Since this appears to be the first post on this subject, here's the burning question: what is the physical basis for astrology? On this planetary scale, what mechanisms, set of forces, or other agents connect and keep events at the macro scale in synch with those at the meso or micro scales. When they get out of synch, what nudges them back into synch? Anything halfway reasonable along these lines would make it ever so much easier to integrate the discipline with others which have at least a general set of presumed causative and relational structures, even when their ultimate explanations are not fully known (as with electricity, among others). Would love to hear some thoughts on the subject...
Any takers?
John Townley
ACTastrology.com
Dedicated to the memory of Charles A. Jayne
a physical basis
a physical basis
by John_Townley on Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:20 pm
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John_Townley - Posts: 37
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Re: a physical basis
by Michael Erlewine on Wed Dec 31, 2008 2:03 pm
I am sure I don’t have the answer for your question, but I might have a couple more questions for the mix.
What if the physical base you speak of is not the answer, but instead the reverse is true: the one who is asking the question should be questioned. Why do we tend to assume that we are ‘good to go’ right out of the box. Perhaps we require training to “find.”
Are not the macro scale already in synch with the micro/meso scales? The idea of them being ‘out of synch’ surprises me. My Rosicrucian teacher used to say to me: “Michael, we don’t have to make the ends meet. The ends already meet.”
I have felt for many years that these kind of answers you speak of won’t be found ‘out there’ (and they have not been), but rather they should be sought ‘in here.” It might be easier for us to change our attitude or approach, change our expectations, change our minds about what we expect to find. In other words, we might want to look into the “we” who are asking the questions. We assume we see clearly.
I wrote what I feel is a fun poem about expectations that goes like this:
Beyond My Expectations
Looking at the mind,
It’s not what I’d expect.
Expectations can’t define,
And you can’t expect to find.
That’s the nature of the mind.
What if the physical base you speak of is not the answer, but instead the reverse is true: the one who is asking the question should be questioned. Why do we tend to assume that we are ‘good to go’ right out of the box. Perhaps we require training to “find.”
Are not the macro scale already in synch with the micro/meso scales? The idea of them being ‘out of synch’ surprises me. My Rosicrucian teacher used to say to me: “Michael, we don’t have to make the ends meet. The ends already meet.”
I have felt for many years that these kind of answers you speak of won’t be found ‘out there’ (and they have not been), but rather they should be sought ‘in here.” It might be easier for us to change our attitude or approach, change our expectations, change our minds about what we expect to find. In other words, we might want to look into the “we” who are asking the questions. We assume we see clearly.
I wrote what I feel is a fun poem about expectations that goes like this:
Beyond My Expectations
Looking at the mind,
It’s not what I’d expect.
Expectations can’t define,
And you can’t expect to find.
That’s the nature of the mind.
-
Michael Erlewine - Posts: 163
- Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 12:11 pm
- Location: Big Rapids, Michigan
Re: a physical basis
by Gary_Caton on Thu Jan 01, 2009 9:33 am
This is an amazing discussion topic! On the one hand I have to be in awe of the scientific mind and its "burning desire" to know, as John put it, the "mechanism" which makes the Universe tick. This burning desire to know has a long storied history which has resulted in some magnificent discoveries and technologies for humanity ..on the other hand it easy to see that this desire gets in the way as much as it helps -at least that is what I think I hear Michael saying...
To me, the "mechanism" is all too easy to see, yet impossible to describe or define! We live on a planet with complex Life -which is no minor miracle. In fact, it is a sequence of rather major miracles! Cosmologists tell us the laws of nuclear physics are "tweaked" -with incredibly improbable odds of it happening by chance -just so that carbon based life might appear. Then you have the facts that our Sun is a star with a long life span (rather than a short lived giant), that some cosmic collision produced an Earth with just the right sized core to create a magnetosphere capable of holding an atmosphere, and a Moon which helps regulate climate and create the tidal zone where life first emerged from the Seas...
Just the fact that the Sun and Moon are the same size in our sky despite enormously different sizes and distances is an incredible miracle!
Einstein said: You can live as if everything is a miracle, or as if nothing is a miracle.
To me, that is the mechanism. The Miracle. And as astrologers we have chosen to live as if everything is a miracle.
To me, the "mechanism" is all too easy to see, yet impossible to describe or define! We live on a planet with complex Life -which is no minor miracle. In fact, it is a sequence of rather major miracles! Cosmologists tell us the laws of nuclear physics are "tweaked" -with incredibly improbable odds of it happening by chance -just so that carbon based life might appear. Then you have the facts that our Sun is a star with a long life span (rather than a short lived giant), that some cosmic collision produced an Earth with just the right sized core to create a magnetosphere capable of holding an atmosphere, and a Moon which helps regulate climate and create the tidal zone where life first emerged from the Seas...
