Astrological Conundrums.

• There's no way you can classify people into twelve categories like that.
• My sign doesn't describe me at all.
• Random horoscopes have been shown to be as believable as those so called accurate ones.
• No two horoscopes in the newspapers ever read the same for the same sign.
• It's impossible for the stars to physically influence people.  Midwives have more gravitational pull than the planets.
• You can't even see the zodiac signs in the sky, much less interpret anything that isn't arbitrary from say, a fish.
• The Precession of the Equinoxes should mean everyone's star sign is the one before the one they thought it was.
• Isn't it a bit heliocentric?
• How 'bout them hemispheres?
• What about twins?
• The Bible prohits it.
• There are no scientific studies to back it up.
• Astrologers are just out there to make a buck.
• There aren't enough planets to go around the zodiac
• What about the three planets that were discovered late?  Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto?
• So, the idea is this pattern that resonates throughout the universe on many scales?  Ok, then if you're not sure about this pattern thing, how can you be sure about astrology?
• No matter what I say you'll come back with something which is unprovable and untestable.

feel free to add your own conundrum to this list by emailing me at mid.night@mailexcite.com
Be warned, I'll do my best to come up with an explanation.
REFERENCES
 
 
 

There's no way you can classify people into twelve categories like that.

• You're absolutely right.  All persons are composed of individual and unique 'blends' of all astrological factors, given to them at the time of birth, and mapable in a birthchart.  Contrary to popular beleif, to be born under Leo is not to be a pureblooded Leo.  It is to have one sphere, the sun, in the sign of Leo, carrying the characteristics of Leo.  Meanwhile, the person's moon could be in Pisces.  Astrology is not there to classify and entrap.  It is there to describe and lead to greater identification and understanding.  It's about seeing the pattern of the world within oneself.

• In your own birthchart, which you can calculate at http://www.astro.ch/ , you will more than likely find that there are other signs which either play 'louder' roles in your chart, or may be downplayed in your chart, both due to aspects between  spheres(eg planets) and the positioning of the astrological houses.  Either way, the influence of your sun sign is likely to be altered to some extent.  The two most influential signs aside from the Sun sign, are the signs of the moon and the ascendant, the sign the moon was in at your birth and the sign on the horizon at your birth.  The significance of the placement of the spheres within the signs, as well as the significance of the placement of the signs themselves, is further explained in the table below.

• That's because you've been reading the newspapers and magazines too much.  Anyone can make up a lie good enough to sound true.  That doesn't make it true though.  Newspaper astrology and the like may in some cases actually be written by a professional astrologer, however, all of these horoscopes are by necessity wide generalizations.  The astrologer is doing a reading for the audience the size of a city and often larger.  There is no birthchart for an entity that size, and hypothetically even if there were (some classify such entities as ages) human astrologers with their limited lifespan, knowledge, and, above all, perspective, simply don't have the resources to interpret such a thing.  I read newspaper horoscopes for fun.  Nothing more and nothing less.  As far as I'm concerned, that's not astrology.  If it has contributed anything to astrology, it's only given it a bad name.

• See above, for starters.  The term 'generalization' cannot be overly stressed in reference to newspaper astrology. I'm tempted to even say overgeneralization and oversimplification.  If this is how you know astrology, then read on, for there is much more to know.

• Right again.  And it's a good thing, otherwise we'd all be nonexistant in a blackhole.  Astrology isn't based in physical science in so far as physics and gravitational pulls are concerned.  It's based on a theory similar to that expressed by Jung in his writings on Synchronicity.  Basicly, it's the idea of fractals, and microcosms and macrocosms, and patterns reverberating throughout the universe.  It's a theory which was never given an adequate shot at proving its own truth.  Ironicly, astrology itself strives to provide that proof via observable corelations and viable predictions/hypothesises for outcomes.

• This is also right.  And the characteristics of the signs do at first glance seem a bit arbitrary.  The signs most people are familar with from the zodiac were designated by the ancient founders of Astrology, dating back to Babylonian times and the Chaldeans.  (NOTE: The history of astrology is both fascinating and extensive, exceeding the scope of this site at the moment.  Please refer to my reference list for some recommended reading in this area, which I find to be the most interesting and compelling part of astrology).  These astrologers kept records of the movements of the stars in the sky, much as we do today, and they also kept observation of the coinciding changes taking place on the earth at the time.  They divided the sky into twelve sections.  Over time extensive observation led to the association of certain qualities, or characteristics, to these regions of sky.  So profound and lifegiving were the qualities (eg the flooding of the nile and other seasonal changes), that they  were attributed to gods and goddesses who were symbolized by various creatures /signs.    The stars were paganized.  It is those creatures that are pictured in the zodiac which the astrologers of old designed.  The signs were cast upon the corresponding section of the sky as 'skymarks' for  astrolgers of the day.  Phrophesies could thus be easily written and widely understood.  For example, instead of "when Jupiter reaches the seventh degree on the seventh day of the seventh month during the seventh hour...", they might simply say something like "when jupiter is in Cancer...".  To know the location of a sign you must be taught it.  It is nothing more than a covenience thrown onto the stars by mankind.   However, such a convience cannot be taken lightly, for as with all other conviences mankind has thought up, it has resulted in major reprucusions on the field of astrology, as can be seen by the confusion caused by the precession of the equinoxes.

