Bill Nye on Astrology (expert opinions needed)

[alleswasderfallist]

I thought some people here might be able to shine light on Bill Nye's objection to astrology, as explained here:

 

Basically he says that because of precession, the zodiac constellations have lost their meaning, if they ever had any.

 

I've been very interested in astrology lately, though I rejected it earlier in life. I bought a book combining Chinese and Western astrology (The New Astrology) and was amazed at the accuracy of the readings. Nearly everyone I've shown it to has reacted similarly, regardless of belief. And yet, these readings are based on correspondences that have without a doubt changed dramatically over the millenia.

 

Does anyone have a good way of explaining this? Or know of any sources where I can learn about this?

 

 

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Astrology only seems to work because the predictions, deliberately or accidentally, use a lot of Barnum statements. And when they are obviously wrong, confirmation bias swoops in. As far as I'm concerned, it's pure bull.

 

How was it decided what a particular planet being in between earth and a particular constellation signifies? It's completely arbitrary.

 

What about all the stars and planets we didn't decide to consider important - what's so special about the zodiac constellations?

 

How could there be any correlation between the movement of astronomical bodies vast distances away, which are predictable cycles dictated by physics, and the lives of humans?

 

And if one actually directly causes the other, that suggests that a physical force, violating the inverse square rule, somehow manipulates the brain in an extremely precise way - and if astronomical bodies produce this force, we'd expect the earth, moon and sun to easily dominate.

 

Many smart people believe in astrology - smart people can be very good at devising arguments to justify hokum.

[alleswasderfallist]

 

Many smart people believe in astrology - smart people can be very good at devising arguments to justify hokum.

 

In my opinion, smart people look for evidence. There is plenty of evidence for astrology, and the fact that it doesn't fit into a particular culture's theoretical framework doesn't mean squat.

 

The same attitude is taken towards proponents of alternative medicine. I've read countless 'scientific' articles where Qi is discounted because it doesn't fit into Western science's (current) theoretical framework. This is pure stupidity, the arrogant mistakes of the past repeated by its weak minded representatives of the present.

 

None of your objections to astrology show even a slight familiarity with the evidence. In the words of Einstein, condemnation without investigation is the height of stupidity.

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Take sets of birth charts jumbled up with descriptions of their owners. Can astrologers match charts to owners? In astrology books they do it all the time.

 

So we expect the proportion of successful matches to pile up close to 100%. To date a total of 54 studies have made this test using a total of 742 astrologers and 1407 birth charts.

 

Despite these impressive numbers the average success rate was no different from the 50% expected by chance. For these astrologers (many of them among the world's best) astrology performed no better than tossing a coin.

 

Astrologers fail to match charts to owners better than chance.

 

Here the results expected by chance were determined by picking matches at random for each of the 54 studies and repeating 10,000 times. The difference between the 51.7% success rate achieved by astrologers and the 50.0% expected by chance is easily explained by the tendency of journals to accept positive results and reject negative results, and is in any case not even weakly significant (p=0.77).

 

For astrologers this is bad news, which they dismiss in various ways. They say the tests were unduly difficult or were run by people ignorant of astrology (in fact many were run by astrologers). They say you cannot test astrology (which if true would mean they could never know anything about it). Or they see the bad news as proof of astrology's subtlety, so it is right even when it is wrong (ditto).

 

But once again research comes to the rescue with an ingenious test that avoids any need to match charts with owners.

 

How well do astrologers agree on what a given birth chart indicates? To date a total of 28 studies have put this to the test using a total of 559 astrologers and 762 birth charts.

 

Typically each test looked at how well 5 to 30 astrologers agreed on what a given chart indicated about its owner. Their average agreement was dismal -- better than tossing a coin but nowhere near the minimum acceptable. Again many of these astrologers were among the world's best.

 

Astrologers fail to usefully agree on what a chart means

 

In general no test of individuals is acceptable unless the agreement between practitioners or between applications is above 90% where chance agreement is 50%, that is, where first and second opinions agree better than chance in 4 out of 5 cases.

 

However, if we are interested only in large differences rather than small ones, as in measuring blood pressure, then agreement down to 75% may be acceptable provided nothing better is available elsewhere.

