 | Spirit And Sky Top Spiritual Site 2005 |
TAARP -
Introduction to Website Contents
Since 1995, TAARP has been addressing two questions:
In this website we present:
This website is organized into sixteen blocks which are categorized into five groups.
| Group I | Block 1 Block 2 Block 3 |
The Technical Report (Introduction) The Technical Report (Itself) |
| Group II | Block 4 Block 5 |
An Interpretation of a TAARP Natal Horoscope Chart Pack |
| Group III | Block 7 Block 8 Block 9 Block 10 Block 15 Block 16 |
The TAARP Sidereal Zodiac A Challenge for Crowley Scholars and the Ordo Templi Orientis In Praise of Aleister Crowley Why TAARP is Unique TAARP's Critique of the Crowley/Adams Book "The General Principles of Astrology"† Instructions for Becoming a TAARP Client |
| Group IV | Block 11 Block 12 |
The Corridors of Time (Itself) |
| Group V | Block 13 Block 14 |
Astrophotography by Glenn E. Johnson |
| † Edited by Hymenaeus Beta, Frater Superior, O.T.O. | ||
This website presents the initial results of a planned, long-term effort to investigate the validity of natal astrology with a solid scientific approach. It will also serve as a mechanism for promulgating the ideas of Aleister Crowley who is to the occult sciences (i.e., astrology, Tarot cards, numerology, Magick, mysticism) as Albert Einstein is to physics and as William Shakespeare is to English literature.
My name is Fred E. Howard III. I have a BS degree in physics form the Georgia Institute of Technology. I am now retired from the aerospace business in which I was engaged for 22 years performing research and development efforts in electronic countermeasures.
My birth data is:
When I retired from the aerospace business in 1990, I formed The Alpha Astrophysical Research Project (TAARP). The first objective of TAARP is to determine what, if any, truth there is in natal astrology. I took on a partner, Mr. Glenn Johnson, to aid me in the research. (See Appendix A of the first TAARP Technical Report for Fred's and Glenn's resumes.) TAARP does not have any funding except for about $5000 from my parents. Glenn and I have contributed our time to the project since April of 1995. I estimate that 1 million dollars spent over a 5-year period will be required to bring our scientific investigation of natal astrology to a reasonable state of maturity. We need funds to:
We can provide an official technical proposal and accompanying cost proposal to any individual or any organization that may be interested in funding the research project. Partial funding instead of the estimated required one million dollars would be very beneficial to the project.
This website is made up of blocks and sub-blocks (SB). There are 16 major blocks. The only two extensive major blocks, Block 3 and Block 12, are divided into sub-blocks, and link diagrams for these sub-blocks are given at the beginnings of the 2 blocks.
The 16 major blocks are:
Block 1: The Technical Report (Preface)| Block 15: | Edited by Hymenaeus Beta, Frater Superior, O.T.O. |
Blocks 1, 2, and 3 deal with the technical report than Glenn and I wrote in April 1996 at the end of our first year of joint research. These 3 blocks are the main essence of the website.
Blocks 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 15 are back-up material for the technical report. These blocks are fairly self-explanatory, but review of Appendix E of the technical report (see SB 3-8) before addressing these blocks would be beneficial. Individuals that are ignorant of the basic principals of natal astrology may want to first read sections E2.0 through E2.3 of Appendix E (see SB 3-8-2), which give a most cursory account of natal astrology, prior to reading any other portion of the website.
Blocks 11 and 12 present some writings that I did on the subject of the Tarot cards, magick, comparative religion and comparative mythology prior to taking up a serious study of natal astrology.
Blocks 13 and 14 are demonstrations that Glenn and I have some creative ability.
There are many different forms of astrology. TAARP's current effort is only addressing tropical natal astrology. The crux of natal astrology is that a correlation exists between the patterns of the heavens (i.e., planets in signs, planetary aspects, planets in houses, signs in relation to houses, etc.) at the moment of birth of an individual and the nature of the individual. With respect to this correlation there are three fundamental questions:
1) Does the correlation in fact exist?
2) If it exists, what are the exact details of the correlation?
3) If the correlation exists, then why or how does it exist?
TAARP is currently only addressing the first two major questions and is not addressing the third major question. Our initial objective is to discover if the correlation exists, and if so, to discover exactly what the correlation is. If there in fact is no correlation, then the third major question is nonsensical. We are very interested in the third question and have some thoughts about it as indicated in Block 6: One Good Reason Why Science Condemns Natal Astrology.
