I’m gonna regret this, I always do, opening up oneself to derision is seldom wise. Done this a thousand times, got tired of watching people preen their worldly skepticism at my expense. Once more into the breech, dear friends, once more…
I practiced (did charts), wrote about and taught astrology for about 10 years, if there were a Ph.D. in Astrology, likely I would be on the examining committee. I know of what I speak.
It doesn’t “work” in the generally accepted use of the term. It is, in fact, an interpretive art based on general principles. You cannot boil it down into a test tube because it is interpretive, just as you cannot define a fugue. You can reduce a fugue down into mathematical formulae, and play it out of a computer. Few of us would contend that such a display equals the playing of a gifted and passionate musician. Music, in this sense, is interpretive: the notes make up the framework, the notes of the “Ode to Joy” are defined and set, yet there is much, much more.
The rational framework of astrology is limited. Any rational, scientific test is bound to fail. There are human capacities that lie outside the range of our strictly rationalist mind-set, intuition for instance. We can explain intuition but cannot really study it. And, fo course, our explanations must remain conjectures as no falsifying experiment is possible.
Astrology, as practiced by some, is little more than another form of tea-leaf reading or tarot cards, or any of a wide variety of practices that give some form to intuition (a word I regret that I must overuse and overburden, having no precise alternative…) There are principles to astrology, a square to Mars cannot be interpreted as mellow, a prevalence of Saturn inclines to the morose and withdrawn.
But prediction is impossible for the obvious reason: the future does not exist, therefore it cannot have any characteristics. On the rare occassion that I have approached a question based on what predictive astrology would have suggested, the results are mixed: doesn’t work very well, but the wonder is that it works at all. But such results must, by their very nature, remain anecdotal, statistical analysis is impossible.
There is no human endeavor that is not subject to fraudulent abuse, nor any that is not subject to well-meaning but foolish manipulation. And, of course, anything based on “sun signs” can only be entertainment, one twelfth of humanity is not having the same bad day. But practiced wisely, and with a grain of detachment, astrology can provide interesting insights into human personality and perception. I make no further claims. I cannot even suggest that the reader have a chart done to make up their own minds, the woods are full of cuckoos, the owls are few and far between.
Nor have I the slightest interest in converting the hyper-rationalist from his chosen faith, the work is hard, the rewards neglible. Its a stacked deck, you cannot use the rationalist approach to prove things outside of its provenance: the rationalist mind is for science, just like a hammer is for nails. Nor do I intend any denigration of the entirely rationalist mind, it has its uses, and has brought us wonders and comforts beyond measure. But one does not hunt butterflys with a hammer.
Does astrology work? Sometimes, and in limited ways, yes. Can it predict the future? Of course not. Out of all that time, I can only sincerely state the following: it doesn’t work all that well, but the amazing thing is that it works * at all*. Which it does. I am always interested in being amazed, and always grateful for the privilege.
Please do not bore me with challenges, I am not about to try to prove the unproveable, and I don’t “believe” in astrology. I have studied the matter and found it interesting, nuggets of insight and intelligence in a vast fog of symbolism and intuition.
It shouldn’t work at all, it works some. And that’s damned interesting.