 

But anything below 70% is generally useless because first and second opinions will agree better than chance in less than 2 out of 5 cases. The average agreement among astrologers was 54.9%, or better than chance in barely 1 out of 10 cases.

 

The next question is obvious. If astrologers cannot usefully agree on what a birth chart indicates, how can they know that astrology works? Indeed, why should anyone bother with astrology in the first place? It is here that we need to ask what is meant by "astrology works".

 

One of the key inspirations of recent research has been to recognise that astrology, however defined, delivers statements that (like statements generally) can contain (1) factual information such as "you have red hair", and (2) personal meaning such as "you are here to fulfil your destiny". As shown below, the distinction between facts and meaning helps to explain why astrology can be seen to work even when it doesn't.

 

At one extreme are people who seek only personal meaning. For them astrology works if it provides meaning. Here "it works" means "it is meaningful." This kind of astrology does not need to be true, and attacking it would be like attacking Superman comics or a religious faith.

 

At the other extreme are people who seek only factual proof. For them astrology needs to be true. Here "it works" means "it delivers results beyond those explained by non-astrological factors", of which more later.

 

In between are people who see astrology as meaningful but grounded in the kind of factual statements ("Leos are generous") that fill astrology books. This allows research findings to be welcomed if positive ("it confirms astrology!") and rejected if negative ("astrology is not like that!"). But it does not end there.

 

How to convince yourself that astrology works...

Linda Goodman says Leos are warm, generous, independent, and dislike being told what to do. So you ask one hundred Leos if this is true. Ninety say yes, the rest say it depends but generally yes. Cautiously you press on. Astrologers say a Mars-Neptune conjunction signifies a person who is idealistic and concerned with values such as consideration for others. So you ask one hundred people with a Mars-Neptune conjunction if they are idealistic. Ninety-five say yes.

 

Still cautious, you have your birth chart read. The astrologer tells you things she could not possibly have known, like you have a sense of humour and you sometimes worry about money. Amazingly, everything fits. You are now convinced that astrology works. You haven't the foggiest idea how it works but it certainly works. You conclude that disbelievers have no idea what they are talking about.

 

For astrologers that is the end of it. Millions of people have tested astrology in this way, and millions have ended up convinced that it works. For them this is end of story. Astrology really works! No doubt about it!

 

But scientists are not convinced. They know we can be fooled into seeing faces in clouds by a whole host of non-astrological factors such as hidden persuaders (reasoning errors and statistical artifacts). They also know that the remedy is simple -- do what astrologers never do, namely use switched data as controls.

 

So they put the same questions to non-Leos and people without a Mars-Neptune conjunction, and they have their chart read after giving the astrologer someone else's birth data.

 

The results confirm their suspicions. Whereas 90% of Leos said they were like Leo, so did 90% of non-Leos. Absence of a Mars-Neptune conjunction made no difference to people's idealism.

 

And someone else's chart fitted them just as well as their own -- a point repeatedly confirmed by astrologers whenever they inadvertently use the wrong chart. Many tests with switched data have been made, always with results like these. Which of course is consistent with the studies shown earlier, where astrology performed no better than tossing a coin, and astrologers failed to usefully agree on what a given chart indicated.

 

For scientists that is the end of it, at least until the evidence indicates otherwise. Your sun sign and birth chart may fit you exactly but so do sun signs and birth charts not your own. Astrologers and clients cannot tell the difference. Like the Emperor's New Clothes, astrology seems to be built on self-deception. At which point the message is clear.

There's your evidence.

 

Real open-mindedness involves being open to the views of the minority AND the majority.

 

It's much easier to brush aside an argument against a strongly held belief as 'they discount it because it doesn't fit their framework', than it is to ask yourself whether your framework should be reconsidered in light of their reasoning.

 

If someone had told me 3 years ago I would end up more or less Buddhist soon, I would have laughed.

 

I was laughing at how ridiculous the idea of OBE's is while messing around with an OBE meditation on YouTube, 'ha ha these people are dumb'... up to the moment I felt a powerful force pulling me out of my body.

 

Some would say that was a placebo or something... but I was laughing at it being stupid seconds before, normal mental state, no weird lighting, drugs, or anything!

 

When that experience forced me to question all my beliefs and rebuild them, I ended up with a completely different perspective from before.

