A SPIRITED DEFENCE OF ASTROLOGY
I am an astrologer with a love of science. I don’t like bullies. What follows is an exuberant & spirited defence of my craft, spurred on by a question posted in QUORA.
Michael Zizis
Astrologer 40+ Years
Updated October 15, 2020
The Quora Question: We can all agree that astrology is a scam and pure quackery, but is it actually harmful? Should we be proactive trying to educate people against the fake knowledge of astrology? Is there any danger at all for people believing in this?
The Bland leading …
The blind ignorance of this question makes it difficult to answer in a humane manner. Here is my suggestion; be an adult and do your own horoscope ONCE.
No — astrology doesn’t require the burden of belief. It is based on knowledge.
DO you BELIEVE in water? Gravity? Food? Oxygen? Houses? Spanish? Frogs? Weather? Spring? Color? Bi -pedalism? Itchiness? Wood? Airplanes? Square things? Trout mask replicas? Sunday? Forks? Surnames? Clothes? Puppies and protons? the word ‘word’? Receding zygomatic arches? Philadelphia? Laughter and what comes after? Elephants, brothers, lovers, mothers, and others?
Which appeals to you? — Being number — — — social security/insurance person? OR Leo — courageous / proud / dynamic? You can use any of the 12 astrological signs. While I agree with my colleagues about sun-sign astrology to an extent — I see that the more astrology gets talk-time the more it gains. I want astrology to be talked about. Period.
Nothing will stop this juggernaut. Nothing. Being a number, a ‘race’, an economic class etc., is desiccating. It diminishes and destroys the life force. It does serve the purpose of giving people the illusion that they are insignificant and powerless.
Qui bono?
Astrology also serves a mythic purpose. It restores that tribal importance that we have lost over the urbanizing millennia.
When we were members of a smallish tribe we all mattered. Now the ‘tribes’ of Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer etc., are alive and well. Mythically and ‘calendrically’ Carl Sagan was a Scorpio; the true skeptic. Now the Scorpios are saying “WOW! Carl Sagan wz a Scorpio — OMG!”
Sagan tried to organize a pogrom against astrology.
The horror …
Here is the other side of astrology gaining in popularity; 14 years ago shortly after Neptune — signifying proliferation — entered the sign of Pisces -the sign of all waters — I predicted that areas of the planet that were wet would get wetter while the dry desert places would be steadily drier. In other dialogues in Quora I showed the many predictions by competent astrologers that came true. This is not the place to repeat all that. The four seasons repeat. The cycles that accompany Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter repeat. Economic cycles repeat. Health cycles repeat.
THAT IS ASTROLOGY. Infinite variety within infinite repetition. Scientists seem to embrace only that which can be measured. Among the immeasurable are -love, music, romance and astrology. Don’t bother measuring the infinitesimal gravitational tug of — for instance — Pluto on the earth. Look to the four seasons. Look to the mythic reality of death and rebirth.
Is knowledge about self and the world bad? Is it bad to wear a bikini outside in January in a cold climate because knowing what to wear when is bad? Simplified, astrology is also about the timing of action so that one does not wear a bikini in January outside in a cold climate. All knowledge begins with self-knowledge.
For instance don’t yell at a sensitive Cancer. Don’t say the word NO to an Aquarian. Don’t demand an Aries calm down. Don’t talk to a Taurus before you feed them.
BELIEF FOR BEGINNERS
Astrology is not a belief. It doesn’t require the burden of belief. It is an organizing principle like the alphabet or numbers. I hope that you know that no one believes in Spring Summer Fall and Winter. They are facts. No one believes in Spanish or Greek.
Astrology is a Language. Maybe I am being a little harsh. It sounds to me like you are living in a demon-haunted world — and you are scaring yourself with these beliefs. I do hope you understand me when I ask you which colour of the rainbow is the evil one? There is no such thing.
My heart does break for questions of this nature. Astrologers are in the ‘business’ of talking to adults about adult realities. Vedic astrologers talk about two kinds of people in the world — those who are awake and those who sleep walk. Those who are awake know their horoscopes. Knowledge is power. It is a helping profession. In fact, it is the best helping profession. It gives YOU the power of choice.
