Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Carl Sagan & Astrology

About three weeks ago I received a comment on a five-year-old post, from December 2006 featuring Carl Sagan. The anonymous commenter wrote:
"Thank you for this insight. I too watch closely the connection between modern astronomy and ancient astrology - and believe that one day, astrology will be acknowleged as a science in itself, as it was in it's inception."
As today would have been Carl Sagan's birthday (77th) I've decided to re-air a slightly modified version of that old post:

CARL SAGAN & ASTROLOGY

It's something of an anomaly that Carl Sagan was, and still is, one of my heroes. He was never a friend to astrology, he was a critic of so-called pseudo-science. Perhaps because I have doubts of my own about certain areas of astrological doctrine, I'm able to go along with his views to some extent. I sense though that, deep down, he stood not too far away from my own beliefs. One day it might emerge that both he, and astrolgers, were both partially correct.






Carl Sagan had Sun, Mercury, Venus and Jupiter all in Scorpio - is there any wonder he was so passionate and dedicated to his subject? It was that kind of passion driving his inspiring writing and style of presentation, a style which endeared him to many. His natal chart is here at Astrodatabank.

Using Carl Sagan's words ~
From the last chapter of his book Cosmos~

And we, we who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos, we have begun at least to wonder about our origins -- star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms, contemplating the evolution of nature, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet earth, and perhaps throughout the cosmos. Our loyalties are to the species and to the planet. We speak for earth. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that cosmos ancient and vast from which we spring!

And from The Cosmic Connection~

The fate of individual human beings may not now be connected in a deep way with the rest of the universe, but the matter out of which each of us is made is intimately tied to processes that occurred immense intervals of time and enormous distances in space a way from us. Our Sun is a second or third-generation star. All of the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star stuff. Our atomic and molecular connection with the rest of the universe is a real and unfanciful cosmic hookup. As we explore our surroundings by telescope and space vehicle, other hookups may emerge. There may be a network of intercommunicating extraterrestrial civilizations to which we may link up tomorrow, for all we know. The undelivered promise of astrology-that the stars impel our individual characters - will not be satisfied by modern astronomy. But the deep human need to seek and understand our connection with the universe is a goal well within our grasp. "


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

GP: I always suspected that Sagan could not tell all he knew. And maybe that's why he even died a bit early, just so the "secrets continued to be protected".

Wisewebwoman said...

Another huge fan here, T. Such an untimely death and could be GP's theory could be correct.
XO
WWW

Wisewebwoman said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Twilight said...

Anon/Gian Paul and Wisewebwoman~~

Hmmm. That's a thought that had never entered my mind. Maybe....but we'll never know - sadly.

He was such an inspiration - there's nobody like him nowadays.

Espana said...

What a wonderful breath of fresh air these young men are!!! Do you remember the wonderful Firestone Christmas albums from the 1960s with Julie Andrews and so many other great voices? That kind of vocal quality still exists, and it's waiting for you on this beautiful CD.

Moshe Zev Ben Haya משה זאב בן חיה said...

The idea that atoms some aged enough like grape juice that turns into wine, i.e., atoms turn into consciousness is poetic and poetry is imagination. Imagination could just as well contemplate consciousness dreaming up black holes and singularities and atoms and human beings; isn't it the question: what came first, the chicken or the egg?

Astrology's answer: consciousness is the ultimate reality and we human beings are gifted with it, no evolution there. It is our bodes, our vehicles that begin as atoms and molecules; to think that we as star dust, composites of calcium, gold, mercury, etc. are drawn to contemplate the stardust from which we came is like my Civic Honda yearning to return to the car plant from which it emerged. Folks, we are light by which we see stardust and we take a ride on that stardust from time to time for a bit of time...it's a mystery and "mystery" has yet to be offered as a major at MIT, let alone 'astrology'.

Twilight said...

Moshe Zev Ben Haya ~ Hello - and many thank for reading and commenting!