How does Astrology differ from Astronomy?

Astronomy is the science of mapping the positions and movements of celestial bodies. It tries to discover what these bodies are made of, and where they came from, using sophisticated technical equipment. This scientific endeavour grew out of three traditional studies that had concerned themselves with practical uses for our observations of the stars - astrology, navigation and chronometry.

Practical science seeks consistent explanations for events in the world and sorts any data gained in the process into a body of theoretical knowledge. The idea is that this knowledge may be used to explain and predict other events with some degree of reliability. Science is very much a way of looking at the world that defines what is true and what is false according to the current set of theories (or organised belief systems) popular with the scientific community at the time. Science is pragmatic. It does not believe in absolute truth.

Modern science is grounded in a skeptical, materialistic way of looking at the world. Its success has grown from the reduction of natural processes to their most basic relations and in constructing "natural laws". These laws, used for technological development, for prediction and for making sense of the apparent chaos, are supposedly based on observation, but are really the consequence of a particular worldview and its dominant theories.

Facts, or Meanings?

Science as taught today is a relatively recent phenomenon, based on a set of ideas which has been effective in explaining the material world up to a point. It has rid us of many pre-scientific superstitions and misconceptions based on false information. But have we thrown the baby out with the bathwater? Our scientific paradigm (set of theories) has generally been unable to perceive meanings in the effects of simple natural relationships, including the effects of our relationship with cosmic influences, such as the planets and the Moon.

Yet it has not always been so. Thousands of years of detailed observation of the stars and careful correlation with events on the earth have shown all things in our world to be interconnected and that the connections may be mapped by observing the positions of the planets within the frame of the zodiac. The zodiac ("circle of animals") is a symbolic pattern mapped onto the starry belt of the heavens, as seen from the earth.

Astrology is a scientific way of looking at the world, but it is one which is not favoured by the broad mass of scientists at present, because it explains the world using a different paradigm from those which are routinely accepted within the orthodox scientific community. This may change, as scientific theories develop and as extravagant reactions to past excesses begin to gain a perspective. Astrology, the mother of all science, may soon return to her rightful place in the universities!

How does Astrology work?
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