Causality in Astrology

Monk, thanks for your kind words. I see myself as an amateur. You've got a vast knowledge of the cosmos, the concept of God as a mathematician, &c. I suspect some of it will be relevant.

Also, can you say more about how you developed psychic ability? Did you always have it, or did it take training?

Monk said:

Hi appleo,

I'm perhaps more controversial than a great Modernist Astrologer like Waybread, but i think and PROBABLY Waybread thinks, exhausted with debate regarding modernist, i'm only here to create debate!

I'm a strange mixture, i'm only here to create debate for Waybread, i like what she writes!

After ten years we can debate, but i'm not saying i'm right, Waybread will be coming on line within a few days!

Please note quantity of posts against quality, i'm a history eccentric, so what i don't have quantity? I do have posts that are well researched, and can be debated, it depends if they are fully debated!

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Maybe I'll check out your posts sometime!! My posts are in high quantity, but have little quality

waybread said:

And just to follow up, AppLeo-- astrology actually hasn't been based on direct star-gazing for 2000 years. The Babylonians developed the ephemeris, and the ancient Hellenistic astrologers took to ephemeris-gazing. So any idea of direct causality between planets >>> people is at a minimum going through several filters: the ephemeris, the horoscope, the astrologer.

I've never felt the need for a blog strongly enough to actually get one up and running.

When I started this idea, I wasn't sure what kind of response I would get, if any, so I started at Skyscript-- with more recent posts explaining my ideas about astrology as a complex system and the horoscope as a graphic language. I also started a similar discussion at Astrodienst. http://forum.astro.com/cgi/forum.cgi?num=1495746510 They have run on for a bit.

Rather than copy those ideas here, I hope anyone taken with the idea of causality (or non-causality) in astrology can look at those threads, as well.

I do appreciate the feedback, debate, whatever.

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I hate going on those forums because they look so bland and boring... And I don't know anyone there.

But maybe I'll look at the what was said there.

And you're welcome!

Hi All, obviously i'm controversial, i'm at heart an astronomer, not valued here OOPS!

I will say i'm a psychic, not valued here, but i did go to good schools, oops!

In fact i was a member of "The faculty of Astrological Studies", as a student before i was disabled, obviously bad mark, i didn't complete overall, "BAD MONK"! Disablement tells you why!

From an astrologers analysis, i do think you train to be psychic, with long hours studying astrology!

Some people have from childhood, very haunting experiences, they need training, i really did need experts from the "College of Psychic Research", it did "Ground" me!

Psychic ability when very strong can be a curse, please note i'm here to promote this thread, i don't expect you or Waybread to believe me!

When i'm able i will go to point two in investigation, be happy, i'm very controversial!

Hi, Monk-- I hope you will say more about your psychic experiences and how you grounded them.

I ask because I have no psychic abilities in the ordinary course of events, but I have had a couple of experiences that could be described as as coming from other than my normal life. One was a precognitive dream when my mother died, a long distance from where I was living; and another was seeing the aura of the man who subsequently became my husband. So I don't discount these.

I know of 3 other astrologers who have psychic abilities: two let me know this in another astrology forum, and one was noted publicly as a psychic before she became best known for astrology. Their astrological abilities are amazingly good, so I have to consider that if psychic abilities are real, they are a big asset in astrology.

I'd love to learn, too, whether or how you combine psychic ability with horoscope reading. Does the chart speak to you in ways that someone without this ability would not experience?

Also, given that I have been taking a neuroscience turn with my inquiry, I was struck by the recollection that in Ireland, at least, there is a belief that having "second sight" or a "6th sense" in which the gifted person can foresee the future. Apparently not on a routine basis, but at times, foreknowledge of an event, a prescient dream, or a visual image will appear to the person. The "gift" is not always wanted, both because the person is often disbelieved, and because the foreknowledge is often of a death.

I googled "second sight" and learned that most particularly, it seems associated with northern Scotland. It tends to run in families. Not every member of a generation will have it, but some do.

Given my recent "turn" into considering neuroscience as possibly informing astrology, I wondered how clairvoyants would appear in a study of their brain "wiring." Buddhists have been found to exhibit different brain patterns during transcendent states of meditation, so I don't think I don't think it's completely goofy to wonder whether psychic ability has a neural component to it.

