The clockwork of Astrology

david starling

Well-known member
A cause that makes planetary placement correlate with human affairs is more far far more improbable than the direct causality hypothesis...

You should be using Parans then, not the Lines of Celestial Longitude. Any planet not visible and/or not in direct line with the native's physical location on Earth at any given time would be without influence. Also, you have to explain the medium of transmission of influence.
 
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petosiris

Banned
You should be using Parans then, not the Lines of Celestial Longitude. Any planet not visible and/or not in direct line with the native's physical location on Earth at any given time would be without influence. Also, you have to explain the medium of transmission of influence.

Celestial longitude is used because planets always travel along the ecliptic, which has specific effects due to the elevation (it doesn't for the equator though)... Parans are to used in the case of heliacal phenomena, though - https://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=125928. I recommend a mixture of the two systems in the case of proximate fixed stars.
 
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petosiris

Banned
Also, you have to explain the medium of transmission of influence.

The germination and the fruition of the seed must be moulded and conformed to the biological qualities proper to the physical forces at the time. For example, a high-ranking person in the military is conceived with an ambient that the Sun and the other six planets would enforce in the case of stormy weather, if it happened to occur at the time which predominates the weather, like a syzygy (this is why most nativities' temperaments do not correlate with the weather at the very time of their birth - other cosmic and sublunar phenomena precede them, while in the case of nativities, we only observe the superior cosmic placements, rather than clouds and cyclones).

Nativities occur under similar configurations to the conception.
 

petosiris

Banned
Also, you have to explain the medium of transmission of influence.
Here is an attempt at a proximate explanation:

1. A very few considerations would make it apparent to all that a certain power emanating from the eternal ethereal substance is dispersed through and permeates the whole region about the earth, which throughout is subject to change, since, of the primary sublunar elements, fire and air are encompassed and changed by the motions in the ether and in turn encompass and change all else, earth and water and the plants and animals therein.

Sun together with the ambient, is always in some way affecting everything on the earth, not only by the changes that accompany the seasons of the year to bring about the generation of animals, the productiveness of plants, the flowing of rivers, the change of bodies, but also daily furnishing heat, moisture, dryness and cold in regular order and in correspondence with its position relative to the zenith.

Moon, too, as the heavenly body nearest to the earth, bestows its effluence most abundantly upon mundane things, for most of them, animate or inanimate, are sympathetic with it, and change in company with it, the rivers increase and diminish their streams with its light, the seas turn their own tides with its rising and setting, and plants and animals in whole or in some part increase or decrease with it.

The ambient and the other five wandering stars often cause hot, windy and snowy conditions of the air, and mundane matters are affected accordingly. All aspects bring about many complicated changes, for though the power of the Sun prevails in the general ordering of the quality, the other heavenly bodies cooperate or deter in particular details. If these matters be so regarded, all would judge it to follow that not only must things already compounded be affected in some way by the heavenly bodies, but likewise the germination and the fruition of the seed must be moulded and conformed to the biological qualities proper to the physical forces at the time.

2. Sun is heating and moderately drying, this is made more easily perceptible with its size and the obviousness of its seasonal changes, for the closer it approaches the zenith, the more it affects us.

Moon is moistening and moderately heating, certainly because it is close to the earth and because of the moist exhalations therefrom, and because of the light which it receives from the Sun.

Saturn is cooling and moderately drying, since it is furthest removed from the Sun and the moist exhalations about the earth. With the five wandering stars, there are powers which arise through their aspects to the Sun and the Moon, for some of them modify the conditions in the ambient in one way, some in another, by increase or decrease.

Jupiter is heating and moderately moistening, with temperate active force because its movement takes place between the cooling influence of Saturn and the burning power of Mars, and because it has greater heating power by reason of the underlying planets, it produces fertilizing winds.

Mars is drying and burning, in conformity with its fiery colour, its speed of motion, and relative proximity to the Sun.

Venus is moistening and moderately heating, temperate nature that appropriates exhalations from the moist atmosphere surrounding the earth, and the light of the proximate Sun.

Mercury is alternating between drying and moistening, for it is never far removed from the Sun, and since it appropriates the exhalations from Venus and the earth. It changes quickly from one quality to the other, inspired by the speed of its motion in the neighbourhood of the Sun itself.

We refer, however, to the four qualities and four elements not in the sense that they constitute the material basis of the physical world, but that the power of the planets contribute to these physical qualities in the atmosphere, which in turn influence all else, biology and the sociology therein.

