Astrology and Astronomy
“Astrology and astronomy were archaically treated together (Latin: astrologia), and were only gradually separated in Western 17th century philosophy (the “Age of Reason”) with the rejection of astrology. During the later part of the medieval period, astronomy was treated as the foundation upon which astrology could operate.
Since the 18th century they have come to be regarded as completely separate disciplines. Astronomy, the study of objects and phenomena originating beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, is a science and is a widely studied academic discipline. Astrology, which uses the apparent positions of celestial objects as the basis for the prediction of future events, is a form of divination and a pseudoscience having no scientific validity.” Wikipedia
“What should our attitude be regarding zodiac signs, astrology, and horoscopes?”
Answer/A. Burt Horsley https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/new-era/1972/04/q-and-a-questions-and-answers/what-should-our-attitude-be-regarding-zodiac-signs-astrology-and-horoscopes?lang=eng
Basically our attitude should be the same as it is about fortune-telling, reading tea leaves, crystal ball gazing, or palm reading. To put it bluntly, any trust in such things is sheer superstition.
Historically there has developed a problem of discrimination that centers around the failure of otherwise straight-thinking people to distinguish between astronomy as a bona fide science and astrology, which is a counterfeit or pseudoscience. This is more complicated by the fact that the science may have grown out of the superstition. That is to say, belief in the theory that stars influence human affairs could have been the motivation for serious study of the heavenly bodies by those who eventually developed a basis for the ancient knowledge of astronomy.
By the time of the Middle Ages, astrology and astronomy were often regarded as one and the same and were closely associated with alchemy, magic, and other occult practices. Since the time of Copernicus in the sixteenth century, however, the two have diverged, and up until a decade ago it appeared that modern science had all but destroyed the influence of astrology. In recent years, much to the dismay of scientists and rational theologians alike, there has been a great revival of the fraud, consistent with the general irrationality of our times.
The astrologer, by using a chart of the zodiac and referring to the sign in the ascendant at the time of one’s birth, plots a map of the heavens. This is a horoscope and is supposed to determine one’s temperament, liability to accident, fortune, success, calamity, even susceptibility to disease.
Our reason tells us that God, who recognized the free will of man as basic to his nature and gave him freedom of agency to manifest it, would not have left man’s destiny bound up and governed by the relationships and movements of astronomical bodies. There is no reasonable way of establishing any direct cause and effect relationship between the character and personality of human beings and astronomical phenomena except as we may react to climate or our physical environment in general.
The people of several great nations of antiquity believed in and perpetuated this myth for centuries, giving it more dignity than it deserved. Even the Magian priests of the Zoroastrian religion who came to Palestine from Persia at the time of the birth of Jesus to observe from that ideal vantage point the precalculated appearance of an unusual star believed in astrology. Nevertheless, scripture does not affirm the truth of such a notion; it merely reports that this was their belief. In fact, the Judeo-Christian tradition has, from ancient times to the present, repudiated such things.
Moses was inspired to instruct his people with reference to the will of the Lord in such matters as follows:
“There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or witch,
“Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
“For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord. …” (Deut. 18:10–12.)
In similar manner the prophet Isaiah scorned these practices in his own day when he announced that astrologers, stargazers, and monthly prognosticators should not be able to “deliver themselves from the power of the flame.” (Isa. 47:13–14.)
The batting average of so-called astrologers, fortune-tellers, soothsayers, and others of their ilk is no better than the law of averages would allow anyway. Daniel and his companions had a much better record to show by relying on the influence of the Spirit of the Lord in their lives.
“And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm.” (Dan. 1:20.)
It is also interesting to note that astrologers are referred to as unreliable in other places in scripture, including at least three places in the Book of Daniel alone.
We need to have our attitudes rationally as well as spiritually grounded and not be influenced and sustained by superstition and myth.”
BY DR. JOHN A. WIDTSOE, OF THE UTAH STATE AGRICULTURAL
COLLEGE, LOGAN.
