John Addey
Encyclopedia
John Addey was an English
astrologer
. Addey made a continuous and significant contribution to British astrology.
, Yorkshire
in the UK
on 15 June 1920 at 8.15am and died at the Royal Homeopathic Hospital, London at 5.17pm on 27 March 1982.
He attended Ackworth School
(in Pontefract
, Yorkshire): Ackworth was a Quaker School, although the Addey family were not Quakers themselves, and Addey was much influenced by the spirit of Quakerism – he was a conscientious objector during the second world war – and was later to marry a Quaker. During his time at Ackworth he showed some talent for poetry
, but more so for sports: he was captain of most of the various sports teams organised by the school. He was head boy before leaving in 1939 and going on to Cambridge
where he read English literature
.
He left university and join the Friends Ambulance Unit: It was while working here that he was struck down by severe Ankylosing Spondylitis
, and was unable to walk without the aid of a stick for the rest of his life. Initial treatment required a 18 month stay in hospital, and it was during this enforced period of immobility that his energies turned inwards towards the two areas of study which were to occupy him for the rest of his life: philosophy
and astrology (he had been interested in both from his mid-teens). He studied with Faculty of Astrological Studies and was awarded his Diploma
in the early fifties.
He rapidly came under the influence of Charles E O Carter who guided Addey’s explorations in both philosophy and astrology. In philosophy this meant an acknowledgement of the worth of all the great world religions and philosophies, but an especial interest in the Platonic tradition; in astrology Carter (who was for some time the President of the Astrological Lodge of the Theosophical Society) encouraged Addey’s mystical leanings, but also an appreciation of the rational and scientific approach which can be seen in so much of Carter’s own astrological writings. Central to Addey’s later work on the Harmonic theory of astrology was the conviction that the mystical and the scientific were not mutually exclusive – in fact that neither was complete without the other.
After leaving the Amubulance Unit (where he had met and married, in 1946, Betty Poole), Addey worked for a time as a private tutor in Wiltshire
before taking up a teaching post at Queen Mary’s Hospital for Children, where for many years he taught young polio patients who often were hospitalised for long periods.
John Addey had three children, Etain Addey (author, A Silent Joy), Tim Addey (author, The Seven Myths of the Soul, the Unfolding Wings – the Way of Perfection in the Platonic Tradition, and Beyond the Shadows – the Metaphysics of the Platonic Tradition) and Jane Addey.
was an outcast from the scientific mainstream of modern thought not only because of the prejudices of orthodoxy
, but also because of the disinclination of astrologers to use the empiric
and rational tools being refined by post-enlightenment scientists of all kinds. For this reason Addey was a prime mover (with Firebrace) in the founding of the Astrological Association of Great Britain in 1958: he was the Association’s first Secretary
, and, on the resignation of its President Brigadier Roy Firebrace in 1961, became its second President, holding the office until 1973, at which point he became the Association’s Patron
. He edited the organisation’s magazine, The Astrological Journal from 1962 to 1972, and was the prime mover in establishing the Association’s annual conferences. One further contribution to organised astrology should also be mentioned – he founded the Urania Trust as a registered education charity in 1970.
Addey’s most important contribution to modern astrology was the Harmonic theory, which sought to put the understanding of astrological effects on a clear and rational footing. Starting from the great Platonic statement (Timaeus
, 37d) that "Time is an image of eternity flowing according to number", Addey identified astrology as "the study of effects in the world of flux and change" in a 1958 article, ‘The Search for a Scientific Starting Point’; and later articulated the fundamental law – "all astrological effects can be understood in terms of the harmonics of cosmic
periods". In other words, the temporal world is only truly understood when it is seen as making manifest the great eternal ideas – Platonic Forms – in ordered cosmic periods.
