‘How – and Why – does Astrology Work?’ An excellent question to wake us up in dreary January!!
This is indeed a challenging question, which astrologers and curious open-minded people have been asking for centuries, millennia probably, ever since those Chaldean priests from their chilly watchtowers scanned the night skies for helpful advance warning signs that their kings and kingdoms were under threat. I do not propose in this short extract to add to the vast amount of erudite speculation which has arisen from this question.
Jonicus the First Astronomer/Astrologer circa 1400-1410 (Getty Museum)
However, very briefly, my conclusion is this: modern quantum science has demonstrated that we live, move, and have our being as part of a vast energy field which ripples and changes in a sinuous, shapeshifting dance between order and chaos — order arising out of apparent disorder and in invisible patterns, which would appear to contain 4% matter, 23% dark matter, and 73% dark energy in a vast cosmic web.
I think that astrology works by tracking and mapping those energy patterns through planetary cycles against the backdrop of either the constellations via sidereal astrology, or our more familiar Western tropical astrology, which is pegged to the ecliptic. By a blend of astronomical calculation, mythic imagination, intuition, and observation of correlations between life on Earth and planetary movements over millennia, humans arrived at a way of deriving meaning from the energies generating the solar system, our tiny corner of that vast cosmic web.
It is no surprise that reductionist thinking cannot cope with the possibility that something of great value to the human project could have arisen from this eclectic weave. There are several ways in which one can creatively reflect upon that ratio of 4%–23%–73%. I like to think of it in terms of the worlds of consciousness, personal unconscious, and collective unconscious, respectively. Jung’s term “psychoid” is very useful in enabling me to make sense of energies which can and do manifest simultaneously — all the way from being obvious and tangible, to being invisible to the wider world though highly influential in a person’s life.
For example, consider the client I saw some years ago, with a dominant Saturn square Neptune aspect in his horoscope. James’ (i) profession was highly tangible: he made musical instruments. But a significant factor in the unfolding pattern of his life, also linked to that Saturn–Neptune square, was his having had to survive growing up with a severely alcoholic father. Being very aware of an inherited tendency to indulge in addictive escapist behaviours, he was trying to address this when he came for a consultation — as his secondary progressed Sun triggered his natal Saturn square Neptune.
I think that an important part of the creative value of being a practising astrologer lies in helping clients like James to understand, accept, and work constructively with the shapeshifting potential inherent in the particular energies with which they came into the world. From the above perspective very briefly outlined, it isn’t too difficult to tie the planetary patterns in the sky — here and now — into the static picture of the natal horoscope. You are working, at least in part, with what you can actually see.
I find that my (metaphorical, at least!) understanding of that 4%–23%–73% ratio is very helpful in feeling comfortable with such mysterious territory. That which cannot be seen, perceived, or understood via our five senses within the 4% world of matter still has energetic validity in the landscape of the unseen 96% — that which modern science tells us is there, although we can only perceive it by inference and don’t yet know what it is – maybe we never will…
[A slightly edited extract from “Secondary Progressions: stepping into the Mystery by Anne Whitaker ( AA Journal 2017, The Mountain Astrologer 2019)] Secondary Progressions: April – May 2019
Endnote
(i) not his real name
600 words © Anne Whitaker 2024
