Astrology and History

[peter]

Wayfriend has started a fantastic thread elucidating correspondances between the fool's journey in/through the Tarot deck and the Chrons [over in The Entire Chrons forum] and I began to post this over there, but stopped for fear of 'rail-roading' what is an very intricate and thought-out thread.

This question has been in my mind for a while. The practices of Astrology, Alchemy and Tarot etc were so 'mainstream' in the belief-system of the pre-enlightenment thinkers, that they permeated every aspect of their thinking, their writing, their every-day activities. Is it not going to be a pre-requisit of getting into their mind-set, that one also embues ones being with these systems - not from the point of actual belief, but from the point of understanding of the practices, the better to understand what the thinkers could and could not expect from the the framework of dogmas that formed their existance. How will we be able to interpret what they are getting at in their writtings [and activities], make valid judgements about what they were saying [or seemed to be saying] if we have no handle on the very stuff of which these utterences were born.

Out of academic interest, I have had a go at casting horoscopes in the manner of the proffessionals and [bunkum or not] the tecnique is involved and intricate in the extreme. Clearly people like the mathmetician and astrologer John Dee had massive belief in these systems; I see no way of 'getting inside his head' unless his writings are read in the light of the same knowledge that he wrote them.

[wayfriend]

I had the good fortune to take a class in college called "Magic and Mysticism in Science" which pretty much covered what you describe ... the influences of things like astrology, alchemy, and witchcraft on both science and culture, at least in terms of Western culture during the Middle Ages and the Rennaisance. It was fascinating stuff. Stories like The DaVinci Code, Foucault Pendulum, and The Baroque Cycle barely touch on the fascinating depths within this topic. I will have to try to remember to find my textbook and pass it along, it's probably available somewhere. It was a bit dry but very detailed.

[aliantha]

I'm jealous, WF. I wish I'd had the opportunity to take that class. I'd love to know which book you used as a text.

peter, I used to have a book about casting horoscopes. You're right -- it's quite a detailed process, and (possibly therefore ) not something I've ever really gotten into. There's another divination tool called geomancy which is similarly complex, and even borrows some stuff from astrology. I've delved a little bit into it, but I'm by no means an expert.

[Vraith]

That does sound like an interesting class/book, WF.

I don't know a whole lot about the process/procedures/systems of Dee and such. Mostly just "freshman survey" kind of thing.

I generally think particulars matter a lot. But what I know of these ways/schools/traditions...Euro-centric, and leading into the Enlightenment...I think you can get a pretty solid grasp on what they meant because the approach/method/purpose of their thinking was a precursor/necessary step on the road to the Enlightenment. They were beginning to think about, and look for methods to address, WHY things should be believed, explain HOW things affected us.

[peter]

Gosh yes! Wayfriends course sounds like one in which I would have been massively interested. [If that book ever surfaces WF, could you post name for us; some of these old text-books can be picked up for a song on e-bay.]

Dee was a mathmetician [first and foremost?] and clearly mathematics was pretty well advanced even in his day; it would be fair to say that the advance of mathematics has been much more steady {ie a straightish line graph} compared to that of science {that would flatten out for a long period}. Yet even the high level of ratiocination required by this did not seem to undermine his/their faith in these 'unfalsifiable' practices. They had no awareness that they were on the cusp of a new age that would sweep away belief in anything that did not sit within the hard walls of 'science'. What, I wonder would Dee [et al] have thought about this; could they have conceived of a world where the mystical connections of 'as above, so below' were so completely and finally severed.

[Vraith]

They had no awareness that they were on the cusp of a new age that would sweep away belief in anything that did not sit within the hard walls of 'science'.

What, I wonder would Dee [et al] have thought about this; could they have conceived of a world where the mystical connections of 'as above, so below' were so completely and finally severed.

Now THAT's a question I'd like to see asked and answered. But we'd need a time machine, dammit. We ALWAYS need a freaking time machine.

I think some cusps/"paradigm shifts" [I have a peeve about using that term...ah well] are seen by the precursors...at least some of them, the ones with the best imaginations. And some [a few] aren't seen by anyone at all.
I SUSPECT that those who, knowingly or not, were creating the knowledge/setting the stage for the change would almost immediately say "How the HELL did we not see this coming?" about the outcome. [though they might not be happy with said outcome].

