familytherapylondon.co.uk
Counselling Astrologer
Astrology and Caesarian Births
My Position on Astrology
For many years I, like a lot of people, approached astrology with a healthy degree of scepticism. To be honest, I completely discounted it.
But in 1978 I was forced to reconsider. A man in one of my therapy groups said he had consulted an astrologer and please would I listen to a recording he had made of the consultation. Indulgently, I agreed and listened to it with half an ear while attending also to the late afternoon cacophany of my children and their demands.
Within five minutes I was astounded. With no knowledge of my patient other than his time, place and date of birth, the astrologer had already said everything - and more - about him that I had discovered over two years of laborious analysis.
I consulted the same astrologer for myself and was overwhelmed by the authenticity and depth of what he told me.
My life changed. I devoured every book on the subject I could lay my hands on, trained professionally, and have been using astrology ever since to understand and facilitate the psychological and spiritual growth of myself and others.
I don't know why it works, but I know how it works. And it works with astonishing precision. It can illuminate difficult moments in your life, or point out unseen opportunities. It helps you step back from a problem and see it from a new perspective.
Are you likely to move home? Change jobs? Develop a new relationship? Your horoscope will show you the directions in which your energies will be productive in the coming months.
In your intimate relationships, what holds you together? What seems to pull you apart? With the birth data of yourself and another, astrological analysis will describe how you uniquely experience each other, and will help you to bring out the most and the best rather than the worst and the least in the relationship.
The horoscope and interpretation of it for a new-born baby is a wonderful gift for the parents, enabling them confidently to bring up their child to fulfil his or her greatest potential and to modify the child's innate temperamental challenges.
Astrology itself and my own skills as an astrologer have often been put to the test by sceptics. Here are a few quotes from journalists who have recently consulted me.
Charming and genuine ... the description of what makes me tick was accurate.
Roger Williams, Independent on Sunday
Sharp, intelligent, impressive. I was won over.
Anna Maxted, Jewish Chronicle
Not a platitude pusher.
Daily Telegraph
I do consultations in person in London, and by audio tape, CD, Skype or telephone anywhere in the world.
A one-hour personal consultation or an approximately three-quarter hour audio tape by post costs £90.
For open-minded sceptics whose interest I have aroused, here are some very brief essays from my book Live Issues: Reflections on the Human Condition to whet your appetite further. (This material is copyright but contact me for permission to use it appropriately.)
Astrology and Holism
The origins of astrology are lost in antiquity, but there seems to have been no country or early form of civilized community where astrology was not developed. The date of the first individual horoscope is unknown, but certainly by Greek times it had reached recognizable form, and Hippocrates maintained that no doctor was qualified if he could not interpret a patient's horoscope. For primitive man - and indeed for modern man up until at most five hundred years ago - nothing was inanimate. The validity of astrology was never questioned since it was completely consistent with every human being's acceptance of himself and his life as participating in the life of nature as a whole. Far from being blasphemous, astrology is the religious outlook on life (in its explicit concern with mankind's relationship to the cosmos), and its rejection by modern man runs entirely parallel to the general secularization of life in the Western cultures with which we are familiar.
The Algebra of Existence
The primary assumption of astrology is that anything that comes into existence - animate or inanimate, tangible or abstract - contains withinin itself, for all of its existence, the qualities of the moment it comes into being. And the qualities of that moment are contained in the map of the heavens at that moment as seen from that place, which map is read by astrologers.
A human being, an accident, a business, an earthquake, an idea, that all come into being on the same date and at the same time and place, will have identical horoscopes, but the astrologer will give these entities appropriately different readings. That is, a horoscope is like an algebraic equation with as many possible solutions as there are entities it represents.
The most popular use of astrology is in the interpretation of horoscopes applied to human beings, whose coming into existence is taken to be their first breath.
Fatalism and Prophecy
For the past nearly 30 years astrology has illuminated my life. I am convinced of its validity by the evidence of my own life, the lives of people I know well, and by the feedback I get from my many astrological clients.
Yet only a very small proportion of intelligent and educated people are open to testing the tenets of astrology through their own experience. Those who reject astrology out of hand can be divided into two groups: the irreligious who fearfully dismiss it because they presume it to be fatalistic and thus a denial of their precious free-will; and the religious who angrily dismiss it as evil and blasphemous in its prophetic aspects. Both these justifications for turning away from astrology are specious and based on closed-minded ignorance.
The fatalism of astrology is no more than that of genetics; prophecy no more than the natural extention of the present into the future.
