Triple Virgo

214red

i agree dave , i used to wonder why i wasnt hugely cancer like, and it wasnt until i started studying astrology last year everything made a bit more sense, and now i understand more about the filters through which i view aspects of my life.

i wish i knew astrology earlier on in my life, would have helped greatly. The great thing about astrology is the complexities, its terrrifying to a newbie like me, but facinating just the same!
 

Minderwiz

I learned my Astrology from modern authors and then gave it up becauseof other pressures. When I returned to it, some 30 years later, the reawakening of interest in traditional methods was getting into full swing. I must admit to being predisposed towards it but it was sometime before I actually began reading traditioonal texts. When I read Lilly's description of the signs, I found something totally alien from my early studies. Indeed it's such a culture shock to read traditional texts that the full import takes years to sink in. So Dave is right, Astrology can be overwhelming!

Dave mentions the tripartite model of planets, signs and houses. I think the main difference between the 'sun sign' approach and the traditional approach (and some modern approaches) is that when I learned Astrology, these three were treated as almost coequal (and not necessarily closely related). The traditional approach sees the planets as what matters and their sign and house positions simply provide specific information on their status in a particular chart. Signs and houses are both very subordinate to planets, they simply help to set the planets in a specific context and enable their specific roles to be interpreted.

I'm still trying to get to grips with the traditional approach, so I can understand the difficulty newbies have with Astrology but I can glimpse a coherent system which is geared not to telling people more about what makes them tick but is geared to telling people more about what is going to happen to them and when. This is not a deterministic standpoint, Lilly knew 250 years before Leo that a person's social class and family background meant people with similar charts would develop in different ways. Neither Lilly nor Morin put their forecasts in modern probabilistic terms but it's clear that both saw probability (or God) could lead to variations in outcomes.

Read Lilly or Morin and you will see that neither is a 'fortune teller' - the (wrongful) accusation made against Astrologers in the nineteenth century and against Leo in particular. It's a 'scientific' approach (in their terms) and it's that which makes it so fascinating.
 

Kibeth

Alas no one's discussed astrology's ancient connection with the tarot!

My rather informal studies, or pleasure reading if you like, came off Linda Goodman and William Lamb (Secrets of your Rising Sign). The Sun is the strongest and brightest planet in the solar system hence should rule our basic personalities, even if the other planets alter paths a little bit. Linda's nailed most of my Cancerian makeup right (make that 80%), though the part about me aspiring to be leader, because of the Crab being a cardinal sign, was off. I'm fascinated with Lamb's attempts to synthesize the Rising Sign with Sun Signs. Most astrology websites provide on-site descriptions for individual planets and the house they reside in, but they do not give a "synthesis". Here, Lamb has fine tuned the Sun (Cancer Sun and Virgo asc) into one who does NOT make a good leader, and so it all falls into order.
 

dadsnook2000

For Kibeth

You said, "Alas no one's discussed astrology's ancient connection with the tarot!"

There is an ancient astrology, some four or five thousand years of it, at least. There is no ancient tarot, only some five hundred years or so. A 10 to 1 ratio. What is available for comparison has to be linked to common cultural practices and beliefs during their brief shared history. Dave
 

Minderwiz

Dave, I suppose for folks of our age 500 years is not 'ancient' but for some people on the forum 40 is 'ancient' LOL.

I fully agree with your point though and I'd also add, that the balance of the connection is heavily slanted in the direction of Astrology - by that I mean that there have been many attempts to clothe Tarot in mantic 'respectability' by trying to link it with Astrology. This has been both conscious and unconscious - remember that Tarot came into being in a Western civilisation that was permeated in all levels byAstrology. It was only natural that Tarot interpretations would draw by analogy on Astrology and that Tarot interpretation would be influenced by a culture in which a belief in Astrology was ingrained into the psyche.

That's something of a shame because Tarot is a GENUINE mantic art and stands full square in it's own right. Yes one can force an Astrological interpretation onto the cards, but then why would you want to do that? In a real sense let the cards speak for themselves.
 

Kibeth

Was hoping someone would bring up the four elements.