Sunday, August 20, 2023

ETERNAL YOUTH by Dr Harry Gaze

ETERNAL YOUTH by Dr Harry Gaze 

Under present conditions of life, just when a man should be ready because of his experience and developed judgment to live the most efficient and enjoyable life, he finds his mental and physical powers declining. In the past, we have regarded this situation as inevitable, and submitted to it with as much grace as possible. It is my purpose to endeavor to logically demonstrate that this decay of mind and body is not the inevitable result of advancing years. 

Old age and death are due to causes which may be averted. Man has within him the mental and physical equipment for eternal youth. 

The fact of a universal law of change is usually considered sufficient to refute the possibility of perpetual rejuvenation of the body. 

As a matter of fact, man, is constantly surviving the changes of his body. 

Man does not become old merely because of change, but mainly because he fails to change enough. In the same way, man does not grow old, he manifests age by failure to grow. 

The secret of eternal youth is conscious co-operation with the law of change and growth. 

We are constantly building new bodies, and the flesh of a man of seventy is as new as the flesh of a child. A realization of the intimate relation of mind and body should lead us to realize the newness of the body. It is contrary to the laws of good suggestion to think of one's body as old, and that it is constantly growing older. Realize that it is being built over and over again through molecular renewal. 

One great secret of enduring youth is that we must avoid maturity or prime of life. If the mind is filled with a sufficiently strong purpose to unfold new power of mentality and body, the vitality for this development will be engendered. 

The law of change really demonstrates that man is a self-born being. 

The body that one possesses to-day is one that has come into form during the last few months of his life, cell by cell, molecule by molecule, and atom by atom. 

The new psychology demonstrates that persistent suggestions dominate the sub-conscious mind that has charge of the so-called involuntary activities of the body. The conventional mental attitude of the race is directly opposed to the perpetual preservation of youth. We constantly suggest approaching age, and live in the anticipation of senility and death. Anticipation of death is psychological suicide. 

The mental attitude which must be adopted in order to attain eternal youth is one in which there is a recognition of the constant renewal of the body; a determination to avoid being "grown up" by persistent efforts at mental and physical development; a constant looking forward to life more abundant with the conviction that one's best days are yet to come, and an unflagging optimism to the exclusion of worry, fear, and violent emotions. 

Man's body is not merely a machine; the machine has no intelligent principle of repair within itself. No art can replace the worn-out atoms of the most perfect mechanism as they are replaced in the human body. 

Of the machine it may be said that the most perfect use of it wears it out, while non-use preserves it. On the other hand, proper use of the body preserves it while non-use destroys it. 

The problem is to be able to reach the mind with sufficient mental force to replace negative tendencies and habits with positive, constructive thoughts and suggestions.

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“Eternal Youth.” A paper delivered by Dr Harry Gaze before the Medico-Legal Society of New York, of which Gaze was a member, at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City, on May 18, 1910. Read by Dr Ian Ellis-Jones. 

Dr Harry Gaze (1878–1959) was an Anglo-American New Thought author and minister in the Divine Science denomination. He was one of the pioneers who helped shape and influence the New Thought Movement. He succeeded Dr Emmet Fox (1886–1951) as the pastor of the Church of the Healing Christ in New York City and was Fox's friend, teacher and biographer. 

Gaze taught the much respected and highly influential New Thoughter Judge Thomas Troward (1847–1916), who had retired from his duties in India, and Gaze imparted to Troward his understanding of mental science. Troward is the celebrated author of The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science, The Dore Lectures on Mental Science, The Creative Process in the Individual, Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning, The Law and the Word, and The Hidden Power and Other Papers on Mental Science. 

Gaze was very influential not only in Troward's development as a metaphysician but also Dr Emmet Fox's as well. Gaze first met Emmet Fox in 1914 when the latter was attending Gaze's lectures and classes in metaphysics and metaphysical healing. 

Harry Gaze was the author of several books. 

For more information on Dr Harry Gaze, here is a link to a fulsome biographical profile of the man on the site Find a Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1....

