(Includes thoughts on the Election)
By Daniel Giamario
I have recently been hearing that some folks have lost faith in astrology because the vast majority of astrologers had “predicted” a Clinton victory. For example, at the recent ISAR Astrology Conference (where I was a speaker), two separate panels of national and international astrologers unanimously forecasted a Clinton victory. What’s up with this? Even a psychic goat predicted a Clinton victory!
The problem is that the assumption is often made that astrology is a predictive science. Many cling to that notion. But it could well be that the era of predictive astrology is over.
The Shamanic Astrology Mystery School has never been about prediction. There was a small group of astrologers, including myself, who were at the recent ISAR conference that was billed as being about forecasting and predicting, who came there to articulate the non-predictive perspective. Let me explain.
I first became aware of astrology through the books of Dane Rudhyar (1969 through 1970), and was part of a movement that at that time, was known as humanistic astrology. I had the great fortune of having Dane and his wife Leyla Rael as early mentors. It was the era of an astrological renaissance, with many, many young people taking a keen interest in astrology. This was actually a part of the overall cultural revolution that gripped the world in the late 1960s.
Interestingly, the excitement and interest that astrology held for us had little connection with a predictive or deterministic kind of astrology. Rudhyar, and the others who inspired us in those days (including Zipporah Dobyns, Stephen Arroyo, Tony Joseph, etc.) favored an approach blending mythology, psychology, and spirituality. Before I even began using the expression “Shamanic Astrology” (starting in the early 1990s), I had always steered clear of predictive astrology.
Dane Rudhyar in 1947
Highly influenced by Rudhyar, I have always felt that astrology is about intent, with the capacity of the astrologer and the client to tune into, as best they can, the intent and purpose of a natal chart or any astrological timing. The chart, or any particular timing, is a set of potentials, likened also to a set of instructions, that can either be carried out, or not. As Jung so beautifully stated: “Free will means to gladly do what we must do.”
It’s the responsibility of the astrologer to illuminate the highest set of possibilities and the full potential of the client. This assists in discerning the purpose and meaning of their lives, the higher purpose of a person, not the egoic desires of the client. By focusing on intent, it stands the predictive approach on its head.
Instead of looking for a fixed future outcome, by tuning into intent it’s easier to align with lines of probability that most likely will produce a desired outcome. It would have been interesting if the astrologers at ISAR would have looked at the current intention behind planetary alignments and how we might best align with that, and not look for, or predict specific outcomes.
Two experiences have galvanized my non-predictive approach recently. The first was my involvement with the Ridhwan School, also known as the Diamond Heart Approach. The One Reality that we are all part of is in motion and it evolves according to certain natural laws.
An expression of this known as “The Holy Plan” or Divine Plan. People who love astrology generally love getting close with this holy plan, and then end up believing that they have it all figured out. The problem is that the astrologer is part of the evolving One Reality, and can never be separate and objective to it. Therefore it’s not really possible to know for certain what the holy plan is intending. That’s why it’s also known as Great Mystery!
In concert with these insights, I have also been quite impressed by the work of English astrologer Geoffrey Cornelius, the author of The Moment of Astrology. One point he makes is that there is no such thing as objective time. Without the existence of objective time, prediction as normally understood is simply not possible.
Astrology is actually just an infinite number of divinations. And as many of us are experiencing, there are seemingly an infinite number of possible timelines, even if not infinite, then certainly a rapidly expanding number of lines of probability. These two sets of insights remove prediction, as it has been known, entirely off the table. There is no way of knowing completely, ahead of time, what is going to happen.
Each birth chart, or each specific astrological timing, when seen as a divination, in and of itself, can be seen to have an intention, its own meaning and purpose, which the astrologer can form a relationship with. In concert with the client, an awareness can develop concerning the intent, meaning, and purpose of the chart or any specific timing or cycle.
Shamanic Astrology is completely in harmony with this view. As astrologers, and as lovers of astrology, of course, we love our closeness to the holy plan. We would not be in this field if we did not feel the intimacy derived from this closeness. However, the greater this closeness and this intimacy, the greater a humbleness and humility will grow, because it’s not possible to really know what Great Mystery has in mind. We can only get close. And that is a thrill indeed.
Much has changed since that halcyon late 1960s and early 1970s. Much to my shock and disappointment, a good deal of mainstream astrology has regressed in my view. So much astrology has gone back into Medieval, Hellenistic, and deterministic Vedic systems. Rudhyar would be rolling over in his grave! Many of the gains from the astrological renaissance of the 1960s and 1970s have been seemingly lost, stranded on the shores of determinism and prediction. I suspect it’s time for another Renaissance.
Certainly there are other astrologers who are part of this Re-Renaissance. To name a few, there are: Caroline Casey, Mark Jones, and Glenn Perry, among many others. The Shamanic Astrology Mystery School will always stand firmly on its Rudhyarian, Humanistic, divinatory and non-predictive foundation.
Election Notes:
My views on the recent election are best expressed by these three articles. Full disclosure, I did not vote for either Clinton or Trump.
The Election: Hate, Grief and the New Story by Charles Eisenstein
http://Charleseisenstein.net/hategriefandanewstory/
Feminism and the Election: the Gift of Acceleration by Kelly Brogan
http://kellybroganmd.com/feminism-and-the-election/
The Long Death March of the Dismal Dollar Democrats by Paul Street
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/11/the-long-death-march-of-the-dismal-dollar-democrats/
I sincerely wish that if the U.S. would cease to be a Republic (including the abolishing of the Electoral College that many are desiring to have happen) becoming a direct democracy (a dangerous idea in my view), then at least we would decide to use a run-off system, meaning if no one candidate got 50% or the vote, the top two candidates would run against each other in the second vote.
Neither Clinton nor Trump received 50%. The state of Louisiana, other than in the Presidential election, works this way. Australia, as well as several European countries, use different versions of a Run-Off system, when no candidate gets at least 50%. Arguably, it could be worse than the United States at this time. For example, in the Philippines, the recently elected president Duterte, won with less than 40% of the votes, and there was no run-off! How is that for democracy!
My final thoughts are that if astrologers looked at the intent of the Turning of the Ages, the charts of the candidates, and the various charts of the U.S., rather than “predicting” an outcome, very possibly the election results, that are now only in their very early stages, would be seen as exactly this…..an outcome designed to wake people up, and to expose the duplicity of both major political parties, as well as mainstream liberalism and feminism.