 

I had been a convinced atheist, unable to see the problems with that belief system. It took completely tearing old ideas down and reconsidering everything to change that.

 

Maybe you should do the same with astrology.

[wayki]

study and experience kabbalah deeply then one will know about the celestial bodies as energy - not physical.

 

seeker of tao is one of those who has ot had enough gnosis (experiences of truth) so needs rational (hod) information to back things up.

 

when you know things thro mystical experiences, rational support are no longer needed.

 

i do astrology for ppl and it works......this i know, and need no science - which focuses only on matter / what one can see. the mystic focuses on what one cannot see - the invisible.

[alleswasderfallist]

There's your evidence.

 

Real open-mindedness involves being open to the views of the minority AND the majority.

 

It's much easier to brush aside an argument against a strongly held belief as 'they discount it because it doesn't fit their framework', than it is to ask yourself whether your framework should be reconsidered in light of their reasoning.

 

If someone had told me 3 years ago I would end up more or less Buddhist soon, I would have laughed.

 

I was laughing at how ridiculous the idea of OBE's is while messing around with an OBE meditation on YouTube, 'ha ha these people are dumb'... up to the moment I felt a powerful force pulling me out of my body.

 

Some would say that was a placebo or something... but I was laughing at it being stupid seconds before, normal mental state, no weird lighting, drugs, or anything!

 

When that experience forced me to question all my beliefs and rebuild them, I ended up with a completely different perspective from before.

 

I had been a convinced atheist, unable to see the problems with that belief system. It took completely tearing old ideas down and reconsidering everything to change that.

 

Maybe you should do the same with astrology.

 

I have. And I didn't look for my evidence by looking at astrologers, the same way anyone wanting to learn Christ's teachings would be foolish if he disqualified it based on the behavior of modern Christians. Astrologers != Astrology. Although the statistics you cite are interesting and good to know.

 

I was never predisposed towards astrology - the opposite was true until only a few months ago. I realized that the claims made by astrology's real proponents are larger in scope than I was lead to believe. They are the same claims that have been made by Daoists, Buddhists and almost all mystical traditions for millenia. Any qigong master will tell you that the only way to prove it is to do it yourself. This isn't a cop-out, it's simple logic. If something doesn't fit in a box, and you're looking for evidence of it within the box, you're wasting your time. Again, the evidence you cited is equating astrology with astrologers. You can similarly disqualify accupuncture/qigong and the teachings of Christ by looking at their modern proponents and making a false equivalency. If that's good enough for you, fine. I like to use my own brain and see what's actually being claimed.

[joeblast]

just about all bill nye is an expert on is confirmation bias

[alleswasderfallist]

I like Bill Nye, and I'm glad he brought this up. Though you're right - he does little if anything to make his viewers aware of the other side of the coin.

 

Also, I appreciate the no-nonsense attitude of 'Seeker of Tao'.

 

Maybe I should make a separate topic where we debate astrology. I really just wanted to know what everyone thought about precession and how it affects astrology today.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

I don't have time now to enter into a long discussion about astrology, but the precession of the equinoxes one is a straw man. The Western "zodiac" is not based on stars and the constellations, it is and has been since Hellenistic times, based on the dividing the ecliptic into twelve divisions. The ecliptic is defined by the times when the sun's apparent path intersects the plane of the equator going either north or south. This happens regularly and defines the seasons. About 2,000 years ago the star positions of the Constellations coincided with the positions defined by the ecliptic, the Zodiac defined by the ecliptic is called the Tropical Zodiac, that defined by the Constellations is called the Sidereal. Western astrology uses the ecliptic defined Tropical Zodiac, Indian astrology uses the constellation defined Sidereal Zodiac.

 

Summary, Since Western astrology uses the Tropical Zodiac, which, being defined by dividing the ecliptic, not by the positions of the stars, is not affected by the precession, any criticism made of Western astrology based on the precession is of the equinoxes is bogus and made by a person who knows next to nothing about the matter.

 

There is obviously more to the subject than this, but since the question was about the precession specifically and you wanted an expert opinion, you have it.

[alleswasderfallist]

Thanks for your input, Zhongyongdaoist. This clears things up! I knew I must have been misconceiving something.

