Astrologers' Words of Wisdom #2

Astrologers come in all shades, stripes, shapes and sizes. Something for everyone! My own choice is for the more down-to-earth variety, those who never lose sight of reason and rationality. There are, and have been, quite a few such astrologers. As an occasional feature I'll aim to choose a paragraph or so from the books or websites of some of these. Second helping coming up:

From astrologer Lee Lehman's Astro Blog, towards the end of a post titled "Critical Method in Astrology":

I would like to propose a working axiom that would make almost everybody's astrological learning curve easier. It's very simple: perhaps astrology doesn't have to explain everything. Consider how this simple idea can free you up phenomenally.

Consider, for examples, how geneticists don't feel they have to explain all of intelligence. If a person seems to be brighter or dimmer than might be expected, geneticists don't have to run out and try to find some other genetics analysis to try to explain it: they can simply say: there must be an environmental effect. A meteorologist doesn't have to go to a conference to find a new technique when a forecast is wrong: he or she simply says: either there must be a factor I didn't take into account, or perhaps my weightings were wrong - or even that my forecast was only statistical to begin with!

What we collectively do which other knowledge areas don't is to create a tent big enough to capture all possible outcomes - no matter how unlikely. We never stop to think that the odd case may simply be better explained by something other than astrology. Instead, we risk sacrificing what accuracy we have by focusing too much on the out-liers: those one-in-a-million shots that may be real - just not likely. We don't stop to consider that the astrology that can deal with the oddballs may be embarrassingly bad on the routine.

My own thoughts: "a tent big enough to capture all possible outcomes - no matter how unlikely." This is what worries me. It's possible to make any chart or aspect mean anything if you dig deeply enough, and use a number of different astrological "tools". The less "tools" the better, is my choice. If things don't seem to work out, then, as Ms Lehman says, there are numerous other ingredients affecting human beings, individually and collectively.

Astrology works - I'm certain of it - but I doubt that it works reliably to the extent that some would like to think, nor on as many levels. That's my own view, formed from personal experience. It's obviously one not held by most astrologers.