In a round-table discussion in South Africa a man made my heart sing when he, quite without asking made this simple comment: “Life without astrology would be too dull to be imagined!”
Some naysayers would have that astrology is a dying art, conveniently ignoring the fact that this widely used social phenomenon has already been around for more than 4 000 years! And, heaven forbid - nobody can forecast the future!
But of course they are quite right - our future is not written in the stars – so it is important to make several points for the edification of the "non-believers" which they may find surprising, coming from a professional astrologer:
First of all, modern astrologers do not believe that Saturn, Uranus or Pluto are causing problems in our daily lives. You or I are causing your problems by our short-sighted, emotionally triggered, past-determined behaviour and thoughts.
People often talk as though a transit by Pluto caused you to get pregnant or a transit by Uranus caused you to be fired.
Not so. You got pregnant in the usual way, and you did it deliberately, albeit unconsciously. You got fired because you pushed your luck too far with the boss. That’s all. And as we say in South Africa: “Finish and Klaar!”
This particular point, thankfully, is no longer controversial with astrologers. Fatalism is out, and psychology and metaphysics are in. The public can thank their lucky stars for that!
Astrology is not infallible as a predictive tool - but neither is anything else, from Tarot to Psychics to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange Financial Index.
Yes, astrologers make predictions (because that is what sells), and–yes–a good many wind up being correct. My clients insist that I am highly accurate, and that it all turned out the way I said. Maybe they are just being polite – I hope not.
But we are also foolishly, embarrassingly wrong, and the more publicly and the more arrogantly we predict, the more egg we get on our face.
Clients do seek predictions for seemingly more serious reasons - for reassurance, mainly, that things are going to be alright. Of course, astrologers are not the only ones predictions are demanded of.
Doctors are asked how long the patient will live, economists are asked when the crash is coming, psychiatrists are asked whether the psychosis will recur, and scientists are asked where the next earthquake will be.
Based on their expertise and experience, they are just as crashingly wrong and possibly just as often as astrologers.
There are two differences, however. First, forecasts by these other professions are respectable rather than laughable, because they are "real", not based on funny-looking symbols.
And, second, doctors and economists are not arrested for fortune-telling the way a number of astrologers have been in fairly recent American history – there was a very famous court case about this, and the astrologer won.
(But we are more enlightened today, so this is not the case in the new open-minded South Africa, thank goodness!)
Every expert is pushed to prognosticate. It is human to want to know the future, and it is just as human for the astrologer (or economist or doctor) to want to satisfy the client by giving the answers.
Yet it is when you become attached to predicting for ego reasons that you are most likely to make an idiot of yourself.
Furthermore, a high degree of accuracy is not even desirable.
If we can predict the future, that means our clients are stuck with repeating non-productive patterns. And if they are stuck, that means we are not doing our job. Properly used, astrology is a tool for growth, and an astrologer is a change agent.
I am not saying astrologers can change people, any more than therapists can. The only one who can change you is you.
But astrologers can be catalysts, stimulating the desire for growth and pointing out avenues for it. And when the clients changes, the future changes. Therefore, I do not want to be accused of achieving a high degree of accuracy. I would rather be useful than right.
A major problem with forecasting by astrology is that we don’t know the client’s level of evolution.
Two people with Neptune transiting their Ascendant could react very differently, depending on whether they are on a constructive or destructive course. Even when they have been destructive up to this point, we don’t know when they have had enough and are ready to turn it all around.
The astrology reading itself may be a catalyst for turning it around. The strength of astrology, then, is not in forecasting but in understanding. Its usefulness is in making sense of the process and the possibilities that can come out of it.
My challenge to anybody to assess me in the same way, using any tool except astrology, and without meeting me. Another “ology” – Graphology could form the basis of a new debate . . . but then Psychology is in the same ‘cos it also is an “ology” and that means it IS a science. Delightfully confusing.