[Sloppy Zhang]

Zhongyongdaoist beat me to it

 

He wrote a good post a while ago that I was able to find by searching: http://thetaobums.com/topic/28403-asterian-astrology/?p=433544

 

 

 

 

I recently came across this guys book
www.jadelunaastrology.com
He says that he studied with Brahmin priests in India. He claims that he has translated their jyotish astrology system into an Latin form.
He apparently set up the correspondences to the western astrological signs and added three subhouses to each sign.
The time of the year for each house is different. For instance a Capricorn might actually be a Sagittarius in this system.
He claims that western astrology is astronomically incorrect due to the procession of the equinoxes. He claims that the chart is off by as much as 23degrees.

What do you all think of this?

 

 

Well, since you asked, to a person like myself with decades of study and experience with astrology "East and West", unless your have unwittingly misrepresented him, he sounds ignorant and pretentious.

 

Ignorant because he didn't know that Western astrology has had subdivisions of the signs since the Hellenistic period and all he did was "reinvent the wheel". Call then decans, decanates, faces or whatever, such a ten degree subdivision of each sign has been in use for a long time in the West. It is usually thought to be an adaptation of the Egyptian calendar system.

 

As for Western signs being off by 23 degrees, this is a difference that arises between what is usually called the Tropical and the Sidereal Zodiacs. Western Astrology is based on the Tropical Zodiac which is defined by the relation between the Earth's equator and the ecliptic. The ecliptic is defined by the tilt of the Earth's axis and is what determines the season. The ecliptic is the Sun's apparent path during the year. Spring begins in the Northern Hemisphere when the sun passes over the Earth's equator going from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern one. This exact day is called the Vernal Equinox because the day and night are of equal duration, and is the beginning of the sign of Aries in the Western or Tropical Zodiac. Thus the Western Zodiac is based on fundamental relations of space and time which determine the seasons and also the cycle of eclipses, which, by the way, is why the ecliptic is called the ecliptic. Whenever the sun and moon are both "on the ecliptic", new or full moons are eclipses.

 

Seems like a long time ago someone noticed that the bright star Spica was setting at sunrise around the VernalEquinox. So the setting of the Spica became a marker of the beginning of Spring. That pesky precession of theEquinoxes changed all that though and now the setting of Spica no longer corresponds to the Vernal Equinox. Oh well, things change I guess. However, the opposite point to Spica is the beginning of the ancient Indian Mansion's of the Moon and thus the Indian Sidereal Zodiac. So the question is, what is more important, that Spica happened to be setting on the Vernal Equinox for a couple of Centuries two thousand or so years ago or a basic pattern derived from the relation between the Sun and the Earth that determines the seasons?

 

As a curious aside, I will note that Spica is important to the Chinese Lunar Mansions also, but it seems to be quit independent of Indian usages.

 

By the way there is a common misconception that Western Astrologers were ignorant of the precession of theEquinoxes and the Sidereal Zodiac. Far from it, both were known from Hellenistic times. The precession of theEquinoxes was termed the motion of the eighth Sphere and is mentioned in the Middle Ages in Sacrobosco's De Sphaera, the standard astronomical text from the Thirteenth to the Seventeenth Centuries. Agrippa mentions the motion of the Eighth Sphere in both his Vanity of Arts and Sciences and in his Occult Philosophy, where he mentions the difference between the two Zodiacs and says that for purposes of working with the Arabic Lunar Mansions in magic it is preferable to use the Sidereal Zodiac. Somewhere between the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Centuries, the Precession and the Sidereal Zodiac where lost to Western astrologers, but in terms of astrological practice it wasn't much of a loss. The Sidereal Zodiac was reintroduced to Western Astrology by Cyril Fagan in the mid Twentieth Century and has enjoyed a certain vogue among people who think it is more "scientific", of course a modern astronomer is going to consider either zodiac laughable and the notion that any astrology could be "scientific", ridiculous.

 

As a final note, I will mention that the oldest surviving work in Sanskrit dealing with astrology is called theYavanajataka and is an account of Western Hellenistic Astrology, yavana being Sanskrit for the Greeks, and is the practical basis for all subsequent Indian astrology. The only native aspect that survives is the Nakshatra's or Mansions of the Moon. which probably explains why the Indians astrologers continued to uses the Sidereal Zodiac long after astronomy had left them behind.

