“NEW AGE ASTROLOGY" ISN'T TRADITIONAL ASTROLOGY
The New Age & the ultra-materialistic paradigm are inadvertently working hand in hand to dilute and diminish traditional astrology
This is a contiunation of the previous articles: https://sunmoonself.substack.com/p/the-zodiac-a-natural-and-alchemical and https://sunmoonself.substack.com/p/always-the-sun
The ancient Greeks defined "logos" (as in astro-logy) as Reason permeating the Universe and the natural world. The arbiters of the so-called Enlightenment set out to remove the Divine element from science, ripping the once complementary disciplines of astrology and astronomy apart while declaring the former as total bunk because they say so. The latter was reduced to its bare, mechanistic, observable phenomena (but only according to rules and methods skewed in favor of the materialistic view) and every trace of philosophy was subsequently eliminated from natural philosophy, thus turning it into “modern science” which defends its rigid views with a dogmatic, almost religious zeal while being far from able to prove conclusively and unequivocally that the purported worldview is indeed the only accurate one.
Following the Enlightenment, astrology has not only become obsolete in the cold, hard facts-oriented minds of the reductionist materialists, it has also been made a subject of utter disdain and ridicule by any member of the bourgeoisie and wannabe academia who wished to count themselves among the reasonable, and wanted to be favored by intellectual elites or whoever identified as such. While it was considered somewhat en vogue for a time in elitist circles to dabble in the occult, there was never any real respect for astrology as far as the masses were concerned, no matter which societal echelon they belonged to. They only received bite-sized chunks of diluted and thus largely inaccurate "knowledge" of astrology, just enough to entertain them and, unfortunately, engender an entire industry of people who have never studied the ancients and only regurgitate what the New Age literature has been churning out since the late 1800s with the advent of popularized occultism, thanks to the New Age movement. This “school of thought” was created by wealthy, self-proclaimed initiates such as Mme Blavatsky, who had the means and leisure to travel the world and collect bits and pieces from various spiritual traditions inaccessible to the average person. The resulting hodgepodge of practices, or elements thereof, was marketed as rediscovered ancient wisdom when in fact the question is, how much of it is ancient, and how much of it got reappropriated and reinterpreted? In the case of astrology, one can confidently say that certain modifications were undertaken that have no place in classical astrology, such as the reassignment of the traditional rulerships. Suddenly, because an “initiate” declared so, Mars was no longer the ruler of Scorpio, but Pluto, one of the then-recently discovered modern planets. Modern planets for modern astrology for the modern age, the Age of Aquarius, or is it just the cleverly marketed Kali Yuga?
The New Age doctrine has the problematic habit of looking at ancient knowledge through a lense that distorts it, making it into something that it is not. Example: the signs of the zodiac. Yes, the old texts do offer astrological typologies broken down into physiological and temperamental attributes, however, they do not reduce the entire scope of astrology to this relatively limited component, and they do not make it into a pseudo-psychological rulebook for how to label people you’ve never met based on where the Sun lands in their birth chart. It is the taking-out-of-context, the dumbing-down of what is essentially an alchemical process of individuation and perfection of the soul with manifold implications, that has led to the zodiac signs being perceived as nothing but superficial prejudices with no validity, and astrology as a whole being reduced to zodiac sign-centered gobbledygook.
The first and foremost origin of the zodiac is Nature, and the different seasons. Example: Aries, the tempestuous, highly energetic cardinal fire sign, signifies the explosion of new growth and fertility in spring; the ever-fickle, two-faced, indecisive (according to New Age experts) mutable air sign Gemini symbolizes the season right before the height of summer when the weather is still unsteady before the new season of high summer sets in with the cardinal water sign Cancer. Mutable air, unsteady weather, get it? The radiant, glorious, confident center of attention, Leo (to quote the clichés again) is the climax of the late summer season with the Sun shining at its brightest and most intense, creating stagnant, hot weather and the perfect “center stage” for the Sun which rules the fixed fire sign Leo. And so on. To assume that people born under the influences of these seasons are equipped with more or less pronounced characteristics of their birth month, is completely logical from a viewpoint that perceives everything as interconnected, and human beings as part of Nature and subject to Nature’s laws and conditions in the sense of as above, so below. (The trouble starts when you assume that people are going to be 100% walking representations of the most simplified concepts without nuance or admixture of other influences, which is what the New Age version has ultimately instilled in the average person’s mind.)
Western astrology is Sun-based, and therefore has had its use in agriculture for millennia. Even Wikipedia, otherwise deriding astrology as “pseudo-science”, does not go this far with agricultural astrology for some reason, but simply states that there is a lack of scientific evidence which can neither prove nor disprove its veracity. Interesting.