Just the fact that the Sun and Moon are the same size in our sky despite enormously different sizes and distances is an incredible miracle!
Einstein said: You can live as if everything is a miracle, or as if nothing is a miracle.
To me, that is the mechanism. The Miracle. And as astrologers we have chosen to live as if everything is a miracle.
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Re: a physical basis
by Jan_Delli-Bovi on Fri Jan 02, 2009 11:02 am
The search for physical causality in astrological signification is tricky. To understand we have to expand the parameters of what is normally considered 'physical'. Astrology can map the conditioned energies that constitute what we call physical reality. These sweep throughout the universe in great streams of vital, or etheric, energy. When science uncovers the ability to 'see' these etheric energies it will be found that they constitute the nervous and energetic circulatory system of the universe. Energy and matter of a finer or more ethereal grade circulates between galaxies and stars carrying not only information in the form of qualified light substance but also the conditioning energies that shape our experience. These energies reach us from the various Zodiacal figures through the sun, and are then distributed by the planets. As individual consciousnesses we receive, assimilate, and distribute these energies in our field of experience and activities in a similar manner-we, as personalities or when further evolved the soul, stand in as the sun distributing the energies through our chakras. Eventually this will be revealed as that which 'makes the person', as the energies impact the endocrine system via the 7 chakras, releasing various hormones into the blood system. The right reception and distribution of these energies depends on the condition of the chakras and the level of consciousness that can manage them-thus the relation of mind that Michael has hinting at, the mind seeing the mind seeing.
The answer will not be found purely through Newtonian physics. It makes much more sense through the concepts of quantum mechanics. Here we are told that we live in an ocean of energies that are sometimes here, sometimes there, and mind has much to do with how they precipitate into concrete manifestation. The causality is not directly physical as we might understand through the imperfect [incomplete] Newtonian concepts.Trying to confine the causality in terms of mass, velocity and gravity restricts the possibilities of an infinite universe. Consciousness must be brought into the equations largely in an at present unclear manner.
It may be more accurate to describe the causality as a resonance relating the various streams of qualified light substances to each other and to the many forms that they inform by precipitating into concrete forms analogous to their own nature. Resonance operates not through direct causality, but by a seamless transfer of energy from one body, or concrete form, to another. This seamless transfer can be influenced by the consciousness of those forms impacted whether we're talking about an individual person or an individual galaxy for indeed a galaxy is a 'life' as much as an individual person.
The universe [as defined by Newtonian physics] is much more complex and mysterious than we allow through our concrete sciences. We must expand our parameters for discussion of this subtle matter.
This is not meant to be definitive, but rather suggestive and evocative of further thought and discussion.
The answer will not be found purely through Newtonian physics. It makes much more sense through the concepts of quantum mechanics. Here we are told that we live in an ocean of energies that are sometimes here, sometimes there, and mind has much to do with how they precipitate into concrete manifestation. The causality is not directly physical as we might understand through the imperfect [incomplete] Newtonian concepts.Trying to confine the causality in terms of mass, velocity and gravity restricts the possibilities of an infinite universe. Consciousness must be brought into the equations largely in an at present unclear manner.
It may be more accurate to describe the causality as a resonance relating the various streams of qualified light substances to each other and to the many forms that they inform by precipitating into concrete forms analogous to their own nature. Resonance operates not through direct causality, but by a seamless transfer of energy from one body, or concrete form, to another. This seamless transfer can be influenced by the consciousness of those forms impacted whether we're talking about an individual person or an individual galaxy for indeed a galaxy is a 'life' as much as an individual person.
The universe [as defined by Newtonian physics] is much more complex and mysterious than we allow through our concrete sciences. We must expand our parameters for discussion of this subtle matter.
This is not meant to be definitive, but rather suggestive and evocative of further thought and discussion.
- Jan_Delli-Bovi
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- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2009 4:46 am
Re: a physical basis
by John_Townley on Sat Jan 03, 2009 12:20 am
I sympathize with the variations on the thread so far, but it tends to reduce to the thought that it’s all just too wondrous to explain and it’s our problem for not expanding our minds enough to encompass it. And if you want to put it into poetry, Alexander Pope probably already did better than anyone since:
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
And, what’s more, it’s a step further than most modern explanations that presume astrology is based on some humanesque gestalt that somehow is dependent on our getting it right with ourselves. You don’t need to get anthropomorphic about it, since presumably we and any concepts we can have on the subject are predated and determined by the overarching structures themselves. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make a little more unified sense of it without simply invoking the generally ineffable. We built pyramids and cathedrals without a theory of gravity, but we wouldn’t have got to the Moon without it, and the same goes for the rest of modern science. And, we certainly couldn’t now blow ourselves up without quantum physics. But, a step further, we probably won’t be able to prevent our own self-destruction without the application of chaos and complexity theory and the environmental resonance approaches they and yet further theoretical and applicational approaches may yield.
