 | Spirit And Sky Top Spiritual Site 2005 |
TAARP - TR-001 -
Introduction
The current objective of TAARP is to determine from a scientific perspective if there is any validity to natal astrology and if so then exactly what the truth in it is. The subject is immensely complex because there are so many meaning laden variables that must be considered in a synergistic fashion. There are 3 basic pieces to the puzzle in natal astrology:
So, there is an enormous number of combinations of a large number of variables.
Assume that a particular natal horoscope has the Sun in Virgo at the moment of birth. The meaning of the Sun in Virgo is specific and complex. Assume also that the native has the Moon in Leo. The meaning of the Moon in Leo is specific and complex and totally different from that of the Sun in Virgo. So, the question is, how do you integrate these two meanings together to get a synthetically correct interpretation of the combination of the Sun in Virgo and the Moon in Leo? The problem is, of course, not this simple, because in fact there are 10 planets, and so the integration under consideration involves synthesizing 10 specific and complex meanings together.
Then there is the same difficulty with the meanings of the 10 planets in the 12 diurnal houses. For example, Neptune in the 7th House means something very specific and complex, as does Mars in the 5th House and Saturn in the 10th House, etc. So again, the question is, how do you integrate all of this together into a coherent gestalt?
Finally, there are the meanings of the planetary aspects. The meaning of Jupiter square Venus is specific and complex, as is the meaning of Mercury conjunct Uranus, Pluto trine the Sun, the Moon semi-sextile Saturn, etc. Once again, it is very nontrivial to lump all of these meanings together into a coherent whole. Furthermore, there is the further great difficulty of integrating together each of the three pieces of the puzzle subsequent to integrating each of the three pieces within themselves.
The problem is actually much more difficult than is implied above, for while each of the 4 steps presented (i.e., the 3 independent syntheses and the one overall synthesis) is necessary in the interpretation of a natal horoscope, they are really just a preliminary to the important work, an example of which is as follows. What is the meaning in a particular natal horoscope of Jupiter in Capricorn in the fourth house square Venus, sextile Saturn, opposite the Moon, and trine Mars? Also, the meaning of this Jupiter 'complex' is most dependent upon the totality of the natal horoscope. For example, Jupiter rules Pisces and Sagittarius. If Pisces is rising the meaning of the Jupiter 'complex' is entirely different from what it is if Sagittarius is rising. Also, the meaning of Jupiter opposite the Moon is dependent upon the sign the Moon is in, dependent upon the fact that Jupiter is in Capricorn, dependent upon the diurnal house that the Moon is in, and dependent upon all of the planetary aspects to the Moon.
Some of the characteristics of Jupiter are humanitarianism, strength, peace and calm, authority, love, wealth, and expansiveness. Assume that we have a natal horoscope for which the Jupiter situation favors all of these properties. Assume also that the horoscope is primarily characterized by "easy" and "friendly" planetary aspects, (i.e., trines, sextiles, and semi-sextiles). More than likely the natal horoscope will then be indicative of a person who at best is just easy going and accomplishes nothing in life for himself or anybody else and at worst is a drug addict and/or alcoholic. Compare this with another natal horoscope that has the same Jupiter situation, but in general is characterized by the "hard" and "unfriendly" planetary aspects (i.e., squares and oppositions). In this case it may very well be that the "toughness" of the planetary aspects compliments the smooth and easy Jupiter situation to indicate an individual who flows smoothly through life and yet has some real mettle to himself and is determined to accomplish something in life.
Professional astrologers who say, "well, Venus indicates the love life and your Venus is in really good shape, so your love life should be great", are terrible astrologers and mislead many people. A professional astrologer of 30 years practice told me that since I didn't have any planets in the 9th House I had no interest in science, religion, or philosophy, the very three things that have been the passions of my life for as long as I can remember. I hope it is evident by now that the single greatest problem facing the astrologer is the issue of integration and synthesis. There are astrology books whose titles indicate that the subject of the books is synthesis, but all the ones that I have seen fall far short of demonstrating any real synthesis, except for Crowley's astrological writings.
I claim that Aleister Crowley in his books "The Complete Astrological Writings of Aleister Crowley", and "Astrology, Your Place Among the Stars" has done more to throw some light on the issue of extracting the salient points from a natal horoscope and synthesizing the entire natal horoscope than any other astrological author. This is also true to some extent in Crowley's book "Astrology, Your Place in the Sun". (Note: See Block 9 for an explanation of why "Astrology, Your place Among the Stars" and "Astrology, Your Place in the Sun" are erroneously attributed to authorship by Evangeline Adams.) Crowley's basic approach to natal horoscope interpretation deals with what he terms the "astrological complex" or simply "complex". I will only give a brief discussion of Crowley's astrological complex in this introduction. I discuss it in more depth in Block 8: A Challenge For Crowley Scholars and the Ordo Templi Orientis.
Most unfortunately it is not at all clear from Crowley's writings exactly what he means by "astrological complex", but it is quite clear that a group of planets can form an "astrological complex" if they are all in aspect to one of the planets in the group. This is clearly a necessary condition for a group of planets to form an "astrological complex", but it is by no means a sufficient condition. The planets must not only all be aspected to one of the planets in the group, but also there must be a coherent meaning to the aspect combination. An analogy with chemistry would be where a group of chemicals are mixed together in a very specific manner under very tight controls of temperature, pressure, acidity, etc., and like magick a very specific product is produced such as a desired polymer. The addition to the chemical process of an "unwanted" element will probably completely upset the process and the result will be just some kind of "gunk". Similarly, in a particular natal horoscope assume that an "astrological complex" is comprised of Jupiter, Venus, Luna, and Saturn with Jupiter square Venus, sextile Luna, and trine Saturn. Also, assume that the zodiacal and diurnal house positions of each of these planets is such that within the context of the totality of the natal horoscope, the combination of this particular set of planets has a specific and coherent meaning. If the planets were in different zodiacal signs and/or different diurnal houses and/or if the remainder of the natal horoscope were significantly different, then the result for the group of planets could easily be just chaos with no meaning (i.e., just "gunk").
