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The following articles are excerpted from abbreviated versions of articles appearing in The Mountain Astrologer, a popular publication featuring the insights, philosophies, and experience of some of the most highly respected practitioners in the astrological field.

In attempts to pass on the essence and message of the primary themes of these authors, I hope not to have detracted from the continuity or integrity of the original material by excessive selective editing, paraphrasing, and adding occasionally my personal 'two cents worth'.

The submissions were chosen on the basis of their relevance to the power of astrology as a tool in determining the very real, ever-present correspondences between cosmic patterns and the human condition. The topics address some divergent and interestingly different perspectives on how these correspondences have separated then interrelated to in part over time and seem to be slowly merging in the present for a more comprehensive, effective application of this awesomely fantastic mirror, symbol system, and craft. If the profiles and contributions of these authors can be further brought before the public through these inclusions, so much the better.

• The Varieties of Astrological Thinking (astrology's history) - Bruce Scofield 8/9.01
• Big league Scientists & Astrology - Bruce Scofield 8/9.98
• On Divination & Astrology's Sacred History - Demetra George 12.97/1.98
• The Enchanted Cosmos: Symbolism, Synchronicity and the Astrological World view - Ray Grasse 12.97/1.98
• Is Astrology Divination & Does it Matter? - Geoffrey Cornelius 10/11.98
• Astrology in the 21st Century - Bill Sheeran 4/5.99

The Varieties of Astrological Thinking: a thumbnail sketch of astrology's history - Bruce Scofield 8/9.01

Western astrology can be put into two camps, basically: Natural (or Universal) and Judicial, each embracing specifically different disciplines. Such was the inclination of Claudius Ptolemy (circa 150B.C.E), considered the greatest scientist of the ancient world.

Natural astrology, the more scientific of the two, comprises a small group -- primarily astrometeorology (weather predicting), lunar affects on the tides, earthquake prediction, agricultural, and climate change patterns.)

Judicial astrology considers the implications of planetary positions on individuals, encompassing a number of related branches, with which academic science has even more disputes than with the Natural camp.

Mundane astrology is a branch having some overlap with the Natural camp and hails back to astrology's beginnings; actually it was really the only type existing early on. This concerned the study of countries, cities, and various political figures. Ancient Mesopotamian astrologers were concerned about the fate of their kingdom in general and needed the skinny on what was in the wind -the weather for their crops; the study eventually became formalized as an astrology that concerned itself with the fates of political entities and the interpretation of historical cycles.

Horary astrology (horus = hour) is a branch that answers specific questions, a craft dating back to ancient times, when most people haven't a clue about what day, let alone what time they were born. In this discipline, the astrologer draws up a horoscope for the hour (rather, the minute) he first hears the question, (or has a question himself). Especially when the moment is infused with great intent and emotion, the chart produced is ultimately revealing. For example, when used for finding a lost object, the astrological symbols determine direction, height, up, down, under, behind inside/outside, dark or light places, and timing. Wondrous 'magic'.

Electional astrology involves selecting the best times to do certain things, like when to leave home for a trip/vacation, start a new venture/business, ask for a raise, purchase a major item etc. Like horary, this sister branch originated in ancient times. Cornerstones of cities were laid, and ships launched at times "elected" by ancient practitioners.

Medical astrology involved the casting of a type of chart known as the 'decumbiture', cast for the moment one became ill and committed him or herself to bed. The astrological physician then could determine the type of illness, its treatment and duration. Medical astrology and knowledge of herbal remedies are the stuff of ancient tradition as well.

Western sidereal astrology proposes the use of a sidereal, not tropical zodiac which most Western astrologers use and take for granted. The sidereal focus was more or less 'revived' in the '50s by the innovative and highly respected Cyril Fagan. This perspective involves the precession of the equinoxes, the wobbling motion of the Earth's axis that has the effect of moving the first degree of Aries backwards through the zodiac of the stars. This and the Tropical zodiac were coincident approximately 2000 years ago, but have now drifted apart 23-26 degrees. This inching backward motion of the signs is the basis of the shifting of the ages that lies behind the notion of the coming Age of Aquarius, a perspective very much the target of skeptics' attack, even though, bottom line, the zodiac is but a frame of reference. The planets are the real action figures, doing their thing regardless of whatever zodiac is used.

20th Century Astrology, the era of its roaring comeback, itself encompasses the following fields:

Uranian astrology originated and grew up in Germany as the Hamburg school under Alfred Witte in the early 1900s. Borrowing from the ancients, and some classical astrology, he created an entirely different method of reading charts, employing the idea of planetary symmetry, via common axes with planets equally spaced around them. A natal planet/point, directed or transiting crosses that axis becomes 'charged', stimulating a reaction; and quite outside the planetary energies common to most astrological models, Uranians use basically 8 hypothetical points that act like planets and named them after various mythological gods.

