This thread - as others have noted - covers some fascinating territory. Maybe it still has some mileage in it, and it would certainly be a shame to see it closed down prematurely.

Sonia, I salute your indefatigability, and thank you for provoking some very interesting responses. I have to say, though, that although Bill was rather rough with you in his last post, I feel there are elements of truth in his criticisms of your arguments. In particular , you regularly fail to substantiate what you are saying, and seem to have a rather loose grasp on what people have said. Since it's close to home, let me take this comment you made:

"something is scientific REAL within Astrology", in the own words of the five skeptic researchers interviewed by Phillipson in the book Astrology in the Year Zero.

Anyone who looks for these words in Year Zero will look in vain. My best guess at what you might have had in mind is the statement from Dean, Ertel, Kelly, Mather and Smit at p.144 that the Gauquelin findings are "Real yes, relevant perhaps not." The point they go on to make is that the Gauquelin findings might be attributable to non-astrological factors. (There is a long story concerning that, which anyone who is interested will probably already know.) A quotation which would have been more representative of their position here would be this, also from p.144:

Gauquelin's work was certainly the most rigorous of its time. But his planetary effects, even though independently confirmed by us, are too tiny to be of the slightest practical value. For example, given that Mars tends to be just past rising or culminating in the charts of eminent sports champions, this information is of no practical value unless your client is eminent (say 1 in 20,000 of the population), in which case the information is already superfluous. Furthermore, Gauquelin's other results showed no effect for half the planets, or for signs, or for aspects, and work by one of us (Ertel) has disconfirmed initial hints of a planetary link with character traits, all of which is contrary to astrological claims. So the relevance of the Gauquelin results tends to be overstated.

My point here is that it might help to foster productive discussion in this thread if we can back our statements up with accurate references to relevant texts.

Another point - one which Bill has already made, and which is found in the quotation above - is that the implications of Gauquelin's work destroy the vast majority of current astrological technique - to the point that anyone who has learned astrology in any currently-existing form, has learned something which should (if the Gauquelin work is the gold standard of truth) be entirely useless.

I'd be very interested to see if we could get away a bit from the ideological level that recurs in this thread - how astrology ought to be - to discuss actual experience. Presumably everyone here finds that astrology works enough to be useful(?) So does anyone have any experiences of their actual practice of astrology benefitting by the application of a scientifically-informed approach?

So does anyone have any experiences of their actual practice of astrology benefitting by the application of a scientifically-informed approach?

Hi Garry,
Yes, my practice of astrology definitely benefits from a scientifically informed approach, and so does my theoretical and philosophical perspective on the subject.

As regards practice, the benefits relate to my understanding of the contexts to which I apply astrological techniques, and how these influence my approach to prediction.

One of the conundrums that astrology presents is that the source from which the symbolism is partly derived is the most reliable, uniform and recurring dynamic feature in our environment. The motions of the planets, etc. are highly predictable and linear over the kinds of time frames which astrologers work within. This is why it is possible to have extremely accurate ephemerides for the whole of the 21st century, for example.

The conundrum arises because the symbols derived from this linear dynamical source are mapped in practice onto dynamically non-linear aspects of reality and experience. Non-linear dynamic systems are often very unpredictable in terms of their behavior, especially (to use some scientific jargon) if they exist in a ?far from equilibrium? state. It is in such a state that self-organization in dynamic systems can emerge. Feedback, buffering, and coupling to environmental variables of one kind or another help to maintain the energy state of the system and its organizational integrity. As life processes tend to occur far from equilibrium, they are generally characterized by a fair degree of unpredictability.

One could enter into a discussion of chaos and complexity theories (complex dynamical systems theory) here, but I won?t. What I will say is that my understanding of these scientific and mathematical models informs my expectations in relation to the making of astrological predictive statements. For one thing, what I attempt to ?see? using astrology is not final outcomes or end states, but how a system is likely to behave from the present state it is in. This contains the presence of the past, and also limits future possibilities.

So for example, there was a time not so long ago when the US was in sabre-rattling mode in relation to Iran. There were Pentagon ?leaks? happening every other week about how the US was going to bomb Iran. At the time, Pluto was conjunct Venus and square Mars by transit in a key Iranian horoscope. Nearly all of the astrologers in the political astrology group I contribute too saw this as a clear sign that Iran would be attacked during a certain time frame. It is easy to understand from a purely astrological point of view why that was the case.

