Astrology: The only introduction you’ll ever need

THE WORK OF THE GAUQUELINS

No history of 20th-century astrology would be complete without mention of the remarkable work of the French psychologist and statistician Dr Michel Gauquelin (1928–91) and his demographer wife Frangoise (1929– ). Between them they gathered many tens of thousands of birth certificates of famous individuals from all over Europe. Birth certificates on the continent include the time of birth. Using this information, the Gauquelins were able to demonstrate statistically that eminent professionals tended to be born when particular planets were:

 close to the eastern or western horizon or

 close to the upper meridian, their highest point in the sky or

 close to the lower meridian, the lowest point.

For example, future champion athletes, eminent military men and entrepreneurs tend to be born when Mars, god of the warrior, is so placed. By contrast, the Gauquelins found that future eminent scientists tend to be born when Saturn, bestower of the saturnine cautious, methodical, intellectual temperament, is prominent. Future actors and politicians tend to be born when self-important, jovial Jupiter is in these positions. Future politicians are also found to be born with an angular Moon, as are future writers and journalists.

Despite attempts by several committees of sceptics to disprove these results, often using dubious methods, the observations have replicated again and again with fresh samples of data. An impartial survey of all the evidence by Suitbert Ertel, Professor of Psychology at Göttingen University in Germany, has concluded in The Tenacious Mars Effect that it is time that sceptics embraced the reality of these results and accepted the challenge they present to the prevailing world-view. Hans Eysenck, (1916–97), Professor of Psychology at London University and a strict experimentalist, came to the same conclusion.

EMERGING FROM ISOLATION

Astrology during the 20th century has been gradually emerging from 200 years of isolation. It is still not accepted by most academics, and encyclopaedias still omit it from the map of 20th century knowledge, or include it with scornful asides. Faced with the upsurge of interest in astrology, sociologists try to explain it as a superstitious reaction to the nihilism of the 20th century. Meanwhile, astrologers have simply got on with their work and have developed the study in exciting and philosophically challenging new areas. During the century, there has been a growing number of intellectuals who have slipped through the ring fence of academic scorn and now experiment with astrology.

The great Irish poet, dramatist and philosopher W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) studied and used astrology daily throughout much of his adult life. C.G. Jung (1875–1961), the great Swiss psychologist, was a pioneer in this area and wrote to Sigmund Freud:

My evenings are taken up very largely with astrology. I make horoscopic calculations in order to find a clue to the core of psychological truth.

Likewise, in Austria, Oscar Adler, the medical doctor and musician brother of the great psychologist Alfred Adler, was a pioneer of modern astrology, and wrote a four-volume work, An Astrologer’s Testament. Also in Austria, the philosopher and painter Thomas Ring (1892–1983) wrote and lectured widely on astrology throughout his life. In Germany between the wars, the traveller and philosopher Count Herman Keyserling (1880–1946) embraced astrology and wrote an important introduction to the subject, whilst his son, Arnold Keyserling (1922– ), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Vienna, and a humanistic psychologist, lectures and teaches regularly throughout Europe on astrology.

The late Dr James S. Williamsen (1941–88), a brilliant American mathematician resident at King’s College Cambridge and the Oxford Computing Laboratory, summed up the nub of the matter. When asked why, as a penetrating student of artificial intelligence, he would stoop to study astrology, Williamsen replied:

If we truly want to create artificial intelligence then we must first understand the operations of the Mind which created our minds. From my studies it seems clear that astrology holds a key to understanding and mapping the workings of what from earliest times was known as the Divine Intelligence.

Such views on the implications of astrology are not only to be heard from questing scientists. Professor Dr L. Cunibert Mohlburg of the Vatican Institute of Archaeology forecast in his book Candi’s Letter to Tschu that:

If we look ahead it is already possible to say that Astrology seems destined to lead all other branches of knowledge out of the blind alley of unspiritual rationalism and materialism … and effect the reconciliation that Science so ardently desires with Belief.

