Exegesis V5 Issue #10

Exegesis Volume 5 Issue #10

From: "Francis G. Kostella"
Subject: Quote from Robert Hand

From: Patrice Guinard
Subject: Kepler...

Exegesis Digest Mon, 13 Mar 2000

Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 23:28:09 -0500
From: "Francis G. Kostella"
To: exegesis
Subject: Quote from Robert Hand

I received a message from Robert Hand a few days ago in which he clarifies a few points that have recently been made about him in this list. I asked if I could send part of the message to the list and he readily agreed. It follows here:

First of all one grows. I stand behind much of what I said 12 years ago, but I do not think any longer that Astrology can be treated as any kind of science insofar as Science is defined the way it is now. The definition of Science as well the nature of Astrology has to change. I am not quite sure what you mean with "Drum beating eventually tires the ear until it is ignored: " but that has not been my intent. My intent is to awaken people to the implications of what they are doing.

As Project Hindsight, it was not exactly under the "umbrella" of ARHAT. ARHAT and the Golden Hind Press (the Schmidts) jointly sponsored it. I withdrew from my support of the Project when it became clear to me that the Schmidts and I had a different agenda, and when a series of attacks came in my direction of a pointless and purely personal nature from the Schmidts. While there was some intellectual disagreement, the personal attacks were decisive.

You may be interested in knowing that I am still doing what PH was trying to do. I am still publishing works and making information available about the astrological tradition. You might want to see my webpage www.robhand.com by way of demonstration of that fact.

In addition to possible scientific research of a more traditional kind, it is clear that a considerable amount of philosophical spade work needs to be done as well. We need to define what we are doing as well be about doing it. In this I agreed with Schmidt completely.

Finally, he regrets he is unable to find time to participate in the list directly. I'd like to thank him for taking the time to write.

I also wanted to mention here that my new ISP is not showing itself to be much of an improvement over the lackluster service I just quit. In fact, the new service has been mostly unavailable during the recent Mercury retrograde. Very annoying. I will likely make another move soon.

Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2000 10:58:56 +0100
From: Patrice Guinard
To: Exegesis
Subject: Kepler...

I'm always reading with interest what Dennis and Bill post on the list, of far most of value than what I can see elsewhere. Nevertheless it's a pity that there is no more participation and reactions from others. I know, for instance, that the new vision of Houses I've posted here at Christmas seems terribly strange, and that astrologers take in consideration only what they have already read and recognized, even if you are giving good reasons.

About Kepler, some remarks:
- His predictions were not as successful as Koestler's book suggests, and more, they often failed to succeed. For instance, in the Horoscope de Wallenstein (1583-1634), published in 1608, Kepler wrote that Wallenstein would die at the age of 69 (in fact he was murdered at 51) and would marry in his 33rd year : he married twice in 1609 and 1623!
- A good small introduction (with texts) is that of Bruce Brackenridge, Kepler's On the more certain fundamentals of astrology (1601), in Proceedings of the Amer Phil Soc 123.2, Philadelphia, 1979. But the chief work of Kepler, about astrology, has not yet be translated, nor in English, nor in French, nor even in modern German. It's the Tertius interveniens (Frankfurt 1610), written in old German, despite of the latin title, in which title, you can read the famous words, so often quoted, that "you should not throw out the child (i.e. astrology) with the bathwater". Some chapters (64-69) have been recently translated by Ken Negus in the Journal Culture and Cosmos (1.1, 1997)
- For me, notwithstanding the interest of Kepler's vision of astrology, the chief problem about his astrology (and "meteo-astrology") is to understand why his reformation has failed. And it's the answer to this question that could help us to lighten our own understanding.

Dennis wrote (in 5.7):
> We can agree with Hipparchus, and define the zodiac with respect to the
> vernal equinox of the northern hemisphere, anchoring its structure on
> the 4 corners of the world. We can recycle the traditional logic that
> provides it with a further substructure derived from the solunar
> relationship cycle, and recycle the traditional metaphysical matrix of
> elements and modes that gives it 12 equal archetypal phases.

- I think it's not so easy to conclude, and that the justification of the TWELVE (signs) remains problematic. There was a calendar of 12 months before the existence of zodiac, and in Mesopotamia, some proto-zodiacs with 17, and after 14 constellations, were existing before the 6th century B.C.

Bill wrote (in 5.8):
> I get the impression that the current assumption is that any extant
> astrological tradition must by definition be invalid. If this is so,
> I'd be interested in discovering the logic applicable here.
> Would it not be more effective to seek to discover why that tradition
> exists? I must admit I don't see how something that has lasted as long
> as the astrological tradition can be entirely without any real basis.

- That is the question. It may be that the ancien material and rules are invalid. Then, the work is to find the logic underlying this material, which could lead us to a vision of astrology, compatible with modern thought.