The website of CURA (University Centre for Astrological Research) is a kind of on-line magazine. A collection of articles written by (mainly) academics, edited by Dr. Patrice Guinard. The site is not particularly current, most articles seem to originate from the late 1990s and early 21st century, but this does not detract from the value of content.
The main thing I gained from picking here and there amongst the articles on CURA is that I am not alone in my way of thinking about astrology. Greater and vastly more experienced minds than mine have experienced reservations similar to my own .
Dr Patrice Guinard, in "Some Aphorisms on Astrology" says, among many other things-
http://cura.free.fr/16aphor.html
"Utility, the pragmatist criterion, is not the ultimate criterion of Truth (if it were, there wouldn't be something that could be called truth). The modern practitioner tells us he is just a pragmatist: "it works!". In reality, he is just an imitator, not even imitating what he would have learned through actual research into the past, but merely imitating modernist books and translations which have fallen, accidently, before his eyes.
5.2 Contemporary astrologers, and also the majority of astrologers of the past, are doing nothing other than what they were told to do. They are purely imitative in their attitude. Astrologers are doing, in general, only what they have learned to do. I don't care to justify what astrologers are doing in general. Sociology exists for that purpose! If astrology is not more than a field for latter day believers, then let's get rid of it!
5.5 Astrology is not what astrologers are doing, but rather something that lies beyond them. And that is fortunate for astrology! Astrology will probably recover its prestige when a majority of astrologers will let it.
5.6 Such a thing as a 'well-established tradition of astrological practice' does not really exist at all! Each astrologer, each school, has his own one.
5.7 Nothing in reality neither was nor is actually 'working very well', except the feeling on the part of the astrologers that it does.
and
5.13 Continuing to interpret charts with the only poor 'pseudo-symbolic' thought which modern astrologers generally take as thought, is not doing astrology, but a part of the modern 'Show' -- or the space in which the Show allows "astrologers" to define their act as astrology. No reflection upon astrology is valid if it is not correlated with a reflection upon society & culture!
7.5 The study of the history of astrology is crucial, for this study must lead not to the understanding of what we think astrology is, but to the understanding of what the astrologers of the past believed astrology was and why they thought it was such.
7.6 We will not discover in past astrology what astrology is, but rather, why the past models of astrology have failed. We will have to understand astrology by ourselves, on our own, because we are not the Greeks, nor the Assyrians.
7.8 The study of the historical past of astrology is not for crystallizing a supposedly correct and definitive astrology, but for understanding astrology's failures and deficiencies (because all predictive methods in the astrology of the past have always failed), and for showing the degree to which the inconsistent modern practices of astrology are in fact, today, dependent on these very failures and deficiencies. To seek the past mainly serves the purpose of purging it!
7.11 It is as absurd to believe that one could practice a supposedly authentic hellenistic astrology, as it is to believe that it is possible to invent alone, in a vacuum, the future astrology of the 21st and 22nd centuries, without knowing what the astrologers of the past had done, and why they appear to have failed.
7.12 It could be that the ancient material and rules are invalid. Then the task is to find the logic underlying this material, which could lead us to a new vision of astrology which is compatible with modern thought. " (End of quote)
The last paragraph is especially significant. Some ancient rules may indeed be invalid.
ALL ancient rules COULD be invalid - but we are still left with something which many people can see working - not all the time, not in every circumstance or in every personality, but with sufficient regularity for them to retain interest and enthusiasm for astrology. This means that SOME ancient rules do work for some of the time - in any case they are the only rules we have.
Glancing around a few sites today, a couple of things grated on my astrological sensitivities.
I wondered how long it would be before someone hawked out the Eris/Ceres thing with regard to Nancy Pelosi and/or Mrs. Clinton. Sigh. Someone has!
Someone else has noted that Nancy Pelosi's Mars is at the same degree as fixed star Algol.
The ancient belief that Algol is seriously malefic still persists. Thousands of people walk the earth with Algol prominent in their charts and do not experience as much as a bruise or broken bone in their lifetimes, let alone a beheading or violent death. For Pete's sake people - get real!!! Some astrologer in ancient times noted that one of his clients had this fixed star prominent in their natal chart. That client suffered a bad end. Maybe even two of his clients had the same fate. End of story.
One man crosses a road, is hit by a truck. Billions of others cross the same road safely.
I'm still very wet behind my astrological ears, but I can see silliness when I encounter it.
Come on, astrologers - open your eyes !! Something IS going on, no doubt about that, but you do need to acknowledge that : 1) You are not all-knowing repositories of ancient truths. And 2) Astrology badly needs an overhaul. Some of the bigger names in popular astrology could lead the way - if they were brave enough to do so. Academics such as Dr. Guinard et al will never influence enough of the population at large. Popular astrologers hold sway. Who among them is brave enough to be in the avant garde of a New Rational Astrology ??
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