Astrology Menu

 

About Astrology > In Summation; and Into The Future

In Summation; and Into The Future

In Summation; and Into The Future

Up until this point we have been talking about the mechanics of astrology. There is a lot more to it than what has already been discussed. There is so much, in fact, that in a document twenty times or two hundred times the size of this we would still only be scratching the surface of the highly structured mechanics of the astrological system(s) devised and developed over the thousands of years of the history of astrology.
Why does astrology have the glamour and allure that it has? What is the draw that brings people to the study of astrology? How has astrology survived the advent of scientific enlightenment? All of these and many more questions come to mind as we deal with one of the oldest pursuits of man with some of the newest tools of inquiry.
Unless you are among those who are convinced that humans were deposited on this planet by some "other" extraplanetary civilization, you understand that at the outset of the field of inquiry of astrology, man had little to no understanding of the nature and scope of the universe. As a matter of fact, man had little to no understanding of the nature, scope or functioning system of the solar system. As with most all of human endeavor, it is this lack of knowledge that has driven man to investigate the astronomy and even the cosmology of our plane of existence.
Man has also been an impatient being throughout his history. While we never settle for partial knowledge, in the end, we are always driven to reach "working hypotheses" to enable us to understand. We use these concepts in our quest for knowledge not only about ourselves and our surroundings, but also about the nature of "how it all works." Along the way, as we learn more and more about how it all works, we add, revise, modify, and restructure our working hypotheses to match newly revealed “true” conditions.
The size of the solar system and the position of the solar system in relation to our galaxy, and our galaxy cluster are all still fields of scientific data gathering. How this will affect the study of astrology is, of course, still unknown to us. Yet we are fairly sure that the study of astrology will adapt, and continue, if not thrive.
As an example of an adaptation of astrology to changes in societal knowledge, one can look at the self-definition of astrology today. Astrology has traveled from "science," to "occult pursuit," to "arcane study," to "parlor game," to "alternative view." This transformation through the phases noted above and others not mentioned is not intended to be definitive or in any semblance of chronological order. It was merely assembled to show that astrology has redefined itself over thousands of years to “fit” the culture and to survive.
As we have recently been involved in deep space investigations to seek the "origins of the universe," astrology will surely find another market niche in which to peddle itself. Clearly, we refer here to the proponents of astrology, and not the speculative system itself, having any motives of continued existence, or self-definition.
Seeing how large the universe is, and how complex its structure can lead people to view themselves as smaller and less significant. Many people will surely wonder how they “fit in” to the grand scheme of it all. Today’s astrology proposes that its “alternative viewpoint” can help people understand that all of astrology and astronomy comprise a system which is interconnected and interdependent, and that while you may be affected or influenced by the cyclical variations of other parts of this great system, you are not "controlled" by them.
Interestingly, this attitude can be likened to the leading edge work on the human genome project, and the association of specific genes with specific characteristics. Some of these characteristics appear to be benign as with the genes associated to determination of eye color. Others seem to be malignant, both literally and figuratively, as in the cases of genes linked to higher probabilities of contracting certain types of cancer. We are currently quite close to finding genetic linkages to high statistical probabilities of contracting many if not most of a long list of debilitating diseases and conditions. What does this mean to society as a whole or to the individual in particular? To the individual, it might be a question of life or death; and to society as we know it, it may also be a question of life or death.
In earlier times, there have been stories of people who were deemed by soothsayers to have been born under evil signs who were put to death in infancy. Who can tell the loss or, perhaps, the benefit to society of those acts? Today we cringe internally, even reading those words, yet we face a world where the idea of "terminating a pregnancy" where the fetus is deformed or in some other way less than perfect is becoming a commonplace decision which is made by a parent or parents with little or no outside guidance. It is amazing that this is happening in a time when we as a society are capable of providing a higher quality of life to the "less than perfect" than was the highest that even the "most perfect" could have ever dreamed of.
A small example of the changes that science has gone through, or has brought us through is the question of human stature. It was a generally held opinion that taller people are somehow "better" than shorter people. You may still believe that, however, recent scientific investigations indicate that shorter people are better suited to handling the stress of hypersonic travel and of extended space missions.