By "seen" above, I mean they can know something is coming...have intimations, intuitions, dreams, and recognize gaps, spaces, fogs that must be filled and cleared. They may have a reasonable vision of the rough shape of things to come...or a clear view of a narrow range, and/or precise, particular things. But they don't know it all, and they don't know most important things...much of it is unknowable in advance. Unknowable by anyone, no matter how much they know, unpredictable by any possible method except pure random luck.
[[unless human brains somehow have a hidden neuro-time-machine inside that we haven't discovered yet. I TOLD you we always need a freaking time machine]].

[peter]

I'm back into Deutsch territory here, but this was a one of wasn't it. I mean, nothing like that degree of change to the our world view could happen again ever.....could it?

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I'm back into Deutsch territory here, but this was a one of wasn't it. I mean, nothing like that degree of change to the our world view could happen again ever.....could it?

Not until we somehow make contact with a non-terrestrial species or they make contact with us. That will be a complete game-changer and will instantly invalidate many theological and/or scientific ideas we currently hold to be true. I cannot iterate enough how much I want something like this to happen--we need to be shaken out of the sleepy doldrums in which we currently exist.

[Vraith]

I'm back into Deutsch territory here, but this was a one of wasn't it. I mean, nothing like that degree of change to the our world view could happen again ever.....could it?

Not until we somehow make contact with a non-terrestrial species or they make contact with us. That will be a complete game-changer and will instantly invalidate many theological and/or scientific ideas we currently hold to be true. I cannot iterate enough how much I want something like this to happen--we need to be shaken out of the sleepy doldrums in which we currently exist.

I'm not sure contact with aliens is NECESSARY---but it would almost certainly speed things along, make enormous changes [especially if they were much advanced aliens...but it would happen even if they weren't advanced, just wouldn't be as much fun]...and two things we apparently always agree on and really really want to happen are merging/expanding ourselves with tech and meeting aliens.

peter, it's a one-off only in a particular way: it's a way of thinking/creating that enables ways of thinking/creating and changing.
In most ways, it is the opposite of a one-off.
It creates the opportunity for more changes on all scales to survive and grow. Changes that are due to, yet dwarf, the changes the shift made.
[[[In fact, if there IS a shift in kind...or there is more than one kind...we will make that shift/discover those kinds because of, and SOLELY because of the thinking/creativity that "one-off" shift made possible.]]]

Hell, think of just this: look at all the changes it HAS made...and yet, I'd say less than 5% of the people in the world believe in it and use it. Recall the myth that we only use 10% of our brains. Everybody is astonished by what might happen if we used all of it.
The difference is, this is real...and only 5% use it...and look what it has done.
Here's a thing--sorry, drifting off topic here--I've been thinking on lately.
It's a current thought/meme/line of thinking that there's a movement to fragmentation, and lots of violence involved in it, and things are getting ugly. And that's because people/cultures just can't get along...at least not without a broad, high-level enforcement structure and tools. Human nature and "Othering" and all that.
I'm thinking that's bullshit. Here's the problem: people/cultures damn well CAN get along. Not only can they get along, they can love, and thrive and multiply by getting along. And in many ways they've been doing it...and more people doing it all the time.
And people with power/authority HATE that, they're threatened by it. And they damn well should be. Because it IS a threat to people like them.
Their entire goal is to make sure that only 5% [or preferably 0%] EVER use it.
It is never, ever, and never was about saving/preserving/defending culture...it is about keeping authority and killing knowledge. For some this is conscious and explicit [even if they only whisper the truth to themselves], but for many it is subconscious and turbulent.
And there is some of this in ALL cultures...even the ones that contain more aspects/applications begun with the Enlightenment.
And it is unfortunate, but true, that some uses of Enlightenment-type thought can be and are used to create tools of domination and destruction.
Kinda like metallurgy can be used to make swords...and one doesn't need to understand, apply, or even give a damn about ALL of metallurgy in order to create swords, if swords are what you want.

