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Introduction

Astrology is perhaps the supremely controversial field. It is a field that I am deeply grateful to have encountered, both for its intrinsic value, and the enormity of the metaphysical and epistemological questions it throws up. The resources page gives some directions in which to explore the field further. Future work will explore the deep questions that I believe must be tackled to to take a serious stance on areas such astrology, beyond the usual dismissal.

This project came out of encountering two sets of opinions. One could be parodied as “astrology can under no circumstances be quantified, and such an enterprise is fundamentally at odds with its nature”. The other could be parodied as “astrology must be quantified to be taken seriously”. I agree with neither entirely but wish to provide a tool with which the quantification of astrology may be performed in an open-minded way.

My aim is to facilitate research into correspondences of astrological data with existing historical data. To this end I have created Astrod, a tool for the generation of astrological data sets that is:

  • A Python library available for researchers
  • Built with scientific-grade astronomical libraries
  • Specified according to astrological needs
  • Adaptable for specific research needs
  • Usable in conjunction with other software

I aim for greater power than the majority of astrological software, which is understandably focused on the production of birth charts. It should be noted however that the excellent Solar Fire (v7 and above) has all the data generation capability described here and very much more.

Beyond the Astrod library itself, I aim to undertake and share quantitative astrological research, and to foster a collaborative online community around this. If there is research you would like to undertake, I can provide assistance in using Astrod. Likewise, if you have data that you think would be interesting to analyse with Astrod, I would be pleased to hear from you. If you would like to discuss any research direction, please get in touch.