Anyone who is interested in pursuing a path of Mystical/Magickal enlightenment is strongly advised to join the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). A general Internet search with the key word "OTO" will provide many references to the Ordo Templi Orientis, but the best thing to do is to query the following:
Bill Heidrick is the Grand Treasure of the OTO. His writings "Road to the Sun" are very beneficial to anyone starting on a serious path of Mystical/Magickal enlightenment. The OTO is the only extant organization in the world that teaches The Mysteries in a modern comprehensive manner. I also seriously recommend Dr. Richard Kaczynski's book "Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley", 2002, ISBN: 1-56184-170-6.
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The single greatest problem with the current state of natal astrology is the gross lack of scientific validation of the existence of correlations between the natal horoscope and the nature of the individual. Very few efforts of serious astrological research are reported anywhere in the literature. The work of Michel and Francoise Gauquelin is an example of a first class astrological research program (see below). Unfortunately, the limited scope of the Gauquelins' astrological research seriously impinges on the accuracy of their results. The book "Recent Advances in Natal Astrology," Geoffrey Dean, Arthur Mather, et al, 1977, Recent Advances, 43 Granville Rd, Cowes, Isle of Wight P031 7JF, England reports on several good examples of astrological research. However, I am unaware of any astrological research efforts that address the validity of natal astrology with the depth and breadth of complexity and thoroughness that TAARP proposes.
One aspect of the critical limitations of modern astrology is the severe lack of any esoteric understanding of the essence of the planets and signs of the zodiac. This is discussed at several places on this website. In particular see Block 3: The First TAARP Technical Report (Itself), Appendix E, Section E2.2; Block 7: The TAARP Sidereal Zodiac; and Block 10: Why TAARP is Unique. Also see Aleister Crowley's "The Book of Thoth" and "777 and Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley." These two books demonstrate why it is necessary to study the symbolism of the Tarot cards and numerology in any serious investigation of natal astrology. For example, we learn in these books that each of the 22 Tarot Trumps correlates with one of the 12 signs of the zodiac, or one of the seven personal planets (i.e., the Sun, the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Venus, Mars), or one of the four elements (i.e., fire, air, earth, water). Note that 12+7+4=23, but one of the 22 Trumps, the last Trump, does double duty, corresponding to both the planet Saturn and the element earth.
However, the primary problem with natal astrology is the lack of scientific proof that real correlations exit between the nature of the individual and the totality of the story in the individual's natal horoscope. The difficulty in investigating these correlations is due to the fact that the various pieces of a natal horoscope do not function in isolation from one another. For example, consider a natal horoscope with Mars, the bloody God of war, in Capricorn, where He is exalted. Just by itself, this should correlate with an individual who is impulsive and warlike. However, if this same person has Gemini rising and its ruler, Mercury, is in Libra and conjunct Neptune, and the Sun is in Pisces in the midheaven with its ruler, Jupiter, in Aquarius and conjunct Venus, then more than likely (if there is any validity in natal astrology) the person will be a physical wimp. However, if the same individual also has Uranus in Leo, where He is exalted, trine Saturn and conjunct Pluto, and the Moon is in Taurus, then in fact the person may not be a physical wimp. What I have given here is a fairly standard interpretation of the physical nature (not physical appearance, but rather physical activity) of the individual based on various interacting facets of the individual's natal horoscope. Whether I am correct or not is the whole problem. I am not aware of any astrological research efforts that have tried to find correlations between the nature of the individual and the totality of the natal horoscope with massive numbers of statistical samples.
For example, let's briefly consider the work of the Gauquelins. (See: "Planetary Heredity," Michel Gauquelin, 1988, ACS Publications, Inc., San Diego, CA; "Psychology of the Planets," Francoise Gauquelin, 1982, Astro Computing Services, San Diego, CA, ISBN 0-917086-32-5; "Neo-Astrology, A Copernican Revolution," Michel Gauquelin, 1991, The Penguin Group, London England.) "Recent Advances in Natal Astrology" gives some serious criticisms of their astrological research, but for the sake of argument let's assume that their work is basically sound. Their research (supposedly) demonstrates, with very interesting statistical details, that out of thousands of natal horoscopes that they studied, if a person is a world class athlete (e.g., an Olympic medal winner or national champion), then there is a much higher probability for that person than for a person from the general population that at the moment of birth the planet Mars is just above the eastern horizon or just past the midheaven. They found similar trends for world class scientists, but instead of Mars, Saturn is the planet concerned. For world class actors it is Jupiter, and for world class writers it is the Moon. Classical astrology would agree that athletics correlates with Mars, science with Saturn, and acting with Jupiter. Instead of the Moon, classical astrology would correlate writing with Mercury. If these results of the Gauquelins can hold up to scientific scrutiny, and again "Recent Advances in Natal Astrology" seriously questions this, then it is a powerful indicator in favor of there being some validity to natal astrology. Their astrological research also demonstrated (supposedly) that there is no correlation between an individual's Sun sign and their nature.