I was predicting that this would not happen, for non-astrological reasons. Firstly, the US couldn?t afford it, and secondly, the public appetite for another war was not there, given what was happening in the unhappy campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. In my view these were ?real world? buffers which would help to maintain the status quo (the organization dynamics of the US-Iran partnership) rather than a change in the direction of war.

I suggested that the Pluto transit to Mars was linked to the transformation of energy policy to include a nuclear option, and possibly the development of a nuclear military capability, rather than the bombing of Iran. I also suggested that the transit of Pluto to the Venus (elevated in the 9th as I recall) implied the power battle going on in the relation ship, but also the likelihood of Iran winning the propaganda war (a simple enough task given who was running the US at the time).

In effect, this scientifically informed approach led me to realize very clearly the importance of the internal and intrinsic dynamics of the context onto which the symbolism was being mapped if one wishes to predict its behavior. This may seem like common sense, but it is surprising the number of astrologers who ignore the obvious, or who are convinced that astrology operates via a ?celestial causes/terrestrial effects? mechanism of some kind. Although astrology can extend the ?range of seeing? by complementing common sense and reason, it can also be used to provide a set of blinkers through which common sense and rational perspectives do not penetrate.

I was quite lucky because I first met the issue of non-linearity in living systems and its implications when I was a student. During the 1960s-70s, the debate was happening in the context of a reductionist philosophical perspective which permeated thinking among many biologists and life scientists. A ?Uranian-style? movement arose to essentially break the reductionist hierarchy which insisted that biological understanding ultimately was reducible to a physics level of explanation. I remember being very influenced by a series of texts edited by Conrad Waddington, entitled ?Towards a Theoretical Biology?, which were produced over two or three years in the late 60s. One of the key points made in these texts was that an organism cannot be understood in isolation from its environment. In other words, you can?t understand much about the nature of rats by killing one and dissecting it. The organism and environment are intimately coupled.

I have often thought that a series entitled ?Towards a Theoretical Astrology? might be useful for the same kinds of reasons ? deconstructing the influential (if often subconscious) notion that astrology can somehow be validated by reducing it to a material scientific level of explanation.

Of course humans are organisms, and thus are intimately coupled with their environment, which includes a celestial dimension. This manifests in terms of physical entrainment (biorhythms, etc.), the link between the seasonal cycle and food availability, and so on. These are topics for scientific exploration and modeling, but I don?t think that have much to do with astrology, or help to explain why garlic is ruled by Mars.

There is a key difference though between humans and other living organisms. Humans are able to generate concepts, which they use to structure their understanding of experience. Human languages are sophisticated enough to communicate and share concepts, thereby establishing conventions and norms within a cultural group. Humans are able to record information, process and disseminate it, etc. Humans use material anchors to off-load the cognitive work involved ? calendars to help remember where we are in time, computers, horoscope systems and so on.

What this means is that instead of just an intimate coupling between humans and the environment on a physical level, there is also a potential coupling on a conceptual level. For example, one might postulate a three-way interaction involving the environment, perceptual experience of that environment, and concepts derived from that perceptual experience. The concepts then modulate the way the environment is perceived, etc..

Anyone who takes an honest look at astrology can see that some of the concepts have a direct phenomenological basis. For example, retrograde motion of the physical planets is a perceptual truth, even though we know it is objectively not real. Yet this perceptual experience assumes symbolic form in astrology?s conceptual system, and carries meaning. It is completely untrue within the conceptual systems which structure scientific understanding.

Until recently, this connection between perception and concepts was not recognized, essentially because it contradicts a well embedded doctrine in western philosophy ? the separation between body (perception) and mind (concepts). This has roots in the Greek philosophical tradition, in which human reason was considered a species-specific faculty that operated outside of sense perception (Plato), and which was attuned to a transcendent Universal Reason. More recently, Ren? Descartes articulated the same idea in a different manner, giving rise to what is commonly called the ?Cartesian divide?.

The branch of science which informs my theoretical position on astrology is the cognitive sciences. It is these which study how we can know anything, where concepts come from, how meaning is transferred through the use of language, and so on.

Obviously, if one does not see astrological processes as an objectively embedded feature of external reality which ?happens at us?, and which exists whether not humans do, then one will find oneself pondering its conceptual structure and asking where it comes from. In the past, an astrologer might have answered ?the transcendent realm of Ideas which humans are uniquely attuned to?, or ?transcendent archetypes as described by C.G.Jung?.