 

I have tried to condense the above as much as possible, there is much more that could be said, but I don't have time now to enter into any extended discussion of these matters. I hope that you and others find the above interesting and useful.

 

[alleswasderfallist]

Thanks, very interesting.

[alleswasderfallist]

I don't have time now to enter into a long discussion about astrology, but the precession of the equinoxes one is a straw man. The Western "zodiac" is not based on stars and the constellations, it is and has been since Hellenistic times, based on the dividing the ecliptic into twelve divisions. The ecliptic is defined by the times when the sun's apparent path intersects the plane of the equator going either north or south. This happens regularly and defines the seasons. About 2,000 years ago the star positions of the Constellations coincided with the positions defined by the ecliptic, the Zodiac defined by the ecliptic is called the Tropical Zodiac, that defined by the Constellations is called the Sidereal. Western astrology uses the ecliptic defined Tropical Zodiac, Indian astrology uses the constellation defined Sidereal Zodiac.

 

Summary, Since Western astrology uses the Tropical Zodiac, which, being defined by dividing the ecliptic, not by the positions of the stars, is not affected by the precession, any criticism made of Western astrology based on the precession is of the equinoxes is bogus and made by a person who knows next to nothing about the matter.

 

There is obviously more to the subject than this, but since the question was about the precession specifically and you wanted an expert opinion, you have it.

 

Donald, have you also done research on numerology? Do the modern interpretations of numerology shine light on on personality, or has this science been lost, in your opinion?

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Thank you Sloppy Zhang, I had been thinking of posting that material, but you beat me to it.

I was also thinking about the following:

 

. . . most reliable histories of Western astrology see it as arising largely from 'Chaldean' sources, by which I mean Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian sources, seriously reworked by the Greek philosophical/mathematical schools, with a rather late influx of Egyptian material. Likewise Chinese astrology seems to have a purely indigenous origin and it may have been influenced to some extent by Indian astrology brought in by Buddhist missionaries, it seems to have remained very faithful to a fundamentally Chinese Cosmology.

The origin of the 'twelve animals' is one of the curious mysteries of Chinese Astrology. While Westerners routinely translate the earthly branches by their animal correspondences, i.e., zi, which means male infant or boy, is always rendered as rat, Derek Walters cogently argues (Chinese Astrology, 1987, revised 2002) that the while earthly branches were well established by the Han, that the twelve animals corresponding to them did not appear until after 600 C.E.

It is also very difficult to make any well formed comparison between the twelve signs of the Zodiac and the twelve animal signs, even as a listing of animals a comparison is not easy without taking real liberties of meaning. There are, for example, no humans in the twelve animals, but the Zodiac includes: Gemini, the twins, Virgo, the 'young woman', and Aquarius, the water bearer, all of which have human referents, not animal. Also the order of the animals does not seem to correspondence in any meaningful way. When we get down to such cosmological considerations as the use of the Western four elements and the Chinese five, we are simply not in Kansas anymore (for those of other cultures the reference is to The Wizard of Oz, the intent is to point out that the models are incommensurable).

All of that said, since the earthly branches do have not one, but two monthly cycles it is possible to find out what earthly branch will correspond with a particular period during the year . . . Which (of these two) it will be depends in part on which of our two methods, the Solar or the Lunar is used. If the solar method is used than it is very straight forward the earthly branches begin with the Rat at fifteen degrees of Sagittarius and continues 15 degrees out of phase through the Zodiac, so that each Western sign is evenly divided in half, one part going to the earlier earthly branch and the second going to the later one. Thus the last part of Sagittarius belongs to the Rat, its first part to the Boar. The first part of Capricorn belongs to the Rat and the second to the Ox. Continuing this around the first part of Aries belongs to the Rabbit and the second part to the Dragon.

