Category: Philosophy

Astrology, Prediction and General Knowledge

by Charlie Obert

It is all too easy to fall into the trap of believing that being an astrologer automatically gives you the knowledge to be able to make pronouncements on any subject area. The result of this attitude is obvious in the large amount of astrology writing I see online that is little better than gossip and bias dressed up with astrology keywords.

There are two assertions I am making here that are the subject of this essay.

First – your ability to make meaningful astrology predictions in any area is only as valid as the depth and quality of your knowledge in that specific area.

Being an astrologer does not instantly make you an expert in politics or judicial law, just as being a famous entertainer does not make you an expert in constitutional law or the electoral college. Our astrology knowledge does not exist in a vacuum by itself; it is always based on our general knowledge. Whatever we stock our minds with in general is what is going to come out when we start talking astrology.

Second – Before you make an astrology statement, it is worth asking yourself, is this any different from what I would say without the astrology? If there is no difference, then omit the astrology. You would just be using the astrology as window dressing to justify your opinions.

I want to explore these assertions in a couple of different subject areas.

Continue reading “Astrology, Prediction and General Knowledge”

Bias, in Astrology and Elsewhere

– by Charlie Obert

Confirmation bias – “This is the human tendency to see all evidence as supporting your beliefs, even if the evidence is nothing more than coincidence. This is another common phenomenon that we believe only happens to other people.”

“Confirmation bias isn’t an occasional bug in our human operating system. It is the operating system.”
– Scott Adams, Win Bigly.

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Here in the United States we are in the middle of another election season – actually, these days it seems we are always in an election season. If you follow astrology you are likely starting to see predictions as to what will happen in the 2020 presidential election.

I have noticed something interesting – with very, very few exceptions the predictions being made align with the person’s political preference. They predict the outcome they want to see.

That is what I want to talk about here – the overwhelmingly strong human tendency to interpret all data to match your opinions and preferences. Continue reading “Bias, in Astrology and Elsewhere”

Plato and Reincarnation

Plato: The Evolutionary Journey of the Soul

by Charlie Obert, June 2019.

Does the human soul have a purpose for being here on earth? Is our life here part of a larger experience that transcends a single human lifetime?

I come at the subject as a traditional astrologer who is rooted in the Platonic and Pythagorean tradition of philosophy.

The purpose of this post is to examine reincarnation and the immortal soul in a platonist model – exploring the soul’s purpose in life – and how we could address it in traditional astrology.

Evolutionary Astrology

Evolutionary astrology is very popular today. It expresses a prominent dimension of modern astrology that works with reincarnation and multiple lives, and with the soul’s purpose for this life within that context. This is a typically modern approach that heavily emphasizes the outer planets in talking about past lives. Like much modern astrology, evolutionary astrology typically looks to India for a metaphysical underpinning for their work.

That hunger for a sense of meaning and for a sense of soul purpose is a large part of what draws people to astrology.

Can we address the subject matter of evolutionary astrology – the soul’s purpose in this lifetime viewed in the context of a series of lives for the immortal human soul – using the context and tools of traditional western astrology? Yes, I think so. Continue reading “Plato and Reincarnation”

Myth Is Not Enough

Memorial Day weekend, 2019. by Charlie Obert

These reflections were triggered by an interpretation I saw of the upcoming conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Pluto in 2020.

Being a traditional astrologer I think of this as the Grand Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, moving into a series of conjunctions in Air signs. Pluto can tag along if he wants.

The piece talked about the myth of the elder god Saturn being overthrown by his sons Jupiter and Pluto. This myth was then used as the basis for a prediction of the 2020 US presidential election. I happened to know the person and their political preferences – and somehow their prediction exactly matched their preferences.

This got me thinking about the use of mythology as a main predictive technique. I want to take some time here to make some observations about mythology in modern astrology, and how it affects one planet in particular – Saturn. Continue reading “Myth Is Not Enough”

Astrology and Science

Some time back I wrote an essay where I argued that astrology is not a science in the current understanding of the term. I still agree with what I wrote there – but I would now emphasize one particular part of that statement – astrology is not a science as we currently understand the word science.

For astrology to be viewed as a science we need to rethink what we mean by the word, and what that says about the world, and about what is real.

Most people don’t realize that the meaning of the word science has changed drastically over the past two hundred years. That is what I want to look at here.

This involves going back into the history of our language, and recovering some of the meaning of the term Science that has been lost in the last century.

