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Rob Tillett has been an astrologer for more than three decades. A poet, musician, magician, healer, dramatist and composer, he is the editor and publisher of Astrology on the Web and has written many of the articles on this website.
Rob lives in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, on the east coast of Australia.

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How does Astrology work?

Our bodies react to the world in ways which are still barely understood. We constantly interact with our environment on many levels, from the sub-atomic to the metaphysical. These physical, mental, emotional, even spiritual, levels of interaction vary in depth and intensity according to our character and training. Our world is really much more like a marvellous mind than a mere machine.

Our bodies are like sensitive broadcasting and receiving stations. We respond to a broad spectrum of radiant frequencies, not all of which have yet been catalogued by science. Bear in mind it was not so long ago that the idea of radio, movies, x-rays and televison signals would have been consigned to ridicule at best — or, more ominously, to the stake with the witches.

Some astrologers believe that planetary energies themselves generate events in our lives — and given recent advances in quantum mechanics, they may be right. Others believe, following Jung, the great psychologist, that planetary positions are synchronistically connected with our lives — meaning that environmental influences generating reactions in human beings may be tracked in the positions of the planets, although the two may not be causally related. Perhaps both are correct; in any case, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The detailed functionality of the mechanism is not a question of meaning, but of technical analysis.

Organically Connected with the Cosmos

This writer believes we are organically connected with the cosmos: whatever happens to any part of the world affects us to some extent as individuals, even in ways which may be quite invisible to the casual observer. Moreover, history shows us that we react en masse much more noticeably to environmental factors which may be more or less insignificant at the individual level. As human beings and spiritual entities, it is more important to understand our place in the world than to worry too much about such technicalities.

At the deepest level, all major events in our lives are governed by our karma, the product of what we have been in the (sometimes distant) past. Karmas are given to us in order to create the conditions necessary for us to awaken from the "sleep of ages" and to achive self-realisation. Since the universe reflects the energies of the cosmic mind, so too do our lives. Astrology is a timed map to the expression of these energies.

Freewill and Destiny

It should be said that astrology is not generally a way of foretelling inevitable fate. Paracelsus, one of the world's greatest astrologers, remarked, quoting the ancients: "The stars incline; they do not compel" (Astra inclinant non necessistant). He meant that while planetary influences create the groundwork and basis for action in any set of circumstances, there is still the element of free will in us all. We have become masters of our own destiny to the degree to which we are no longer subject to the mechanical influences of the conditioned world. We can use the techniques and insights of astrology to make sense of our connection with each other, with the universe at large, and with our own inner selves.

Astrologers, like all good scientists, must use their knowledge in combination with a developed intuition. A personal horoscope (birth-chart) does not so much reveal a clear fate as a set of probabilities, often operating on many levels simultaneously. There is much discussion among astrologers as to just how much free will we really do have, but that is a moot point. The astrologer must clarify these probabilities and place them in perspective. My view is that the stars have a deep influence on us, but since the world is more like a being than a thing, we too can influence them. For more on this concept of the Nexus of Probability, please click here.

In astrology, as in medicine, the science is intimately bound up with the art.

Return to the start of the series, What is Astrology.

About Astrology | What is Astrology? | Is Astrology Scientific? | Astrology & Astronomy | Nexus of Probability

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