The purpose of professional astrology should not be to fan the flames of hope and fear. Yet hope and fear, the desire to know the outcome of future events, are precisely why most people are attracted to astrology. Professional, academic, lay, and curious astrologers often make predictions about the future, and it has been part of the art for thousands of years. However, it does not serve to reinforce the mind’s capacity to fear the future or hold unreasonable expectations. I have heard that Maurice Ferdinand, when steering the course of OPA, discouraged predictive astrology. My assumption is that, if that is true, it was recognizing how harmful the cycle of hope and fear is to the practical benefits of astrological inquiry.
What are those practical benefits? Psychological reflection and inquiry are, for sure, the foremost among them. The Psyche means soul in the original use of the word. Modern science, and hence modern psychiatry, downplays the importance of the soul as part of the definition of Psyche. After all, you can not measure, weigh, quantify, or perceive with the sense organs “The Soul.” Hence, Psyche seems to now mean “mind” in terms of our emotional and thought complex, intertwined with the grey matter of the brain in modern psychology. Let’s go back to Psyche, meaning Soul here, for the purpose of astrology’s most significant value. The Birth Chart is primarily a map of the Psyche. Through the study and understanding of it, we learn of the maze of our own particular psyche, and coming to know it, we can increase our conscious connection to it. This would be the highest use of astrology, coming to know oneself (as it currently is).
Prediction in astrology and its troubles.
Then we can find use in the art of astrology in understanding times when the energy of the World Soul (embodied by the motions of Luminaries, Planets, and Asteroids) is flowing with us, or against us. This is not a prediction per se, as it examines the energetic flow. Astrology is really good at this! Here, the astrologer can get in trouble, though, and I certainly have, when looking at a good flow for, say, relationship formation; one predicts a relationship will form.
With Mars and Venus being trine in the sky between Aries and Leo, let’s use the relationship to examine the danger of predictive astrology. Sometimes even though the flow is there for a relationship it does not form. The natal chart can block it because the person has soul work inhibiting it from forming. So, in predicting a relationship, the astrologer has created hope and fear that may not come to fruition. The energy may have been there, but the consciousness or psyche of the individual may not have been ready to partake of the opportunity.
This can be for a whole host of reasons, and pursuing our line of thought on relationships, we have to look at how, when a person enters a relationship from the very beginning, they are going to experience a sacrifice of their ideals. They will have to forgive the neurosis of the other person most of the time (unless there is a high degree of compatibility randomly delivered by karmic circumstances) This requires an evolved capacity of forgiveness to take advantage of the opportunities that arise. One can see how complex the matter of prediction becomes. Just because a transit presents the opportunity does not mean that the opportunity must become a material fact.
Often, when I see the possibility of a relationship in people’s charts, they end up having some relationship, but it does not always manifest into a committed relationship experience. That being said, if the promised event, such as a relationship, shows up in more than one way in the chart, for instance through Lot of Eros entering a peake Zodiacal Releasing period aspecting by angle Venus, a Solar Arc direction of the ruler of the 7th to say Jupiter, and a transit of Jupiter in the 7th, the odds of a relationship become much more likely. But is it a good relationship? Well, that depends on the charts involved.
I think most astrologers have experienced a situation where a not-so-good relationship by synastry showed up at the door asking for approval from two people smitten with Eros. At that point, the astrologer can then say, Oh, this is a bad relationship, and create FEAR in the client, or This is a good relationship and create HOPE in the relationship. Either way, the astrologer has now intervened in the karmic destiny of two people to work something out and grow as souls through the process. Thus, the astrologer has fallen into the trap of meddling through hope and fear, and perhaps intervened in the ability of the soul to come to know itself through relationship.
It is perhaps better for astrologers to point to energetic possibilities when engaging in prediction than it is for them to state facts of good and bad. Many astrologers deal in prediction as a sales technique or for entertainment and social media clout. There are those who will vehemently disagree with the idea that predictive astrology is not 100% reliable, saying that predictive astrology only fails if you are not good enough at the techniques. While I have not met an astrologer who has a perfect track record, they will say that bad predictions are the fault of the astrologer. There is no need to argue with that. What I am saying instead is that prediction is not the best use of astrology because it generates unnecessary hope and fear and draws people away from astrology as a tool of self-knowledge and soul reflection.
I am not going to claim that there is no value in engaging in the intellectual exercise of prediction; rather, I am going to suggest that it is not the highest use of astrology, and thus not the best service of the art. We as astrologers want a client to be empowered by a reading, not fearful of what may come, or having unreasonable expectations about the future.
That being said, I do believe that engaging in prediction as an exercise in the context of astrology is entertaining, develops intellectual rigor, for the techniques, if they are accurate, are complex and require weighing multiple factors, and are developmental. The ideal use cases of them are rare though.
Of course, my mind may change on this topic, who knows? I have come to see how being dominated by mutable markers in my chart, my psyche is highly mutable, and the expression of the future is still being written by choices I am making now.