Also, the phrase "runs in families" makes me think of genetics. Some traits will skip a generation or not be present in siblings born to the same parents, such as the recessive gene for blue eyes.

Did/do other members of your family have your gift?

Also, in my consideration of the horoscope as a graphic language, I wondered whether, if people learn a new language, they can develop a new sense of time. (This is the thesis behind the sci-fi film Arrival.) I didn't get a clear answer, partly because linguists (who normally are not medical scientists) disagree on this point. But in the layperson neuroscience studies that I found, learning a new language also seems to improve the person's mathematical abilities.

This makes me recall my history of astrology: until the software was developed in the 1970s-80s, horoscopes had to be constructed by hand, and an astrologer did have to know some math do construct them. In ancient Rome, astrologers were sometimes called "mathematicians."

I was really impressed, in an earlier thread, by your ability to understand the mathematics of the cosmos.

To me, these are tantalizing factoids that may not lead anywhere, but if you can offer more insights (your health permitting) I would be really appreciative.

Hi Waybread,

I will get back to you soon and your questions, but i have made a few accurate predictions where i combine astrology with intuition, mostly elections etc.

Please scroll down link to #20 to #25 thread sections below:-

http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=103819

Please scroll down link below to #2 to #5 thread sections:-

http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50567

Please scroll down link below to #42 to #46 thread sections:-

http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=90305&page=2

Sorry for pause, i wasn't well yesterday, and today i have chores!

Thank you Jup in coming forward in this debate as a listener!

Waybread is interested in psychology and medicine, probably in region of modern research, i'll deal with that first, i think the "Corpus Callosum" may explain different wiring of the brain regarding Psychics

There was a time when severe "Epileptic fits" were helped by cutting the Corpus Callosum", we no longer do it, but research tells us, "Two Conscious Hemispheres.

This is controlled by drugs now, so no cutting the link, i think psychics have a different connection within Corpus Callosum, just an intuition?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Wolcott_Sperry

Slowly am i helping Waybread, lots to research LOL!

Monk, thnk you! We're camping now for a few days with limited Wifi and electricity, but I will respond in a few days when we're back home.

Ouch, camping would be very difficult for me, i need a very special bed!

Hi Monk-- we have a small camper trailer, which has an actual indoor mattress, so we're not sleeping on the ground; but it isn't a special bed.

Thanks for the links. May I ask: so what happens when you get a premonition or special insight about a future event? Does it come to you as some kind of insight, visual image, or ......?

I do think that some really good astrologers have some psychic abilities. I do not discount them, although no doubt there are some quacks out there. For the rest of us, following astrological formulas can give us insights or forecasting abilities that are hard to explain through ordinary rational means.

Hi Waybread,

Sorry for pause, i felt ill about the London Tower Blaze, and recently had a lot to put on forum about Brexit etc.

I did have a lot of trouble grounding myself, and for many years tried to ignore any psychic ability, i didn't have a good start, from 5 to 15 i lived in a huge old house and saw ghosts there, by the time i was 20 i thought i would join the Ghost Club because of my experience, only to become a part-time investigator regarding the Enfield Ghost, that was frightening, so i had enough!

As you know quintiles can lead to a career in music, so for many years i toured Europe, i was 30 before i had a base back in London.

It was only then that i began to explore myself again, so in an effort to understand myself i took classes in "The College of Psychic Studies" in Kensington, London, link below:-

https://www.collegeofpsychicstudies.co.uk/

One gift i found i had early was psychometry, holding personal objects and getting flashes from them. Sometimes we would invite people off the street to do this, i remember holding a girls necklace, she took it off and put it in my hand, the chain made two loops on my hand!

I had a flash that this was a present from her mother, that she had a twin sister who also had the same necklace, it was my first experience being a novice in training!

There are many different psychic abilities, as shown on link below, obviously one person doesn't have all gifts:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_psychic_abilities

Monk, it's good to see you back.

I'm impressed. I can imagine that your abilities are not always easy.

Do you use your "gifts" when you read a horoscope? If so, how does it work for you?

Hi Waybread,

I think we should start by understanding that blending a birthchart with all confusing methods means having "Intuition", i feel all the best astrologers couldn't operate without it, although my special interest is Mundane electional astrology in history, i always know where to look for patterns, sometimes "Flashes" are so strong they make me ill as i get weaker and older!

