Book Library

Author: Roy G. Willis
Publisher: Berg Publishers
ISBN: 9781859736876
Size: 44.41 MB
Format: PDF, ePub, Mobi
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 170
View: 2462

Book Description: Mainstream science has long dismissed astrology as a form of primitive superstition, despite or perhaps even because of its huge popular interest. From daily horoscopes to in-depth and personalized star forecasts, astrology, for many, plays a crucial role in the organization of everyday life. Present-day scholars and scientists remain baffled as to why this pseudo-science exercises such control over supposedly modern, rational and enlightened individuals, yet so far they have failed to produce any meaningful analysis of why it impacts on so many lives and what lies behind its popular appeal. Moving beyond scientific scepticism, Astrology, Science and Culture finally fills the gap by probing deeply into the meaning and importance of this extraordinary belief system. From the dawn of pre-history, humankind has had an intimate connection with the stars. With its roots in the Neolithic culture of Europe and the Middle East, astrology was traditionally heralded as a divinatory language. Willis and Curry argue that, contrary to contemporary understanding including that of most astrologers astrology was originally, and remains, a divinatory practice. Tackling its rich and controversial history, its problematic relationship to Jungian theory, and attempts to prove its grounding in objective reality, this book not only persuasively demonstrates that astrology is far more than a superstitious relic of years gone by, but that it enables a fundamental critique of the scientism of its opponents. Groundbreaking in its reconciliation of astrologys ancient traditions and its modern day usage, this book impressively unites philosophy, science, anthropology, and history, to produce a powerful exploration of astrology, past and present.

Author: Roy Willis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000183599
Size: 75.21 MB
Format: PDF, Docs
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 176
View: 2991

Book Description: Mainstream science has long dismissed astrology as a form of primitive superstition, despite or perhaps even because of its huge popular interest. From daily horoscopes to in-depth and personalized star forecasts, astrology, for many, plays a crucial role in the organization of everyday life. Present-day scholars and scientists remain baffled as to why this pseudo-science exercises such control over supposedly modern, rational and enlightened individuals, yet so far they have failed to produce any meaningful analysis of why it impacts on so many lives and what lies behind its popular appeal. Moving beyond scientific scepticism, Astrology, Science and Culture finally fills the gap by probing deeply into the meaning and importance of this extraordinary belief system. From the dawn of pre-history, humankind has had an intimate connection with the stars. With its roots in the Neolithic culture of Europe and the Middle East, astrology was traditionally heralded as a divinatory language. Willis and Curry argue that, contrary to contemporary understanding including that of most astrologers astrology was originally, and remains, a divinatory practice. Tackling its rich and controversial history, its problematic relationship to Jungian theory, and attempts to prove its grounding in objective reality, this book not only persuasively demonstrates that astrology is far more than a superstitious relic of years gone by, but that it enables a fundamental critique of the scientism of its opponents. Groundbreaking in its reconciliation of astrologys ancient traditions and its modern day usage, this book impressively unites philosophy, science, anthropology, and history, to produce a powerful exploration of astrology, past and present.

Author: Roy Willis, Ph.D.
Publisher: Berg Pub Limited
ISBN:
Size: 27.83 MB
Format: PDF
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 170
View: 3314

Book Description: Mainstream science has long dismissed astrology as a form of primitive superstition, despite or perhaps even because of its huge popular interest. From daily horoscopes to in-depth and personalized star forecasts, astrology, for many, plays a crucial role in the organization of everyday life. Present-day scholars and scientists remain baffled as to why this pseudo-science exercises such control over supposedly modern, rational and enlightened individuals, yet so far they have failed to produce any meaningful analysis of why it impacts on so many lives and what lies behind its popular appeal. Moving beyond scientific scepticism, Astrology, Science and Culture finally fills the gap by probing deeply into the meaning and importance of this extraordinary belief system. From the dawn of pre-history, humankind has had an intimate connection with the stars. With its roots in the Neolithic culture of Europe and the Middle East, astrology was traditionally heralded as a divinatory language. Willis and Curry argue that, contrary to contemporary understanding including that of most astrologers astrology was originally, and remains, a divinatory practice. Tackling its rich and controversial history, its problematic relationship to Jungian theory, and attempts to prove its grounding in objective reality, this book not only persuasively demonstrates that astrology is far more than a superstitious relic of years gone by, but that it enables a fundamental critique of the scientism of its opponents. Groundbreaking in its reconciliation of astrologys ancient traditions and its modern day usage, this book impressively unites philosophy, science, anthropology, and history, to produce a powerful exploration of astrology, past and present.

Author: Paul Cheshire
Publisher: Romantic Reconfigurations: Studies in Literature and Culture 1780-1850
ISBN: 1786941201
Size: 73.48 MB
Format: PDF, ePub, Mobi
Category : English poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 272
View: 5189

Book Description: William Gilbert, poet, theosophist and astrologer, published The Hurricane: A Theosophical and Western Eclogue in Bristol in 1796, while he was on intimate terms with key members of Bristol literary culture: Coleridge published an extract from The Hurricane in his radical periodical The Watchman; Robert Southey wrote of the poem's 'passages of exquisite Beauty'; and William Wordsworth praised and quoted a long passage from Gilbert's poem in The Excursion. The Hurricane is a copiously annotated 450 line blank verse visionary poem set on the island of Antigua where, in 1763, Gilbert was born into a slave-owning Methodist family. The poem can be grouped with other apocalyptic poems of the 1790s - Blake's Continental Prophecies, Coleridge's Religious Musings, Southey's Joan of Arc - all of which gave a spiritual interpretation to the dramatic political upheavals of their time. William Gilbert and Esoteric Romanticism presents the untold story of Gilbert's progress from the radical occultist circles of 1790s London to his engagement with the first generation Romantics in Bristol. At the heart of the book is the first modern edition of The Hurricane, fully annotated to reveal the esoteric metaphysics at its core, followed by close interpretative analysis of this strange elusive poem.