For Addey, the twentieth century astrology he found at the beginning of his work was a distant echo of an ancient worldview – simplified and, indeed, distorted, by the loss of philosophic understanding. Astrology had been giving ground for many centuries in the West, and, like an army when a battle is lost, it had thrown aside all but the most essential concepts in its enforced retreat. His view was that such constructs of the twelvefold zodiac
and house-systems were unable to reflect many of the effects of cosmic periods, great and small. Twelvefold systems allow patterns of 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12 to be analysed (because 12 can be divided by each of these), but do not make 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, or ll-fold cycles to be seen with any ease – let alone patterns greater than 12. The inadequate tools of astrology as he found it would have to be tested and refined: he wrote, “We are all engaged upon the building of a science – a science which of course has practical application as an art. But what are the “stones” with which this Science is to be built? This is an important question, for before any science can be truly unfolded, so as to realise its full potentialities, it must first be reduced to its fundamental concepts.” These fundamental concepts were, he thought, at their simplest, the qualities of number manifesting in time; and the search for some way of understanding these lead to the formulation of his theory of Harmonics: this presented, to those able to appreciate it, a far more subtle and refined way of studying the complex pattern of the numerous cycles which make up the world in which we live, breaking out as it did, of the limitations of the over-simplified twelvefold systems of western astrology
.
The practical development of Harmonics was facilitated by the coming age of computer
s – it is interesting to speculate how much more progress Addey would have made had he lived for a few more years into the era of personal computers, with all the ease of number crunching that they afford. Nevertheless the initial vision of a possible basis for a rational astrology arose from a vantage point of Platonic contemplation, rather than the reductionist myopia of the modern age.
For Addey, the value of astrology was as a way of seeing the great order of time as expressive of the eternal, and the value of the natal chart
was that it was, in his words, “a diagram of the soul’s contract with time and space” – for he was a convinced Platonist, who took notice of the Republic’s myth of Er
, in which Plato suggests that the soul continually incarnates having made a positive choice to take on the opportunities and challenges of a particular terrestrial
life, lived at a particular time, in a particular place.
and Tim Addey some years later (Urania Trust, 1996). The latter work included as appendices two small monographs – Astrology Reborn (originally published in 1972) and The Discrimination of Birthtypes (1974).
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
astrologer
Astrologer
An astrologer practices one or more forms of astrology. Typically an astrologer draws a horoscope for the time of an event, such as a person's birth, and interprets celestial points and their placements at the time of the event to better understand someone, determine the auspiciousness of an...
. Addey made a continuous and significant contribution to British astrology.
Biography
John Addey was born in BarnsleyBarnsley
Barnsley is a town in South Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Dearne, north of the city of Sheffield, south of Leeds and west of Doncaster. Barnsley is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, of which Barnsley is the largest and...
, Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
on 15 June 1920 at 8.15am and died at the Royal Homeopathic Hospital, London at 5.17pm on 27 March 1982.
He attended Ackworth School
Ackworth School
Ackworth School is an independent school located in the village of High Ackworth, near Pontefract, West Yorkshire, England. It is one of eight Quaker Schools in England. The school is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and SHMIS . The Head is Kathryn Bell, who succeeded...
(in Pontefract
Pontefract
Pontefract is an historic market town in West Yorkshire, England. Traditionally in the West Riding, near the A1 , the M62 motorway and Castleford. It is one of the five towns in the metropolitan borough of the City of Wakefield and has a population of 28,250...
, Yorkshire): Ackworth was a Quaker School, although the Addey family were not Quakers themselves, and Addey was much influenced by the spirit of Quakerism – he was a conscientious objector during the second world war – and was later to marry a Quaker. During his time at Ackworth he showed some talent for poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, but more so for sports: he was captain of most of the various sports teams organised by the school. He was head boy before leaving in 1939 and going on to Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
where he read English literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
.
He left university and join the Friends Ambulance Unit: It was while working here that he was struck down by severe Ankylosing Spondylitis
Ankylosing spondylitis
Ankylosing spondylitis , previously known as Bekhterev's disease, Bekhterev syndrome, and Marie-Strümpell disease is a chronic inflammatory disease of the axial skeleton with variable involvement of peripheral joints and nonarticular structures...
