Astrology As An Oracular Language 
Bucking the trend to legitimatize astrology
By Antero Alli
The popularity of astrology and the demand for astrologers appears to be increasing exponentially with the pre-millennial chaos. As socio-economic conditions destabilize, a disoriented populace naturally responds with more anxiety about their uncertain futures. We want answers. Security is in high demand these days, all types of security.
Many turn to religion for moral security. Those who can find no answers there look to alternative ideologies, astrology being one of many choices. Some folks find emotional security in marriage, while others bank on the economic security of investment income. Whatever form the human need for security takes, we have entered an era--with Saturn in Taurus--for taking this need and its satisfaction very seriously.
Over the past 10 years or so, numerous astrological publications, conferences, and their adjoining communities have drawn considerable attention to what I perceive as a misguided security-need for legitimatizing astrology. The term "legitimatize" as used here refers to a scholastic, and eventually federally-approved, testing policy for evaluating prospective astrologers' accuracy, competence, and integrity as future professionals in a rapidly expanding astrological marketplace.
Who creates and grades these tests? Test standards and evaluation procedures are currently under design and implementation by self-made institutes, organizations, and corporations dedicated to not only expanding public awareness of astrology, but also to raising the status of astrology and astrologers to that of doctors, teachers, scientists, and other university-degreed professionals. Very Saturn . . . .
Nowhere have I seen any substantial rebuttals, contrary opinions, or arguments to the canonization and academizing of astrology, other than my own. In this article I hope to offer some alternative, probably unpopular, views on the practice of astrology and the current bandwagon effect of its proposed legitimization. My intent is not to fight against what I see as an inevitable astrological trend, but to fight for a far more Uranian vision of astrology.
Astrological Franchises Vs. Oracular Astrology
As the transiting planetary force of Uranus gathers momentum through its native sign of Aquarius, it reaches a 90-degree square aspect with Saturn (in Taurus) for about 13 months, from June 1999 through June 2000. As astrologers know, the square aspect conveys a tension-building energy resulting from two directions (or forces) at cross purposes, or in conflict, with each other. Square aspects aren't bad; just difficult. With a little imagination, however, one can learn to relate to conflict more creatively by finding more productive outlets for expressing its ensuing tensions.
Saturn square Uranus symbolizes an informative argument between the consensus reality of what is agreed upon by most people (Saturn) and an awakening of autonomy as a human being (Uranus). It can also serve as a metaphor to view the conflict between an oracular astrology (Uranus in Aquarius) and the goals of security-minded astrologers seeking state-sanctioned approval for what may eventually crystallize into astrological franchises (Saturn in Taurus). This Saturnal transit raises many questions: Will astrology licenses be required for one to read charts for money? What common denominator of consciousness will licensing standards reflect? Will graduates of these degree-granting institutes franchise these standards by forming their own astrology academys?
The term oracular refers to the ageless archetype of the muse, a mythical and sometimes human figure who speaks and acts truthfully without any regard or consideration for social, economic, or political consequences. For good reasons, a muse maintains a sociological posture at the fringe of any village or hub of mainstream values: the sage, the shaman, the witch, the crone. Once in awhile, revolutionary Uranus triumphs over Saturn. Muses infiltrate society via cultural camouflage of humor (Lenny Bruce), cinema (Charlie Chaplin), poetry (Sylvia Plath), politics (Martin Luther King, Jr.), theatre (Arthur Miller), music (Jim Morrison) and psychology (Wilhelm Reich). But when their camouflage wears thin, Uranian truth-sayers are exposed and the restricting archetype of Saturn gains prominence. Then, our contemporary oracles encounter various degrees of conflict, persecution, and banishment from the consensus reality agencies of local and federal governments.
Are We Taking Ourselves Too Seriously?
An oracular approach to astrology serves the community at large by acting on that community from an outsider viewpoint. When residing and working in denser social regions, it is easy to lose perspective on life beyond the local hive; we lose sight of the galaxy for the stars. Realizing and admitting this loss of Big Picture vision motivates some people to find a good astrologer. Therefore, why standardize astrology to conform to mainstream values? I argue that this would diminish astrology's potency and effectiveness as an oracular symbology that is used to tell the truth, regardless of social, economic, and political considerations. Attainment of any state-sanctioned government approval for teaching and practicing astrology can only serve to assimilate and homogenize astrology into the mainstream. Truth told, how important is it to see astrology on the cover of Time magazine?
As important as an epitaph.
So, are we taking astrology too seriously? If so, it may help explain some of the media skepticism confronting astrology today. How can we expect others to take astrology, and the astrological community, seriously if we are filling that psychic space with our own self-importance? Does the reputation of astrology really need this kind of hype during these times? Who amongst us is ready to be made an example by fearful, bigoted sectors of the populace seeking their next scapegoat? As astrologers, I think we tend to get ahead of ourselves with this naive assumption that we are living in more enlightened times than actually exist, or can exist, for the general populace.