I want to give an example here of an older text where the use of science is obviously different from how we currently use the term. Continue reading “Astrology and Science”

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. Continue reading “Astrology and Theurgy”

The One and the Gods

When I started writing this post I thought the subject was the One and the Gods and how that applies to astrology. I very quickly figured out that I wanted to write about religious and political tolerance, especially the latter. I’ll get around to how that fits in with astrology and the Gods, but I need to give some context first.

One of the most spiritually dangerous things that a person can do is to be convinced that you are Right, that you have found the Truth, and that everyone who disagrees with you is Wrong. It is a corrosive spiritual poison.

In some ways I think we all do it – I know I do. There are certain sorts of religious or political opinions that are enough to send me into an instant blind rage, a push-button intolerance that kicks in a lot faster than any conscious thought. I recognize it in others, and I sometimes recognize it in myself. I blindly attack, just as I have been blindly attacked.

It’s easy to spot that sort of intolerance in others – not so easy to spot it in yourself. I am trying to train myself to watch for situations where my quick first response is to attack, or respond with anger, or scorn, or some kind of dismissive swearing. That is my signal to pause for a minute and consider what is setting me off – what am I finding offensive, and why.

Interestingly, I seem to be most susceptible to that sort of push-button intolerance on subjects where I am changing my mind – and I am confronted with a position that I used to hold but I am not quite free of, one that now fills me with blind rage and aversion. The negative reaction is a reflection of my own unsureness.

I used to be Christian, and I spent a couple of years in seminary when I was younger, convinced I was called to be a priest. I left both the seminary and the church a very long time ago – but after all these years, some topics related to Jesus or the church are enough to send me into a blind rage – I’ve got a sore spot there, after all these years, and there is a certain kind of Christian judgmental intolerant righteousness that makes me mad enough to want to kill… because I used to do it. I am not yet healed there.

I am currently having similar experiences with political opinions. The past year I have been going through some serious changes of viewpoint on political subjects – and when I mention some of these changes of mine to old friends I am shocked and hurt by the level of blind misunderstanding and hostility I sometimes get. There are certain kinds of opinions that it is just not okay to change – and otherwise friendly and tolerant people can get very intolerant and nasty when you cross the wrong line.

I’ve been badly hurt there, and I’m not healed yet.

Continue reading “The One and the Gods”

Timing the Shooting

This is the kind of stuff that keeps astrologers awake nights.

Whenever there is any sort of major event, one of my very first instincts as an astrologer, is to ask – do we have an exact time? Can we get a timed chart of that?

One of the main rules of astrology timing, is that any major event should show multiple significant correlations pointing at the event, and the more major the event, the more correlations there should be.

Another main rule is that the angles – the Ascendant and Descendant, Midheaven and IC – are the places of action, so that an event timing should show significant planetary triggers at angles.

These correlations should not be subtle – they should be significant, redundant, and tight. In your face.

With the mass shooting that took place in Las Vegas last Sunday, we have a very exact time – news sources say that the call to the police dispatcher was at 10:08 pm, so the shooting must have started a few minutes before that. I am using 10:05 pm.

Yesterday, word came out that we have a reliable timed birth chart for the shooter, Stephen Paddock. The astrodienst site gives his birth time as April 9, 1953, at 11:05 am in Clinton, Iowa, and cites reference to a birth certificate, which is considered the highest level of reliability.

What I want to share here is just a couple of the most striking of the correlations that I found, analyzing this data in the light of the traditional timing techniques that I use. In the last couple of charts that I will present here, they are tight enough to be kind of spooky, and I felt shivers down my spine when I saw them.

Continue reading “Timing the Shooting”

Astrology, Geometry and Politics

One of the most useful things I have learned from studying astrology is contained in the following simple but powerful insight.

Thinking has shape.

Our entire reality, both the physical world around us, and the mental world of our consciousness, shares a single basic structure, a structure that can be expressed in terms of mathematics and geometry.

Traditional astrology is all structured on the basis of the symbolism of the first four numbers – 1,2,3,4 – their corresponding geometric shapes – point or circle, line, triangle, square – and the energy dynamics they represent. The elements, the planets, the signs, the houses, the aspects – the basics are all there, contained in the meaning of those four numbers, and everything else in astrology builds on their foundation. (More on that in future posts – much, much more.)

The structure of astrology, including the geometry, is a way of mapping the structure and dynamics of human experience, including our thinking. Once you really understand those basic numbers and structures, you can use it to make sense of the different dimensions of human life – including politics.

What is the shape of our thinking? And, how is that shape playing out in the politics of the current situation here in America? That is the question I want to explore here.

Continue reading “Astrology, Geometry and Politics”