Exegesis Volume 5 Issue #23


From: Michael Jordan < No Subject: found >


From: Andre Donnell
Subject: Re: Exegesis Digest V5 #15, 19


Exegesis Digest Tue, 04 Apr 2000


Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2000 11:14:18 -0700
From: Michael Jordan
To: "'exegesis < No Subject: found >
 


Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 12:56:45 +1200

Janice & Dennis said:


 > My astroclock (Solar Spark) has a step function. Stepping in
 > diurnal cycles
 > per button stroke, it took me only a few seconds to ascertain
 > that
 > Pluto was at 12.54 Sagittarius from the 10th through the 20th
 > of March
 > inclusive. Still you will get astrologers in their
 > communications referring
 > to `the day of the Pluto station'. It's easy to see why there
 > is a myth in
 > the astrocommunity that planetary stations occur on a
 > particular day: both
 > ephemerides and computers indicate visually that this is so.
 > One day the
 > planet does not have an Rx sign attached, the next day it does,
 > or vice
 > versa. Just a small example of the interplay between myth and
 > reality in
 > the astrocommunity.

Just an observation here but it appears that you should get a new clock which can handle smaller increments of time and degrees of arc. There is no 'myth' involving our using the term the day of the Station- Direct or Station- Retrograde. The accuracy of the program algorithm computing the time can vary by a few hours when dealing with Pluto due to its distance. Using Astrolog 5.4: Pluto turned at 3:52 AM PST on the 15 of March 2000. Pluto was at 12 Sag 54' 08".

Another version of the same program gives a slightly different answer. Your program, Solar Fire, if it will calculate an aspectarian with stations, will give a slightly different answer but it will not vary much at all from these figures. It is important to remember that nothing stands still in the universe, absolutely nothing. What is measured in a station is a theoretical instant of an oscillating motion like the swing of a pendulum at one end of its arc. We will never get it completely right because it is an inherent abstraction but I would not call it a myth.

Janice & Dennis said:


 > the reason astrologers have yet to see a characteristic death
 > correlation.
 > Of course, the main part of the reason is the reluctance of
 > astrologers to
 > actually record case studies, and list death correlation's in a
 > systemic
 > manner.
 >

On the subject of Death there has been much work. It is a subject that our collective ethics have not allowed us to dwell upon and it has traditionally been a subject that we do not discuss with clients. Suffice to say that the larger the number of unresolved Mars and Saturn contacts in a persons chart the closer to death they are.

Death is a touchy subject for people and those who think that they can handle bad news often can't when push comes to shove. It is also the source of extreme manipulations of the astrologer by the client because it often involves 2nd house questions of money and property. There are also pressures involving 3rd parties (actually the most common) who come to the astrologer seeking advice (on death) about another person. This is in my opinion the most heinous ethical breech of the astrologer when he or she succumbs to such pressure. We have to tread very softly on these areas because since we really choose our time of death by our actions it is really our business and no one elses.

Michael K. Jordan astrographer http://members.tripod.com/~astrographer/ http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/UranianJediAstrology

_____________________________________________ NetZero - Defenders of the Free World Click here for FREE Internet Access and Email http://www.netzero.net/download/index.html


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Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2000 10:04:23 +1200
From: Andre Donnell
To: Exegesis
Subject: Re: Exegesis Digest V5 #15, 19
 

Dennis: thanks for your comments in #15. I will reply a little more fully in due course, or at least try to pick up on some of your other very interesting points. Regarding your 12th house correlation, I did that and quite a lot more. In effect, I derived enough of the modern meanings of the houses from the idea to make it serviceable in my classes, as a 'theory' or model for my students to use in placing new experiences. It also rehabilitated a few puzzling mediaeval associations.

Yet I must stress that it involved a speculative reconstruction of assumed _ancient_ experience. Thanks to artificial lighting, it is no longer our experience. I wrote a reasonably full exposition (though not my best, as I've not really thought about it a lot in the last 20 years) of how it works for the houses 7-12 on PanPlanet last year. I'm not sure whether it would be worth cross-posting that? I don't actually want to persuade anyone that this is the way to do houses, but rather make a point about the origin (or development - which is a slightly different thing) of some of our astrological 'truths'.

