A Platonic Vision of Mundane Astrology

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Below is a link to a recent article by Nicholas Campion in the Mountain Astrologer.

http://mountainastrologer.com/tma/the-e ... -astrology

Campion's article specifically examines the Eurozone crisis. However, as we already have a thread devoted to that topic I would like to focus here on the interesting philosophical issues he raises as well as the technique of focusing in on planetary synodic cycles as a central tool in astrology.

Mark
Last edited by Mark on Sun Jun 09, 2013 7:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

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by planetary cycles, I'm inferring synodic cycles and expanding towards harmonics. Is it a theory to say we expect meaning when we do things a certain way... I have my ways, no different from what another could learn. The simpler it seems in my mind, the way, the symmetrical, and harmonic way... it must be like a theory :?
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If this doesn't give the hard aspects of the article, it's ok because the midpoints are hard. And indeed of most Aspect Patterns are filled with hard midpoint aspects.

ex. Jul 17
I found this, but it easily fills a google page when u search Jupiter Saturn Neptune Trine, probably because it tightens up better than i'm going to find another searching backwards in time.

I'm not so good at history
this looks close to one of the other similiar grand trines and I have a reasonable clue about the importance of Andrew Jackson in the history of the USA -- banks vs free money...
so it popped out at me without effort
a historian-astrologer team would probably do a heck of a lot better in general than I at stuff like this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coinage_Act_of_1834
The Coinage Act of 1834 was passed by the United States Congress on June 27, 1834.

The coinage legislation of 1834 was passed during a contentious political battle between President Andrew Jackson and a contingent of elected officials and bureaucrats led by Nicholas Biddle and Senators John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster over the fate of the United States Bank.
I'd need some astrological artists to tell me if this seems like a well founded connection. What does this have to do with banking/finance besides Jupiter... My art is like drawing stickmen :)
JUP SAT NEP ? ? ? The time of the result lies in the distant future. A matter takes a very long time to mature. Putting off a decision. Malevolent separation. Loss of money as a result of a fraud. Destruction of buildings. Worrying about money matters. Separation caused by sickness. Awakening from carelessness. Losses through speculation. Disease of the lungs.
like Saturn has said NO to easy money(JU/NE) and due to all the flowing aspects the bill easily passes by a large proportion of the vote

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Hi Ariondys

I had been hoping to steer the discussion in a more philosophical direction as indicated in Campion's article. In particular Campion's proposal of Platonism as a working theory for contemporary astrology.

However, I still think there can be productive discussion here on the more technical topic of planetary synodic cycles.

Mark
Last edited by Mark on Sun Jun 09, 2013 11:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

4
hi mark,
thanks for sharing this article! to me it is quite philosophical in nature, but as the article starts out stating - without a theory - while going on to use the terms "Idealist mentality, following Plato, and its opposite, the Materialist." - mundane astrology and it could be extended - any type of astrology is devoid of direction and rudderless.

i was just reminded of this recently on a thread in the general astrology forum where the prognosis for a particular poster asking about a 'major life decision' was essentially "go hide under a rock"!! those are my terms, but they will do for the time being. with this in mind i would like to quote an early part of the article where kepler is quoted but in reference to mundane as opposed to natal astrology.. the same mars/saturn conjunction is in operation for both charts however..


"The importance of human action was emphasised by the greatest early-modern theoretician of Platonic political astronomy, Johannes Kepler. He believed, following Ptolemy, that the point in prediction was to change the future. Once problems had been foreseen, he argued, they could be averted by military leadership: ?A great safeguard for the army,? he wrote, ?lies in their loyalty to and high regard for their commander; for every victory depends on a driving force of the spirit? (Thesis 72). In practical terms this meant that all predictions of future events had to be conditional on intermediate political action. In his Thesis 72, speaking of the future Mars-Saturn conjunction of 1602, Kepler wrote ?If a strong peace grows firm in the meantime, clearly there is no danger from the heavens alone.? The key to stability in Keplerian political astronomy is therefore sensible political management: ?It is preferable for peace and quiet to prevail? Kepler wrote, ?and if sedition is feared, let meetings not be held in August and September [1602], or let them be broken up, or better yet, let the causes exasperating people?s dispositions be taken quickly away, or by the introduction of some new deterrent, let their minds be changed? (Thesis 71). Kepler?s theory can be called Pragmatic on the grounds that it argues for a flexible political response to immediate problems."