Perhaps we practitioners have grown too enchanted by the grandeur of the astrological language or with predicting future transits; I don't know. I do know from personal experience just how out of touch astrologers can get with the street level of reality when we are justifying life to ourselves and our clients in terms of planets, houses, and signs. From a psychological level, I also question the underlying motives for this individual and collective surge to legitimatize astrology. I have no degree in psychology, yet human hindsight tells me this syndrome acts like a well-meaning attempt to heal early childhood wounds. But trying to replace an absence of unconditional parental love with approval from a larger parental body called the government can never bring back the missed love; that hurt must be mourned, forgiven, and released. That is if we want to move on and grow up.
Some astrological institutes have made manual horoscope calculation and construction mandatory procedure for passing their certification programs. This is the 21st century--surely we can pick up the pace here. Old world values aside, the accuracy and speed of astrological computer software frees the astrologer to address the real work of astrology: interpretation.
Lest we forget, astrologers are map-readers, interpreters of signs and symbols. At most, astrology is an interpretive medium. With erudite translation, anyone can learn to provide an accurate symbolic diagnosis of the person, relationship, or corporation of any given horoscope. What precedes and underlies even the most skillful translation, however, is something called bias.
It should go without saying--my apologies for any redundancies--that all astrological interpretations reflect the subjective bias of the interpreter; the idiosyncratic filter of beliefs, ethics, values, and personal psychology that an astrologer uses to interpret symbols. Contrary to what some astrologers think, there can be no such thing as pure information or absolute objective truths when interpreting an astrology chart. You can grow adamant and impassioned about your point of view (and you may even be right) but it still remains your opinion; forget this fact and your perspective rapidly calcifies into stone-cold dogma threatening to descend into bigotry and paranoia.
If interpretation really is everything and if astrology can never actually provide absolute solutions or explanations to real life problems, then why hire an astrologer?
A good astrologer can provide a far more useful service than a mere provision of answers. By unveiling multiple points of view, more information can contribute to a bigger picture of any given dynamic or situation. With enough meaningful data, clients can begin piecing together their own options for making their own decisions, while expanding awareness of their own lives.
Do people really need advice? Advice can be a very tricky business. Is advice what their hard-earned money pays for? Can we actually help anyone, really? Thinking long and hard on these questions has certainly fine-tuned my own ethics and motives. Given the chance to think for themselves and make their own choices, I think most people make the extra effort to do so. But liberating options must be shown to and then earned by the client.
Repeat Offenders: Clients Who Won't Go Away
As an astrologer, my bias stems from a strong belief in the value of freedom--for both myself and others--when it comes to talking with clients about their charts. My purpose is to articulate what I see and what it means to me. My process is to do so by acting on the client as a liberating influence. I am not there to act as Saturn and define them; more like Uranus, I startle them with options for redefining themselves. While this approach sees a diminishing return of the same clientele, all seem to leave grateful and with enough hands-on inner work to apply on their own time--without me. My conscience is freed from the guilt I'd feel had I supported their psychological dependency on my services. What is my intent as an astrologer? If liberation expresses the intention of the transpersonal planetary force of Uranus, that is what I serve.
When an astrologer presents a client with what sounds to that client like fixed answers, set solutions, and absolute beliefs about the client's chart and his or her life, then that astrologer is practicing a heavy-handed, overtly authoritative approach to astrology; too much Saturn. This gives the client basically two options:
Economic incentives aside, which of these two options would you honestly encourage in your client?
Another problem with any overtly saturnine approach to astrology is this economic incentive for encouraging the same clients to keep returning, as if they needed quarterly, semi-annual, or annual check-ups. Surely you have seen others do this or have, perhaps, done this yourself. This relationship dynamic mirrors the way state-sanctioned doctors, psychotherapists, and attorneys maintain economic ties with their patients and clients. And, lest we remain naive or ego-inflated, astrology is not a science nor a psychotherapy nor is it legal counsel; astrology is a language. Client-dependency also replicates a kind of parent/child dynamic that unfortunately inflates a false sense of self-importance in the astrologer, who grows attached to feeling needed by his or her clients. If you can live with this in full awareness of its consequences, then this approach is for you: welcome to Papa Saturn's Astrology Academy. If you're having trouble fitting in, you may be a maverick--welcome to Uranus.
The Difficult Practice of Oracular Astrology
Maverick status, in any chosen profession, customarily begins with self-employment; you are the boss, worker and publicity agent all in one. Your most valuable asset--your own time--is returned to you. You own your own time. All this glorious freedom is paid for by assuming more responsibility for yourself and it is far and away more responsibility than choosing to follow or copy external standards and values. This kind of self-responsibility is--within its sociological context of the modern Western world--very difficult. A society that consistently rewards conformity is often threatened by autonomous outsiders who depend little on its more conservative values. Real freedom in this society is an uphill struggle. If this kind of difficulty, with its occasional and inevitable adversity, fails to discourage you, then perhaps you have what it takes to grab your own freedom in this world.