Astrology has implications in all these areas and seems to include them and some other steps we haven’t quite corralled yet, but which are at least as physical as they are philosophical. I’m all for “everything is everything” (have had some visions to prove it), but making astrology (or certain parts of it) into a more reliable application really needs a little more tangible thinking than tends to go on even among the best of us. As I have suggested here[http://www.astrococktail.com/articles/basis.html] and here[http://www.astrococktail.com/moonondeck.html], and Bob Schmidt and I have credited Paul Kammerer for here[http://www.astrococktail.com/PDF/PAULKA_x007E_1.pdf], there is plenty of room to get down to brass tacks that might at least meet the physical sciences halfway.…any pet theories?...I’m for an umbrella of temporal gravitational entrainment that brings what we personally experience as “astrological” effects to us through the environment. The idea that planets effect you directly, on-to-one from above, is about at the level that you’re on a first-name basis with God who had better do what you pray for or probably doesn’t exist. I rather think that the effects of the sky come up through the soles of your feet, not-so-metaphorically speaking.
If there is one thing I cannot abide, however, is that the “explanation” lies specifically in recently-historical frameworks of Newton, relativity, quantum, string theory, electromagnetism, light (alone), or any other attempt to tie one or several modern paradigms to the whole thing as if our versions (and we) came first. Tying on to psychological or mythical frameworks, ancient or modern, is even worse. Possibly, like the blind men and the elephant, each is a real window on the whole thing, and well worth opening. On the other hand, saying it’s all just so grand and too beyond our ken to sit down and start writing some code is also a cop-out. “Physical” doesn’t just mean you can touch it, it merely means you can generally agree on a substantial part of it and get some reliable results based on what you’ve laid out as the basic underlying structure. So much of science (especially environmental science) is headed in just this direction, often without really realizing it, so how about us putting in some two cents they can understand?
That may be asking a lot, (and not the first time, as this was a favorite direction of both Charles Jayne, and L. Edward Johndro), but would love to hear some more specific, tangible thoughts if anyone has some to share…
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
And, what’s more, it’s a step further than most modern explanations that presume astrology is based on some humanesque gestalt that somehow is dependent on our getting it right with ourselves. You don’t need to get anthropomorphic about it, since presumably we and any concepts we can have on the subject are predated and determined by the overarching structures themselves. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make a little more unified sense of it without simply invoking the generally ineffable. We built pyramids and cathedrals without a theory of gravity, but we wouldn’t have got to the Moon without it, and the same goes for the rest of modern science. And, we certainly couldn’t now blow ourselves up without quantum physics. But, a step further, we probably won’t be able to prevent our own self-destruction without the application of chaos and complexity theory and the environmental resonance approaches they and yet further theoretical and applicational approaches may yield.
Astrology has implications in all these areas and seems to include them and some other steps we haven’t quite corralled yet, but which are at least as physical as they are philosophical. I’m all for “everything is everything” (have had some visions to prove it), but making astrology (or certain parts of it) into a more reliable application really needs a little more tangible thinking than tends to go on even among the best of us. As I have suggested here[http://www.astrococktail.com/articles/basis.html] and here[http://www.astrococktail.com/moonondeck.html], and Bob Schmidt and I have credited Paul Kammerer for here[http://www.astrococktail.com/PDF/PAULKA_x007E_1.pdf], there is plenty of room to get down to brass tacks that might at least meet the physical sciences halfway.…any pet theories?...I’m for an umbrella of temporal gravitational entrainment that brings what we personally experience as “astrological” effects to us through the environment. The idea that planets effect you directly, on-to-one from above, is about at the level that you’re on a first-name basis with God who had better do what you pray for or probably doesn’t exist. I rather think that the effects of the sky come up through the soles of your feet, not-so-metaphorically speaking.
If there is one thing I cannot abide, however, is that the “explanation” lies specifically in recently-historical frameworks of Newton, relativity, quantum, string theory, electromagnetism, light (alone), or any other attempt to tie one or several modern paradigms to the whole thing as if our versions (and we) came first. Tying on to psychological or mythical frameworks, ancient or modern, is even worse. Possibly, like the blind men and the elephant, each is a real window on the whole thing, and well worth opening. On the other hand, saying it’s all just so grand and too beyond our ken to sit down and start writing some code is also a cop-out. “Physical” doesn’t just mean you can touch it, it merely means you can generally agree on a substantial part of it and get some reliable results based on what you’ve laid out as the basic underlying structure. So much of science (especially environmental science) is headed in just this direction, often without really realizing it, so how about us putting in some two cents they can understand?
