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Hi Sonia,
You know, I had a sneaking suspicion that the upshot might be that I am (in your eyes) anti-astrological.

The discussion up to this point has already covered most of the points that I might otherwise want to raise, so I wonder if I could just ask you for one or two bits of information, as follows:

1) How did you, personally, arrive at the view you currently have of the significance, and correct way to interpret, the work of Michel and Francoise Gauquelin? (For instance, what books did you read, what people did you listen to etc?)

2) Suppose that someone says to you that they want to understand the works of the Gauquelins, and its significance for astrology - what book(s) would you recommend them to read, and what people would you advise them to listen to? (Your answer to this question could well, I realise, overlap with your answer to the first question.)

Thanks,
Garry

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I can't remember who did it (Lee Lehman, maybe?) but somebody broke down Gauqelin's results by sect and the percentages shot up even more, which is certainly an interesting finding.

Astrologers need good critical thinking skills, and we need to be the biggest sceptics about our own trade in many ways. This isn't the same as being a debunker, ? la Randi, CSICOP, et al. So much theosophy and other truly bizarre ideas have crept into astrological work it's become difficult.

I do keep records of my horaries, and - it works. I'm not 100%, but the astrology is valid. I make mistakes sometimes, though, and can usually find them in retrospect - ouch.

I know people developing systems of sports astrology that are around 90% accurate in predicting win/lose, and that's not too shabby, either, though I don't know what the percentage would be if one were a sports nut and knew no astrology at all.

Which means one of these days I may need to learn about sport and try this myself. Ugh. The sport part, not the astrology!

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GarryP wrote: 1) How did you, personally, arrive at the view you currently have of the significance, and correct way to interpret, the work of Michel and Francoise Gauquelin? (For instance, what books did you read, what people did you listen to etc?)

2) Suppose that someone says to you that they want to understand the works of the Gauquelins, and its significance for astrology - what book(s) would you recommend them to read, and what people would you advise them to listen to? (Your answer to this question could well, I realise, overlap with your answer to the first question.)
In my eyes, any "astrologer" that dismiss the important astrological findings of Michel Gauquelin is doing something that only can be considered as anti-astrological and anti-scientific. It is the same as if a medical doctor dismiss the existence of blood in the body, this is anti-medical and anti-scientific too.

Answering your two questions, it is very easy to conclude the importance of Michel Gauquelin's contribution to astrology from his books (I read almost all of them) and many papers from his critics too, it is very clear, in fact it is amazingly clear how important and real Gauquelin's findings are.

For people interested in know about the importance of Gauquelin research I would recommend them in Spanish a compendium published in 1990 by an astrological magazine here, it has been translated to Spanish by an astrologer friend of me and that contains the information they need, including the best of Gauquelin's main books and writtings of Dr. H.J. Eysenck from the University of London, Dr. H. Bender from the University of Freiburg and others including a writting from Geoffrey Dean, an explanation of the methodology used and several critics to astrology and former researchers as Choisnard, Krafft or Lasson, by Michel Gauquelin.

This would be a good start point for people interested in the subject. I would recommend also to read the papers of the critics in order to synthesize it all, as I did, with clear conclusions about the subject.

Negative results in some areas doesn't mean that these negative results have the last word about it, but they should mean (as Gauquelin said) that better scientific teams should develop these further in future (not with the current scientifical methodology, that is clear).

Sonia

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For me, the most important issue are the results, whatever would be the explanation of the mechanism involved behind these results.

However as astrology is a science, and one of the oldest sciences, I am also interested in the advancement of scientific research in the field, not only because it will put astrology among the sciences and universities with the recognition that it had in the past, but because it will make of it a more bright field of study and application, detached from the occult and reborn into the light.

This new astrology quoted by Hamblin and supported by astrologers as me, is in fact a all new astrology as never seen before, a turning point in the history of the art, with many new subbranches of interest and study as chronobiology and others, but for this to be true some day first we need to know what truly Astrology is, otherwise is to remain blind and disconnected from reality and nature while living in the realm of the occult, which is definitely not of my interest -and not of the interest of any of my astrological friends.

Sonia

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Juan said:

?Every time astrologers base their work on charts or horoscopes (inceptional, natal, horary...) their practice is no longer tied to the physical world, but to these charts.? It is ?artificial freezing of time? (including directions, transits, and progressions)? ??completely asynchronous with natural phenomena???horoscopes are used AS IF they were symbolical entities (a question, a country, a person...), but most of what is represented in them is not natural or physical phenomena.?

?Astrologers manipulate and make use of celestial motions as one would use a pencil to draw simplified diagrams with which to qualify, give meaning to, and have a limited control of, any specific reality that comes under their scrutiny.?

Bill said:

??symbols derived from ?linear dynamical source are mapped in practice onto dynamically non-linear aspects of reality and experience. Non-linear dynamic systems are often very unpredictable in terms of their behavior?The organism and environment are intimately coupled?humans are organisms, and thus are intimately coupled with their environment, which includes a celestial dimension.?

?Humans are able to generate concepts? concepts then modulate the way the environment is perceived?Until recently, this connection between perception and concepts was not recognized.?

?What is emerging is that human embodiment is very significantly involved in determining the forms which human concepts take? while it is quite evident?that astrology is not a science?this does not preclude the fact that astrological understanding and practice can be enhanced by taking into account insights being generated within science.?

Is any one, besides Sonia, adverse to these two enlightened minds?
Last edited by TC on Wed May 05, 2010 10:51 pm, edited 6 times in total.