Relationship (synastry) astrology is a technique which compares separate charts for evaluating compatibility. 'Composite' charts employ a technique derived from two or more charts whereby the mid-points between each pair of the same two planets are calculated from which a composite chart is then calculated. Then there is the 'Relationship' chart, calculated for the midpoint in time and place between any two charts. Generally, similar results can be expected between the techniques.

Locational astrology employs techniques for relocating some distance away to somewhere longitude and latitude-wise that offers better health, vocation, & relationship opportunities, for example, whereby current location planetary positions can be refocused around the horoscope for optimum 'exposure'. This of course depends upon which life areas one decides to focus upon. For example, one would work to relegate perhaps discordant energies to a more 'background' exposure by rendering them more impotent re. one or more of the above life-areas.

Psychological astrology was arguably fathered by philosopher, artist, actor and musician Dane Rudhyar, who approached the subject from a philosophical perspective. Powerfully influenced by Theosophy in the early 1900s and later by Carl Jung's work, (principally his acausal synchronicity principal), he founded what became known as humanistic astrology. This astrology strongly avoids prediction techniques, to focus upon cyclic development of soul growth and as it struggles towards individuation through each of 8 specific stages.

Vedic astrology (Hindu/Indian in the West) and which uses the sidereal zodiac exclusively, is known as 'Jyotish', meaning "science of light". Their history go back 3000-4000 years, though the formalized Vedic school only appeared around 500 C.E., holding a respected position ever since. In India, scheduling marriages, formalized study in astrological colleges is the norm. Like Western Astrology, it too had its major historical giants, the major astrologer living from 505-586 C.E. Vedic astrology also has many subcategories, including electional, mundane, medical and a highly prominent predictive technique involving a 27-division 'lunar mansion' zodiac. A most interesting feature unique to this astrology is the use of Hindu dashas: planetary periods, (each planet relating to a specific number of years) used for making predictions. From there the rest of one's life is mapped out -- a conversion from space to time.

Chinese astrology, like Indian astrology, has had its own distinctive brand for millenia, much of which is totally foreign to Westerners largely because generally minimally profiled, partly due to cultural/political reasons. Their system's sophistication employs the cycles of Jupiter and Saturn extensively along with a numerological astrology based on those cycles; they employ also the 5 elements common to Chinese alchemy and Feng Shui. The 12-yrea cycle is about all that most of us know about this astrology, though in their system one is born into one of 60 categories in each of four primary time periods: the 'four pillars of destiny'. To a large extent, a formula based on large blocks of time and other unique properties -- not a zodiac-based zodiac system of planetary or time measurement.

Mesoamerican astrology, the last of four world-class traditions, centered in the cultural region where the Maya, Toltec and Aztec peoples lived and still live. The origins of their system date back at least 2,500 years, and like the Chinese system of 60 permutations generated by the numbers 5,6,10 and 12, the numerological part of their astrology was based on 4, 5, 13 and 20: 20 main signs (called 'day' signs) and 13 numbers that cycles until the 260 possible combinations were generated. This number is like a lowest common denominator for planetary cycles fitting in with the cycles of Venus, Mars, the Moon and the eclipse cycle.

Quetzalcoatl was the god who represented the planet Venus, the planet which passes between the Earth and the Sun every 584 days. This timing always seems to coincide with the downfall of leaders and the crashing of planes, a Venus-based astrology that was a major part of ancient Mayan astrology. Unfortunately, much of the writings of Mesoamerican astrology went up in flames; however, an oral tradition has kept parts of the system alive and well in rural Guatemala.

** Bruce Scofield has published two related books: Signs of Time - An introduction to Mesoamerican Astrology, and Day Signs - North American Astrology from Ancient Mexico [One Reed Publications, P.O. Box 561, Amherst, MA 01004-0561]

Big league Scientists & Astrology - Bruce Scofield 8/9.98

From a social perspective, science is a belief system that interprets the world as per a certain set of expectations, like a religion; its also a method of organizing & measuring nature, laying a mathematical framework of formulae, graphs or statistics onto the natural world. Some scientists like many religious leaders think they have a monopoly on truth. yet their social pyramid & its official ideology are a real obstacle in the way of human spiritual progress.

Prior to Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543), the prevailing Ptolemaic & Aristotelian models of the cosmos postulated that the earth was considered to be stationary, the stars and Sun orbiting it every 24 hrs. (Ptolemy (circa 150 C.E.) viewed astrology as able to forecast only in terms of principles, not specifics, for only those individuals 'directly inspired by God' can know what will be.)

Copernicus' observations were instrumental in undermining the reigning scientific paradigms of the times with theories considered not only revolutionary, but downright heretical: He put the Sun at the centre of the solar system, with the Earth being merely one of the orbiting bodies; he further postulated that such astronomical revolution allowed the earth to rotate (something that made the movement of the stars more comprehensible.) Though astrology was part of one larger body of knowledge called science, he & the most learned men of the time couldn't be bothered with horoscopes, content with understanding the design of the solar system itself. Existing in a variety of forms, since then, by the mid 16th century, the actual practice of astrology had fallen into some real disrepute. Existing means of calculating planets' position places were often very off the mark; Ptolemy's system was showing its weaknesses. The task was to chart the heavens & make a model that could accurately predict a planet's position in the future. Copernicus, like followers Tycho Brahe (a classical traditional astronomer disgusted with the base levels of most astrological practitioners) and Johannes Kepler (the great scientist who gave Newton the clues he needed), without a doubt one of astrology's greats -- tackled this problem, one however, that had nothing to do with whether astrology was true or false.