, and was unable to walk without the aid of a stick for the rest of his life. Initial treatment required a 18 month stay in hospital, and it was during this enforced period of immobility that his energies turned inwards towards the two areas of study which were to occupy him for the rest of his life: philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and astrology (he had been interested in both from his mid-teens). He studied with Faculty of Astrological Studies and was awarded his Diploma
Diploma
A diploma is a certificate or deed issued by an educational institution, such as a university, that testifies that the recipient has successfully completed a particular course of study or confers an academic degree. In countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia, the word diploma refers to...
in the early fifties.
He rapidly came under the influence of Charles E O Carter who guided Addey’s explorations in both philosophy and astrology. In philosophy this meant an acknowledgement of the worth of all the great world religions and philosophies, but an especial interest in the Platonic tradition; in astrology Carter (who was for some time the President of the Astrological Lodge of the Theosophical Society) encouraged Addey’s mystical leanings, but also an appreciation of the rational and scientific approach which can be seen in so much of Carter’s own astrological writings. Central to Addey’s later work on the Harmonic theory of astrology was the conviction that the mystical and the scientific were not mutually exclusive – in fact that neither was complete without the other.
After leaving the Amubulance Unit (where he had met and married, in 1946, Betty Poole), Addey worked for a time as a private tutor in Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
before taking up a teaching post at Queen Mary’s Hospital for Children, where for many years he taught young polio patients who often were hospitalised for long periods.
John Addey had three children, Etain Addey (author, A Silent Joy), Tim Addey (author, The Seven Myths of the Soul, the Unfolding Wings – the Way of Perfection in the Platonic Tradition, and Beyond the Shadows – the Metaphysics of the Platonic Tradition) and Jane Addey.
Astrological work
During the ten years immediately after the war, Addey became keenly aware that astrologyAstrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
was an outcast from the scientific mainstream of modern thought not only because of the prejudices of orthodoxy
Orthodoxy
The word orthodox, from Greek orthos + doxa , is generally used to mean the adherence to accepted norms, more specifically to creeds, especially in religion...
, but also because of the disinclination of astrologers to use the empiric
Empiric
Empiric can refer to:* Asclepiades of Bithynia* Empiricism* Empirical* Empirical research* Empirical formula...
and rational tools being refined by post-enlightenment scientists of all kinds. For this reason Addey was a prime mover (with Firebrace) in the founding of the Astrological Association of Great Britain in 1958: he was the Association’s first Secretary
Secretary
A secretary, or administrative assistant, is a person whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, communication & organizational skills. These functions may be entirely carried out to assist one other employee or may be for the benefit...
, and, on the resignation of its President Brigadier Roy Firebrace in 1961, became its second President, holding the office until 1973, at which point he became the Association’s Patron
Patrón
Patrón is a luxury brand of tequila produced in Mexico and sold in hand-blown, individually numbered bottles.Made entirely from Blue Agave "piñas" , Patrón comes in five varieties: Silver, Añejo, Reposado, Gran Patrón Platinum and Gran Patrón Burdeos. Patrón also sells a tequila-coffee blend known...
. He edited the organisation’s magazine, The Astrological Journal from 1962 to 1972, and was the prime mover in establishing the Association’s annual conferences. One further contribution to organised astrology should also be mentioned – he founded the Urania Trust as a registered education charity in 1970.
Addey’s most important contribution to modern astrology was the Harmonic theory, which sought to put the understanding of astrological effects on a clear and rational footing. Starting from the great Platonic statement (Timaeus
Timaeus (dialogue)
Timaeus is one of Plato's dialogues, mostly in the form of a long monologue given by the title character, written circa 360 BC. The work puts forward speculation on the nature of the physical world and human beings. It is followed by the dialogue Critias.Speakers of the dialogue are Socrates,...
