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And it truly has many applications: psychological astrology and astrotherapy, synastry (the astrology of human relationships), medical astrology, political astrology, spiritual astrology, predictive astrology and many other kinds of astrologies as well. And also esoteric or occult astrology which sometimes comes close to rubbish, but at other times offers us all some deep and excellent insights. And there are all kinds of astrological practitioners, some are specialists in different branches of astrology, but in small countries, like Finland, where there are only very few professional astrologers, most astrologers do all kinds of astrological work. Astrology can be used for so many purposes that you could almost say that astrology is what anyone wants it to be, from light astrological entertainment to depth-psychological astrology. And almost anything between these extremes.
Is Astrology Entertainment?Astrology can be entertainment, but it's not just entertainment. Yet even serious astrology can sometimes be quite entertaining, and be that without losing any of its deeper meaning. Good astrological entertainment has its own value like any good entertainment, but unfortunately the major part of the lighter astrological entertainment is purely commercial and quite superficial. We all know - and many of us read - different kinds of weekly and monthly horoscopes in magazines. Those horoscopes are usually based only on the Sun signs (the horoscope signs), because most people know their own Sun signs, and only a few their other astrological signs. The quality of horoscopes in newspapers and magazines varies considerably, it is rumored that they are not always made by astrologers at all. Sun signs are an important part of astrology, and horoscopes based on them an age-old technique, and thus, if well done by competent astrologers, they have their own place in astrology. In fact, many people find serious astrology through them.
Is Astrology New Age Mumbo-Jumbo?No, serious astrology isn't just any New Age mumbo-jumbo. In fact true astrology hasn't much to with New Age at all, it's age-old wisdom, but astrology is largely used in the New Age world - what interesting stuff isn't ?- but often in the way that qualified astrologers wouldn't call astrology at all. As a lot of people are interested in astrology, the word 'astrology' is often used as a bait to sell all kinds of things and services. Astrology's reputation as New Age mumbo-jumbo is sustained by low-level magazine horoscopes as well as by all kinds of soothsayers advertising their telephone lines in the entertainment secions of many newspapers and magazines. Some of them call themselves astrologers although they know only Sun signs, if anything at all about astrology. No wonder then, that astrologer Dennis Elwell wrote that "one can only shudder at the idea of telephone consultations." In using astrological telephone lines you should, at least, make sure that you are talking to a competent astrologer. Astrology is a wild area. As far as I know, in many countries there are no regulations, all kinds of fortune-tellers or crystal gazers can put a sign at their doors and begin to call themselves astrologers. Thus the client is always the one who has to take care of the quality by choosing a qualified astrologer.
Is Astrology a Religion?Astrology isn't a religion, at least not for everyone, although there are some who see astrology as their religion. It all depends, of course, how you define religion: Some see astrology as their religion, for others science is a religion, and for others something else. Even scepticism serves as a religion for some. Most astrologers have, of course, their own religious convictions; very few astrologers are atheists. According to astrologer Roger Elliot's report in The Astrologer Journal about a questionnaire study among astrologers 78% of astrologers believed in God, and 15% said perhaps. Only 7% came out for atheism. But how did they define God? For most astrologers God was "the creative force behind nature", for most atheists "an historical myth". Many astrologers saw no connection between astrology and religion. And many didn't want to mix up religion and astrology, for instance Judith Schofield said in the study, that she suspected "the motives of those who try to find a link between God and astrology."
Is Astrology about the Influence of the Stars?Astrology isn't about the influence of heavenly bodies; astrology is a symbolic system for illustrating and describing reality. In fact, the idea about the influence of the heavenly bodies is most alive and well among our friends, the sceptics. They harbor so obstinately the illusion of stars influencing us - without listening to any objections made by astrologers - that you could almost talk about their own special form of astrology, the sceptic's astrology - in which, as astrologer Dennis Elwell wrote, "astrology must be about magic rays beaming through space". And, said Elwell, "sadly a few astrologers labour under the same delusion." In fact, astrologers do not assume that there is any kind of cause and effect process going on between planets and the human life. In other words, astrology is a symbolic language that tells us how we experience ourselves and the world, astrology is not about how planets influence us. Planets are just used to symbolize certain things and characteristics. "You don't need to assume that there is a kind of mechanism, a "cause and effect" paradigm, behind it," wrote astrologer Robert Hand in NCGR Research Journal in 1989.
