Exegesis V3 Issue #28

Exegesis Volume 3 Issue #28

From: "Roger L. Satterlee"
Subject: Re: Exegesis Digest V3 #27

From: "Roger L. Satterlee"
Subject: As Different as Kirk and Spock..:)

From: mary downing
Subject: Re: Exegesis Digest V3 #27

From: John Reder
Subject: Re: Exegesis Digest V3 #27

From: Jens-Ole Paulin Hare
Subject: Re: Exegesis Digest V3 #27

From: Jens-Ole Paulin Hare
Subject: Re: Exegesis Digest V3 #26

Exegesis Digest Mon, 16 Mar 1998

Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 17:03:16 -0500
From: "Roger L. Satterlee"
To: Exegesis
Subject: Re: Exegesis Digest V3 #27

ON: Tue, 10 Mar 98 11:19:56 -0800 "Joanna M. Ashmun" Wrote:
> To: Exegesis
> Subject: Re: Exegesis Digest V3 #25
>

>
> On Mon, 09 Mar 1998 01:11:35 -0500, Jens-Ole Paulin Hare
> wrote:
>
> In my (danish) book on astrology I have claimed that astrology can be
> seen as a science that places no fundamental discrimination between
> subjectivity and objectivity.

> Scientists work together, critique and
> analyze each other's work, publish results in detail, share data -- so
> that you can find out for yourself and, if you want, duplicate the
> experiments to see if the others did it right. Everybody benefits, not
> just people who are lucky enough to consult the wisest oracle among
> astrologers.
>
> Additionally, there's a lot of subjective stuff that's also objective:
> true of all of us. Normal color vision is an example. Emotional
> experience is another.
>
> Regards,
>
> Joanna

Astrology falls into the catagory of "a lot of subjective stuff that's also objective: true of all of us. Normal color vision is an example. Emotional experience is another." There is no significant difference between color perception and astrological perception--its just a matter of naming the colors things like Leo or Scorpio and trying to communicate blueness or redness to the victims of snowjob blindness. Scientists quantify the quantifiable...as do astrologers, skimpy as the pickins may be along those lines....:)

Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 10:52:41 -0500
From: "Roger L. Satterlee"
To: Exegesis
Subject: As Different as Kirk and Spock..:)

< snip >
> If you want to call astrology an art, then you are saying there are
> no rules and you are free to interpret anything the way you want. Then Mars
> can rule Leo, Aries rule the feet and anything else you want to support your
> position.
> Most of the time, those who call it an art do exactly that. They
> make up the rules as they go along, to support their philosophy. They never
> give even the slightest empirical data to support their position.
> I have never seen it fail, that one takes this approach, that
> eventually they are hoist by their own petard, in the end. Usually, you
> will find that the work flawed by some incomplete or erroneous assumption of
> basic astrological principle. The flaws always being obvious and avoidable
> if the person had made any attempt at aligning data to the philosophy.
> If you have an idea, show me a chart to support it. Show me a
> planet, an aspect, anything concrete and I will consider your approach. If
> your only evidence is that you can talk for an hour about it, then it is
> just talk.
> _\|/_
> (o o)
>

I think Astrology is a means to an art of appreciation...Like a listener, we can appreciate music without knowing many rules. We might better appreciate Mars, for example, if we allow ourselves to hear it related to the quality of assertiveness in general, like Aries and or Leo, Scorpio, and so on. But for clarity of course I agree we should all say what we mean in the first place...:)

Astrology is a medium, like painting, which grants us the ability to play at creation, and or to see how the tricks of nature are done...these contrasts of all kinds which trick our minds into seeing three dimentions in places where science observes only two.

After watching A&E's Biography of William Shatner, I looked up his birth data, and erected a natal chart. I also charted Leonard Nimoy and to my surprize they were born less than 4 days apart!

The major astrological differences between Kirk and Spock are limited to Moon sign and Asc..

The art of astrology allows that I may observe the fictional character, Mr. Spock, As a Moon in Gemini kind of Aries with Taurus Ascending...a person expressing a little about what it means to have the natal Sun in the 12th house...hmmm...No science here...:)

Aquarius vs Taurus Ascending helps me to label a very broad idea concerning people when I compare the sparkling, idealistic Capt. Kirk to serene, pragmatic Mr. Spock, but there is not a drop of formal science in any such observation, nor are there many rules. The fact that Shatner's Capt Kirk has the Moon in Taurus let's us compare the difference between what it means to have Moon in the sign Taurus (Kirk) vs having the sign Taurus Asc. (Spock). But, alas...no science oozes from this imaginary beaker either.

