Published in Astrological Journal May/June 2024
I want to say up front that this article does not provide absolute truths. I am only striving to try and make sense of how astrology might work. Some of the scientific theories I draw on at the beginning to set the scene are what appeal to me. You may have different views and theories.
Nonetheless, the heart of this article is about deciphering how eight master astrologers I have interviewed for the Astrological Journal believe that astrology works and how they as a collective appear to suggest that astrology acts as a kind of conscious conduit between ourselves and an intelligent universe.
Setting the scene
So, let’s start by setting the scene. I think we have to begin with the question that I am sure all of you have asked yourself many times. How does a piece of paper with a circle and a few symbols on it turn an astrology consultation into something that is not just alive and vibrant, but also deeply significant and revealing?
Every consultation for me is an adventure into trusting the chart. Thankfully, the chart has never let me down. Yet, astrology can’t be explained. All most of us can say to sceptics is, ‘I don’t know how it works, but it does.’ Not a very convincing answer.
This essentially feeble response is one of the reasons why astrology is dismissed particularly by the mainstream scientific community. But it hasn’t always been like this.
Much has been written about the historical split between astrology and astronomy (Nick Campion’s A History of Western Astrology vols 1 and 2 are excellent resources). So, in terms of this article, I won’t go into why it fell from grace, but let’s take it as a given that until around the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries, astrology and astronomy were regarded in essence as one and the same.
However, when the desire for the pursuit of knowledge obtained through reason, evidence, and ideals separated the rational mathematical study of the heavens from the irrational practice of interpretating how the stars affected human behaviour, astrology disappeared into the shadows and became ridiculed by mainstream science. If you can’t see it, it can’t exist because you can’t prove it.
What’s more, I’m going to sum up the scientific argument against astrology with the famous statement made by Professor Brian Cox, co-author of The Quantum Universe:
‘Astrology is rubbish.’
This is despite him saying we are made of stardust, a significant point which we will come back to shortly.
The New Science
Fortunately, there are increasing numbers of highly respected physicists and scientists challenging this limited scientific view, such as Dr Alex Gomez-Marin, a Spanish theoretical physicist turned neuroscientist, and currently the head of the Behaviour of Organisms Laboratory at the Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante, and an Associate Professor of the Spanish Research Council. He states: ’The current paradigm in research on human experience ignores, disdains, ridicules, and even censors what I call ‘“the edges of consciousness”.[…].Science is a journey into the unknown, or it is not science.’’’
Professor Marilyn Monk is certainly pushing the edges of consciousness. She is Professor of Molecular Embryology at University College London and has taken a rigorous approach into the study of consciousness in evolution and has developed a model that gives belonging, meaning and purpose to everything in existence. She says, ‘At every level, from atom to cosmos, organisms are conscious, and in service to the organisms at the next level in the hierarchy’.
The Science Delusion
This walks beside the work of Rupert Sheldrake who has steadfastly stood up against the constricted views of the modern scientific approach. Sheldrake, author of The Science Delusion, is a biochemist, Harvard scholar and researcher at the Royal Society, and most recognised for proposing the concept of morphic resonance, which basically suggests that memory from all previous things is inherent in nature.
He and Dr Alex Gomez-Marin have had many extremely thought-provoking exchanges on You Tube and in person, on what the birth of New Science might look like. Both Marin and Sheldrake are staunch supporters of the concept of Panpsychism – which is the notion that the mind is a fundamental feature of the world which exists throughout the Universe. By this, Sheldrake means, alive, sentient, and responsive to one degree or another.
This is not a new concept. Panpsychism dates to Plato in 5 BCE. In his famous Timaeus, he reasoned through long dialogues between various characters that the world was a living being. The Neoplatonists adopted the notion of the Anima Mundi – the World Soul where there is an intrinsic connection between all living beings, bridging the divide between the realms of forms and the realms of tangible existence.
Certainly, indigenous teachings across the globe, and throughout time, hold the perception that the Universe is conscious and therefore so is the Earth. In 1972, James Lovelock, scientist, author, researcher, environmentalist, famously proposed and popularised the Gaia hypothesis, in which he postulates that the Earth functions as a kind of superorganism, which is not only conscious, she interacts with us and all living beings.