Is Astrology Fortune-Telling?Astrology isn't fortune-telling, at least not for most astrologers. And for many astrologers astrp�pgu isn't about prediction at all, or shouldn't be. For Dennis Elwell "astrology is not primarily about predicting the future, no more than medicine is about prognosis." And even if astrology is used for prediction, it doesn't necessarily mean that astrology would predict an inevitable fate, mostly astrology is used to find out possibilities and trends. Or a suitable time for different things, not something that will happen no matter what. A well-known astrologer Dane Rudhyar once said, that "astrology ought not to be considered as a means for the gratification of an idle curiosity as to possible future events ... Astrology, if properly understood and applied, can bring order to the usual chaos of human life, individual and collective." Astrologers do not necessarily have any kind of special clairvoyant or psychic abilities. At least most astrologers don't, some may have such abilities, but using them isn't astrology as such. Astrologer Dal Lee said it well: "Here and there we might find an astrologer who is at the same time clairvoyant and in his record perhaps there are direct-hit predictions; but such an astrologer, if he is truthful, is expected to reveal that he was aided by clairvoyance, that his prediction was not based on astrology alone."
Is Astrology a Science?Some people see astrology as a science, although sceptics usually emphasize the fact that astrology isn't scientific. And many - perhaps most - astrologers agree with them. And quite a lot of astrologers wouldn't want astrology to become more 'scientific' because that would rob something out of astrology's human and spiritual nature. "Science has nothing to do with religion, faith or astrology", said astrologer Sue Tompkins in the above mentioned study. Modern astrology is usually seen as a system of symbolic concepts and images - or a language - without an exact knowledge of how it works. No causal effects from stars are assumed. For most astrologers astrology is more practice than theory: astrology works although we do not know how and why. On the other hand, "[astrology's] concepts are no more obscure than concepts in many human sciences", wrote a Finnish psychiatrist, Markku Siivola. Although astrology isn't scientific for most astrologers there isn't any reason why astrology couldn't be studied scientifically: "Why wouldn't astrological research be scientific if it is made scientifically," wrote Orvo Raippamaa, a Finnish parapsychologist. In many countries astrology is already - or again - knocking at the doors of the scientific world, for instance in US there is an astrological college, Kepler College. But for now, at least, the relationship between science and astrology is for most astrologers a marginal question; for them astrology is something that works well and is tested in practice, it's a skill based on symbolic meanings placed on planets from ancient times; they are the basis of their astrological work, not any scientific influences of the planets.
What is Astrology?There are probably as many definitions of astrology as there are astrologers. One way to define astrology would be to say, for instance, that astrology is a symbolic system or language based on the idea of the universe as "a seamless wholeness". In astrology man's world is studied through age-old symbols and collective images. You could say that astrology is a store of knowledge and meanings gathered through the history of mankind, a kind of cornucopia full of insights of how men in general have experienced and understood life. To use astrology is to understand astrology. In other words you learn astrology best by using it in your own life, by studying your own chart and the charts of your nearest and dearest. Or in studying your life path, or fate, if you want to call it that, although fate in astrology isn't something inevitably dictated by the stars, it's a world of possibilities. Astrological self-knowledge and understanding makes our journey through our own world of possibilities a meaningful adventure. For most astrology students the greatest value of astrology lies in its ability to make us aware of how everything in life is full of hidden meanings and how everything is on some level connected with everything else and thus has an important place in life's wholeness. In astrology man is never a separate lonely being in the universe: everyone has her or his own meaningful task and a place in a larger whole. Astrology is a kind of road map we can use to enlighten our own paths in that larger whole. And first and foremost, astrology is a key to ourselves, but at the same time it opens us windows to other people and into their worlds. And also to the common world. In one sense astrology takes us back to our roots, yet without forgetting the present. The world of astrological meanings is about the humanness common to us all, not tied to any time or place. Astrology helps us everyone to understand our own humanness.
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