Message #27652

[Bianca]

Not Guilty




It is Newton's work in mathematics and physics, and in particular his proof of the heliocentric universe, which has often been attributed to putting the final nail in the coffin of astrology.

Richard Dawkins, who is of the opinion that astrologers' pre-Copernican dabblings demean and cheapen astronomy, saw Isaac Newton as one of the greatest minds that ever lived and sees astrology as an irrational defiance of the Newtonian universe.

However, Neil Spencer, in his book 'True As The Stars Above', sees it another way.


"Astrology [is] not the irrationalist, escapist reaction to scientific materialism that its critics claim but part of a shift to a post-Newtonian view of the universe, one with more affinities to Newton's beloved alchemy than to the 'Principia' for which he is celebrated."


Upon reading any of Newton's extensive works, it would be difficult to maintain the claim that he sought answers based purely on the fundamentalist atheism that Dawkins adheres to.

Until the late seventeenth century, almost all astronomers were astrologers.

Spencer sees that modern astronomy's contempt for its mystically minded ancestor has required an acrobatic rewrite of history, in which the ideas of those of the past have been bowdlerised and suppressed. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of Isaac Newton.

When he died on 20 May 1727, those seeking to portray Newton as a rationalist rejected most of his non-scientific works. They remained unknown for over two hundred years.

Newton sought answers in any way he could. All of his writings contain a profound underlying exploration of the deeper significance of the universal truths hidden within the ancient prophecies. It is not Newton's work that has created an image of someone dedicated only to rigid scientific analysis but rather the long history of attempting to obfuscate any work that didn't fit into this image.

Prior interpretations of Newton's writing has led us to accept an erroneous image of a man who was far more eclectic in his approach than we have previously understood.

It is possible that he would have agreed with modern French alchemist François Trojani who said, 'for all its great usefulness, science is a very limited, very fragmented, and not very profound way of trying to investigate the mysteries of the universe.'