Using the lunar method is more complex because you have to count from the day of the new moon closest to the beginning of the Tiger roughly two weeks either way from February fifth, so this is either in the last fifteen degrees of the Ox or the first fifteen degrees of the Tiger, which oddly enough turns out to be the new moon in the sign of Aquarius. All of this is much clearer if you know about what are called the twenty-four Solar qi and how they relate to the seasons, but really this is going to be long enough as it is without a digression on them. So starting from a new moon early in Aquarius, i.e., before February fifth, you will find that fewer days during Aries will be those of a lunar Rabbit and more will be of a lunar Dragon, on the other hand with a new moon later in Aquarius, i.e., after February Fifth, there will be more days that are days of the lunar Rabbit during Aries than days of the lunar Dragon. A few diagrams might make this clearer, but I don't have the time to draw them right now.

Regarding the 'movability of the New Year', most 'primitive' cultures have a purely lunar calendar and most 'advanced' cultures have combination of Lunar and Solar calendars and this includes China, though all the new year hoopla and the whole of the Chinese religious calendar is basically Lunar and relies on the Lunar Month, the very fixed dates of the Solstices and Equinoxes are still in the background, in particular as represented by the twenty-four Solar qi that I mentioned. Interestingly up until the Reformation, the Western calendar was the Roman Catholic calendar which while for example has the fixed date of Christmas also has the 'movable' holidays of Easter and Corpus Cristi, which are based on Lunar considerations. Since the Reformation the remnants of the Lunar calendar have been erased from the modern Western calender, and and though the modern notion of progress would argue that this is even be better, a wider view might be used to argue that it is no longer 'advanced' at all because it has lost something powerful and essential. What might be lost because of such a change is speculation, but might have interesting ramifications.

Regarding the precession of the equinoxes . . . The precession hardly affects either Western astrology, or Bazi astrology at all because they are more about the properties of a period of time and not about the properties of a subset of stars occupying a particular position in space, but having looked back at how long the above is, I have decided to save that for another post, this one is long enough as it is.
(Parenthetical remark in the fourth paragraph is not in original, added for continuity. ZYD)

I have taken out a few lines that refer to its context within the original thread, but are not necessary for otherwise understanding the material.

And also this one, from the same thread, which continues the topic:

 

Well, onto the precession of the equinoxes. The precession of the equinoxes was known antiquity and was referred to as the motion of the eighth sphere. In the 2nd Century C.E. Claudius Ptolemy more or less summarized and finalized the cosmological thought of the previous 500 years in a book called the Almagest in which each of the seven know 'planets' from the Moon through Saturn were given a different 'sphere' for their motion, these were the first seven spheres and the eighth sphere was given to what were called the fixed stars, because they seemed at that time to have no individual motion of their own, but the totality of the fixed stars did have a motion and this motion, which Ptolemy thought to be a degree for a century (the actual motion is less than this), is what is responsible for the precession of the equinoxes.

Ptolemy also wrote what become the authoritative text on Astrology, the Tetrabiblios, or Four Books. In this book Ptolemy specifically says that the beginning of the Zodiac, 0 degrees of Aries, is the Vernal Equinox, the day that the Sun crossed the equator on its journey north (I will return to this later). Centuries later a discussion of the motion of the eighth sphere is given in Johannes de Sacrobosco's De Sphaero, which while written in the 13th Century became the standard textbook of astronomy through the Renaissance and into the 17th Century. During this period there was no difference between astrologers and astronomers, so astrologers knew of the motion of the eighth sphere in the middle ages. In his book The Secret Zodiac Fred Gettings explores the Zodiac symbolism of a Medieval church and comes to the conclusion that the architects knew about both the signs and constellations and used different technical terms for the sign and constellation. Cornelius Agrippa mentions the motion of the eighth sphere in both his Three Books on Occult Philosophy and in The Vanity and Uncertainty of Arts and Sciences. So there was an awareness of the precession of the equinoxes from Antiquity through the Renaissance.

One of the interesting things that I remember is that someone in the late Hellenistic period proposed it was part of a cycle in which the fixed stars would move first one way and then would reverse its direction until the equinox was back where it at 0 degrees of the constellation Aries. It obviously hasn't, at least not yet, but i always thought this was an interesting speculation which might have been inspired by one of Plato's 'stories' in his dialogue The Statesman, which involves a periodic reversal of the flow of time.This motion was called 'trepidation' and in the 9th Century Arab astrologer/astronomer proposed that it might be cyclic on a shorter scale and not completely return to 0 degrees Aries until it had gone all the way around the fixed stars to return to its beginning at 0 degrees Aries. This theory was apparently very influential during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Issac Newton put an end to the motion of the eighth sphere and explained the precession as the result of long term changes in the earth's rotation.

