In two previous articles I have searched for ways of understanding the Gauquelin Effect in evolutionary terms with the aid of the new variable of birth order in families, (Douglas 2001a, 2004a,b). I now want to report on some hitherto unknown Solar patterns which have emerged from a study of the Gauquelin data. These patterns also vary systematically between professional groups in a way that suggests for the first time a place for some early Greek and Roman measures of planetary strength in horoscopes. It is suggested that the Gauquelins’ research was weakened by their neglect of early astrological texts and traditions concerning the sun and moon, and that the effect cannot be described accurately without referring to these real effects. A 3-stage mechanism is proposed to describe the Gauquelin Effect in terms of the conjunction cycles of the sun with the planets. The results presented are discussed in the light of Seymour’s theory of astrology. The current revival of interest in traditional techniques among astrologers may provide an opportunity for a new collaboration with researchers, and more awareness of the incompleteness of the astrology that came out of the 19th century revival.

The planets, from an astrological point of view, are related to their visible characteristics and not to any scientific description. This is confirmed by Gauquelin’s failure to detect any correlations with the non-visible (outer) planets. The author extends this observation to argue that science is not any special preserve, but a mere facet of existence, and its ability to demonstrate astrological truth just incidental

Author: Dr. Geoffrey DeanAbstract: Keywords: Gauquelin, planetary effects, attribution, G-effects, artifactsNotes:Publication: Correlation Journal of Reserach into AstrologyIssue: Volume 23 Number 2Dated: 2006Pages: 53 – 57

When was it that someone first gazed up at the Summer Milky Way and recognized the Cross among the stars of Cygnus? After the Big Dipper and the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades, the Northern Cross is among the most familiar of asterisms, for Westerners at least. Turn to almost any modern handbook on the constellations and we find under Cygnus that the Swan often goes by this well known alias. Little explanation is required; the Cross being simply a matter of common knowledge. But when did it become so? One such popular guide, by the late veteran interpreter of the stars, Julius Staal, ventures only that it was ‘early Christians’ who recognized the cruciform shape of Cygnus.1 It is certainly a reasonable guess; but, which early Christians recognized the Cross where others in their day would have imagined a great swan flying along the river of milk flowing from Hera’s breast? Although it seems little more than an odd bit of trivia, attempting to answer the question of the asterism’s antiquity touches on some interesting aspects of our cultural history. I hope to show how light from this admittedly peculiar angle may illuminate ways that astral imagery played upon the early Christian imagination, particularly as related to aspects of the history of Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome.

The paper addresses the boundaries between astrology and science and concentrates on a demarcation problem. It will explore the criteria science poses for new sciences. In order to be a science one has to take into account for example the idea of a theory, methods and paradigms. An independent branch of science is known for its own methodology but in astrology’s case usually statistics are introduced. However, qualitative methods will give new and fresh viewpoints to this issue. “Astrology and Science – A New Millennium” discusses the position of astrology in the academic world and the possible advantages and disadvantages that might arise along with that position.

From the 2nd century AD the coincidence of Passover and Easter was recognized as a problem for the Christian church by the church authorities, and in the 4th century, after Christianity became the Roman state religion, Roman authorities took steps to prevent Passover and Easter coinciding. This effort was complicated by the growing separation between the churches in Rome and Constantinople. Though from the 2nd century the majority of Jews lived in the diaspora, at least up to the 10th century the calendar was governed by a rabbinical court in Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel). Here we discuss the changes in the Jewish calendar in the 5-8th centuries AD, the middle (c. 636 AD) of which period witnessed an abrupt transition from Byzantine rule over Eretz Israel to Arab rule. In this period no serious changes were made in the basic mathematics of the Jewish calendar; the only changes had a political context. Here we discuss a single but singular feature of the Jewish calendar, the ‘Deĥiyot’ [postponements] of Rosh Hashana. Our major claim is that Deĥiyah D [postponement from Wednesday to Thursday] and Deĥiyah U [postponement from Friday to Saturday] entered the calendar c. 532 AD as an ingenious Jewish response to Emperor Justinian’s ban against the Passover feast (Nisan 14) falling on a Saturday, instituted to mend a famous calendar rift between the Roman and Alexandrian churches. Next we claim that Deĥiyah A [postponement from Sunday to Monday] became part of the calendar no earlier than when the 2nd day of the festivals Rosh Hashana [New Year] and Sukkot [Tabernacles] acquired the status of sacred day and we raise the lower historical boundary of Deĥiyah A’s introduction in the calendar up to the time of the first Gaonim [heads of talmudic academies in the Arab caliphate] (c. 658 AD). We also suggest the reasons for the timing of three other deĥiyot.

