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Understanding the History of Astrology (And Magic) Accurately

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Understanding the History of Astrology (And Magic) Accurately 42 ARTICLES Understanding the History of Astrology working on this material has inspired these reflections and I sincerely hope that others (and Magic) Accurately: Methodological will find them useful. The entire process has Reflections on Terminology and Ana- unfolded as a series of increasingly refined approximations, tacking back and forth be- chronism tween big picture issues and detailed treat- H. Darrel Rutkin ments of particular people and institutions Unit for History and Philosophy of Science, within their broader socio-political and reli- University of Sydney gious contexts and structures, all of which (Australia) require focused attention. To grasp astrology accurately in its proper historical perspective, I have found 1. Introduction: Grinding that we should first identify and correct for New Conceptual Lenses two broader distorting modern biases drawn from a fundamentally anachronistic, yet still nderstanding the history of astrol- virtually ubiquitous understanding of astrol- ogy accurately as 20th- and 21st- ogy’s complex range of places within the century historians of science, phi- premodern map of knowledge. Since the Ulosophy, religion, politics and culture poses various focuses of conceptual lenses seem a complex range of challenges—conceptual mainly to be ground, as it were, on the basis and contextual—some of which will be ex- of fundamental distinctions and disciplinary plored in what follows. Many more will be configurations, I will endeavor to replace explored in my soon to be forthcoming these outdated historiographical lenses with monograph, Reframing the Scientific Revolu- new more accurate ones, ground in accord- tion: Astrology, Magic and Natural Know- ance with three fundamental premodern ledge, ca. 1250-1800, volume I of which, conceptual structures. Structures: 1250-1500, will soon see the light Before we can see more clearly, however, of day.1 The twenty some-odd years of we must first remove the distorting older spectacles. To know both which lenses dis- tort and how to properly grind new ones, we 1 This essay is very deliberately lightly footnoted. must be keenly aware of when we are using There should be enough information in the text to track down every relevant source. Otherwise, I give actors’ categories and when we are imposing more specific information in the footnotes. Many of modern distinctions on the past. Getting the the references can also be found in my Astrology, in right focus is particularly difficult when past The Cambridge History of Science, Vol. 3: Early Mo- disciplinary configurations resonate strongly dern Science, eds. L. Daston and K. Park, Cambridge, with modern assumptions and/or preju- Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 541-61, and in dices, which we then tend—usually uncon- my monograph. sciously—to read back into the past. I hope PHILOSOPHICAL READINGS ISSUE VII – NUMBER 1 – SPRING 2015 MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE ASTROLOGY 43 that the analysis adumbrated here and de- within the Hermetic and/or Esoteric tradi- veloped in detail in my monograph will pro- tions as well.2 vide a new more accurate prescription for Whether called the Hermetic, Occult or use in future investigations, allowing us to Esoteric traditions, which are essentially see in sharper focus both the broader pat- progressive variations on a theme, the same terns and the many specific details of past strictures apply. Accurately historicizing conceptual and disciplinary structures re- these terms is required, but very difficult to lated to the history of astrology. Therefore, achieve, especially if we are dealing with a close attention to the range of terminology broader audience or one of non-specialists, and its respective conceptual referents will that is, most readers. At this point, my sug- be a central concern in what follows. gestion is to reject these overarching fram- ing terms altogether, at least for the present, unless they are properly delimited and 2. Deconstruction solidly historicized, as in the introduction to Daniel Stolzenberg’s recent Egyptian Oedi- will first simply—and proscrip- pus: Athanasius Kircher and the Secrets of An- tively—identify two of the more tiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago problematic conceptual structures Press, 2013). pervadingI the historiography that should be In my view, our understanding is funda- removed (or at least set aside) at the very mentally compromised and/or distorted by beginning. First, a fundamentally anachro- predisposing it from the very beginning in a nistic disciplinary configuration. In modern way that deeply influences and orients both scholarship, astrology is almost always a broad range of further assumptions and the closely associated with