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Source

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl6AEoa9KZk

Monday, August 14, 2023

Astrology...Relating the natal birth chart to the charts of the major cycles preceding birth

Astrology...Relating the natal birth chart to the charts of the major cycles preceding birth

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(Excerpt from 'Working with Astrology' by Michael Harding and Charles Harvey)

But if Margaret Thatcher's natal ACG can tell us a great deal about her personal relationship to, and impact upon, the world, we can also use this same basic approach to study the relationship between the individual and the state of the larger cosmic dance into which they are born...The significance of our own personal natal chart can only be fully understood when it is related to the larger cycles in which it occurs. The events and circumstances with which we find ourselves involved are not simply the product of the moment of their occurrence. This web of unfolding events called Life arises out of the interaction of that myriad of cosmic cycles, great and small, which is forever unfolding the enfolded order of Eternity. Put simply, if we want to understand Margaret Thatcher's 'appointment with destiny' at 9 AM on October 13, 1925 we need to relate her natal birth chart to the charts  for the major cycles preceding her birth. From the interaction between these patterns we can begin to gauge something of the kind of role that Thatcher, given her position, will be likely to play in unfolding the ideas represented by those cycles. 

To express this in another way, we know from studies of the ACGs for lunations, eclipses, and ingresses that the lines of planetary angularity in such maps remain sensitive long after the moment for which they are set. Such maps establish a pattern, a matrix, which remains sensitive to subsequent transits. Thus, for example, the longitude on the earth at which Uranus was on the MC at the Capricorn ingress will carry that Uranian potential for many months afterwards. Depending on other factors, along that longitude we can expect to see sudden, unexpected events, upsets, possibly changes of government, even earthquakes. Indeed theoretically we can say that the Uranus position at the beginning  of any annual cycle will remain sensitive throughout the life of that cycle. (This idea in relationship to world events has been discussed in some detail in Chapters 9 and 10 of Mundane Astrology by Baigent, Harvey, and Campion. In that work some examples are also given of the way in which the individual birth chart can be seen to be related to the charts of major cycles.)

In theory, to fully understand the part we each are here to play we would need to study the relationship between our natal chart and the for the conjunction phase of each pre-natal cycle. In practice we can simplify things by saying that in general we will each tend to be most closely related to the cycles of those planets which are most prominent and closely aspected in our natal chart.

Returning to Thatcher's chart (Grantham, Lincolnshire, October 13, 1925 at 9:00 AM), with it's closely rising Saturn, we can see that she is obviously going to be very closely tuned to those cycles involving Saturn. In particular, being born at the outgoing -60- phase (Sextile) of the Jupiter-Saturn cycle, her life is likely to be particularly related to the practical working (-60-) expression and application (-60-) of Jupiter-Saturn ideas. Note how this is phrased! We are saying that Thatcher's life will ne involved in helping to express the idea of the Jupiter-Saturn cycle, not that the cycle will give importance to Thatcher, though this prominence may be a consequence of the role she has to play in helping to unfold history. For at this level of analysis we are looking at the role of the individual within the collective wholeness and larger purposes of things. Indeed to a medieval astrologer who saw Jupiter and Saturn as the Great Chronocrators, the Great Markers of time, which unfold society and civilization, this outgoing Jupiter-60-Saturn would have been seen as the hallmark of someone who would 'make their mark' on their society, and be able to play a significant role in the work of the Creator.

To understand Thatcher's role in this creative process we can look at the chart for the seed moment of this Jupiter-Saturn cycle in relation to her own birth chart. The conjunction took place on September 10, 1921 at about 4:14 AM (four years and one month prior to Margaret Thatcher's birth. Theoretically we can say that this chart contains the seed ideas that Margaret Thatcher's Jupiter-60-Saturn phase will work out (6th Harmonic), and will embody into the rhythms of her life (6th Harmonic) and consciousness...The American ephemeris, gives the time of as 4:14 PM. The angles given are for Thatcher's place of birth, Grantham, for we want to assess in what way her particular moment of birth connects with and expresses the cycle.

This chart symbolizes, among other things, the cycle of 'social structuring' into which Thatcher was born. Such cycles have two levels of expression. First they have a 'contemporary' life, which unfolds during the course of the cycle itself, which in this case would have lasted until the next Jupiter-0-Saturn (conjunction) in 1940/41. Second, but no less important, they have a 'generational' life, which will express itself through all the millions of people, those cells of consciousness, born during the course of the cycle. These people both individually and collectively 'embody' and give continuing living expression to the significance of the cycle long after it has been completed in temporal terms.