[peter]

I'd like to see better equiped brains than mine answer that post V. because it deserves it [and I'm not being disengenously 'humble' here; I'm just facing facts], but I'd like to concentrate on one specific area if I may. The complete 'overturning' of belief represented by the shift from pre-enlightenment to enlightenment thinking has resulted in a world-view that surely cannot be overturned. The very methodology of science, and the sucess it demonstrates at every turn demand that it cannot but progress in the correct direction toward an ever greater understanding of 'the truth'. So advance will always be within the framework of enlightenment thinking, willit not? Surely that framework can never be overturned as was Dee's? [Even by 'first-contact' as Hashi proposes.]

[wayfriend]

I will have to try to remember to find my textbook and pass it along, it's probably available somewhere. It was a bit dry but very detailed.

Of course I still have all my college books sitting on a shelf in the attic.

Relgion and the Decline of Magic
by Keith Thomas



Apparently it's still a very popular book. It's been republished with a quite a few new covers. But the cover above is the one I have.

It was reviewed as recently as 2012 by the NY Times. [link] Somebody cloned the whole review here. [link]

Keith Thomas has made a special study of magic and magical thinking. He sees that they were not quaint deviations from mainstream thought; they were not marginal to the early modern world, but intrinsic to it. Closely allied to religious sentiment and ritual expression, magic survived the Reformation, adapting its form. Magic was not just the province of “Hob, Dick and Hick” the simple villagers, but also of the erudite and sophisticated; kings had their astrologers to guide them, and the politically astute could manipulate popular belief in prophecies and miracles so that they had an impact on the affairs of nations. But our ancestors were not emptily credulous. They didn’t believe in just anything. Their worldview was diverse but coherent; it had its own pedigree, and left its own descendants. Their society, which seems to us static, traditional, and hierarchical, proves on closer inspection to be constantly shifting, renewing itself.

When Thomas’s Religion and the Decline of Magic was first published in 1971, it drew together two disciplines, history and anthropology, which early in the twentieth century had grown apart. But the author has no grand thesis to sell us. The joy of his dry and witty book is in its accumulation of fine detail, and also in its broad humanity. Emerging from most studies of the past, the reader feels a leaden ache, a sense of pity and waste and dread. From this book, the reader emerges exhilarated, provoked, amused, with an insight into the ingenuity and potential of human beings and a sense that the past was not a place of insensate ignorance and darkness, but a place we are privileged to revisit through the craft of such an original, painstaking, and erudite historian.

I would also add that Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle is an excellent historically-accurate-but-fictional story encompassing the transformation of our world from superstition to science.

[Vraith]

The very methodology of science, and the sucess it demonstrates at every turn demand that it cannot but progress in the correct direction toward an ever greater understanding of 'the truth'. So advance will always be within the framework of enlightenment thinking, willit not? Surely that framework can never be overturned as was Dee's? [Even by 'first-contact' as Hashi proposes.]

Yes and no. The truth is that EVERY real, demonstrable "advance" for humans is an example of "enlightenment" thinking, not matter where/how/when it happened. Do not mistake the limits/details of a tool for the way of doing things.
The only thing that the enlightenment did is make the ways of progressing known, obvious, systematic, and available to anyone who wanted them and could use them. [well, not anyone...that's ongoing]
People make the mistake all the time. Enlightenment thinking isn't about the "frame"...though cultural/individual/people things may well be...it is about breaking/transcending frames. We can't totally do it...and Deutsch is wrong about a LOT of things in the way HE frames them.
Look: there is not ONE enlightenment claim/knowledge/fact/whatever that is, and if they're being consistent isn't and never will be "ACCEPTED" as "true."
All there is is things that expand, and things that do not.
People may THINK that various branches like science "limit" the human spirit.
They're wrong.
You know what limits human spirits?
"I live as a human knowing I cannot understand God, and most of life will suck and hurt, and it is all my fault...but if I just TRY to live right...mostly by not doing things my entire being LOVES and WANTS to do...I will be rewarded with an eternal life...during which life I will be happy gazing upon a glorious being who never let me do what I want, and whom I still don't understand...I just think he's beautiful, and nice. The angels are cool, too, when they aren't laughing and being snotty at cuz we used to have SKIN, and HAIR, and it sweated."

[peter]

Ok V. - there's a lot in those two posts for me to mull over. [Just to be clear, I understand the 'enlightenment' to be the move away from thinking in terms of fixed [religious based] dogma toward a questioning, reason based approach to the human situation and the forces that shaped the world about us, that occured about the end if the 17th, beginning of the 18th C. in Western Europe.]