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capture software

on the one hand it would seem based on ones philosophical position that options are available in spite of potentially challenging astrological dynamics!

to the specific concern of the euro crisis and more of the thrust of this article.. from the article:
"When we consider the Eurozone crisis, then, the Idealist position must be that there can be no solution until the separation of the current most important of the planetary alignments, the slow-moving Uranus-Pluto square. In addition, the hypothesis is that future critical moments in the Eurozone drama can be predicted. The Idealist hypothesis is that there should be more such moments of crisis in the Eurozone over the remainder of the period in which the square is in orb ? that is, until early 2015."

what to do if you don't use the outer planets in your analysis? stick to natal or horary only, or consider incorporating the outers into your analysis? i happen to share the idealist position on the eurozone myself..

continuing on in the article and which i am not completely in agreement with -
"The theory inherited and adapted from Plato up to the twentieth century holds that critical events should coincide with ?hard? zodiacal aspects of 0?, 90? and 180?. A method then follows in which aspects with orbs of 1? and no more than 2? are mapped in order to indicate stress points. Granted, although the manner in which critical moments are identified is not systematized, and the rationale needs to be more coherent, the method is essentially this:

1. The aspect should be exact or as close to exact as possible.
2. Other superior planets should be in aspect.
3. New and Full Moons, especially eclipses, should also aspect the dominant aspect.
4. Aspects to mundane horoscopes for significant moments, including national charts, should be considered."

i am not convinced on the reliance on only these particular hard aspects - 0/90/180.. i am not convinced the aspects have to be as exact as possible, although that would be convenient if the universe worked so simply for astrologers generally. i am also not convinced with mundane horoscopes and acknowledge the need to look at more then 1 chart for a country as an example of my own lack of conviction with a particular chart to represent the european union for example.. i am more inclined to think a chart for the euro currency would be more informative as the focus on the angst seems to revolve around the currency which i recognize is a central part of the union. in this regard an understanding of world currencies and how they interact would seem to be necessary as well.. how do the usa, japanese, euro and chinese currencies interact with one another? this to me seems to be a central consideration to the fate of the euro currency as it is my understanding all these currencies are linked together.. one could probably include oil as an alternative form of currency that has a very important role in all this as well...

the article goes on to isolate these important 0/90/180 aspects in the next couple of years and conclude on the basis of the primary importance of the uranus/pluto - "In Platonic terms, then, July-August 2013 and April-May 2014 are moments at which the Ideal realm is in a state of maximum tension, sufficient to indicate an event such as a break-up of the Eurozone."

this remains to be seen, but i appreciate campion offering a prediction of sorts!! in Idealist terms it could also be that a solution was found in these same time frames to allow for a resolution to the build up of tension.. this is the part of astrology that fascinates me. an astrologer is nothing more then a doomer and a gloomer if they are unable to offer some insight into how a person, country or whatever have you, is able to move forward in the present moment as opposed to going and hiding in a cave somewhere to wait out the impending doom!

thanks for sharing the article. i enjoyed it!

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Hi James,

I do think the following quote by Nicholas Campion poses a very challenging issue not just for mundane astrologers but for astrologers in general:
Modern mundane astrology is largely a practice without a theory. Yet a practice without theory has no means of either understanding or improving itself. Neither is there much systematic method in contemporary mundane astrology. To establish both it is necessary to refer to the past authorities in the discipline.
However, surely one might expand the same challenge to include natal, or horary astrology? Do they have an underlying theory to explain all their varying techniques?

Despite finding Campion's article intriguing and stimulating I dont necessarily accept all of conclusions.

I think the following statement is open to challenge:
The theory inherited and adapted from Plato up to the twentieth century holds that critical events should coincide with ?hard? zodiacal aspects of 0?, 90? and 180?.
Noone could deny Plato's Timaeus, was a very influential text on classical thinking. Still, I would question Campion's assumption that we can conclude an astrological tradition dating back exclusively to Plato like this.

For example, we know that the idea of synodic conjunctions was important in Mesopotamian astrology. It is quite probable the idea of 'the Great Year' originates there rather than with Plato. The Roman writer Seneca states the Babylonian astrologer-Priest Berossus states in his work The Babyloniaca that the earth is beset by fire when a great conjunction of planets occus in Cancer and a great flood when such a conjunction occurs in Capricorn.