In ' contemporary' terms this Jupiter-0-Ssturn cycle, which began at 26 degrees, 36 minutes of Virgo, closely -90- (squares) the galactic centre, covered the period from the great 'boom' period of the 'roaring twenties', and reached it full at the -180- (opposition) in 1931 at the depth of the world economic depression and social austerity. Perhaps the most striking features about the general pattern of the chart are the -90- of the moon to the conjunction and the close -45- (semi-square) to it from Venus: the Pluto (exactly with the 1066  and UK chart MC/IC and Sun axes) in close -45- of Mars and -120- Of Uranus (trine); the Moon-135- Neptune. When set for London/Grantham we see the conjunction is brought strongly to the fore by being exactly-120- the MC from the 2nd house , indicating that the 'social structuring' of this cycle will have profound financial and economic implications for the UK and her people (-90- the Moon exactly on 1066 Uranus-90- the Moon). This was all too tragically true. We see that the AS is on the midpoints of the Venus-45-Jupiter-Saturn, and Uranus is nearly setting. In terms of the 1066 chart this AS-Uranus falls right on the Pluto-180-Jupiter, indicating that this Jupiter-Saturn cycle will be likely to have a dramatic impact on Britain's 'power and plutocracy'. The MC of the chart localizes the powerful Pluto-45-Mars, an indication of a social cycle which is likely to be focusing on military and militant social issues, and when there could be strong pressure for social changes. All in all this Jupiter-0-Saturn cycle was clearly one which would deeply affect Britain, both at the time and through its children.

Around the outside of the chart are Margaret Thatcher's natal positions. We are immediately struck by the fact that her natal MC-0-Mercury/Pluto, her aspirations in life as a 'successful speaker' who can 'attain public recognition' and 'influence the public' is exactly conjunct the AS, while her all-important Jupiter-180-Pluto, her 'appreciation for the need for social...regeneration' falls exactly on the MC/AS. We note that her Sun/Midheaven, her 'goal or objective in life', and her Moon/Mercury, herself as a 'mentally active woman', are within minutes of the exact conjunction with the 2nd house Jupiter-0-Saturn, while her 'revolutionary' Sun/Moon-180-Uranus falls exactly across the 2nd/8th axis of economics and finances! We note that her Neptune-45-Mars, her 'inspired action', is exactly locked in with the very tight Mars-45-Pluto-45-Midheaven pattern. Additionally note that her Sun is exactly 9 minutes from the North Node of this chart while her Moon is -120-the Jupiter - Saturn/Moon to the minute! Looking at this synastry we cannot but recognize that there will be a very deep resonance between Margaret Thatcher's life and goals and this cycle of 'government' and 'social structuring'.

While few individuals can have the impact on national affairs of a determined prime minister, an examination of the natal chart of any individual in relationship to the preceding cycles would seem to be an important factor in such matters as vocational guidance and an understanding of the individual's place in the larger scheme of things.

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Working with Astrology' by Michael Harding and Charles Harvey

Sunday, August 13, 2023

Emmet Fox And Alcoholics Anonymous

 Emmet Fox And Alcoholics Anonymous

Copyright © The A.A. Grapevine, Inc., February 1996

One of the very early recovering alcoholics who worked with co-founder Bill W. was a man named Al, whose mother was secretary to Emmet Fox, a popular lecturer on New Thought philosophy. When the early groups were meeting in New York, members would frequently adjourn after a meeting and go to Steinway Hall to listen to Fox’s lecture. To this day there are AA groups that distribute Fox’s pamphlets along with Conference-approved AA literature.

An account sets forth in “Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers” tells of the influence of Emmet Fox and his classic work, Sermon on the Mount.” An AA old-timer recollected: “The first thing he (Dr. Bob) did was to get Emmet Fox’s ‘Sermon on the Mount’….Once when I was working on a woman in Cleveland, I called and asked him what to do for someone who is going into DT’s. He told me to give her the medication and he said, ‘When she comes out of it and she decides she wants to be a different woman, get her Drummond’s ‘The Greatest Thing in the World.’ Tell her to read it through every day for thirty days and she’ll be a different woman.’ Those were the three main books at the time; that and ‘The Upper Room’ and ‘The Sermon on the Mount.’”

