So what is the purpose of traditional astrology in today’s world?

Bunraku

Well-known member
This probably isn’t a very good comparison to make because of the vast differences in philosophy, life, language, way of thinking etc. but.... IMO societies back in the day didn’t have statistical models like modern ones so they relied on divination to get an answer.

They seemed to use the planets/stars to find consistent patterns and tried to figure out which caused what in order to try to predict things.

Today we also try to see patterns in things. It’s not the cause that you’re going to have a good life if you live, grew up, and went to school in a specific area code, but it does correlate. The odds of you getting a disease if you’re overweight, or the type of work you’re in, or what’s in your genetics/family history (via testing), etc. your race.. sex... all of these things have correlations or predispositions. Childhood mortality rates are at an all time low (compared to the entirety of history). The probability and outcome based on the current data/evidence is what I was getting at.

No one in their right mind today would go to an astrologer to get surgery done.... I certainly hope not. They go to a surgeon... and they know these procedures are successful/unsuccessful to a degree based on previous statistics. Astrology isn’t very useful in the medical field today, but people used decumbiture charts not too far back as a legitimate way to understand a person.

What are the odds of you getting in a car crash, plane crash, or struck by lightning. Many Americans drive long distances everyday for the majority of their lives.

The economy and anything to do with money is a little harder predict. The weather is straight up unpredictable.

HMMMMMM
What do you use predictions for? Astrology takes a lot of guesswork out. And the data we have now takes even more of it out.

I’m guessing mathematicians are still wizards even in this day and age :ninja:
 

Bunraku

Well-known member
Yes I’m asking what people use traditional astrology for and how it fits in today’s society. You know there’s a book written about it right?” Traditional astrology for today “

It doesn’t make sense to post it elsewhere, but that’s not my decision :lol:
 

Bunraku

Well-known member
thread title specifically asks:
"...So what is the purpose of traditional astrology in today’s world?.."
without stating the name of any book
and
continues with attacking statements such as:
"...no one in their right mind would go to an astrologer today to get surgery done..."

therefore the thread title is misleading

makes sense to post it elsewhere on one of our general boards

by the way our Medical Astrology board
as well as our Horary board for questions on Medicine & Health

answers questions as to best time for surgery :smile:

https://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=14
https://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=50

JA,

Do you practice astrology without context or application? You live in 2020, and you use astrology. So obviously you practice astrology in today’s context... traditional or otherwise.

Would you please enlighten me how that is an attacking statement? How does that attack traditional astrology in today’s society...
I am genuinely confused... and curious now...

Would you trust Deborah Houlding to perform surgery on you, with only a background in astrology? Lmao!
 

Bunraku

Well-known member
Apparently there is a subset of people who trust astrologers to perform surgery on them. You learn something new everyday. :lol:
 

IleneK

Premium Member
This probably isn’t a very good comparison to make because of the vast differences in philosophy, life, language, way of thinking etc. but.... IMO societies back in the day didn’t have statistical models like modern ones so they relied on divination to get an answer.

They seemed to use the planets/stars to find consistent patterns and tried to figure out which caused what in order to try to predict things.

Today we also try to see patterns in things. It’s not the cause that you’re going to have a good life if you live, grew up, and went to school in a specific area code, but it does correlate. The odds of you getting a disease if you’re overweight, or the type of work you’re in, or what’s in your genetics/family history (via testing), etc. your race.. sex... all of these things have correlations or predispositions. Childhood mortality rates are at an all time low (compared to the entirety of history). The probability and outcome based on the current data/evidence is what I was getting at.

No one in their right mind today would go to an astrologer to get surgery done.... I certainly hope not. They go to a surgeon... and they know these procedures are successful/unsuccessful to a degree based on previous statistics. Astrology isn’t very useful in the medical field today, but people used decumbiture charts not too far back as a legitimate way to understand a person.

What are the odds of you getting in a car crash, plane crash, or struck by lightning. Many Americans drive long distances everyday for the majority of their lives.

The economy and anything to do with money is a little harder predict. The weather is straight up unpredictable.

HMMMMMM
What do you use predictions for? Astrology takes a lot of guesswork out. And the data we have now takes even more of it out.

I’m guessing mathematicians are still wizards even in this day and age :ninja:


This is a legitimate question for all astrology, not traditional in particular. I am sincerely interested to know your thinking as to why you would choose to post in the Traditional Astrology forum?
 

conspiracy theorist

Well-known member
I think the crux of the OP is that astrology is a kind of proto-data science, and how the modern world has better and more sophisticated predictive models that are more powerful in their ability to decipher phenomena (supposedly). Also how advances in medicine and science, as well as the change in societal norms have made certain techniques obsolete. If contempary society has better ways to look around the corner, then why bother with traditional astrology at all (based on what has been claimed by trad astrologers that this branch of astrology is primarily about prediction, which I do see some use to imply that it is more "serious" than modern practice)

I've seen the OP questioning modern astrology on different grounds, but the domain of traditional seems to heavily be about prediction.

I also think it's a legitimate question.
 

