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Astrology and Wisdom

By Robert Zoller

http://www.new-library.com/zoller/features

A New Library Publication

2nd Electronic Publication 2002

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2001-2002 Robert Zoller and New Library Limited

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Astrology and Wisdom

2nd Edition 2002
2001- 2002 Robert Zoller and New Library London All rights reserved.

Introduction
In more recent times the pursuit of wisdom as the prime objective
of mainstream astrology has been abandoned. The majority of
Western astrologers have given way to the pursuit of
psychological analysis and introspection. This has taken astrology
in the wrong direction and must be corrected.
The predominance of the consideration of idiosyncrasies of
character, coupled with the belief that anyone who studys
astrology can be a competent astrologer turns on its head the
basic and ancient understandings of the Art of astrology. These
understandings need to be re-established. For, astrology without
doubt provides one of the missing links between the natural
world which empirical science has made its province, and the
spiritual world.
In a sister paper The Occult Sciences 1I discussed the need for
those exploring the natural world to refer to the spiritual. This is
because it is becoming increasingly obvious that we cannot
understand the natural world around us without reference to the
spiritual.
Leading from this, this paper concentrates on the need for the
modern day astrologer to realign him/herself back toward the
prime object of astrological endeavour the pursuit of wisdom
and in doing so to bring astrological thinking and mainstream
practice back on the right path.

See www.new-library.com/zoller/features
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The Pursuit of Wisdom

When in 12th century Europe Dominicus Gundassalinus, an
Archdeacon of the city of Segovia (modern day Spain), translated
the Islamic philosopher Alfarabi's little book On the Rise of the
Sciences and incorporated its ideas into his own De ortu
scienciarum (On the Birth of the Sciences) he was transferring to
the Western Mind new ideas and a new learning that is still with
us today. You see, our Archdeacon friend was one of many 12th
century Christians who was then discovering the New Learning
i.e. the wealth of scientific and philosophical lore cultivated in
Moslem Spain, but up to then, unknown in the Christian West.2
Alfarabi was a Sufi. He like other great scholars such as Algazali,3
(a defender of Islamic orthodoxy) held the view that astrology
was part of the natural sciences. But while the other natural
sciences could be taught logically and apprehended rationally,
astrology in common with alchemy and talismanic magic could
not.
These three sciences had a special status. They were regarded as
"non-disciplinary," i.e. they required special spiritual virtues and
powers on the part of the student who wished to be learned in
them and on the part of the operator for their effective and proper

For more on the 12th century transmission of Arabic Science to the

Christian West, see Charles Homer Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth
Century, Cambridge (Mass., USA), Harvard University Press, 1927. See also,
Edward Grant, The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages:
their religious, institutional and intellectual contexts, Cambridge (England),
Cambridge University Press, 1996.
See also Zoller [Arabic Astrology , Jewish Astrology , The Occult
Sciences and Hermetic Tradition link to articles]
3

Algazel's Metaphysics, Latin text edited by Muckle, St Michael's College,

Toronto, Canada, 1933, p.4.
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practice.4 Alfarabi says that these virtues and powers are like the
virtue of interpreting employed in other divining arts (e.g.
augury).
The ancient as well as the medieval philosophers made it clear
that such interpretive virtue was not common. Not everyone has
it in equal measure. It is a higher knowledge than the ordinary,
worldly knowledge (or science), it is the fruit of gnosis or wisdom;
and wisdom, the subject of this paper is a gift of the divine.
Seyyed Hosein Nasr 5 tells us:
"In the Islamic World, the highest form of knowledge has
never been any single science, or sciencia, which remains at the
discursive level, but the `wisdom of the saints,' or sapientia,
which ultimately means gnosis."6 All knowledge resides in its
fullness in Allah because He is its source .
Wisdom is not a word you hear much these days. Technology,
which is the study of the means of doing things, has become the
be all and end all of our mainstream culture. Wisdom, which has
to do with Being, is largely ignored. It used to be valued more

Dominicus Gundissalinus De divisione philosophiae ed. Bauer, in

Beitrge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters herausgegeben
von Dr Clemens Baeumker, Band IV, Heft 2-3, Mnchen 1903, p. 120: "Unde
Alfarabius dicit, quod astronomia [sc. astrologia] est sciencia de significacione
stellarum, quid scilicet stelle significent de eo, quod futurum est, et de pluribus
presentibus et de pluribus preteritis. Nec nominantur inter sciencias
disciplinales, sed inter virtutes et potencias, quibus potest homo iudicare de
futuris, sicut est virtus interpretandi visiones et sicut est virtus augurandi in
avibus et sterutacionibus et aliis huiusmodi."

