As one looks into the history and diversity of astrological interpretation, one might be surprised to realize an unsteady foundation at the very premise of astrology, and its claim to divination. If the ancient Mesopotamian and Mediterranean civilizations developed the whole host of symbols and archetypes of the zodiac and planetary interpretations which we use even today- inheriting something which speaks of a superstitious, paganistic, mythic world - we still do not recognize them in our own astrology. Evolution of the zodiac and knowledge of its history entails that we do not believe in the same things, introducing relativity into the core of our belief. The very fabric which the zodiac is weaved with thus unravels and comes undone, leading even sincere believers to say astrology is hoky at best.
There is only the slight possibility that astrology might be false, a genuinely pseudoscientific philosophy and spiritual ignorance, but that small doubt is enough to question one's purpose and invite another scourge of subtle anxiety from this Pandora Box's world. The zodiac then appears like the arbitrary super-imposing of constellation stars that they are in the actual heavens (insofar as astrology is still concerned with the real, visible heavens!)- human illusion and cultural legacies weighing down a true vision of our relationship to the stars. The truth is not enshrined upon the throne of science even though much of its observations prove to be the only true way to know the world. For science as it is upheld as the hegemonic ideology in our society lacks a great many traits which would make it a holistic and truth-bearing philosophy. The totality of scientific activity produces in essence an absence of freedom in thought, a petrification of the Athenic psyche, due to its subordination to an unfree society- science amongst a city of slaves. The Aristotelian ivory tower, despite the sincere curiosity and efforts of many true scientists, is sheltered in a laboratory like a domesticated bird in a world of muddied beasts striving below.
Astrology, nonetheless, suffers from a similar ivy tower self-imprisonment. The ideas which revolve in its ideological constellation are contradictory and flaky, an incoherence that has more to do with its emaciation than the nature of astrological divination and astromancy. For the very nature of all celestial bodies which beget the supernatural energy emitted through astrology are themselves not static entities. If one is to take it to its most idealized conclusion, astrology would in fact proclaim the reign of celestial deities. But even the more pantheistic or materialistic perspectives informing people's beliefs of astrology clearly indicate a divine energy flow and not a solidification of even the most solid bodies as the moon- in short astrology is even a science which depends more on interpreting than being a thing which is interpreted. Science itself must depend upon this epistemological stance, not in order to maintain a postmodernist relativity but to admit and embrace the constancy of universal flux.
There is astrology and there is its practice; and there are many types of astrology, some of them clearer than others, some of them anchored within a discovery unfolding within actual observation- there is a great many mistakes one can make in judging the stars, but making a mistake is not one of them. There are many ways which starlight refracts and illuminates our consciousness.
