To: alt.magick
From: tyagi nagasiva
Date: 49920630
Re: Astrology (9206.astrlgy.tn)


Not all astrologers are materialists.
The 'Humanistic' astrologers tend to shy away from
materialistic explanations of astrological arts.


Q: Why is the moment of birth so important?

a) The issue is personal individuation.  Upon emerging
from our mother's womb we become an individual human.  Ultimately there
is NO basis for selecting the first breath (or birth, etc.).  A point
needs to be selected and this seems the most philosophically viable
as the beginning of our life in separation from our mother (umbilically,
if nothing else).  However, it would be just as legitimate to select
our date of departure from the home or the moment we first feel that
we've made a psychological (rather than simply physical) break with mom.

People do charts for 'births' into social organizations, adoptions of
new names ('Bob' to 'Robert', for example), and beginning new projects.
One makes a decision based upon one's own preferences and chooses a
reference point.  None are really 'wrong' or 'right'.


b) Not all astrologers posit such material influence.  Some see the
correlation between personality and cosmological configuration as
'synchronicity' or the manifestation of a very old occult concept,
represented well by the phrase 'As above, so below' or by the Judaic
concept of 'Adam Kadman', which essentially relates to an ultimate
identity of self and universe.  Some accept a limited form of this and
posit the REFLECTION rather than the identity.


Q: How can astrology claim accuracy based on the exact
moment of birth?

Most cosmological elements are slow-moving and thus
have a wide margin for time.  Those which don't (notably the ascendant)
can be 'rectified' through considering the overall chart as a context
in comparison with the individual in question.  In other words, if the
ascendant doesn't seem right somehow and there is a possibility for error,
alternatives are considered and minor adjustments are made based on other
elements of the chart.

What must be said here is that for some astrologers these particulars are
less important than the process of contemplating one's own chart and how
it relates to oneself.  Regardless of any particulars, I tend to think
that the astrological assertions/guidelines are vague enough to apply
to most people, yet specific enough to warrant intense introspection in
order to arrive at a useful interpretation.  Many would probably disagree
here.

The way I see it, astrology is similar to a complicated
symbol-system (along the lines of the Qabalah/Kabbalah) into which one
may categorize one's experiences of oneself and then reflection/imagine
one's image within it for the purposes of self-understanding.  Our
subconscious choices (e.g. Neptune relates to one element more than
another for us when placed in the 6th House, is in relationship to other
planets and so we must decide among ambiguities of meaning) bring up
a sort of mediumistic result with transformative capability.  How
well this works when someone does this for another person I would not
care to speculate.  Like Tarot, I've found it more useful to learn it and
do it for myself, both for the experience of learning the symbols and for
the length of time which I spend introspecting to see if my results meet
up with my experience.

tyagi nagasiva
tyagi@HouseofKaos.Abyss.com