Pseudo-science means false science. It is a monster that fills every searcher with dismay. Science is built on truth; it experiments, observes, classifies, and shows the unchanging relation of numerous isolated facts. Pseudo-science is built on error, without experiment or careful observation; it assumes something to be true, and on this imaginary foundation builds a complex system of relations, in which men are asked to believe. Science is careful, plodding, and states all its conclusions with caution; pseudo-science has little thought for accuracy, but lays down far-reaching laws with a positive assurance. Science is modest and unpretentious.
Pseudo-science knows no limit to its pretensions; in borrowed garments, enveloped with an air of mysticism, and full of bravado, it stalks about under the stolen title of science. Science is truth; pseudo-science is error.
There would be no need to burden the pages of the Era, whose readers regard truth as the end of their existence, with a discussion of one of the pseudo-sciences, were it not that untruth, clad in the pilfered garments of verity, and with the authority of respected men, is insinuating itself into the lives of some Latter-day Saints. Insidious and insinuating doctrines are leading even some of the young men astray, temporarily, from that unyielding faith in the Gospel which is our strength and our glory. There are men among- us, holding the Holy Priesthood, who in events of their lives would rather stare into a bit of flint-glass that enterprising dealers name a seer-stone, for the solution of their troubles, than to go with the power and authority of their Priesthood to the Almighty Father in prayer. There are persons among us who, after receiving the ordinances of The Church, will place more confidence in the fortune teller with his deck of cards, than in the promises given them as children by the Priesthood. Others, in the direction of their affairs, will give greater heed to the twaddle of a phrenologist, than to the earnest council of an Apostle of the Lord. And, I grieve to say, there are men holding the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood, whose books on astrology are worn with much use, while their patriarchal blessings, clean and bright, are mislaid with other antiquated documents. True, the number of those who can harmonize such beliefs with their faith in the Gospel is small; and true, too, few of those who have been deceived are long led away. However, to forewarn is to forearm; hence, this article has been written for those who may be tempted.
In the list of pseudo-sciences stands, hoary-headed with its high antiquity, the folly of astrology. It has a great power to mislead, for it insists on a near relationship with one of the most accurate of the sciences, namely, astronomy. Astronomy studies with exhaustive care, the motions of the planets and other bodies in space; it measures their distances from the earth and from each other; it determines their chemical composition; and predicts the places that they will occupy at some future time. Astrology, on the other hand, accepts the facts as determined by astronomy, and busies itself with predicting events in the individual lines from the positions of the planets. Claudius Ptolemy, who wrote perhaps the best treatise on astrology, held that in human lives, “all accidents, good or bad, general or particular, originate in the motions of the planets and of the luminaries, and may be foretold by taking into consideration the positions and configurations of the planets.” That is also the belief of the modern astrologers.
Astronomy and astrology are both built upon fundamental laws; and the truth or falsity of these sciences will depend upon the reliability of their foundations. The planets have been studied: from the earliest times, and many correct laws for their motions, were discovered early in the history of the world. It is not much more than two hundred years, however, since the fundamental law of astronomy was recognized, that connected in a reasonable manner all previously discovered laws. Sir Isaac Newton, the celebrated mathematician, physicist and astronomer, elaborated after many years of thought and study, the famous law of gravitation.
It reads as follows: “Every body attracts every other body with a force which varies directly as the product of their masses, and inversely as the square of the distance by which they are separated.” In other words, the earth is attracting every star in the universe, and all the stars are attracting the earth and each other and every man and beast in the world are attracting the earth, and the earth in turn is attracting them. This attraction becomes greater as the attracting bodies become larger; it becomes smaller as the distance between them increases. Now, be it remembered, that this law was not the product of Newton’s imagination, he took only the observations of hundreds of men who had gone before him, and by his keener intellect drew out of them this great law. Since Newton’s day, hundreds of astronomers have tested the truth of the law of gravitation, and have found it to be invariable. It is therefore held to be an eternal truth.