Dr. Seyyed Hosein Nasr, formerly at George Washington University and

Temple University, was an internationally recognized Iranian born scholar and
authority on Islamic Studies. His early education was received in Tehran. He
later studied at M.I.T. and Harvard.
6

Science and Civilization in Islam, The Islamic Texts Society, Cambridge,

1987 p. 337.
6

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highly. We need only look as sacred texts such as the Bible to see
this. In Proverbs 4:7 we read, "Wisdom is the principal thing;
therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get
understanding."
Still later this is reinforced by Proverbs 16:15, " How much better
is it to get wisdom than gold! and to get understanding rather to
be chosen than silver!" Indeed, two entire books of the Old
Testament Apocrypha are devoted to wisdom: The Book of the
Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus.7 Both these books are
found in the Latin Vulgate and were included in the original
edition of the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, after the
Prophets, but were removed from later editions of the KJV.

What is the nature of this Wisdom?

The Oxford Universal Dictionary on Historical Principles8 is a
satisfactory beginning place. It defines wisdom as:
"1. The capacity for judging rightly in matters relating to life
and conduct; soundness of judgement in the choice of means
and ends; sometimes less strictly, sound as sense especially in
practical affairs: opposed to folly. b. as one of the
manifestations of the divine nature in Jesus Christ... also
occasionally used of God...2, Knowledge (esp. of a high or
abstruse kind), learning, erudition, philosophy, science. 3.
Wise discourse or teaching."
Wisdom in Plato is the virtue which purges the soul from error
(Phaedo 79.7); which converts her from darkness to light and
enables her to behold true being (Republic 7.518); it is a gift of
God of whom it is the peculiar attribute and prerogative (Phaedr.
278.D; Republic 7. 519 A; Theatetus 176).

Not to be confused with Ecclesiastes, another book in the Bible.

The Oxford Universal Dictionary on Historical Principles, revised and

edited by C.T.Onions, 3rd ed. Oxford: 1955.
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What does the Wise Man know?

Aristotles Metaphysics, Book I.2:
"First, we assume that the wise man knows all so far as is
possible, though he does not know anything in particular.
Next, that he is wise who understands difficult matters....
Next, we assume that he who is more accurate and more able
to teach the reasons why is the wiser in his particular science.
Also, sciences that are cherished on their own account and in
the interest of knowledge are esteemed closer to wisdom than
those desired on account of their by-products. Finally, the
more controlling science is closer to wisdom than the
subservient; the wise man is a ruler.
In asserting that "the wise man knows all so far as is possible,
though he does not know anything in particular" Aristotle
acknowledges that science (knowledge) is of universals.
Likewise Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) in his Critique of Pure
Reason asserts, We do not and cannot know the Thing-in-Itself.
This fundamental understanding underpins the reason why all
effort to attain knowledge of the Self (which is an universal) that
is based upon the study of one's psychological idiosyncrasies (that
which makes one unique) are inevitable doomed to failure. And
so it is that those who limit astrology to a form of psychological
analysis promote the causes and the consequences of this failure.
Hermes Trismegistus describes Wisdom in both the Corpus
Hermeticum 9 and especially in Libellus I of the where Mind
instructs Hermes regarding Cosmogenesis and Anthropogenesis,
gives us a description of Hermetic Meditation and describes the
Ascension of the Soul to the Ogdoad; Libellus IV (The Basin) raises
the question of the Hermetic Rebirth; Libellus X (The Key),
elaborates on the Hermetic Meditation and Rebirth and Libellus
XIII discusses Rebirth at length, calling Wisdom conceived in
silence" the "womb" of the Rebirth. The Will of God" is
represented as the begetter of the Rebirth and a man of God
9

See The Hermetic Tradition and Hermeticism as Science www.newlibrary.com/zoller/features

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working in subordination to God's Will" is said to be the

ministrant." A man who is thus reborn is a god and a Son of
God. He is the All and is in all for he is incorporeal and partakes of
the intelligible substances. He is wholly composed of the Powers
of God.
These ten powers of God chase out the twelve irrational torments
of matter. The above text also examines the creation of the
incorruptible body, which again sheds more light on the
distinctions were are exploring.
It is worth looking further at what others have had to say on the
subject.
Etienne Gilson, in his The Spirit of the Middle Ages, quotes
Thomas Aquinas That to be wise is to know yourself and to
know God. He constantly points to Exodus 3: "I AM THAT I
AM," as the key reality underlying both. We are an actuality - it is
not the concept of being which is important, but the actuality of
being. In God, to be and to exist are united. All created things
receive their being from God that is their actual being - as
matter (body) and form (soul).
Robert Fludd, the 17th century Rosicrucian, tells us10
"As for man, there is such a supereminent (sic) and wonderful
treasure hidden in him that wise men have esteemed that the
perfect wisdom of this world consisteth in knowledge of a
man's Self, namely to find out that secret mystery which doth
lurk within him. For man is said to be the centre of every
creature and for that cause he is called Microcosmos, centrum et
miraculum mundi, containing in himself the properties of all
creatures, as well celestial as terrestrial."