Assuming again that the results of the Gauquelins' astrological research are valid, let us consider the difference between what they did and what TAARP proposes should be done in a comprehensive astrological research program, the objective of which is to establish what, if any, validity there is in natal astrology. In the first place, it is not at all surprising that after interrogating thousands of natal horoscopes they found no statistical correlation between the nature of the individual and the individual's Sun sign. The Sun sign is only one facet of a multifaceted natal horoscope. Consider the following case that is one of the several hundred cases that TAARP has investigated. The individual has the Sun in Aries. Typical astrology books will say that the individual is aggressive and impulsive. In fact this individual is so mellow that when she walks past you it is as if a whisper went by. Not only is her outer personality very soft and retiring, she reports that her mind, emotions, motivation, desires, etc., are the same. How could this be? She has Mars, who rules Aries, conjunct Neptune, which completely negates the impulsive and aggressive power of Mars, and hence of Aries. Also, she has the nebulous, soft Pisces rising, and its ruler, Jupiter, has His energy nulled out by being both conjunct Saturn and in Libra. Furthermore, there are no planets rising and no planets culminating in the midheaven to take charge of the nativity with aggressive energy. This is a perfect example of why it is most inappropriate to focus on one facet of a natal horoscope in attempting to correlate this facet with the nature of the individual.
Now let's address the issue of the diurnal position (i.e., the position relative to the four angles of ascendant, midheaven, descendant, and nadir) of planets and how this factor may correlate with the nature of an individual. To do this we will first consider the methodology that Aleister Crowley specifies for interpreting natal horoscopes, which is based on his concept of the "astrological complex." (It would be beneficial to the reader to review the following material on this website for detailed discussions of Crowley's "astrological complex" before proceeding with the reading of this introductory material: Block 3: The First TAARP Technical Report (Itself), Appendix E, Section E3.0; Block 8: A Challenge for Crowley Scholars and the Ordo Templi Orientis; Block 15: TAARP's Critique of the Crowley/Adams Book "The General Principles of Astrology, Edited by Hymenaeus Beta, Letter 1 and Letter 3 From Fred E. Howard III to William Heidrick.) If a group of planets are aspected together in a certain manner and if this group of planets constitute a coherent unity, then they form an "astrological complex." The characteristics of an individual's "astrological complexes" and the relationships of these complexes with one another correlate with the nature of the individual according to Crowley. In particular, the planet that is the "key" of the dominant "astrological complex" rules the nativity, or, more properly expressed, the strongest planet in the nativity will be the key of the dominant "astrological complex." So, we must now address the issue of what factors in a nativity determine how important one planet is relative to the other planets. Planets tend to be "strong" (i.e., their fundamental nature is prevalent) if:
For example, Mars would be very strong and would probably be the ruler of the nativity if:
Now, take the same horoscope, but instead of Mars culminating in the midheaven let it be in Leo. Mars will still be very strong and may still be the chart ruler. The important point here is that even if it is not the chart ruler, it will still be very strong.
The essence of all of this is that TAARP currently "believes" that if indeed the results of the Gauquelins is sound in that the diurnal position of Mars correlates in some statistical sense, based on thousands of nativities, with the athletic prowess of the individual, then a similar study based on the strength of Mars in the nativity, regardless of the reason why the strength manifests, would demonstrate a correlation with athletic ability with much more statistical significance than that shown in the Gauquelins' work. However, it is very important to emphasize that the astrological research effort that TAARP proposes would leave it up to the self-organizing, adaptive artificial intelligence software that we would develop to establish what, if any, correlations exist between the nature of the individual and the various complex relationships between the many facets of the natal horoscope.
There are two basic reasons why the proposed astrological research effort would be very difficult. First, there are so many variables that can interact together in so many ways. There are 12 signs, 10 planets, six primary aspects (i.e., conjunction, semi-sextile, sextile, square, trine, opposition), and the issue of orb limits on aspects. Also, it may be that odd ball aspects, such at 23.5°, are important under certain conditions, or that for some situations an orb of less than 1° is important and for other situations the orb may extend as far as 10° for an influential aspect. Midpoints may or may not be important. The Moon's nodes may be critical in some cases and of no significance in others. The second factor that will make the proposed astrological research effort so difficult is that qualitative, meaning laden parameters based on personality profiles must be incorporated in the artificial intelligence software. Also, the software will have to be designed to generate its own test parameters which it will then have to evaluate for correlation viability. Appendix D and Section E6.0 of Appendix E of "The First TAARP Technical Report" in Block 3 present an example of a self-organizing, adaptive computer algorithm that creates and evaluates classification parameters (i.e., features). Note, however, that this example only deals with quantitative facets of a natal horoscope, whereas the ultimate artificial intelligence software required for the proposed astrological research project will have to accommodate both quantitative and qualitative facets (i.e., meaning oriented facets such as intelligence, physical beauty, and emotions) of the natal horoscope. Natal astrology is involved with a massive and horrendously complex pattern recognition problem.
