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

This paper will discuss the relevance of the ‘four levels of interpretation’ of medieval theology – literal, allegorical, moral, anagogical – to the teaching of astrology at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. In an educational system increasingly bound to positivist assumptions a way is required to lead students to a deeper perception, and experience, of the symbolic. This system unlocks the door to a hermeneutic of divination and magic relevant and accessible to beginners in this field, yet grounded in philosophical and theological tradition.

Two sets of data are analysed for the presence of solar-planet interactions and their relation to the presence of Gauquelin Effects. A statistically significant solar correlation with Jupiter is also demonstrated when the planet is also in a Gauquelin plus zone in one sample which is not composed of eminent people and does not show a Gauquelin Effect. Earlier results (Douglas 2006) are considered and the most likely conclusion is that the solar- and lunar-planet correlations are real but independent of the Gauquelin Effect.

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.

I would like to suggest a re-reading of the work of Pierre Bayle, concerning his assertions of the scientific status of History, and emphasizing in particular his critique of astrology in the writings dealing with comets which were translated into English in 1708. Those who have written about Bayle’s thinking have not understood that when Bayle deals with comets he is actually looking at the way they had been previously viewed by historian, and by religion. I therefore take the opposite standpoint to those who consider that Bayle’s proposals on comets are no more than a pretext through which to approach other subjects. Indeed it is better, I feel, to re-position Reflections on Comets in the line which we would call astro-history, and to place it closer to the critical work of Claude Duret, published in 1595, a century earlier. Speaking of pretexts, it must be understood that the debate on astrology and its effects on events is an integral part of a larger debate on History which is, at its heart, similar. Moreover, it is no accident that Bayle, from the opening pages of his Reflections, fiercely criticizes historians before even beginning to develop his critique of astrology. This critique is not as superficial as we might be led to believe; it involves a methodology which Bayle shows to us in great detail, and which aims less at traditional astrological knowledge, in which comets have a somewhat secondary role, than at those works which will not accept such a traditional view about astrology at all, except with certain reservations. In many cases, the word ‘comet’ can be replaced with any astral configuration without Bayle’s argument losing its pertinence.