Copernicus' writings shows him to have been at least somewhat astrologically motivated, & like many others, was influenced by Pythagorean & Hermetic ideas; enthroning the Sun the center of things made sense, motivated by the compelling symbolic logic based on the worldviews of Plato, Pythagoras & Hermes. The irony here is that in justifying the Sun at center, the old doctrines pointed the way to their very destruction! Kepler, with metaphysical leanings, used scientific methods, a very modern approach at the time. Also a contemporary, Galileo was presented as the first modern scientist; he used scientific gadgets (telescopes), experiments & applied math to nature. He was a mathematicus, implying skill in math, astronomy & astrology.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
By the mid 17th century, the most influential Western thinkers were going 'scientific'. Western thought had become critical, skeptical, mathematical. Nature had become an object to control, with few interested in mystically merging with it anymore. Newton, a tremendous influence on his peers, is still recognized today as a giant in physics circles. (Some brilliant solutions to the problems of motion happened to be based on Kepler's earlier work.) His claim to fame (Newton's Law of Gravity) allowed for the exact prediction in the future physical body's exact location, repeatable & obvious to anybody who cared to check, but these only worked on the material universe. Mathematics was the magic that made such predictions (ever the goal of science) possible. Newton & others were leaders in the movement to this shift the magic of prediction away from sloppy to precise, mathematical, elegant predictions related to physical bodies. All this ultimately resulted in the separation of man & nature. (Science didn't flourish in India or China, where different religions, more mature & friendly, held the intellectual & moral ground.)

In 1936, unpublished manuscripts revealed he actually saw the universe as a riddle readable only via the discovery of certain mystic clues. He did study alchemy & wrote a book on ancient kingdoms and the precession of the equinoxes -- inferring at least some knowledge of, though no solid evidence of interest in pure astrology per se.

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)
A very important figure in the history of psychology, metaphysics and astrology -- who along with Freud & Adler was one of the first modern explorers the human psyche. He became interested in astrology in 1911, (because he thought it "indispensable to a proper understanding of mythology"), and continued probing it 'til his death, explaining it as a means by which to quantify his theories of synchronistic phenomena. In his famous astrological experiment with several hundred couples, he initially thought that Sun-Moon combinations between married couples occurred more frequently than chance would allow. In the early 50's, Jung presented his work on synchronicity (including his experiment). Scientists considered it statistically flawed: too mystical in nature. Only after many years was his work on synchronicity to become influential to both psychologists & astrologers.

On Divination, Astrology's Sacred History & Origins - Demetra George 12.97/1.98

The art of Divination in the West goes back to around 4000 B.C.E., playing a regular & significant role in the religion & politics of the near east & Asia Minor through to the Greek & Roman cultures, but which ceased in the 4th century C.E. with the triumph of Christianity. Divination originates in the latin divinare ('to foresee') & divinus ('divine/pertaining to the gods'). The understanding was that the gift of foreseeing was something coming from the gods, divination being a vehicle for answering questions about guidance into the sacred.

Cicero (106-43 B.C.E.) taking his lead from Plato (427-347 B.C.E.) laid out 2 main categories of divination - direct, consisting of a way of knowing in which the mind of the divine was directly revealed through trance, ecstasy, or vision, & indirect, an artificial means of knowing that proceeded directly through signs such as observation of natural phenomena. Of the 2, Plato considered direct, natural divination to be superior. This category, consisting of a kind of ecstasy/madness resulting from a visitation by the gods -- was then subdivided into 3 branches: dreams, necromancy, & oracle & prophecy. Prophecy entails a spontaneous/unsolicited vision; oracles always a response to an inquiry usually asked at a sacred site or in ritual. For over 1,000 years (beginning c. 1500 B.C.E), the prophetic powers of the Greek Delphic Oracles were known throughout the ancient world.

Indirect divination also had its subcategories: 1. observation of natural phenomena 2. haruspicy (animal entrail study); augury (birds' flight patterns), & human birth deformities. 2. Casting of lots & dice; observation of weather phenomena; of terrestrial events; & the observation of celestial phenomena (from which arose the art & science of astrology).

(Any real evidence for the idea of a personal horoscope did not emerge until Ptolemy & the Greek school in the 3rd Cent. B.C.E.)

