How do we explain, astrologically, mass death due to cyclone, earth quake etc. Does it mean in every horoscope of the dead the time of death is the same ?

Kannan

kannan wrote:How do we explain, astrologically, mass death due to cyclone, earth quake etc. Does it mean in every horoscope of the dead the time of death is the same ?

Kannan

I'm from Shanghai,China and have got a lot of news about the earth quake happened in WenChuan,Sichuan. Maybe the important thing that we can notice is Uranus which was in the middle-point in 5.12 and I have read one post that it showed the relationship between earth quake disaster and the horoscope of the dead time.It is said that the most cases were about the planet of Uranus, in the status of mid-point.

Do you mean to say that Uranus will be found to be placed in the same position in every horoscope of the dead

Kannan

kannan wrote:Do you mean to say that Uranus will be found to be placed in the same position in every horoscope of the dead

Kannan

I don't know think so, in my opinion, Uranus takes part in an important
role in these mass disasters.

Tom Wrote:

Obviously everyone who died in these recent disasters didn't have death marked in the chart for that day. The idea is their chart is subsumed in the larger more important chart(s).

Furthermore, the idea that everyone had death marked in their chart on the day of a disaster would make astrology a lot more fatalistic than most astrologers claim.

I believe in a perfect order in our world. This is the main concept in Kabbalah. I can't believe that a human being will experience a major event that isn't fully reflected in his chart. My analysis of over 16000 events for 600 well rectified charts, mainly with primary directions in topocentric system ,shows that several appropriate aspects, mainly angular, will be found for each major event with very small orbs without any exception and this of course includes also death. Sound fatalistic? But believing otherwise is to believe in casualness.
There is a saying in the Talmud: "Everything is destined but man has the freedom of action".
The only rectified chart for a victim in mass killing that I have is for Edith Stein perished in the Holocaust. I wish I will have some rectified charts for other victims of mass catastrophe. The main problem is that date and time is not enough, one need also some events in the live of the person in order to rectify the chart and in order to find out the conception chart. It is not the transits that play the main role here, but rather the primaries, secondaries etc that each victim has for the date of the disaster.

The argument concerning mass tragedy and individual horoscopes has been used by sceptics against astrology since the earliest times. The book 'Against the Professors' written by the Greek physician and philosopher Sextus Empiricus around 200 AD gives many arguments against astrology including this particular one:

For the man who was born in the arrow's point of the Archer is doomed -- according to astrological theory -- to be slain, how is it that all those myriads of barbarians who fought against the Greeks at Marathon were all slain at one time? For the horoscope was not the same for them all. And again, if he who was born in the pitcher of Aquarius is doomed to suffer shipwreck, how is it that the Greeks who were being brought back from Troy were all drowned together round the Hollows of Euboea? For that all these men, who differed greatly from another, could have been born in the pitcher of Aquarius is impossible. (Against the Astrologers, Part V of Against the Professors 2nd or 3rd century AD by Sextus Empiricus)

It appears to me this is one of those fundamental issues where the astrologer cannot divorce their astrological conclusions from their core philosophical and spiritual beliefs. Fate versus freewill, karma or divine providence, reincarnation or judgement day, and our concept of God or Dao all colour how we perceive such matters.

The astrology in such questions can therefore only serve to support what we basically believe.

As someone once said 'you will see it when you believe it'

Nevertheless, Tom's comments seem reflective of the most popularly accepted view on such issues today. The Theosophical school of astrology often presented this issue as related to a hierarchy of karma with national charts being representative of collective karma and sometimes outweighing individual destiny. I assume many earlier Christian and Islamic astrologers answered this question the same way most monotheists would in regards 'the problem of evil'. In other words such acts of god or nature were a genuine mystery which it was not the prerogative of humans to understand and were a test of one's faith in a loving god. There is a whole area of Christian theology devoted to the so called 'problem of evil' which includes various perspectives but this doesn't seem the place to get into that.

I can't believe that a human being will experience a major event that isn't fully reflected in his chart.

Fate and freewill is one of the eternal debating grounds of philosophy and faith and I doubt we will settle it decisively here on skyscript. I could get into my personal beliefs here but that would be simply repeating the point I made earlier about our core beliefs influencing how we see astrology working.

Mark,

Interesting comparison: the problem of evil and the astrological problem of mass death vs individual horoscopes.

The "problem of evil" has a name. It's called the the Theodicy Problem. Why does an all just, all merciful, all loving, all powerful God permit evil to exist?

In astrological terms, "Did 41,000 Chinese have death in their charts on the day of the earthquake?"

By comparison, the theologians have it easy. I heard a lecture once where the speaker reduced the theodicy problem to three potential answers.