the other so-called related ‘natural’ questions to ask, especially ‘occult sciences’, especially magic, alchemy when some sort of deeper unity (if not and the kaballah, as we find it in numerous fundamental identity) among these disci- influential studies by (among others) Wayne plines is also assumed. This is particularly Shumaker, Brian Vickers and Brian Copen- problematic when modern scholars begin by haver. This presumed configuration with the assuming—as in Keith Thomas’s classic Re- occult sciences is, although not entirely mis- ligion and the Decline of Magic—that astrol- taken, deeply problematic conceptually— ogy is somehow a part or subset of magic. unless skillfully nuanced—when applied to astrology ca. 1250-1800. For similar reasons, the same applies for including astrology 2 Frances Yates coined the term <<Hermetic Tradi- tion,>> which has since been severely criticized. An- toine Faivre, Wouter Hanegraaff and Kocku von Stu- ckrad are three of the most significant writers who have brought the “Esoteric Tradition” to prominence. ISSUE VII – NUMBER 1 – SPRING 2015 PHILOSOPHICAL READINGS 44 ARTICLES For now, we will simply not make any as- entiarum (III.4).3 We find it in a recog- sumptions along these lines, highlighting as- nizable form, however, in Rule IX of the In- trology’s configuration with other disci- dex of Prohibited Books from 1564 on. plines as a question to ask and historicize ra- In normal premodern usage, all astrologi- ther than an assumption to make a priori, cal predictions—whether relating to a per- based on our modern (or postmodern) map son’s nativity or revolution, the weather, of knowledge with its characteristic concep- medicine or political events—were called tual and disciplinary structures. We should astrological judgments (iudicia), and thus in verify, refine or reject entirely this configu- some real sense may be called ‘judicial as- ration of astrology with the ‘occult sciences’ trology’. We can see this as early as the based on both its accuracy and its related 1260s in the Speculum astronomiae,4 but also utility for characterizing the premodern map in the work of Placido Titi, professor of as- of knowledge. The first steps in reconstruc- trology at the University of Pavia, who tion must be taken carefully, since the basic makes this very point (among others) in the patterns established early on become a foun- mid-17th century.5 Likewise, astrology’s cau- dation for all that follows. To shift the meta- sal ‘naturalness’ vis-à-vis its legitimacy (or phor again: as with conceptual lenses, each otherwise) will also be discussed extensively distortion tends to compound the next. To in my monograph. In the meantime, we will clarify these issues, I will explicitly discuss set this distinction aside along with astrol- astrology’s relationship to magic and divina- ogy’s configuration among the occult sci- tion by focusing on two paradigmatic prac- ences, removing them both (at least for the tices in particular: [1] predicting the future time being) from our interpretive frame- (in relation to divination), and [2] making images or talismans (in relation to magic). 3 The second conceptual structure to be set FRANCIS BACON, De augmentis scientiarum, in The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. J. Spedding et al., 14 aside and brought up for review is the vols., London: Longmans, 1857–74; repr. Stuttgart, equally pervasive historiographic distinction Frommann, 1963, 1: pp. 554–60. between ‘natural’ and ‘judicial’ astrology. 4 Secunda magna sapientia, quae similiter astronomia di- Although this may end up being a useful dis- citur, est scientia iudiciorum astrorum […] III.2-3 in the tinction, we must first clarify what it actually text with translation printed in PAOLA ZAMBELLI, means and trace its existence up to and be- The Speculum astronomiae and its Enigma: Astrology, Theology and Science in Albertus Magnus and his Con- yond its modern use in Ephraim Chamber’s temporaries, Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1992. Cyclopedia article “Astrology” of 1728 (162- 5 PLACIDO TITI, Tocco di paragone, ed. Giuseppe 63). By contrast, Francis Bacon did not use Bezza, Milan, Nuovi Orizzonti, 1992, ch. 6, «Il titolo this distinction in his 1623 proposals for di giudiciaria si conviene ad ogni scienza», pp. 50-54. astrological reform in the De augmentis sci- The Tocco di paragone was originally published in Pa- via in 1666. I discuss Titi in volume III of my mono- graph. PHILOSOPHICAL READINGS ISSUE VII – NUMBER 1 – SPRING 2015 MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE ASTROLOGY 45 work in order to assess their value. They properly orient what follows. The first will will not be missed, nor their consequent also require a digression on terminology and built-in confusions. By the end of volume II anachronism. of my monograph, we will have a much bet- The first conceptual structure involves ter sense of their
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