Introduction to Astrology:
OUR TOOL FOR MILLENNIAL PROPHECY
From Horoscope for the New Millennium
Astrology goes back many millennia. No one knows for sure when or where it began, but it was highly developed by the peoples of ancient Mesopotamia some three to five thousand years ago. They used it originally to predict the best times to grow and harvest their crops. They knew that the best time for planting would come when certain constellations were visible in the sky. Unlike most people today, the ancients were closely tied to the land and could see how the regular movements of the Sun and Moon were connected to the growth and decay of vegetation here on Earth. And the planets in the sky seemed much more imposing and powerful to us in the old days than they do now. Unlike today, when pollution and bright city lights block our view, people back then could actually see the stars!
This knowledge was so useful and important to the peoples of the ancient world that they soon extended it. Before long the Sun, Moon, and other planets were used to warn of imminent floods and other disasters or to determine the most auspicious times to act. Not only did astrology regulate the cultivation of the Earth, but their whole civilization. It became the chief means of understanding the world, a cornerstone of their culture. They believed it revealed the life-force that brought all things into harmony, and that the order observed in the heavens could be duplicated in our laws and social behavior here on Earth.
About 2,500 years ago, a great change of consciousness occurred-- the Greeks discovered the rational individual. They were the most self-conscious people yet in history. They believed that their personal lives were important, and that people could conceive laws and social systems in their own rational minds. The Greeks were probably the first, therefore, to cast horoscopes for ordinary individuals as well as for kings. They contributed much to today's astrology. Despite their reliance on reason, horoscopes became one of the many oracles they turned to for guidance. Even Plato and Aristotle studied the heavenly bodies in order to discover the divine order which we should strive to duplicate in our lives.
As individualism increased, people saw less and less connection between the sky and their personal affairs. By Roman times, they were often as confused and alienated as we are today. As astrology continued to grow and flourish, it often degenerated into fortune telling. The traditional astrology we know today was largely developed at this time by the great astronomer Ptolemy. In his astrology, the harmonizing life-force had vanished and the planets and "stars" had become separate, independent "influences" with set meanings.
The Christian church then rose to power and outlawed astrology as magic and superstition, but it continued to be practiced underground throughout the Middle Ages. Although branded as a heresy, it flourished because the people of those times still understood vividly that the divine eternal order above us is reflected in the world around us. It became a vital part of the secret wisdom of Hermetic magicians and alchemists in their quest for the "philosophers' stone," the symbol of self-knowledge. The Arabs further developed astrology and transmitted it to Christian philosophers like St. Thomas Aquinas, who made it an accepted part of Christian theology in the Thirteenth Century.
Related practices were also being developed by other people, who observed that everything moves in cycles in a constant ebb and flow of change. The Celts of Northern Europe used various ways to symbolize the state of the universe at any moment in order to interpret the meaning of events, a practice called "divination." The Chinese also developed the classic system known as the I Ching, or Book of Changes, for this purpose. The Germans and Mayans both performed divination through rune stones, and ancient and modern European seers developed the series of mythical pictures known as Tarot cards. The rediscovery of these and other "archaic" practices in the Twentieth Century has revived our interest in divination and astrology, whose roots are found in the heritage of all peoples.
Astrology was as much a part of the "rebirth" of Europe 500 years ago as it is of the renaissance of today. Until the Seventeenth Century it played a prominent role in Western thought. It even inspired great astronomers like Kepler, who described the "music of the spheres" in the solar system and used astrology to help formulate its harmonic structure. The great scientific pioneers we think of as "fighting superstition," such as Copernicus and Newton, either believed in astrology or were astrologers themselves, but since the Seventeenth Century, when science and philosophy became more materialistic, humanity began to be separated from the universe. This eroded astrology's stature and influence, and since then, it has been regarded by many in our culture as an outdated superstition.
WHY ASTROLOGY WORKS
The next question is: how does astrology work, and what is it based on? Here we are not dealing with the evidence for astrology, but with the theory behind it. Admittedly, there is no "theory" in the strict scientific sense, but there are several definite principles that have been distilled through the centuries. These are the ideas on which astrology is based.