When we have learned enough about astrology to see how the natal charts of the two actors are *not* interchangeable, we see an astrological *reasoning* as to why Nimoy does not really have the natural ability to be a Capt. Kirk and vice versa. And no matter how much we feel the presence of something like Science going on inside of us when we appreciate the exacting sort of catagories which seem to exist *out there* for us to find, all of this is mental activity is better labeled as something much more like Art. It is only the Art that we are *experiencing*, I think.

Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 14:06:53 -0500 (EST)
From: mary downing
To: Exegesis
Subject: Re: Exegesis Digest V3 #27

> When I first started astrologizing, I was convinced that -- properly stripped of the voodoo vocabulary -- it should be reasonable to reasonabl= e men. It isn't. =20

It should be, because at its base is the concept of recurrent cycles whic= h are embraced happily enough by economists, engineers, and the agricultura= l fraternity. Then I discovered that, no matter how baldly cycles operated= , the analytic scientific community didn't accept their relevance whether connected to astrology or not. That was a real shocker, but true. Just = ask the Institute for the Study of Cycles what sort of shrift=20 Dewey received.

"=85Science on the other hand is both anti-authoritarian and collaborativ= e in=20 the finest Aquarian sense. It's about knowledge we can share, stuff=20 that's true for everybody. Scientists work together, critique and=20 analyze each other's work, publish results in detail, share data -- so=20 that you can find out for yourself and, if you want, duplicate the=20 experiments to see if the others did it right. Everybody benefits, not=20 just people who are lucky enough to consult the wisest oracle =85"

There's only one problem with the above statement. It isn't true. This = is what we'd like it to be; this is what Gauquelin was assuming when he beg= an his research. He learned otherwise. The scientists who challenged him dismissed his results **before** conducting a replication; and then, when their results validated Guaquelin, deliberately introduced an additional carefully selected database for inclusion that skewed the results. I recommend you all read sTARbaby by Dennis Rowlins, one of the original gr= oup that issued the challenge, whose decampment from their ranks caused the scandal. These scientists included Nobel laureates! So much for collaborative Aquarian energies.

"Science" has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Astrology very definitely a challenge to all they hold dear. There is also a probl= em conducting experiments that conform to scientific protocols with astrological subjects. We require replication of the "time" factor as we= ll as the more normal criteria. We also examine multiple factors affecting a single subject.=20

I remember back in the early 60's explaining "aspects" to an old electric= al engineer who chuckled and drew a diagram of a vintage direct current swit= ch. Put a magnet at 90 degrees to the open circuit and you shut it off. Swit= ch the magnet to 120 degrees, and current flows. He proceeded to explain to= me how sun spots messed up radio transmissions, and why 45-49 degrees north latitude were particularly subject to "ground level events" -- like high tension lines bursting into flames. Real, physical events.

The economists and engineers, who like their creations to actually work, have no problem with the astrological premise -- a repetitive universe. = The entire mathematical discipline of operations research predicts one set of event from a set of data derived from another source: incoming missiles deploy in the same pattern dandelion seeds are distributed by the wind in= a field. Only the analytic sciences have a problem with cycles, or linkage= s of correlated attributes. I'd be happy to give you a few chapters on th= e provenance of this mindset which dates back to the exclusion of Aristotle from the Sorbonne and Oxford in the 13th century.=20

Astrologers have, this century, tried to justify their existence through embracing psychology as their entre into "scientific" realms. But psychol= ogy isn't "scientific". Only behaviorism is remotely objective. If astrologi= cal indicators are put to a physical test they work quite nicely. You can predict coastal storms from perigeal moons. There is a slower blood clott= ing time associated with full moons, etc. There's plenty of physical correspondences to test. Plenty of objective data. Most astrologers, be= ing human, like warm fuzzy stuff derived from Jung, the mantic arts, and anything that's "fun". That's not all there is though.

