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(XII) HISTORY - 21ST CENTURY ASTROLOGY

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Bianca
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« Reply #75 on: September 26, 2007, 08:07:29 pm »








The Sophist and Skeptic Favorinus of Arles (85?-160), a gossip in the know and an "illustrious mediocrity," [68]  attempts to demonstrate the uselessness of "Chaldean" prediction: "They predict what will happen, both good and bad. If they predict good fortune and they are mistaken, you will become unhappy by waiting in vain; if they predict misfortune and they lie, you will be unhappy by being fearful in vain; if, on the other hand, their prediction is true but does not correspond to your hopes, you will be unhappy because of the thought even before destiny makes you so in fact. If they promise you success and it happens to you, two problems still present themselves: not only will you tire yourself waiting anxiously in hope, but hope itself will rob you of the fruit to be born of the joy when the event takes place." [69] 

A faulty understanding of the nature of astrology leads the logician Karl Popper to maintain a similar vein of reasoning: if our destiny can be predicted by astrology, how can it help us to escape that destiny? [70]  This line of thought is another thread from Carneades' refrain that astrology suppresses liberty and makes of man nothing more than a puppet in the hands of destiny.

      Christian theologians seized this idea, adapted it to the so-called Pauline liberation and converted it into a dogma: free will. Origen, the elder contemporary of Plotinus [71]  admitted a certain influence on the part of the stars over the formation of character, but developed a distinction between predictive star-signs and operative star-causes, [72]  and denounced in the name of freedom of conscience the fatalistic attitude of those who calculate horoscopes.[73]

      Acceptance of the star as the "sign" of something factual, circumstantial or existential at first by the Fathers of the Church, [74]  then by Christian theologians up to the 17th century, resulted in the notions and praxis of astrology being relegated to the category of divination, be it augural, conjectural, prophetic or predictive and to dispossess the astral impression (i.e. the mark of psychic impregnation made by the astral operands) of its true power. Moreover, the opportunity to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of their individual and collective manifestations was discarded. That policy was continued by their rationalist successors.
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Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
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