These ideas have a strong presence in modern astrology. However, research in the cognitive sciences threatens to dismantle these notions, which are essentially a consequence of, or the underlying basis for postulating the mind body split. What is emerging is that human embodiment is very significantly involved in determining the forms which human concepts take, whether they are mathematical, scientific, mythological, religious, or astrological. In other words, we can only conceptualize in the ways afforded by our cognitive capacity. We cannot access what is objectively ?out there? in absolute terms, and cannot gain a god?s-eye view of reality. The best we can hope for is a human objectivity, which may not have a lot of relevance for fishes, if they could conceptualize.

In which case, one can begin to speculate on why it makes sense within astrology?s conceptual system that a planetary symbol changes its meaning when it moves from one zodiac sign to another. A cognitive scientist would start talking about the inferential logic associated with the ?container? image schema, (image schemas acts as a foundation for the kind of metaphorical extrapolations evident in the way we speak). Evidence is also mounting to suggest that the way we speak is closely connected to how we think.

For example, in English one might say ?He is in a deep depression?, or ?She is in love?. To cut a long story short, the implications from linguistic analysis seem to show that states are conceptualized as locations. If someone is in a deep depression, it will take a lot of effort to climb out of the depression. This reflects a common conceptual metaphor

To me, this provides a way of thinking about some of the ?absurdities? of astrology?s conceptual system. Because a planetary symbol moves from one location to another location, it changes its state. This is unconsciously recognized as a sensible idea for an astrologer, but not for scientist, who does not conceptualize the container (the zodiac sign) in the first place because it doesn?t exist outside of the astrological conceptual system. Or rather it doesn?t exist within the scientific conceptual system.

Naturally, within cognitive science and philosophy too, there is much argument about these ideas. They are provocative because if the evidence continues to flow in, and perhaps especially if much of it becomes grounded on a neurological level, objectivist philosophy, and also transcendent philosophies, will have to be re-appraised. It is not surprising that a robust defence is being mounted by those who embrace an objectivist perspective.

These ideas, if they become conventional, imply that not only will critiques of astrology from within science become relatively toothless, but ideas which have played a major role in underpinning astrology in the west for a number of centuries, such as Neo-Platonism and more recently Jungian archetypes will be up for reconsideration. The transcendent realm, according to embodied cognitive models, does not exist.

Personally I find this extremely liberating as an astrologer. In both cases, it brings astrology down to earth and makes it human. One can then treat it as such, and acknowledge all the various factors which contribute to its diversity of forms without feeling haunted by transcendent idealism or physical influence models from ?up there?. The diversity reflects astrology?s human roots and the influence of human culture.

One result of this in relation to my own practice is that I trust my judgments and intuitions, because there are no right answers ?out there? or ?up there?. The meaning is not intrinsic to the symbolism. I see what I see using my tools. This is highly subjective and individualistic, but that doesn?t matter. What does matter is the functional value of the way I use the tools and the outcome. I feel no need to argue about the ?correct? zodiac or ayanamsa, or whether or not the Chinese have got it right. The important thing is to develop sufficient skills using the tools one prefers.

In fact, it becomes quite intriguing to speculate on why Chinese astrology is so different from its western counterpart. For example, the emphasis which is placed on the vertical axis, as opposed to that placed on the horizontal axis in western astrology. This is a cultural difference, and evidence from cognitive linguistics hints at the connection between this vertical emphasis and the structure of the Mandarin language, which primarily expresses the conceptualization of time using the vertical axis. In the west, we tend to primarily conceptualize time along a horizontal axis (the past is behind us, the future in front of us, etc.).

Of course, cognitive linguists are not thinking about or discussing astrology, but I am. The point is that the ideas surfacing are applicable to any conceptual system, because according to the embodied cognition model, all conceptual systems are linked to and constrained by their embodied human source. The container image schema and its inferential logic, for example, underlie classical logic and classical taxonomic categorization. In perceptual reality, an entity is observed to be either inside or outside a container, with a well defined boundary separating the two. The concept of the classical category, with its associated ?necessary and sufficient conditions? that determine whether an entity is in this category or that, is a direct reflection of this pervasive perceptual embodied experience. This is as true for Hellenistic Greeks or contemporary westerners.

On the other hand, how do garlic and machine guns both become categorized under the symbol of Mars? Well, there is an answer to that question, and I?m not going to elaborate on it here because I?ve already gone on too long. It doesn?t have anything to do with necessary and sufficient conditions though, which is why those operating within a scientific or conventional logical conceptual framework find the idea absurd, even if it makes complete conceptual sense to an astrologer.