If we really, **really** , want to show that astrology is worthwhile, wha= t we need to do is show it can be an economic edge. That it pays off. Tha= t it will select a better employee, pick a better product launch or save mo= ney on a direct mail campaign. Then you'll be amazed how the scientists lin= e up to "discover" this marvelous new discipline.

Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 19:54:19 -0500 (EST)
From: John Reder
To: Exegesis
Subject: Re: Exegesis Digest V3 #27

>
> Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 11:19:56 -0800
> From: "Joanna M. Ashmun"
> To: Exegesis
> Subject: Re: Exegesis Digest V3 #25
>

>
> The problem with this position is that if astrology is nothing but
> subjective, and if astrologers insist on defining both art and science on
> their own terms, then there's utterly no justification for talking about
> astrology in public or in print or using it on other people. As long as
> there is so little agreement among astrologers even on what chart factors
> mean, it only feels like communication when we talk about charts. In
> fact, everybody's speaking their own private code and it's not
> subjectivity so much as it's collective solipsism. Astrology is plagued
> by authoritarianism: we have only somebody's word for what's true. We
> need objective knowledge.
>

What is often called "art" is not art, but ego. There are far too many astrologers who believe in "divine inspiration" above empirical evidence. Many pronouncements about astrological interpretation are based on dreams and other epiphanies of the individuals, who then abandon any proven techniques that don't correlate with their "revelations". This is nothing more than pure ego. The belief that they have been divinely blessed with insight that has escaped hundreds of thousands of astrologers over the millennia. It then spreads in no less of a way than a Heaven's Gate philosophy, because people are basically week and want to find easy answers fro a messiah figure. Astrology is work and study and there is no easy route to take. But, most people don't want to work and want to ride instead of walk. So, when they start out looking for a messiah with a divine message, there is no shortage of candidates for the position.

Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 16:42:57 -0500
From: Jens-Ole Paulin Hare
To: Exegesis
Subject: Re: Exegesis Digest V3 #27

Thank you for your response (Exegesis #26 & #27). In this letter I would like to adress #27 from Joanna Ashmun, concerning objective knowledge and authoritarianism. In response to my paragraph on "no fundamental discrimination between subjectivity and objectivity" in astrology she wrote:
> Science ... is both anti-authoritarian and collaborative in
> the finest Aquarian sense. It's about knowledge we can share, stuff
> that's true for everybody. Scientists work together, critique and
> analyze each other's work, publish results in detail, share data -- so
> that you can find out for yourself and, if you want, duplicate the
> experiments to see if the others did it right.

I do agree that the level of interchange in the established fields of science is enviably high. But my statement adresses the foundation of this interchange, not so much the interchange itself. Precise duplicatable results is not the same thing as objectivity - as we can see from the Hamilton-Jacobi experiments in the 1860's: Newton saw movement as consisting of consecutive steps, done by a particle. The Hamilton-Jacobi theory tested a quite different view, stating that movement is created by a waveform, much like a corkscrew being pushed by the waves on a lake. The point is that the mathematical equations produced by this quite different view lead to the same precise measurings and predictions as Newtons.

- which, among other things, tells us that precise measuring and duplicatable experiments do not protect you from a subjective worldview. But in order to grasp the meaning of this subjective foundation of science you have to discriminate between what things do - and what things are. The latter is debatable - and subjective.

I don't think, however, that this should mean that there's 'utterly no justification for talking about' physics, because I don't think that knowledge necessarily becomes less valuable by being subjective. But it could mean, as I wrote in my letter, that what you see depends on the methods you choose.

> "Astrology is plagued by authoritarianism: we have only somebody's word for what's true. We need objective knowledge."

But what if we can't have it? Then we have to find other ways of dealing with authoritarianism. Certainly astrology is plagued by it, as is any other system of thought. But personally I don't think that the idea of 'objective knowledge' is that good a tool in fighting this. It can be used - and are being used - as an excuse for not taking response for one's own point of view. In other words: It contains it's own set of pitfalls in relation to authoritarianism.

e.g. If we don't need somebody elses word for what's true - why is it so important, then, to produce objective knowledge? These are not necessarilly opposites. Often they are two sides of the same coin.