But perhaps astrology's real roots go back to the late Paleolithic caves 40,000 years ago, housing the first evidence of highly stylized female figurines adorned with crescent moons & places on alters, suggesting early worship & ritual. Since 25,000 B.C.E, moon phases were used to track time & set a calendar, though the origins of a science of recorded astrology in the West can be placed in Mesopotamia from the 4th millenium B.C.E., from which time for the first 1000 yrs, it had a religious foundation known as astral doctrine -- the belief that the stars & planets are divine beings. Since 2500 B.C.E. the first written observations of the sun, moon, planets & stars were named as gods, with the noting of corresponding terrestrial events. For these peoples, the divine was not only something transcendent (out there), but also immanent, all around, manifested in nature as communications from the gods to humans re. their desires & intentions. The diviner interpreted these messages, advising rulers on appropriate behavior & rituals to in turn administer to society in harmony with divine intention & natural order; they believed that the future thus shown was a conditional one, & negotiable, not absolute & fixed.

Princeton biologist Julian Haynes proposed that before the Ist millenium B.C.E., peoples' consciousness operated primarily from their auditory senses. The first Sumerian & Babylonian astronomer priests directly received impressions of the planetary gods, then recorded & collected earthly event data with increasing precision & gradually discerned the movements of the heavenly bodies.

From the 3rd to the 2nd millennia B.C.E., due to progress made in the methods of astral divination & in the body of accumulated empirical observations, astronomy as a science grew so substantially, astrology rose to become the Queen of sciences, superceding all other current forms of divination. By Assyrian times in the 1st millenium B.C.E., kings increasingly used this information to protect & expand their empires. Hence the divine agencies gradually became more & more withdrawn from the world of nature here on earth to eventually reside solely on the heavens above.

A notable transition occurred during the 6th century B.C.E. The Chaldeans came to power, then the Persians, with religious doctrines that eventually came to significantly influence the nature of Greek Hellenistic astrology. The first known erected horoscope is dated 409 B.C.E. The planets were believed like the gods who embodied them, to determine destiny, via the Persian Zoroastrian doctrine of the eternal battle between the forces of dark & light, hence the conception of good/bad, malefic/benefic influences in astrology. Thus the idea of fatality was linked with the regular celestial movements.

Out of a cultural mixing due to the Persian conquests & the unification of various countries emerged the first of many Greek philosophers and astronomers. Pythagoras & Thales became initiated into the Babylonian mystery schools. At that time, (6th cent B.C.E.) astrology was unknown to the Greeks, & they bought to their homeland a scientific knowledge that became Greek astronomy & maths, & the doctrine of astral mysticism -- that the gods are, or reside in, the stars: the belief that influenced the philosophies of Aristotle, Plato, Democritus & the Stoics. Over the next several hundred years, the accumulation of scientific laws of planetary motion enabled the philosophers to develop intellectual structures to be later combined with the Mesopotamian omen divination to produce Hellenistic astrology & modern astrology's foundations.

The Greek mind was noted for applying the principle of rational thought to the quest for knowledge. Since the orbits of celestial bodies were subject to mathematical laws, Plato viewed their circular, therefore perfect motions as reflections of divine reason. Aristotle denied that the planets had divine intelligence, placing the creator of the universe outside the realm of fixed stars. The planets then become the channels of divine will rather than expressions of it. These two divergent perspectives provided the rationale for a direct, deterministic influence of celestial bodies upon society & individuals, the basic premise of astrology.

After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.E., Alexandria in Egypt became the Greek centre of learning & where astrology as we know it today began taking form. After 4000 yrs, astrology being part of divine communications, was practiced in the service of rulers for the nation's welfare, and by the time of Hellenistic Greek culture, astrology became secularized & democratized. Charts were cast to answer any mundane concern for anyone with the money. The prevailing philosophy than was Stoicism, founded early in the 3rd century by Zeno and was extremely pervasive, factoring heavily in the acceptance of astrology in Greece & Rome. This philosophy linked the Mesopotamian sky lore to the Greek sky father Zeus as Immutable Law. Individuals can only know their place in the cosmos & act according to their nature -- a viewpoint reflected by the Hellenics. Such was astral determinism -- a theory of despair & resignation wherein individuals felt themselves mastered by blind forces.

Future generations of philosophers & religious thinkers sought ways to undo one's fate and escape one's destiny, either by magic or by religion. From the early centuries C.E. onward, despite the theoretical determinism implicit in the system of astrology, there existed in connection with it a widespread use of magic via Hermetic & Neoplatonic doctrines: a system called theurgy. Its objective as unfolded in the Middle Ages was to command the elemental powers & principles in or associated with the planets in order to enable practitioners to escape their fate. Alternatively, the mystery cult religions, especially Christianity, protested the mathematical causality that ignored divine powers & human free will, for Christianity offered a refuge from blind fate, & via the baptism also claimed to free men from this fate & offer them the salvation of God's grace. Absence of free will destroys personal responsibility & accountability. Rewards & punishments are meaningless if people act under a dominating necessity. Because of Christianity's growing power during the Middle Ages, astrology had to at least publicly transfer the authority from the planets to God's hands, & release its claim upon the soul, now under the domain of the Church. This trend was also influenced by the prevailing Aristotelian interpretation of the world looking to nature & natural phenomena for explanations of how the world worked. In astrology this was reflected as an emphasis on describing concrete physical reality & the prediction of events. So by the Middle Ages, the planets were still seen to be the physical & biological causes of earthly events, but were no longer the gods, nor did they have dominion over man's soul.