Author: Nicholas Campion
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443895482
Size: 76.75 MB
Format: PDF, Docs
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 315
View: 2390

Book Description: Astrology is the practice of relating the heavenly bodies to lives and events on earth, and the tradition that has thus been generated. Many cultures worldwide have practised it in some form. In some it is rudimentary, in others complex. Culture and scholarship have categorised it as both belief and science, as a form of magic, divination or religious practice – but in many ways it defies easy categorisation. The chapters in this volume make a significant contribution to our understanding of astrology across a range of periods of cultures. Based on papers presented at the annual conference of the Sophia Centre held in 2012, the contributions range from China and Japan, through India, the ancient Near East, the classical world and early modern Europe, to Madagascar and Mesoamerica. The different topics include ritual and religion, magic and science, calendars and time, and questions of textual transmission and methodology. Astrology in Time and Place is essential reading for all interested in the history of humanity’s relationship with the cosmos.

Author: George Sarton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Size: 50.51 MB
Format: PDF, ePub, Mobi
Category : Civilization, Ancient
Languages : en
Pages :
View: 7675

Book Description: No more published. Bibliographical footnotes. Bibliography: v. 1, p. [615]; v. 2, p. 528. [1] Ancient science through the Golden Age of Greece.--[2] Hellenistic science and culture in the last three centuries B.C.

Author: Dr Nicholas Campion
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409461491
Size: 26.98 MB
Format: PDF, ePub, Docs
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 224
View: 6362

Book Description: This book explores an area of contemporary religion, spirituality and popular culture which has not so far been investigated in depth, the phenomenon of astrology in the modern west. Locating modern astrology historically and sociologically in its religious, New Age and millenarian contexts, Nicholas Campion considers astrology's relation to modernity and draws on extensive fieldwork and interviews with leading modern astrologers to present an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the origins and nature of New Age ideology. This book challenges the notion that astrology is either 'marginal' or a feature of postmodernism. Concluding that astrology is more popular than the usual figures suggest, Campion argues that modern astrology is largely shaped by New Age thought, influenced by the European Millenarian tradition, that it can be seen as an heir to classical Gnosticism and is part of the vernacular religion of the modern west.

Author: J. Agassi
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401729468
Size: 57.33 MB
Format: PDF, Kindle
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 416
View: 4935

Book Description: This work addresses scientism and relativism, two false philosophies that divorce science from culture in general and from tradition in particular. It helps break the isolation of science from the rest of culture by promoting popular science and reasonable history of science. It provides examples of the value of science to culture, discussions of items of the general culture, practical strategies and tools, and case studies. It is for practising professionals, political scientists and science policy students and administrators.

Author: Dr Patrick Curry
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409481131
Size: 61.92 MB
Format: PDF, ePub, Mobi
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 304
View: 5161

Book Description: Divination is any ritual and its associated tradition performed in order to ask a more-than-human intelligence for guidance. A universal human practice, it has received surprisingly little academic attention. This interdisciplinary collection by leading scholars in the field is dedicated to fascinating new insights into divination and oracles arising from recent work in anthropology, religious studies, history and classical studies. Central importance is given to the practical and theoretical perspectives of diviners as well as scholars of divination; several contributors are both. This book explores philosophical issues such as the nature of divinatory intelligence, the relationship between divinatory and metaphorical truth, the primacy of ontology over epistemology, the importance of reflexivity in scholarly studies of divination, and astrology as the principal Western form of divination. The ethnographic and historical examples range from contemporary Nigeria, urban Cuba, Mayan Guatemala and the shamanic cultures of the circumpolar Arctic to classical Greece and ancient Judea.

Author: Masayoshi Sugimoto
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN:
Size: 55.98 MB
Format: PDF, Mobi
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 498
View: 4680

Book Description: A reprint of the MIT Press edition of 1978 (which was no.6 in the MIT East Asian science series). Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Author: Nicholas Campion
Publisher: Granta Books
ISBN: 1783781718
Size: 79.89 MB
Format: PDF, ePub, Mobi
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages :
View: 389

Book Description: 'And God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years."' Genesis 1: 14 Astrology, the notion that the stars and planets hold significance for human life, exists in most cultures. It is evident in Stone Age lunar calendars dating back to 30,000 BCE. Today, 90 per cent of Indians consult astrologers about their forthcoming marriages while over 50 per cent of people in the West read their horoscopes in newspapers or magazines. How has this pre-Christian, pre-scientific view of the cosmos survived to the present day and what is its enduring appeal? Astrology's techniques and philosophical foundations are complex and there is no single tradition. Astrology may be seen as science, art, religion, craft or superstition. For most adherents it is either a path to self-understanding or an organizing principle that helps give purpose to an otherwise meaningless world. Nicholas Campion explores astrology's past and present, its claims and appeal, and explains what astrologers really believe.

Author: Stephen Pumfrey
Publisher:
ISBN:
Size: 50.41 MB
Format: PDF, Docs
Category : Europe
Languages : en
Pages : 331
View: 2498

Book Description: These essays, ranging widely across the cultural and geographical terrain of Renaissance Europe, have been specifically written by 12 established scholars from Italy, France, Britain, and North America, who review for general readers, and advance for those beginning research, the current understanding of traditional disciplines and practices and the emerging empirical and mathematical science. Distributed in the US and Canada by St. Martin's. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR