Theos-Talk Archives (August 1995 Message tl00114)

Just a few quick comments on THE THEORY OF RELATIONSHIPS recently
posted:

<but while today astronomy is accepted by all scientists as a
legitimate area of research, the symbolic system of mythological
astrology is not held in such high esteem. This lack of
scientific interest occurs despite the widespread acceptance of
symbolic systems like astrology by people in general in the west

Astromony is accepted because it is testable and because the
findings of one astronomer can be authenticated or verified by
another. This is simply not true for astrology. It is NOT
because scientists "lack interest" but rather that no testing to
date has shown any evidence of any truth soever in the principles
of astrology. Tests HAVE been made, but without any success to
date. David Ruelle (Discoverer of strange attractors) asks,
"does one find significant statistical correlations between
horoscopes and reality?" And then answers, "The answer is
negative and totally discredits astrology." (Chance and Chaos,
page 22). However, Jung was a firm believer in astrology, taking
it as a given that it was valid. However, he once worked with a
mathematician on an astrological experiment looking for
statistical significance, and didn't find any. His response was
his theory of synchronicity, which is neither measurable or
repeatable (this is all recorded in his paper on Synchronicity).
I think that scientifically, Jung's synchronicity theory is
pretty sound (although it has yet to be measured or verified in a
lab). At least it is more sound than astrology per se. Why is
this? Well, at least one reason was given by G de Purucker, who
quoted an ancient maxim that the stars impel, they do not compel
- if they did compel, we would probably see some measureable
results.

<This theory makes many obvious predictions which are completely
scientifically testable (see below)

How? If the answer lies "below" then perhaps I missed it.
Perhaps where you say " empirically verifiable" (?). No one has
yet been able to measure such "resonances" in any lab. Perhaps
if you added some examples here, and discussed, briefly, how
measurements could be taken, and of what, this would firm up your
thesis. I would like to say, though, that I agree with you that
we need to integrate science with the occult arts, as much as
possible.

<a basic factor analysis of the many aspects of an astrology
chart with conventional personality tests (such as the MMPI)
would, it is predicted, reveal many enlightening correlates.

A statistical comparison between astrological predictions of
personality characteristics and the MMPI would be very
interesting, and is probably a valid step in the right direction.
I would love to see the results.

Jerry S.

Note: I spent several years investigating astrology myself many
years ago. I became convinced that astrological predictions of
personality characteristics were valid more than not. However,
specific predictions of events such as those found in the daily
papers are very wide of the mark and have no real scientific
validity at all. One can often offer such 'evidence' after the
fact in an historical context (nothin like hindsight), but seldom
do any predictions of future events come true. This is just MHO.
No flames please.