Perhaps the fundamental contribution of Emmet Fox to Alcoholics Anonymous was the simplicity and power of “The Sermon on the Mount.” This book sets forth the basic principles of the New Thought philosophy that “God is the only power, and that evil is insubstantial; that we form our own destiny by our thoughts and our beliefs; that conditions do not matter when we pray; that time and space and matter are human illusions; that there is a solution to every problem; that man is the child of God, and God is perfectly good.”

Central to New Thought philosophy was the perspective that saw that love and personal forgiveness were the keys to fundamental transformation: “Love is by far the most important thing of all. It is the Golden Gate of Paradise. Pray for the understanding of love, and meditate upon it daily. It casts out fear. It is the fulfilling of the Law. It covers a multitude of sins. Love is absolutely invincible.”

Fox went on to say that forgiveness was an integral part of the Pathway of Love, “which is open to everyone in all circumstances, and upon which you may step at any moment – at this moment if you like – requires no formal introduction, has no conditions whatever. It calls for no expensive laboratory in which to work, because your own daily life, and your ordinary daily surroundings are your laboratory. It needs no reference library, no professional training, no external apparatus of any kind. All it does need is that you should begin steadfastly to expel from your mentality every thought of personal condemnation (you must condemn a wrong action, but not the actor), of resentment for old injuries, and of everything which is contrary to the law of Love. You must not allow yourself to hate either person, or group, or nation, or anything whatever.

“You must build-up by faithful daily exercise the true Love-consciousness, and then all the rest of spiritual development will follow up on that. Love will heal you. Love will illumine you.”

One of the cornerstones of Fox’s philosophy was to live but one day at a time, to be responsible for one’s own thoughts and to clear up resentments, just as AA was to teach that “resentments are our number one cause of slips.” For Fox, one of the most important rules for growth was to live in the present: “Live in today, and do not allow yourself to live in the past under any pretense. Living the past means thinking about the past, rehearsing past events, especially if you do this with feeling…train yourself to be a man or woman who lives one day at a time. You’ll be surprised how rapidly conditions will change for the better when you approach this ideal.”

Emmet Fox emphasized the idea that thoughts are real things, and that one cannot have one kind of mind and another kind of life. According to Fox, if we want to change our lives, then we must change our thoughts first. Many of his simply stated profundities have contributed to an AA philosophy that has transformed the lives of literally two million recovering alcoholics.

Igor S., Hartford, Conn.

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Source

https://silkworth.net/alcoholics-anonymous/what-we-were-like-emmet-fox-and-alcoholics-anonymous/

Friday, August 4, 2023

A Different Approach to Astrology Research

Classical elements

At the Kepler Day in London on 12 November 1994, I [Charles Harvey] presented an astrologer's eye view of the current situation in astrology, together with some ideas on different approaches to astrological research which I hope may stimulate some fresh thinking and be of some practical value to those engaged in this intellectually and methodologically challenging area.

To start with, I think we need to face the fact that there is a kind of schizophrenia in the way we think about astrology within the research community. What it amounts to is that there have been two distinct categories of astrological development going on in astrology over the past 75 years, one which is discussed in research circles, the other which is ignored, indeed often ridiculed by some academic researchers. Category One is that less formal research undertaken by astrologers to help clarify and enhance our understanding and application of astrology. Category Two is that formal research conducted by astrologers and non-astrologers to find evidence for astrology which would be acceptable by contemporary science and justify astrologers' claims.

Whilst Category Two astrological research seems to have reached something of an impasse, Category One developments are in a Golden Age. This century, and especially the second half, has seen at least seven or eight major conceptual breakthroughs in the development in astrological thinking which have transformed our understanding of astrology and the way in which it is applied (see below). Indeed astrology has perhaps never before been so alive, with highly intelligent students engaged in vigorous debate and intellectual exploration.

So we have to ask ourselves why there is such a huge discrepancy between the vitality of astrology as taught and practised and the relatively blocked state of scientific studies? At least part of this paradox can, I believe, be explained by the nature of astrology and the kinds of thinking used by astrologers compared to the kinds of thinking used by most contemporary scientists exploring the area. In short, I believe it comes down to the temperament of those involved in these two categories of approach to exploring astrology. As the scholastics put it: the thing known is in the knower according to the mode of the knower. In other words, how we look at the world and what we see there is a function of our psychology and background assumptions. The optimist sees the glass as half full, the pessimist sees the same glass as half empty. The musician may hear the glass as a potential source of music. The painter sees it as an aesthetic object. The industrial chemist sees it as a product of certain processes. The paranoid teenager sees it as a potential weapon.