Astrology claims, also, that there is a force by which all things in space are held together. It imagines that a child, at the moment of its birth, is independently attracted by the countless objects in space. The earth attracts the new born child; so does the moon, the planets and all the heavenly bodies. As a result, there arises in the body of the child a peculiar strain, due to these attractions. Now, as the planets move onward in their courses, and approach or recede from the child, the strains to which it is subject change in a corresponding degree. So far, there may be a little truth in the hypothesis; though the counterbalancing attraction of the body, would naturally make any strains imperceptible.
Astrology goes still further and assumes that not only does this law hold for material things, but it is also valid for spiritual things. So important is this attraction that the ruling planet, at the time of birth, will govern the new life until its last days; and all events in the lives of men are the results of the influences of the planets.
In short, man, with his individuality and free agency, is more perfectly a slave to the measured motions of the stars, than are the lifeless rocks of the mountains or the waters of the rivers.
This fundamental law of astrology was not founded on facts, or, if supporting facts existed at the time of its origin, they are not now known. Besides, although astrologers for many centuries have been trying desperately to prove its truth, yet no facts sufficient to establish the fundamental law have been adduced. The fundamental law of astrology is a product of the imagination, and in that respect differs essentially from the law of gravitation which was built upon thousands of observations, made for thousands of years. Guesses are always allowable in science, but, until their truth is established, they should be considered only as guesses; or if they do not stand the tests, they should be discarded immediately.
That the lives of men and women are governed by the planets, may or may not be true; certain it is that astrology, by its predictions, has not proved the truth of the assumption. Test cases, in which the moments of birth of men were stated, have been given eminent professors of astrology at various times, but never have they been able to recount the important details of the lives. Any intelligent man, with some world-knowledge and insight into the natures of men, can make shrewd guesses concerning the events that are likely to overtake his friends. The predictions of the best astrologers have never risen above shrewd guesses. Astrologers themselves realize their inability to foretell events with any great accuracy, but rather than to give up their so-called science, they insist that, while the fundamental principle is correct, the true key has been lost to mankind. A lost science is no science, as far as the world is concerned; and thus by their own statements a science of astrology does not now exist. As an evidence, I may quote the following paragraphs written to astrologers by Raphael, who is the most popular astrologer of the century:
The most difficult and least understood part of astrology is the directional, or the calculation of future events. There are Zodiacal directions, Mundane directions, secondary directions, progressed cusps, revolutional figures, eclipses, new moons, etc., etc., until, in short, if they were all calculated in detail, there would be at least an important influence every week on the average. The stem facts of life do not bear out such copious influences, and it is practically a waste of time to work out the primaries, as they are called, when not more than ten per cent will be found to coincide with an event. I regret that I must adhere to the opinion so often expressed, which is that none of our systems of directions are correct, but that the secondary as taught in my key, comes nearer the truth than any, yet it is sadly deficient and unreliable. I do not take the planets as symbols but as forces, producing or causing the events that occur during our pilgrimage on this earth. The true key to astrology was lost centuries ago, and has not yet been found.
Our knowledge of the Zodiac is sadly deficient, and it is this deficiency that causes so many failures.*
Lines more destructive to astrology could hardly have been written. Any clever deceiver can make ten per cent of his guesses concerning any ordinary subject come true.
Other devotees of fortune-telling by stars argue with great vigor that astrology must be true, if for no other reason, because it existed as far back as history goes. This is a shallow argument; for error has always existed, and an error, no matter, how old it is, can never become a truth. It was believed for centuries that iron, lead, and other base metals, could be transmitted into gold; but we know today that the notion is false. Alchemy is nearly six thousand years old, yet is false; chemistry is little over one hundred years old, but is true. Errors, like garden weeds, will live on and flourish when truth and things useful perish.
