Author: Prof. Suitbert ErtelAbstract: Keywords: Gauquelin, planetary effects, attribution, parental tampering, birth count, DeanNotes:Publication: Correlation Journal of Research in AstrologyIssue: Volume 23 Nubmer 2Dated: 2006Pages: 58 – 61

The original Cosmic Loom emerged from Unwin Hyman in 1987, with an imposing hardback cover. It became an immediate classic or seminal text on astrology, although it was never a best selling astrology book. Why? Perhaps, as one reviewer in Considerations put it, ‘the non-thinking (astrologer) had better leave it alone’. And the original review in the Astrological Journal was equally emphatic, ‘cuts across almost all current developments in astrology and leaves few of today’s fashionable positions and approaches unscathed… brilliant studies.. a mind of inestimable value at the present stage of astrology’s development’.

Dennis Elwell dealt out his perspective on what astrology is, what it does and how it permeates our daily lives in a way which puts astrology first, and human schools of thought about astrology last. He made enemies, yet several non-astrologers who have read the original book think it the best non-jargon and ‘plain languaged’ book on the subject yet. 1 think these original reviewers were right. Our subject is top heavy with jargon, filled with theories, complications and medieval hangovers following astrology’s time underground, partying away from the scientific rationalists. Elwell doles out astrological truths in a refreshingly straight way. Elwell’s main theme is that of ‘multicongruence’, the author’s term for ‘many things in agreement’. The tendency for certain things and conditions to co-occur because they belong together at a higher, unmanifest level. The original Loom contained many examples of this phenomenon, but the revised edition bulges with exceptional examples of multicongruence, and Elwell defines several forms of the effect, using non-nonsense terms like event level, content level and intent level. Then the author identifies another facet when several features in a person’s chart all point to the same circumstance. I’ve often heard this called the ‘rule of three’ by astrologers, but here Elwefl delineates the effect with a stunning (and Royal) example. Finally, the author identifies a form of multicongruence which he claims could more than squash -the sceptics of astrology – the effect when several people all become involved in the same event and it turns out that they all share similar chart features. Again, the author walks his talk with extremely well thought out Royal examples. So Elwell is back in town, and whoever in the UT initiated the reprint of Cosmic Loom had insight and, 1 think, commercial acumen, for this book deserves to become one of the all time best books on what astrology actually is.

Whilst reading through the UT edition, 1 recognised that we have so few books that deal with the philosophy of astrology. Elwell quotes Charles Harvey in Mundane Astrologv, ‘we are going to need to develop ways of ‘considering the future interweaving of ‘whole hierarchies of cycles and charts rather than treating them in isolation as we do at present. How this is done effectively is one of the great challenges of the next few years.’ The new material which the author provides for us takes multicongruence and sits it on the top of the astrological agenda for anyone who wishes to break free from charts in isolation or the computerised cause and effect that astrology has become in so many quarters. As the back cover reminds us, ‘All genuine knowledge confers an advantage, and this stuff is positively dangerous’. If this sounds over-dramatic, Elwell backs it up.. and here’s a brief example.

The material on the appalling Dunblane shootings, through Dennis’ detective-like abilities to spot multicongruence, are shown to be inextricably woven on the Cosmic Loom with the earlier Ryan shooting in Hungerford. The Royal Arnoury in Leeds, was opened by the Queen two days after the shooting, and it has the exact midpoint latitude of the two locations, which sent goose-bumps up this reviewers back. If that’s spooky, Elwell’s uptuming of the name Harnilton and Dunblane at the other locations is positively weird. Yet, it isn’t, for this is how astrological event horizons are shown to work, and Elwell goes through the chart of that time with precision expertise, leaving any competent astrologer in no doubt what the Cosmic Loom is weaving. Similarly, the material on the Titanic (ship-wreck and film linked) and the mysterious death of Diana, Princess of Wales (an outstanding piece of astrological research) rounds off a new final chapter, The Far Edge, of a book which must be read by any astrologer who wonders what the astrological effect actually is and how it operates.

The Urania Trust has also broken with the hard-back productions of recent years, and this edition of the Cosmic Loom is decidedly more elegant and attractive as a paperback. I feel drawn to again quote Charles Harvey, who, in a 1etter to this reviewer concerning another book, said, ‘I do hope the enterprising publisher will get it the distribution it deserves..’ This is so relevant to the UT with Elwell’s masterpiece.

