Last weekend, I was at a party with friends. At some point, I found myself talking about Astrology with a guy I just met; We’re joking and I told him ironically: – Oh, good! Something tells me that you are a Libra! –
So that guy suddenly answered: – Please… don’t tell me that you believe in Astrology…? Stars are just celestial bodies millions of lightyears distant from us! They cannot influence us, it’s impossible! –
So, I taken a deep breath, I showed my best smile and then I said:
– Well, I’m sorry, but you are starting from wrong assumptions, probably because you don’t know the subject.
You’re right, stars do not irradiate none “mumbo-jumbo magical force” that influence our lives, but Astrology doesn’t say that, it uses the stars and the other celestial bodies as points of reference to measure time, not just its quantity, but its “quality” above all.
If you are born on October 18th, it says the quantity of time, but the fact that the Sun was in Libra sign, will tell you the quality of the time when you are born, and that can tell you even the quality of who you are, and that’s just to begin… –
That guy looked at me surprised and speechless. He started to realize he knows nothing about Astrology, and the only thing he said was: – Oh… interesting… –
So, from that point, I opened a brand new world to him.
Now, the point is that who study and practice Astrology, soon or later, will must “defend” himself from criticisms of people who “don’t believe it”.
Very often, some friends of mine have been in that situation, and unfortunately, they weren’t able to rebut the criticisms, simply because they had not the necessary preparation about Astrology to respond the right way, so the only thing they were able to do was mumbling something or going away in silence.
But, if you know very well how to respond to the criticisms, giving all the right argumentations and keeping a rational and reasonable point of view about Astrology, you will see all the skeptics stay in silence instead of you, because you’ll make them understand that they are talking about something they don’t know.
Always remember, that people who criticise Astrology, 90% of times they know absolutely nothing about it, so they talk with ignorance and prejudices only.
If you give them the right answers, in the right way, you will obtain 3 great results:
- You will show your great preparation and competence about the subject, and this shows you as an “authority” about it, not as a superstitious person.
- You will defend the ancient knowledges, the universal truths and what you believe in; your ideals and your values. Remember: If you are not willing to fight for your truths, why should people believe in them?
- You will push those people to reflect and even to change their mind about Astrology, or at least, to be open-minded about it.
Think, you could even “give start” to a new Astrologer (this actually happened to me).
So, now I will show you the 4 most frequent criticisms about Astrology, reported by my experience, my students and my friends; and, above all, how you can effectively rebut to them; because you can bet on it: soon or later you will have to do it.
I’m here to help you best prepare for that:
1 – Stars which burn millions of lightyears distant from us, influence our life? It’s impossible.
Unfortunately, this is one of the biggest misunderstanding about Astrology and one of the most resistant popular beliefs.
You need to explain to those who say it, that Astrology is first of all the study of the analogical correspondences between the celestial plane and the earth’s plane. The ancient masters observed the stars for thousands of years and they understood that the starry sky is made by cycles, and those cycles reflect themselves on the earth’s plane. “Reflection” is exactly the keyword.
As I said in the intro, there is no “magical energy” that planets or stars irradiate, it’s not about gravitational fields, microwaves, or x-rays of stars millions of lightyears distant from Earth; no one of real astrologer will never say that.
It’s more simple than that; the celestial macro-cycles reflect themselves on the earthly micro-cycles, and so on man’s cycles.
Time is not linear as modern man unfortunately believes, time is cyclic, and a man is integrated into those cycles as everything else in Cosmos, he is not out of the Universe as he foolishly believes.
As ancient masters said, man is micro-cosmos, a small reproduction of the whole Cosmos, in body and mind, so he responds to the same laws. Astrology study those laws and all the analogical correspondences between macro-cosmos (Universe) and micro-cosmos (Man); that’s why the fundamental precept of ancient philosophers, and consequently the first law of Astrology, is: “As above, so below”.
A perfect little example of that, it’s the menstrual cycle of women which reflects the Lunar phases cycle: Around 29 days for menstruation – around 29 days for lunation. In normal and natural conditions, they should be even synchronized: Full Moon–Ovulation, New Moon–Menstruation; but in our modern society, fast, stressing, pressing, hyper-competitive, and often full of unhealthy behaviors, it’s hard to follow the natural cycles.
However, the analogy between Moon’s cycle and Woman’s cycle is pretty evident; that’s even one of the reason why the Moon represents the Feminine Principle.
