A number of years ago, I read
several articles concerning the falsity and implausibility of astrology, a
discipline near and dear to my heart. Many skeptics argue that astrology is
false and tell us why it doesn’t work. The academic research into astrology that
I’ve seen demonstrates that the claims of astrology are not true in a literal,
falsifiable manner. Oddly enough, this is not at all hard for me to say though I frequently
use astrology in my life and work.
My belief over the last 30 years is
that astrology is much closer to religion than to science, more in line with
drama and poetry than equation and fact, more fictive than empirical. The
attempt to address astrology through quantitative research is similar to
evaluating a poem by the criteria of good legal contract writing, or describing
a Beethoven sonata as a particular array of sonic disturbance in a gaseous
medium. We can do this but it would not capture the power and beauty of the
verse or the music. In other words, we would not be able to see the value of poetry
and music if we used the wrong tools to address them.
Astrology works in the fashion of
great drama, lyric, or narrative. It captures us with its elegance. Who among
us has not been deeply moved by dramatic presentation, enriched by poetry,
caught up in musical ecstasy, entranced by art, or enchanted by ritual? To
suggest that these experiences have little value by not being amenable to
empirical testing or demonstrating a literal truth is simply specious.
The late psychologist, Rollo May writing
in The Cry For Myth, about science’s failure to realize that astrology
has a different basis than science notes that astrology “is a myth and requires
the language of myth. It has both the shortcomings and the positive effects of
myths.” The word “myth” is used by May not to denote falsehood (perhaps the
popular understanding), but to speak of that category of human experience in
which value, significance, and meaning reside. He further writes that myths are
“essential to the process of keeping our souls alive and bringing us new
meaning in a difficult and often meaningless world.”
Astrology is a form of imagination,
an imaginal poetics that is better placed in the humanities than the sciences.
We do not argue the truth of art and literature but rather indicate that they
are vehicles for conveying, suggesting, or disclosing truth, and so it is with
astrology. In the same manner that a portrait reveals, evokes, or presents a
particular view of its subject, likewise, the drawing up of a natal chart
allows the astrologer to construct a rough draft of the person which becomes
increasingly refined through dialogue with the client.
Astrology provides a framework for
imagining a profound intimacy between ourselves and the world. It gives us the
fantasy of belongingness and connection. It situates us naturally in the world,
part and parcel of an interdependent universe. It gives us a place, bespeaks of
home. Through its archetypal images, it can give voice to our deepest
connections.
I believe that we go to astrology,
tarot, I Ching, enneagrams, and the like not seeking the facts of our life but
rather the truth of our existence. Like beachcombers walking the morning shores at low
tide, we seek a revelation from the larger mystery out of which we all
originate. We yearn to bring to the foreground of our lives a hint of a larger
order to sustain us, if only for a brief moment, in the ground of our being.
After 40 years of experiencing astrology, my faith in it rivals the
empiricist’s faith in reason. I do not know why I believe what I believe,
perhaps because it comes not from the head but from the heart.
Despite several
centuries of scientific discrediting, we seem to need astrology, myth, and
magic. Some veiled part of the soul yearns for mystery. Astrology works not
because it gives us the facts, but because it provides a satisfying aesthetic.
It suggests elegance, beauty, and the sublime. What better task for astrologers
than to spin beauty back into the world, to reawaken in us some of the
abracadabra of life?
Visit me at AstroCare.net.