Astrology and Theurgy

Astrology as a Divine Path

I have been practicing astrology for many years now, and it has become an integral part of my spiritual path. I feel an increasing need to place astrology within a coherent philosophical and spiritual context, a way of thinking about astrology that makes sense of my entire world. This involves re-thinking the nature of reality from the ground up, since the normal kinds of assumptions we make in 21st century world culture have no place for astrology to make any sense.

In its origins astrology was part of a larger worldview. For practitioners, the study of astrology was part of an overall disciplined way of life. Here in the 21st century we run into trouble when we take astrology by itself, out of context, and plunk it down in the middle of our fragmented and materialistic modern world.

Astrology is neither superstition nor magic; it is part of a coherent universal order. If astrology works then we need to come to terms with that order. I think that astrology as it is currently practiced largely lacks a coherent philosophical basis, so we end up trying to explain our work by borrowing concepts from the world around us without understanding their implications.

Whenever we work with astrology we are working with the Gods, living spiritual intelligence. I want to meditate on what that means for our practice and for our lives. The is my attempt to get at the spiritual underpinnings of working astrology as a spiritual path, as a way of life, and as a way back to divine union.

Theurgy – Work of the Gods

The word theurgy is from two Greek words meaning Work of the Gods. Theurgy means working with divine intelligences, those higher non-physical and creative spiritual intelligences that the Greeks called the Gods. Theurgy is a lovely old word that is being revived with a new interest in deepening astrology as a spiritual practice.

We need an overall context to make sense of the gods as living presences.

When we talk about the Gods, it is important to remember their unitive source and context. Underlying all is the One and the Good, the eternal and immutable principle and source of all, that which precedes everything we can conceive as existing, including being itself and existing itself. There is an underlying Oneness that ties all of existence together, and that is beyond anything we can conceptualize.

The most useful model we have to the nature of that underlying oneness is that of an overall Mind, which brings the universe into being by thinking it. This means that we can most closely approach an understanding of this underlying reality by paying attention to our own minds, our own consciousness.

Note: I am being very careful here to say mind and not brain. So much of our culture takes it for granted that our reality is primarily matter, and that consciousness somehow arises from matter. Much of our modern science is based on that assumption, and within that worldview astrology makes no sense. For that matter, if you really think about it, within that worldview the complexity and richness of human consciousness makes no sense. There is a self-contradictory irony to a materialistic worldview, in that we can’t even conceive of matter without presupposing a mind that is doing the thinking. The notion of matter existing without a consciousness to experience it is meaningless.

Without getting that clear, it is all too easy to fall into the trap of thinking of this underlying reality as a cosmic person out there, The Man Upstairs who created the world in His cosmic laboratory and is directing and judging the whole show. As Crowley put it, that would be thinking of god as a kind of gaseous vertebrate who resides in a place vaguely up there somewhere that we call Heaven – kind of like Cleveland but without the pollution.

A materialistic worldview gives birth to a materialistic and simplistic concept of the divine that creates all sorts of problems. Much if not most of the tragic side of human history arises from the implications of that inadequate concept of the divine.

I need to make very clear that when I talk about this underlying divine nature I am not siding with the Christian God, or the Muslim God, or the Jewish God, or the Hindu Krishna. All of those god concepts point to the underlying reality but do not contain it, explain it or exhaust it. By definition, no one religion or path has a monopoly on the divine. All of these religions can be valid paths to the divine; they can be either helpful or harmful depending on how they are practiced.

So again, keep that notion of an underlying oneness that unifies all of creation, that is beyond anything we can conceive, but that we can best begin to approach by thinking of it as a underlying all-inclusive mind.

This underlying oneness means that our created universe is a system, a wholeness, an interactive unity. Having multiple gods does not detract from this sense of unity, but rather it emphasizes how complex and interactive the system is.

Having that oneness prior to any concept of god or gods also helps us remember than no one god form is absolute or all-encompassing. No one religion, no one system, no one philosophy has a monopoly on divine truth. We need that for tolerance and for open-mindness, toward other religions, and toward different schools of astrology.

The Gods are those creative and individuating intelligences which emerge from the One, and are the architects of the universe we inhabit. These are gods within a oneness.

This includes the planetary gods that we work with in astrology.

The Gods and Our Minds

These gods are not just symbols, or metaphors, or psychological archetypes, or interpretive concepts. They are the living, intelligent and creative forces within us, above us, around us, that shape our world, that give us being, and that connect us with the divine source of all.

