{"id":23237,"date":"2010-03-04T19:10:24","date_gmt":"2010-03-05T00:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=23237"},"modified":"2010-03-05T00:49:37","modified_gmt":"2010-03-05T05:49:37","slug":"23237","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/23237\/","title":{"rendered":"Traditional Astrology: An academic exercise?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Planet<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Dear Eric:<\/em><\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t 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\u2019m wondering if it is all more of an academic exercise. <\/em><\/p>\n

— Jamie.<\/em>
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\nDear Jamie:<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s essential that there be plenty of astrologers with roots in the tradition, who understand the basics \u2014 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/em> by Rob Hand, one of my favorite astrology books).<\/p>\n

Out of the traditional astrology research, something called the Thema Mundi emerged, a hypothetical chart of the world, which informs us that the 1st house is associated with the sign Cancer rather than the sign Aries. I call this the 90-degree shift issue. In the 20th century astrology was reduced to a \u201c12-letter alphabet\u201d that simplistically associated Mars, Aries and the 1st house, Taurus Venus and the 2nd house, and so on. As it turns out, the 1st house was associated by the ancients (in the Hermetic tradition) with the sign Cancer and the Moon; the 2nd house with Leo and the Sun; and so on. This has the ability to change the way that all astrologers work \u2014 and to improve the sensitivity of their readings.<\/p>\n

The shift is not just theoretical. The ascendant or 1st house is a key to one\u2019s sense of identity. Do we associate the identify of humanity or the world with the nature of Mars\/Aries (war, sex drive, conquering, initiative) or do we associate it with the nature of the Moon\/Cancer (nurturing, feelings, the home, mothers, children and another kind of initiative)? Big difference, right?<\/p>\n

Those just are two examples.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s meaningful to understand worldviews of the past, and to recognize how they apply and do not apply to the present. We need to raise awareness of what astrology needs to do TODAY, where we live, and what astrologers need to do, to address the present turning point of humanity. We need to be able to handle the sudden incursion of so many new planets and classes of planets orbiting our Sun. There is comfort in the past, and we are facing a kind of chaotic abyss in the present, symbolized by all these new planets: there is no system except for maybe Chaos Theory that can handle the 230,000 planets discovered, most of them since the very late 20th century. These discoveries are a commentary on our lives, taken as a lot, and as individual processes.<\/p>\n

This expansion presents special challenges of theory, practical technique, and understanding human nature. It\u2019s going to take a lot more than astrology to help us get there, though astrology is a lot better off in a grounded, informed state about its past than it is floating on the bubble of pop psychology, magical thinking or occultism that has fed it for so long.<\/p>\n

— Eric Francis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Eric: I haven\u2019t 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\u2019m wondering if it is all … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}