TAARP is currently of the opinion that astrological research vis-a-vis the validity of natal astrology should focus on the concept of the "astrological complex" as presented by Aleister Crowley in his astrological writings. Crowley claims that the key to natal astrology deals with the fact that groups of planets in a natal horoscope form definite, distinct entities (i.e., "astrological complexes"), and the proper analysis of a natal horoscope involves the identification and interpretation of these entities. The great difficulty is that for a group of planets to form an "astrological complex," they must not only be aspected together in a certain fashion, but also they must form a coherent unity. Hence not all groups of planets that properly aspect together comprise an "astrological complex". TAARP is firmly convinced that Aleister Crowley is the single greatest genius in the field of natal astrology. (See Block 9: In Praise of Aleister Crowley.)
The astrological research presented on this website deals primarily with an approach to study groups of aspecting planets from a strictly quantitative nature. However, since the essence of an "astrological complex" is that it forms a viable, meaning laden unity, a qualitative study of the concept of the "astrological complex" will have to be integrated into a quantitative study of the "astrological complex" in order to have any real hope of ever comprehending how Crowley identifies and interprets "astrological complexes".
Here is the gist of what TAARP proposes as a proper avenue of investigation into the validity of natal astrology. A large scale astrological research project needs to be conducted that would require about one million dollars of funds spent over a five year period to really get going and would require the participation of individuals with expertise in the following areas:
The basic idea is to use the astrological writings of Aleister Crowley as a foundation for specifying the heuristics that will be used in the development of artificial intelligence software that will operate upon the psychological profiles of thousands of individuals and upon the natal horoscopes of those individuals in order to try to identify correlations between facets of the natal horoscope and the nature of the individual.
In "The First TAARP Technical Report" we have presented some ideas about how to design pattern recognition software that explores the possibility of discovering parameters involved with planetary aspects that would permit distinguishing between groups of individuals such as very creative and/or intelligent people versus average, everyday people, and such as hard core criminals versus average, everyday people. (See Block 3: The First TAARP Technical Report (Itself), Appendix D and Section E6.0 of Appendix E). The software discussed in "The First TAARP Technical Report" only addresses quantitative factors such as the number of planetary aspects and the orbs of those aspects. It does not address meaning oriented factors such as intelligence (as indicated for example by the status of the planet Mercury in the natal horoscope) and kindness (as indicated for example by the status of the sign of Cancer and the status of the planet Venus), and hence it is very limited. Results produced with such quantitative software would be used to help design the full up artificial intelligence software we propose to develop which would deal with quantitative and qualitative, meaning oriented factors.
The history of mankind includes persons of unusual esoteric knowledge and capabilities, and "secret" societies which exist explicitly for the education of these unusual people and the promulgation of their ideas. TAARP makes the claim that Aleister Crowley is the greatest of these unusual people (See Block 9: In Praise of Aleister Crowley) and that the current Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) with Hymenaeus Beta (a.k.a. the infamous William Breeze) as Frater Superior is the most important of these "secret" societies. The OTO is only "secret" in the sense that very few people know about it even though it advertises its existence, and by virtue of the fact that an individual must demonstrate certain qualities and states of knowledge and understanding before he/she is provided certain information that the OTO considers hypersensitive in some sense.
The primary objective of the OTO is to promulgate the works and ideas of Aleister Crowley which are involved with the esoteric meanings of such things as Tarot cards, numerology, astrology (see Section E2.2 of Appendix E of Block 3: The First TAARP Technical Report (Itself) and Block 10: Why TAARP is Unique), Ages and Aeons (see Block 6: One Good Reason Why Science Condemns Natal Astrology and Block 7: The TAARP Sidereal Zodiac), religious prophets, and ritual magick or ceremonial magick (See Block 12: The Corridors of Time (Itself), Section IV: The Occult Research Proposal Itself Titled "A Research Proposal for an Experiential Investigation of the Mythological Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious Mind of Western Man", paragraph 3.4). Note that there is no better way to study natal astrology than to perform invocation and evocation rituals to make the various cosmic forces of the zodiac manifest in startling glory to the student. For example, Crowley gives an astounding record of his and Victor Neurberg's evocation/invocation of Mercury and Jupiter in "The Paris Working" in his book "The Vision and the Voice with Commentary and Other Papers: The Collected Diaries of Aleister Crowley 1909-1914 E.V.", Red Wheel/Weiser/Trade Cloth, ISBN: 0877288879.
These materials are included on this website to demonstrate the creative potential of Mr. Howard and Mr. Johnson. Significant creative potential is a key requirement for conducting serious astrological research.