Patrice wrote: "What I'm trying to do with C.U.R.A. is to investigate about the origins of the astrological models, of the so many different theories and practices of astrology (it's what I call an "epistemological research"), and to try to differenciate which models could have emerged
 > from simple analogy and projection of cultural shapes inside astrological ones,"

Noted. This is valuable and essential work.

Patrice continued: "and which models came directly from what I called "matricial reason" (in the same manner that some philosophical theories didn't really came from analysis and discussion, but from this same "matricial reason")."

Interesting. Is this like the platonist view in mathematics? (that mathematicians are somehow communicating with or discovering a realm in which things could only be some particular way - and that is why pure, speculative mathematics often turns out to provide physically relevant information). Of course there's lots of other versions, and all hold certain ontological and particularly epistemological positions.

At any rate, I look forward to reading much more of your work.

Hi Bill!: you wrote
 > In answer to Andre, I think we're well advised to accept that we aren't
 > ready to go directly to the process of building theory. I think it's clear
 > that we haven't done our homework yet, and until we do, we should not be
 > comfortable that we are prepared for that stage of work. If, after
 > appropriate historical scholarship is done, we are unable to see how to
 > proceed, then at least we will know that further data is required and we
 > should easily be able to discern some questions to ask based on historical
 > paucity.

For an inveterate theorist such as myself, this is indeed bad news!!! < g > . I have not yet caught up with all the previous posts, and I missed the idea of a 'Project Foresight', but if it means what I think (forget our old knowledge, let's just start over), then I would probably have advocated something like that too.

Unfortunately, I can see a lot in what you say. Recently I read David Myers recount the analogy (due to one of his colleagues) that if facts are the bricks, then theory is the house we build (and continuously rebuild) from those bricks. Our problem in astrology is that we don't even have the bricks. I guess your "homework" is tantamount to trying to sort the bricks from the sand of our existing pile of rubble.

My own inclination has been to seek a "rosetta stone", a single convincing demonstration. If we abandon all that we think we know, but not astrology itself, then we are left with one indistinct hypothesis - that there is some correlation between planetary positions and life on earth. I ignore the numerous questions raised by this apparently simple statement - I assume they are obvious. If we were then to establish one simple 'fact', it would give us a point to proceed from. Indeed, as has been constantly demonstrated in the extremely young science of psychology, a few simple facts - if one is lucky - *can* do a hell of a lot of work, especially at the beginning of an enterprise. By lucky, I mean they need to be sufficiently connected to generate models which then lead to the process of predicting what *should* and *should not* be found, and so allow (assuming further data is able to be obtained - this is not always practical) further theorisation and so on. Data- theory- data- theory- (paradigm revolution) data- theory and so on.

Of course, astrology already has theory of a sort - or rather unvalidated models. They are largely disconnected, often contradictory, and they lack an important property of theory which is connection to other fields of knowledge (which is why the efforts of many astrologers to make such links - e.g., Dale, Dennis, Patrice - are of considerable importance). Nevertheless they are there. Consider Gauquelin's findings: they at once contradicted and yet oddly validated the doctrine of houses.

Consider something else that was suggestive about his findings: the approximate 90-degree separations between the peaks in his samples. Combine that with Dale's work (using qualitative - biographical - not statistical methods, and taking an entirely different approach in all other respects as well) which has also found 90-degree intervals. We have something useful to begin from, even if we do not have a validated explanation.

The implications of something like this are not trivial. At once, at least *part* of the doctrine of aspects has been validated; e.g., the notion of whole number division or 'harmonics'. It might be that the 4th harmonic is the *only* valid one, and that all the rest is (Patrice) 'projection of cultural shapes', but at least it would be an important clue that would refine further research.

Yet I cannot go past what you wrote Bill. But perhaps there is the seed of a resolution in the last two paragraphs. New data obtained now also illuminates the past. Perhaps projects Hindsight and Foresight (if I understand the allusion correctly) need each other?

Andre


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End of Exegesis Digest Volume 5 Issue 23

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