Ring, Thomas

Thomas Ring (born on 28.11.1892 at 18:02 in Nuernberg, died on 24.08.1983 in Schaerding/Inn) greatly contributed to the opening of astrology to the influence of psychology. He initially became known as a painter. He spent his youth in Berlin where he began an arts degree in 1911, and although he concentrated on astrology from about the 1920s he never lost his keen interest in the arts. Before then he had rejected astrology and concentrated instead on art, philosophy and psychology. His interest in astrology grew during his time as a prisoner of war and he successfully managed to combine astrological with psychological insights.

He was a vociferous opponent of National Socialism and he and his family left Berlin for Austria shortly before its annexation in 1938. There fate was to catch up with him and he was forbidden from publishing his paintings or writings.

After the Second World War in which he lost his wife he took an active involvement in developments during the 1930s and was a very active astrologer and painter up until the time of his death.

Ring became the founder of revised astrology in Germany. With his four volume work "Astrological Anthropology" he laid the foudations for a thoroughly new approach to astrological interpretation. He rejected all forms of determinism and the idea that the influence of the celestial bodies might have a physical basis. He also emphasised the limits of astrological interpretation and did not believe a horoscope could predict an individual's time of death, their sex, or their level of development of intelligence. Ring developed his own pithy terms to describe the planets, signs and houses (Revised Astrology).