Astrology — Some Interesting Quotes
This article is part of my unpublished book on Astrology. (For what has preceded please see this list.) It is the introduction to part 3. In the first two parts I have tried to tried to establish a theory as to how Astrology might work. In the next part I discuss what I think are the implications if this is true.
PART III INTRODUCTION
The main purpose of Part III will be to discuss the following question: If Astrology is true, what should we be doing about it? I am still saying ‘if Astrology is true’, because of course it is impossible to prove. However, having read Dennis Elwell, Dane Rudhyar, John Addey, Z’ev Ben Shimon Halevi, Charles and Suzi Harvey, Stephen Arroyo, Liz Greene, Geoffrey Cornelius, James Hillman, Thomas Moore, and Franz Hartmann, and connected it all with what I already knew, I now understand it, and have at least managed to convince myself. It makes sense.
The combination of Tomaschek’s theories 3 and 4 discussed in chapter 16 includes most of these astrologers, and the others mentioned earlier. This does not end the discussion, for even if they agree about synchronicity and symbolism, that does not prevent them from disagreeing about other questions. Even amongst the spiritually oriented astrologers, there are different trends, which are apparent from what has gone before. Because of these differences, before moving on, I thought that it would be appropriate to choose a quotation from each of the modern astrologers discussed, thus allowing them to speak for themselves about their point of view. I have attempted to find one statement which clearly bears their hallmark.
Rudhyar: “(Astrology’s) aim is to transform chaotic human nature into a microcosm. When man becomes truly a microcosm, he demonstrates personality to the fullest extent and manifests as a living Person, or as a great Personage… The goal of astrology is the alchemy of personality” (The Astrology of Personality, Pxii).
Addey: “The key to the interpretation of the numerical relationships within the birth chart is to be found in the hierarchical structure of man and nature by which all things are rooted in and proceed, in due order, from the unity which is their cause and origin. To recover the pure Pythagorean principles of number symbolism as they relate to the microcosm and the dynamic interrelationships of its parts and principles, is perhaps the foremost task of astrology today” (A New Study of Astrology, p247).
Halevi: “(The wise) see Astrology as more than a system of individual or mundane analysis and prediction. They view Astrology as the original formulators did, as an esoteric Teaching on the Universe with all its laws embodied in the interconnection between the macrocosmic scheme of the world and microcosmic image of man” (The Anatomy of Fate, p19).
Cornelius: “In the context of astrology, the term (hermeneutics) implies a turning away from the common assumption that a fixed astrological meaning is simply ‘there’, in front of us, as some sort of fact of nature. The hermeneutic inquiry in astrology reveals the essential dependency of the meaning of symbols on the act of interpretation of that meaning. Seen in this way, horoscope interpretation… depends both on the context in which meaning is sought, as well as on the intentionality of the one making the interpretation” (The Moment of Astrology, Pxx).
Greene: “Thus, perhaps, we appear to the gods, playing out our parts, and believing ourselves to be ‘different’ and ‘free’, while all the time we dance the ancient dance that has been choreographed from the beginning of time” (The Astrology of Fate, p174).
Thomas Moore is a therapist rather than an astrologer, but this statement deserves inclusion: “Astrological consciousness thus becomes a mindfulness of the deeper, archetypal significance of the most mundane events. The otherwise undifferentiated, linear, and literal sequence of events becomes ordered, not through reason alone, but through imagination into patterns the significance of which appeals to the soul more than to the mind” (The Planets Within, p124).
Harvey: “The student who consciously knows with demonstrable certainty that the whole manifested cosmos is a purposeful, meaningful, living body of Ideas, who takes it as given that Time is indeed the flowing image of Eternity, who consciously perceives that the heavenly bodies are indeed the first-born thoughts of God, and that the planets do indeed unfold creation, that student will the more eagerly savour each moment of the music of the spheres, and each corresponding manifestation in consciousness and matter” (in The Future of Astrology, edited by A. T. Mann, p72).
Elwell: “(Astrology) cannot work at all unless some incredible feat of stage-management is going on, a driving force which is able to enlist intermediaries towards the desired end. Speculate on the mechanics of translating the promise, or threat, of the heavens into actual happenings here on earth, and you are tempted to envisage some power dwelling inside the play of events, and pulling them all together according to the pattern of the planets, which is also the pattern of the whole” (The Cosmic Loom, p161).
============================================================