Dennis Elwell has been with astrology for over half a century. He is undoubtedly one of the subject’s most original thinkers and has clearly studied esoteric and scientific material. In places, his strong opinions take an undue emphasis which takes away from some of his important lines of argument. But, perhaps paradoxically, his work shows how much humility we need when approaching the evolutionary process as seen through astrology and the Cosmic Loom. The author is not over-kind to several other schools of astrology, notably sun-sign astrologers and psychological astrology, and remains somewhat of a lone-wolf, a maverick, which is an understandable though probably necessary shame. But with the reprinting of the Cosmic Loom, astrologers have the opportunity to meet Dennis Elwell head-on, to be knocked out of a rut, and to give themselves an astrological work-out. This book really is a second coming for astrologers. If you missed it first time round, buy a copy and lend it to all your sceptical friends. If you already have a copy of the original, pat yourself on the back for your discernment – but you really do deserve this new enlarged edition. It’s a popsy.

Reviewed by Robin Heath

Archaeoastronomy is a complex discipline. Even though its origins date back to William Stukeley’s survey of Stonehenge in the 1720s, its modern history is essentially thirty-five years old, commencing principally with Gerald Hawkins’ Stonehenge Decoded (1965), with its debt to Peter Newham’s work, and Alexander Thom’s Megalithic Sites in Britain (1967). Since then the discipline has seen an initial rejection by archaeologists, changing to a brief flurry of interest as the sheer depth of Thom’s work became clear, followed by a final rejection. An academic discipline of archaeoastronomy is now emerging which largely rejects both Hawkins’ and Thom’s theories, leaving their theories to what, for want of a better term, we know as ‘alternative’ archaeoastronomy. However, the ‘academic’ v ‘alternative’ polarity is compounded by another, which is equally deep and often more bitter; the clash between astronomical and archaeological methodologies. Both make claims to being exact sciences – and each challenges the others’ claims to a monopoly of truth. The fundamental difference between the two is that astronomy is often unable to test its hypotheses under controlled conditions and instead frequently relies on mathematical proofs, while archaeology relies on the analysis of artefacts from the past which can be weighed, measured and, roughly, dated, but often with little real idea of the cultural context from which they emerged. Hence, while astronomers have made claims on Stonehenge’s age which have later been overturned, as did Norman Lockyer in the 1900s, archaeologists have also utterly misunderstood the site’s history. When Jacquetta Hawkes, subsequently a leading opponent of archaeoastronomy, wrote confidently in 1945 that British megaliths were based on Mediterranean models, (1945:16) she had no idea that the British sites were later shown to be much older and that her self-assurance was not partially, but completely and utterly misplaced. Thus we can predict that archaeologists will not like Heath’s latest book. That is not to say that there is not much in it that they could learn from.

Heath has set himself the task of maintaining the Thom/Hawkins position, namely that Stonehenge, and many other megaliths, were precisely designed to measure not just the solstices, but lunar standstills, eclipses and some stellar risings, all quite reasonable hypotheses to any simple observational astronomer. Like Thom he is an amateur astronomer and professional engineer and he works from the same mathematical principles, placing a higher emphasis on the structure of megalithic monuments than the nature or dating of associated artefacts. His is the big picture.

Heath’s Stonehenge is simple structured with simple one page ‘chapters’, all with an illustration on the facing page. In fifty-six pages of text he describes some of the main features of Stonehenge’s history together with theories about its origins and function, including its location in the immediate landscape, its orientation with the Preselli hills (home of the ‘bluestones’) and the significance of its latitude. He includes other researchers’ theories, such as Guy Underwood’s dowsing experiments, and his own, such as the ‘lunation triangle’ (covered in more detail in his Sun, Moon and Stonehenge 1998), and covers some features of the site’s construction which are uncontroversial (the erection of the stones) and others which are more radical (Fred Hoyle’s simpler and in some ways fundamentally different version of Hawkins’ eclipse predictor theory).

Heath’s writing is fluid, articulate and suffused with a very gentle wit, and his latest contribution to the ever-expanding corpus of literature on Stonehenge is an ideal introduction for the ignorant and a valuable aide-memoire for the cognoscienti.