I also search for God in math!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition

My schooling in astrology was from the Faculty of Astrological Studies, although i have studied it since 1976, but become disabled half way through, the courses involve approx. 5 years!

There are many extremely good astrologers here who are self taught, i have no problem with that!

I'm not name dropping, i did go to the Faculty of Astrological Studies, but disablement stopped me completing courses.

Some value this school, others feel other schools are better, i did go to this school as i felt it was the best in London in my location!

https://www.astrology.org.uk/

Waybread,

Wow. You put a lot of time into this.

I have a few questions, but first, about your comment that time is a social construct. I understand what you mean, because it is a social construct in terms of how it's been defined and institutionalized by mankind. But aside from how it's a product of social construction, it is still a real phenomena on a very organic and universal level. The passage of time is visible within a day, year, and lifetime; it can be observed in our evolving bodies, ideas, and earth.

In terms of astrology, it seems that time is an essential component, and without it, we could not do our work. It is an essential variable in our work, no? It is the means through which we are able to connect our mortal selves with the larger than life cosmos. They say Saturn is time. And Saturn is the link between our inner planets and outer planets.

However, an interesting concept is when we are able to transcend time, and this is where I believe we leave the tightly controlled constructs of traditional astrology and need to learn about the influence of outer planets. My area of study has largely been in synastry, and one of the most interesting outcomes of certain interaspects is when two seemingly non-psychic or even spiritual people form connections that transcend time. It is like time stops -- literally, for the two people, within the space that these two souls occupy. Examples are strong nodal connections and Chiron. Personally, when I have such connections to someone, I feel a physical shift within me the moment we meet in person. I tried explaining it to someone else as this feeling that everything in my head is lifted up, moved to the side, then set down again. It's a kinesthetic sense, rather than a psychic sense. And I get these kinesthetic reactions all the time when I'm in close proximity to people who are hurting inside, even if they are smiling and I don't know them at all.

I've been wondering about our ability to transcend "time" in astrological terms, at least as I've experienced it and how others have described it. What do you think?

Next, while this may sound like a facetious comment, I don't mean it that way:

In terms of wondering why astrology works, the most obvious point is that it just does. It works. But isnt it like wondering how the earth works, in all of its natural glory? There are patterns and processes within it and we mortal humans do whatever we can to understand it, with people approaching it from all different frameworks: biology, chemistry, physics, psychology, spirituality, philosophy, economics, etc. All these different languages and definitions are created to explain the same thing: our world. So while the languages and mechanics that are employed by different frameworks may be different from one another, it's really all talking about the same thing, or a piece of the same thing. It's the human struggle to understand something that is much larger than we could ever know in it's entirety.

In that light, is it even possible for one to nail down "why astrology works?"

Just thinking out loud here.

Sadge

BTW, if anyone is really interested in this topic-- I started a comparable thread at Astrodienst, which has had a lot more posts, now at 14 pages: https://forum.astro.com/cgi/forum.cgi?num=1495746510/0

Monk, your credentials look pretty solid to me. I wouldn't be one of your critics, that's for sure. In a previous thread you shared a lot of information on what I might call cosmic mathematics. To me, astrology has to take place in the mind of the astrologer, so being highly intuitive or psychic seems to me to be advantageous-- because a horoscope has thousands of data bytes.

So anything more you'd care to say about your gifts would seem really relevant to my inquiry.

Sadge-- I personally live my life in relation to time as you outline it. On the other hand, there is a Hindu belief that time is simultaneous, and only our limited, uni-directional perceptions prevent us from grasping simultaneous time.

I'm not up to understand the physics of space and astronomy, but articles like this one: http://www.hawking.org.uk/space-and-time-warps.html suggest that ordinary reality-as-given does not necessarily give us an accurate depiction of space and time.

Similarly, most of us are not clairvoyant-- we cannot see into the future. But I think that some people can. Some ethnic groups (like northern Scotland) have a tradition of clairvoyance, and it seems to "run in families" although not all descendants will inherit the trait-- which to me almost sounds like a genetics explanation, like the recessive gene for blue eyes.

My real hypothesis is that the horoscope is a graphic language, and that learning a new language with any fluency requires us to think differently, because languages never translate perfectly on a word-for-word basis. Sometimes the grammars or concepts underlying certain words are very different. (For example, in both Hebrew and German their words for "heaven" as the metaphysical abode of God and the literal sky are the same.) Because the graphic language of the horoscope focuses on prediction at-a-distance and into the future, experienced astrologers can develop new competencies in spatial and temporal thinking.

