All the astrologers I spoke to have highlighted confounding factors as one of the main reasons why astrological predictions are never, when 100 percent sure. “People have the misconception that the astrologer is looking at a crystal ball and seeing the future depicted perfectly, but that’s not actually astrology,” Brennan said.
Where is this guess turned into the favorite future-oriented word of many astrologers: forecast. Astrological forecasts tend to describe the future according to themes or archetypes rather than specifics, and most astrological predictions today fall into this category. Forecasting leaves more room for different possible outcomes and allows for human error in interpretation. Horoscopes work this way, as do predictions of planetary penetrations for the year and the future, and it’s usually exactly what happens inside one-on-one consultations between astrologers. crystals and their customers.
As Sam Reynolds, an astrologer who started out as a skeptic and has served on the board of directors of the international astrology organization ISAR, points out, even analyzing personality through a natal chart is essentially a form of thematic forecasting: “By looking at your personality, [astrology] can articulate what is likely to manifest, what we might be dealing with,” an extension of Heraclitus’ maxim that “character is destiny”. Personality affects how we navigate the circumstances that life throws at us. “Fate has two arms: one of them is yours,” he said. “Astrology is learning how the arm works that you can work with.”
Operating the possible arm of fate is something that astrologers, teachers and CUSP app co-founder Kirah Tabourn for herself and for her clients. An astrologer focused on planning, Tabourn considers prediction to provide “more basis for the present by having some idea of the pattern of the future,” including the precious gift of organize one’s life. “[Astrological timing] helps people feel like there’s some structure, an order to everything,” she says. “It helps people make decisions.”
If astrology can help identify the “right time” to make a decision, astrology can also help us discern the “wrong time”. Forewarned is forewarned, as the old adage remains, and the periodicity of astrology is uniquely positioned to provide foreshadowing. “As we investigate historical and autobiographical astrological cycles, it is important to see where repetition occurs,” says writer and astrologer Pallas Augustine. This may include cyclical relapses of rhyming difficulties, such as mental or physical health relapses, tender topics that require skillful compassion whenever they arise. arise in client sessions. Astrological predictions, used gently and skillfully, can help “find meaning and movement.” [going forward] by finding what’s different,” Augustine continued.
However, knowing that people make choices based on astrology comes with the imperative to be as ethical as possible when translating celestial movements for clients. “Our customers and content consumers are often in the problem space [astrologers] said,” Tabourn added. “Really paying attention to that energy dynamic is incredibly important.”
The flip side of astrology’s potential for great significance? It makes the practice vulnerable to abuse by reckless types of people with a dubious commitment to respectful behavior. An astrologer interested in being right or more famous for their usefulness runs the risk of pursuing sensationalism at the expense of integrity. This has resulted in people using astrology as an excuse to be an ambulance chaser or to create fear-inducing and viral social media content. Astrologers without intentional training in counseling or trauma-informed practices, even those with the best of intentions, are more at risk of unwittingly hurting their clients than they are. support them. Some professional astrological organizations attempt to resolve these issues through code belong to ethics, but because there is no governing body that dictates who can and cannot call themselves an astrologer, such codes are limited in their ability to reign in irresponsibly behaving practitioners. In addition, those rules cannot, by their very nature, adequately address ethical differences between cultures or generational divisions.
