Astrology

Astrology is merely based on conjectures. We cannot provide any hypothesis for it, and nor does it have falsifiability. As a result, it sometimes has been regarded less as a science, but rather as a mere belief. However, sometimes people are stunned to find out how accurate astrology can be with regard to a human’s life. In fact, the world’s first billionaire, J. P. Morgan once said, “Millionaires don’t use astrology. Billionaires do.” Before I start explain astrology, there is an astonishing fact that we must understand: Real astrology is rooted in precise mathematics and a tradition that goes back thousands of years!

Regarding the logic behind astrology, first, the horoscopes we read every day in newspapers are not anyone’s horoscopes specifically. In other words, they are garbage! They are useless and any correct predictions are no more than mere coincidences. True astrology is far more complicated. One’s astrology reading is based on one’s birth date, location, and specific time, so it is unique to every individual. A major part of astrological readings are dependent upon the position of the Sun. However, in addition to the Sun, the sign and house placements of all eight planets and the Moon must be taken into account along with how they connect and interact with each other. Therefore, an astrologer’s job is to translate the vast amount of information from one’s horoscope to human languages, which is, though contrary to what many think, much more complicated than what a fake fortune-teller does!

Secondly, astrologers are not saying that planets are somehow affecting our lives here on the Earth. In other words, astrology is not about how planets directly influence people as we think; rather, it is an explanation how our life will be based on the horoscope, the positions of the planets. In astrology, the planets are symbolic of energies that are within us, with each planet relating to a different aspect of our nature. Thus, a horoscope is more like a person’s energetic map, and different energies are what important to build a person’s personality.

In order to understand how planets in space can help explain our own life, there is an important conceptual idea that needs to be introduced. Everything in the Universe is connected and interactive with each other. Things that happen on a macro-scale—planetary movements—can be reflected on a micro-scale—one individual’s life. According to astrologer Carl Jung, this connection between things is called “synchronicity,” which he explains thus: “whatever is born or done at this particular moment of time, has the quality of this moment of time.” Consider a clock, the hands on the clock reflect the time, but they do not cause time to advance. Similarly, a horoscope, or a planet’s position, reflect one’s life, but is not the reason to cause one’s life to play out a certain way.

While astrology contains some science in it, it does not function by purely scientific methods. There has been, and will always be, a mysterious part that cannot be understood by the logical mind because one’s mind is a part of the whole. The ultimate truths cannot be explained; rather, it can only be experienced. This is also why astrology cannot be computer programmed. Two different astrologers can interpret the same horoscope completely differently. Thus one might say, how can it be useful without objective truth? That is astrology’s true beauty: it does not have an objective reality. Astrology helps explain why we experience the world in a certain way, but it does not cause the experience, so it does not have to have an ultimate truth. Various people view horoscopes and exploit them differently. It is not necessary to believe in every detail in a single horoscope explanation to be helped by it. We just need to be open-minded about astrology. Astrology really comes in handy when we need a psychological guide. Sometimes people need some kind of explanation for unexplained incidences happening in their life, and astrology would be a powerful source in this situation.

Yitian Feng