At the present time, a leading contemporary philosopher Dr Richard Tarnas, author of the much-acclaimed history of Western thought, Passion of the Western Mind, has said he believes that:

Psychology textbooks of the future will look upon modern psychologists working without the aid of astrology as being like medieval astronomers working without the aid of a telescope.

OBJECTIONS TO ASTROLOGY

HOW COULD ASTROLOGY POSSIBLY WORK?

Whether you are a true believer, an open-minded enquirer, or a dyed-in-the-wool sceptic, astrology presents us with a problem. How could it possibly work? What possible connection can there be between the positions of the planets at the time of birth and our character and destiny, or between planetary movements and the movements of the stock market, or major political changes?

Astrology certainly runs contrary to the approach of science over the past 300 years and more. Scientific success has bred arrogance, and media pundits with only the dimmest understanding of the history of ideas will speak derogatorily of astrology as a throwback to superstitious un-reason. In fact, of all subjects astrology still addresses the inherent reasonableness of life, as we shall see in the next chapter.

NEWSPAPER ASTROLOGY

Different newspapers give different forecasts from the same information. All too true. Most newspaper columns are light-hearted fun and pour out ‘thoughts for the day’ without too much reference to the cosmic climate. Even the best and most conscientious of newspaper astrologers is faced with trying to reduce a cosmic ocean of information into a single sip. This is soundbites gone mad, and horoscope columns imply that they contain far greater personal information than they could ever supply. That said, a particular period of time will, on average, be more stressful or advantageous for certain signs. Prevailing surges in energy or tense patterns will tend to be picked up by some types rather than others. But for any particular individual, the ‘signals’ are likely to be swamped out by more personal factors.

THE GRAVITY OF THE MIDWIFE

Scientific critics of astrology say that it is absurd to believe that the planets can have any effect on our character or destiny since the gravitational mass of the midwife in attendance at birth is far greater than any possible pull of the planets. This, like many arguments put forward by physicist critics of astrology, assumes that astrology is measuring material causes. In fact, as we shall see in the next chapter, it is clear that astrology measures the unfoldment of formal cause in the cosmos.

For example, the disillusionment with Communism and the impulse for political change which swept through Europe in 1989 as Jupiter opposed a tightening Saturn-Neptune conjunction had no physical gravity. The intellectual gravitas of these compelling ideas was more compelling than any number of secret police or border guards. The ‘ideas of the time’ swept all before them far more effectively than any hurricane or tidal wave. For astrologers, the cosmic configurations of that time ‘birthed’ a decisive new reality for the world.

PRECESSION OF THE EQUINOXES

The signs of the zodiac used by astrologers in the West are no longer the same as the constellations in the sky of the same name. This is perfectly true and all astrologers are aware of this fact. The Western tropical zodiac is measured from what astronomy calls The First Point of Aries, the point where the Sun crosses the Equator and follows the seasonal cycle. It measures unfolding life in relation to our Earth. The Fixed Zodiac of the Constellations measures out a larger more cosmic cycle of reference. Whilst this book focuses on the tropical zodiac, both frames of reference have their place in a larger astrology. An analogy might be that someone might be a Sun Leo in terms of their local political scene, a king: a big fish in a small pond. But when they graduate to national politics they get measured against another scale and may be a Sun Cancer, and a much less self-assured creature, a crab in a much vaster ocean.

THE STARS IN THE CONSTELLATIONS ARE OFTEN NOT PART OF THE SAME STAR SYSTEM

Astrology is not dependent on the constellations being all of a piece. No-one looking at the constellations and asked to make pictures would see the animals and images that they are supposed to represent. It is clear that the ancients gave the names in order to summarize and symbolize their experience of planets moving through that part of the sky. The signs of the zodiac, whether tropical or fixed, tell a story of unfolding ideas which follows a particular sequence. In fact, there is also a branch of astrology which studies the significance of specific Fixed Stars. Again, the meaning of individual stars is based on observation and is in no way dependent upon it being part of a particular constellation.