Osamenor

Staff member
thread title specifically asks:
"...So what is the purpose of traditional astrology in today’s world?.."
without stating the name of any book
and
continues with attacking statements such as:
"...no one in their right mind would go to an astrologer today to get surgery done..."

therefore the thread title is misleading

makes sense to post it elsewhere on one of our general boards

by the way our Medical Astrology board
as well as our Horary board for questions on Medicine & Health

answers questions as to best time for surgery :smile:

https://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=14
https://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=50

You can't always tell the real topic of a thread by its title. There's no rule that thread titles on the Traditional board must reference traditional astrology. As long as the content adheres to traditional astrology, it's fine for this board. And no, the statement "no one in their right mind would go to an astrologer to get surgery done" is not an attack in and of itself, and not an attack in the context that the OP clarified for us.

Deleted a spate of posts in this vein that were derailing the thread. Please address the discussion at hand, going forward, not where it's posted.
 
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Dirius

Well-known member
Why was my post deleted Osa? :pouty:

I just mentioned the statistics of what type of consults I get.

80% of the consults I receive are loved related.
15% are for career.
5% are mixed on a bunch of different subjects.

This is, in my experience, what people use traditional astrology for.

I suppose most want reassurance on stuff.
 
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Osamenor

Staff member
Why was my post deleted Osa? :pouty:

I just mentioned the statistics of what type of consults I get.

80% of the consults I receive are loved related.
15% are for career.
5% are mixed on a bunch of different subjects.

This is, in my experience, what people use traditional astrology for.

I suppose most want reassurance on stuff.

If you posted that, it was in some other thread, and I haven't deleted it. You haven't posted in this thread til now.
 

Osamenor

Staff member
80% of the consults I receive are loved related.
15% are for career.
5% are mixed on a bunch of different subjects.

This is, in my experience, what people use traditional astrology for.

I suppose most want reassurance on stuff.

And to expand on this, what do you think it is about traditional astrology in particular that helps people? What might people get out of traditional astrology that they wouldn't get from a modern or hybrid approach?
 

Dirius

Well-known member
What might people get out of traditional astrology that they wouldn't get from a modern or hybrid approach?

Actual accurate results. :happy::happy:

----

Joking aside - to me traditional just fits better than modern techniques, in a sense that provides a more reasonable explanation to most stuff.

Modern in a way is almost always a "hybrid" and through using the unchanged techniques it can get good results, but once you delve into traditional astrology, you just notice everything fits.


If you apply the techinques of traditional correctly you are going to be right almost 100% of the time. Most of the times you miss, is because you overlooked something.
 
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Osamenor

Staff member
Actual accurate results.

To be more specific, do you mean prediction results?

Modern astrology doesn't deal much with specific predictions, it's true. Seems to me it's traditional astrology that would have the measurable results. Especially if you're talking about something like horary.
 

Dirius

Well-known member
Especially if you're talking about something like horary.
Horary is quite another subject, failure and succes rates are more concerned with experience - because they operate on a rather "strange" concept, given the chart represent what is on the querents mind, which is not always the same thing they ask about.

More often than not you get questions such as "when will I meet the love of my life" - when they actually want to know if their ex will come back.
 

Dirius

Well-known member
Another big reason I disregard modern astrology is because it operates under an assumption that the world is a "hopeful" place. In a way most modern astrologers - at least for what I've seen - seem to operate under the presumption than the world can be a good place.

Traditional astrology is much more realistic, in the sense that the world is understood to be a horrible and disgusting place.
 

muchacho

Well-known member
This probably isn’t a very good comparison to make because of the vast differences in philosophy, life, language, way of thinking etc. but.... IMO societies back in the day didn’t have statistical models like modern ones so they relied on divination to get an answer.

They seemed to use the planets/stars to find consistent patterns and tried to figure out which caused what in order to try to predict things.

Today we also try to see patterns in things. It’s not the cause that you’re going to have a good life if you live, grew up, and went to school in a specific area code, but it does correlate. The odds of you getting a disease if you’re overweight, or the type of work you’re in, or what’s in your genetics/family history (via testing), etc. your race.. sex... all of these things have correlations or predispositions. Childhood mortality rates are at an all time low (compared to the entirety of history). The probability and outcome based on the current data/evidence is what I was getting at.

No one in their right mind today would go to an astrologer to get surgery done.... I certainly hope not. They go to a surgeon... and they know these procedures are successful/unsuccessful to a degree based on previous statistics. Astrology isn’t very useful in the medical field today, but people used decumbiture charts not too far back as a legitimate way to understand a person.

What are the odds of you getting in a car crash, plane crash, or struck by lightning. Many Americans drive long distances everyday for the majority of their lives.

The economy and anything to do with money is a little harder predict. The weather is straight up unpredictable.

HMMMMMM
What do you use predictions for? Astrology takes a lot of guesswork out. And the data we have now takes even more of it out.

