Traditional Astrology -
how relevant can it be?

Does Traditional Astrology have anything to offer us?

February 2000

There has been over the last 30 years a rejection of traditional techniques and an adoption of psychology as the basis for Astrology to go forward. I would question how much we are loosing if we blithely throw away many centuries of considered experience and thought to reach for the psychological.

Now I am the first to say that Astrology is a process and that how we experience our charts can change radically through our lives. Just think about how your awareness changes from when you were crawling around trying to upend your mother to worrying about your mortgage to your own twilight years. Astrology boils down to your own experience - we all know people with "horrific" Saturn and Pluto aspects but are they all mass murderers? How do we handle these energies? How can one Sun Saturn be so different from another? Every chart is unique. There is always a small difference - two material forms cannot occupy the same physical space - which would show up in the Micro-Astrology, but the most significant difference between two charts is the spirit/life-force/intangible that runs the show and cannot be seen in the chart. Traditional astrology allowed for this - they were comfortable with the notion that the spirit can transcend the horoscope.

Psychological astrology will examine your life experience and search for deep unconscious motives that have lead you to express your chart in unexpected ways. Is there a middle group between the two? I would say yes. In my view they are expressing the same thing. It amuses me greatly when science and the esoteric argue. Can they not see they are describing the same thing with different models?

The Astrology produced since the enlightenment and the discovery of Uranus has been a strange breed. Much of what is written during this period has broken away from the true traditions reaching back through time. Many of the criticisms levelled at traditional astrology are aimed at this period of work. Looking back at the earlier writers shows a view much more in tune with what we would understand as modern astrology. In some areas Modern astrology has diverged considerably from traditional methods. The Astrological Alphabet - equating signs, planets and houses - is most certainly out of step with traditional symbolism. See Nuts and Bolts.

A considerable amount of modern techniques have been made up or improvised to save time. Aspects and orbs are a prime example. Prior to Alan Leo orbs belonged to planets, not the aspects, they shone around the planets like a halo. Rulership of the houses does not follow the natural zodiac - the Sun and NOT Jupiter is the natural ruler of the Ninth house. The Moon may rule Cancer but Saturn rules the fourth house; this particular "swap" has fuelled the argument about parental houses - traditionally fourth for Father and parents in general, tenth for Mother. Symbolic rigour is lacking, to say the least when suddenly Saturn is proposed as a symbol for Mother. So we have these apparently contradictory schools of thought; how can we learn from them?

Psychological Astrology can only gain from the rigour traditional techniques can bring to prediction, timing, and enhanced interpretation. Traditional Astrology prior to the enlightenment is nearer to our present approach than we give it credit for. Astrology could not have survived for thousands of years if its techniques were not based on something concrete and relevant to real life. I believe we are in grave danger of dumming down Astrology and loosing more than we could possibly imagine. So we need to spend more time researching what Astrology really consists of, what price the extinction of our art?