• Due to the slight wobble of the Earth on its axis, the term 'precession of the equinoxes' has evolved.  That is, the signs are not where they once were two thousand years ago.  In fact, the signs, meaning the stars identified as the constellations of the zodiac, are a full sign ahead of where they used to be.  This is relative to astrology in two ways, and causes many people to get excited and claim astrology as a fraud.  Firstly, some say, if the signs are off and you say I'm a Gemini, then actually I'm a Taurus, therefore astrology can't work.   Not so fast my friend.  Astrology is classified into two equally important types.  Sidereal Astrology follows the movement of the constellations across the sky relative to the earth.  It is used in analysis on a larger scale (eg global evolution and pattern) than for personal use.   Tropical Astrology follows the sections of the sky and the coresponding rythmic patterns taking place on the earth, most noticably at the equator (hence the name tropical).  It seems to be more closely related to the small cycles taking place on the earth everyday in minute ways.   Thus, scale is just as important to astrologers as placement.  On that note, secondly, astrologers use the precession of the equinox in classifying ages according to where Polaris, the North Star is pointing.  We are currently at the end of the age of Pisces, about to enter the Age of Aquarius.  Polaris moves backwards through the zodiac as the earth wobbles.    One sign is transitted approximately every two thousand years, though the exact time Polaris entered Pisces is not known for sure, and so the exact dawning of the next age is also not known for certain.  Many suppose it to appoximate the Y2K.

• Are you kidding???  Yes it's very helliocentric.  But then again, we aren't living on Mars, and we're the ones we're interested in.  In theory, an astrological system could be worked out for any and every other planet or sphere.  This was alluded to in the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

• Alright, you say, so tropical astrology sort of makes sense with all the rhymic stuff and all.  But I don't live on the equator.  In fact I live in the Southern Hemisphere in Argentina.  Leo, my sun sign is said to encapsulate the life givingness of summer.  My birthday's in the winter.  And I say, Leo, like all the other signs, is not merely represented by a season.  Though the seasons themselves are one reincarnation of the pattern inherent in the zodiac.

• Ask your mom.  Really,  even if twins are born minutes apart and for all practical reasons their charts are the same, then I'd have to say something else goes into their making.  And there's a hell of a lot of something elses out there.  Especially when you're a baby.  Maybe you weren't mommy's favourite, or maybe you got told you were the quiet one until you believed it.  Nature and Nurture, remember.

• Hold on a sec while I go get mine so I can quote you on this....ok.   Now before I start this, anyone anywhere can find anything they want to find in the Bible.  That, to me, nullifies the point entirely.   But let's just have a look just for the fun of it anyway.   I've got a handy dandy study bible here where you can look things up...ahhh here we go.  index to moral dilemmas.  Astrology.  Deuteronomy 4:19 and 17:2-5.  ...idol worship....mmhmmm...."You did not see the form of God that day as he spoke to you from the fire...so do not defile yourselves by trying to make a statue of God...And do not look up into the sky to worship the sun, moon, or stars.  The Lord may permit other nations to get away with this, but not you...." (Deut. 4:15-19)....Ouch this next one's harsh..."If anyone, whether man or woman, in any village throughout your land violates your covenant with God by worshiping other gods, the sun, the moon, or stars, which I have strictly forbidden, first check the rumor very carefully; if there is no doubt it is true, then that man or woman shall be taken outside the city and shall be stoned to death."(Deut. 17:2-5).  Another thing about quoting the Bible, it sort of nullifies all other religions.  In anycase, it's not my job to slander or make devoid the Holy Book or any of it's adherents.  Astrology in my mind is not idol worship.  In the olden days maybe.   But seems to me that most people see the sun, moon, and stars as objects, luminaries, as explainable as the rest of the world.  To idolize the spheres would mean to consider them to be gods, which I do not.  It may be handy to refer to them as such, like chess peices, to personify and characterize them, but that doesn't change the fact that they aren't gods any more than a chess peice is a real king or a pawn.   In relation to religion, I see astrology as a facet of truth and beauty, a part of God's grand plan.  Kind of like some drawings the architect left on the table.   It falls in the same category as transcendental numbers for me.  I don't suppose there's anything about pi or the golden triangle in the bible....?(actually I've heard there's this code embedded....)