From the Greek ‘Horos’ = ‘hour’ ‘Skopos’ = ‘pointer’. ‘Zodiac’ = ‘Zoo of animals’.
Astrology is an art. ‘Science’, originally from Greek — means to ‘break apart’. The four seasons in temperate regions affect humanity. NO hocus pokus focus.
MY HORNS OF YOUR DILEMMA
Herd animals with horns reappeared in neolithic times in their migration route in the Spring. Hence the Spring signs of Aries and Taurus. We hunted them and feasted.
The Cardinal signs indicate the first day that seasons change; the 1st day of Spring is the 1st day of Aries. The 1st day of Summer in the 1st day of Cancer. The 1st day of Fall is the 1st day of Libra. The 1st day of Winter is the 1st day of Capricorn. All simple answers are easy and wrong.
This wack-a-mole stuff will always reappear in online Q&A. Astrology is about reoccurring patterns and cycles. Spring occurs and then it occurs again. Yes anyone can decide to be willfully blind to this. Don’t call it science. It is opinion. No one is entitled to remain ignorant, or act as if an opinion is sacred. If you are verbally abusive, if you’d love to see others burned at the stake over astrology — then you consider your opinion sacred. What science and astrology have in common is they are tools to accomplish something.
If you hate & loathe symbols — say; “I despise symbols.”
Astrology is the mother of science.
Acknowledgment of the four seasons in temperate climates is the beginning of astrology about 28,000 years ago. This fact is available to anyone; study the cave paintings at Lascaux. Eventually some portion of your ego will dissolve into knowledge. Well what are you waiting for? Some hierarchical fool to tell you what to think? So to avoid boredom — here is my statement.
LET THE SUN SIGN
We are all learning our Sun signs. Donald Trump’s sun sign is Gemini; Gemini will not be silenced. Madonna Bill Clinton and Barack Obama is Leo; Leo is courageous. Carl Sagan was a Scorpio; Scorpios are skeptical of authority until they are the authority. Bill Gates is a Scorpio. Elon Musk is a Cancer just as Nicolai Tesla was a Cancer; Cancer accumulates 10,000 details and creates something that seems new.
Netanyahu and Putin are male Librans; Libra is pure logic {I didn’t say reason} without emotion. Khomeini and Hitler were male Taurus; they fixed an ideology at any cost. Lincoln and Darwin were Aquarius born exactly the same day; Aquarius is the outsider and often the humanitarian / forward thinker. Thomas Edison and James Joyce were Aquarius and innovators.
Astrology is an organizing principle like numbers and the alphabet.
All the space in our psyche’s not taken up by knowledge will be taken up by ego.
SAYING WHAT GOES WITHOUT SAYING
I respect the gains that science has made possible in the human experiment.
I also respect a spirited defence of empirical methodology. Since Harvey and the discovery of the circulation of blood, science has {as I am sure you know} discovered its own way of knowledge gained thru measurement, of the physical components of our journey.
I choose Harvey because that makes science about 400 years old. The word science borrowed by the French from original Greek simply means ‘to break apart’. This probably marks the beginning of the split of astrology and science. Astonishing gains are being made in science — from the nutrients that cancer cells take from the body and how to defeat it thru its own hungers, to water worlds in our own solar system — Pluto, and the moons: Triton, the Galilean moons and Enceladus. We are on the verge of discovering life’s ubiquity and its nearly inevitable and virtually indestructible nature.
All this is to say that science, like astrology, is one of humanities most remarkable tools. I, of course, would include music, language, and law among so many others as hallmarks of the human experiment.
My universe includes the 28,000 year old cave drawings at Lascaux. Scientists have shown that on the first day of Spring for a few hours, a shaft of light penetrates deep into the cave and touches the tip of the nose of the aurochs, a massive ancestor of the cow. In that cave in the nose of the bull, are drawn seven dots that quite wonderfully match the seven main stars of the constellation of the Pleiades, the bull; and the astrological sign of Taurus. Symbols are more universal than language. No one now knows how to read linear A or Etruscan. Yet everyone can know the symbol for Taurus.
