(XII) HISTORY - 21ST CENTURY ASTROLOGY

The Astral Matrix and Matrix-Based Reason

"No trendy novel, no synthetic temporal hodgepodge;
no, the conflict of Achilles with his epoch,
no synthesis, but rather a 'distribution',
thanks to him!" (Robert Musil)

The star [the astrological body] is in-signia, that is to say, an inward sign, or pre-conscious impression. Astrology arises neither from a logic of physical causes nor from a logic proceeding from the psycho-mental sign. It emerges instead from a matrix-based logic, rooted in the forms and distributions which come from astro-psychic states, the symbolic agents of which are only a means of expression. Interpretation on the basis of synchronicity, a concept forged by Jung to designate "significant coincidences" between the psychic state of the perceiver and the manifestation of external events, [29] is no more plausible an explanation than that of energetic causality.

Plotinus, whom Firmicus Maternus considered an adversary of astrology, developed the concept of the astro-sign: "The movement of the stars announces future events, but ... does not bring them about." [30]

The notions of astro-cause and astro-sign presuppose the separation of two associated fields: the field of the celestial and the field of the terrestrial/human. In the case of the former there would operate influence, in the case of the latter, coincidence, which becomes difficult to imagine without a certain effect by influence. In both instances, the star (or planet) is defined as exterior to the organism and is marked by something circumstantial or factual.

Such notions legitimize a divinatory practice which discredits astrology in the long run, given the fact that in the course of two millennia astrology, on its own terms, has not predicted in the strict sense of the word any major political or cultural event. What is worse: such notions take only superficial account of the reality of zodiacal signs and astrological houses, and lead the likes of Kepler, a prisoner of the alternative, to dispense with zodiacal houses and signs in the manner of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.