Astrology – Does It Require Faith?

by Robert Wilkinson

Over at KISS, I’ve been part of an interesting thread discussing the place of faith in Astrology. It was asked whether Astrology is a religion, if it requires faith to be a valid approach to existence, and if so, how do we hold two faiths that may be in conflict with each other? While it’s obvious there are deep and vast potentials in discussing this subject, today I’ll offer you a little of my take.

The original question had to do with how to reconcile our original faith (religion) with our new faith (astrology). There was some discussion about whether astrology requires faith, and if it is “an organized collection of beliefs and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence” in the same way that religions are. Some were of the opinion that most religions don’t like astrology because it puts power directly in the hands of the individual, and not in a “higher Being.”

Because it is a comment stream, I had to be brief. I offered:

No religion, no "belief," no deity, no worship in Astrology. Only observation, correlation, and knowledge of the cycles of humanity and cosmos in an eternal dance.

I find the duality of “belief v doubt" to be the issue of the Virgo-Pisces polarization in each of us. We do not need to believe or doubt anything. We merely need knowledge, intelligence, and love, leading us to wisdom.”

Someone introduced that he believed astrology is the “universal theory of everything” according to the definition in Wikipedia of that phenomenon. I’ve long taught that Astrology shows us “the relationship of everything to everything else.” There is no thing that is not explained in some way by Astrology, since it measures the cycles of unfoldment for every single thing that has a life cycle, whether animate or inanimate.

When I once explained astrology and how it works to a respected international business professor, he told me to him it sounded like Astrology is "The systems theory for all other systems theories." That sounded good to me. Astrology is how all “systems theories,” (including business, political, social, economic, and other systems) unfold in their applications as a function of changes across time. Of course this applies to “Game theories” as well. Everything that has a beginning, middle, and eventual end is subject to the principles governing astrological cycles.

In the stream it was put forth that “Astrology is a continuously evolving understanding of the interaction between the cosmos and humanity.” That person made it clear that they had a “disbelief” in Astrology when they first began to study it, and that non-belief allowed them to test astrology to understand its true potential based in a “new way of seeing things.”

That led me to remember that I also was very skeptical of astrology before I began to study it in 1971, and stayed skeptical of ALL claims and assertions until I worked them out to my satisfaction. I found I could see what worked and what didn’t, and it required no faith whatsoever. Either the horary chart worked, or I wasn’t seeing something. And often, I found that astrology was accurate in describing the person I was with, even if they didn’t agree with the astrological assessments!

That’s why I also used to teach my students that there are two ways of learning Astrology. The usual way is to read books and attend classes and see how things fit from that perspective and correlate with what we believe we’ve “learned.” However, I found I learned more by actually observing what was going on, and then exploring possible correlations in the sky.

We know that certain things simply ARE, such as the timing on riots, famines, disasters, and other worldly events, as well as more personal things like the onset of disease, arguments, opportunities and auto accidents. We may not have noticed Mars about to conjunct or square something in our charts, but after the event precipitated by that transit, you can bet we will see it! That’s why it’s always a good thing to take a look around at what’s happening, and see how it correlates to an appropriate astrological phenomenon.

That said, there is nothing in astrology that predetermines an outcome. Most things governed by human behavior have some degree of variability in them. The degree of indeterminability is the power human free will has to change the trajectory of events.

And yet, it does seem that some points of major decision and change are built into every cycle of unfoldment for all things. These are observable over time. It may be that we don’t need faith that some things are as they are, but we do need to try to have faith that human beings will rise to the occasion rather than choose to make a mess of things.

After 44 years studying and applying what I know about astrology in countless ways, I'm still skeptical, not of whether astrology works or not, but mainly of the unsubstantiated claims made by many "astrologers" about countless things in the craft. Remember that those who don’t know the basics and have not scrupulously applied their knowledge will only be inconsistently accurate at best. That’s why we don’t need faith when it comes to knowing astrology, but we do need to study it if we are to understand how it works, and its limits as well as potential for helping us and others live fulfilled lives.

Ultimately, I don’t think we need to “believe in” astrology, nor have faith in it. We simply need to observe what works, what doesn't, and what assumptions have been made that may or may not be true and under what conditions. This is where the best astrologers have “real world” experience so they don’t work entirely off of learned theories.

An example of this is that we cannot plant corn on a good Lunar day in December or January and expect it to come up and produce a crop unless a) we live in the tropics, b) we’re in the southern hemisphere, or c) we’re planting in a greenhouse. Right now in late February 2015, you can bet that even if someone planted corn in December, there is NO corn growing in New York or New England. Corn does not do well when 100 inches of snow hit a region!

Anyway, the discussion led me to this, and this led me back to some articles I wrote many years ago about Astrology and Belief Systems which I may re-visit and re-write if appropriate. Some of the original comment streams covered a lot of spiritual and philosophic ground, so may become their own articles as well. Stay tuned!

© Copyright 2015 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[helina]

I agree. Thanks! You also have talent to write it in a way I am even more convinced. I wish enjoyable astrology studies many years to come, for all of us :)