Everything else follows these qualities - see https://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=126640

3. Universal and genethlialogical prognostication have the one and the same power both practically and theoretically, for the changes in the subject precisely correspond to the parallel movement of the heavenly bodies through the surrounding heavens except that universal conditions are greater and independent, and particular conditions not similarly so. We must not, however, consider that both divisions employ the same starting-points, since we have no single one for the universe, and since these that we have are not always taken from the subject natures themselves, but also from the elements that attend them and carry with them the causes. In predictions affecting individual men, however, we have both one and many starting-points. The beginning of the temperament is the first starting-point and many are the successive of the ambients relative to the first beginning, though to be sure the single starting-point is naturally in this case of greatest importance because it produces the others. The general characteristics of temperament are determined from the first starting-point, while by means of others we predict events that will come about at specific times.

Since the chronological starting-point of human nativities is naturally the time of conception, but potentially and accidentally the moment of birth, in cases in which the very time of conception is known either by chance or by observation, it is more fitting that we should follow it to determine the special nature of body or mind, examining the effective power of the configuration of planets at that time. For to the seed is given once and for all at the beginning such and such qualities by the endowment of the genetic mixture of the parents, which is in turn controlled by the ambient, and such biological determinism dependent upon physical reductionism is easily comprehended. But when people do not know the time of conception, which is usually the case, we must follow the starting-point furnished by the moment of birth and give to this our attention, for it too is of great importance and falls short of the former only in this respect, that by the former it is possible to have foreknowledge also of events preceding birth. For if one should call the one source, and the other, as it were, the beginning, its importance in time, indeed, is secondary, but it is equal or rather even more perfect in potentiality and with reasonable propriety would the former be called genesis of seed, and the latter the genesis of man. For the child at birth and his bodily form take on many additional attributes which he did not have before when he was in the womb, those very ones indeed which belong to human nature alone and even if it seems that the ambient at the time of birth contributes nothing towards his quality, at least his very coming forth into light under the appropriate confirmation of the heavens does contribute, since nature, after the child is perfectly formed, gives the impulse to a birth under a configuration of similar type to that which governed the formation of the child in detail in the first place. Accordingly, one may with good reasoning believe that the position of the stars with the time of birth is significant of things of this sort, not, however, for the reason that it is causative in the full sense, but that by necessity and nature it has potentially very similar causative power, furthermore we can investigate influences of the planets concerning parents, brethren, and children, through the influence of specific particulate heredity.
 

petosiris

Banned
Do you still propose this as a viable explanation?

Not anymore, I changed my mind on that kind of sorcery. Read my lengthy post above.

Though I would still prefer someone defending that to religious, metaphorical and synchronicity explanations to be sure.
 
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david starling

Well-known member
I just lost a whole bunch of stuff. I'll re-write later.

Hoping you do. I like your straightforward approach to this subject.
Also, thanks for alerting me to the chart patterns. We're currently living in a transit-bowl configuration, with the Moon making it a bucket, periodically. Jupiter's the cutting edge.
 
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Flapjacks

Well-known member
A cause that makes planetary placement correlate with human affairs is more far far more improbable than the direct causality hypothesis...

Causation is not more probable that correlation between two variables only because less variables are required to explain direct relationships. That is a profound misuse of Occam’s razor.
 
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petosiris

Banned
Do you want to have the Sun, the Moon, the planets and fixed stars all perfectly synchronized with seven billion individuals? Or would you prefer a parsimonious causal mechanism from the cosmos to sublunar terrestrial affairs?

What causes that system with such spectacular correlations? If it is correlation and not causation, then it just means there is a hidden variable that is causing both? What is it?

My question from the earlier parts of this thread still remains unanswered.
 
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Flapjacks

Well-known member
Do you want to have the Sun, the Moon, the planets and fixed stars all perfectly synchronized with seven billion individuals? Or would you prefer a parsimonious causal mechanism from the cosmos to sublunar terrestrial affairs?

There is no observable difference between those two statements. The mechanism is the synchronicity, and visa versa. It is a false dichotomy to evaluate the organization of the universe as correlational vs causational because the "cosmos" contains all possible variables by definition.

Evaluating whether a relationship is causational is only possible if you have an independent variable and dependent variable(s) that are narrowly defined. For instance, the Mars Effect was based on a testable hypothesis for a causational relationship between a celestial object and a discrete parameter of human experience.

Because no test for causality concerning aspects of astrological theory has shown a high statistical significance, it is unlikely that a meaningful causational relationship exists between celestial objects and specific human experience.

Doesn't mean there is no relationship... that is simply where the scientific method meets its limits with simple, statistical tests.

My question from the earlier parts of this thread still remains unanswered.

You can't elucidate the structure of complex systems by looking for confounding variables.

Friedrich Hayek spoke extensively about this on behalf of the field of economics. The principle is the same:

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1974/hayek/lecture/
 
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david starling

Well-known member
off topic :smile:

I'll take that as a yes. :lol:
It's not off topic based on the theory that perception of astrological patterns triggers a change in brain function. When astrology was originally developed there is evidence of the use of both psychedelic mushrooms as well as rye ergot, which suggests enhancement of astrological acumen.
 
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