In this same cave and others in the area have been found bones with notches on them that perfectly match the moon’s phases. Yes, it’s easy, perhaps too easy to dismiss all this as astronomy, not anything to do with my craft. Yet, I don’t dismiss science.
It is a tool.
My simple point is that these gifted ancient people ‘clocked’ the seasons and the return of herd animals in the Spring by including physical light from the heavens. They passed on what they discovered, and it got refined in incremental steps. These cyclic observations of organizing the seasons became to be known as astrology. It’s exactly how the agrarian culture of Egypt and other neolithic/bronze age farming cultures fed the village and the nation; by noting the return of the cycles of nature.
It is natural, though not civilized, to hear the 400 year old ‘teenager’ science berating the old 9,000 + years old progenitor — the organizing principle astrology — screaming YOU KNOW NOTHING — old fool.
I don’t say any of this to deny science and those who earn a living and feed their children thru this gifted light. I do need to clearly state that so many astrologers do remarkable work. It’s how we feed our children. Kepler, Galileo, Copernicus, and Brahe, were also astrologers.
Why do people wear light clothes in the summer and dress warmly in winter? ASTROLOGY is a depiction of the four seasons {in climates with four seasons} and their occurrences, and their re-occurrences. It is about what is happening right now out of your window — and how you are affected by it.
EXAMPLES FOR DUMMIES
People rely on astrology because economic markets rise and fall in 19 and a half year cycles. People rely on astrology because personally I tried to stop two FRIENDS {not clients} from breakages, one in a new business — the other in a horrid accident — and THEY KNEW BETTER.
They both were hurt quite badly. Sooner or later all of us must go THRU something to learn something. When you are crossing a bridge in your car and you ignore repeated signs warning you to stop, you are going to go thru something. Then the bridge ends, and you and 3,000 pounds of metal and glass are plunging into a frigid river, at 4:00 am.
I advised a client NOT to marry her fiancé. Bravely — she did listen. Later she found out that he was ‘seeing’ two other women a week before their marriage date. You are free to listen to anyone who claims my brilliant craft is nonsense.
I am free to see that human nature has repeating patterns, under starlight.
All the space in your mind and my mind and everyone’s mind will be filled by ego until ego is replaced by knowledge. What you won’t encounter here is belief. You will sense a knowledge base — a way of organizing our human journey. I will leave the realm of trumpeting belief to extremely rich preachers, you know, men of god.
The Chinese have an axiom; it doesn’t matter what colour the cat is; the question is — does it catch mice?
People — smart people — ACTUALLY VALUE astrology because in the case of former market investor skeptic Arch Crawford — it made him millions $$ on the gold stock market. People ACTUALLY VALUE astrology because I told my clients / investors to get out of the tech market bust in April of 2000 three months before it happened. People ACTUALLY VALUE astrology because British astrologer Liz Greene predicted the 1989 demise of the Soviet Union {to the week} four months before it self-destructed. Who are you following? The Amazing Randi? Michael Schermer? On your own terms — love, trust, music, healing, and prayer among others don’t exist because they can’t be measured.
NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION
There is truly a core to this question. Lean into the what is posed here; the darker aspects of what it means to be male. It’s not about examination, or exploration; but aggression and polemic crusade. ‘Maleness’ can ALSO be defined as the will to order, and war. Look around and actually have the courage to see those who crush women and children. It certainly doesn’t seem to be women crushing life wherever they can.
If the intention here is to napalm astrologers, to burn them alive, then just say so. Well? Really what do you have to lose by looking into the 9,000 years of agrarian cycles that repeat {Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter} that is absolutely the foundations and the meanings of astrology?
Yes, you will lose some ego. And, the best definition of the ego is: that which dies. The nature of this above ‘question’, is the pack mentality; bite bite bite kill kill kill. Not only is this a statement of the black and white rainbow — read poverty of vision — it also seeks to destroy others who have the courage to find more than the reductionist ‘truth’ beyond — if I can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist.
Science is not a blunt instrument made for breaking skulls. It is a tool. An opinion is the weapon of the lazy and the dull mind.