That may be asking a lot, (and not the first time, as this was a favorite direction of both Charles Jayne, and L. Edward Johndro), but would love to hear some more specific, tangible thoughts if anyone has some to share…
-
John_Townley - Posts: 37
- Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 11:06 am
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Re: a physical basis
by Robert_Blaschke on Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:25 am
John_Townley wrote: ... On this planetary scale, what mechanisms, set of forces, or other agents connect and keep events at the macro scale in synch with those at the meso or micro scales ...
In my fourth book, Astrology: A Language of Life; Volume IV - Relationship Analysis http://www.earthwalkastrology.com/volIVtoc.htm, I introduced a radical new relationship analysis technique called "Genetic Synastry".
A physical basis for the macrocosmic astrological equivalent to the microcosmic Double Helix and DNA was put forward.
For the microcosm, we see:
- page 197.JPG (40.23 KiB) Viewed 2277 times
And for the macrocosm, we observe:
- page 199.JPG (28.75 KiB) Viewed 2283 times
And side by side, we see the relationship between the macrocosm and the microcosm:
- page 198.JPG (51.31 KiB) Viewed 2277 times
I wrote in Volume IV:
"On 2 April 1953, with Mercury stationary direct in Pisces at the finger of a Yod, and a Saturn-Neptune conjunction in Libra sextile to Pluto in Leo as its base, two scientists, James Watson & Francis Crick, working at Cambridge University in the UK, published a paper, "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids." They proposed a radical structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid (DNA), which consisted of two helical chains, each coiled round the same axis. Perpendicular to this central axis, in Watson and Crick's theoretical model, were strands of nitrogenous bases. Two of the chemical bases, Adenine and Thymine, only bonded with one another; two others, Guanine and Cytosine, similarly bonded exclusively with each other.
Also that year, Uranus and Neptune approached the 270˚ waning square of their 172-year cycle. This radical breakthrough in understanding of the human chemical architecture was brought into visible form by the Saturn-Neptune conjunction, and the ability of Watson and Crick to think outside the box was a gift of Uranus.
By the Uranus-Neptune conjunction in February 1993, a Human Genome project was underway to map a complete set of human chromosomes, comprised of about 30,000 genes made up of three billion chemical nucleotides labeled C, G, A or T. Is there also an astrological equivalent to this chemical design of a human being?
Yes, and it is my belief that an astrological counterpart to DNA can be found in Antiscia and Contrascia degrees. Genetic characteristics transmitted from parents to their children may possibly be traced to the synastry conjunctions between one parent's natal planet, and a planet in its Antiscion in the second parent's nativity. Can astrology illustrate the metaphysical underpinnings of this conceptual model for the Double Helix? Is this model limited to genetics, or can karma be seen, too?
I have contemplated the theoretical underpinnings of an astrological equivalent to the Double Helix. A hologram exactly replicating the atomic structure of DNA should therefore exist on the macrocosmic level. I believe that this pattern can be perceived in a figure-eight curve forming around the central axis of an Analemma, which is a plotting of the Sun's position in the sky at regular daily intervals. This geometric figure produces an equation of time, as well as tracking the annual solar declination from Winter Solstice to Summer Solstice, and then back again.
Watson and Crick's 1953 theory about DNA structure expounds that each helical chain ran in opposite directions. For astrologers, it is a simple perceptual leap to visualize how the annual journey of the Sun traces a pattern identical to the structure of DNA. A link between macrocosm and microcosm is found in ascending and descending declination of the Sun. Each degree of the Zodiac from Winter Solstice to Summer Solstice represents the helical chain in its ascending journey, while each degree from Summer to Winter Solstice is the helical chain in its descending journey. Solstice Points, or Antiscia, are identical to the perpendicular strands of nitrogenous bases bonding in exclusive pairs. It is my belief that this solar declinational model is the macrocosm to DNA's Double Helix microcosm.
The image shown above is an Analemma as displayed on a Cram's Imperial World Globe. Earth's equator is seen to intersect the figure-eight curve at the Equinoxes, and the top reach of the figure-eight depicts the Summer Solstice at the Tropic of Cancer, while its lowest point is the Winter Solstice at the Tropic of Capricorn (23˚ S 27'). The ecliptic, or the apparent path of the Sun, is seen to intersect the equator at the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean; this being the Autumnal Equinox.
Just as the Double Helix has four nitrogenous bases bonding in two exclusive pairs, C—G and A—T, it would be only logical if the mirrored pairs of Equinox Point degrees comprised one exclusive bonding, while the mirrored Solstice Point degrees made up the second set of bonded pairs.
This theoretical model for astrology opens a vast window for research into what I call Genetic Synastry. I invite the astrological community to go forward with this research. The technique I recommend consists of exact conjunctions from the natal planet of one parent to a planet in the second parent's nativity occupying the former's antiscion or contrascion degree. The gist is that planetary connections in synastry from one Zodiac degree to its antiscion or contrascion degree show the genetic framework between the mother and father being transferred to their child."