2 – Human personalities cannot be 12 only, we are more complex than that.
This criticism can arrive very often from those who know just the “cookie cutter” horoscopes of some silly magazines.
It’s enough having some patience to explain that Astrology is not the Zodiac Sign only, but it is based upon the positions of all Planets of the Solar System at the moment of the birth. All those elements (and even more) describe a single specific personality of a single individuality.
That’s because each Planet represents a single part of the human psyche: this means that exist many possible combinations of those single parts (planets), consequently there are many possible different personalities, as many as human beings on Earth.
So, we could say that there are macro groups of persons who have similar behaviors and similar tendencies (the 12 zodiac signs), but this is just the base.
It’s like saying “he is Asian” for a physical description. Is it enough? Of course not. That gives general physical characteristics (zodiac sign), but it’s insufficient to get a portrait of a specific person. We need to know the color of his eyes, the color of his hair, how tall he is, how is his nose, how old he is, etc. Only if we have all those other physical characteristics (planets’ positions) we can build a detailed portrait of a specific person.
Astrology works the same way: It’s the combinations between all the celestial bodies at the moment of the birth, that will give the psychological portrait of a specific human being, and it’s easy to understand that there are a huge number of possible combinations.
3 – Zodiac constellations are just figures arbitrarily chosen, so they are meaningless.
Most part of people is convinced that one day, a group of ancient Greeks looked up to the sky and then said: – Look, I see a bull on that group of stars, so I will call them Taurus (bull) – and they did the same for the rest of the constellations. Just like that, without sense, without a “why”, and the rest of mankind accepted it with no objections, no one said: – Hey, wait a min, I disagree, I see a bee on those stars, I’m gonna call them “the Bee” – .
If you make them think for a minute about that, it will be enough clear that it’s ridiculous thinking something like that.
You can explain to them that the zodiac figures as we know them today, are the result of thousands of years of observations. First of all, itneeds to say that the associations between the 12 ecliptic constellations and the 12 “animal” figures, are not greeks, but they come at least from ancient Egypt, in fact, we can see them even on the roof of Dendera’s Temple: there are the 12 zodiac figures as we know today, while, for example, there are other extra-zodiac constellations associated with different figures. The most remarkable examples are: Orion, which was Osiris for the ancient Egyptians, and Canis Major, which was the holy cow Hathor for them.
All of that, it’s a clue that the associations between the 12 zodiac constellations and 12 specific animal figures are very ancients, even before Egyptians, which inherited them from Chaldean masters, Babylonians and Sumerians, more than 7.000 years ago; and it’s plausible thinking they arrived even from some previous oral traditions.
So, the point is that the 12 zodiac figures, that we call “Signs”, are 12 powerful archetypes. As taught by Plato (or most recently by C.G. Jung), archetypes are primordial ideas and concepts impressed in our psyche, on an unconscious and deepest level. That makes them the universal and perfect vehicle for the meanings and concepts they transport.
What the ancient masters did, has been observing the analogical correspondences between the celestial motions and the “forces” manifested on the earthly plane, and then, after they understood those correspondences, they have associated the archetype that better represents those forces.
That’s because the stars are the absolute point of reference to measure time, not just its “quantity” (hours, days, months, years, etc.) but above all its “quality” (cardinal fire, mutable fire, fixed water, cardinal air, mutable earth, etc.), a fundamental forgotten concept by the modern man.
It means, that the ancient masters didn’t choose; they’ve associated the 12 archetypal figures which perfectly embody the quality of time in every moment of the year, regulated by the cycles of the Sun, the Moon and each one of the other Planets.
4 – Zodiac constellations are no more aligned with Zodiac Signs, so Astrology cannot work.
You can hear this criticism from those who are more “scientist”, because it needs some astronomical knowledge or some scientific culture.
But, the real Astrosopher must have a good, or better still, an excellent astronomical knowledge. Remember that the separation between astronomy and astrology is a profane conception only.
So, it will not be difficult giving an answer to this criticism, even because, again, who says this, shows to know nothing about Astrology.
However, this is an advanced and pretty complex subject, even because it touches more astrosophical concepts than astrological concepts, so I will try to be short and synthetic in showing just why this is not a problem in Astrology.
First of all: Yes, it’s true, the zodiac constellations do not correspond anymore with the periods of the year they are associated; they are all moved backward of at least 1 month.
