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ASTROLOGY IN THE ARCHAIC AGES
The tradition-oriented astrologer finds himself in a somewhat awkward position, even if he or she is not aware of it, because an astrology having its roots in ancient Chaldea, Egypt or India was undoubtedly the product of the type of thinking and of feeling- response to life which produced the philosophies and religions of archaic cultures. Yet it is applied to circumstances and individuals living in an era dominated by scientific thinking, and by the use of empirical and rationalistic techniques - a thinking which has not yet fully emancipated itself from a mechanistic, strictly causal approach to phenomena.
During the "vitalistic" ages preceding the sixth century B.C. in the Mediterranean world, and in tribal cultures dominated by agriculture and livestock- raising, and by local conditions within a narrowly restricted geographical environment, man's approach to the universe was deeply religious; and religion was essentially ritualistic and based on the vivid feeling that everything was alive. The stars and the planets were the radiant bodies of gods. The One Life of the Universe operated everywhere through the polarities represented by the two "Lights" (Sun and Moon), and found itself differentiated as it passed through the concentric celestial spheres ruled by the planets. These planets were Administrators or Regents in their own realms; they affected all living things and all men, just as the administrators of the big empires of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia affected the people of their provinces. The same was true in ancient China where the Emperor - at first the one and only "Celestial" - was considered the intermediary between the celestial order of the Sky and the chaotic interplay of men, beasts, storms and cataclysms prevailing on the earth surface. Around the Emperor stood four astrologers representing the four seasons of the year whose task it was to interpret the dictates of the Sky and the stars.
Such an archaic approach to the universe was very beautiful and had great meaning - and we can learn a great deal from it. But it is alien to the classical, rationalistic and Christian mentality. Nevertheless, most of the basic symbols of astrology which Europe and America inherited from the ancient world through Alexandrian and Greco-Roman writers can be traced to what the archaic minds of the vitalistic ages conceived to be the facts of the universe. Perhaps some Chaldean and Egyptian Wise Men and priests saw things differently; but, if so, they hid their knowledge under myths which were passed on to succeeding generations for many centuries.
The astrologer of the present-day who relies on all that has been traditionally recorded, particularly by Ptolemy and his European successors usually accepts their statements literally - often made in the form of brief aphorisms - very much as an engineer, builder or aviator accepts the complex formulas he finds in his books of instructions which tell him what to do under .such and such circumstances. These formulas are reliable. He knows that if he took the trouble to re-study the laws of physics he once learned in college he would be able to see exactly why they work. But the situation is basically different for the modern astrologer who has memorized the old aphorisms and the many meanings of planets, aspects, houses, rulerships, etc., he still finds in textbooks repeating the old tradition.
The situation is different because he is dealing with the end-product of an archaic religious attitude to life which has become alien to him, and the experiential basis of which, try as he may, he cannot feel, even if he can somewhat comprehend intellectually the general meaning of anciently recorded statements and apply them. What he finds in applying them is very often disappointing; it may have a very confusing, if not destructive, psychological effect. Why? Because the mentality and the feeling-responses of modern men and women are no longer those of archaic Chaldea or Egypt; and even our geographical and cosmic environment may differ from that of men living nearly 3,000 years ago in certain regions of the Earth.
To this, the tradition-bound astrologer would probably reply that if the old aphorisms and rules do not seem to be reliable it is because they are wrongly or ineffectually applied and referred to the wrong zodiac. To him the old rules were devised by generations of ancient astrologers who used empirical methods of observation, and who were indeed "scientists" in their own field, astrology.
As I see it, such a type of reply indicates that one projects upon the men of a long past culture our present-day mentality and its rationalistic-empirical approach. Nothing that I know of the type of thinking and records whose origin can be traced to before the sixth century B.C. permits me to believe that the astrology which we have inherited from the old Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures originated in such a manner. Another type of mental faculty, perhaps a "psychic" faculty of attunement to the great rhythms of the universe or some kind of "Revelation" was most likely involved - in accord with the then prevailing vital is tic and ritualistic mentality of the period. In terms of such a mentality this ancient astrology could be considered completely valid and effectual. It expressed the character and the basic principles of the universe as these ancient people experienced it. We do not experience and respond to it in the same way.
One might retort: "Did not the laws of gravity and, in general, of mechanics work out then in the same way as they do now? Why should not planetary aspects and planetary influences act today just as they operated then?
We can assume they did, though it is not at all certain that the so-called universal constants are actually unchangeable if one considers very long periods of time or very vast distances in space. The belief in such constants is one of the indemonstrable postulates of modern science. As I wrote in my just published book "BIRTH PATTERNS FOR A NEW HUMANITY: A Study of Astrological Cycles Structuring the Present World-Crisis,": is the rate of growth of a human body constant from birth to death? What if the Earth, the entire solar system and the galaxy were, at least in some basic cosmic sense, organic whole with changing rates of growth?