Destiny and Freedom
Astrology, seen as God's manifestation of His will, transcends our human dualistic notions of good and bad. Everything is simply the way it has to be. We are each dealt a hand of cards; God holds the pack. But most people live by the mutually contradictory beliefs that they choose freely, moment by moment, to play any card they like from the whole pack and that when they lose tricks it is due to other people holding better cards. In truth, no hand is intrinsically better or worse than any other; playing out a grand slam with a fistful of court cards and trumps can be as boring as playing an adroitly skilful game with no trumps or court cards can be joyful. As Martin Buber puts it in I and Thou, 'Destiny confronts man as the counterpart of his freedom. It is not his boundary, but his fulfillment.'
Astrology and Bigotry
Astrology as a whole is attacked by the smugly ignorant high-IQ bigot on two grounds: that the precession of the equinoxes invalidates the astrological signs; and that the world cannot be meaningfully divided into twelve signs.
The precession of the equinoxes (which astrologers know all about) is irrelevant to Western astrology which is not based on the popularly named clusters of stars, but an abstract division of the ecliptic, with zero degrees Aries beginning, by definition, at the spring equinox.
Concerning the sun-signs of popular astrology columns, dividing the world into twelve is a general but not useless division. (In the context of public lavatories, dividing the world into two categories is both useful and sufficient!) Daily sun-sign forecasts are valid but as general as a weather forecast which might say, 'Tomorrow will be hot and sunny. Dark-skinned people will be in their element, light-skinned people should stay indoors.'
Astrology plus Science
Astrology has been marginalized since the ascendancy of atomistic materialism from about the eighteenth century to the present day. But materialistic physics has had its day. In the wake of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, the nihilistic horrors of Black Holes and Chaos theory, establishment science now espouses the doctrine of the certainty of uncertainty and, ironically, the communications of the most widely acclaimed scientists sound more and more like the most arcane speculations of academic philosophers and mystics.
The theme that is most likely to provide the link that will reconcile astrology and modern science is the concept of synchronicity, the idea first espoused by Jung, of acausal connectedness between happenings that, from the point of view of our rational conscious minds, are inexplicable. Astrology and Science seem about to shake hands over the 'new' truth that the objective universe is inextricably interwoven with the subjectivity of the minds observing it.
Astrology plus Physics
Ironically, physics is now more compatible with astrology than it was in Newton's time, although Newton was an astrologer.
The physical premise of astrology, that forces are transmitted without attenuation with increased distance and do not vary with respect to the differences of masses of the planets from which they originate, is inconsistent with Newtonian mechanics; but it is completely in accord with Einstein's photo-electric theory, which demonstrates that the effect of a photon does not diminish with distance. And modern chemistry and biology emphatically describe the properties of substances in terms of architectural configurations of atoms within molecules, which is also analogous to astrological thought.
Dr. Percy Seymour, Principal Lecturer in Astronomy at Plymouth University hypothesizes convincingly that the truth of astrology is explicable in terms of magnetic fields to which our nervous systems resonate, from our conception onvwards. We are born when the cosmos plays our tune.
Astrology and Religion
Contrary to much popular misapprehension, astrology is not 'believed in' any more than a telephone is. Both are used because they work. All astrologically based choices and decisions are no more than extensions of sailing with the tide, planting by the seasons, and forecasting rain from the configurations of the clouds, all of which bear witness to our ordinary, knowledgeable 'belief in' the connections between extra-terrestrial events and events on earth.
What might partly account for the popular assumption that astrology is a kind of pagan religion is that the realization of its empirical truth inevitably leads to a profound but non-specific religious orientation to life. That is, if we define all religiosity as a quest to understand our relationship to the cosmos (or God), then astrology is the most religious orientation to life there is, irrespective of the beliefs or unbeliefs of its practitioners. Einstein called himself a deeply religious unbeliever.
Astrology as Language
As a language, what makes astrology special is its deep and comprehensive understanding of the interconnectedness of things and events and its knowledge of equivalences beyond the capacity of any other language to encompass.
Nothing but astrology can see the equivalence of gas leaks, a sea-voyage, film-making, alcoholism, and mystical transcendence; of underground explosions, survival, obsessiveness, demagoguery, and psychological transformation; of electricity, independence, intuition, homosexuality, computing, and democracy; of bones, concrete, fear, self-discipline, endurance, and old-age; of obesity, good investments, long-distance travel, lawyers, publishers, and religion; of red blood cells, iron, sexuality, and accidents; of jewellery, sociability, justice, lust, and good taste; of reasoning, nervousness, telephones, and versatility; of feelings, childhood, gynaecology, and changeability; of ambition, pride, masculinity, and the heart.
