With all the hoopla about Ophiuchus, an astronomer on twitter sent me a link to this article. This passage stood out for me:
“They don’t have to justify anything, after all, astrology isn’t a science. It is a trust in some kind of higher power (i.e. magic) that we have to believe is there. So long as astrologers make vague predictions about people’s lives, and there are believers who will pay for these predictions, modern astrology is going nowhere.”
Here are some things that the stood out for me that reveals the ignorance of astronomers about astrology:
1) I agree with astronomers. Astrology isn’t a science in how they understand science. It’s not a science in the modern sense of the word because astrology is not about objective measure or replicable results–the key demands of modern science. However, that doesn’t invalidate it as a form of knowledge any more than psychology, education, literature, ethnic studies, religion, sociology, qualitative research or any other host of academic pursuits. It’s only science that maintains that all aspects of the world has to have objective measure to be real or true.
2.) Many don’t recognize that astrology is one part of an articulate philosophy that connects many different forms of practices, including tarot and numerology. From where I understand astrology at this time, Kabbalistic thought is what informs most of astrological ideas. In fact, astrology articulates ideas/concepts while the planets and constellations are the visible manifestations of these principles. Astrologers believe “as above, so below; as within, so without; as the Cosmos, so the soul.” It’s not magic any more than faith or religion embraces magic. It is a system of understanding that projects terrestrial consciousness into space.
Unfortunately, many astronomers only want us to believe that the cosmos has no soul or no Divine point of origin. So Stephen Hawking can make arrogant claims that the Cosmos has no need for God with only mathematical proofs. But the need and idea of most of human experience can’t be seen by math alone. They are experienced. This is what astrologers get about the cosmos that our scion, astronomy, doesn’t.
