The truth of astrology

Those who attempt to prove astrology through science perpetuate the early century belief of Bertrand Russell for whom "the only truth is science". This scientific vision of truth is a prolongation of the traditional conception of truth which has dominated occidental thought since Aristotle. For this philosopher, "true discourse is similar to things" (De Interpretatione). The same concept then returned during the Middle-Ages when Aquinas insisted that truth is adequacy and in Descartes' conception that truth equals certitude because it guarantees rectitude, an accord with the represented object. More recently, Kant mirrored Aristotle when he wrote that "it is only by judgment, in other words, by the relationship of an object to our understanding, that one finds truth and error".

Astrology's truth cannot be defined by these philosophers' terms. The individual who meditates on his planetary blueprint does find adequacy between the representation of the universe at his moment of birth and his inner life. But, as far as astrology is concerned, this remains a correspondence of symbolic proportions. And no symbolic system of interpretation is absolutely true, the symbol being characterized by its polysemy and multivocal abundance. The symbol's opaque language opens to infinite interpretations. Unlike scientific language which seeks to explain and give account of natural phenomena, symbolic language such as that of astrology demands interpretation and guides us towards the core of our interiority. The natal chart is not a conventional representation. It is a path of a hidden meaning, the meaning of a new unity through which we merge with the archetypal structure of our very being.


The truth of astrology is thus the truth of the symbol. While another truth assumes adequacy of the thing, astrology's truth belongs to the essence of Being. This is not a truth of agreement but of unveiling, like that in Plato's cave. Plato and the neoplatonic tradition gave truth this status and, during the Middle Ages, Saint Bonaventure reflected a similar vision, meditating that truth "does not come from existing matter, for matter is contingent, nor from its existence in the mind, as this would be mere fiction if the thing were not truly present. Rather, it ensues from the exemplary nature of the divine archetype which decides the properties and the mutual sequence of all things based on the sketches of eternal wisdom". This notion of an essential truth is found in Jung's process of individuation through which man perceives his own, singular verity. And so unfolds the truth of the Self which is also that found through meditating on one's birth chart.

Author: Alain Negre