So, to conclude I can say that while it is quite evident to me that astrology is not a science (for reasons I won?t reiterate), this does not preclude the fact that astrological understanding and practice can be enhanced by taking into account insights being generated within science. In my case, what I have found most useful in this regard has been firstly information about the behavior of dynamic systems existing far from equilibrium (i.e. that associated with most life processes). Secondly I have benefited from insights emerging in the cognitive sciences about how the body and perceptual experience influence the generation of concepts, and how these structure the truths and understanding associated with different conceptual systems.

GarryP wrote: Sonia, I salute your indefatigability, and thank you for provoking some very interesting responses.

Thank you

Unfortunately your approach is anti-astrological and damage Astrology, I am sorry to say you this, but is what I think.

Regarding the book it was not my intention to exactly quote what these 5 skeptics said but to put a particular emphasis in their conclusion about Michel Gauquelin's REAL results. This is their conclusion, that these are real.

Then the skeptics they give their opinions about it, which ones logically are skeptic with arguments about x artifacts that had been never proven.

Michel Gauquelin's found some negative results but as science rapidly evolve these results can turn into another completely different thing in future, Gaquelin hoped for this as he said in several of his books.

As Hamblin said, Michel Gauquelin's findings are real (the 5 skeptics recognized it too, even with their other -skeptic- opinions apart) and to negate this facts and their valuable meaning that proves the existence of astrology from a scientific perspective for the first time in history, is to negate scientific facts that supports astrology - to do this is anti-astrological.

But as I said in a previous post, there are x interests in to hide these for many reasons, they can be ideological, religious, phylosophical, business and a long etc..

Michel Gauquelin devoted his entire life to show a scientific basis for astrological correlations, and he was succesfull at it without any doubt.

On the other side, the skeptics worked for 25 years to find something but they couldn't, they only conclusion of their work is that if there is something true and scientific in astrology: the Gaquelin's results.

I am not looking for a 100% scientifc astrology, but the few supporting results we have are very valuable (of course not in daily professional practice) but they are valuable because they shows that astrology is true, a big shift into the real, scientific consideration of Astrology.

But you and others can close your eyes to this reality, this is okay you are free to do it, as long as you don't impose your wrong assumptions to the rest of the community because in this case you harm the community.

This is why a fundamental respect for what is true, real, and scientifically rock-solid evidence should be respected even if we don't like it.

Sonia

Hi Sonia,
You know, I had a sneaking suspicion that the upshot might be that I am (in your eyes) anti-astrological.

The discussion up to this point has already covered most of the points that I might otherwise want to raise, so I wonder if I could just ask you for one or two bits of information, as follows:

1) How did you, personally, arrive at the view you currently have of the significance, and correct way to interpret, the work of Michel and Francoise Gauquelin? (For instance, what books did you read, what people did you listen to etc?)

2) Suppose that someone says to you that they want to understand the works of the Gauquelins, and its significance for astrology - what book(s) would you recommend them to read, and what people would you advise them to listen to? (Your answer to this question could well, I realise, overlap with your answer to the first question.)

Thanks,
Garry

I can't remember who did it (Lee Lehman, maybe?) but somebody broke down Gauqelin's results by sect and the percentages shot up even more, which is certainly an interesting finding.

Astrologers need good critical thinking skills, and we need to be the biggest sceptics about our own trade in many ways. This isn't the same as being a debunker, ? la Randi, CSICOP, et al. So much theosophy and other truly bizarre ideas have crept into astrological work it's become difficult.

I do keep records of my horaries, and - it works. I'm not 100%, but the astrology is valid. I make mistakes sometimes, though, and can usually find them in retrospect - ouch.

I know people developing systems of sports astrology that are around 90% accurate in predicting win/lose, and that's not too shabby, either, though I don't know what the percentage would be if one were a sports nut and knew no astrology at all.

Which means one of these days I may need to learn about sport and try this myself. Ugh. The sport part, not the astrology!

GarryP wrote: 1) How did you, personally, arrive at the view you currently have of the significance, and correct way to interpret, the work of Michel and Francoise Gauquelin? (For instance, what books did you read, what people did you listen to etc?)

2) Suppose that someone says to you that they want to understand the works of the Gauquelins, and its significance for astrology - what book(s) would you recommend them to read, and what people would you advise them to listen to? (Your answer to this question could well, I realise, overlap with your answer to the first question.)

