The Need for Traditional Astrology

by Olivia Barclay, Q.H.P.

Transcript of the Carter Memorial lecture delivered at the 1996 Exeter Conference of the Astrological Association.

There were some fine great trees blown down in the storm of 1987 and that is a bit how I feel about western traditional astrology. It is like some huge oak tree or redwood tree, but we brought down in the storms of the last three centuries. Its roots are still there, buried in antiquity, but we have cut it off from its roots. We said, 'So let's prune it back and graft bits of it onto some new saplings, like one called psychology, or one called science, or better still we could cut it up for firewood'.
However, the main tree could still be rescued if any would take the trouble to recapture it and study it. We could rediscover it, despite current confusion.By traditional astrology, I mean that great canon of knowledge that has been built up over the thousands of years. It consists of Mundane, Horary, Nativities and Elections. My reason for studying the works of the past is try to improve our techniques today. It isn't just because the work is old, or because we want to carry on parrot fashion, it is because the astrology and the old astrologers can teach us. Astrology is the study of the action of spirit through the medium of heavenly bodies, on material matter of this earth, or as Cardan, the famous sixteenth century astrologer said in my favourite aphorism, 'Heaven is the Instrument of the Most High God whereby he acts upon and Governs Inferior Things'.
Whether you believe in the Most High God or whether you call him Universal Force or Energy, you should realise that you should be studying those laws that show the pattern of existence of everything there is. You should not be studying something recently thought up on the spur of the moment by someone who called himself an astrologer or psychologist. It is for us to find out those universal laws, and to strive to decipher their code, and penetrate their meaning and purpose, not to invent hypothetical methods for the sake of publicity or prestige.
There have been many such unfounded inventions during this century which have lead to distortions of the truth. We have been losing much that is of value. People have felt free to invent and add whatever they like, even when they have no idea of what was already known in the old astrology. The changes have caused confusion. Some people have invented ideas to make astrology more acceptable, some to make it simpler, and some for the sake of talking about something new. The trouble is that when someone invents a new idea, someone comes along and invents a contradictory one, and then everybody is thrown into confusion because few have studied the foundations of our art sufficiently to know which, of all the variations put before them, is the correct one.
As Robert Hand said in the Foreword to my book which is called 'Horary Astrology Rediscovered', so much has been invented that everything at anytime can mean everything, so then nothing means anything'. I agreed with Rob Hand, the plethora of inventions has defeated its own end. He suggests we need more what he calls rigour in our use of symbols, which I interpret to mean that we should have an exact knowledge of their meaning. That should be our first step.
Have you ever considered that 1,500 years ago Palchus, for one, could, with his astrology, answer a straight question with a straight answer. William Lilly and his contemporaries could do that in the seventeenth century and they explained to us how to do it, but no, we must add and invent and manoeuvre until our words sound obscure and meaningless. We speak in euphemisms, forgetting to look for the nub of the matter.
As you know, I teach a course in horary. And that is a very practical art. One virtue of it is that when you are asked a question you have to give an answer that can be seen to be true. You cannot waffle. It is a very good test of astrology. If your answer is correct you are on the right track. You know you can drive your car because you consistently reach your destination safely. But there is a great difference between driving a car and just talking about one like a car salesman. You have to know from practical experience what the accelerator is for, and you mustn't listen to your false instructor. There are at present many more people talking about astrology than actually doing practical work. I am reminded of Lilly's words in his introduction to Bonatus' 'Anima Astrologiae' when he says the book is 'for those honest students who study Art to discover truth and not to vapour with it'.
No doubt there are many motives that drive us to study astrology. My own motive was to find clear evidence that the movement of heavenly bodies affected life on earth, or that some synchronicity between them. My motive was not prediction, and yet prediction supplies evidence. Astrology has always been concerned with prediction, although we seldom hear a serious prediction nowadays except from the weathermen. The ancient ability to predict grew from such observations, I believe, as the yearly heliacal rising of Sirius coincided with the rising of the Nile. In early days, astronomy and astrology were one, astronomy the study of physical reality and astrology the interpretation of its meaning. Observation of nature seems to have been much keener in those days and consequently they had an awareness of beauty which was considered, in Greece at least, an expression of the inner spirit.
I would like to mention some great astrologers of the past who have much to teach us. It is absurd that their work has been so ignored, just because they lived in a different culture from ours where they were not immersed in materialism and which held different standards. Presumably most of you subscribe to Project Hindsight. This is an organization once headed by Rob Hand, committed to the colossal task of translating into English all the authoritative works of past astrologers. One of the most notable in my opinion is the book by Paulus Alexandrinus written in 378 AD and now translated into English for the first time. It was significant to see that Paulus differed from Ptolemy in allocating the rulership of the water triplicity by day to Venus. But how can the average astrologer of today, unfamiliar with the Tables of Dignities of the planets, appreciate these differences, or assess the value of Alexandrinus' work at all. To do so you must first understand the traditional methods he is discussing. And that is where there is a great gap in the knowledge of the majority of present day astrologers.
Apart from the linguistic efforts of Project Hindsight, it is very important that Graeme Tobyn has started a 'Latin for Astrologers' group in London. Here is a group of experienced astrologers who are translating directly from Latin. I am going to ask Graeme Tobyn very shortly to translate a few lines from Junctinus so that you can hear how beautiful and concise the old astrology was. And if you can speak Latin you must let Graeme know.
It is true that we do have a few early books already in English which we can study. For instance, you can buy 'The Astronomica' by Manilius, who lived about the time of Christ. This is a beautiful epic poem describing the beliefs of that era, including the fact that the Earth is a sphere. The book is published by Loeb. It contains the earliest description I know of, of the houses, showing that by that date they had emerged from a more primitive astrology where luminaries and angles had been emphasised. The houses were called by name not by numbers, as you can also find in the Tetrabiblos written less than a century later.