are familiar with. Once we've made that transition we're dealing with something we consider meaningful. But how far can we take that abstraction? How much can we mathematically manipulate that abstraction before the fuzziness becomes too great? At what point do we need to stop? We're bound to the physical system, but we don't actually use that, do we?

Likewise, the precision of event times. Natal, horary, mundane, or what have you, when determining a time we make a choice. Even if the time turns out be "wrong", is that prior choice not meaningful? Solar charts anyone?

Note that I'm not asking for opinions about the "best" precision to use, or asking for a defense of any scheme chosen, but only what the variety of measurements tell us about our limits. If anything.

I suppose that one idea that I'm testing out is the tradeoffs concerning precision and meaningfulness. It should now be possible to do a horary timed to slightly less than a second, accurately positioned to about a meter in latitude, longitude, height above sea level, using the "true" horizon, and three dimensional planetary positions (or even a heliocentric system) and generate exceptionally precise midpoints and harmonics, and so forth.

But that doesn't guarantee my horary will be as masterful as Lilly's "stolen fish", does it?

Don't get me wrong, I love having all of these capabilities and tools and techniques, and I wish I had more time to explore them, but is that where mastery lies?

--fran

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