From the symbolic meanings of the sun, moon and planets, qualified by their configurations with each other and their zodiacal placements, the singularity of the universe can be apprehended.
Astrology and Genetics
No sane person doubts that we are unavoidably constrained by our genetically determined physicality in the colour of our eyes, our gender, our blood group, and the many programs which determine, for example, our acquisition of teeth, the onset of puberty, and the greying of our hair. Despite the environmental conditions which - especially in the formative years of childhood - may modify our genetic programming, by and large we accept that there are actually very narrow limits to the power of external influences. No more and no less is implied in the determinism of astrology.
The wondrous joy we experience at a birth is in the unactualized potential contained in a new human being. What will her inheritance enable her to do and to be? What can she - and we - do to fulfil rather than frustrate her desires within the bounds of the assets and liabilities of her pre-determined nature?
Potentiality and Contingency
The knowledge of a person that can be derived from her horoscope is deep and comprehensive. But the language of the horoscope is symbolic, and the quality of any interpretation of it is so dependent on both the skill and artistry of the interpreter that it is extremely difficult to objectify the information. The best astrologers can only suggest the ways in which the configurations of the horoscope are most likely to be manifest in the life of a person it describes.
As for our genetically determined characteristics, who can say that a tall and athletic man will choose to use these endowments to be a basketball player or a high-jumper, a nighclub bouncer, a mugger, or a policeman ... or not bother to use these attributes at all? But once we know he is a basketball player we can readily see his characteristics that enabled him to become one.
Potentiality and Fulfillment
Life is full of alternatives within the constraints of determinism, and potentiality does not guarantee actuality. Consulting a railway timetable does not imply the necessity of catching or missing a train. Acorns may grow into oak trees; some do, some don't. Astrologically speaking, some Neptune configurations suggest a vulnerability to alcoholism and/or spirituality. A whisky priest may be a hopeless drunk and a truly devout man. Some Mars configurations suggesting bloodshed may manifest equally plausibly in a butcher, surgeon, or murderer.
Furthermore, everyday language is imbued with value-judgements. Who decides when courage is foolhardiness or valiant altruism? when ambition is aggressive selfishness or worthy pursuit of goals? when love is clinging dependency or loyalty?
All of this understanding is now articulated in leading edge genetic theory, as it always has been in astrology, which is profoundly aware of the interaction of potentiality and contingency and whose symbols are value-free.
Final Cause?
Physically and psychologically our completed selves are products of nature and nurture. Nurture has its say - witness the increased height of recent generations and our increased longevity due to improved nutrition and hygiene - but nature is dominant and precisely mapped in our horoscopes as well as our genes.
Our remembered childhood experiences, which our literary tradition and, latterly, psychoanalysis call causes of our completed selves are, I believe, selectively remembered by us to concur with our preordained genetic predispositions. Witness the often widely divergent memories and/or interpretations of shared experiences of siblings.
But it doesn't matter that the environmental events of our early years are not really causes, but are subsumed to the deeper deteminism of our genes, which, in turn, may be subsumed to an even deeper cause, to karma, astrology ... or whatever, until we stop and call the 'final cause' God - or Unified Field Theory or what you will.
Prediction and Prophecy
We make (short-term) predictions and (longer-term) prophecies every time we use the future tense. Nearing home after a family outing, the child says, 'Rover will be pleased to see us.' Planning a dinner party we say, 'We must invite David and Susan to meet each other. They'll get on famously.'
Our predictions are sometimes mistaken but often realized. Short-term predictions generally have best chances of success because of the relatively few unexpected events that can intervene between now and then. Every instant of 'now' is the necessary consequence and culmination of every previous moment in history, but was only a probability - however great - before it occurred. And nothing that has ever happened could have been otherwise.
Our uncertainties keep us hopefully on our toes. Market research has revealed the two most often cited reasons people give for reading newspapers are for the weather forecast and their horoscopes.
The Courage of Prophets
The courage of prophets is their willingness to know and announce the outcome of present trends while still being bound to the necessity of continuing along the path already chosen to its conclusion.
Astrology is the algebra of human consciousness. Mundane subject-matters are the arithmetic of life, and for the astrologer's prophecies to be most reliable (s)he needs also to have some mundane expertise. Astrology will only work best in medical matters when applied by doctors, in psychological matters by psychologists, in money matters by economists, in election forecasting by psephologists ...
There are moments in all our lives when our deep interest in some matter makes us minor prophets, epitomized most commonly perhaps when, in our expertise as parents, we see the mistakenness of some of the life decisions of our children while poignantly also knowing they must play out the consequences of their choices and learn their own lessons.