HELIOCENTRIC RATHER THAN GEOCENTRIC

Since Copernicus it has been known that the Earth moves around the Sun and not vice versa. It is argued that astrology is Earth-centred and seems to assume that the planets move around the Earth. Astrologers are well aware of the distinction. In practice we live on the Earth and not the Sun, and in terms of the unfolding of planetary ideas for humankind it is therefore the Earth-centred view that is most relevant. There is, however, much to be learned from heliocentric astrology, which is a whole area of astrology in its own right.

Most objections to astrology come from individuals who can think only in terms of physical, material causes. Anyone who has worked in astrology for any length of time knows that astrology has to do with an algebra of meaning and consciousness rather than purely of matter.

Figure 1 The top diagram shows a top-down view of the solar system with the planets orbiting the Sun in the centre. This is the helio-centric view. The lower diagram shows how these same positions appear when seen from the earth as centre, the geocentric view.

PHYSICAL THEORIES ABOUT ASTROLOGY

All that said, there are still some astrologers who can only feel comfortable with material causes. And there is a range of theories that have been elaborated to explain how astrology might work. The analogy of the Moon and ocean tides is often invoked. The human body is over 90 per cent water. Do the planets have minute tidal effects within our bodies?

Related to this theory is Dr Percy Seymour’s eloquent resonance theory, which points out that resonance can give wave forms power out of all proportion to their inherent energy. Classic examples of this are the singer who can break a glass at a distance by singing the glass’s ‘note’ so that it vibrates itself to pieces. Likewise an army marching over a bridge has to break step so as not to set the bridge vibrating to its own natural frequency and make it fall apart. In this model, the planets in their movements are setting up wave forms with which the child resonates and ‘tunes in’, thereby establishing certain types of behaviour.

Endocrinologist Dr Frank MacGillion has put forward endocrine secretions from the pineal gland as a possible mechanism, pointing out numerous studies which highlight the importance of the state of the day-night cycle at the time of birth and its effects on melatonin secretions. Dr Michel Gauquelin, the French psychologist and statistician, whose work is cited above, postulated a genetic predisposition, whereby a baby with a martial genetic make-up would be tuned to Mars orbit.

Such theories may perhaps explain certain very limited astrological phenomena. However elegant some of these theories are, though, they simply cannot explain how it is that a chart set for the moment of the formation of a company can provide detailed information about its likely company style, its development and the kind of people that it will attract to it.

In the next chapter we look at the central philosophical principles upon which astrology is traditionally based. Even if you are someone who would prefer a neat physical cause-and-effect model, you will find that if you engage with these ideas they will provide a framework within which to think about astrology.

THE ANCIENTS SAID IT ALL

The philosophy of the astrological world-view, which assumes an intimate, meaningful connection between the above and the below, has never been more eloquently expressed than by the writings attributed to the wise Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus. In this passage, the relationship of the Cosmic Principles to their Source is being explained to Hermes by the great Pymander: (from The Divine Pymander of Hermes Trismegistus, ed. The Shrine of Wisdom, 1970.)

1 Hermes Trismegistus: Many men have affirmed many and diverse things concerning the Cosmos and God, but I have not learned Truth; therefore, O Lord, make plain these things to me.

2 Pymander: Hear, then, my Son, how these things are of God and the Cosmos.

3 God; Eternity; the Cosmos; Time; Generation.

4 God maketh Eternity;Eternity maketh the Cosmos;The Cosmos maketh Time;Time maketh Generation.

5 The Substance, or Essence, as it were, of God, is the Good, the Beautiful, Blessedness, and Wisdom;of Eternity, is Identity and Sameness;of the Cosmos, is Order;of Time, is Change;of Generation, is Life and Death.

6 The Operation, Energy, or Activityof God, is in Nous and Soul;of Eternity, is in Permanence and Immortality;of the Cosmos, is in Integration and Re-integration;of Time, is in Augmentation and Diminution;of Generation, is in Qualities.