And so on. Each is right in their own terms.

Elements and Jung

There are parallels with the different approaches to the study of astrology. Astrology itself identifies many ways of approaching, experiencing and knowing about the world: the signs, the triplicities and quadruplicities, the planets, and so on. In considering different approaches to astrological research, it would seem appropriate that we use one of astrology's own classifications: the four elements' types: Fire, Earth, Air and Water. These elements have close, if not precise, parallels with Jung's four functions. If we lay these elements out on a four-armed cross in line with Jung's functions we get the following distribution. At the top of the vertical axis we place Fire (Intuition), opposite Earth (Sensation) at the bottom. On the horizontal axis to the left we place Water (Feeling) opposite Air (Thinking) to the right.

Jung's elements and four functions

Elemental cross with Jung's four functions.

Approaches to astrology mapped in terms of the four elements and Jung's four functions. Locations given for different approaches are suggestions only. Ideally, astrology should be viewed and practised from the middle.

One of the most important messages of this diagram is the recognition, pointed out by Jung, that opposites repel and tend to deny each other's values. Fire-Earth is the mystic-natural scientist polarity. The strongly Fire-Intuitive type, who is essentially concerned with wholeness of truth and the larger, transcendent perspective, finds the physical, factual preoccupations of the Earth-Sensation type to be dull, boring and irrelevant. Likewise the Doubting Thomas sensation, measurement centred Earth type finds Fire's enthusiasm for intangible, unproven visions of truth bewildering and pointless.

The Water-Feeling type who knows through the heart and is concerned with the values of things finds the rational, thinking qualities of Air insensitive and far too abstract. The logic-centred Air type cannot think what the emotional Water-feeling type is on about and wants it to "be reason-able". We can all recognize these polarities in the on-going astrology debate. Good astrological research is only likely to emerge when all four approaches are honoured.

We can use this cross to describe one spectrum of different possible approaches to research.

Combining Types

In addition to the four pure element types of approach there will also be those approaches which lie between adjacent types. Ideally, a working astrologer would be located towards the centre of this cross where they can draw upon all four approaches. In practice, we all tend to have our own preferred approach, which will tend to be off-centre. Currently, the only research approach and method of analysis that is generally considered to be of value by science is the type that centres around the bottom right Earth/Air (Sensation/Thinking) quadrant of the diagram, which focuses on quantifiable measurement (Earth) and analysis (Air). By and large, all other approaches to knowledge are either ignored, or, if used, are asked to justify themselves by re-expressing themselves in Air/Earth terms of measurements and analysis.

The argument for this domination of the Air/Earth approach is that Fire's intuition may be correct, Water's feelings may be on to something, Earth's pragmatic experience may be true, but only controlled experiment (Earth/Air) can tell us objectively whether these things are "really" true. This is equivalent to the industrial chemist insisting that the perceptions of the optimist and the pessimist and the musician and the artist and the paranoid teenager be looked at and measured in terms of biochemical reactions before he will give their perceptions any credibility.

Combined elements

Elemental cross and combined types.

A measure of just now much of astrology is excluded from consideration by this Earth/Air approach can be gained if we look at eight of the major advances in astrological thought and practice during this century.