For anyone who wants to find out more about Panpsychism, Melvyn Bragg recently hosted an In Our Times Radio 4 programme1 about Panpsychism. I found it very heady, but it was interesting to hear the argument between two eminent clinical psychologists embracing panpsychism and one who was vehemently against it. A great example of how New Science is taking on traditional scientific assumptions.
Personally, I stand squarely in the corner of panpsychism because to me, it makes sense. Current New Science thinking is that everything within the Universe including all life on earth is made from startdust which originated at the Big Bang. Incredibly exciting discoveries have been made concerning quantum wave particles involving quarks (fundamental constituent of matter), which appear to connect everything in the Universe. This suggests that, according to Professor Marilyn Monk’s conscious hierarchical hypothesis, our very own star dust, which creates our physical bodies, might be consciously ‘in service’ to us, as we are in service to a conscious Universe.
Our Eight Master Astrologers
It’s time to explore what our eight master astrologers have to say about how astrology might act in service as some kind of conduit between ourselves and an intelligent cosmos.
Meghan Kelly: Constellations Astrologer
I’ll start with Meghan Kelly. She uses astrology in her counselling practice and in her family constellation sessions. Meghan believes we are tapping into a field of information – she calls it the ‘Knowing Field’ in family constellation work – and says it has scientific background connected to the Morphic Field and Morphic Resonance, which is the heart of Rupert Sheldrake’s work.
She considers we’re giving form to that field by tapping into the hidden dynamic and the unconscious memory of what’s happened or is happening. Family Constellations is about working with systems, for example family systems and biological systems, and, she believes, astrology is the system of the planets of the cosmos that we have inside us.
She goes on to say, ‘For me, astrology is really a map of our psyche – a map or guide for how we learn to live with what we have.’
Steve Judd: Master Astrologer
This supports Steve Judd’s theory that astrology provides ablueprint of potential. His research into astronomy has led him to realise that the distances of the planets from the Sun and their orbital rotation of the Sun create such perfect geometric patterns that there is a sacred geometry in the solar system, accurate to more than 99%.
For this level of perfection to be constantly replicated in such a common way, it points to a far greater degree of intelligence that we previously assumed in the nature of the Universe. He equates this intelligence with astrology – with the Astro Logos, the study of the stars and planets.
He points out that the planets emanate a radiation/frequency/energy which on some subconscious level we pick up. He believes this can be proved by the way the Moon affects certain animals on the planet, including ourselves. For example, many women’s menstrual cycles synchronise with the rhythms of the moon.
He also explains how it is possible to hear Jupiter on a short-wave radio. It pulses approximately every 13 minutes, sending out a number of signals. If you can hear Jupiter’s radio waves on a radio, then, he says, they are hitting us!
He concludes, that for him, the Universe is a holographic being with the sense of there being unity and integrity in the solar system – not just a bunch of rocks and gas floating around randomly in space.
Steven Forrest: Evolutionary Astrologer
Steven Forrest quotes American astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan in his AJ interview, who said we’re ‘all star stuff’ because everything above hydrogen – which our bodies are created from – are formed in supernova exploding stars. Steven reasons that if it weren’t for exploding stars, there would be no human bodies. So literally at the physical level, we come from the stars.
Steven suggests that astrology would not be possible if it weren’t for the reality of quantum entanglement. He states, ‘It’s absolutely mind boggling that two atoms can become entangled, and they can be on opposite sides of the cosmos. When something switches in one, it switches in the other at the same time.’
This, he reasons, is the scientific evidence that everything is connected to everything else. A tiny little subset of this, he proposes, is that we’re connected to the stars and planets through our birth charts.
Anne Whitaker: Master Astrologer
Anne Whitaker recently posted an article on her blog about her understanding of how astrology works. She confirms that modern quantum science has demonstrated that we live, move, and have our being as part of a vast energy field which ripples and changes in a sinuous, shape-shifting dance between order and chaos – order arising out of apparent disorder and invisible patterns, which would appear to contain 4% matter, 23% dark matter, and 73% dark energy in a vast cosmic web.
