Hi. I moved this article to my new website. Please read its updated and improved version there. Thank you.
https://www.100percentastrology.com/skeptics-and-astrology/
“It is unkind to point to the Obvious to those who don’t want to see it.
But it’s worse to point out the Invisible to those convinced it doesn’t exist”.
Ingo Swann, advocate and researcher of the exceptional powers of the human mind
Astrology, the queen of all sciences for millennia, has been attacked time and time again. A lot of those who criticized it in the past had at least studied parts of it and were somewhat familiar with its philosophy and background. Unfortunately that is not the case the day, not by a long shot!
I am yet to meet, hear or read of ANY person who has studied Ancient Astrology and its philosophical foundations. Clue: it is not about planets causing things in this world to happen, it is about them signifying and mirroring events that happened, happen and will happen.
This article is inspired by an experience I just had with a so called “skeptic”. I was not going to get into a conversation about Astrology with him, but since we had to travel together, it just gradually happened.
That person admitted that he has never read a single book on Astrology (or Classical Feng Shui for that matter, but I will leave that for now) and yet he was so certain that it is bogus and practitioners are charlatans taking advantage of the gullible and naïve problems-ridden people, mostly females, because “people want to be told what to expect, they want to be fed false hope and to be deceived”.
He was unable to accept pretty much anything that I said. When he felt he had no counterarguments he started looking for loopholes saying that if everything is predetermined then there is no point in knowing about it. I never said absolutely everything was predetermined.
He also criticized people in history who spent years and decades trying to solve the issue of fate versus choice (free will does not exist; the notion posits one can simply change the Divine Plan and it is a trap made up by Jewish theologians). He did not know about that either, nor did he know that Astrology cannot predict absolute particulars. For instance, a skilled practitioner of Ancient Astrology can tell you whether you will get married, when, how many marriages, to describe the marriage partners, your sexual life and harmony, whether the marriage will be praiseworthy etc, but they cannot tell you who exactly you will marry, (or their name) at least not without having to look at the charts of the candidates. Likewise with profession; it can be predicted but one cannot predict that, if the native’s significator is Hermes and they will be say an accountant or bank teller, among many other options, that they will work in that particular company or bank.
Seeing that he was not going anywhere with this, he changed the subject and now started rejecting the complexity of Astrology altogether. First he said that there is no science in it, so it is bogus and everyone can guess the psychological descriptions of people. I replied I do not need to see the person, I just need to have their birth details, and I work overwhelmingly through the Internet and do not use psychology. I also said that I consider Astrology much more as a science than as an art, though the art part is also there.
He was getting exasperated and started raising his voice more and more. I had really had enough of this and finally offered a way to settle this. I said that I offer rectification services and that means I can discover a person’s time of birth within seconds or within a few minutes, even if it is completely unknown, if I have information about the nature and timing of some experiences and other things in that person’s life. Provided it is within 5 minutes, so 150 seconds on either side, which out of 24 hours =1440 minutes means 280/1 odds of achieving this.
If it is within 10 minutes in total, the odds are 140/1. I can do that in several successive charts, so multiplying 140x140x140 = 2.744 million/1 odds. If it is 280/1 and one does it 3 times in a row = 280x280x280= 21,952 million/1 odds.
I told him it is very time consuming and difficult and few practitioners can actually do this. It is also, of course, expensive. He said that any mathematician or astronomer or astrophysicist can do such impressive astrological rectification work. I said that I am willing to bet money that not a single one of them can do that. I even suggested, because we were driving in the direction of the capital, that should he agree, we drive to the National Academy of Sciences in Bulgaria. I am willing to bet a monthly salary that no one there, and they are considered the brightest, can do that. He declined. Of course, I am not denigrating these sciences, it is simply not in their subject to do that which is perfectly fine, yet he seemed convinced they could do it because they are sciences and Astrology is not.
Then I suggested to him that we do it, that he bet the money and that I can do it. He said he was not willing to bet much money but would agree if the amount was smaller. I told him rectification from scratch is very difficult and time consuming and it is easy to make mistakes and mislead oneself, so the bet had better be worth my effort. He declined. When I called into question his manly word and convictions, because he was so adamant that Astrology is bogus and yet was unwilling to meet the challenge, he said that should he win the Bulgarian national lottery some day (he plays very often), he will take on my challenge.
He admitted that there is no possibility, in any Galaxy, that Astrology can actually work and make specific predictions. To contrast that absolute fear of being wrong and his worldview turning upside down, I said I am willing to stake all my possessions and assets on what I do (Astrology, Chinese Metaphysics, Tarot and others). I am also willing to put my life on the line.
This is what it boils down, dear readers. How secure do you feel in your Astrology? Is it just another way to impress someone, to pet your ego or go to a conference, exchange gossip and socialize, or is it a system of knowledge of a highest order? Are you ready to die for it or risk everything that you have? How about your skills? How confident are you in disposing of such ignorant and close-minded people?
So this is the method of handling the so called skeptics. Offer something concrete. They are used to criticizing, doing mental battles and exchanging words and denigrating the other side, but when push comes to shove, they are unwilling to answer the challenge. It does not have to be rectification, it can be something else. Rectification from scratch is extremely difficult; I am in fact ready to bet money that few Astrology practitioners can actually pull it off. But make the skeptic bet money; make them pay you for your effort. It is really easy to look down on something and have the other side do the many hours of demanding work to prove you wrong. What better way to reinforce one’s convictions by making money? Then again, what better way to crush one’s beLIEf system by having them pay for your expert work? (provided you get it right of course).
But keep in mind that if it comes to predictions, a skeptic will most likely try and find loopholes in your predictions. It is not enough for them that Astrology can predict about almost any area months and years in advance. They will want extreme specificity, which Astrology was hardly meant to do, especially the natal branch which I am discussing in this article. Moreover, it is common knowledge in the astrological or divinatory circles that horary Astrology or any type of divination method, which can get down to tiny details, will NOT work if the sole purpose is to prove to someone who does not care in the least about it whether it works.
One last thing I want to address is psychological astrology. I like to call it astrological psychiatry. I do not like it nor approve of it, but I have tremendous respect for people who use it to help clients or their loved ones. It is not Astrology in the strict sense; it is incapable or predicting and dealing with objective reality. Astrology cannot be “proven” with it and thus it is fervently attacked by the so called skeptics and scientists (as modern western astrology is the most famous of all types, at least in the West), but the point is this type of astrology is also used to help people.
No one will become filthy rich or world famous with Astrology; that is not the purpose of it. The satisfaction and inner peace that it (Chinese Metaphysics and divination too) provides have simply to be experienced to be appreciated. No financial or any other type of rewards can EVER match the inner fulfillment I am talking about.
Finally, to get a feel of what I mean, just please try and put yourself in the shoes of the Astrology practitioner/s in the 4th century who elected the chart for the construction of the city of Constantinople. In other words, the roman emperor Constantine the Great, the most powerful man in the world at that time, coming to you and asking you to choose the most propitious time for building the city named after him, and you telling him that he has to wait for 14 years before the best planetary configuration is aligned. What the emperor did, of course, was to listen to that advice and wait for 14 years (this is what actually happened according to some byzantine historians). See this lovely article:
http://science-astrology.blogspot.bg/2014/09/constantinoples-inauguration-horoscope.html
This is the type of Astrology that I practise; this is why I am so confident in what I do and am willing to stake everything on it and my skills. As I have written, any form of Astrology after the year 1650 has very little to do, if anything, with the authentic type that I mean.
100 PERCENT ASTROLOGY: ANCIENT AND CHINESE ASTROLOGY 