Moreover, according to authorities on Mesopotamian astrology such , as Francesa Rochberg the ancient Babylonians didn't see fate in a rigidly determinist way but believed the future was to some extent negotiable by placating the gods. They look on astrology as providing omens or 'signs' that were open to interpretation. So the idea of a more flexible attitude to prediction doesn't necessarily just stem from Platonic philosophy.
The theory inherited and adapted from Plato up to the twentieth century holds that critical events should coincide with ?hard? zodiacal aspects of 0?, 90? and 180?.
Where exactly is Campion getting this from? Plato? Exactly where does he state anything this explicit in the Timaeus? Its certainly not representative of Kepler either who is inspired by Pythagorean number philosophy to propose meaning in dividing the circle of 360 degrees with several number sequences.

Maybe I have missed something but this seems more like the ideas of 20th century Uranian astrology and Ebertein's Cosmobiology than anything traceable back to Plato, Ptolemy or Kepler.
A method then follows in which aspects with orbs of 1? and no more than 2? are mapped in order to indicate stress points.
Says who exactly? Where is Campion's source for this?
1. The aspect should be exact or as close to exact as possible.
2. Other superior planets should be in aspect.
3. New and Full Moons, especially eclipses, should also aspect the dominant aspect.
4. Aspects to mundane horoscopes for significant moments, including national charts, should be considered.
I haven't studied the Timaeus in much detail and this piece has certainly encouraged me to do so. Still, it seems clear most of the 'rules' Campion has put together above have no reference in Plato.

That in itself is not a condemnation of Campion's views. I just wish he had been more authentic here and owned some of these specific techniques as his personal astrological perspective. Instead he seems to be trying to validate his theory by suggesting it is part of an astrological tradition dating back directly to Plato.

Of course Campion is not the first to suggest that the astrological tradition in part originates with Platonic theory. The American astrologer- philosopher Robert Zoller has suggested that hellenistic astrology was conceived by a small group of thinkers deriving from the Platonic middle academy. While that theory is highly contentious the notion that Plato was a major influence on classical thinking is irrefutable.

I suppose I have two further issues with Campion's theory.

How do we bring this synodic approach down to practical astrology? At the outset Campion suggests that this approach dispenses with houses, signs etc and all the trappings of horoscopic astrology. And yet he then uses charts for the EEC and Euro to to demonstrate how this method works in regards an astrological issue. Isn't he contradicting himself here? I suppose his defence might be that these are just templates and the timing is derived from the synodic combinations of the planets. Thing is he then discuuses these synodic cycles aspecting these national charts. Doesn't this bring us back to angles, houses again which Campion claims to have dispensed with?

Campion presents a basic dichotomy between Platonic or Idealist astrology and what he describes as 'materialism' which is dominated by a hard determinist outlook. Aristotleanism clearly fits into the materialist outlook posited by Nicholas Campion. Campion seems to lump Stoicism in with his definition of materialism too due to its limited focus on freewill. Ultimately, we are back at the old philosophical debate of freewill vs determinism. Campion suggests Platonism/Idealism provides a more open ended approach to predictive astrology which leaves room for negotiation with our apparent fate.

There appear to be clear similarities between Campion's outlook and the ideas of Geoffrey Cornelius set out in his book 'The Moment of Astrology' where he contrasted two basic astrological outlooks throughout history. One a view of astrology based on signs or symbols while the other a more causal or determinist understanding of the art. These differences remain to this day although in recent decades the causal viewpoint has lost considerable ground as astrology has consistently failed to find empirical validation for its core beliefs.

I do feel Campion rather dismisses Stoicism out of hand without really exploring its outlook as a philosophical explanation of astrology in action. A very different view of Stoicism is presented by Chris Brennan in the following two articles. They were written a few years back and Chris Brennan may have altered his view substantially since these pieces were written. The first piece dates from 2006 and the second from 2008. Still they present an interesting and contrasting perspective to the issue raised by Campion in his intriguing article. Unlike Campion, Brennan takes inspiration from the Stoic outlook and presents it quite sympathetically as a philosophical model for astrology:

http://horoscopicastrologyblog.com/2006 ... astrology/

http://horoscopicastrologyblog.com/2008 ... astrology/

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

Other schools of philosophy?

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Good afternoon,

In item 2 of the resum? of Plato, equivalence between the ancien Greek and the Cartesian notions of time, the latter lineal, the former cyclical or better spiralic, might be mistakenly assumed.

The author contrasts Idealism with Materialism, both isms, the latter based on 'mater' = mother. Whether intelligibles depend on sensibles and / or vice-versa has been and still is controversial. The author - like most others - makes no mention of other schools of philosophy, ex. gr. the Aristotelian and sceptical, although Sextus Empiricus' arguments concerning many forms of 'dogmatism' have to the best of my feeble knowledge not yet been refuted.

