Approaching Astrology With a 21st Century Mind
Written by: Armand Diaz, PhD.
Some paragraphs from the beginning of the piece:
When I tell people that I am an astrologer, I get a range of reactions, from bemusement and even anger at one pole, to excited enthusiasm at the other. Many people seem to wonder what went wrong – how could an educated, intelligent person in the 21st century possibly give any credence to something like astrology?
This article is in no way an attempt to convince anyone of anything about astrology. All I’m doing here is laying out a few prerequisites, things that are “necessary but not sufficient” to consider that astrology may have some validity. Without some experience of astrology – good astrology – none of this is going to seem particularly compelling. To be honest, we’re going to have to get a bit heady if we really want to understand how we can approach astrology with a 21st century mind.
Not Fitting In
If you’re already comfortable with astrology, it might not seem necessary to work out the details, but I think it is worthwhile to try to see how things fit together. Many people who have an interest in astrology or other metaphysical things tend to keep quiet about it, because although they see value in them they know that they don’t quite fit in with the rest of their world view.
In recent years, astrology has gotten a bit of support. For example, Richard Tarnas, who wrote The Passion of the Western Mind, a popular book on the history of Western thought that is widely used in colleges, has also written Cosmos and Psyche. Stanislav Grof, a pioneering psychedelic researcher, physician, and psychologist has endorsed astrology as means of predicting when transformative breakthroughs will occur.
However, suggesting that astrology may have some value frequently does less to elevate astrology than to lower the status of the endorser. It is a trap that catches anyone who looks outside of mainstream thought: no matter how “skeptical” and careful you are, if you are even looking at astrology, energy healing, psychics, life after death, any anomalous phenomenon, you are already something of a kook.
[Note from me: Ain't that the truth!!]
The first thing we should consider is temperament. William James, the great American psychologist, used the terms idealist and materialist, which Jung saw as something like what he meant by introvert and extrovert. But this distinction in temperament has been in operation for a long time. In the West, we usually trace it back to Plato (the idealist) and Aristotle (the materialist).
Materialists see the physical world as the real stuff, and mental and emotional contents as somewhat ephemeral. To them, the reality of a material object with all of its concrete, measurable properties, is obviously more substantial than the changeable world of ideas, which are just “in your head.”
Idealists think very differently. For them, the material world is real, all right, but it is transient. This or that physical object will be around for a while, but the underlying idea or form of it is transcendent. This snowflake or that leaf will last a short time, but the overall pattern of the seasons is a different story – it remains while the particulars change...............
Last paras:
Almost no one today could hear about astrology and think that it made sense or that it was coherent with their view of the world. Experience with it might do the trick, assuming that one has both an idealist bent and the requisite understanding of the creative nature of symbols, and a sense that matter and meaning may co-occur.
Even so, it’s a lot of work. If all we got for it was a bit more understanding of our relationships and a good time to ask the boss for a raise, it probably wouldn’t be worth it. But astrology – for those willing to take a look – offers something more: an experience of the harmony of matter and meaning, experiential evidence that we are not empty shells scattering through a meaningless void.
2 comments:
Believing in the principals of Gaia, as I do, much to the mockery of some (are you a nutter? was one such remark thrown at me by a life long friend), more and more I see proof of my belief as the world moves closer to catching fire to shake us parasites off it.
Of course, astrology has enormous bearing on this outlook too. But the movement and strength of the stars and Grandmother Moon wields such profound influence, we barely understand it. i.e the moon's influence brings fertile cohabiting females into coordinated menstruation patterns.
How little we know and how easy it is to mock.
XO
WWW
Wisewebwoman ~ So true. Many (or most) so-called intellectuals simply cannot help themselves trying to prove their superiority, by ridiculing stuff they have never made the slightest effort to learn anything about. They judge from a position of complete ignorance.
While I do not find every piece of astrological lore valid myself, I have found enough validity in astrology generally to know, beyond doubt, that "something is going on". Nobody, not even the best astrologers, know exactly what's going on, or how, or why. One day, if humans survive long enough, there'll be a "Eureka!" moment and all will become clear. :)
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