‘I think,’ she writes, ‘that astrology works by tracking and mapping those energy patterns through planetary cycles against the backdrop of either the constellations via sidereal astrology, or our more familiar Western tropical astrology, which is pegged to the ecliptic. By a blend of astronomical calculation, mythic imagination, intuition, and observation of correlations between life on Earth and planetary movements over millennia, humans arrived at a way of deriving meaning from the energies generating the solar system, our tiny corner of that vast cosmic web.
Julia Balaz: Galactic astrologer
Galactic Astrologer Julia Balaz agrees that we are expressions of the cosmos. She believes everything is consciousness, and a higher intelligence permeates the cosmos, with one of its principles being evolution.
Julia states that we are expressions of Source, and as ‘this is a fractal universe’ it would make perfect sense that the sky at the time of our birth is a snapshot of our configuration of consciousness.’ [Just to explain the basics of what fractal means: it’s a shape that when you take the shape apart into pieces, all the pieces retain the same or similar shape to the whole.] Julia believes the more we expand our consciousness, the more we tap into these cosmic fractal energies.
Judith Hill: Medical Astrologer
This brings me onto Renaissance and Medical Astrologer Judith Hill, who has been working as an astrologer for over sixty years and is the founder of the Academy of Medical Astrology. She is also a herbalist and author of over twenty books. She took me on quite a journey when I asked her how she thought astrology works.
Judith says she was profoundly impacted early on by the work of American astrologer and occultist C.C. Zain who believed that we have radio receivers in different parts of the body. For example, Aquarius rules the lower leg. If you have Mars in Aquarius, your radio receiver for Mars is in your lower leg, and so on, but, according to Judith, he didn’t say much else.
This prompted Judith to consider the twelve horizontal zones of the body that the ancients discovered. For example, Aries rules the head. Taurus rules the throat, etc.
The body can be divided into 360 degrees with Aries at the top and Pisces at the bottom. As everything in the Universe is built on cycles and circles, including molecules and atoms, photons, and protons, it makes sense to Judith that all our cells and atoms in the body carry a miniature zodiac.
She went onto speak of Arthur Young, American mathematician, developer of the Bell helicopter and top-flight astrologer who she knew well. He surmised that everything – including our cells – is involved in a twelve-fold cycle of motion. The protons in the nuclei can wriggle around in any direction and perhaps, freeze. He reasoned that this means we are capable of receiving a permanent planetary imprint at the moment of birth, which is somehow stamped into our entire being.
Judith then introduced me to renowned American psychophysicist and ardent astrologer Buryl Payne’s concept that protons inside a hydrogen atom pick up radio signals. As we are made up of mostly hydrogen atoms, which are water, he suggested that the droplets of water in the air are transferring the vibrations and waves of the planets into our atoms.
His hypothesis reminds me of the work of Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto who did extraordinary consciousness experiments where people sent love to water, and the water crystals responded by creating beautiful patterns. When people sent negative thoughts, the water crystals became shrunken and misshaped.
Emoto’s work has been expanded by New Zealander water researcher Vida Austin, who’s experiments of photographing water in ‘states of creation’ between liquid and ice, have led her to believe that water is responsive to consciousness. If this is so, and as we are made up from 75% of water, perhaps it is the water in our body which acts as the conduit for us to receive the vibrations from the planets.
Judith concludes that as the Universe is all one, we are fractals of the universal everything – that is, we carry the same statistical characteristics of the Universe inside each one of our cells.
Therefore, the Universal circles and cycles and the planetary energies are imprinted into our psyche the moment we take our first breath, with the result that everything in our body (cells, atoms, et al) is a miniature exponent of our astrological chart. In other words, she suggests that we are literally walking, talking astrological charts.
Amanda Walsh: CEO of The Astrology Hub
Amanda Walsh is the CEO of the Astrology Hub, a phenomenally successful online astrological resource and training organisation. She agrees with everything that our astrologers have talked about. She says, ‘the most logical thing [of how astrology works] is that it has to do with frequency and electromagnetic fields. Our cells are made of the exact same components of the stars and the planets, and when we are born, we somehow crystallise this into our being with different measurements of these different components, which then resonate with the frequency of those stars and planets.
