Astrology for the Outsiders

8/11/2019 Astrology for the Outsiders

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Astrology for the outsiders

There are a lot of things Id like to talk about. There is one in particular that I would like to

delve in. Ill begin with the beginning.

Once upon a time, when people were very different than those of todays world, there was a god

(or a deified man, depending on who you ask) named Hermes Trismegistus (Latinized Ancient

Greek for thrice greatest), whoaccording to several sourcescreated the three fields of

knowledge: astrology, alchemy and magic. Those were called Three Parts of the Wisdom of the

Whole Universe. Two of them got mixed and were called astrological magicwhile alchemy

depends on astrological notions in order to get everything right.

Any of them, combined or not, are practiced even in todays world, but only a small number of

people do it, compared to the worlds population, probably one percent or less. The number can

be guesstimated to hundreds of thousands of people from all over the globe. So there are web-

sites created specifically for this kind of people. If you are interested, you can look up in any

search engine any technical term derived from any part of the three and you will stumble upon

any site of this kind. The number is limited to those who actually studied and practiced their

chosen field until they got all the layers or most of them. They are astrologers, alchemists and

magicians (or warlocks or wizards, as some would say), allwell, almost alldoing what they

love in great secrecy. A very small number choose to go public (like the True Bloodvampires

who got out of the coffin) and give counsel to people with their knowledge and experience,

much to the dismay of the skeptics, who believe that their worldview is better than all this su-

perstitious stuff. It is their opinion, although not a very educated one. The todays general

worldview, unfortunately, does not let us recognize the invisible world or realm of spirits and

other beings, unless you speak of religion. In order to understand the spiritual world, you have

to know the basics, which are taught either by yourself or by good teachers. I am one of theself-educated people on this matter. However, I dont intend to write about the spiritual, invisi-

ble realm.

Oh, just a reminder: there are impostors, too, so beware of them. If you see an unknown name,

try to get reviews from people who got a reading from this name or that person. The usual mis-

take of the skeptic is to label everyone as impostor when in fact there is someone genuine.

I am looking to expand my knowledge and my mind. Sometimes not so much, other times Im

ready to receive new information. My natural state is to be curious about anything. Now I am in


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a stage where everything new comes filtered by my prior knowledge; after all, I am close to 30.

My favorite field is astrology and I would like to talk about it, but I am wondering whether

people are going to be open to what I say, because I cannot expect them to readily accept what-

ever I have to say. Anyway, Id like to talk about the history ofarguments regarding astrology,

which is not like practicing at all, but could be a good start to understand a few things that are

going on since the ancient times.

When did astrology begin? Nobody knows, I guesstimate around four thousand years ago, may-

be earlier. Remembering the Hermes Trismegistus short introduction, we can see that all three

parts of wisdom began in the same time.

Jumping to the Hellenistic era, there were people, some of them renowned for their intellect,

who objected to the validity of astrology on the basis of twins having close birth times and verydifferent lives (as stated by Cicero), which has been adopted several centuries later by Saint Au-

gustine when he argued why the Bible forbidden the appeal to astrology for answers and its

practice. What I think of it? I agree and I dont, simultaneously. Why? Because , while the twins

may have different lives, their patterns wouldnt differ very much and we will see what I mean.

Lets take a case of two pairs of twins as seen on a documentary. Both pairs were separated

shortly after birth and given to adoption. The first pair, both males, had the same events three

years apart: when the first one had a surgery, the second one had it three years later; when the

first one have wed, the second one have wed three years later and so on, even their deaths hap-

pened in the same time span. The second pair, both females, had the same pattern, only five

years apart. In both cases, the patterns have maintained even after they found each other. I bet

two things: the first pair of twins had birth times of three minutes apart, while the second had

been born five minutes apart. The other thing I bet is this pattern can be seen in both of their

astrological charts using certain techniques.

Another objection, brought up by many intellectuals over the ages, is that planets and stars cant

possibly influence the humankind. Specifically, Favorinusargued that it was absurd to imagine

that stars and planets would affect human bodies in the same way as they affect the tides, and

equally absurd that small motions in the heavens cause large changes in peoples fates.Carneades

argued that belief in fate denies free will and morality; that people born at different times can all

die in the same accident or battle; and that contrary to uniform influences from the stars, tribes

and cultures are all different.

You can see that these objections to astrology are as old as astrology itself and that shows the

saying nothing new under the Sunis true. I agree that stars and planets cannot influence the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favorinushttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favorinushttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carneadeshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carneadeshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carneadeshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carneadeshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favorinus


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humankind. It defies the concept of fate and free will, because the latter cannot exist without

the former. Fate, however, can exist without free will, as people are often confused about many

things. Most often, they are confused about other people. They react in certain ways without

thinking through and that creates undesired or unforeseen consequences. Free will can influ-

ence some outcomes. On another occasion, Ive written more extensively on this subject and I

think youll seeand probably likethe article in the close future. Anyway, the concept of fate

should not validate astrology, rather should let us see there is a cause and effect for every event

in our world at large scale and in our lives at small scale. I find it amusing that people believe

frequently that fate and free will are mutually exclusive, when in fact they are not. This philo-

sophical standpoint is called compatibilism, look it up. If people werent creatures of habit,

there wouldnt be fate.