Death & Rebirth
From 1500-1700 C.E., astrology was severed from its religious foundations, & with no rational explanation for just how the planets caused events & human actions, astrology couldn't survive the 17th century, scientific revolution, & fell into obscurity until the late 19th Century. In 1875 Helena Blavatsky introduced Theosophy to the West and with it the consciousness of an elite body of innovative thinkers born within the last half of the 19th century. Amongst these groundbreaking savants destined to be voices for the coming generation were: philosopher Wm. James, metaphysicians Besant & Leadbeater, Rudolf Steiner; Swami Vivekenanda and Yogananda, Ghandi, Sri Aurobindo, Gerhard Adler, Carl Jung, Abraham Maslow, Erich Fromm, Aleister Crowley, Albert Schweitzer, Edgar Casey, Wm. Hesse, Alice Bailey, Kirpal Singh, Meher Baba, J.B. Rhine, Bucky Fuller, Jeddu Krishnamurti, Manly P. Hall, Margaret. Mead.

And so, via the more prominent 19th century astrologers, a very different astrology prior to the 17th century emerged -- a psychological orientation unavailable without the influence of the Spiritualist movement triggered by such greats as alluded to above. Seeking the hidden (occult) causes of physical phenomena became the thrust. Secondly, the awakening of a new feminine energy in the psyche & society was arising; for the first time since the early Sumerian period, women en masse began studying astrology, not an astrology accompanied by the Greek, Arabic, and Medieval traditions of method & techniques -- but rather through a remembering of the direct mode of divination via the intuition to discern the chart's meaning. ("The birth chart is a tuning fork for the intuition of the astrologer." - Marc Edmund Jones)

In the combination of these two streams arose a new field of inquiry: a psychological astrology that has grown immensely in the 20th century to describe & better understand the workings of the mind, the deeper meaning within the chart's symbolism -- now perceived as a 'map of the psyche'.

Ancient/traditional astrology (Hellenistic through Classical periods) saw astrology's power to predict the future via the belief in an absolute, pre-fixed futureone deduced from an analytical application of correct, often complex mathematical techniques, relegating the range of conscious will & choice to virtually nil. How can conscious choice exist in an already predetermined future? -- a question modern astrologers can only address, however, by harkening back to a time of astrology's sacred origins, holding a view that a future is conditional, not fixed, & that there's the possibility of interacting with the divine, via modes of divination for insight & guidance. The benefit isn't accurate prediction of a fixed future, but rather a deep understanding of unconscious forces that shape one's life within a context that sees the meaning & timing of events as part of a lifelong process of healing & growth in the quest for integration & wholeness. This mode is effective only via remembering the ancients' belief that divination occurs only when the divine presence conjoins with human receptivity.

Is Astrology Divination & does it Matter? - Geoffrey Cornelius 10/11.98

Divination is a word often loosely used to mean a type of intuition -- a wonderful capacity involved in the highest processes of what we do in any art science. Apparently the core of our practice has astral omen reading at its origins, dating back to at least the truly archaic Mesopotamian civilization consciousness that observed the omen as significant. This idea is intimately bound up with the ancient conception that the entire universe is filled with spiritual being and intelligence at all levels both close to and remote from us: conceptions from polytheistic and pagan societies who understood that the planets, stars, and all of nature is innately divine. The work of the diviner and the stargazer is to divine, or know, the will or movement of these spirit beings, and how they relate to us. The diviner seeks a 'showing', a sign given by the god or spirit and addressed directly to the diviner/tribe/nation for whom the diviner divines. The god responds to our concern about our desire and to our question, and speaks to us through the omen; this is the root and origin of what we astrologers do.

When relocated in the context of the classical mode of astrology (which establishes an abstracted, universal and rationalized model of the heavenly influences), I suggest that in this move of abstraction, something absolutely essential about the practice of astrology is forgotten. The question of the spiritual nature of astrology, of believing we may ourselves be a part of something called 'divine', is brushed aside in our classical tradition.

Early on in the Church father's attack against all forms of paganism, (of no particular religion) astrologers soon learned to not directly say their art gave them knowledge of supernatural things; one in the Islamic or Christian culture would face heresy, perhaps the death penalty. That what we do may be supernatural and involve gods or spirits is simply taboo in astrology's classical tradition. The Greeks' rational philosophy and monotheism tolerates only a rationalized astrology of spiritual influences that works on the seeds of things at the birth moment -- a type of spiritual-scientific causation. This is the great model given us from Ptolemy onward (circa 150 C.E.): one sustained through Islamic astrology and in the whole Western tradition.

