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Re: VMs: Modern Astrology vs. Traditional Astrology

Hi Pamela,

At 06:30 27/09/2004 -0700, Pamela Richards wrote: 
If someone has told you that "modern astrology is
essentially Ficianan" astrology, I am afraid they have
misrepresented both Ficianan and modern astrology.  In
fact, I will bet you my favorite kitten that the
person who said that was not an astrologer, and of
course, was entirely modern.
And I do love my favorite kitten.

You may be placing your favourite kitten in somewhat unnecessary jeopardy here. :-o

I should first of all say that I'm very pleased that we have a predictive astrologer on-list - I wasn't aware of that before, sorry for skipping that line on your mini-bio. Anyone who has sent Bob Zoller money is pretty much OK by me. :-)

However, the cataclysm in astrology is a thing I have read about in many, many (15? 20?) separate places (Ioan Couliano's excellent "Eros and Magic in the Renaissance" springs immediately to mind, but that is merely one of many), dating to 1480-1520, and located squarely in Florence - specifically at the hands of such prominent individuals as Pico della Mirandola and Marsilio Ficino.

"What is astrology for?", Ficino asked - and proceeded, in the humanist style I've mentioned in recent posts, to devise a new conceptual framework that satisfied the many diverse constraints of his religious and political context. At that point, astrology started on a different, internal, more psychologically-focused course, from which the modern tradition eventually developed: what changed was not really the astrophysical mechanics (that was merely a matter of precision), but the purpose of the activity. Ficino transformed it into something more like modern psychoanalysis (if you believe Thomas Moore's "The Planets Within", etc(.

I'll try to dig up some proper references for you (but please keep the kitten). :-)

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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