7 Therefore, Eternity is in God;The Cosmos is in Eternity;Time is in the Cosmos;Generation is in Time.

8 Eternity abides with God;The Cosmos is moved in Eternity;Time is accomplished (i.e. has its limit) in the Cosmos;Generation takes place in Time.

9 Therefore, the Source and Foundation of All is God, but the Essence of Substance is Eternity; and the Matter is the Cosmos.

10 The Power of God is Eternity; the Work of Eternity is the Cosmos, which is unmanifest and also ever being made manifest by Eternity.

11 Therefore the Cosmos shall never be destroyed, nor the things in it perish, for Eternity is indestructible, and the Cosmos is contained and encompassed by Eternity.

A CONTEMPORARY SYNTHESIS

At the end of the 20th century, the re-emergence of astrology challenges the Western mind once again to find a framework of thought that can resolve the tension that has existed since the Greeks – between Platonic idealism with its emphasis on consciousness and Aristotelian empiricism with its emphasis on matter. For, of all studies, astrology demands a philosophy and framework of thought that embraces both physics and metaphysics, the temporal and the eternal, the manifest and the unmanifest, the observed and the intuited, the material and the formal. The phenomena of astrology demand a model of the universe that is inclusive of quantity and qualities, matter and consciousness. Hermes Trismegistus’s perspective, above, with its emphasis on the relation of the temporal to the eternal, offers such a resolution in principle. The problem, then, is to translate these insights into a form and language that is intelligible to contemporary thought.

One contemporary thinker who has embraced this challenge is Will Keepin, a nuclear physicist, whose mother and father were both nuclear physicists, who is also a practising astrologer. Keepin has been obliged by the reality of his astrological experience to engage with the resoltion of these worldviews. He finds a meeting place in the work of the late David Bohm, a student of Einstein, who was until recently Professor of Theoretical Physics at London University. In his book Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Bohm pictures the universe as having both an implicate, eternal, ‘enfolded’ order which is unfolded in the explicate order of space-time. Bohm sees each moment of space-time as both an explicit manifestation of a particular part of that implicate order and a point of access and linkage to that Wholeness. This evokes the holographic image of reality that we see reflected in the relationship between cells in a body and the body as a whole. In an interview in The Mountain Astrologer, February/March 1997, Keepin sums up the implications of Bohm’s work and his own thinking as follows:

Any natural science from physics to biology to astrology is basically an enterprise of pattern recognition, which utilizes a naturally existing order to discern replicable truths. So astrology is a science of the order in meaning, and the correlation between the subtle order and the Cartesian order in the physical motion of the planets.

For each point in space-time there is a unique astrological chart. I see the astrological chart as a kind of cosmic indexing of the unfolding cosmos. In this grand evolutionary process, each point in the emergent space-time is characterized by a unique astrological chart. It is almost as if the chart is an index for the creative process of cosmic evolution. And when one is born with a particular chart, one becomes an ambassador of sorts to the rest of the cosmos, representing a unique moment in the cosmic space-time to the rest of the cosmos as it continues to unfold.

Each one of us is expressing a particular aspect of the mystery and bringing it into fluid relationship with the rest of the unfolding mystery. Now in terms of astrology and the implicate order, I see the implicate order as a vast realm of meaning and purpose and all of the invisible and intangibles, including, at its deepest levels, the creative process of love itself.

The implicate order is essentially the whole of the unmanifest realm, and the laws that operate in that domain. Astrology is an attempt to map out some of the elementary workings in that domain, and it works by utilizing the non-Cartesian order and non-material laws that govern that domain.

When Keepin’s perspective is put together with the insights of the great British astrologer, philosopher and mystic John Addey, who also draws on Bohm, as in A New Science of Astrology, a picture begins to emerge of astrology as a systematic algebra of life and consciousness which is entirely compatible with the new physics. But not only is astrology in accord with the new physics, it also has the power to reveal to physics and philosophy a profoundly potent dimension of reality which was familiar to the ancients but which has been all too long neglected and denied. This is the dimension of cosmic meaning, purpose and intention.