Astrology: What's behind? Does it make sense to use it?

ow does astrology work? Is there a way to explain it? Have trusted research been conducted related to it?

That it works when you are using it to help friends, family or yourself is for me something that is showing true, as I used it and tested it through many time and cases. Sure, someone could say is my personal and therefore subjective, non valid, experience. But, even friends or acquaintances who are either atheists or scientific skeptics of it, joking before being shown its results, now even ask me for astrological advice or got impressed by its accuracy, even not knowing though how it works, but that in practice it works most of time, depending, of course, of the skill and inspiration of the interpret of the birth charts and symbols related to it.

You probably will see this a lot around astrologers practitioners: "I don’t believe in astrology. I practice it". That's the thing for most people, including me, that nobody knows exactly how astrology works and why, but most of times it does! (You can understand this view a lot better in this person journal: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/04/i-dont-believe-in-astrology-yet-im-an-astrologer/ ).

According to one of the most recognized astrologers out there, Stephen Arroyo, there are numerous paths to explain how astrology works, as published in his book "Astrology Psychology and the Four Elements", a very impressive work on astrology, in a serious, no nonsense approach.

One of the most interesting in terms of more realistic/non-metaphysical approach to astrology would be explaining it through the mechanism that makes it function, in other words, the causal approach. As seen in the diagram below presented in the book mentioned, a PhD in electromagnetic wave theory, named Glynn, published an article in 1972, through the AFA Bulletin, stating his belief that there is a fully scientific explanation for astrology and that probably is not far from being more clearly understood by us. As expressed in the diagram, the small changes in the gravitational field associated with the sun causing  geomagnetic storms (disturbances in our terrestrial magnetosphere) and small changes in the lunar gravitational field would provoke changes in the spectrum of electromagnetic frequencies that would influence our own brain states (is known that brain works through diverse ranges of frequencies that are connected/cause our mind states, for example, alpha waves is related to relaxation state and is in the range of frequency of 8-12 Hz, beta waves to alertness, so on).

Electro-magnetic Wave Theory as Causal Explanation of Astrology (Arroyo, 1975)

That said, this influence would be stronger on a personal level, according to him in the time of birth.

The explanation for this comes from another experiments made by a medical doctor in the past and by recent researches about time of gestation that suggests that at the time of birth, the "mom-baby system" is in its peak/maximum of metabolic cycle and "causes" the birth (see explanation here). Although, the doctor who proposed the bolder "Birth Quickening of Child" goes further and affirms, according to his experiments, that the baby metabolism is the main responsible for this forcing to being born and also that the this peak of his metabolism will always be repeated during his life when the sun-moon are in the same angle that happened when birth occurred.

This would explain why you use your zodiac sign and ascendent related to your time of birth when you read an horoscope.

What in reality all this means is that your birth chart would show the planetary alignments to which you are, personally, more sensitive to.  Hence, astrology would not imply that everybody born at same time would act the same way though and that everything would happen the same to those individuals. It merely says how you are personally affected by the Universe, by the alignments and forces of the planets and stars.
The detailed characteristics of enviroment you were born in, global events, relation to other people you met along your life and your own self will and response to how your feel are the other elements that writes your own path in life, not only astrological alignments of planets and planets positioned in signs and houses (actually, when you answers the typical question "What zodiac sign you are? I am Leo" you mean the Sun was positioned in the constellation of Leo, as seen from Earth, when you were born).

Personally, I think this scientific explanation, reviewed by Arroyo, deserves further research and seems promising in the future (provided there is still interest in devising why astrology works and the physical mechanisms that would make it viable to affect human experience). But, this theory is by no means definite or solid and will need to wait for more development in the fields of physics, genetics, obstetrician and understanding of human brain in a much deeper and less mechanicist method that science has been adopting (for the self-limiting materialistic paradigm of science, how it`s practiced nowadays, you can read articles from a very interesting philosopher, Neal Grossman, and his solid arguments here and here).

A very promising direction would be the kinda of research like the one did recently by  Vanderbilt University which unintentionally provides scientific support for the fundamental principle of astrology -- namely, that the position of the planets at your time of birth influences how the person you are experience things, in some way. They observed that birth month impact personality and behavior through whole life of mice and resulted in measurable functional changes in the brain (for learning more details of this new research: http://www.naturalnews.com/030698_astrology_scientific_basis.html#ixzz2GTf9Z9vF)

Other less scientific approaches and more symbolic, psychological ones can also be called to answer why would astrology work or make sense. One of the most appealing for me would be the symbolic approach (maybe cause my brain works primarily better with maths, symbols, pictures - like tarot and astrology - and so on than pure words). This Symbolic Approach considers that planets, stars and signs represents symbols of universal principles, human experience, natural events and processes. For example, is possible to correlate the yearly rhythm of the seasons and cycles with the signs of zodiac: Aries, a firey sign representing germination, beginnings of action, the real end of winter and the "waiting season", which in a psychological point of view can serve as symbol to indicate the will, the spirit of action and of initiating things.

Many psychologists recognize how astrology is a complete language of symbols in terms that can represent cosmical patterns that humans cant express with words alone in a rational objective way due to our own human communication tools, as Arroyo wrote: "Symbols are, after all, symbols for the very reason that they refer to living realities that are inexpressible (at least at the present time) in any other way. The question of what these astrological symbols refer to remains unanswered. Perhaps man can never express in words the transcendent realities of the cosmos. Still, we can make use of this symbolic language if we consider it to represent universal patterns, principles, and forces, however transcendent such factors may be."

In ancient times, the use of astrology had mostly this symbolic view as the widely held premise: the heavens are meaningful, in the literal sense of being full of meaning, "stars may or may not cause, but they surely do signify something" (Roger Beck, A Brief History of Ancient Astrology, 2007, p. 135).


Finally, there are another interpretations to what`s behind astrology, like holistic-metaphysical views (synchronicity), energetic approach, etc. But this post will stop here, leaving the holistic and energetic approaches for a future discussion, for it relates to many other philosophical questions that would make this post too long AND too confusing to be read in a sitting.

An amazing weekend full of love,

Lina