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Dear Eric:
I haven’t read any of the translations you mentioned here Eric. You said that Project Hindsight has made traditional astrology more popular, especially with young people. Do you think this is a good thing? I have not seen much practical application o,f for example Hellenistic astrology so I’m wondering if it is all more of an academic exercise.
— Jamie.
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Dear Jamie:
I think it’s essential that there be plenty of astrologers with roots in the tradition, who understand the basics — and some who understand the advanced ancient techniques, so that there are always teachers around who are grounded in the classics. I think every profession (or in this case art form) benefits from knowing its own history and suffers from ignorance of the past. It’s not merely an intellectual exercise because of the complexity of doing astrology well, and the grounding necessary: to learn astrology you have to study diligently for a decade or so, and you need a framework and intellectual rigor. The ancient techniques provide a platform, if we are cautious to recognize that they come from a different world with a different world view.
I am still looking for examples of practical application of ancient techniques, though this may be a matter of creativity. The newspaper horoscope is a good example of applying an ancient technique, in particular, whole sign houses, the first house system and the innovation that gave us aspects and other features of astrology that we take for granted today. The newspaper horoscope (a 20th century thing) revived an ancient technique; then the classical movement unearthed much more about the history of that technique (check a monograph called Whole Sign Houses by Rob Hand, one of my favorite astrology books).