Page 18 - The Gluckman Occasional Number Four

A Case for Astrology

Consider first what astrology either cannot be or in all likelihood is not:
macrocosmic-microcosmic syncretism, numerogical and arbitrary
periodicity, fortune telling and mythology-based determinism and grand
cyclical eras correlating with “fixed” astronomical entities—all are studies
and practices best left in the realm of magic and superstition sturdily
surviving in an era of scientific inquiry and empirical methodology.
Consider then what the latter have provided us in recent centuries
regarding the relationship of life on Earth to its geological and
astronomical environment: overwhelming evidence for wide-ranging
evolution across phyla and species via adaptive exploitation of the
relative movements of sun and moon as reliable timers for crucial events
in reproduction, migration and metabolic activity. Therein the basis of
any valid astrological observations about human beings may also be
found. Absent population studies confirming any specific suppositions,
one may yet propose theoretical bases not in violation of known
standards of proof; they would therefore be limited to analogy and
presumed conferral of competitive advantage.
Reduction to physical near-necessity and logical impossibility leaves the
arena of astrological influence to three entities: the earth, sun and moon.
Their cycles of interaction, varying little over the span of life’s
differentiation and diffusion on this planet, provide a virtually fixed
environment of external variation: diurnal, lunar synodic, seasonal and
annual patterns, all subject to climatic variation mediated by latitude, local
1
ecology and inclination of the ecliptic plane. Organisms sensitive to the
electromagnetic and gravitational fluctuations of this three-body
interaction are able to regulate their individual and group processes in
rhythms beneficial to survival. How and why they do this are topics for
the biological sciences; as those disciplines produce ever more refined
analyses of the components of life, means and ways of detecting and
reacting to those fluctuations come to light. Knowing what to look for as

1
I first expressed this idea in fictional form in “The Stars Impel”, in Fantastic
Transactions, vol. 1 (1990); in that science-fiction story, colonists transplanted to another
solar system discover that their offspring behave in unpredictable ways. They send a
mission back to a dystopian Earth for answers. The last living astrologer tells them his
ephemerides are useless away from the home planet.