I’ve noticed two types of people. Those who are inclined to believe that there must be something to astrology, and expend enormous amounts of energy trying to figure out what. And those whose starting point is innately skeptical. When the two types try to converse, there is often not a meeting of minds. I’ve skimmed through several books of what I would call “post hoc rationalizations” that uses astrology to explain the recent past. It is all very logical, and a huge amount of intelligence goes into constructing the explanations. But I’ve yet to find anyone with a good track record of predicting the future this way.
“Astrology” is too profoundly true to be apprehended by anyone who would try to “figure it out” with modern consciousness. I am exasperated by both deniers and insisters for similar reasons – but I rather appreciated Norman Davidson’s comment – that he observed people and events in order to learn more about the stars – a kind of reverse-astrology.
Michael Flanders and Donald Swann wrote an amusing song on horoscopes: (lyrics from the web)
Jupiter is passing through Orion
And moving to conjunction with Mars.
Saturn is wheeling through infinite space
To its pre-ordained place in the stars.
And I gaze at the planets in wonderment —
At the trouble and time they spend
Just to warn me to be careful
In dealings involving a friend.
Also, the poem of an old friend, Alonzo Gibbs, which is not on the web – and which I recall imperfectly:
In the vast vortices
of earth and of air
that converge
in the trunk of a tre
or
in a man –
In the vaster vortices of the cosmos
or
the solar system –
God
shapes his argument
in a circle –
using what is to be proved
as proof.
greetings,
P.B.Davis