To make sense of this, we need to pay some attention to how the human mind functions. Much of our reality is shaped by the focus of our minds.

We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
– Dhammapada, sayings of the Buddha

We become what we think about. Focusing our attention enlivens, awakens, empowers whatever we are focusing on. With astrology, given that we are working with the planets as representing gods, our act of focusing on those gods brings them to life in our minds and in our lives.

When we practice astrology we are practicing theurgy and invoking the Gods, whether we realize it or not.

When we do astrology we are dealing with the Gods, with celestial and spiritual intelligences. I think it is important that we do this consciously. If we don’t we stand the risk of being absent-minded magicians, calling up and meddling with the gods unawares. We had best be careful what we are calling up here.

Absent-Minded Magicians

Our universe is a living system of intelligences.

When we are focusing on the gods of astrology, talking about them, expressing their energy, we are invoking their presence whether we realize it or not. This can happen in a couple of different ways.

As an example, I once saw a local astrologer do a talk on the planets to a general audience, where she was explaining the nature of the different planets. I noticed that, as she went through the planets in turn, her speech and gestures took on the nature of the planet she was describing.

For instance, speaking of Uranus, her speech become short, sharp and somewhat erratic, and she pointed and gestured in rapid decisive movements. And then she switched to talking about Neptune… and her tone of voice became softer, her movements slowed down, the language got a bit more vague, and she tended to lose her train of thought and sentences would trail off into an undefined cloud.

She was invoking the planets as she described them, and I suspect she was not doing this consciously.

There is something about the act of focusing on the gods, thinking about them, talking about them, that invokes their presence within and around us.

As another example, there is a popular practice called astrodrama where people consciously take on the characters of the planets and act them out, to help understand their energies and how they interact. This is good theatre and a wonderful learning technique – and it is also a true invocation of the planetary energies.

Yes, this is play-acting, but as anyone who has worked with ritual understands, there is a point where play-acting shades over into something else, and the Gods take over. An energy or intelligence which exists in potential is being called into manifestation.

Invoking the Gods intensifies their effect; we are calling forth intelligence from potential into actuality. This is working with live creative energy, and we need to be aware of that.

Divination – the Will of the Gods

A similar thing happens when we do an astrology reading. Astrology is a way the Gods speak to us, and studying the meaning of an astrology chart is calling forth their energy. This is divination in the original sense of the term, consulting the divine, calling on the gods to give guidance. Astrology developed as a living system of studying divine order in the heavens as it is mirrored on the earth, and a system of consulting and working with divine intelligence.

Doing an astrology reading is a priestly endeavor. The word divination includes the root word divine, and it means learning the will of the gods. So, we are working with the gods every time we read a chart whether we realize it or not. We are calling on the planetary gods for guidance.

Working with divine guidance in this way, and attempting to uncover the will of the gods in another person’s life, is a serious endeavor, and it means taking on an important ethical responsibility. There is a sense in which we are responsible for the effect the reading has on a person’s life, and this should not be taking lightly.

We are taking on the task of transmitting the will of the gods and affecting another’s destiny. This is true to some extent of any counseling, but I thing is especially true of astrology. By definition astrology works with the expression of divine intelligence in the world, and we as astrologers are studying that, attuning ourselves to that, expressing that. We serve as mouthpieces for the will of the gods.

Hence we need to do it cleanly – we need to be transparent windows.

Astrology as Theurgy

Contact with the gods, consulting with the gods, is the heart of astrology. This living contact is a large part of what draws people to the study of astrology in the first place. It feeds a hunger within us – for divine contact, for divine guidance, and for a sense of purpose. Astrology feeds our need to know that we are here for a reason, that we are part of a larger plan and order.

Essentially this is a hunger for the experience of Divine Providence.

Searching for divine contact is a worthy endeavor that needs to be done with care and preparation. If you have ever done any ritual work at all you know that invoking the gods is not to be taken lightly if you don’t wish to be thrown off balance and knocked flat on your butt.

Traditionally, the work of theurgy, the contact of the gods, is not the first step in spiritual work, it is the last step.

Traditional spiritual training paths include quite a bit of preliminary groundwork that needs to be done before theurgy can be safely practiced without the risk of being thrown off balance.

The Preliminary Work

The entrance door to the temple reads, Know Thyself. This is a path of deep and extreme self-awareness. This includes being aware of your own biases. It includes thoughtfully examining how you speak and act, what you value, and what the implications of your values are for yourself and for others.