Fact Versus Meaning
In the realm of prophecy there is a principle analogous to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: you can predict material reality, e.g. (during a particular time span), 'You are likely to need repairs to your home,' or 'You will have some profoundly transformative emotional experiences', but not both combined. The same material facts can be experienced in vastly different ways by different people; the same subjective experience can be connected to vastly different external events. Mixing material and experiential truths leads to false inferences, false hopes and false fears. Macbeth's witches were evil by this criterion.
No astrologer worthy of the title imposes unsolicited predictions or prophecies on a client. But once a question has been asked in a context defined and articulated by the client, the astrologer has the ability to give a prediction consonant with the question's meaning for the questioner, and psychological completion of the relevant issue is achieved.
Past, Present and Future
Because the future, notwithstanding the best possible predictions, remains open, it is arguable that the greatest value of astrology lies in the understanding and appreciation it offers us of the past, which is already manifest.
Nevertheless, when our concerned preoccupations are narrowly focused, predictive astrology can be enormously valuable in informing us when present difficulties will pass and when desired and planned future events will probably be actualized.
When will my house, which has been on the market for six months, find a buyer? When will my present financial difficulties ease? When is the best time for nudging my reluctant lover into commitment? Should I change my career now and, if not now, when? When is a good time in the next six months for me to have elective surgery? are all questions that an astrologer may confidently answer to particular clients, so offering them increased patience, acceptance, and serentity.
An Astrological Experiment
In 1984, under the supervision of the late Professor Hans Eysenck, I designed and conducted an experiment to test the truth of astrology. I advertised for "sceptical but open-minded couples, married or in an intimate living-together relationship", and the 122 respondents (61 couples) sent me their birth data. Based on my interpretation of the synastry between the couples' horoscopes, each individual was sent a description of how he or she experienced his or her partner, together with four dummy descriptions, and was asked to rank the five descriptions in order, from the most to the least true of how they actually experienced their partners. Because of the widespread awareness of the characteristics associated with the sun-signs, no reference was made to these in the descriptions.
42% of the respondents put the correct descriptions in first place and the overall results attested to the existence of astrology (as an independent, intervening variable) at the 1% level of significance.
Astrology and Caesarean Births
A legitimate doubt expressed to astrologers concerns the validity of the horoscopes of induced or Caesarian births. Are we not thereby interfering with nature and camouflaging its intent with our interference? I - and most astrologers - think not.
Notwithstanding that induced and Caesarian births are often associated with seemingly trivial contingencies such as the obstetrician's or surgeon's social arrangements, to the extent that an individual's determined nature is defined at the moment of conception, we may infer that the manner and time of her birth is part of that determinism.
Chinese horoscopes are drawn up in terms of the inferred time and date of conception (yet lead to interpretations congruent with those of Western horoscopes), so, for them, the justification I have given is very plausible. But for Western horoscopes, which are drawn for the moment of birth, the issue is more contentious and deserves some well-designed, illuminating research.
Astrology and Twins
The horoscopes of twins are an interesting and special challenge to astrological understanding. From the testimonies of parents of twins, they often develop markedly dissimilar personalities even though their horoscopes are virtually identical. Sometimes the characteristics that non-astrologers see as hugely different are astrologically equivalent. A prominent Neptune, for example, may prompt one twin to become a sailor, the other a photographer, both of which are Neptunian occupations. Another possibility is that they consciously or unconsciously divide their horoscope up between them, one living out one half of their horoscope's potential and the other living out the other half. (As the mother of one pair of twins told me, when they were about five years old, she overheard one saying to the other, 'You learn to read and I'll learn to write.')
Conversely, there is considerable evidence of amazing synchronicity in the lives of twins separated at birth as well as in the lives of unrelated time twins, from breaking their ankles at the same time and date on ski slopes miles apart, to wearing identically idiosyncratic jewellery, to having same-named spouses and children.
Where Choosing is Hubris
An electional chart is the horoscope of an entity such as the starting of a business, a marriage, the laying of a foundation stone, declaring war ... whose moment of birth was explicitly chosen to create a 'best' horoscope for that entity. While it is arguable that such choices are no more than going with the tide, which is one of the best uses to which we can put astrology in daily life, I believe electional horoscopes are an act of hubris. Who are we to presume to know better than the cosmos what hand is best for a human being or any other entity to be dealt? This is quite different from wisely choosing moments to act in particular ways for an already existent entity.
I am, of course, making the same objection, in extended form, as the many people who object to our realizing the possibility of designer babies.