‘As we turn around, different things get activated, different things get highlighted and different things come along line. I see it like a kaleidoscope which is constantly shifting, and we are part of its colours and dimensions. We are not separate from it in anyway, and I literally think of our cells as stars. We are stars!’
Amanda lives in Hawaii, and concluded by telling me she was learning an ancient Hawaiian chant as part of her initiation into the indigenous customs, which translates as: ‘As in Heaven, so on Earth.’ This suggests that this ancient Hawaiian culture knew they were part of a panpsychism Universe.
Victor Olliver: Editor of the Astrological Journal
Finally, we turn to Victor Olliver, editor of the Astrological Journal. He comes from a different viewpoint, which for me introduces the sacred into the practice of astrology. The word sacred here, I would suggest, is the manner in which astrology is regarded with great respect and reverence by astrologers rather than through religious or spiritual eyes.
He says, ‘I would liken astrology to a prayer. No one can explain how a prayer works. It has some kind of power and requires no rigour other than to address the god of choice in whom one believes. Belief is the dynamo of the act. Authentic belief has its own power.
The horoscope itself is a multiple symbol. To read a chart, the astrologer must subscribe to the symbolism. Rigour is required to understand how to practise the symbolism; systems have to be learnt and understood. But no matter how much the rational part of our mind must be applied to enable astrology to work, we must first buy the idea that we are dealing with things transmuted into emblems through belief’[author: or as Rupert Sheldrake would argue, through the ‘mind’ of the Morphic Field].
I think we must bring in Liz Greene here, Jungian Analysist, master astrologer and co-author with Juliette Sharman-Burke of The Astrologer, the Counsellor and the Priest. She suggests that the astrologer is a medium or priest of sorts between the world we know and a world we do not. The hieroglyphics of astrology are literally keys or symbols to access this latter world. She writes, ‘Astrology’s roots lie in an ancient worldview that perceived the universe as a single living organism, animated by divine order and intelligence.’
Liz Greene’s astrological and therapeutic work have been profoundly impacted by the teachings of Carl Jung, father of modern psychology and ardent astrologer, who wrote extensively on how symbols ‘speak’ to our unconscious so we can make things conscious, and about the potency of synchronicities. He famously said: ‘The puzzling thing is that there is really a curious coincidence between astrological and psychological facts, so that one can isolate time from the characteristics of an individual, and also, one can deduce characteristics from a certain time…’
In closing
There is so much more to say and explore about astrology and cosmic synchronicity, and how the universe communicates with us. However, due to the length limitations of this article I am going to conclude with a summary of how our astrologers believe astrology might work:
- Meghan Kelly works with the ‘Knowing Field’, heart of Rupert Shedrake’s work
- Steve Judd: The planets emanate a radiation/frequency/energy which on some subconscious level we pick up.
- Steven Forrest: Astrology would not be possible if it weren’t for the reality of quantum entanglement.
- Anne Whitaker: Modern quantum science has demonstrated that we live, move, and have our being as part of a vast energy field
- Julia Balaz: As this is a fractal universe – our birth is a snapshot of our configuration of consciousness.’
- Judith Hill: we are fractals of the universal everything – we all have a miniature zodiac in each of our cells.
- Amanda Walsh: Our cells are made of the exact same components of the stars and the planets. We are stars!’
- Victor Olliver: Likens astrology to prayer. Belief plays an important role.
In short, all of them consider that we are intrinsically connected with the intelligence of the Universe, which somehow communicates with us through our astrology charts.
Final thoughts:
When Pluto finally settles into Aquarius for the next twenty years, I believe there is going to be an explosion of cosmic discoveries taking place to re-establish the Anima Mundi concept. The fact that ground-breaking quantum research is stepping onto the main stage gives me hope that New Science will at some point – not so far into the future – provide indisputable scientific evidence that Astrology is indeed acting in service as a conscious conduit between ourselves and a panpsychism Universe. What a thought.
And, if this is proved to be so, perhaps Professor Brian Cox might like to eat his own star dust.
This article has been created from a talk given by Sue Brayne at the Faculty of Astrology Open Day 23rd March 2024 in London.
1 Panpsychicism, In Our Time, Radio 4: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001vl96
