Exegesis V4 Issue 37

Exegesis Volume 4 Issue #37

From: "Cynthia D'Errico Clostre"
Subject: The Language of Astrology

From: "Cynthia D'Errico Clostre"
Subject: A Little Bit of Everything/every thing

Exegesis Digest Mon, 17 May 1999

Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 10:29:20 -0400
From: "Cynthia D'Errico Clostre"
To: exegesis
Subject: The Language of Astrology

Hello Everyone, Andre wrote: "When U, so also E. Now we know that U only occurs .3% of the time, so E must also only occur .3% of the time." This sounds like an authoritative scavenging from the realm of statistics, etc., that could really be useful, though similar data analysis which went underappreciated cost Gauquelin his life. I am so attracted to this way of analysing astrological data, however, that I conveniently forget how the cannibalising of other methodologies (some scientific, some sociological) to "prove" the workability of Astrology, more often than not, manages to suppress its inherent bimodality, and--dare I say it in this venue--its experiential symbolism. Yes, I freely admit, that, in the absence of a cohering base theory, I explain to myself what I do in mythic/symbolic terms. I resort to this because there is no language for or of astrology, except those terms that have percolated through modern culture, many of which are pillaged from psychology, itself now imbued with collective symbolist theory. So, Astrology ends up displaced, at the end of the (pure) epistemological food chain, relying for self-explication on the terminology of other (acceptable) disciplines, like a mute for whom others must speak. Without its own language--and here I do not address its variegated tradition(s)--Astrology is the proverbial oak in a flowerpot; we're all trying to nurse an oak by continually feeding it flower food. Having its own language is important because the entry into language signals the entry into the social order. Without its proper language and language proper to it, Astrology remains estranged, marginalized, really on the outskirts, the syphlitic sibling that could never be king. The original language of Astrology must have been divination. But no, the original language of Astrology was Astronomy. No, wrong again: the original language was ontological storytelling, or an incipient religiosity that created a collective voice. No, that's not quite it, either. "Oh if only we had more information, we could know for sure what Astrology is". (i.e., "If only I knew more of Bill Shakespeare's bio, I'd be better able to analyse his works.") Well, that's just nostalgia, archaelogizing the roots of Astrology is fascinating, but we need to focus on the thing itself, as we have found it and the traditions which belong to it (rather than the traditions it piggybacks). First, I say, we must identify its language, razoring through the coterminously displacing lingos barnacled onto it. See ya all soon! Cynthia -- Astrology is Astronomy with God factored back in. (Unknown)

Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 23:09:50 -0400
From: "Cynthia D'Errico Clostre"
To: Exegesis
Subject: A Little Bit of Everything/every thing

