Webinar with Nicholas Campion
at the
On Monday, May 8, BBC presenter Andrew Marr began his regular Monday radio show with the statement, ‘These feel like wild and disorientating times’. One way to get a sense of perspective, he said, is to go back to the old epics.
This weekend, Nicholas Campion will consider one of the grand epics of the ancient world, the use of astrology to measure and manage politics and historical change in his online Key Concept lecture from the University of Wales. These lectures are open to the public and draw on material in the University of Wales Trinity Saint David’s programme in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology.
We cordially invite you to attend and learn more about mundane astrology during this ‘wild and disorientating’ time.
Key Concepts in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology Mundane Astrology 1: Fate, Freewill and Planetary Cycles
With Dr Nicholas Campion
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Saturday, 13 May 2017 at 16:00 GMT
This seminar will examine key concepts in the theory and technique of mundane astrology drawing on the three central thinkers: the Greek philosopher Plato, who established the idea that the state and society are linked to planetary cycles, embedded in the flow of time, and linked to the stars via the soul; Claudius Ptolemy, who claimed that both individual personality and political affairs are an essential part of a natural environment which includes the sky; and Johannes Kepler, who developed Plato’s model, arguing that politics could be managed for the benefit of all if planetary cycles could be properly understood. The questions that arise focus on fate and freewill: can the future be predicted and, if so, what is the role of political action?
The lecture will last about 75 minutes followed by time for questions and discussion.
Lecturer: Nicholas Campion is Programme Director of the MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology, Director of the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture and Principal Lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities and the Performing at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.
His recent books include the two-volume History of Western Astrology (London: Continuum 2008/9) and The New Age in the Modern West: Counter-Culture, Utopia and Prophecy from the late Eighteenth Century to the Present Day (London: Bloomsbury 2015). Recent papers include ‘The Moral Philosophy of Space Travel: A Historical Review’, in Jai Galliot (ed.), Commercial Space Exploration: Ethics, Policy, Governance (Abingdon: Ashgate, 2015), pp. 9-22; ‘Archaeoastronomy and Calendar Cities’ in Daniel Brown (ed.), Modern Archaeoastronomy: From Material Culture to Cosmology, Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Vol. 865, 2016, pp. 1-7; and ‘The Imaginal Sky in the Medieval World’ in Eric Lacey (ed.), Starcræft. Watching the Heavens in the Middle Ages, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press (forthcoming).