Fun question: How does astrology work?

Interested in theories as to why astrology gets results.

Perhaps the answer is as simple as: We live in an interdependent universe.

Nevada

Nevada said:

Perhaps the answer is as simple as: We live in an interdependent universe.

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Then what would the mechanism be?

einhverfr said:

Then what would the mechanism be?

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I have no idea. I'm just along for the ride.

What is the mechanism that makes gravity work? Or the lights come on when I turn the switch? My best guess is an intricate clockwork combination of energies: gravity, mass, magnetism, subtle energies we know nothing of, and a little nudge from Higher Intelligence. All I know is that it works. That's enough for me. I don't have to know all the answers. I don't think my pea brain could contain them if I did.

The best physicists in the world haven't figured everything out yet.

Your question reminds me of the movie, "Shakespeare in Love," in which events kept making it seem the play would never go on. The owner of the theater kept saying it would all work out. Whenever he said that, someone would ask, "How?" He would shake his head and say, "I don't know. It's a mystery." But the play came together and the audience loved it.

Nevada

At least people are theorizing about gravity, and we know the basic ideas of how electricity works. And what happens when you turn on the switch is different in a flashlight than in an AC light fixture in your house .

My own thinking though is that the simplest explanation for astrology is the framework that Plato came up with in Timaeus, but it demands that we don't think about this in terms of energies or influences.

I don't think I understood what you're asking in this thread. I took your first question as wondering what the physical mechanism is that causes astrology to get results. You even mention "mechanism" in your second post.

einhverfr said:

My own thinking though is that the simplest explanation for astrology is the framework that Plato came up with in Timaeus, but it demands that we don't think about this in terms of energies or influences.

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I do think the dialog is a good philosophical theory about rebirth and why we might be born under a particular astrological influence -- though the "mechanics" are by necessity archaic.

By the way, for anyone else reading this, the dialog einhverfr mentions can be found here:

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/timaeus.html

Nevada

The way I look at astrology and Timaeus is simple:

The human soul and the world have the same structure (8 bands, the band of the fixed stars being the same, and the seven bands of the planets being different).

The human soul is super-imposed on the world but the 7 bands are essentially impressed at the moment of birth. Thus astrology measures *internal* changes by an external system (planetary motion) which is really superimposed on the internal system.

In this way the stars neither impel nor compel but rather manifest. Depending on our choices we *may* have the ability to determine to some extent *how* they manifest.

I guess the way I look at it is more like synchronized clocks.

Just because you get hungry around the time that the clock strikes twelve doesn't mean that the clock makes you hungry

I like those encapsulations you've provided, and I've often thought of astrology as a kind of clock, just had never thought of our relation to it as more than one synchronized clock. But that makes sense, otherwise we'd just be imprisoned in the one clock with no control at all over our lives.

Nevada

einhverfr said:

In this way the stars neither impel nor compel but rather manifest. Depending on our choices we *may* have the ability to determine to some extent *how* they manifest.

Click to expand...

Many of the 'prominant' astrologers on this forum would deny that the stars have anything to do with astrology (except one star - the sun). Looking for a mechanism then will tend NOT to get you a straight answer.

However I disagree with them, seeing astrology relating directly to the influence of the stars.

In my mechanistic view the constellations (and other areas of space - the Australian Aboriginals also use the dark spaces between the stars and their shapes - ie. the dust clouds that obscure the light of the stars) have certain energies and beings attributed to / residing in them. These are the emination 'points'.

The objects within the solar system act as lenses and reflect and focus and modify these energies as they pass through and around them. Different angular relationships modify the forces.

In tropical astrology (which does not use stars) the objects within the solar system are grouped in devisions (astrological signs or segments of 30 deg.) which relate to the movement of the earth around the sun - hence seasonal. We could postulate a 'mechanism' for this; if you are in the South hemisphere and a 'Cancer', you were born in winter. I would suggest a baby born in winter is going to have a different first 3 months (prob the most crucial) than one born in summer ( Thats a very materialistic mechanism for you).

One could go further and look at the influence of the Moon and its effects on gravity and the resutant response in the human psyche Bartoloms (? I think it's called) gland in the brain can be sensative to minute fluctuations in the earths geomagnetic field due to its interior of tiny floating magnetised crystals ( many indigenous people still have this sense but most of us have lost it due to EM pollution).

Just some ideas. I thought I'd throw it open instead of just putting you off, as I think it is a good question and need not be just swept under the carpet.

However I am coming from a VERY broad definition of Astrology and not the specific ones that seem to sometimes apply here and perhaps with yourself? if you are interested in a broader field, you might need to go to other traditions to get a more satisfactory answer.
R.