The astrological worldview takes for granted an interrelated wholeness to which humanity belongs, a systemic totality having harmony, resonance and tuning as primal characteristics. On the contrary, modern science assumes a paradigm in which separateness, reductionism and empirical positivism implies the strangeness between human (the observer-knower) and universe (the observed reality). This thesis-antithesis antagonism is searching for a synthesis capable of solving its contradiction into complimentarity, giving rise to a new paradigm rooted in a human-cosmos integrated vision without losing the explicative success of modern science. Twentieth century research, both in science and astrology, has begun to pave the way towards such an emergent worldview. This paper offers a glimpse at all of this.

Michael Glykas is generally known as a learned conservative theologian who wrote a refutation of Byzantine Emperor Manuel Komnenos’ defence of astrology in the latter half of the twelfth century. However there exists substantial evidence that Michael Glykas had a dual identity as the shadowy Michael Sikidites who in his youth was known for his occult interests, suspected of political sedition against Manuel, and imprisoned and blinded as punishment for sorcery. With skill and critical astuteness, Glykas directs his refutation not so much against Manuel’s philosophical arguments as against the claims of his evidence, and thus seeks to cast doubt upon the moral and literary integrity of his Emperor in an attempt to redeem his own reputation. Within half a century of the reintroduction of astrology to the West, Glykas was the first person in many centuries to stir up all the old Christian objections against the fatalism of the stars.

Between 1691 and 1711, London “coffeehouse” newspapers devoted to a “question-and-answer” format, such as the Athenian Mercury (1691-1697) and the British Apollo (1708-1711), employed anonymous experts to answer readers’ questions and impart simplified knowledge about natural philosophy and phenomena. At the same time, they marketed a “culture of civility” to non-elite individuals, which included encouraging gentlemanly curiosity about the natural world. Not only did the Mercury and Apollo’s editors spend a good deal of effort convincing their audiences they were credible sources of knowledge, an authoritative virtual “academy” of experts, but audience responses can be assessed in the running “conversations” of questions and answers. These papers therefore may be utilized as gauges of public attitudes towards particular topics in natural philosophy, such as astrology, and to what extent astrology was considered a legitimate subfield within “scientific” studies in the early modern period. Both the Mercury and Apollo also served an expressly didactic function, wittily illustrating to their less-informed readers which scientific theories were currently fashionable, and which ideas were the provinces of only “vulgar beliefs”; a comparison of the two papers is a measure of the progressive vulgarization of belief in astrology between 1690 and 1711. Although previous scholars were correct in their claim that many elite natural philosophers largely disavowed astrology (both natural and judicial) by the first decade of the eighteenth century, among the literate cits of London who were largely the audience of the Mercury and Apollo, the legitimacy of astrology was still a matter of active debate.

Georg Joachim Rheticus (1514-1574) was central to the development and popularization of Copernicus’ heliocentric theory. He is most well known for the first published account of the theory, the Narratio Prima in 1539, and his persuasion in obtaining Copernicus’ manuscript for publication, De Revolutionibus (1543). Rheticus’ poem ‘Concerning the Beer of Breslau and the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac’, written circa 1542, sheds light on two aspects of Rheticus’ early involvement with the heliocentric theory. The poem helps us understand the approach to astrology which would prove decisive in Rheticus’ acceptance of the heliocentric theory and offers a glimpse into Rheticus’ association with Wittenberg’s controversial group of young poets. This relationship significantly injured Rheticus’ career and the heliocentric theory in turn