In an at least open, not hidden, agenda some of the astrological propagators of resonances (a.k.a. harmonies or harmonics, although dissonances for human ears occur as soon as ratios beyond 5:6 are included) related, unlike ex. gr. Prof. Dr. Percy Seymour, assigned a neo-Platonic framework to them, perhaps with a more obscure theological agenda in respect of a specific religion or of religions.

As discussed in other threads here, the proposed astrological techniques and the charts include certain bodies, ex. gr. Chiron and Pluto, to the exclusion of others like Eris and Ceres. Those sharing the views and methods of Mr Nicolas Campion are kindly requested to provide a coherent basis for such selections.

?It is preferable for peace and quiet to prevail? Johannes Kepler wrote, ...? Peace and quiet, characteristics of the fixed contrasted to the cardinal and mutuable, are inconceivable without their co-relatives war and noise. Human conventional well-being prefers the fixed and shuns above all the mutable. The human all-too-human, however, may not be the most appropriate basis to evaluate members of pairs of opposities.

In my humble opinion the premises of Mr Campion's article appear to be - at best - theoretical hypotheses or - less good - erudite speculations. None of them have yet been validated. The author's examples are themselves anecdotal. Although the author emphasised the importance of human will and actions-reactions, he did not mention the overriding interests of those most benefitting from the European financial crises who, until now, have not only consolidated their powers and wealth but have even expanded them via the crisis.

Best regards,

lihin
Non esse nihil non est.

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hi mark,

i don't disagree there are some questions around campions article and that he seems to be mixing an historical view with his own more subjective view on mundane astrology of today. i can forgive him for that, although he doesn't articulate where some of these popular notions come from, i think he is not too far off the mark. i don't know that i would lay the focus on uranian astrology, but it does share in his description of forgetting about the signs and houses and focusing on the planets and aspects. i think his books are more exhaustive in going into the details. this is only an article!

thanks for sharing the link to brennans philosophical position circa 2006.

brennan quote from your first link "I think that the fact that we are dealing with mathematically fixed and predictable astronomical bodies does introduce a substantial degree of objective and tangible reality into astrology, and the notion that it only has a merely subjective and relative truth is, in my subjective opinion, false."

the above is part of brennans discomfort with cornelius's emphasis on subjectivity as being the basis of astrology in his book 'the moment of astrology' as i understand it anyway.. it's not that astrology - the astronomical part isn't 'objective', but that when put in the hands of astrologers it must be subjective, as opposed to objective.

really brennan seems to be searching for a way of defining a path that is neither one of all fate, or all freedom, but something where the freedom, or free will part is up to the individual and an internal state.. he quotes an author i haven't read here: "Hans Jonas has a few interesting statements about Stoicism in his book The Gnostic Religion which portray it in a quite different light:

?the Stoics later advanced the proposition that freedom, that highest good of Hellenic ethics, is a purely inner quality not dependant external conditions, so that true freedom may well be found in a slave if only he is wise. (Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, 1963 edition, pg. 6.)

that reminds me of diogenes of sinope. diogenes seems to have welcomed slavery. "born in 404 bc in sinop, turkey. his father, an official at the mint, was convicted of debasing the coinage, and the family was disgraced and exiled.. diogenes made his way to athens, where he took up the jibe of being an outcast's son by saying that he, too, was a debaser of the coinage: meaning that, as a philosopher, his business was to assay custom and convention and sort the counterfeit from the solid currency." the quote is from my old copy of "Herakleitos and Diogenes, translated from the greek by Guy Davenport..

edit : think about that in relation to the euro currency crisis!!!!

building a theoretical framework for modern mundane astrology will be tricky.. there will be different schools of thought in the astrology community and that is natural. you see it on this board and sometimes it comes across as more conflictual as i think it is just reflecting another persons discomfort with a particular ideological framework that the person doesn't share.. that was a part of my own initial post on this thread with reading what i felt like was a very deterministic astrological viewpoint. i just don't share that viewpoint on astrology.

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Lihin wrote:
In item 2 of the resum? of Plato, equivalence between the ancien Greek and the Cartesian notions of time, the latter lineal, the former cyclical or better spiralic, might be mistakenly assumed.
Typically cryptic Lihin. :lol: However, I think I fathom the point you are making. Yes the ancient Greek view of history was cyclical and therefore historical patterns can be expected to repeat themselves in some sense. However, Campion instead focuses on the notion of intentionality in the Timaeus. His idea seems to be like Kepler that astrology can make us aware of tense configurations which can be handled with skillful political judgement. So for Campion these two positions are not irreconcilable. His quotes from Ptolemy and Kepler demonstrate that I think.

