How does Astrology work?

Our bodies react to the world in ways which are still barely understood. We constantly interact with our environment on many levels, from the sub-atomic to the metaphysical. These physical, mental, emotional, even spiritual, levels of interaction vary in depth and intensity according to our character and training. Our world is really much more like a marvellous mind than a mere machine.

Our bodies are like sensitive broadcasting and receiving stations. We respond to a broad spectrum of radiant frequencies, not all of which have yet been catalogued by science. Bear in mind it was not so long ago that the idea of radio, movies, x-rays and televison signals would have been consigned to ridicule at best - or, more ominously, to the stake with the witches.

Some astrologers believe that planetary energies themselves generate events in our lives - and given recent advances in quantum mechanics, they may be right. Others believe, following Jung, the great psychologist, that planetary positions are synchronistically connected with our lives - meaning that environmental influences generating reactions in human beings may be tracked in the positions of the planets, although the two may not be causally related. Perhaps both are correct; in any case, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. This writer believes we are organically connected with the cosmos: whatever happens to any part of the world affects us to some extent as individuals, even in ways which may be quite invisible to the casual observer. Moreover, we react en masse much more noticeably to environmental factors which may be more or less insignificant at the individual level.

Freewill and Destiny

It should be said that astrology is not generally a way of foretelling inevitable fate. Paracelsus, one of the world's greatest astrologers, remarked: "The stars incline; they do not compel". He meant that while planetary influences create the groundwork and basis for action in any set of circumstances, there is still the element of free will in us all. We have become masters of our own destiny to the degree to which we are no longer subject to the mechanical influences of the conditioned world.

Astrologers, like all good scientists, must use their knowledge in combination with a developed intuition. A personal horoscope (birth-chart) does not so much reveal a clear fate as a set of probabilities, often operating on many levels simultaneously. The astrologer must clarify these probabilities and place them in perspective.

In astrology, as in medicine, the science is intimately bound up with the art.