As of late, one of the questions I get asked the most is, "do you really believe in astrology?" You'd think that for someone who gets asked this a lot, I would know what to answer, but the fact of the matter is that I still don't what to say. I read my horoscope every day, I blame the downfalls in my life on Mercury being in retrograde and I ask people their birthdays almost as soon as I meet them. But do I really believe in Astrology?
I believe in a God that has a plan for us all and made us in His image. Astrology tends to go against that. There is no God, your life and personality are shaped by the stars, not a superior being. Technically, to believe in a power other than God is a sin, and so I mustn't believe. And yet, I find it comforting to believe. In the same way I find it comforting to believe in Gods personal plan for me, I find it comforting to believe in the categorical plan that comes from the stars. I love organizing and putting things into group, finding similarities and differences, creating charts. All of this is so closely related to astrology and the process of creating charts and attaching archetypes to people that it becomes so easy to understand and follow.
I want to believe that there is an explanation to why we are the way we are, and why things are the way they are. Astrology gives us that. Astrology allows us group people by their similarities and it gives us explanations to why people act the way they do.
I don't believe that astrology can predict my future and that it is the only thing in charge of who I am, but I do believe it has an influence. Many believe it to be a pseudoscience, that horoscopes are generic "predictions" and explanations. What they don't know is that the astrology they see on cosmo or twitter, is often not real astrology at all.
First of all, your sun sign isn't everything. You are not just a Capricorn because you were born on January 14. There is an entire chart based on the exact time and place of your birth that does not dictate, but rather attempts to explain your personality. Your sun sign explains you in your simplest form, your moon sign explains your deeper self, and your ascendant explains how people see you at first class. There are 12 different houses that explains so many other facets of your personality, and different positions of planets that attempt to explain how you love, fight, and communicate, among other things.
It is because of this that those pop culture horoscopes barely scratch the surface. Of course there is no way they can predict the future or explain the behavior of every single Aries, because every Aries is different. Astrology has been around for centuries, millennia even. We as humans love the idea of explaining why things are the way they are. When you think about it, the astrological signs are comparable to literary archetypes. It is said that Carl Jung based his archetypes on the signs.
I read a book recently called "Astrology, Psychology, and the Four Elements" by Stephen Arroyo that argued about using astrology and the four elements in psychological counseling, and he made a good argument. It is incredibly important that a client and a therapist get along, especially regarding their personalities. It is the only way they will achieve progress. One of the best ways to determine this and to control how personalities mesh is through astrology. I know to treat a Scorpio different from a Gemini because they are different. And while, not all Geminis are the same, it is a good place to start.
Regardless, I am still not sure if I really believe in Astrology the way I really believe in God. What I am sure of is that I don't think Astrology is entirely fake and I love to read more about it, to have fun with it, and to blame my outbursts on the stars.