To practice astrology usefully and helpfully takes a pretty high level of self-awareness. Not that we need to be saints, or to act like them, but we need to be aware of our own strengths and weaknesses, our values and our biases, to make sure we don’t use our work as a way to coerce our clients into following our preferences.

Moral Training

To do this right takes moral maturity. In the platonic tradition this is expressed in terms of the cardinal virtues which all have to do with balance and control – justice, prudence, courage, temperance.

Temperance is about balance and control of our physical appetites and desires – not suppressing them, but keeping them in proper balance and proportion.

Courage is about balance and control of our will. The word courage includes a root word that means heart, and it is about having the heart and strength of will to act on our highest values.

Prudence is about balance and control in how we use our minds and make decisions. It is about choosing with care and considering the implications of our choices.

Justice is a larger social virtue, and is about balance and control of our own lives within the context of the society and world we inhabit.

Philosophical Training

Part of this path is a need philosophical and linguistic training. We need to consider what it means to live in a universe where astrology makes sense. We can’t afford a disconnect between the day to day world we occupy, and the world we enter when we work astrology. In the context of our normal modern western worldview astrology is superstitious nonsense, and we can’t afford to think that way when working with the gods. Thinking through our work with astrology ends up affecting how we live our normal daily lives.

As we noted previously, drawing down the gods intensifies their effect. We are calling on a potent high voltage energy to come into our lives. This draws up hidden and previously latent parts of ourselves into awareness and manifestation, both the very best and the very worst of who we are. Done without care and awareness this can knock you off balance.

This self-awareness is also necessary to make sure astrology doesn’t become a cover for political or moral coercion. If we have no self-awareness it is all too easy to get caught up in the fad or hysteria of the moment and bend our astrology to match that. Astrology is a sacred art and discipline, far larger than any one time period or any one political or ideological position. It has to include having a high enough level of self-awareness and maturity that we can acknowledge and respect where a client’s values and views may be very different from ours, and to help them to work with their chosen values.

Motives and Values

Since we are dealing with issues of ultimate meaning in astrology it is very important to have awareness of values. I am referring to what we really value, really think is important – not what we pay lip service to, but what we live out in our actions. We also need to be aware enough of our values and biases that we can provide a safe space for meeting others with different values in their own worlds, and allow the gods to speak there rather than imposing our own opinions and views.

A very large part of Platonic philosophy as a spiritual discipline is concerned with awareness of values. Socratic dialog, or dialectic, is the process of taking what seems like a straight-forward statement or judgment and probing into it, examining its underlying implications, and examining the consequences of such a judgment.

In a larger context this process of dialectic is tracing beliefs and values to their source. This is a process of gradually waking up, and getting closer and closer to the center of who we are.

At the center each of us connects to the One.

All spiritual paths ultimately converge on the One and the Good. All emerges from there, all returns there. Reality begins and ends in the One and the Good, and the path of philosophy is about reclaiming conscious awareness of our connection with the One.

Astrology is part of that process. Correctly understood, astrology is a subset of philosophy, and makes most sense as part of an overall philosophical path.

The Gods are Calling Us

A funny thing happens when you follow a spiritual path long enough. It starts out by feeling like you are searching for god, the gods, the divine – or perhaps the conscious motive driving the search is a desire for power, or for love, or for recognition.

Often we go into the process thinking we want something from the gods… and somewhere in there the process turns around. Instead of our searching for the gods, we realize that the gods have been searching for us. Instead of wanting something from the gods, we find out that the gods want something from us.

This is the hidden secret of all theurgy: it is not we who call on the gods, it is the gods who call on us.

The word vocation comes from a root meaning to be called – another word for vocation is calling. We think we are wanting to do something with the universe, when all along it is the universe wanting to do something with us.

Astrology is a vocation, a calling. If you feel the desire to study and master astrology, it may feel like you are searching for the gods. If it is a true calling, it is the gods who are searching for you – because you have work to do. That takes a lot of time, a lot of work, a lot of discipline and a lot of self-awareness.

Study astrology and you are studying the structure of the mind of the divine – the study of divine order – and most importantly the study of where we fit in that order.

You want to learn astrology? You have work to do.

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Opening image credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org Michelangelo’s hands of God giving life to Adam from the Sistine Chapel representing an advertisement for The AIDS Ministries of Connecticut.