Reviewed by
Nick Campion

Georg Joachim Rheticus (1514-1574) was central to the development and popularization of Copernicus’ heliocentric theory. He is most well known for the first published account of the theory, the Narratio Prima in 1539, and his persuasion in obtaining Copernicus’ manuscript for publication, De Revolutionibus (1543). Rheticus’ poem ‘Concerning the Beer of Breslau and the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac’, written circa 1542, sheds light on two aspects of Rheticus’ early involvement with the heliocentric theory. The poem helps us understand the approach to astrology which would prove decisive in Rheticus’ acceptance of the heliocentric theory and offers a glimpse into Rheticus’ association with Wittenberg’s controversial group of young poets. This relationship significantly injured Rheticus’ career and the heliocentric theory in turn

This paper analyzes the role of Israel Hiebner’s Mysterium Sigillorum (1651) in the astrological reform program of late seventeenth-century English astrologers. Hiebner was a professor of astronomy and mathematics at Erfurt, and the translation of his tract into English in 1698 was considered to be a landmark event among reforming and scientific astrologers such as Henry Coley and John Gadbury. In the face of astrology’s declining reputation among learned elites, Coley and Gadbury wished to cleanse their discipline of superstitious dross and illustrate it was ‘experimentally true’ via Baconian induction as well as by incorporation of discoveries in astronomy and natural philosophy. Hiebner’s insistence on accurate planetary observations in making astrological sigils, his use of maps in Hevelius’ Selenographia as guides in stamping his medical amulets, as well as his detailed and precise lists of ascendant planetary aspects thus was appealing to these astrological reformers. This paper also analyzes the role of the Mysterium Sigillorum in the ‘English Sigil War,’ a larger debate that existed among astrological physicians and natural philosophy about the role of these medals in medical healing.

The influence of significant strands of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century esoteric thought on the surrealist movement has often been noted, though has been little studied. Part 1 of this paper summarises current opinions on the esoteric interests of the surrealists in general and André Breton in particular. Part 2 includes an interview with Breton on astrology conducted by Jean Carteret and Roger Knare in 1954 and published in the French astrology journal L’Astrologue in 1968, reproduced by permission of André Barbault

This study looks at whether the moon can influence daily levels of
stress. Four years of telephone-call frequency data were obtained from a single crisis-call centre. The method of lunar-day numbers 1 to 29 was used for analysis. We tested the concept of ‘strong moons’ as occurring when the Syzygy was near to the lunar-node axis. This is the only study published of crisis calls versus the lunar cycle that scored calls from men and women separately. An increase in calls was recorded from females during the New Moon period, suggesting a sex difference in response, and there was a smaller peak in calls by men two weeks later. A swing of comparable magnitude in the male/female call-ratio on a weekly basis, over Fridays and Saturdays, was also present in the data. Limitations of staffing at the call-centre prohibited any comment on seasonal correlations. Without separating these calls by sex, the lunar effect would have been more or
less invisible. Distress-calls by women were more strongly linked to the lunar month than were those by men.

Astrology and Astronomy have been present in the history of Brazil since its ‘discovery’ – the Brazilian flag was designed according to astronomical (and astrological) standards. This paper will look at the astrology of our native people. There has been significant progress in studies on Brazilian ethno-astronomy, especially on the astronomical lore of the Guarani nation. Lastly, the paper will provide an overview of Astrology in Brazil today as an accepted academic subject, as a profession and as a professional help for businesses.

The type of thinking employed in astrology is at root non-positivistic and metaphorical, a combination which, as a study in-itself, is academically acceptable only as a literary, poetic or imaginative exercise. Treated as a mode of knowledge this thinking is usually denigrated as a leftover remnant of naive idealism or worse still, occultism. There therefore exists an abyss between the prevailing epistemology and astrologers who understand that their practice concerns real knowledge of the world. Can – and should – the academy bridge the gap, or will the astrologers tumble into it?

An academy is defined as a higher or specialised school, or a society for the promotion of science or art. Rooted in Plato¹s Athens and continuing through the Renaissance to the present day, the academy has always conjured images of a select group of scholars devoted to the exploration of what Plato called “the eternal realities”. But any such group constellates innate and archetypal tensions, not with the “outside world” but also with similar groups each of which may feel it has the “only” claim to knowledge, thus generating inevitable psychological repercussions, both problematic and creative.