Lihin wrote:
The author contrasts Idealism with Materialism, both isms, the latter based on 'mater' = mother.
I have heard you make this argument before but have forgotten the logic behind it. Why do you think materialism is linked to the Mater/Goddess?

Lihin wrote:
The author - like most others - makes no mention of other schools of philosophy, ex. gr. the Aristotelian and sceptical, although Sextus Empiricus' arguments concerning many forms of 'dogmatism' have to the best of my feeble knowledge not yet been refuted.
I have directed you before to this article by Campion that certainly discusses Platonism, Stoicism, Aristotleanism and Atomism. So your comment is especially unfounded here.

http://journalofcosmology.com/AncientAstronomy118.html

Moreover, you would hardly expect Campion to give much focus to scepticism or epicureanism (Atomists) in the context of this particular article considering their general opposition to astrology.

Lihin wrote:
As discussed in other threads here, the proposed astrological techniques and the charts include certain bodies, ex. gr. Chiron and Pluto, to the exclusion of others like Eris and Ceres. Those sharing the views and methods of Mr Nicolas Campion are kindly requested to provide a coherent basis for such selections.
Its a valid point but I do find it somewhat tiresome to see this point constantly repeated in your posts. The selections provided by Campion are typical of western astrology 1940-2010. The fact that the new designated dwarf planets have not been incorporated by most astrologers is not a judgement on the quality of the ideas presented. For example Eris was literally only discovered in 2005 and there is no astrological consensus on its influence yet. Although it could be speculated that all the icy Trans-Neptunians have a broadly similar meaning.

Lihin wrote:
In my humble opinion the premises of Mr Campion's article appear to be - at best - theoretical hypotheses or - less good - erudite speculations. None of them have yet been validated.
I dont think Campion is suggesting anything different is he?
Although the author emphasised the importance of human will and actions-reactions, he did not mention the overriding interests of those most benefitting from the European financial crises who, until now, have not only consolidated their powers and wealth but have even expanded them via the crisis.
Yes I do wonder myself about all this freewill focus in regards mundane astrology. It rather flies in the face of most schools of historiography. I can see a degree of freewill applied to questions (horary), nativities or even interpersonal relationships (synastry) but many social problems are exceptionally deep seated and complex. Many mundane astrologers predicted that a financial crisis of historic proportions was going to happen during the Pluto-Uranus square. Campion seems to be arguing the future can be negotiated and altered in mundane matters. But by exactly how and by who? Even in so called liberal democracies most citizens are able to have little impact on the broad flow of political events much less systemic socio-economic trends such as recessions.

I wonder if what we are really discussing in mundane affairs is more like the Stoic idea where action and reaction are distinguished. To an extent such events are fated but our reaction to them is where we can choose to exercise freewill if we can detach ourselves enough from our habits of conditioning.

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

To ignore or to twist - that is the question

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Good afternoon,

A search engine that brings up definitions from nearly twenty English language dictionaries shows - not surprisingly - under 'Pyrrhonism', as the Sceptical School of ancient Hellenistic philosophy is often called, only one mention of a central practice of 'suspension of judgement' and none at all of Ataraxia (tranquility).

Mr Mark (repeatedly) referred to a short article Astronomy and Psyche in the Classical World: Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Ptolemy by Dr. phil. Nicolas Campion in the July, 2010, edition of the Journal of Cosmology. This article is indeed an excellent illustration and confirmation of the apparently profound distaste many if not most proponents of dogmatic philosophical schools like Stoicism, Platonism and the Peripatetic one have for the Sceptical School. The article neither mentions Phyrro of Elis nor the Sceptical School. Epicurus, by the way, is also missing. Instead of refuting their arguments, opponents simply ignore these schools or twist their doctrines, often through over-simplification.

The etymological origin of 'materialism', methinks, speaks itself sufficiently. 'Matrix' is another related word.

Alas, until now few proposals for integrating the cycles of Eris (about 30 % more mass than Pluto) in modern mundane astrology have been forthcoming. So i shall be patient and suspend judgement on the matter. :) Meanwhile, it seems that one of 20th century astrology's paradigms is broken.

Best regards,

lihin
Non esse nihil non est.