• The Gauquelins are probably the most cited source for scientific studies in support of Astrology.  "French Psychologist and Statistician Dr Michel Gauquelin(1928-91) and his demographer wife Francoise (1929-) gathered many tens of thousands of birth certificates of famous individuals from all over Europe.  Birth certificates on the continent include the time of birth.  Using this information, the Gauquelins were able to demonstrate statistically that eminent professionals tended to be born when particular planets were: close to the eastern or western horizon, close to the upper meridian, their highest point in the sky, or close to the lower meridian, the lowest point.  For example, future champion athletes, eminent military men and entrepreneurs tend to be born when Mars, god of the warrior is so placed.  By contrast, the Gauquelins found that future eminent scientists tend to be born when Saturn, bestower of the saturnine cautious, methodical, intellectual temperament, is prominent.  Further corellations were seen with actors, politicians, and Jupiter, and writers, journalists, and the Moon.  Despite attempts by several  committees of sceptics to disprove these results, often using dubious methods, the observations have replicated again and again with fresh samples of data.  An impartial survey of all the evidence by Suibert Ertel, Professor of Psychology at Gottingen University in Germany, has concludedin The Tenacious Mars Effect that it is time that sceptics embraced the reality of these results and accepted the challend they present to the prevailing world-view.  Hans Eysenck, (1916-97), Professor of Psychology at London University and a strict experimentalist, came to the same conclusion"  (Harvey, 1999).  In addition  to the Gauquelins, several other well-educated and logical people found reason to support Astrology as a justified field of study.  Among these are included: St Thomas Aquinas,  Jung, Einstein, Shakespeare, W.B. Yeats, Oscar Adler, Austrian Doctor, Thomas Ring, Austrian Philosopher, Count Herman Keyserling, German Philospher,  Dr. James S. Williamsen, American mathematician of Cambridge and Oxford Universities,  and Dr. L CUnibert Mohlburg of the Vatican Institute.  Check out my quote page for references to these and others in support of Astrology.

• I won't go into astrology because I'm afraid I wouldn't make a buck and I'd be disowned by my family.  Actually it's more the buck thing that bothers me.  I'd prefer to waste my hours away typing up pages of astrological information that no one will ever read.  Some astrologers are just out there to make a buck.  Some lawyers are just out there to make a buck.  How do you know the difference.  Well I guess you have to talk to them and make that decision yourself.  I support astrology not on money but on principle.  I think it's right and I don't think it's fairly represented to the world and in some small way i hope to be able to change that somehow.  Astrology is more than just whether or not it's an art or a science or a fraud.  It's a world view.  A way of looking at things that makes them appear new and somehow more valuable.

• Another one I'm working on.  The way it seems at the moment, by tradition, the ancient astrologers saw only five planets.  These five were held to have equal and opposite sides, yin/yang type forces: a masculine and a feminine side.  So you have ten sides of five planets, plus the sun(masculine) and the moon(feminine).  Uranus changed things.  And it brought with it Neptune, which went by undected for awhile until a strange anomaly of Uranus was recognized and attributed to another planet, that being Neptune.  Pluto was discovered much later and found to have an orbit that greatly deviated from that of the other planets.  Planets apparently are ascribed meaning due to the qualities they exhibit.  I'm looking into this part as we speak.

• yes what about them.  good question.  Goes with the last one.  My theory is to stick with the empirical line of thinking.  Deductive reasoning.  Planets in the sky now, this happens.  etc.  record over time and eventually a pattern may emerge.  With these three new planets, I propose that experimental data should be collected and evaluated regarding the placement of the new planets and the happenings on earth.  Strong corelations could be noted and tests like the Gauquelin's run.  Evidence shows this has not been done.  I have no idea why not.  It never ceases to amaze me the amount of research waiting to be done in this feild,  which has not even been prodded with a meter stick.   There are so many opportunities here...I don't see how any self-respecting scientist could resist.

Harvey, Charles and Suzy.  1999.  The Principles of Astrology.  Thorsons, Harper Collins Publishers.  London.

Lynch, John.  1967.  The Coffee Table Book of Astrology.  The Viking Press, Inc.  New York.

___________
second:  online texts.  I'll keep this short and informed.

Brief History of Astrology
Kepler College
Kepler's Exceptional List of Astrology Links
AstroChart and pretty good Intro to Astrology by a Professor who started the Greek Sigma Society