In other words, currently, for example, when we are on Aries’ period (march-april), the Sun is physically transiting on the background formed by the stars that compose the constellation of Aquarius.
This sliding backward of zodiac constellations respect to the months, happens because of an astronomical phenomenon we know as “Axial precession” or “Precession of the equinoxes”.
Now, those who say that Astrology cannot work because it doesn’t take count of the precession of the equinoxes, talk like if Astrology doesn’t know about this astronomical phenomenon. But, of course, this is false.
The precession of the equinoxes was well known from very ancient times: we find proofs about this in the Dendera’s Temple; even Ptolemy (one of the “father” of Astrology) talks about it, but the precession was known even before, by the Chaldean masters (500 BC) or even by Hindu, more than 3.000 years ago.
So it is part of the “Astrology system” from thousands of years, as all the rest of its laws.
The point is that Astrology as we know it, is mainly based on the Tropical Zodiac, not the Sidereal Zodiac.
To better understand: There are 2 Zodiacs (actually more, but it is not important now), the Tropical Zodiac and the Sidereal Zodiac.
The Tropical Zodiac is based upon the position of the Earth respect to the Sun during the year. It’s responsible for the seasons’ cycle, it’s a micro-cycle, a micro-cosmos which speaks about individuals, so Astrology is based on it.
The Sidereal Zodiac is based upon the position of the fixed stars respect to the Sun during entire Ages; it’s a macro-cycle which speaks about everything else that transcends individuals or even generations; it’s about Gaia’s destiny and whole mankind, so it is high Astrosophy.
Because of that, it has a very marginal role on Astrology, who speaks about the psychology of single individuals.
Before going on, we need to understand synthetically what causes the precession of the equinoxes.
We all know that our planet Earth spins around its axis, and this is responsible for the succession of night and day. Many people also know that the Earth’s axis is not perfectly vertical, but it is inclined respect to the orbital plane of the Sun.
But fewer people also know that the Earth’s axis slowly changes its orientation respect to the ideal sphere of the fixed stars. To better understand, the Earth behaves like a “spinning top”: it spins around itself while draws a little circle on its top.
The following imagine can help to understand:
This motion is precisely called “precession”. That movement of the Earth’s axis, very slow but constant, causes a perspective change, so, looking from the Earth, the fixed stars seems moving backward on the ecliptic through the millennia.
The zodiac constellations move of 30 degrees backward on the ecliptic about every 2.149 years, so the Sidereal Zodiac and the Tropical Zodiac will be perfectly aligned again almost every 26.000 years (these numbers are rounded up).
Now, the concept of the precession, it’s the base of that ancient astrosophical knowledge we know as “Astrological Age”.
As I already said, currently on March the 21st, in other words on spring equinox (the real New Year’s Day), while we (Earth) are entering in Aries Sign, the Sun is entering in the Aquarius’ Constellation: That’s why we define this age – The Age of Aquarius – and even this, will be about 2.149 years long, then it will begin the Age of Capricornus, and so on; Astrological Age after Astrological Age, in sœcula sœculorum.
Always remember: Time is cyclic, not linear; Tropical Zodiac is a cycle for the man’s plane, Sidereal Zodiac is a cycle for the divine plane.
As I said at the beginning, I do a brief mention about those knowledges here, because they are really complex and deep, so they deserve a study apart; and then, they don’t involve decisively Psychological Astrology we are talking about here.
Concluding, the point is that the precession of the equinoxes is a knowledge which is part of the astrological laws and its system from the very beginning of it, so it can’t cause any “embarrassment” to Astrology and its value, on the contrary, it underlines again its deep importance, its solid roots, and its incredible power.
Conclusions.
Ok, that’s enough for today. I hope it will be useful to you.
Remember, when you have an argument with a skeptic, the best thing to do is showing your knowledge of the subject instead of just leaning on tradition, you need to know and, consequently, to show the “why” of everything, with kindness, patience and class. At that moment, you are an ambassador of the Light.
“I said it is so, because yes! Astrology say so!” It’s a useless approach. “I feel this is so” does not help.
Astrology is a real science, an Esoteric Science with all its reasonable foundations, because, as for Astronomy and Astrology, there is no separation between “science” and “spirit”. One day, they will perfectly coincide, as always known by our ancient masters.
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