This begs a question. If astrology is not validated by fate and the stars do not influence anyone,

then what validates it? Ill refer to the Kybalion or the seven Principles, de signated by the thrice

greatest Hermes (as claimed by the anonymous group signed the Three Initiates in 1908), espe-

cially the Principle of Correspondence, which embodies the idea that there is always a corre-

spondence between the laws of phenomena of the various planes of being and life: As above, so

below; as below, so above.This principle states that there is a harmony, agreement and corre-

spondence between these planes, delineated as physical, mental and spiritual. Now you see that a

planetary influence was never implied and there is a mirroring phenomenon between the Skyand the Earth, respectively the above and the below. It is funny, though, that many astrologers,

even today, believe in the planetary influences. I think Im in the minority regarding this issue.

Im not saying, though, that all the astrologers in the old times believed in planetary influences,

some of them didnt, and they still were in the minority, from what Ive gathered.

In the modern times, several skeptics took seriously the argument If you didnt study the sub-

ject, you cant have an informed opinionabout it.What did they do? They took a book and

tried to apply the information from it on the astrological charts they have stumbled upon. Myfirst reaction was double: surprised and amused. Surprised, because they tried to study it while

most of skeptics didnt bother;amused, because they said it didnt work. What did they expect?

You cant learn astrology from one single book while there are entire treatises on different

branches of astrology. They tried to learn it in less than a month, while astrologers like me took

very long years to understand it Its like you take a book about law or medicine and then you

try to interpret the law or the medical conditions according to that book alone You know it

isnt possible, right? Its also ridiculous, misleading and kind of dangerous.


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I would like to talk about the differences between two big sides of astrology, which represent

very different mindsets: traditional (including ancient) astrology and modern astrology. Im on

the traditional side, after Ive studied bothand I have better arguments for the old one rather

than the new one. I believe, however, that the people who reject old stuff simply because its old

are confused. It is one thing to throw an old object when it isnt working and cant be fixed

and its entirely different when you see an old field and treat it like an object, whe n in fact it

isnt. Do I make sense?

You see, there are three astronomical and astrological bodies discovered at different points in

the history of humankind: Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. That is the first difference of these two

sides: the old one does not include them, the new one does. The chanting out with the old, in

with the new is really annoying to me, because this is exactly the argument used by modern

astrologers when they say they work better with these newerbodies. In my mind, the only

reason they do it is because they dont know any better. They focus too much on the outer

planets (in modern astrology, Pluto is a fully fledged planet, not just dwarf), while the classical

ones are almost neglected. Most of the time, they ignore the Moon, unless they see one of her

extreme phases, like New, Full or in eclipses. The old tradition does the opposite: it puts the

Moon on the first place, it observes her phase, her aspects, her position and everything can be

known about her before going to other planets; at least two branches do that, natal and horary.

The above mentioned trio is unknown and it is better to be ignored for philosophical reasons.There are astrologers who dont ignore the modernplanets and integrate them in their tradi-

tional approach, what they do is called neo-traditional astrology. I would go into deeper detail,

but Im afraid that would go beyond the surface of what Im discussing.

There are other differences between the old and new sides. However, the biggest reason of the

existence of the differences lies within the historical events in the 18 thcentury, when a group of

scientists and philosophers decided to throw away the old ways, including astrology, and estab-

lish the Enlightenment epoch, based on the Illuminist ideas, as the Illuminati started it in thefirst place; illuminatiis Latin for the enlightened ones. Because of these events, almost all the

astrology books have been burned or destroyed, along with books of esoteric subjects and any-

thing deemed as superstitious. Thats whyevery time I see a scene of the French Revolution

on any screenIm upset, because that revolution started this entire situation. If we look closely

at the French revolt, it doesnt look so good-natured and for the people anymore.

In the 19thcentury, there were a few astrologers who wanted to do some practice, but all they

had were fragments from the various books that somehow survived the great destruction. Un-

fortunately, these fragments didnt help them much, when they had Uranus and Neptune to


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work with. Somehow, they had to start from scratch and to reinvent the wheel. One example:

according to the tradition, Saturn rules both Capricorn and Aquarius. One zany astrologer

who wasnt that good, as it turned outproposed to assign Uranus as ruler of Aquarius. Of

course, many astrologers disagreed at first. Someone asked them why they reject his proposition.

Since they couldnt find any good reason to reject it, they had to accept it, so Uranus (significa-

tor of sudden changes) becomes ruler ofAquarius (a steady, fixed Air Sign). Isnt it ironic? A bit

later, in the 20th century, Pluto comes to the spotlight and astrologers decide that he rules

Scorpio. The Rosicrucians, a sophisticated group of Hermetic astrologers (the Hermeticpart

is their claim, I think), believe that Pluto rules Capricorn.

In the last two decades of the past century, the old astrology books resurfaced and a group of

astrologers started to translate them. A lot of them were from the Hellenistic era, the Middle

Ages and the Renaissance. I managed to read a book in Middle English by a British astrologer,

William Lilly. His Wikipedia entry is really detailed for someone who lived in the 17 thcentury.

I believe he was one of the last astrologers, before the modern times, who accurately predicted a

lot of events.

There is a definite split between the astrology before the 18 thcentury and the one after it. Also,

another split is between astronomy and astrology in the same century. That astrology/astronomy

dichotomy is what drove the 19th century astrologers to reinvent the wheel. Before the great

split, astrology and astronomy were one and the same andit was astrology. That means before

old practicing masters began to delineate some astrological charts, they took into consideration

astronomical details like the altitude of the Sun in daytime or of a particular star in nighttime.

They observed the planets with the naked eye and found meaning in their positions relative to

the Signs and to each other. That was the science of light to them.

And that is all I can think of astrology for outsiders, folks. One last thing: if you dont question

the nature of reality, you dont know anything.

Tzadde

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Astrology for the Outsiders