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Certainly some, upon seeing the subject matter of this column, have felt the impulse to immediately reject it. To most people, astrology is illogical, ridiculous and simply a waste of time. Even many who casually practice astrology quickly become skeptics when challenged. Among those who display their sun sign or big three in their Tinder bio, how many would fold immediately when asked by a match, “You don’t really believe in that stuff, right?”

In this column, we will tackle this question: is astrology real?

Astrology is simply the act of drawing correlations between the movements of the heavenly bodies and life on earth. Early Mesopotamian astrologers looked especially to the moon, using new moons, full moons and eclipses to contextualize and predict societal events.

Many of these ancient astrologers were animists: they believed that the natural world, physical matter and of course, the sun, moon and stars were all ensouled and creatively intelligent.

Ancient Greek philosopher Plato explains, as quoted in Richard Tarnas’ “Cosmos and Psyche,” that “the truth is just the opposite of the opinion which once prevailed among men, that the sun and stars are without soul. … For in that short-sighted view, the entire moving contents of the heavens seemed to them only stones, earth and other soulless bodies, though these furnish the sources of world order.”

This animist philosophy contradicts completely the dominant world view of today, in which humans are the sole subjects, the only sources of intelligence in a meaningless and chaotic universe of lifeless objects.

Many argue that astrology’s celestial correspondence takes place through a mechanism called synchronicity. As explained by Swiss depth psychologist Carl Jung in his book “Man and His Symbols,” synchronicity is any random but symbolically significant occurrence.

For an anecdotal example, my sister once told me a story in which, one day, she decided on a whim to visit the grave of our grandfather after school. Immediately upon leaving the car, she witnessed a shooting star zipping through the afternoon sky.

Whether or not the shooting star in this story was a symbolically significant message from the universe simply can not be proven. However, stories of similarly shocking and seemingly significant coincidences are so widespread as to be nearly universal. Predictive dreams, thinking of someone and then running into them immediately, timely encounters with interesting animals — all of these things and more are commonly experienced as communications from an intelligent universe.

Astrology, then, is a source of endless synchronicities. By learning the language of the stars, astrologers turn these random occurrences into a flowing conversation with the divine.

Understandably, I am sure many reading this now remain unconvinced that there is any substance or truth to astrology. In my opinion, the only truly effective antidote to skepticism is to thoroughly investigate this practice on your own.

With the Jupiter-Neptune conjunction perfecting this Tuesday, synchronicities and other mystical experiences are likely to find you. Listen earnestly.

Published on April 10, 2022 at 11:46 pm