With all this inveighing against "fundamentalist astrologers", "erudite advocate(s) of personal fantasies," and "incompetent astrologers", I must speak! Granted, I too have met astrologers that I would have liked to have slapped around a bit, but let's all just take a pill. We're not really talking here about the common practice of astrology so much as what underlies the discipline itself, n'est-ce pas? (Here's my thing: I don't have a lot of time, so pardon me if my analyses jump around a lot.) After the extremely civilised demolition derby of my self-intro (which I enjoyed tremendously), I am compelled to point out that which, of all I have read so far, is the most fruitful starting-point towards an understanding of Astrology: "...it hinges on the speed of light. In the diurnal cycle, Saturn has moved on considerably by the time its light gets here....In fact, it is the apparent position of the planets which matters, ie where they appear to be when the light from them reaches us." (Dennis, Digest #34: sorry, I lost all my email recently so am quoting from hard copies). Mind you, I think apparent motion has been covered in the unquestioned acceptance of retrogradation by practising astrologers. But Dennis' larger argument as presented here has significant merit in that it exemplifies a congenial equi-poise between a careful distillation of physics, its relationship with, and definition of, speed, light, and time--real, relative, and apparent--and, the best it has to offer to Astrology, which itself has a covalent relationship with these conditions and their disparate states. What is astonishing to me is that Dennis' semiosis (and that is not the same as "post-modern deconstructive theory") does not collapse into astronomy or mere nomenclature, for as he noted: "...the nature of reality (was) being too long ignored or marginalized in acadaemia, so it was necessary to (collate) multi-disciplinary consensus as well...(in order) to constellate the emerging paradigm." It centres on the conditions under which "effects' may manifest at all. What has been troubling to me about the lack of theory underlying astrological practice (which I believe, by the way, leads to self-annihilation which therefore makes theorization and its valuable concomitant, self-authentication, urgent), is that one cannot, except artificially, distil the practice from the effect(s). It strikes me as both regressive and derivative to examine Astrology as the Idealists studied Sculpture, believing that a globulous mass of plaster contained within itself the ideal image discoverable only in the act of art-making itself. This would be my humble definition, Dennis, of the menacing "fundamentalist astrologers" to whom you refer--and with no great show of tolerance, I might add. But I leave my dinosaur half out of this discussion. "...a regressive mystification...may yield nothing more than a new 'lingo', a code doomed to repetition and extinction." (Domna C. Stanton, "Language & Revolution") D sol , but I have clearly misled you and others here about Cornelius' view of Astrology; no one's fault but mine. So when you "certainly (must) point out that the class of moments of time accessible for study via the lens of the horoscope (are) those that unfold on the surface of this planet...(a fact which) immediately separates any possible astrological science from physics at the most fundamental level...." , it is equally certain that you are bound by that ubiquitous oculocentrism that dictates--what?--that if Guido Bonatus didn't have a telescope as powerful as ours today, his Astrology was hopelessly invalid? Or that every time-bound moment is significant only because accessible--accessible for what, and by what means, and in what order of significance, and on which part of the planet? Perhaps I've misunderstood your point here, not being an adept in physics and its presuppositions. But horary (whose roots precede genethliacal if you trace through to the Arabs and omen-reading, I think) stands as an anomaly to this way of thinking, does it not? Wm. Tallman wrote: "(Cornelius') axiomatic question is why successful natal horoscope interpretations can be given from horoscopes erected on faulty data: the right reading from the wrong chart....An astrologer who (does this)...(may be doing something) perfectly valid...(but) it is not astrology." If he, the astrologer, yet works with and within the tools, traditions, and techniques of Astrology, what else is he doing? He has made "reference to the stars"; he has exhumed the bodies of tradition and given them chart form, charted their form. Okay, I'm being facile now but this is to me what is precisely problematic about my pitiable, disenfranchised Astrology: how does one separate the practice from the effect? Is that even the right dialectical praxis: practice and effect? Where did such a practice come from since it has no obvious base in theory? (Oh sure, empiricism, but isn't that where science originated?). Perhaps my astrologer is the intersecting point of a third thing, neither astrology nor non-astrology. I promised myself I wouldn't delve into subject-object relations, but...I lied. And, I fear I must fall back on metalinguistics to make this point. In metalinguistics, there is always and ever a praxis that exists between two opposites (binaries) yet is beyond, about and around them. There is nothing at all mystical about it, by the way, and it has nothing to do with psychology or the psychobabble that attends much of modern astrology. Temporally and spatially dislocated, this marginalized presence both precedes and follows the binaries it commands and intersects. For Julia Kristeva, poetry is the only true historical discourse, meaning the only true trans-temporal signifier: "poetry is a practice of the speaking subject, consequently implying a dialectic between limits, both signified and signifying, and the setting of a pre- and trans-logical rhythm solely within this limit....Poetic discourse measures rhythm against the meaning of language structure and is thus always eluded by meaning in the present while continually postponing it to an impossible time-to-come. Consequently, it is assuredly the most appropriate historical discourse..." (Kristeva, Desire in Language, my translation in parts) Beyond the phonic invocation or the inscribing gesture (the entry into language), she continues, is an affective force which...cannot be signified, for it cannot break through the threshold of signification and cannot find any sign (among the network of signifying distinctive marks ) to designate it. (p. 75, "F minit et criture. En r ponse...sur Polylogue," my paraphrasing) My point is, perhaps astrology is this third thing, existing above, beyond and beside its attributes, not mystical, not ineffable, merely not-yet-defined within the locus of our scientia. But perhaps my point is made more clearly by...: the "reptilian brain" which spake thusly:
> >"It is also said that this part of the brain does not recognize process,
> >and therefore not time itself; all is in the eternal now."
> >and so, from the limbic brain:
> >"It is the ability to develop a frame of reference for potential that
> >creates the ability to invent the concept of 'that which will (might)
> >happen', or the future." (Gee, and I haven't even gotten to Andre's wonderful sociological analysis--which fascinated me, by the way!) A last word about horary. What is correct "temporally" about horary practice, which, after all, deserves a fair place in the annals of Astrology: absolutely nothing, at least by the standard of the temporal...which is exactly Cornelius' point about horary "not fitting the Ptolemaic paradigm predicated on accurate timing", and which brings me back to the privileging of the temporal and its concomitant argument of the time it takes a planet speeding along in its orbit to have an effect on pusillanimous moi. Okay, I'm outta here. I hope my tone has been taken as meant, which is to say, fun and engaging, and not at all offensive. I think Exegesis is a wonder; I love you all already, and I'm glad I found you. Warm Regards, Cynthia