Astrology is the study of the influence that distant cosmic objects, usually stars and planets, have on human lives. The position of the sun, stars, moon and planets at the time of people's birth (not their conception) is said to shape their personality, affect their romantic relationships and predict their economic fortunes, among other divinations.

Astrology has been practiced for thousands of years, and it appears to many people that astrology is a manifestation of the human mind's first attempts to explain events in the world by association rather than causal relationships. In other words, non-technological cultures often explain events by the action of gods or coincidental events and omens. The same myth-making part of the brain that created Greek, Norse, Hindu, Chinese, native American, African, or any other cultures myths, seems to have conjured up the myths of astrology.

Astrology is a SYMBOLIC language which has proven to be a very useful tool for gaining new insights into the human psyche and communicating ideas to others in a common language. Just as you can talk Mathematics to anyone in any foreign language and understand the same mathematical concepts, you can talk Astrology to anyone in any language and the astrological concepts will be understood and generally agreed upon.

The essential teaching of astrology, reaching back to the ancient worship of the stars, was that of spiritual communion between the human and the heavenly. The modern fascination with astrology — even in its crudest forms — stems from a growing nostalgia for that older, more unified sense of nature in which the sun, moon and stars were experienced as a vast network of living consciousness. For a growing number of people, the rich imagery of these old traditions has become a more inspiration way of talking about emotions, values, motivations and goals than conventional psychiatry. The astrological universe is, after all, the universe of Greco-Roman myth, of Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Blake. It has poetry and philosophy built into it.

Even so, astrology is believed by millions of people and it has survived for thousands of years. The ancient Chaldeans and Assyrians engaged in astrological divination some 3,000 years ago. The spread of astrological practice was checked by the rise of Christianity, which emphasized divine intervention and free will. During the Renaissance, astrology regained popularity, in part due to rekindled interest in science and astronomy. Christian theologians, however, warred against astrology, and in 1585 Pope Sixtus V condemned it. At the same time, the work of Kepler and others undermined astrology’s tenets. Its popularity and longevity are, of course, irrelevant to the truth of astrology in any of its forms.

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