It is an interesting irony that the author of an early 19th century translation of Ptolemy's Tetrabiblios, both mentions the criticism based on the precession which is the reason for this digression and also Ptolemy's insistence that the signs are defined by the solstices and equinoxes as a rebuttal to it, so the criticism is not new and any astrologer who is caught flatfooted by it has only their own ignorance to blame. Though astronomers who use it can be accused of being ignorant of what they are criticizing and attacking a straw man.

The revival of 'Sidereal' astrology in the West during the Twentieth Century is largely inspired by Indian astrology and its advocates being ignorant of the history Western astrology have promulgated the myth that Western astrology was ignorant of the precession out of their own ignorance.

What is fundamentally at stake are theories of causality and many astrologers, myself among them, have rather different models of how and why astrology would work, which in my own experience it certainly seems to do, in which something like the precession would be quit irrelevant. That is why I concluded in my previous post that neither Bazi, nor Western astrology is much affect by the precession of the equinox, but this post has been long enough and I will have to return to that another time.
(Emphasis not in the original, ZYD)

 

Gosh I'm long-winded!

 

I hope that this helps to clarify some of the issues.

 

ZYD

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Donald, have you also done research on numerology? Do the modern interpretations of numerology shine light on on personality, or has this science been lost, in your opinion?

 

I saw this just as I was finishing my above post. I have used up my Tao Bums time for today. If I can I will address the matter of numerology another time.

[alleswasderfallist]

I saw this just as I was finishing my above post. I have used up my Tao Bums time for today. If I can I will address the matter of numerology another time.

 

I saw this just as I was finishing my above post. I have used up my Tao Bums time for today. If I can I will address the matter of numerology another time.

 

bump

 

looking forward to your answer, sir!

[Zhongyongdaoist]

looking forward to your answer

 

Thank you for your continued interest. The simple truth is that this thread offers some interesting directions to pursue, not the least of which is the one which you mention and I have been thinking about how and whether I care to address them..

 

For example in my post above I bolded the phrase, "What is fundamentally at stake are theories of causality", because I thought I might return to questions of causality, because some of the arguments against astrology voiced earlier, were based on a view of the universe that is largely obsolete. In and of themselves, at this time they cannot be used to argue against astrology. Also, I came up with a test of mathematics which in formal structure mirrors the one for astrologers and which because of the complexity of the systems involved mathematicians would fail to pass, and I have wondered, if I wished to open that can of worms, since it is likely to lead to several more posts and I don't know if I will have time to follow through.

 

Then there is numerology itself, which as far as I am concerned is much larger subject then it seems on the surface, opening historical, mathematical and philosophical questions that go way outside, but illuminate in fundamental ways, the subject of your original questions:

 

. . . have you also done research on numerology? Do the modern interpretations of numerology shine light on on personality, or has this science been lost, in your opinion?

 

The quick answers to your questions are:

 

. . . have you also done research on numerology? Yes.

 

Do the modern interpretations of numerology shine light on on personality . . .? They seem to, but the information provided, while interesting and suggestive is not completely convincing to me.

 

. . . has this science been lost, in your opinion? Yes and no.

 

Those are the quick answers, though I could hardly blame anyone if they were not very satisfied with them. That is all I can spare time for now.

[alleswasderfallist]

The quick answers to your questions are:

 

. . . have you also done research on numerology? Yes.

 

Do the modern interpretations of numerology shine light on on personality . . .? They seem to, but the information provided, while interesting and suggestive is not completely convincing to me.

 

. . . has this science been lost, in your opinion? Yes and no.

 

Those are the quick answers, though I could hardly blame anyone if they were not very satisfied with them. That is all I can spare time for now.

 

No problem, thank you for your sharing thus far. Can you recommend any books or resources where I might find a deeper treatment of numerology than what one typically finds on new age book shelves?

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Can you recommend any books or resources where I might find a deeper treatment of numerology than what one typically finds on new age book shelves?

 

Sorry to be so long to get back to you on this. I have been very busy and have also been doing some posting on other threads which are of greater interest to me. You may find them interesting if you haven't noticed them already, they are Confucian Qi Gong and Platonism and Hellenistic Spirituality.

