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ASTROLOGY FOR NEW MINDS
To define astrology is as difficult a task as to define, let us say, philosophy, psychology, or even medicine. Not only are there many schools or systems of philosophy, psychology and medicine, but a definition which would fit the respective purposes of these various systems and be acceptable to all is well-nigh impossible. At first thought it would seem that medicine obviously refers to the type of activity aimed at curing illnesses; for some, however, medicine is the art of restoring and maintaining health in human individual persons; while for others it is primarily, if not exclusively, the science of suppressing disease. "Official" medicine in America follows mainly the second line of approach; but even here, and far more so in Europe (and totally so in ancient China), the first mentioned attitude and goal is considered by numerous physicians (homeopaths, naturopaths, osteopaths and the great variety of "healers") as characterizing the one basic function of medicine.
There is as well an abundance of varieties of modern and ancient psychologies or philosophies. Old India classified them into six great systems, all of which were considered valid, in as much as each was seen as befitting a particular type of mind, consciousness, or stage of human development. It is almost impossible today to define what psychology means, for to some it refers to the study of the nervous system, the brain and the effects of drugs upon the body, while to others it is "a Way of healing" aiming at helping individuals to fulfill their innermost potentialities along the fourfold path of sensation, feeling, thought and intuition, and to realize the "Self" as core of the integrated and integral "person." Psychologists who stress the use of statistics and tests are called "clinical" or, in a broader sense, "behaviorists"; others work along the lines of Freudian psychoanalysis, Jungian depth-psychology, individual psychology, etc. The recent development of what has been called a "Third Force" in psychology linking the names of Moreno, Goldstein, Maslow, Rogers, Allport, Assagioli, Frankl, etc. - has stressed a "humanistic" approach to psychology which emphasizes a process of self-actualization and self-fulfillment through "peak experiences," expansion of consciousness, and more encompassing and open approaches to inter-personal relationships. A new movement has just been initiated by Anthony Sutich and his co-workers under the name of "transpersonal psychology" which further emphasizes the value of transcendent factors, of meditation and of spontaneous imagery rising from the depths of the psyche; and Asiatic disciplines (Hindu Yoga, Japanese Zen, Dervish techniques) are being incorporated into various systems of personal and super-personal development. Psychology might be said to refer to the "soul" or the "psyche"; but who would be able to find definitions for these confusing terms acceptable to psychologists of all schools?
A similar situation exists in the field of what is generally termed astrology. The word "astrology" is still associated in the minds of a great many people with the study of the stars; but actually most astrologers today pay no attention at all to stars. They deal with the Sun, the Moon, the planets - and other factors of a less tangible nature, such as the intersection of planetary orbits and the Arabian Parts. But what the astrologer studies is not even material planets with mass, for in his calculations he is concerned in most cases only with the periodical motions of abstract points, the centers of the planets. He deals with the interactions between these periodical motions, i.e., with the relationships between the cycles of the planets as they move at different speeds within the solar system and are observed from the Earth. Today the main way in which the astrologer measures these cyclic motions and their interaction (i.e. "aspects") is by plotting the planets' positions at a given moment upon a frame of reference called the zodiac; but there are also less commonly used frames of reference. Even with respect to the zodiac a basic ambiguity exists, for the term "zodiac" can be defined in two ways. There is the zodiac of "signs" and the zodiac of "constellations" - and to add to the confusion, signs and constellations bear the same names.
The zodiac of signs is the path traced during an entire year by the Sun in its apparent motion in relation to the distant stars - which are called "fixed," though they actually move very slowly, each in a somewhat different direction. We know today that this "tropical" zodiac is actually the orbit of the Earth as it revolves around the Sun; and astronomers call it "the ecliptic. " The twelve signs of the zodiac are simply twelve equal 30-degree divisions of the ecliptic. This zodiac relates to the phenomenon of the seasons, and deals with the cyclically changing relationship of the Earth to the Sun - the Sun being the source of most of the energies which circulate within the electro-magnetic field which the solar system constitutes; but there are also energies flowing constantly from our vast Galaxy, within which our Sun is only one of billions of stars, and each planet may also have energies of a sort within its own globe.
The zodiac of constellations refers to groupings of stars located along and on either side of the plane of the ecliptic. As the Sun appears to move, month after month, in relation to the "fixed" stars, it passes over these twelve zodiacal constellations - Aries, Taurus, Gemini, etc.; that is to say, a line drawn from the Earth to the Sun would, if prolonged immensely, touch, month after month, one constellation after another. Though in the popular mind, and even among astronomers who usually look at astrology with a prejudiced eye, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, etc., are believed to refer to actual groups of stars, most astrologers in fact mean by these terms the first, second, third, etc., signs of the zodiac. And today, because of the motion of the earth-globe called the "precession of the equinoxes" - a motion defining a long cycle of nearly 26,000 years - the constellations and the signs, though bearing the same names, do not coincide. A quite vocal though relatively small group of astrologers claims that the zodiac of the constellations (also called the sidereal zodiac) is the only one that has any validity - a claim based on the study of astrological records mostly predating the Greek period of history. The great majority of astrologers, and all popular magazines and newspapers base their charts and interpretation on the zodiac of signs (the tropical zodiac).
The conflict between the proponents of the two zodiacs is only one of the many divergences of opinions found in the numerous astrological schools of the present day. But, as in the cases of medicine and psychology, back of the many divergent opinions and interpretations, techniques and systems, one can distinguish some fundamental differences of approach to the very meaning of human existence.
I spoke above of what has been called the Third Force in psychology, Humanistic Psychology, differentiating itself from, on the one hand, a medically oriented Freudian psychology and, on the other, the type of experimental laboratory psychology mainly taught in colleges which used the today fashionable techniques of "science."
A rather similar division can be made in the field of present-day astrology. There is the traditional or "classical" type of predictive astrology which is mainly interested in predicting events, whether at the popular fortune-telling level or in a somewhat more sophisticated manner. There is also of recent date an astrology which tries to adopt the scientific methods of research, statistical analysis and the like, and which seeks to be recognized and taught in colleges as a reputable science. Then there are those astrologers who are by nature philosophically as well as psychologically inclined and for whom the one basic aim of astrology is to help individual persons to discover and gradually to actualize and fulfill, in the best possible way, the potentialities inherent in their total being.
I have recently called this last type of astrological approach "Humanistic astrology" for in some way it parallels the humanistic or Third Force psychology. It is the purpose of this booklet to define broadly the basic nature, purpose and implications of Humanistic astrology in contrast to the more traditional astrology whose essential aim is to predict future events.