Astrologers have always managed to use the prevailing culture and ethos (science/philosophy) of their time to disguise themselves and continue with their practices -- how our practice has been able to survive for nearly 2 millennia. Astrologers then latched onto modern science in the revival two centuries ago when astrology disguised itself as magnetism, electricity, and later as radio waves.

One of the greatest attacks on astrology (by a certain highly-respected astrologer) occurred in late 15th century Italy, setting the tone for other decisive attacks well into the 17th century, marking a turning point in the history of astrology's decline. These Renaissance magicians, called 'humanists' loathed any form of determinism, especially the determinism of the stars, which could imply a demeaning of the dignity and freedom of the human soul. This attack meant that the imaginative consciousness called 'magic' and the craft of horoscope judgments parted company -- in fact, the rupture between science and astrology.

Understand, that this attack from magicians and symbolists was a protest against the crass, materialistic doctrines of astrologers of their day. It's disingenuous of astrologers to claim a scientific basis of the sort understood in physics or biology; far closer to the mark is that our practice is actually about remarkable powers of the imagination that implies something extraordinary about the nature of reality and the nature of the mind.

Consider the I Ching, the Book of Change, which offers in its own way, an objective truth. Based on trigrams having natural affinities (wood, wind, water), it doesn't depend on any objective truth you already know about these natural images drawn from the natural world with a genuine role in nature that can be studied. Yet we can immediately use these images in an act of creation to construct, see and reveal a meaning about a situation. (They don't depend on any literal wood, water or wind.)

Some astrologers can't bear the idea that much of the inference drawn from symbols is a type of subjective, creative process of the astrologer, and not dependent on a physical process in the natural world. Carl Jung, arguably the most important intellectual influence for astrologers in the 20th century, has given a conception of astrology that is workable for the modern age. His discussion of astrology as synchronicity, an 'acausal connecting principle', is the key here.

So is astrology a divination practice, (like tarot cards, for example) and therefore dependent upon an act of imaginative creation rather than objective facts as established in nature? If so, are the understandings we get through astrology actually our own subjective creations? For Jung, any results occurring in astrology are due to the nonrational breakthrough of archetypes at certain moments -- pure synchronicity, and he suggests that while much of what occurs in astrology can be classed as synchronicity, it would be misleading to approach all of its phenomena this way. The argument, however, is that what we get from our practice of horoscopic judgments constitutes divination and involves a profound dimension of psychic judgment.

It's more or less a given that many modern astrologers would agree that the whole system of stars and planets is an elaborate metaphor or allegory by which to describe another situation in reality. We bring this mirror of symbols to a situation, read in the mirror, then infer back to actual reality -- one way to describe divinatory and symbol systems. Astrologers know it's metaphoric: Mars isn't physically, in the ordinary sense, doing anything to us; we use a metaphor of Mars to help us reveal in a poetic way the truth of human life. But who is doing the seeing here? It is the psyche, but primarily, it's the psyche of the astrologer.

Astrology by definition implies an observer, and further, the astrologer is fundamentally implicated in the act of seeing the symbol. Such a seeing is totally distinct from the possibility and method of modern science, which must attempt to divorce the observer from the (material) observed.

The Enchanted Cosmos: Symbolism, Synchronicity & the Astrological World View - Ray Grasse 12.97/1.98

"The universe is composed of stories, not atoms." - Muriel Rukeyser, 'The Speed of Darkness'

Over time, various theories to explain astrology's deeper workings have emerged, yet these are classifiable into 2 primary groups of explanations:

1. Causal (force) -- energies transmitted from celestial bodies to beings on Earth, via electromagnetism, for example?." all being genetically 'tuned' to receiving a different set of melodies from the symphony" -[astrophysicist Percy Seymour] Others see this force as an energy in nature (paranarmal/occult) yet undiscovered by science as embraced by Renaissance magical philosophers such as Cornelius Agrippa. Both camps however, hold that celestial forces act upon us via a classical cause-and-effect mechanism.

2. Acausal (synnchronistic) -- adherents see no complete disclosure of the secret of astrological influence in any of the above, but perceives all phenomena as contained within a deeper network of interconnectedness. Humanistic astrologer Dane Rudhyar and Theosophical Movement leader Helena Blavatsky, both giants in their fields, hold that planetary patterns at one's birth moment do not cause particular tendencies or traits, so much as reflect them. As Carl Jung's saw it, the planets' positions and the life of an individual represent joint expressions of the same underlying pattern of meaningfulness.

Astrology's 'mechanism' might be better described as symbolism: not only acausally with earthly occurrences, but incorporating symbolic dimensions beyond surface appearances. Of the many techniques/theories available to astrologers (those aware of them), the bulk are in fact entirely symbolic. Yet, countless examples exist of planetary phenomenon borne out by personal experience whereby the cause-and-effect theory could not possibly apply, having nothing to do with the objective status of a planet. Rather, any planet's astronomical position and movement is more effectively comprehended as a metaphor for conditions occurring in humans, existing only re Earth observers' phenomenological dynamics.