1) God does not exist.
2) God exists but He is not all powerful
3) God permits evil for reasons that we do not and perhaps cannot understand.

No. 2 is scary.

Traditional astrology apparently did have a hierarchy of charts. Horary would be at the bottom followed by elections, then nativities, then mundane astrology. Mundane would be broken down into charts of nations, charts of Kings, and the various world charts. If your chart predicts a long life and you happened to be in China at the location of the earthquake at the time of the earthquake, your chart took second place to the chart that indicated the earthquake.

But which chart is that? Have astrologers ever correctly predicted major natural disasters? True you have to be looking for it, but it sure must take more than having Uranus on the MC.

There are two problems with the idea that everyone who died that day had it in their charts. One is that it makes astrology extremely fatalistic. Free will implies choice and choice implies knowledge. It is highly unlikely anyone who knew the earthquake was coming would have decided to ride it out. Although here in the US we have an generous supply of idiots, who, with ample warning decide sit in their small homes during a hurricane to show us how tough they are, while the rest of the neighborhood is heading for the high ground.

The second problem is hubris. Astrology knows all and all we have to do is figure it out. Evangeline Adams once famously replied when asked if she were infallible with her predictions," Astrology is infallible; I'm not." I like Evangeline Adams. I think she was a much better astrologer than her popular image showed us, but I also think her statement is extreme. Theology teaches us that God is infallible - no one else is or nothing else is. Once you drop God from the picture, as Nietzsche said (I think it was Nietzsche) "All things are permissible." And therefore it is permissible to believe in the infallibility of astrology. Do so at your own risk.

Tom

Each year 56 millions peoples die all over the world, or 155000 every day in average. In the Sichuan earthquake 62000 died in the same region and in the same moment. Should this fact really arouse any wonder regarding to astrology? What about the other 100000 young and old people who died on the same day but in different places all over the world and in different time of the day?
The real question is: Does astrology is a valid system? If astrology is working only in several cases ? this is not the astrology I see every day, it is like a Casino.
Kannan: what kind of proof you like to see? The charts for all the 62000 victims of the earthquake? If you analyzed death for several charts in your systems- certainly you have done it- then you know that astrology is working. If you didn't see the death -either the birth time is incorrect, not rectified and /or the techniques you are using are not valid, so we come back to the question: which system is the best? In my analysis of about 300 cases of deaths there is not even one single case of death that is not fully exposure in my systems.

Hi Tom,

The "problem of evil" has a name. It's called the the Theodicy Problem. Why does an all just, all merciful, all loving, all powerful God permit evil to exist?

If we are going to be strictly accurate , the word Theodicy only refers to a theological defence to the problem of evil not the posing of the problem itself. The goal of any Theodicy is to show that there are convincing reasons why a just, compassionate and omnipotent being would permit debilitating suffering to flourish. I think it was the philosopher Leibnitz (1646-1716) who first developed this term to encapsulate this. This was the thinker that famously asserted we live in ?the best of all possible worlds?. His view was mercilessly satirised by the French 17th century essayist, writer and philosopher Voltaire in his book Candide.

I certainly don?t agree theologians have it ?easy? dealing with this one. Far from it. It is after all the main objection to monotheism. Many people have rejected a monotheistic faith following the experience of evil and suffering in the world. If there is such a thing as a killer argument against monotheism this comes the closest to it.

I concur with your statements on the relativity of the natal chart and its limitations. However, I disagree with your final statement:

Once you drop God from the picture, as Nietzsche said (I think it was Nietzsche) "All things are permissible." And therefore it is permissible to believe in the infallibility of astrology. Do so at your own risk.

If I have understood you correctly here you are making two implicit assumptions. One is that once you remove a belief in God i.e. monotheism it opens the door to potential moral chaos and the abandonment of respect for other human beings. Of course we can all point to extreme examples i.e. Nazi Germany and the old Soviet Union as examples of states based an amoral atheistic materialism. However, we can also cite examples of faith based movements such as the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades and contemporary Jihadist movements that have carried out cruel and brutal acts in the name of the one true God.

Moreover, it is quite possible to reject monotheism and have a spiritual and ethical approach to life. Examples of religious viewpoints exemplifying this include Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, Jainism , Daoism and Neo-Paganism. Many liberal humanists would claim they too follow an ethical way of life.

Secondly, I don?t think it is self evident that the lack of belief in God makes a person more likely to accept the infallibility of astrology. In fact I suspect there have been plenty of Christian, Jewish and Islamic astrologers who have succumbed to something close to this at times. This possibily reflects the extent to which ideas of predestination held sway in a particular culture.