Certainly exchanging knowledge in astrology can be very difficult and tiresome. But part of this could be seen as the consequence of not having the luxury of objectivity - and thus having to 'find out for yourself' because you cannot take somebody elses word for what's true. Still - out of this struggle some kind of meaning emerges, and part of it can be interchanged. And so we both have a fairly good idea of what you mean when you talk about 'in the finest Aquarian sense'. From my subjective experience grows a common ground of knowledge. Having to deal with the interpretation of symbols makes it impossible to reverse this process, because you cannot free yourself from having a point of view - and this can be seen as astrology's (and subjectivity's) way of avoiding authoritarianism.

But of course - for it to work you yourself have to take responsibility regarding the interpretation. Treating the astrologer's words as objective knowledge would undoubtedly be authoritarianism. An example of how easily the idea of objective knowledge can produce just that.

Date: Sun, 15 Mar 1998 17:44:38 -0500
From: Jens-Ole Paulin Hare
To: Exegesis
Subject: Re: Exegesis Digest V3 #26

If someone has not read William Tallmans letter "Further thoughts" in #26 - I can warmly recommend it. Seeds are being planted, and I would like to comment on this investigation into 'the mechanism of incredible power' - but first some statistics.

> 174 scientists whose principal asset was
> a reputation signed on to a scientific travesty

> Gauquelin published
> a few rather interesting findings...
> I guess I would really be interested in
> any indication that any of these have been followed up

I assume you know of the "Committee Para", a group of astronomers who took up the challenge in order to proove Gauguelin wrong and did an investigation on 535 athletes - and got the same results as Gauguelin. An american scientific committee then schemed out a revised rule of conduct that Gauguelin had to follow and he then made another investigation on a new material in 1977 - which confirmed the results. Later Suitbert Ertel from the University of Gttingen made an investigation on 4000 - four thousand - athletes, also confirming the results. The man has a website: http://members.aol.com/kirving/sertel.htm.

A very thorough statistical investigation has been done in Denmark by a man called S. Fischer Svensson, published in 1980. On the basis of 1752 people it concludes that a waxing Sun/Venus-conjunction in a man's horoscope means a growing possibility of marriage. So this interpretation can now be considered to be statistically prooved!

The response (to the Gauguelin/Mars-effect) has been practically non-existent, but still interesting. I. Kelly says in his book "Cosmobiology and Moon Madnees" that without a theoretical foundation for this phenomena, even if it exists, it will remain an interesting fact without any significance. And though this conclusion is not very scientific it might nevertheless be the truth. This would also suggest that producing 'proofs' like this will continue to be a futile activity, as long as no one creates an understandable explanation for them - another sign that the investigation outlined by Tallman would be a valuable step. And thinking of what Dane Rudhyar did for astrology by relating it to modern psychology I'm sure that such an investigation would not just be done in order to 'get approval' but that relating to existing knowledge in established fields will be of benefit to astrology itself and especially to its theoretical foundation.

This might just be the wisest thing to do. Much can be done, though, from the outside. But the most important work will undoubtedly have to be done from within science and outwards, so to speak - with respect for and proper knowledge of 'all the work that has been done before.' This could mean the arrival of a lot of scientifical terms, just like Dane Rudhyar (and others) introduced a lot of psychological terms by relating to modern psychology. The investigation of some 'natural force', dealing with a correspondence between planets and terrestrial life, would of course have to relate to modern physics as well. And one might say that this step is inevitable - because astrology will always be more than psychology. As long as the planets are being used as guidance it is also a statement about nature. Do modern scientifical terms have anything to do with astrology? Perhaps not. But as Tallman points out it is not astrology, but the mechanism on which it is founded, that has to be investigated. This mechanism may be awkward, but in the end it resides in the very same nature which has been investigated scientifically for centuries - and it wouldn't be improper to assume, that "the astrological effect" therefore must correspond to existing findings and existing terminology in some way or another.

> I urge the reader to refrain from leaping to the
> conclusion that I am urging a mechanistic view of the universe where
> cause and effect rules absolutely, for I am not. The mechanism may
> well not entail cause and effect relationships.