Perhaps astrology could be defined (as per Shelley Trimmer) as 'astronomy symbolically interpreted' : a qualitative/symbolic dimension absent for (invisible to) the conventional scientist. For example, to astronomers, Jupiter is but a large gaseous planet with certain measurable properties: speed and orbit, etc; for astrologers, it symbolizes particular qualities: expansiveness, joviality, optimism, excess, exploration, spiritual awareness, opportunity. Astrological interpretation therefore requires a perceptual shift, a kind of metaphoric knowing.

Since to the symbolist the planetary bodies are but threads within a far greater tapestry of affinities, when a child is born, important clues pointing to a child's character and destiny exist everywhere -- in the flight of birds, movement of clouds, environmental, social & political happenings, as well as the celestial positions re the time and place of birth.

The mystical Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus, adamantly critical of the simplistic understanding that the stars 'cause' things to happen on Earth, argues that all things are intricately coordinated or 'enchained' with one another, & therefore 'signifiers' of each other within a supremely regulated design, conveying, "The wise man is he who in any one thing can read another." He further expressed that one would have to be far removed from the awareness of Divine Unity to think that anything is truly accidental or the result of chance.

[Does a Native shaman naming a child 'Swift Eagle' upon noting the great bird circling the village during birth, ask what manner of force emanated from the eagle towards the child, influencing its personality, biology and destiny? Or how this force is transmitted, or its precise speed?]

Inquiring of the planets' influence in humans, then, veils a fundamental misconception, for the planets themselves are elements of a much larger picture in which each part interlocks with the other.

Imagine the end of a play in which the lead character realizes a truth long hidden from herself: just as a mock Sun rises in the stage background, a dramatic devise complementing the all-important perception. Now, are we to assume secret rays emanating from that mock Sun, or an energy field amongst the actors? Hardly. Nonetheless, there is a connection between the lead's psychological shift and the lighting change, but a symbolic rather than a causal one. Here, as in astrology, meaning exists only through the lens of symbolic interpretation -- each person's experience a unique, highly personalized context of significance, a living book of multi-levelled interconnectedness, encoding information about past, present and future.

Astrology in the 21st Century - Bill Sheeran 4/5.99 In the context of Western society, astrology exists in a kind of ghetto, ostracized, misrepresented and on the margins. The literalism of scientific objectivity is totally ill-suited to modeling symbol systems like astrology. To conventional science, astrology would be hard pressed to fulfill criteria that would support its reality, hence any viability for it. While serious attempts to do so in the late 70s by respected members of the astrological community at large were put forth with some very impressive research from Michel Gauquelin, a once hard-nosed skeptic, one had the likes of science 'guru' & astrology-bashing Carl Sagan to contend with.

We live in a culture and time when blind faith isn't enough -- we like things to make sense; however, it is possible for something to make sense non-rationally. There is a middle way between rational objectivity and imagination's logic. From this perspective conceptual models are not literal explanations of phenomena, but instead act as metaphors that carry explanatory power, and as such, act to mediate understanding, evolve & becoming consolidated through experience. Most importantly they facilitate the communication of astrology's nature in a way that makes sense to the imagination.

Conceptual models also provide a framework within which to complement empirical observation; lacking these provides critics with much of astrology's misrepresentations as a very rich source for fun & ridicule.

Rational logic and scientific methodology, while of no little value, captures the consensus mindset to this day, as central to the modern worldview, is that there are over-arching theories that provide universal explanations (Marxism, religions, scientific 'theories of everything', etc.). However, this all-pervasive quasi sheep-like embracing of 'absolutes' is being seriously questioned by post-modern deep thinking philosophers, some highly respected in the scientific community -- the Ken Wilburs, Gary Zukavs, Deepak Chopras, quantum theorists, for example. A cultural revolution is in the wind?

Such a destabilization implies, for one, that astrologers will be relieved from having to try validating their premise in terms of orthodox thinking, largely defined by science. This nonetheless will demand from the astrological community at large a shaping up and defining of a continuity of astrological models that can be readily understood by the layman of the future in terms of its social, practical function and relevance in all walks of life. Astrology could perhaps be defined as the evolving record of humanity's efforts to model a subjectively experienced phenomenon: the correlation between celestial and Earth life rhythms.

Astrology has undergone at least 3 major transition eras: 1. pre-Modern - 4000-3000 B.C.E. (invention of the wheel); 2. Modern - the early scientific revolution (circa 16th to 17th centuries C.E.); and 3. post-Modern (the latter half of the 20th century) -- each representing a broad cultural backdrop within which astrology has had an evolving social presence.