There is another argument for astrology, which has influenced many people in their beliefs, but which fails to regard fundamental principles. Astrologers claim that not only has astrology existed from early times, but great men of all ages have believed in it. History informs us that many men (including some astronomers) who have benefited the world by their labors, have been advocates of astrology. It is noteworthy, however, that their scientific work was sharply separated from their astrological beliefs. The number of men of high learning, who have investigated astrology and have rejected it, is much larger than the number of those who have accepted it. Among those who have studied the subjects, astronomy has stood the test of time, while from the first, astrology has been condemned by the majority of scholars.
History relates also that many kings and emperors, when in sore distress, have called in astrologers to their aid. It must be remarked, however, that astrologers, sooth-sayers, and other deceivers, have not found constant favor at the courts, as they have usually failed to make correct predictions. Besides, a king’s favor does not add to the truth of astrology, for a king may be the most ignorant man in the kingdom, and in that case, is as much subject to superstition as the humblest peasant.
The argument, however, by which the astrologer, who is also a theist, clinches his case is, that many of the holy men of old, who knew God, practiced astrology. As the most famous of astrologers are mentioned Solomon, David and Abraham. In fact, Abraham is looked upon as the great master of telling fortunes from the stars. The absurdity of the belief that men who talked with God would have need to go to the stars for their knowledge of coming events is stupendous, yet, some of our brethren and sisters, without close inquiry, have accepted it as a fact. Take, as an instance, the career of Abraham. It is well known that he was a man whose learning far exceeded that of his age, and that he studied with care the heavenly bodies. There is, however, nothing in history that says definitely that Abraham derived all or a part of his wisdom from this study of the stars. There is not even a clear indication that he practiced astrology. Of course, in common with all great men of the far past, Abraham is surrounded by a mythical atmosphere in which all kinds of wild fancies float; but no reasonable men will believe myth instead of fact. We who have been blessed to live in this age know with an absolute certainty that Abraham did not derive his knowledge from his acquaintance with the motions of the planets, for the Lord, speaking to the Prophet Joseph Smith, has said that “Abraham received all things, whatsoever he received, by revelation and commandment, by my word, saith the Lord, and hath entered into his exaltation, and sitteth upon his throne.” * All the holy men of old received “all things, whatsoever they received” in just the same way.
“The true key to astrology was lost centuries ago,” says Raphael, the “astrologer of the Nineteenth century.” He is wrong, for astrology has never had a true key. Falsehood, emanating from the Father of Lies, has been the hope and mainstay of the art in all ages. But if this great Raphael will define astrology as the art of fortelling events, regardless of the stars, then he is correct, for the key of this power has been lost and found again several times during the world’s history; it is the Holy Priesthood, “which continueth in the Church of God in all generations, and is without beginning of days or end of years.” Abraham received this Priesthood, and was a High Priest before God. Therefore did he have a right to call upon the Lord and to learn of the events of his future. This power of the Priesthood is the only one sanctioned of the Father, that can look into the past and the present, and discover the multitudinous relations of human lives. All other powers, with like claims, emanate from the source of error. Modern science, which is based on truth, claims no such power.
The Church of God is upon the earth, and the Priesthood with all its powers. In our midst are prophets, seers and revelators; apostles, high priests and elders. If we must look into the future or the unknown past, let us go to these men, from whom we will get satisfaction; or, if we ourselves hold the Priesthood, then let us call upon the Lord in humility, according to the divine formula, “in fasting and prayer,” and our hearts’ desires will be granted us according to our needs.
The evil one wishes that error should be supreme among the children of God, and he does all he can to support the false and to destroy the true. His snares are manifold. Young men of Zion, defy Satan; spurn all lies; there is truth enough in the universe to keep us busy through all eternities. Let us cast out from amongst us the folly of astrology.
Doctrine and Covenants, section 84; verse 14.
Pearl of Great Price, page 50.
- This article is not intended for a systematic argument against astrology: it sounds only a note of warning, and in so doing, touches lightly on several objections against the art. I doubt very much that it merits greater notice.
290 IMPROVEMENT ERA.