Let me bring to mind the words of Plotin from the second century: The stars are bearers of significance or symbols, not the cause of our destiny. And with the arrival of quantum physics I see no reason why a scientific view would have to be a matter of cause and effect. On the other hand: if we don't want to rule out the possibility of non-causal relationships I think quantum theory has to be involved in some way - it is the only field, as far as I know, that deals with non-causal effects and have ways of dealing with them - as far as science is concerned. In the humanities, however, they have always dealt with non-causal concepts, like analogies, metaphors and symbolism. That's why I think this investigation might very well be forced to break down the barriers between science and humanities.

> As for science itself, what we are talking about is scientism, not
> science. We tend to forget that the first activity in the scientific
> process is uncritical observation.

This barrier, I think, suggests that we are dealing with both. Of course the 'first activity' is violated due to scientism - but the reason why it can be violated that easily - statistical investigations being ignored and so forth - lies partly in science itself and the fundamental rules of conduct which it dictates, in one way or another. Although we have quantum physics the mechanistic view is still the only valid view in the 'macro-universe', where traditional physics resides. Although we have relativism it is still the old bivalent syllogism, where things are either false or true (as opposed to for example symbolic value), that is considered to have any scientifical relevans. A lot of these terms that could be used as relative have been given ontological status in science and though this trick is not strictly scientifical it has nevertheless been done and is now so much part of science and scientists outlook that it can't be distinguished from scientism - and therefore it can be adressed scientifically. Alternative rules of conduct exists, but they have to be unfolded as part of or prior to the investigation. The strict division in science and humanities I think is another 'rule' that can be called scientism, (there is no proof that it has to be there) but still it has become a part of science and must be adressed as such. And one of the reasons, besides the protection of power, that astrology can find no place in the academical picture, might very well be that it doesn't correspond with this division into two separate fields of knowledge.

> The next step is for the investigator to assess the scope of the
> problem and sketch out a schematic of what must/might be involved in
> the mechanism. The 'must' is the essential least case, and the
> 'might' is the possible most complex case. This is subject to
> revision on an ongoing basis.

If one presumed, for instance, that this 'mechanism of incredible power' is creating correspondence between different levels, (not only between celestial patterns and terrestrial patterns, but further 'down' as well as a natural force that exists 'around us') then it might explain the effectiveness of analogies, and symbolism wouldn't just be 'something which are created by the human mind', but an attribute of nature itself which we then perceive. It is striking, I think, that terms like analogies, metaphors and symbolism has been ruled out in scientifical thinking - and so science doesn't use and have no methods for dealing with them. And still these phenomena are very much existent. (As David Bohm has demonstrated metaphors can even be seen as a major driving force for science itself throughout history). One might assume that by ruling these phenomena out they ruled this 'mechanism of incredible power' out as well.

And so I'm not talking about including symbolism and so forth in order to investigate anything about astrological interpretation. I'm just saying that though we set out to investigate a force of nature we shouldn't expect it to become 'strictly physics'. One might have to dive into humanities just in order to identifie this force hypothetically.

These are just speculations, of course, but I think a lot of speculation are to be done before any investigation can take place. According to step one, "uncritical and doggedly thorough investigation of the issues at hand", we have to develop some idea of which issues are at hand - and if this investigation are to deal with the knowledge of established fields we have to be able to phrase at least some of those issues in their terminology and framework. Whether you are a scientist or an astrologer there is a lot of 'relating' to be done in order to prepare the ground.

I have briefly discussed some of these matters with an astronomer, Per Kjrgaard Rasmussen, and with a rocket scientist who has been working at CERN - both of them think that astrology works, and the latter even claims to have some kind of scientific proof, which he won't reveal. And he have no intention of ruining his career by saying anything positive about astrology in public. Both of them are of course preoccupied in their own fields - the astronomer has, however, written a book, called "The Idea of Astrology" together with two astrologers in which they all 'admit' to their belief. At the moment they are trying to get it published in the US with the help of Noel Tyl. Per Kjrgaard Rasmussen can be found at http://www.astro.ku.dk/~per/ and some of his research on astronomical instruments can be found at http://www.astro.lu.se/Notnews/No8/node6.html and http://www.astro.ku.dk/~per/dfosc/count/count.html. The book deals with the historical connection between astrology and astronomy and makes no attempt to investigate any correspondence between todays astronomy and astrology. Nevertheless I think it is an important step towards cooperation across the barriers. If anyone knows of any such books in the US, written by scientists and astrologers together, I would like to hear about them!