  1. The development during the 1920s and onward of the concept of symmetry and midpoints by Witte, Ebertin et al has greatly enriched our understanding of how astrology works and our capacity to penetrate more deeply into the underlying dynamics of any chart. These insights were garnered by many practitioners through sensitive observation of individuals probably drawing on all four approaches: intuition, feeling, reflective thought, and practical observation.
  2. The development from 1930s onwards of our understanding of the importance of cycles and a cyclical approach to the interpretation of chart factors as emphasized by Dane Rudhyar and later developed in their different ways by Ruperti, Addey, Barbault, et al. This is in many respects an Air-theoretical development which has proved itself in practical experience.
  3. The development in the mid-1950s of harmonics and the reintroduction of the importance of Pythagorean Number symbolism into astrological thinking and the attendant re-invigoration of a Neo-Platonic perspective through the work of John Addey et al. An Air-Fire innovation which has been developed through practical application and observation.
  4. The alignment of astrology with depth psychology and in particular with the work of Jung as initiated by Dane Rudhyar in 1935 and subsequently elaborated by Liz Greene, Richard Idemon, Howard Sasportas, et al. Mainly a Fire-Air, Fire-Water development illustrating the power of analogical and metaphorical thinking for grappling with the archetypal principles which underlie astrology.
  5. As a direct extension of 4), the re-emergence of mythology as a key factor in obtaining a deeper understanding of astrological principles as archetypal processes as exemplified by the work of Liz Greene, Richard Idemon, Jane Malcolmson, Melanie Reinhardt, et al. As 4), this is a Fire-Air and Fire-Water symbolic, analogical and metaphorical approach to truth which can in many respects be considered the "natural" mode of thought for astrologers.
  6. The development of Astro*Carto*Graphy in the 1970s by the late lamented Jim Lewis, which illustrates the fact that in some way each birth chart is at one with the Earth as a whole rather than anchored on one locality. A profound insight developed pragmatically through observation.
  7. The development of the concept of composite charts by Robert Hand et al and the growing recognition that the birth patterns of separate entities can interact to produce a separate entity which is descriptive of their group interaction. A Fire-Air intuitive insight which has been developed through practical observation.
  8. The re-emergence of the Platonic concept of the anima mundi in various forms, as in the reinvigoration of mundane astrology by Baigent, Campion and Harvey and the Primal Zodiac of Michael Harding. A Fire-Air, intuitive-theoretical development.

In addition to the above there have been developments of a Fire-Water approach which explore the expression of astrological archetypes through artistic and non-verbal forms such as in Astro-Drama (Friedel Roggenbuck) and in the area of literary studies (Paul Wright), which trace the metaphorical expression of astrological ideas through the creative preoccupations of writers. The development of a divinatory approach to astrology also probably belongs especially to this approach, though ideally it would need to come from the centre of all approaches. The Earth-Water, practical feeling approach has probably mainly made itself felt in astrology through such areas as counselling, sand play and art therapy as exemplified by the work of Jung's daughter, Frau Grete Bauman Jung and others.

Of course, such major developments in astrology, with all their profound philosophical implications, are discounted or dismissed by most Category Two type researchers as "unproven", "illusory" or as post hoc rationalizations to explain why any chart fits the fact. This is not helpful.

Bridging the Gap

The questions to which we have to address ourselves are: Is there an unbridgeable gap between "Category One" and "Category Two" ways of approaching truth? Are they really mutually incompatible or should they not rather be working hand in hand and complementing each other?

The simple answer is that, of course, for astrologers within astrology theses different approaches are constantly complementing each other. Most Category One type investigations are done on a case-study basis in which observations in a particular instance are then clarified by the examination of additional cases. The key to such case-study work is a sensitive awareness of and insight into astrological archetypes and their possible expressions. The development of our understanding of midpoint and of harmonic charts has been based on such detailed studies of individual examples.

The problem comes when one tries to quantify such insights. The astrologer knows that the same combination can express itself in a whole range of ways. For example, Uranus in hard aspect with the midpoint of Sun and Moon may produce a Napoleon or a Hitler, but equally it may produce a Margaret Thatcher, a Spike Milligan, a Martin Luther or a particular astrologer such as Dr Zip Dobyns.

To a Category Two researcher, this range of different expressions of Uranus with Sun/Moon simply demonstrates that this combination is incapable of providing consistent results. To a Category One student, who is used to thinking in terms of archetypes, the results do reveal an underlying consistency. Each of these cases is a fairly clear example of the autocratic, independent and revolutionary qualities associated with the Uranian archetype. However, attempting to quantify such archetypal qualities in a way which will satisfy Category Two workers in not easy.

A pioneering piece of research which does successfully manage to bridge both approaches is the set of Eureka experiments by science historian Nick Kollerstrom and computer scientist Mike O'Neill (The Eureka Effect, Urania Trust, Spring 1995). By choosing to study inspired, Eureka-type scientists to test the observations of John Addey about the qualities of the fifth and seventh harmonic series of aspects, Kollerstrom and O'Neill focus on a very specific and clearly definable category of people with distinct psychological qualities which expressed themselves in a particular way at a particular time. In astrological terms, such an approach, which emphasizes vivid qualities, is likely to increase greatly the chance of separating out signal from noise.