10

Historia Microcosmi, lib iii, cap 9 Oppenheim, 1619

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John Pordage (1608-1698), the English theosophist, tells us that

Wisdom is achieved by an inner alchemy,11 the successful
attainment of which is that:
"The soul {which has attained Wisdom} is now an enduring
seraphimic Angel, and may make itself into a physician,
theologian, astrologer, into a holy Magus; it may also make
what it will; it may do and have what it will; because all
qualities have only one will in unity and harmony. And the
same one will is God's own unmistaking (sic) will: and now is
the holy man in his nature become one with God."
Pordage brings us back to astrology. Astrology is a part of
Wisdom. In The Wisdom of Solomon, chapter seven, verses 17-19,
Solomon says:
"For He, {God} hath given me certain knowledge of the things
which are, namely to know how the world was made, and the
operation of the elements: the beginning, ending and midst of
the times: the alterations and turning of the Sun, and the
change of the seasons: the circuits of years, and the position of
stars."
Wisdom is at the very foundation of the world. We see her
everywhere in Nature. Again, returning to a scared text, in
Proverbs chapter 9, verses 23-30, Wisdom herself says:
"I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the
earth was. When there were (sic) no depth, I was brought
forth: when there were no fountains abounding with water.
Before the mountains were settled: before the hills, I was
brought forth: while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the
fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he
prepared the heavens, I was there. When he set a compass on
the face of the depth. When he established the clouds above:
when he strengthened the fountains of the deep. When he

11

Wisdom's Book,by Arthur Versluis, St Paul, Minnesota, USA, Paragon

House, p. 76.
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gave to the sea his decree that the waters should not pass his
commandment. When he appointed the foundations of the
earth. I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was
daily his delight, rejoicing always before him."
For the astrologer these words and the fundamental
understanding they are passing to each one of us become the
more poignant as we read in tandem that it is the heavenly
constellations and stars that convey the creative Word. Again
referring to a sacred text that lies at the root of our civilisation,
Psalm 19 verses 1-6 tells us:
"The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament
showeth forth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech
and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech
nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone
out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the
world: In them he hath set a tabernacle for the Sun His
going forth is from the end of heaven, and his circuit unto the
ends of it: and there is nothing hidden from its heat."
That is, the starry sky is like a tent against which the Sun's path
(the ecliptic) is tracked. The Sun's (and the other planets') transit
through the signs of the Zodiac give rise to a twelve-fold
articulation of the universal I AM, thereby specifying ("making
species") the forms of things. Thus the Ideas of things come forth
as images, icons or forms which are subsequently clothed in
matter by Nature. Due to the incapability of matter to perfectly
and enduringly sustain celestial form, the things of the material
world eventually relinquish their integrating forms, which return
to their celestial source and ultimately their supercelestial origin
in the Word, this progression and return being typified by a
wheel.12
Perhaps it is because of this universal wheel-like progression and
return that Jacob Boehme (1575-1624), the Teutonic Philosopher,
tells us that we cannot understand the natural world without
reference to the spiritual world. This understanding reiterates our
central theme: the need to unite the two into a whole. Both as
12

cf The Book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament.

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astrologers and laymen alike, when we address this spiritual

world it is not the details of prediction that we note (important as
these may be for the practice of Judicial Astrology). Rather it is
the principles, laws and beings of the supercelestial realm we
attend to; in short to the Wisdom behind the celestial phenomena.
And this must always remain our aim.
It is in the being aspect of this spiritual inquiry that we come in
contact with modes of existence which defy definition and
quantification; which are apprehended only as qualities or living
intelligent beings, yet such beings are unified both with their
source and with all other beings. "Through this study {of
astrology}, indeed, we know and understand creatures beyond
passion, unalterable and immutable, in another essence since they
are supercelestial bodies." says Guido Bonatti the 13th century
Italian astrologer in his Liber astronomae, Tractate One 13.
Following Avicebron, we may approach this realm through
meditation, introspection, and the certain knowledge that "That
which is above is like that which is below.

Conclusion
Astrology without Wisdom is doomed to mere fortune telling or
to narcissistic psychological obsession with one's idiosyncrasies.
The way to Wisdom lies in the direction of the universal, not the
particular. Wisdom is "The capacity for judging rightly in matters
relating to life and conduct; soundness of judgement in the choice
of means and ends" (vide supra).
This comes from Self Knowledge. If we know the principle from
which we spring, we can know all things. Thus, Wisdom grants
us the virtue of interpretation necessary for the perfect practice of
astrology, as Pordage tells us.14 If we know our Self, we recognize
it in others and act in a loving and compassionate manner to all.

13

See Bonatti at www.new-library.com/zoller/books

14

But cf gifts of the spirit in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10.

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Wisdom provides the link to our Spiritual Source, so longed for

by so many spiritually alienated Westerners and points to the
Path of Return, known as Redemption in the Christian Tradition.
Apart from Reason, there is in us a faculty whereby we may
apprehend universals, arches, the transcendent root principles of
things. And it is by this transcendental faculty that we may raise
ourselves out of a constellational prison.
Wisdom, not psychology, enables us to do this. This is why it is
essential that every astrologer seeks wisdom and urges his or her
client to do the same.

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