- Robert_Blaschke
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Re: a physical basis
by Michael Erlewine on Sat Jan 03, 2009 4:02 am
I love this discussion and it is just why ACT panels in the past were so useful: dialogue.
It seems I am for the most part responding to Townley’s posts here. John, when you use words like “tangible,” it is your idea of tangible that I am referring to here. As best as I can understand what you wrote (and I tried to point this out in my last post), you make assumptions about what you want to find and just how you want to find it. In other words, you have not found what you are looking for (so you tell us), but you very much have in mind what it is supposed to be or look like - assumptions.
As I was brought up in the natural sciences, I very much sympathize with your approach, because I pretty much have had the same thoughts myself. However, what is different (I believe) is that somewhere along the line (with the help of some mentors) I was encouraged to look into who it was that was creating all the expectations here. I mean: who made me Pope?
In other words, for some reason, I assumed that while the physical world would not give up to me all of its secrets, that at least my mind (including me, my self, and who knows who else is in there) was a clear and fair judge of all that I surveyed and that this was true as a birthright, just as I came out of the box.
It never occurred to me that my mental instrument could be skewed or biased, etc. I thought I was naturally a fair judge of myself and all I experienced out there in the world. The mind itself I assumed I knew, and with crystal-clear clarity. After all, it was the only pair of glasses I had. This appears on reflection not to have been the case. And I have my mentors to thank for very gently pointing this out to me, for tugging at my ego until some different light shown through. It was not an easy transition.
The Tibetans have such a wonderful way of expressing this, which is:
“The Self is the only cloud in an otherwise cloudless sky.”
My point is that instead of looking “out there” in the tangible world for the answers, it can be useful to also look “in here” at the one who is doing all the looking. At least that is what I have found. And since I believe poetry is sometimes a better way to express complex ideas, here is another little poem I came up with.
Seek and Not Find
If you find yourself, then you are not looking.
You will never not-find-yourself, unless you look.
In other words:
If you don’t look, you will find yourself,
If you look, you will not find yourself.
That is the nature of having no nature.
- Michael Erlewine
It seems I am for the most part responding to Townley’s posts here. John, when you use words like “tangible,” it is your idea of tangible that I am referring to here. As best as I can understand what you wrote (and I tried to point this out in my last post), you make assumptions about what you want to find and just how you want to find it. In other words, you have not found what you are looking for (so you tell us), but you very much have in mind what it is supposed to be or look like - assumptions.
As I was brought up in the natural sciences, I very much sympathize with your approach, because I pretty much have had the same thoughts myself. However, what is different (I believe) is that somewhere along the line (with the help of some mentors) I was encouraged to look into who it was that was creating all the expectations here. I mean: who made me Pope?
In other words, for some reason, I assumed that while the physical world would not give up to me all of its secrets, that at least my mind (including me, my self, and who knows who else is in there) was a clear and fair judge of all that I surveyed and that this was true as a birthright, just as I came out of the box.
It never occurred to me that my mental instrument could be skewed or biased, etc. I thought I was naturally a fair judge of myself and all I experienced out there in the world. The mind itself I assumed I knew, and with crystal-clear clarity. After all, it was the only pair of glasses I had. This appears on reflection not to have been the case. And I have my mentors to thank for very gently pointing this out to me, for tugging at my ego until some different light shown through. It was not an easy transition.
The Tibetans have such a wonderful way of expressing this, which is:
“The Self is the only cloud in an otherwise cloudless sky.”
My point is that instead of looking “out there” in the tangible world for the answers, it can be useful to also look “in here” at the one who is doing all the looking. At least that is what I have found. And since I believe poetry is sometimes a better way to express complex ideas, here is another little poem I came up with.
Seek and Not Find
If you find yourself, then you are not looking.
You will never not-find-yourself, unless you look.
In other words:
If you don’t look, you will find yourself,
If you look, you will not find yourself.
That is the nature of having no nature.
- Michael Erlewine
-
Michael Erlewine - Posts: 163
- Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 12:11 pm
- Location: Big Rapids, Michigan
Re: a physical basis
by Gary_Caton on Sat Jan 03, 2009 1:10 pm
John_Townley wrote:I sympathize with the variations on the thread so far, but it tends to reduce to the thought that it’s all just too wondrous to explain and it’s our problem for not expanding our minds enough to encompass it.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t make a little more unified sense of it without simply invoking the generally ineffable. We built pyramids and cathedrals without a theory of gravity, but we wouldn’t have got to the Moon without it, and the same goes for the rest of modern science. And, we certainly couldn’t now blow ourselves up without quantum physics. But, a step further, we probably won’t be able to prevent our own self-destruction without the application of chaos and complexity theory and the environmental resonance approaches they and yet further theoretical and applicational approaches may yield.
Astrology has implications in all these areas and seems to include them and some other steps we haven’t quite corralled yet, but which are at least as physical as they are philosophical. I’m all for “everything is everything” (have had some visions to prove it), but making astrology (or certain parts of it) into a more reliable application really needs a little more tangible thinking than tends to go on even among the best of us.
On the other hand, saying it’s all just so grand and too beyond our ken to sit down and start writing some code is also a cop-out. “Physical” doesn’t just mean you can touch it, it merely means you can generally agree on a substantial part of it and get some reliable results based on what you’ve laid out as the basic underlying structure. So much of science (especially environmental science) is headed in just this direction, often without really realizing it, so how about us putting in some two cents they can understand?
That may be asking a lot, (and not the first time, as this was a favorite direction of both Charles Jayne, and L. Edward Johndro), but would love to hear some more specific, tangible thoughts if anyone has some to share…
A few questions, John.
Where did you get the idea that anyone is placing blame (it’s our problem for not expanding our minds enough to encompass it)?
Would we even need to prevent our destruction if we had not gone to the Moon, developed the a-bomb etc? In other words, does not science, and modernism in general, create as many (if not more) problems as it "solves?"
And finally, when you express the need for more tangible thinking -whose need is that? If you mean astrology or the astrology community, can such a thing really have needs? If so, how do we presume to know what they are?
To clear up what i was saying, personally, I don't have the need to know any mechanism behind anything. On the GRE, I scored high 80's in language and right at 50 on math. I'm an artist, not a scientist.
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Gary_Caton - Posts: 40
- Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 11:03 am
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Re: a physical basis
by John_Townley on Sat Jan 03, 2009 6:35 pm
I love Robert Blascke’s DNA model (Tad Mann has a similar one, though it goes off into another direction) that looks to make the universe and astrology with it as fractalesque, a single great form reintegrated at all levels. Certainly a good approach. But I guess what I’m asking is just too simple and is escaping the general fishnet. My fault, no doubt, to quote the koan my godfather J.B. Claff once wrote me on a cocktail napkin:
When I’m lucid,
I’d deuced clever,
But I’m never…
All I ask astrologers to attempt is a little more simple, reliable linkage, the hallmark of most established disciplines. When an event occurs on the left and another one always (or provocatively often) occurs on the right, frequently there is a set of linkages between them. Or, they may both be included in a larger event which is itself the linkage. Still, they are related regardless of a witness or lack of one, though it is usually the witnesses that disagree upon the explanations. When Newton saw the apple fall and Einstein imagined his elevator mind experiment, the witnesses were actually envisioning the same thing, but we’re only even now resolving the conclusions they brought to it.
As first and foremost a musician, I can claim to be pretty much in ignorant awe of any music that comes out of my instrument, just as an astrologer may claim that appreciation of any aspect of the Great Monochord by itself is sufficient. But it is my knowledge of its construction (the metal, the wood, the carving and curing, the finish, the tuning, the humidity, the surrounding room, the physics of the strings and their age, and just how and where to tweak them along with a thousand other less tangible and more esthetic elements that make a performance worthy of enjoyment, or else something to flee from. If you’re any kind of artist, you do need to know the mechanism and the craft. I guess what I’m asking is for suggestions for details of our craftsmanship that dovetail with the craftsmanship of other not specifically astrological disciplines. Some things we can agree upon, because differing observations so often lead to the same point, and to ever greater joy and understanding. In traditional modern science, that usually begins with a set of observations, which lead to a hypothesis, which is then tested against more observations, until you get enough consistency to come up with a theory and eventually a reasonable set of probabilities, if not an actual law (itself waiting to be broken or revised).
Astrologers and modern scientists have been at odds partially because science insists its investigations be confined to very limited circumstances (preferably a lab, even a single test tube), while astrologers are dealing with a universe of overlapping systems very difficult to confine long enough to confirm. Further, current science wants exactly repeatable results (though catastrophe theory has quite reputably finally gotten past that), whereas any larger view recognizes that every result is unique, yet still has definite causes and tangible threads). And, despite the charm of koans, all of this was happening long before humans were around to cloud the vision of it all.
Being second-most a journalist, what I am asking is not What (look anywhere, that’s what), Who (anyone or no one, it’s not relevant), When (anytime, but particularly before we arrived to confuse ourselves about it), Where (anyplace, pick one), or Why (that’s our own fabrication), but How? Just, How?! When one thing leads to another, how does it happen and what are the processes involved, described in reasonably concise and consistent language. Astrology has his grander, mysterious, and certainly self-projecting aspects – but unfortunately, I think, these are correctly perceived as its most prominent at the moment, and that needn’t be the case. You don’t make great music without a fine instrument and a lot of carefully-wrought experience, and you don’t make great architecture without an enormous amount of hard-won knowledge passed on over the years and improved right up to the moment. Learning to strum a D chord on a cheap, untuned guitar won’t produced the former, and opening a small box of wooden blocks without instructions won’t produce the latter. These days, astrology is rightly looked at by many in more rigorous (albeit less inclusive) disciplines as delusional child’s play as a result. Their apples, our oranges, and as a result, nobody’s feast.
It would seem we could do better than that. We might stop wondering if the tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound (of course it does, ask the tree) and explore new, more original methods of correlation of events celestial and otherwise. Box-like statistical lab experiments don’t work, but there is great promise in environmental approaches where systems and broadly-related phenomena interact, overlap, and resonate in the real world. If astrology is nothing else, it is the ultimate environmental science, embracing all from the very beginning of the solar system and creating the ingrained patterns that have evolved with it.
So, philosophically, I should be relatively happy to be the only cloud in an otherwise cloudless sky. Except, I suppose, for all the other clouds engaging me all around, which makes for an overcast firmament, indeed.
Here’s a personal sonnet for the subject, for your mirror:
Who are you? the thought comes to my mind
That I might know you by some other name
Than what you told me or that I might find
Some other person not at all the same
Were I to name you just by what you see
Within your mirror when you wonder who
Looks back at you, or looking back at me
You ask the very question I ask you
Like who are we when we are what we claim
To be, or should the vagrant thought arise,
Is seeing you the same as seeing me,
And who is left there when we close our eyes
To thoughts that mirrors so succinctly show
Us nothing that we don't already know.
What I’m most interested in is not what we believe we are gleaning from images seen darkly in the glass we call astrology. I’m interested in the glass. If it’s all done with mirrors, then if you know the mirror, you know the rest…
John Townley
Sea Cliff, NY
When I’m lucid,
I’d deuced clever,
But I’m never…
All I ask astrologers to attempt is a little more simple, reliable linkage, the hallmark of most established disciplines. When an event occurs on the left and another one always (or provocatively often) occurs on the right, frequently there is a set of linkages between them. Or, they may both be included in a larger event which is itself the linkage. Still, they are related regardless of a witness or lack of one, though it is usually the witnesses that disagree upon the explanations. When Newton saw the apple fall and Einstein imagined his elevator mind experiment, the witnesses were actually envisioning the same thing, but we’re only even now resolving the conclusions they brought to it.
As first and foremost a musician, I can claim to be pretty much in ignorant awe of any music that comes out of my instrument, just as an astrologer may claim that appreciation of any aspect of the Great Monochord by itself is sufficient. But it is my knowledge of its construction (the metal, the wood, the carving and curing, the finish, the tuning, the humidity, the surrounding room, the physics of the strings and their age, and just how and where to tweak them along with a thousand other less tangible and more esthetic elements that make a performance worthy of enjoyment, or else something to flee from. If you’re any kind of artist, you do need to know the mechanism and the craft. I guess what I’m asking is for suggestions for details of our craftsmanship that dovetail with the craftsmanship of other not specifically astrological disciplines. Some things we can agree upon, because differing observations so often lead to the same point, and to ever greater joy and understanding. In traditional modern science, that usually begins with a set of observations, which lead to a hypothesis, which is then tested against more observations, until you get enough consistency to come up with a theory and eventually a reasonable set of probabilities, if not an actual law (itself waiting to be broken or revised).
Astrologers and modern scientists have been at odds partially because science insists its investigations be confined to very limited circumstances (preferably a lab, even a single test tube), while astrologers are dealing with a universe of overlapping systems very difficult to confine long enough to confirm. Further, current science wants exactly repeatable results (though catastrophe theory has quite reputably finally gotten past that), whereas any larger view recognizes that every result is unique, yet still has definite causes and tangible threads). And, despite the charm of koans, all of this was happening long before humans were around to cloud the vision of it all.
Being second-most a journalist, what I am asking is not What (look anywhere, that’s what), Who (anyone or no one, it’s not relevant), When (anytime, but particularly before we arrived to confuse ourselves about it), Where (anyplace, pick one), or Why (that’s our own fabrication), but How? Just, How?! When one thing leads to another, how does it happen and what are the processes involved, described in reasonably concise and consistent language. Astrology has his grander, mysterious, and certainly self-projecting aspects – but unfortunately, I think, these are correctly perceived as its most prominent at the moment, and that needn’t be the case. You don’t make great music without a fine instrument and a lot of carefully-wrought experience, and you don’t make great architecture without an enormous amount of hard-won knowledge passed on over the years and improved right up to the moment. Learning to strum a D chord on a cheap, untuned guitar won’t produced the former, and opening a small box of wooden blocks without instructions won’t produce the latter. These days, astrology is rightly looked at by many in more rigorous (albeit less inclusive) disciplines as delusional child’s play as a result. Their apples, our oranges, and as a result, nobody’s feast.
