Towards an Embodied Astrology: Embodiment as a Paradigm for Astrological Practice

Abstract

technical knowledge, but rather as a participative act, a multi-sensorial dialogue with certain dynamic presences, visible and invisible, that draw us bodily into relationship. Embodied in the moment of engagement with its symbols such an astrology, it is suggested, may serve as a dynamic interaction through which a person’s inherent relationship with the cosmos might reveal itself. I aim to develop the hypothesis that an embodied astrology, understood as a form of reciprocated experiential exchange, may be capable of revealing powerful truths, laded with value for those who experience them. Furthermore, I suggest that the realisation of these truths, within a ritual context, 2 might serve to re-connect its participants to an authentic relationship with their own phenomenological sphere of pre-theoretical experience, or life-world. 3 Such an astrology would appear to require the astrologer to act not simply as a translator of esoteric knowledge, but rather as some form of dialogical mediator between worlds. 2 “Ritual” is a complex term with different understandings. Broadly speaking, it is a form of intentional action or performance undertaken with respect for particular conditions of engagement. See, for example, Smart, Ninian. Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World’s Beliefs (London: Fontana Press, 1987) [hereafter Smart, Dimensions], pp. 71-6; Rappaport, Roy, Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) [hereafter Rappaport, Ritual], p. 27. We will develop this understanding further in due course. 3 Term coined by Husserl. The definition given will be developed further. For discussion see, for example, Moran, Dermot, Introduction to Phenomenology (London: Routledge, 2000) [hereafter Moran, Phenomenology], pp. 181-6. Towards an Embodied Astrology: Embodiment as a Paradigm for Astrological Practice 3 METHODOLOGY AND REVIEW OF PREVIOUS WORK This thesis addresses the apparent lack of a coherent theoretical framework for astrology in practice, one that honours the value of the lived experiences of those who participate in it. It suggests that we need a new paradigm that might incorporate this, a paradigm of embodiment. Thomas Kuhn, in a formidable critique of the authority of scientific method, demonstrated that any claim to truth always requires a framework of inquiry, or consensus of perspective, which he termed paradigm. 4 He showed that however broad the paradigmatic consensus it can never hold an absolute authority, being always partial, situation-dependent and value-laden. It is thus liable to shift when new understandings come to light that the old paradigm can no longer contain. 5 This thesis seeks to be part of such a shift in the consideration of astrological practice, the old paradigms being concerned primarily with technique and rationalisation. I do not posit a technique of interpretation that might predict more accurately, nor a theoretical model to explain how astrology works. Instead, I accept that it does work (however one is to define that) for those who engage with it and seek to develop a methodological perspective that can articulate the value-rich truths that might be revealed through its embodiment in practice. There are many theories to explain astrology as a system of knowledge and these exist within established philosophical, magico-religious, scientific or psychological 4 See Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1962). 5 ibid. Kuhn’s undermining of the autonomy of scientific method is developed by, for example, Feyerabend, Paul, Against Method: An Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge (London: NLB, 1975); Midgley, Mary, Science as Salvation (London and New York: Routledge, 1992) [hereafter Midgley, Science]. Towards an Embodied Astrology: Embodiment as a Paradigm for Astrological Practice 4 paradigms, 6 the same paradigms within which its claims have been sanctioned against, undermined and ridiculed. 7 However conceived, these conceptual structures, in their own way, all claim ontological and epistemological authority over the unsystematic contingencies of perception and perspective. This can be seen to hark back to Plato’s privileging of the stable authority of logos and episteme over the unpredictable contingency of mythos and doxa. 8 These latter are rendered epiphenomenal to the systematic workings of the former and, as we shall discuss, the very fact of our dynamic embodiment in the world is diminished or overlooked as a