Ideas of predestination clearly were more influential in some monotheistic traditions than in others. In Latin, western Christianity St Augustine's teaching of predestination and original sin were church dogma in the middle ages. However, his position seems to contrast with other early Church Fathers that emphasized freewill. The freewill position represented by British monk Pelagius, denying original sin, was declared heresy. However, freewill views never seem to have totally disappeared in the western church. In the eastern church St Augustine's ideas of predestination and original sin never became church dogma so the intellectual climate created was quite different. In the Reformation this issue came to the fore amongst the reformers with the freewill position represented by the Arminian view while John Calvin and his followers were the strongest advocates of predestination.

Ideas of predestination have always had particularly strong support in Islam. Islam teaches that Allah has already decided the fate of every person in advance. There is nothing they can do to alter this. Predestination by Allah is the last of the seven articles forming the first of the five pillars of Islam in Islam.

In accordance with the Islamic belief in predestination, or divine preordainment (al-qad? wa'l-qadar), God has full knowledge and control over all that occurs. This is explained in Qur'anic verses such as "Say: 'Nothing will happen to us except what Allah has decreed for us: He is our protector'?". In Islamic theology, divine preordainment does not suggest an absence of God's indignation against evil, because any evils that do occur are thought to result in future benefits men may not be able to see. According to Muslim theologians, although events are pre-ordained, man possesses free will in that he has the faculty to choose between right and wrong, and is thus responsible for his actions. The doctrine of predestination is more strongly emphasized amongst the majority Sunni sect than among the more heteredox Shia sect(s).

With a greater focus on predestination in Islamic cultures I would suspect medieval Muslim astrologers were more inclined to look for the fine details of a person?s fate outlined in their natal horoscope.

However, as with Christianity predictive astrology created tensions for believers as this was encroaching on knowledge that many regarded as the exclusive domain of Allah by many of the faithful. This underlying fatalism would also need to fit into the hierarchy of charts as already indicated.

Thus, as I indicated earlier we cannot simply look at astrology in isolation. To understand an astrologer?s approach to an issue such a mass tragedy like earthquakes etc we first need to try and understand the religious and philosophical paradigm they operate from.

Wow. I didn't expect this. Nice job Mark. I also don't want to get sidetracked from astrology and into theology. But ...

If we are going to be strictly accurate , the word Theodicy only refers to a theological defence to the problem of evil not the posing of the problem itself. The goal of any Theodicy is to show that there are convincing reasons why a just, compassionate and omnipotent being would permit debilitating suffering to flourish.

Strictly speaking you are correct. I looked it up. I was using the the word in the sense that I understood it as used by Theologian Bart Ehrman.

I certainly don?t agree theologians have it ?easy? dealing with this one. Far from it. It is after all the main objection to monotheism. Many people have rejected a monotheistic faith following the experience of evil and suffering in the world. If there is such a thing as a killer argument against monotheism this comes the closest to it.

In today's world, with it s narcissism and sense of entitlement, this might be true, but it is a "killer argument" based on a flimsy premise, that somehow people are entitled to a perfect world with perfect comfort and only an old meanie would deprive us of that and since God can't be a meanie He doesn't exist. It's not too persuasive.

If I have understood you correctly here you are making two implicit assumptions. One is that once you remove a belief in God i.e. monotheism it opens the door to potential moral chaos and the abandonment of respect for other human beings. Of course we can all point to extreme examples i.e. Nazi Germany and the old Soviet Union as examples of states based an amoral atheistic materialism. However, we can also cite examples of faith based movements such as the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades and contemporary Jihadist movements that have carried out cruel and brutal acts in the name of the one true God.

I'm a little lost here. That imperfect and sometimes downright evil people have misused religious authority to accomplish evil ends this is somehow a refutation of religion or of a higher moral order, is something I cannot abide by. To me it only shows, to be kind, imperfect humans. We know that the old Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, jihadists et al are evil precisely because of our sense of morality. Take a Higher Authority away from us, and we don't' even have that. Without a higher morality Hitler's ideas are as good as anyone's as are the jihadists and the Mafia's. That was my point. The fact that people behave badly doesn't refute it.

Moreover, it is quite possible to reject monotheism and have a spiritual and ethical approach to life.

I wasn't making a pitch for monotheism, but still without some moral authority the Buddhists are no better than the Nazis. That of course, is absurd.

Secondly, I don?t think it is self evident that the lack of belief in God makes a person more likely to accept the infallibility of astrology.

Me either. I did say that one should accept the infallibility of astrology at one's own risk. In fact if we believe that only God is infallible, astrology, by definition cannot be. Evangeline Adams was exaggerating.

Gotta run.

Tom