The investing of power and meaning in celestial bodies predates the earliest written mythologies (circa 3000 B.C.E.) wherein social systems geared toward creating stable societies, uniform social ideals, cultural traditions, economic growth, protection of harvests -- saw order as a primary virtue. Considering the form astrology adopts is very much culturally determined, the shift from nomadic to agrarian to urban lifestyles had a very real impact on the astrology of the times then. In fact the recognizable form we practice today is largely based on the blending of Mesopotamian astrological divination with Greek maths and astronomy from about 6B.C.E. onward. For 2000 yrs, astrology figured powerfully in European culture as a system mediating understanding on a cosmological level re climate, health, politics, relationships, etc. It was consistent to an extent with the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, and later proponents like Thomas Aquinas in medieval times.

(Not incidentally it wasn't til the early 1500s when Copernicus proved that the Earth revolved around the Sun and not the other way round as had been the 'world-view' before then..)

And though a virus-like attachment of blatant superstition plagued astrology, leaving its scar to this day, astrology has never been completely denied, but instead has thrived via serious attention given to critiquing it, underlying presuppositions (especially re divinatory astrology). Nonetheless, a major player leading to astrology's fall from grace and the birth of modern astronomy was the division during the Renaissance, between more objective perceivers (mathematical or scientific astrology), and those with strong subjectivist leanings.

Separating the Modern from the pre-Modern eras were two significant developments: the scientific method, a logical approach to experimentation towards establishing objective truth; the other the emergence of the doctrine of materialism (whatever exists is either matter, or entirely dependent on it for its existence. So in short order, with such a death-blow, astrology stopped making sense.

Astrology in the Modern Era (18th & 19th centuries) underwent tough times, as Enlightenment thinking sought to subject all received wisdom to the gaze of reason, purge all superstition, and 'extracurricular beliefs', limiting individual freedom to the determinism of Newtonian physics', as if dictating conscious distancing from traditions of the past. Then the dehumanizing materialism/rationalism impact of the Industrial Revolution eventually catalyzed a Romantic reaction in the 19th century. Paralleling that came a quest for higher truths in search for some balance, giving birth in 1875 to the Theosophical Movement. This blend of Tibetan, Hindu and Neo-Platonic arcana were well-received elements and from a larger perspective, timely and necessary for astrology's re-emergence into the 20th century.

Though some 19th century astrologers, critical of this 'intruder', attempted promoting their craft as an applied mathematical science, it was the esoteric tone that found a voice on the early 1900s. That said, scientific-influenced astrology along with Theosophical subjectivism exist side by side to one degree or another to this day?and although thick into the battle in the mid 1600s, astrology and modern science are deeply bonded philosophically in giving primacy to order and structure over evolution and process(not by a long shot the healthiest 'model' for what's sorely needed from 21st century astrologersone sorely needing redefinition!)

[The Platonic view considers celestial movements the perfect example of absolute uniformity & predictability, unchanging within a permanent cosmos. Astrology was the expression of a temporal bridge between planetary spheres and the phenomenal world of Earthly cyclic change -- 'rational' means of revealing hidden order underlying the imperfect world of illusory appearances and change perceived through our deceptive senses. -G.J. Whitrow: Time in History, Oxford University press 1989]

Newton's physics, in contrast, sees nature and the cosmos as merely machine-like, totally-determined physical systems understandable via the soul-less logic and methodology of maths and science. (One consolation is the view shared by both astrology and science: the cosmos is stable and orderly, because orderliness implies predictability And revealing the hidden order amidst the chaos was the shared goal. Hallelujah?!) For all their differences, these two worlds (including Western religion for that mater) are branches on the same tree, the underlying motive being salvation from the forces of chaos -- different approaches to conceptualizing the desire for order.

Be that as it may, with the 16th/17th century division, however viable astrology's power for predicting and attuning to cosmic law and order, in her demise, the baton was surrendered to science. As we enter the 21st century, paralleling this retreat from soulfulness had been the gradual emergence of its opposite, seen most visibly in the reappraisal of the feminine having gathered momentum steadily since (with Suffragettes' emergence at the turn of the last century and in militant fashion in 1909); ecological/environmental consciousness, the development of process thinking and systems theory (which necessitates the addressing of context); and the new maths/science of complexity of chaos..

The communications/info revolution has smashed barriers of cultural exclusion of the 'Other', the foreign/unfamiliar. 'Postmodernity', the term given to the cultural expression of these developmental consequences include abandoning the quest for universal truths and absolutes, dissolving of value hierarchies (such as Western cultural perspectives being seen as being superior), the embracing of cultural diversity/same sex union, the internet, non-linear story lines in literature/film, reappraisal of the past, etc. Astrology too is showing signs of this influence, perhaps most significantly with the recent translations of ancient texts ('Project Hindsight'), indicating a movement beyond modernism, which characteristically belittled the value of the past.

However the astrological community at large comes to affect a viable working balance between the pendulum swings of outright objectivism at one extreme & a growing trend to subjectivism reminiscent of some earlier eras at the other, it is the conceptual framework or theoretical/philosophical foundation on which the applied craft is based that needs to be addressed in the near future -- to survive with the dignity and recognition this craft as a symbol system is most definitely worthy of.