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TC, I can not be sure if everyone here agrees with all Bill and Juan said, but I can surely say that what Sonia says is devoid of value to the majority of people on the forum, if not everyone. Also, her lack of polite manners and her intrinsic ignorance of all subjects she speaks about is nothing short of disturbing. I have thought of begging moderators to just remove her of the forum, but then again, everyone is entitled to their opinions. Still, her incapability of discussing matters in a civilized way is definitly a good enough justification.

The only bright side to this is that we get to see some well constructed opinions based on real knowledge to balance her absurd statements. Maybe without her we would not have such a positive engagement. But it get's tiresome after a while, and makes you wonder how anyone can be so blind.
Paulo Felipe Noronha

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Bill wrote:One of the conundrums that astrology presents is that the source from which the symbolism is partly derived is the most reliable, uniform and recurring dynamic feature in our environment.
we use this celestial structure as the basis of a classification and semantic grid (the astrological chart or charting) or model through which we "screen" our perception of world phenomena. As a result, phenomena appears wonderfully ordered in the image of the grid through which we are screening it.

The conundrum arises because the symbols derived from this linear dynamical source are mapped in practice onto dynamically non-linear aspects of reality and experience.
this is the same Ed Falis was describing about mathematical modeling (see the "standard astrological chart" thread).

One of the key points made in these texts was that an organism cannot be understood in isolation from its environment. In other words, you can't understand much about the nature of rats by killing one and dissecting it. The organism and environment are intimately coupled.
the object of astrological inquiry cannot be understood without its context. Every astrological meaning is by necessity an interpretation made by the astrologer of the object in its context.

I have often thought that a series entitled "Towards a Theoretical Astrology" might be useful for the same kinds of reasons - deconstructing the influential (if often subconscious) notion that astrology can somehow be validated by reducing it to a material scientific level of explanation.
the only thing that can be put to test in Astrology is a specific meaning produced by the astrologer and deprived of its context, and this has nothing to do with Science, it is more a matter of linguistics or semiotics. Meanings can be evaluated or socially validated, but they can never be "proved" in the manner of physical Science.

Humans use material anchors to off-load the cognitive work involved - calendars to help remember where we are in time, computers, horoscope systems and so on.
Astrology, in practical terms is a cultural product or device, a technology. If we ignore the cultural nature of astrological practice and its tools, we are no longer talking of Astrology but of an idea of what we want it to be.

one might postulate a three-way interaction involving the environment, perceptual experience of that environment, and concepts derived from that perceptual experience. The concepts then modulate the way the environment is perceived, etc..
originally, in Babylonian times, Astrology was this "concept derived from perceptual experience". But with the invention of Horoscopics, the conceptual system began to disentangle itself from perceptual experience and became a purely imaginative, analogical construct based on geometrical abstractions. Astrology was developed by the Greeks into a sophisticated conceptual grid that is a reflection not of nature but of the human mind. This grid or model is made of apriori --mostly binary-- classification structures (signs, houses...) that "modulate the way the environment is perceived", i.e., they function like mental maps.

why it makes sense within astrology's conceptual system that a planetary symbol changes its meaning when it moves from one zodiac sign to another. A cognitive scientist would start talking about the inferential logic associated with the `container' image schema, (image schemas acts as a foundation for the kind of metaphorical extrapolations evident in the way we speak).
the zodiacal sign is a "container" metaphor, a natural expression of our cognitive structure and the way we think and talk, i.e., we think and talk in metaphors. Metaphor is not "a figure of speech", but a fundamental property of human thinking embedded in the structure of the brain.

Because a planetary symbol moves from one location to another location, it changes its state. This is unconsciously recognized as a sensible idea for an astrologer, but not for scientist, who does not conceptualize the container (the zodiac sign) in the first place because it doesn't exist outside of the astrological conceptual system. Or rather it doesn't exist within the scientific conceptual system.
Comparing Astrology to Science is useful in order to see with more clarity the characteristics of both, but Science and Astrology are essentially different languages, so there is no point in trying to force one into the other, particularly when the underlying conceptual system of Astrology is not even recognized, let alone undesrstood.

It brings astrology down to earth and makes it human. One can then treat it as such, and acknowledge all the various factors which contribute to its diversity of forms without feeling haunted by transcendent idealism or physical influence models from `up there'. The diversity reflects astrology's human roots and the influence of human culture.
Thanks, Bill.

Juan

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None of my astrological friends supports the anti-astrological views of some people here, in fact I think that there are some skeptics dressed up as "astrologers" here with an agenda behind, not to mention the business agenda of others.

It is hard to find a true astrologer nowadays, without standard professional accreditation everybody can call themselves "a professional astrologer" after read some obscure old astrological texts and do a few birth charts for friends, even there are many that have not idea at all of what truly astrology is and they never made a birth chart but buid up their business online, astrology scams are one of the most prevalent of the internet according to the FBI:

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/h ... &PageMem=3

All this whole mess needs to be ordered in some way, otherwise it will go to even worse, and again main astrological institutions have a responsibility on this.

Too much cheap astrology on the internet and the general media hiding a true science behind that remains unveiled as it deserves.

Fortunately more and more young astrologers are visualizing this huge mess and they are starting to face it properly, in the opinion of many of us we need Saturn here and let Uranus to take a break, or in order words, it is time for order and not for to create even more chaos around a natural science that already is chaotic by its own history.

Sonia

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yuzuru wrote:
None of my astrological friends supports the anti-astrological views of some people here
The League of super-astrological friends
:lala

Not really, they are very normal people with very clear minds, nothing "super" or "supernatural" as the powers that some ignorant people want to attribute to astrology.

Sonia