At the Lodge - 7 July 2003

Lodge Lecture | Members' Classes | Charts Discussion

Lodge Lecture

Kim Farnell treated us to a lecture on the History of Astro-Meteorology. This astrological discipline has a long tradition. Aristotle and Plato were the first to comment on the technique. For Plato, meteorological forecasting, along with botanical and medical astrology, was part of of 'natural' astrology, which he called a universal science, as opposed to judicial astrology, which concerned itself with humans and was seen as a lesser form of the art.

Among Arab astrologers, Al Kindi, who's work was republished in 2000, appears to be the authority on astrological meteorology, while in the West, famous men like Tycho Brahe and his student Kepler concerned themselves with astrological weather forecasts, using signs, houses and aspects. In the 17th century, Dr. John Goad based his forecasts solely on the aspects, disregarding even the signs.

With the industrial revolution came an increasing obsession with data collection, which later led to a whole succession of meteorological societies in the 19th century, who officially condemned astrological weather forecasting. Patrick Murphy, who predicted a great storm in 1838, used lunar cycles and other astrological methods, though.

The best known weather forecaster was Robert Fitzroy, better known under his astrologer name Zadkiel The lunarist Stephen Sacksby was also quite successful, basing his forecasts on lunar cycles exclusively. After 1867, there were no official, government endorsed forecasts anymore and again, lunarists were having a great time.

In the 20th century, astrological weather forecasting was completely abandoned, but in the nineties, even our scientists recognised the influence of sunspots and planetary alignments on the weather. While their 'scientific' methods start becoming shaky after three days and even more so in five-day forecasts, an astrologer versed in the method can produce a forecast for any time in the future. In these forecasts, one does not only consider the day in question, but starts out with the last cardinal ingress and works one's way via the lunations towards the day itself.

At the end of her lecture, Kim gave a forecast for Tuesday, 8th July: A heavy atmosphere, quite warm with a slight breeze, mostly dry, but with a chance of a few drops of rain here and there. And guess what? She was right!

Helene Schnitzer

Members' Classes

Members Classes was postponed this week due to unforeseen circumstances

Charts Discussion

We were treated to a variety of charts this week. Mavis put up the chart of Philip Larkin who was obsessed with death. Claire put up the charts of the UK, the Euro and the European Union. It does not look as though we will be diving into change at any speed.

Then we looked at the chart of Spencer Tracy in relation to Katherine Hepburn and finally we paid tribute to Barry White, who appeared to have died around his second Saturn return.

Gill Dorren

Lodge Lecture | Members' Classes | Charts Discussion