Why and How does Astrology work?

Minderwiz

Thanks ravenest and Dave for those observations.

Both your views and the traditional answer seem to have very strong shared views of reality. Nature does not distinguish between the material and the spiritual - Nature has a consciousness and forms a whole of which humanity is a part. The only difference is that of the scale of 'creation'.

Reading Dave's explanation put me in mind of one of Isaac Asimov's novels - 'Foundation's Edge' in which he posited the existence not only of a planetary consciousness involving all matter but the possible extension of this to a galactic consciousness - a galaxy that is alive and a whole, of which humanity is an integral (and important) part.

In such a galaxy, universe, or creation - observing the behaviour of one part can tell us much about the whole or about the 'reactions' of other parts - the analogy of a doctor observing symptoms in one part of the body to diagnose the condition of the body as a whole is perhaps not a good one but I think it gives the gist (and a better gist if you take a holistic approach).

Dave used the phrase 'physically viewable' and from the earliest times it was observed (viewable) phenomena that constituted the 'mechanism' by which the Astrologer recognised the signs and then went on to interpret or to divine.

Modern followers of the Western Traditional Approach still insist that 'physically viewable' means viewable by the naked eye - the outer planets,(apart from Uranus under certain conditions), dwarf planets, asteroids and many other objects are only viewable using a telescope - and for many a very powerful telescope at that. Not all Astrologers have Mount Palomar in their back yards - so the next question, around the 'how' is:

Is visibility the only criterion for the 'how' Astrology works (besides the presence of an Astrologer)?

and if so;

Does the need for a very high power telescope remove or reduce the 'power and influence' that should be assigned to those planets, etc. that can't be seen by the naked eye?

Now I know Dave's (and virtually all modern Astrologers) answer to the latter is 'No' and I guess that his/their defence would be the 'experience' of Astrologers who use them.

In other words is the experience of seeing (rather than reading a table or computer screen) a nescessary part of an Astrologer's work
 

dadsnook2000

Physically viewable

Hi, Minderwiz. My term "physically viewable" should be taken in its very boadest terms. Viewable by eye, viewable through a telescope, viewable in terms of radio signals, viewable in terms of measuring something and determining that its behavior infers an influence by something else.

Last winter I came across a scientific paper by a mid-1900's Russian scientist named Kozyrev, full of computations, but interesting in that he was measuring "time" and how it behaved. I broke that paper down and have posted some of my interpretation of it on Michael Erlewin's ACT site, more to come as I have not finished my studies. The bottom line is that time is linear and functions here on the surface of Earth, but it is also simultaneous and not affected by distance in cases involving space and the universe. We see time as a sequential flow but that is due to our location and the nature of our rotating globe.

I'm not asking anyone to believe or comment on this, but it is for me another example of being able to view or determine something from some form of observation or determination --- or viewing.

So, to make a short story long, we can consider the possible "whole" by looking at it parts. Dave
 

ravenest

Time and locality.

Interesting comments on time. I'm reminded of a Kurt Vonneghurt story where an alien was describing how humans perception of time was;
Imagine you are tied to a chair that cant move on a railway car flatbed. You have a helmet on your head with a thin eye slot, you cant move your head or body. The rail way car is slowly moving along tracks and you look at the distant mountainous horizon ... just the little bit you can see ... going past.
How do you see time, the character asked, The alien replied they saw time just like we would see the view of the mountains and the whole landscape.

It appears there is no distinct difference between one location and another ... as we imagine it , or 'one time' and another.