, 37d) that "Time is an image of eternity flowing according to number", Addey identified astrology as "the study of effects in the world of flux and change" in a 1958 article, ‘The Search for a Scientific Starting Point’; and later articulated the fundamental law – "all astrological effects can be understood in terms of the harmonics of cosmic
COSMIC
Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate is a program designed to provide advances in meteorology, ionospheric research, climatology, and space weather by using GPS satellites in conjunction with low Earth orbiting satellites...
periods". In other words, the temporal world is only truly understood when it is seen as making manifest the great eternal ideas – Platonic Forms – in ordered cosmic periods.
For Addey, the twentieth century astrology he found at the beginning of his work was a distant echo of an ancient worldview – simplified and, indeed, distorted, by the loss of philosophic understanding. Astrology had been giving ground for many centuries in the West, and, like an army when a battle is lost, it had thrown aside all but the most essential concepts in its enforced retreat. His view was that such constructs of the twelvefold zodiac
Zodiac
In astronomy, the zodiac is a circle of twelve 30° divisions of celestial longitude which are centred upon the ecliptic: the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year...
and house-systems were unable to reflect many of the effects of cosmic periods, great and small. Twelvefold systems allow patterns of 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12 to be analysed (because 12 can be divided by each of these), but do not make 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, or ll-fold cycles to be seen with any ease – let alone patterns greater than 12. The inadequate tools of astrology as he found it would have to be tested and refined: he wrote, “We are all engaged upon the building of a science – a science which of course has practical application as an art. But what are the “stones” with which this Science is to be built? This is an important question, for before any science can be truly unfolded, so as to realise its full potentialities, it must first be reduced to its fundamental concepts.” These fundamental concepts were, he thought, at their simplest, the qualities of number manifesting in time; and the search for some way of understanding these lead to the formulation of his theory of Harmonics: this presented, to those able to appreciate it, a far more subtle and refined way of studying the complex pattern of the numerous cycles which make up the world in which we live, breaking out as it did, of the limitations of the over-simplified twelvefold systems of western astrology
Western astrology
Western astrology is the system of astrology most popular in Western countries. Western astrology is historically based on Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos , which in turn was a continuation of Hellenistic and ultimately Babylonian traditions....
.
The practical development of Harmonics was facilitated by the coming age of computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s – it is interesting to speculate how much more progress Addey would have made had he lived for a few more years into the era of personal computers, with all the ease of number crunching that they afford. Nevertheless the initial vision of a possible basis for a rational astrology arose from a vantage point of Platonic contemplation, rather than the reductionist myopia of the modern age.
For Addey, the value of astrology was as a way of seeing the great order of time as expressive of the eternal, and the value of the natal chart
Natal chart
In astrology, a natal chart is a stylized map of the universe with the "native" at the center. It is calculated for the exact time and location of the native's birth for the purposes of gaining insight into the native's personality and potential...
was that it was, in his words, “a diagram of the soul’s contract with time and space” – for he was a convinced Platonist, who took notice of the Republic’s myth of Er
Myth of Er
The Myth of Er is an eschatological legend that concludes Plato's The Republic . The story includes an account of the cosmos and the afterlife that for many centuries greatly influenced religious, philosophical and scientific thought....
, in which Plato suggests that the soul continually incarnates having made a positive choice to take on the opportunities and challenges of a particular terrestrial
Terrestrial
Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth.Terrestrial may also refer to:* Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on or near the ground, as opposed to in trees etc.** A fishing fly that simulates the...
life, lived at a particular time, in a particular place.
Writings
Addey wrote numerous articles – mainly for the Astrological Journal, many of which are now available in his Harmonic Anthology (1976, new edition, AFA, 2011) and Selected Writings (AFA, 1976); his main work was Harmonics in Astrology (1975, latest edition, Eyebright Books, 2010). He was some way through a further book, A New Study of Astrology when he was taken ill in the winter of 1982 – this was completed by Charles HarveyCharles Harvey
Charles Harvey was an English footballer who played in the Football League for Small Heath ....
and Tim Addey some years later (Urania Trust, 1996). The latter work included as appendices two small monographs – Astrology Reborn (originally published in 1972) and The Discrimination of Birthtypes (1974).