I’m guessing mathematicians are still wizards even in this day and age :ninja:
What's the purpose of knives in today's kitchens? Some things are just darn useful and never get old or become obsolete.
 

muchacho

Well-known member
If you apply the techinques of traditional correctly you are going to be right almost 100% of the time. Most of the times you miss, is because you overlooked something.
That may be true for horary but not for natal. I actually did some research with almost a hundred pregnancy charts ("Am I pregnant?") and eventually tweaked the method in such a way that I got the accuracy to beyond 90%. And I wouldn't have gotten there if I had strictly followed the 'traditional techniques'. Lilly's method actually gave the worst results (barely above a coin flip), followed by Bonatti and Frawley. Bottom line, there's a lot of nonsense written in 'traditional' astrology books that just doesn't stand the test of a rigorous reality check.

You also will never get such a high number of accuracy in natal because what you are dealing with here is essentially an open book with just too many wild cards.
 

muchacho

Well-known member
Another big reason I disregard modern astrology is because it operates under an assumption that the world is a "hopeful" place. In a way most modern astrologers - at least for what I've seen - seem to operate under the presumption than the world can be a good place.

Traditional astrology is much more realistic, in the sense that the world is understood to be a horrible and disgusting place.
The way I see it, astrology is just a tool for counseling people. And people are very diverse. So not every method works on everyone. Just picture a Capricorn giving investment advice to an Aries or vice versa, or a Virgo giving dating advice to a Leo or vice versa.

Astrology as a tool could be compared to a set of knives in a kitchen. There's a fruit knife, a bread knife, a steak knife and so on. A skilled chef knows what knife to use for what, when and how. Insisting that bread knives are useless and only fruit knives work would be a silly thing to say for a chef. A chef would use the knife that fits the occasion, of course, i.e. a fruit knife for cutting fruit, a bread knife for cutting bread. Sure, you can use a fruit knife to cut bread, but the result will look accordingly.

Similarly with astrology and its many traditions. Always a doom and gloom approach is as much out of place as always a pollyanna approach. As the saying goes, there's a season for everything. In that sense, both modern and traditional astrology have their place. And where modern astrologers are really good at and traditional astrologers tend to get awkwardly monosyllabic is in working with the signs and triplicities. And where traditional astrologers are really good at and modern astrologers usually fail is very specific predictions. So you can certainly have the best of both worlds here. Just settling for a bread knife or a fruit knife seems a bit too limiting, IMO. Why not just use both depending on what you have to deal with? Seems much more efficient. Just my 2 cents on the perpetual trads vs. mods topic.
 

Dirius

Well-known member
That may be true for horary but not for natal. I actually did some research with almost a hundred pregnancy charts ("Am I pregnant?") and eventually tweaked the method in such a way that I got the accuracy to beyond 90%. And I wouldn't have gotten there if I had strictly followed the 'traditional techniques'. Lilly's method actually gave the worst results (barely above a coin flip), followed by Bonatti and Frawley. Bottom line, there's a lot of nonsense written in 'traditional' astrology books that just doesn't stand the test of a rigorous reality check.

You also will never get such a high number of accuracy in natal because what you are dealing with here is essentially an open book with just too many wild cards.

Bonatti, Lilly and Frawley are not the law on astrology. In fact they can many times go against classical theory.

A good example is their use of the second house as a position of strength in a chart. Bonatti actually compares the second house with the favourable fifth house, for example he gives them both the same score of +3, showing his mindset on the issue, while Lilly and Frawley repeat this mistake. Frawley many times uses the second house, as a place where planets get more accidental dignity than in the 3rd or 9th. In classical astrology, the second house is a dreadful and debilitating place for a planet to be positioned in.

Another good example is their use of ptolomeic aspects from planets towards Kleroi, particularly Fortuna. This is another horrifying mistake - Kleroi can't be the recipient of aspects.

These are some examples of moments they deviate from classical teachings and use their own made up theory and apply it to astrology. Sure they hit the mark many times with their techniques, particularly on charts of direct and simple approach. But if you follow what they say when you get a more complex chart, or question, you are probably not gonna get it right, because Lilly and company are plagued with mistakes.

-----

PS: Hard to take your example serious, considering people rarely (if ever) ask the question "am I pregnant?" - What people usually ask is whether they will conceive or have children some day, or ask how long it will take them to get pregnant. An horary chart is more expensive than a pregnancy test.
 
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Dirius

Well-known member
T
Similarly with astrology and its many traditions. Always a doom and gloom approach is as much out of place as always a pollyanna approach. As the saying goes, there's a season for everything. In that sense, both modern and traditional astrology have their place. And where modern astrologers are really good at and traditional astrologers tend to get awkwardly monosyllabic is in working with the signs and triplicities. And where traditional astrologers are really good at and modern astrologers usually fail is very specific predictions. So you can certainly have the best of both worlds here. Just settling for a bread knife or a fruit knife seems a bit too limiting, IMO. Why not just use both depending on what you have to deal with? Seems much more efficient. Just my 2 cents on the perpetual trads vs. mods topic.

Personality readings are super easy to do with traditional techniques, they just happen to be pointless most of the times, and why we don't usually focus on that.

Its more of a way to show off to someone that you can read a chart, by telling them how they are, without even talking to them.
 
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