For sure, the human brain has a lot of latent capacity. Maybe prediction is one of them. And in very ordinary ways, talented people can develop more skillful predictive capacities.

One of my favourite examples is air traffic controllers. Yes, there's science, engineering, and math to safely landing a jumbo jet during an electrical storm at LAX. But you can find on-line the kinds of tests given to prospective air traffic controllers, and these tests require a lot of ability to think rapidly through time in 3 dimensions. Air traffic controllers apparently start out at small low-traffic airports, then work their way up to bigger more complicated airports.

I personally hadn't thought of Saturn as time. (Although Greek=Kronos, our root for "chronological.") Saturn is a planet. Saturn rules time-- sort of. Saturn specifically rules ageing. Apollo was the ancient Greco-Roman god of prophecy, and he wasn't always conflated with the sun. Traditionally, however, the sun "joys" in the 9th house which rules prophecy and prescient dreams. Mercury rules youth, thought, and astrology (traditionally.) Mercury/Hermes was the one god who did have the ability to traverse the different realms: the subterranean, the earth's surface, and Olympus.

The idea of Saturn "linking" inner and outer planets is a modern concept. Which is fine, but unnecessary. Traditional and Vedic astrology don't use the modern outers. Yet all 3 schools have predictive ability.

I think it's really cool that you have strong physical reactions in interpreting certain types of people or in sensing emotions that they do not show on the surface. "Feeling" as well as "seeing" the extraordinary via a horoscope reading both seem equally inexplicable through ordinary methods of spatial and temporal prediction.

I don't find your last comment to be facetious. I've gotten a few comments from people on other astrology forums to the effect of, "Don't worry your pretty little head about it." Others think such knowledge might be feasible in the future. Others think we know the answer, and it's electromagnetism. But they can't explain most things astrologers do through electromagnetism. I'm not looking for The Grand Theory of Everything.

I am fortunate to live in a very beautiful place (western Canada) with breathtaking scenery. That doesn't mean that I don't ask the "why" or "how" questions about features of natural beauty when something piques my interest.

Thanks for your feedback-- it's all good.

BTW. my husband's and my nodal axes are conjunct and reverse: he is 9.5 years older than me. I'd have to check on Chiron.

That region of the world is beautiful. I know this very well. Interestingly, it is the product of intense and catastrophic geological events, over hundreds of thousands of years, that put down layers and layers of hellish "residue," that eventually became the nutrient-rich landscape from which all this beauty emerged. (And that's just the beginning. The ecological history of the area is one of the most interesting stories compared to the rest of the world.) Indeed, there is reason for everything, at least anything we can comprehend with the human mind.

Please share your Chiron aspects. I'm also curious about how it felt the moment the two of you met. That nodal axis connection is considered pretty binding. It's interesting how some people have described what it feels like.....on told often the other represents or thinks the exact opposite for many situations. It would depend on other factors, of course.

Thanks for your contributions. It's needed around here and adds value every time.

Sadge

Hi Sadge,

Yes a country like Canada is very NICE, you don't know electional astrology regarding parans, secret electional astrology, not from Canada, but London, i live in London so i attack my area!

Parans are the oldest astrology, however pull up a chart for Canada and origin of Canada Day for midnight Day marker on 1st July 1867 in Ottawa, links below:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Day

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_Hill

Asc. is Ego Aries conjunct Neptune, meaning surrender to British date of Canada Day, Sun and Uranus can mean on Nadir an interesting unusual pact, however when i want i will show Sirius conjunct Nadir by paran!

One gift i found i had early was psychometry, holding personal objects and getting flashes from them. Sometimes we would invite people off the street to do this, i remember holding a girls necklace, she took it off and put it in my hand, the chain made two loops on my hand!

I had a flash that this was a present from her mother, that she had a twin sister who also had the same necklace, it was my first experience being a novice in training!

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Quote from Monk
I use to do this with peoples keys. same thing, I started out with friends and found I had the gift .Then I started doing it at the Pub ..I would hold a set of keys and get visions from each key.
There was one guy, I had a vision of 2 lovers .One being a family member.
He said yes his cousin. at least he was honest.