It would seem we could do better than that. We might stop wondering if the tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound (of course it does, ask the tree) and explore new, more original methods of correlation of events celestial and otherwise. Box-like statistical lab experiments don’t work, but there is great promise in environmental approaches where systems and broadly-related phenomena interact, overlap, and resonate in the real world. If astrology is nothing else, it is the ultimate environmental science, embracing all from the very beginning of the solar system and creating the ingrained patterns that have evolved with it.
So, philosophically, I should be relatively happy to be the only cloud in an otherwise cloudless sky. Except, I suppose, for all the other clouds engaging me all around, which makes for an overcast firmament, indeed.
Here’s a personal sonnet for the subject, for your mirror:
Who are you? the thought comes to my mind
That I might know you by some other name
Than what you told me or that I might find
Some other person not at all the same
Were I to name you just by what you see
Within your mirror when you wonder who
Looks back at you, or looking back at me
You ask the very question I ask you
Like who are we when we are what we claim
To be, or should the vagrant thought arise,
Is seeing you the same as seeing me,
And who is left there when we close our eyes
To thoughts that mirrors so succinctly show
Us nothing that we don't already know.
What I’m most interested in is not what we believe we are gleaning from images seen darkly in the glass we call astrology. I’m interested in the glass. If it’s all done with mirrors, then if you know the mirror, you know the rest…
John Townley
Sea Cliff, NY
-
John_Townley - Posts: 37
- Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 11:06 am
- Location: Sea Cliff, NY
And Proud of It ...
by Michael Erlewine on Sun Jan 04, 2009 2:01 am
We seem to be falling into repetition here, so I will try to make this brief. The tangible proof you are expecting to find has not shown up. Like you, I have personally known and spoken to many of the pioneers of research, astrologers like Tom Shanks, Michel Gauquelin, and so on. Nada, nothing tangible. We should be able to agree on that. I am republishing one of the last interviews I did with Gauguelin on the Matrix Interviews page in a day or so.
My point is that somewhere along this ‘line’ we ought to check the subscription on the glasses we are looking through and we (as a group) somehow don’t believe that is kosher. In other words, we put subjects like looking at the mind itself, studying advanced methods of meditation, and the like into the same pot that we put choice of religion, politics, etc. These are personal decisions and are not connected to our field or its advancement.
I say that is wrong. Every field reaches points where the instruments they are using have to be calibrated and astrologers are long overdue for an overhaul in the ‘mind’ department. For example, we parted company with the astronomers centuries ago, when they embraced (physically and psychologically) the heliocentric view of the solar system. Astrologers have yet to do that.
See, I am already getting too long here, so I will try to close. It is my (just an opinion mind you) belief that before we can go down the road you are beckoning us to follow, we need to take a break, sit down, and learn to look at the mind itself, just as the Asians do.
Perhaps the most (unfair to Westerners) fact is that somewhere along the line we bought into the idea that Meditation is something like relaxation therapy – a stress reducer – when in fact it is a science of the mind as profound as the physical sciences. Yet here in the West we (more or less) are ignorant of meditation, that is: we ignore it and are kind of proud of it. This is a mistake that needs correcting. This is my point.
My point is that somewhere along this ‘line’ we ought to check the subscription on the glasses we are looking through and we (as a group) somehow don’t believe that is kosher. In other words, we put subjects like looking at the mind itself, studying advanced methods of meditation, and the like into the same pot that we put choice of religion, politics, etc. These are personal decisions and are not connected to our field or its advancement.
I say that is wrong. Every field reaches points where the instruments they are using have to be calibrated and astrologers are long overdue for an overhaul in the ‘mind’ department. For example, we parted company with the astronomers centuries ago, when they embraced (physically and psychologically) the heliocentric view of the solar system. Astrologers have yet to do that.
See, I am already getting too long here, so I will try to close. It is my (just an opinion mind you) belief that before we can go down the road you are beckoning us to follow, we need to take a break, sit down, and learn to look at the mind itself, just as the Asians do.
Perhaps the most (unfair to Westerners) fact is that somewhere along the line we bought into the idea that Meditation is something like relaxation therapy – a stress reducer – when in fact it is a science of the mind as profound as the physical sciences. Yet here in the West we (more or less) are ignorant of meditation, that is: we ignore it and are kind of proud of it. This is a mistake that needs correcting. This is my point.
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Michael Erlewine - Posts: 163
- Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 12:11 pm
- Location: Big Rapids, Michigan
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