Here I will begin presenting my papers I have written over the
years. I hope they are found instructive or interesting in some way. Just choose
from the links at left.
About Kepler, The Astrologer
400-Yr-Old Kepler Horoscope Found In California
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (Reuters) - A California researcher perusing an archive
drawer of miscellaneous documents has come
across a 400-year-old horoscope written by one of history's greatest
astronomers, Johannes Kepler.
Anthony Misch, an astronomer at the Lick Observatory of the University of
California-Santa Cruz, said Thursday his discovery of
the annotated horoscope in the school's archives in December was a shock.
``There it was, in a cheesy little frame. It caught my eye. It was quite clearly
something much older than other stuff that fills the
archive,'' Misch told Reuters. ``It was very, very exciting.''
Kepler, a German who lived from 1571-1630, is famed as the discoverer of the
laws of planetary orbital motion and is widely
considered to rank with Copernicus and Galileo as one of the most important
astronomers of the modern era.
Misch said that, despite his scientific grounding, Kepler also produced
horoscopes as part of his duties as court mathematician
for Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II.
The document discovered in Santa Cruz is an astrological reading for Hans
Hannibal Hutter von Hutterhofen, an Austrian nobleman
born in 1586. Inscribed in a flowery hand, the horoscope weaves signs and
symbols from the Zodiac.
The document has been authenticated by the firm of J.A. Stargardt, autograph
specialists in Berlin, Misch said -- although he added
that no one had yet been able to decipher what Kepler's predictions actually
were.
``What it means astrologically, I haven't a clue and I don't know whether anyone
else would either,'' Misch said.
But he added that Kepler's scientific research on the motion of the planets may
have given him a unique astrological perspective
for his time.
``Kepler is one of the figures who helps to establish the modern scientific
method, but at the same time he has a foot in the
medieval world view,'' Misch said.
``He was an exceedingly original thinker. He didn't accept conventional
astrology. He had a more mystical view ... The universe
was ordered to a plan, and that plan could certainly influence people's
lives.''
University officials believe Lick Observatory acquired the document somewhere in
Germany in the late 1800s. It is now housed in the
university library's special collections unit.
"It takes hard writing to make easy reading." Robert Louis Stevenson