Another example of different approaches mutually supporting each other can be seen in the modification of the traditional view of Jupiter. Originally seen as the Greater Benefic, in the past decades there has been a much greater emphasis placed on the negative aspects of this planetary archetype and its tendency to "play God". These changes have come about in large measure because of the intuitive Fire-Air approach of astrologers like Dane Rudhyar, Liz Greene, Richard Idemon, Jane Malcomson et al. Such astrologers have underlined the great importance of the study of mythology and the symbolic, analogical-intuitive thinking which is needed in really obtaining an understanding of the planetary archetypes. These mythological, client-based insights have been supported by the quantitative Earth/Air approach of the Gauquelins, working with biographical character traits, which equally reveals Jupiter's tendency to fascism, inflatus and grandiosity. We should note, however, that these intuitive-Fire insights are not dependent on such an Earth/Air approach. They can and do stand in their own right.

Likewise, Richard Tarnas' work on enlarging our understanding of Uranus-Prometheus (see his Prometheus the Awakener, Auriel Press 1993) is a classic piece of Fire-symbolic-intuitive insight backed up by case-by-case studies. Such an approach combines an intuitive understanding of mythology with psychological insight and empirical analysis of the charts of famous individuals. No amount of number crunching alone could yield such qualitative insights.

But it is in the area of evaluating psychological astrology that we have the biggest discrepancies occurring between the methods of thinking and language used by astrologers and that used by most researchers to date. Most astrologers paint portraits of their clients in rich, symbolic, analogical language which focus on the psychological dynamics of the individual and their sub-personalities, and the likely outcome of the particular mix of planetary archetypes in terms of personality, career, life events, etc. It is clearly inappropriate to attempt to evaluate such psychodynamic insights with the results of psychometric tests which attempt to measure abstracted dimensions of personality.

Like needs to be compared to like. For example, Bill Clinton and one of his aides might well have identical scores on a personality test, yet their personal psycho-dynamics and mix of sub-personalities as experienced by friends and described by those with psychological insight would be likely to be very different. An astrologer would expect to be able to produce a human profile recognizable to close friends, but would be unlikely to have much to say about the likely personality scores.

Here it might be fruitful to try comparing individually prepared astrological portraits of people with the kind of rich psychological profile produced by, for example, a depth psychologist or a psychologically-aware novelist or journalist who is used to summing up character and motivation in clear, vivid language. Or to have a psychologist, who knows individuals intimately, evaluate an astrologer's reports about those same people. Obviously such a type of research is, like life, not neat and tidy. It is dependent on personal judgment and so very much more complex and demanding on the researcher. Whilst such methods cannot readily be reduced to Earth/Air's standardized questionnaires and number crunching methods, they would, in my view, be comparing like with like and therefore have a much greater chance of providing clear evidence of astrology's power to reveal important information about an individual's psychology.

The more those of us researching astrology start thinking in the kind of symbolic and metaphorical language used by astrology, the more likely we are to come up with experiments which will produce convincing and interesting results. In this respect, to end on a personal note, I would say that in writing Sun Sign, Moon Sign (a book dealing with the characteristic dynamics of Sun and Moon in the chart), my wife Suzi and I learned more about the Sun-Moon dynamic from the study of literary biography than from anything else. This bears out Paul Wright's findings in The Literary Zodiac: literature is an ideal mirror in which we can see written large the astrological dynamics of the individual. I hope more students will give themselves the pleasure of engaging in types of research where the vivid colours of the archetypal realities have an opportunity to shine through.

This article first appeared in Correlation 13(2), Northern Winter 1994-1995

charles harvey bio

Author: Charles Harvey

Charles Harvey was a British astrologer, teacher, organizer, author, researcher and counselor, and an integral part of British astrology for more than 30 years. He started working as a full-time professional in 1966 at which time he earned his diploma in the Faculty of Astrological Studies. From 1973 to 1994 he served as President of the British Astrological Association, overseeing its growth to 1,500 members. He co-authored Mundane Astrology and Working With Astrology. He also directed the Center for Psychological Astrology in London with Liz Greene.

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Source

https://www.uraniatrust.org/astrology/approach-to-astrology-research