As Above, So Below. From the Babylonians comes the great Law of Analogy, known to us in the adage "as above, so below." This principle reflects their observation that the seasons and other events "below" on Earth correspond to the movements of the heavenly bodies "above." Astrologers further contend that the solar system and the galaxies constitute "greater beings," of which smaller beings like persons and nations are a part. We call the greater being the "macrocosm" and the lesser the "microcosm." By "reading" the planets, we can understand the will of the macrocosm; thus revealing the larger purpose hidden amidst the events of our lives. This principle of the greater reflected in the lesser went on to become central to Western thought, and was passed on to medieval mystics and Eighteenth Century rationalists. Ever since the Greeks opened astrology to the individual, each person could aspire to become a Microcosm containing the whole Universe in miniature-a goal perfected in medieval alchemy. The Jews had spoken of human beings as "created in God's image," and the followers of Jesus claimed that he personified our potential to become the "Son of God," truly uniting the microcosm with the macrocosm.
Unity of All Things. The second principle is closely related to the first. It is the idea that all things are interrelated. Astrology affirms that humanity is a part of the universe around us, and what happens in one part of it affects every other part. Heavenly movements have an impact on earthly or human ones-and vice-versa! Astrology rejects the stark dualism of heaven vs. earth or spiritual vs. physical, and sees the divine will working its way through the universe of people, planets and stars. This principle has not only been basic to Eastern philosophy and Western occult wisdom, it has been reaffirmed by modern philosophers and scientists such as David Bohm and Fritjof Capra. Quantum theory explicitly confirms it in Neils Bohr's principle of complementarity, as does Bell's theorem, which implies that events influence each other instantly although separated by vast distances.
Cycles. A third basic principle is that all events move in cycles. A movement is "cyclic" if it repeatedly returns to where it started. Furthermore, the length of time between each cyclic return is about the same, and is called its "period." Each cycle goes through stages such as the beginning, middle and end; but the end also leads on toward the beginning of the next cycle.
We observe that all events move in cycles every day. We each are born, live and die; and many believe we are reborn again and again. Nations and civilizations apparently follow the same course, as the following pages will demonstrate. Cycles encircle us everywhere; in fact our most important cycles are the ones used by astrology. We still regulate our lives by the hours of the day and the seasons of the year, and these are the basis respectively for the "houses" of the horoscope and the "signs" of the Zodiac. Time itself is circular, or why would we use circular clocks to measure it? We measure time based on the daily and yearly motions of the Earth, and astrology goes further to assert that the Earth and planets are cosmic clocks which we can use to reveal the cycles we follow in our lives.
It might seem that to think cyclically denies our desire for progress. After all, we don't want to get caught in a "vicious circle." This is an illusion, because all cycles are contained within larger ones. Consider a graphic illustration of this point. To "get somewhere," we often travel in a car or another vehicle that moves on wheels. These wheels go round and round many times, always returning to the same point, but the car moves forward because the wheels have shifted their position on the roadway. The same is true with any cycle. It returns to the same point, but this point itself shifts as part of a larger movement. This also means that each succeeding cycle is unique, defined by its position in the longer cycle.
More and more people are thinking cyclically, seeing that "linear thinking" is false and limited. We are perfectly aware that "progress" doesn't move in a straight line, because so many of our optimistic projections have been disappointed over the years. The historical pendulum continues to swing back and forth, and yesterday's losers become tomorrow's winners. Long ago, the Chinese taught that whatever has reached a peak of power will soon begin to decline, because of the ever-repeating cycles of yin and yang. Today, we increasingly see the truth of this ancient principle. By thinking cyclically, we not only face facts better, we get a more complete picture of reality. The circle encompasses infinity, giving us a model of all possible experience. By placing ourselves on a cycle, we can see what's before and ahead of us-something we can't do while our point of view is restricted to a straight line.
Synchronicity. Our fourth principle is related to the worldwide practice of divination. At any moment, the universe will answer an earnest and urgent request for understanding through oracles, omens, or the chance behavior of coins, cards, or tea leaves. This idea is based on an alternate principle of causation, upheld in the East but rejected in the West since the Seventeenth Century. Unlike the modern Western view that material, mechanical forces cause effects to follow afterward in time, the Oriental view is that "like attracts like, and similar things happen together." In the 1920s, psychologist Carl Jung imported and redesigned the principle and gave it the name of "synchronicity." Jung himself used astrology to help his clients, and today many astrologers are also Jungian psychologists. According to synchronicity, events happen because they attract each other, causing "amazing coincidences" to occur that are significant to those who experience them.