Your hard-earned autonomy depends on maintaining high levels of self-honesty every day of your life; a willingness and ability to keep playing it straight with yourself with little regard for protecting your self-image or ego. With enough direct experience of the life you are living, you can begin determining the nature of your bias, or where you are coming from. Based on what you see, feel, and know to be true, what are you willing to stand for, fight for, and even die for? These answers form the basis of your convictions. Add to this passion and the humility to realize that no matter how fervently you feel about something, it is still just your opinion. Know that from another outside vantage, and your precious viewpoint may appear ludicrous or false or even heretical.
If you can live with these devastating contradictions, you are better prepared to interact with compassion and intelligence when interpreting the many contrary angles in astrology charts and the people they represent. Once you are firmly certain of your own ideological and ethical stances, you also have what it takes to develop a knack for knowing where others are coming from, too. This enables you to see through their pretense, their well-meaning charades, and their frustrations, to the deeper underlying truths guiding their lives. It is this deeper self that the oracle speaks to and confirms the existance of. In doing so, oracular astrology acts as a force of liberation to the client's innate sense of truth. This can be unsettlng to those who have denied themselves for years but ultimately, I believe, they'll be grateful for the shock of freedom to their being.
When Understanding Becomes An Impediment
What does it take to develop an oracular approach to astrology? One hundred per cent integrity and a little courage. Inner strength, or character, develops through an active struggle to stay completely honest with yourself, especially amidst a society showing little or no support for your efforts. The internal reward for persisting with your personal integrity is, however, is profoundly beyond measure. One hundred percent integrity means knowing what you can stand behind with your totality intact, with your whole being. Whether this is your word or your perception or your instincts, this is your place of total commitment and faith. As that faith is tested over and over, a confidence is born out of the courage to face the truth about yourself, regardless of the nature of that truth, without the ego buffering you from more direct experience of your real life existence.
Learning to face and live with the truth about yourself prepares you to bear the truth about others. If, for instance, you see an aspect in someone's astrology chart symbolizing events you personally have had little or no experience with, your integrity demands that you say so (rather than fabricate a wise-sounding lie). To touch and enliven the very being of another, you must first know how to come from a place of naked wisdom within yourself. And in my humble experience, the greatest impediment to being has been understanding: understanding way too much and realizing far too little.
From childhood on, most of us have been schooled to understand much and to realize very little. I was never taught the difference; that habit had to be learned on my own. Until our concepts of ourselves and the world coincide more truthfully with actual existing realities, our being can be said to be lagging behind our understanding. This is how the conceptual mind stunts our capacity for the direct experience and realization so essential to nurture the being; we truly are giants raised as dwarves! One reason people seek out oracular astrologers is to support the awakening chrysalis of their inner being. The coccoon of spiritual amnesia cracks and the being is hungry for practical information to engage more fully in its emancipation. A spiritual rebirth is nurtured by the moral and intellectual affirmation of its existence.
Why Oracular Astrology Is Not For Everybody
The truth is, oracular astrology may not be for everybody. Not everyone is cut out to offer this approach and, only a small percentile of people seeking astrologers, perhaps 10 percent, want, or need, an oracular-type reading.
This is not meant to sound elitist; it is elitist--but not in the holier-than-thou or weirder-than-thou sense. Oracles and muses tend to be elitist by virtue of their inability or unwillingness to conform to the molds and values pre-established by consensus mainstream society and those institutions vying for its approval. Oracles are part of a growing minority of fringe-dwellers living near society's margins for reasons of their own. Many oracular personalities--astrologers and non-astrologers, alike--also find themselves living in the city, feeding on the buzz of a denser culture. Oracles that can afford to do so will establish dual residencies: one in-hive, another beyond, rotating their lives between outback rural regions and the concrete metropolitan jungles.
To sustain aesthetic and philosphical distance in the city, urban oracles find ways to creatively marginalize themselves by becoming artists, writers, musicians, or astrologers in order to enforce the isolation their unique perspective thrives on. Or perhaps they choose a suitably reclusive lifestyle in order to stay closer to their solace of solitude. This kind of creative alienation may not always come as a conscious act or choice, but may arise from a compromise the deeper inner being is willing to make to stay alive.
Can anyone be an oracle? The oracle can be anybody and anyone can be an oracle; it is nothing special. It is also not always a matter of decision but rather of fate. Or perhaps, a matter of personality (which as astrologer Robert Hand
Truth does not sell--without hype. And advertising is big business in the hungry ghost realms of unfulfilled dreams, promises, and lies.
Antero Alli is an author, astrologer, and mediamaker who has recently resumed his oracular style of reading charts after a two-year sabbatical. For a list of his rates and services, please send a SASE to Antero Alli at P.O. Box 7518, Berkeley CA 94707, write to him via e-mail at: anteros@speakeasy.org/ or visit his website at http://www.labridge.com/z/wiseguy/.
Back to the Table of Contents.
Surf the Boulevards network
to other great alternative
content sites.
|
Is Interpretation Everything?