In my eyes, any "astrologer" that dismiss the important astrological findings of Michel Gauquelin is doing something that only can be considered as anti-astrological and anti-scientific. It is the same as if a medical doctor dismiss the existence of blood in the body, this is anti-medical and anti-scientific too.

Answering your two questions, it is very easy to conclude the importance of Michel Gauquelin's contribution to astrology from his books (I read almost all of them) and many papers from his critics too, it is very clear, in fact it is amazingly clear how important and real Gauquelin's findings are.

For people interested in know about the importance of Gauquelin research I would recommend them in Spanish a compendium published in 1990 by an astrological magazine here, it has been translated to Spanish by an astrologer friend of me and that contains the information they need, including the best of Gauquelin's main books and writtings of Dr. H.J. Eysenck from the University of London, Dr. H. Bender from the University of Freiburg and others including a writting from Geoffrey Dean, an explanation of the methodology used and several critics to astrology and former researchers as Choisnard, Krafft or Lasson, by Michel Gauquelin.

This would be a good start point for people interested in the subject. I would recommend also to read the papers of the critics in order to synthesize it all, as I did, with clear conclusions about the subject.

Negative results in some areas doesn't mean that these negative results have the last word about it, but they should mean (as Gauquelin said) that better scientific teams should develop these further in future (not with the current scientifical methodology, that is clear).

Sonia

I'm an astrologer who is perfectly happy with not being scientific. If that's your thing then great, but I'm more concerned with results.

For me, the most important issue are the results, whatever would be the explanation of the mechanism involved behind these results.

However as astrology is a science, and one of the oldest sciences, I am also interested in the advancement of scientific research in the field, not only because it will put astrology among the sciences and universities with the recognition that it had in the past, but because it will make of it a more bright field of study and application, detached from the occult and reborn into the light.

This new astrology quoted by Hamblin and supported by astrologers as me, is in fact a all new astrology as never seen before, a turning point in the history of the art, with many new subbranches of interest and study as chronobiology and others, but for this to be true some day first we need to know what truly Astrology is, otherwise is to remain blind and disconnected from reality and nature while living in the realm of the occult, which is definitely not of my interest -and not of the interest of any of my astrological friends.

Sonia

Juan said:

?Every time astrologers base their work on charts or horoscopes (inceptional, natal, horary...) their practice is no longer tied to the physical world, but to these charts.? It is ?artificial freezing of time? (including directions, transits, and progressions)? ??completely asynchronous with natural phenomena???horoscopes are used AS IF they were symbolical entities (a question, a country, a person...), but most of what is represented in them is not natural or physical phenomena.?

?Astrologers manipulate and make use of celestial motions as one would use a pencil to draw simplified diagrams with which to qualify, give meaning to, and have a limited control of, any specific reality that comes under their scrutiny.?

Bill said:

??symbols derived from ?linear dynamical source are mapped in practice onto dynamically non-linear aspects of reality and experience. Non-linear dynamic systems are often very unpredictable in terms of their behavior?The organism and environment are intimately coupled?humans are organisms, and thus are intimately coupled with their environment, which includes a celestial dimension.?

?Humans are able to generate concepts? concepts then modulate the way the environment is perceived?Until recently, this connection between perception and concepts was not recognized.?

?What is emerging is that human embodiment is very significantly involved in determining the forms which human concepts take? while it is quite evident?that astrology is not a science?this does not preclude the fact that astrological understanding and practice can be enhanced by taking into account insights being generated within science.?

Is any one, besides Sonia, adverse to these two enlightened minds?

TC, I can not be sure if everyone here agrees with all Bill and Juan said, but I can surely say that what Sonia says is devoid of value to the majority of people on the forum, if not everyone. Also, her lack of polite manners and her intrinsic ignorance of all subjects she speaks about is nothing short of disturbing. I have thought of begging moderators to just remove her of the forum, but then again, everyone is entitled to their opinions. Still, her incapability of discussing matters in a civilized way is definitly a good enough justification.

The only bright side to this is that we get to see some well constructed opinions based on real knowledge to balance her absurd statements. Maybe without her we would not have such a positive engagement. But it get's tiresome after a while, and makes you wonder how anyone can be so blind.

Bill wrote:One of the conundrums that astrology presents is that the source from which the symbolism is partly derived is the most reliable, uniform and recurring dynamic feature in our environment.

we use this celestial structure as the basis of a classification and semantic grid (the astrological chart or charting) or model through which we "screen" our perception of world phenomena. As a result, phenomena appears wonderfully ordered in the image of the grid through which we are screening it.