This justifies astrology's claim that earthly events correspond to cosmic ones, when they coincide in a "meaningful" way. This is not causation in the usual sense. Most astrologers today don't claim that the planets "cause" or "pre-destine" events by exerting "physical" forces on us, as western science requires us to believe. Instead, great cosmic cycles are like omens that have a "vibrational sympathy" with, and reveal the meaning of, great events happening simultaneously on Earth. They are the momentous "signs of the times." If astrology works, it is not because it follows the limited laws of western science. On the contrary, it causes us to rethink those laws, giving us a larger picture of how events happen.
Holism. This, our fifth and last principle, encompasses all the others. It can be stated in the popular phrase, "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." Nowadays, "holistic" subjects are becoming very popular, especially in medicine and psychology. Astrology also claims to be one of these "holistic" disciplines. This means it views things whole rather than piecemeal, unlike today's old-fashioned sciences.
A "whole" is one being; unified within itself, yet composed of many individual parts that are also wholes within themselves. Whole beings can be cells of the body, persons, nations, civilizations, cultures, planets, solar systems, and even periods of time. Astrology states that everything is a whole being, yet also part of a greater whole. Each whole is defined by its limits. It has boundaries, and a beginning and an end. It also has a unique identity-a particular tone or color that pervades it. Its role in the greater whole also helps to define this identity. Persons in astrology are therefore wholes, each having a "soul" or integral personality and consciousness. We must therefore treat our subjects of study, whether they are persons or cultures, with the respect due to whole, living beings. To understand them it is not enough to dissect and analyze their parts; everything must be seen in context.
So astrology sees the Universe as one, just as the Eastern sages teach, but it also sees free individuals. Thus, it blends the best from East and West. According to astrology, we are unique individuals, and a person is the whole cosmos seen from a particular point of view, yet our identity and vitality results from our unique connection to larger wholes, such as nation, planet, solar system, universe, the spiritual and the divine. These larger beings also have their own consciousness and identity as wholes.
ASTROLOGY FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM
In reading Horoscope for the New Millennium, it is important to be fair and impartial, and to try to see things as they are. But it is useless for any writer to deny his or her biases. In my view, to understand our destiny means to see how we are evolving. Therefore the significant trends of our time are not those that maintain business as usual or preserve the status quo.So I place myself unabashedly on the side of progressive forces, as I see them. If we are to take a larger view of things, we cannot restrict ourselves to the perspective of the current ruling authorities. The future is often on the side of those out of favor today. Destiny rests not with the Establishment, but with the outcasts whose vision will reshape the world. The truth lies beyond conventional wisdom, even though that's all most people are allowed to read and see. Although the drama of human evolution is played out in the oval office of the White House, in the halls of Parliament and in corporate board rooms, it's even more often to be found in streets filled with strikers and demonstrators, in small rooms occupied by impassioned, fanatical conspirators, and, above all, in the inspired minds of poets and prophets.
We all want to know what the future holds, but to know this we also need to study history. As Ken Burns (producer of the PBS series The Civil War) said, we can only know where we're going if we know where we've been. Or as Michael Wood (writer and host of "Legacy") said, we will know our ends by our beginnings. This last statement is as fundamental a truth of astrology as any ever uttered. Predictions for the future will only be meaningful if they are seen in context, by placing them within the great cycles of time. The future arises out of the past and from the decisions we make today. By looking at cycles of the planets and correlating them to history and the future, we alter and expand our consciousness. Seen from this higher, longer view, the great meaning of events becomes clearer.
The planets and signs of astrology are powerful prophetic tools. By associating them with events and trends, we can bring them vividly to life. We feel intimately connected with the world in a way we never thought possible. We sense again that we belong, and are at home. We rediscover our souls as part of humanity's soul. At a time when people are confused, disoriented and adrift, Horoscope for the New Millennium provides us with the sense of purpose we need. We see our place and our role in the evolution of all humanity.