Calendar of Zwiefalten (1145 CE)
To return to pop psychology concerning New Age astrology: It takes a certain personality type to peddle a system that basically misuses the natural cycles (all of which are equally important for optimal growth and development) to fit into a narrow, judgemental, and frankly, infantile, framework for putting people into boxes and declaring them this, that or the other at the mere mention of their zodiac sign. How this got to be so popular is beyond me. But then again, unfortunately, it makes sense in the Dark Age we are in. Kali Yuga stuff for Kali Yuga minds.
Giving people such an ineffective version of astrology (while constantly dismissing and ridiculing it in the so-called serious circles which normies will inevitably parrot, as they do) is very much in the interest of those who happen to be knowledgeable in astrology themselves and practice it to this day. At the same time, they do not wish for Average Joes and Janes to be able to look at the sky and see an accurate picture of themselves and the world around them, and they most certainly do not want us to be able to have a method for predicting the cosmic weather, so to speak. While no definitive outcomes or events can be predicted, it is very much possible to see likely tendencies within a clearly outlined ballpark of potential outcomes. Nothing is arbitrary, and there are no coincidences, only detected or undetected connections. Of course, dismissing any possible correlation out of hand (not causation, the “stars“ don't cause anything), will make even the attempt at seeing such connections an utterly ridiculous endeavor not to be undertaken by any scientifically-minded person. And, to add fuel to the materialistic fire, scientific methods often do not work in context with astrology, because the methodological premises exclude certain relationships out of hand, therefore making it impossible to prove anything that is deemed inherently absurd and invalid in the first place. Astrology is highly potent and effective, like clockwork (it is a calendar/ clock, after all), outside of strict lab conditions, whether you believe it or not. It is not a religion, therefore it doesn't function based on your belief in it.
The greatest issue that modern science has with astrology is the notion which in itself cannot be separated from the practice of astrology, which is that the cosmos and everything we perceive as real has a creative spark at the root of its existence, a system of intelligent design, as opposed to arbitrarily chosen test conditions that are based on the premise that there is not, and cannot ever be, an intelligent, ensouled, creative force at play. An additional factor is the notion that certain fields, electromagnetic or otherwise, or “rays” (as described by the Arab philosopher Al-Kindi in his treaty “De Radiis”) exerting influences upon the heavenly bodies and thus on humans, are a priori non-existent, and cannot possibly ever exist, because the idea goes against the materialistic doctrine. Therefore, what must not be, cannot be.
The concept of an inherently soulless, mechanistic universe and nature goes against every form of ancestral spirituality that humanity has ever possessed. Astrology is but one of several ancient pagan practices that reflect a profound understanding of such an ensouled, creative intelligence and therefore a rationality that has engendered a perfectly calibrated system, the results of which (and the results of going against it) we see all around us. It says a lot about the “scientific“ mind that any notion of rationality automatically has to exclude the existence of Divine creativity, spirituality or Natural Law.
This is what passes for truly rational thinking in “modern science”:
"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, ... in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated commitment to materialism. ... we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
– American evolutionary biologist, mathematician, geneticist, and social commentator Richard Charles Lewontin
Translation: “We make the rules to fit our dogma which can only exist within the accepted set of rules that we have specifically devised to justify it, because otherwise the dogma’s validity cannot be proven.” Materialism is like a religion, and those who have subscribed to it will defend it like any religious zealot will defend their One True God.
Astrology is not anti-science, it is a natural science, albeit not within the limitations of the modern dogma. Isn’t it strange how the ancient Greeks are unanimously hailed as highly rational, and anything they created or perfected that is related to strict mathematics is praised ad nauseam, but astrology – well, no, that’s utter nonsense, the otherwise hyper-rational Greeks completely erred on the side of superstition with this one! Really? Says who? A hardcore materialist paradigm that has only existed for a few hundred years.
Anyone who thinks astrology is a form of useless entertainment is referring to "pop astrology", as encountered in the most shallow waters of the mainstream, courtesy of the New Age racket. And this has very little to do with the real thing, just as the Abrahamic view of the pagan gods as evil demons has anything to do with the ancestral deities that people have venerated for many millennia before the Abrahamic religions existed. The systematic degradation of astrology (aka ancestral pagan wisdom) within the scientific community was directed by essentially the same Abrahamic mindset that has manufactured the shunning, ridiculing and demonization of the old gods, albeit wearing a cloak of atheism and materialism, and it continues to do so to this day.
Practicing astrology with respect to the ancient teachings is what will retain its value and will eventually lead to a widespread vindication of astrology long after the New Age distortions and the soulless NPC version of science have fallen by the wayside, making room for natural philosophy and rationality in the highest sense of the word, and a way of life more attuned to the human spirit than what the modern religions of ruthless progressivism and anti-nature scientism are trying to sell us as the ultimate must-have.
© Olivia Solner
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