The conundrum arises because the symbols derived from this linear dynamical source are mapped in practice onto dynamically non-linear aspects of reality and experience.

this is the same Ed Falis was describing about mathematical modeling (see the "standard astrological chart" thread).

One of the key points made in these texts was that an organism cannot be understood in isolation from its environment. In other words, you can't understand much about the nature of rats by killing one and dissecting it. The organism and environment are intimately coupled.

the object of astrological inquiry cannot be understood without its context. Every astrological meaning is by necessity an interpretation made by the astrologer of the object in its context.

I have often thought that a series entitled "Towards a Theoretical Astrology" might be useful for the same kinds of reasons - deconstructing the influential (if often subconscious) notion that astrology can somehow be validated by reducing it to a material scientific level of explanation.

the only thing that can be put to test in Astrology is a specific meaning produced by the astrologer and deprived of its context, and this has nothing to do with Science, it is more a matter of linguistics or semiotics. Meanings can be evaluated or socially validated, but they can never be "proved" in the manner of physical Science.

Humans use material anchors to off-load the cognitive work involved - calendars to help remember where we are in time, computers, horoscope systems and so on.

Astrology, in practical terms is a cultural product or device, a technology. If we ignore the cultural nature of astrological practice and its tools, we are no longer talking of Astrology but of an idea of what we want it to be.

one might postulate a three-way interaction involving the environment, perceptual experience of that environment, and concepts derived from that perceptual experience. The concepts then modulate the way the environment is perceived, etc..

originally, in Babylonian times, Astrology was this "concept derived from perceptual experience". But with the invention of Horoscopics, the conceptual system began to disentangle itself from perceptual experience and became a purely imaginative, analogical construct based on geometrical abstractions. Astrology was developed by the Greeks into a sophisticated conceptual grid that is a reflection not of nature but of the human mind. This grid or model is made of apriori --mostly binary-- classification structures (signs, houses...) that "modulate the way the environment is perceived", i.e., they function like mental maps.

why it makes sense within astrology's conceptual system that a planetary symbol changes its meaning when it moves from one zodiac sign to another. A cognitive scientist would start talking about the inferential logic associated with the `container' image schema, (image schemas acts as a foundation for the kind of metaphorical extrapolations evident in the way we speak).

the zodiacal sign is a "container" metaphor, a natural expression of our cognitive structure and the way we think and talk, i.e., we think and talk in metaphors. Metaphor is not "a figure of speech", but a fundamental property of human thinking embedded in the structure of the brain.

Because a planetary symbol moves from one location to another location, it changes its state. This is unconsciously recognized as a sensible idea for an astrologer, but not for scientist, who does not conceptualize the container (the zodiac sign) in the first place because it doesn't exist outside of the astrological conceptual system. Or rather it doesn't exist within the scientific conceptual system.

Comparing Astrology to Science is useful in order to see with more clarity the characteristics of both, but Science and Astrology are essentially different languages, so there is no point in trying to force one into the other, particularly when the underlying conceptual system of Astrology is not even recognized, let alone undesrstood.

It brings astrology down to earth and makes it human. One can then treat it as such, and acknowledge all the various factors which contribute to its diversity of forms without feeling haunted by transcendent idealism or physical influence models from `up there'. The diversity reflects astrology's human roots and the influence of human culture.

Thanks, Bill.

Juan

None of my astrological friends supports the anti-astrological views of some people here, in fact I think that there are some skeptics dressed up as "astrologers" here with an agenda behind, not to mention the business agenda of others.

It is hard to find a true astrologer nowadays, without standard professional accreditation everybody can call themselves "a professional astrologer" after read some obscure old astrological texts and do a few birth charts for friends, even there are many that have not idea at all of what truly astrology is and they never made a birth chart but buid up their business online, astrology scams are one of the most prevalent of the internet according to the FBI:

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/h ... &PageMem=3

All this whole mess needs to be ordered in some way, otherwise it will go to even worse, and again main astrological institutions have a responsibility on this.

Too much cheap astrology on the internet and the general media hiding a true science behind that remains unveiled as it deserves.

Fortunately more and more young astrologers are visualizing this huge mess and they are starting to face it properly, in the opinion of many of us we need Saturn here and let Uranus to take a break, or in order words, it is time for order and not for to create even more chaos around a natural science that already is chaotic by its own history.

Sonia