The attitude that TAARP currently has is that if we can crack the code of Crowley's "astrological complex", then we will be in a good position to execute scientific tests for the validity of natal astrology. It is towards this end that our quantitative and qualitative research is oriented. So far we have only developed one quantitative measure, the Cumulative Aspect Weight, or CAW. We currently use the CAW to help us in our qualitative, meaning oriented interpretation of natal horoscopes, and as a discriminating feature to distinguish one group of individuals from another. (See more below on the discrimination issue.)
We have a standard natal horoscope chart pack that we produce for each natal horoscope that we address. An example of this chart pack is given in Block 4: A TAARP Natal Horoscope Chart Pack. I have a group of about 30 chart packs on people that I know very well. They are either family members, past friends, or present friends. I have been studying them off and on for about 4 years. In addition, there are about another 250 chart packs that I have studied with various degrees of seriousness of individuals that I have met from time to time. Most of these are waitresses, strippers, bartenders, co-workers in the aerospace business, and fellow customers I meet in restaurants. Crowley says that after an individual has worked on the interpretation of about 500 natal horoscopes, then he should start to get the hang of it. I am about halfway to Crowley's criterion and all I can safely report at this time is that I am amazed that I think there really is something to natal astrology. I am also fairly convinced that if my mindset for 30 years so firmly against natal astrology had not existed, then my current estimate of the probability of some validity to natal astrology would be higher than it is. There is also, of course, the danger that my interest in the subject is biasing my opinion in favor of natal astrology.
Crowley says that very outstanding individuals such as scientific geniuses, creative artists, very successful political leaders, and brilliant writers tend to have only a few astrological complexes in their natal horoscopes, usually no more than two, and more average individuals tend to have a larger number of astrological complexes. In his three astrological books (i.e., those mentioned above) Crowley takes the natal horoscopes of 100 famous people and uses them as examples to present his concept of the astrological complex. So, for example, in his discussion of Venus in Scorpio in "Astrology, Your Place Among the Stars" he first gives a short general meaning for Venus in Scorpio and he then gives specific examples from among the 100 famous individuals of how the Venus in Scorpio phenomenon manifests within the context of particular astrological complexes and/or the totalities of natal horoscopes.
The technical report deals almost exclusively with quantitative issues involved with the astrological complex. The qualitative, meaning oriented element of the astrological complex is something that we always think about as we interpret natal horoscopes, but to date we have nothing firm to report. The number of planets in a complex, the specific aspects involved, and the orbs manifesting in the aspects are the three basic parameters defining the quantitative makeup of a complex. In the report we do attempt to use these parameters to discriminate between highly capable people and "normal" people. We present some specific results, which in one case are a bit interesting. The important thing about the report, however, is that is presents the design of a computer software package that is an adaptive learning algorithm the purpose of which is to search for ways of combining the three basic quantitative "astrological complex" parameters in order to produce a clear and unequivocal measure for distinguishing very capable individuals from normal individuals. More specifically, the important thing about the report does not deal with the particular problem it addresses (i.e., distinguishing between highly capable people and normal people based on planetary aspect parameters) nor with the particular software design it proposes for solving the problem. The important thing about the report is that it demonstrates the degree of sophistication that must be utilized in a scientific attack on the issue of natal astrology.
Here is the database that we formed to apply our techniques to for distinguishing the "famous" from the "normal". We took 23 of the 100 individuals that Crowley uses in his three astrology books that we consider extremely capable, such as Newton, Copernicus and Shakespeare, and labeled them as High Phenomenon. We took 15 individuals from the 100 that we consider to be of lesser quality and labeled them Medium Phenomenon. We took 22 people that are either members of my family or friends of mine and labeled them as Low Phenomenon. We then tried to combine the 3 aspect parameters (i.e., number of planets in aspect, the type of aspects and the orbs) in such a manner that we could have a quantitative measure that distinguished between the three groups of High Phenomenon, Medium Phenomenon, and Low Phenomenon. We tried 3 different methods. They are presented in Appendices B, C, and D. The method of Appendix D, which we call the Cumulative Aspect Weight or CAW, showed some promise of doing the job and the adaptive learning algorithm software design in Appendix D addresses the issue of how to adjust the Appendix D method of manipulating the 3 aspect parameters to produce a final measure that can accomplish the desired discrimination. The proposed software deals with that discipline of computer science called pattern recognition.
It is very important to emphasize that the kind of pattern recognition software presented in the report is not the only kind of software that will be required to complete the scientific investigation of natal astrology that we think will be necessary to execute a comprehensive evaluation of the validity of natal astrology. Sophisticated software involving many features of artificial intelligence with detailed psychological profiles of individuals being among the information input to the software will be required in order to address the issue of qualitative, meaning oriented interpretations of natal horoscopes.
It is important to understand that The Technical Report does not address the issue of how or why there is or is not any validity in natal astrology. The report only addresses the issue of whether or not there are correlations between the makeup of an individual and the pattern of the heavens at the moment of birth. Why or how the correlations could exist, if indeed they do, is an entirely different question. Notwithstanding the fact that I am slowly approaching the conclusion that there is something to natal astrology, Block 6: One Good Reason Why Science Condemns Natal Astrology presents a good argument why, from a classical scientific point of view, there must be nothing to natal astrology per se.