 

Almost all modern numerology goes back to the work of Walter Gorn Old who wrote under the name of Sephariel. You can read a little about him here:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepharial

 

This also has a list of his writings. He was probably the first occultist to write a version of the Dao De Jing. Dion Fortune chides him for translating Laozi as "the Old Boy", which she considers to be disrespectful. Laozi as "Old Boy" is perhaps a little overly literal, but a suggestive translation nonetheless. I am sure Gorn Old meant no disrespect by it.

 

I always liked his Manual of Occultism. It covers a lot of ground including from astrology and numerology, to alchemy and magic and his ideas are an interesting take on all these subjects.

 

I hope this is helpful.

[alleswasderfallist]

Very helpful indeed. I have been following your other posts and I would call your observations mind-expanding. I may be somewhere on my journey where I could easily overlook many deep things in Hellenism and Confucianism as you once did (Dao de Jing in one hand, indeed ) . What a pleasant surprise to once again find a world of meaning in the seemingly ordinary and mundane. I'll check out Sepharial for sure.

[Unseen_Abilities]

-

Edited January 31, 2014 by Unseen_Abilities

[Nungali]

The first thing I noticed before I even pressed > was the smug look of self assurance on his face. Then there is the attitude and posture in the chair, a bit much for the kindergarten type presentation . Where it all falls down is lack of understanding of the subject he is criticising.

 

In other words as has been said before ; "I don't believe in God ... I cant believe in a God that ...."

 

A: "Well, I believe in God but I do not believe in the type of God you do not either."

 

There are many types of astrology other than Western Tropical astrology and they all follow (as far as I know) a sidereal system (based on star positions, constellations and asterisms) not signs that are a 12 segment division of equal 30 degrees based on the starting position of the Equinoctal point (the intersection of two great circles). Even western astrology has a sidereal system.

 

This vid is like proving that magick (theurgy) is invalid and then demonstrating how a stage magician pulls a rabbit out of his hat

(aside form the relevant symbolism involved ).

Edited November 12, 2013 by Nungali

[Nungali]

http://www.astro.com/cgi/genchart.cgi

 

 

Hey I remember reading this a while back and just wanted to chime in about this book: I bought a copy after seeing your post and wanted to say that it really is very accurate and well-written. Only thing is that there's 144 signs so the author wasn't able to go into that much detail for each one, but it's definitely worth the money. I'm a Scorpio/Snake

Cancer goat here ... oops ... I mean a Gemini Goat

 

Actually . Goat jumped into me from an interesting sector of 'heaven' near the Cancer Gemini constellational border, which IMO is in a 4 way relationship with 2 constellations off the ecliptic (what ? shock , horror, you cant count them!).

 

Also individual stars off the ecliptic can be used (and were used before) check thse tools out ... very usefull:

 

http://www.astro.com/cgi/genchart.cgi

.

Go to ; OPTIONS - Zodiac:

click on the down arrow next to the box ( but note the warnings … these are to avoid confusion for people that don’t understand and may want to calculate their own chart, get confused and blame the site J

also for star positions, and constellational mythology and star meanings from a variety of ancient and classical and varied cultural sources;

 

http://www.constellationsofwords.com/

 

And thank you those above for explaining the mechanics of the variations

 

The weird thing is that although many astrologers deny the validity of non-tropical systems (not as vehemently as they did only a few backs – which is why I stopped posting on astrology forums) they still rave about

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0G8XJNz4bY

 

So how is that fitting into an insistence of tropical astrology being THE and ONLY astrology ???

..

Edited November 12, 2013 by Nungali

[mYTHmAKER]

How could there be any correlation between the movement of astronomical bodies vast distances away, which are predictable cycles dictated by physics, and the lives of humans?

 

So I guess you don't believe in the moons relationship to the tides or the crazy people

[Nungali]

Not to mention thousands of years of agricultural success using Moon patterns and cycles ...

 

Actually, to be fair, Bill Nye is no more the scientist than the daily newspaper astrologer is an astrologer.

 

What he is doing isn't Science ... it is Scientism. And not all scientists appreciate this literalist dogmatic fundamentalist 'scientific' approach.

Edited November 12, 2013 by Nungali