Predictions: what astrology can and cannot do

Hardly any point in astrology is argued over as hotly as prediction. One camp expects dates and events; the other takes the whole matter for nonsense on exactly those grounds. Both start from the same assumption: that astrology means to say what will happen. It describes something else — namely, what quality a stretch of time has and which theme is given precedence within it.

What an astrologer actually works from

A forecast does not come from inspiration but from a handful of long-established procedures. It helps to know which one is being used at a given moment.

• Transits: where are the planets today in relation to your birth chart? The Moon changes sign every two and a half days, Jupiter takes about a year to do so, Saturn about two and a half — which gives windows of anything from days to years.
• Secondary progressions: one day after birth is read as one year of life. The key sounds arbitrary, but it has held, because it yields usable lines of development — above all through the progressed Moon.
• The solar return: a chart for the moment when the Sun comes back to its birth position. It holds for twelve months and sets the emphasis of the year ahead.

All three work with the same material, the birth chart, and differ mainly in pace. Anyone who predicts something for you without knowing your birth chart is working from none of these methods.

What an astrological statement actually sounds like

An example: Saturn moves through the part of the chart that stands for profession and public life, for about two and a half years. The statement that goes with it runs: during this time the question of responsibility gets asked, and nothing half-hearted holds any longer.

How that plays out is written down nowhere. One woman takes on a position in management that she would have turned down before. Another hands in his notice because it becomes clear to him that he is answering for something he does not stand behind. A third does neither, and has the same question put to him from outside. The same configuration, three different courses — and not one of them could be named in advance.

Why no date and no name of an event

Because too many other variables lie between a configuration and an event: your decisions, your health, the people around you, plain chance. A configuration points to an increased probability for a kind of experience, not to the staging of it. Anyone who gives you the date and the event at once has left the method behind.

Tendency, not fate

It does not follow that a prediction is useless. It makes you attentive, and attention changes behaviour. If you know that you are inclined to impatience for months on end, you may hold that one conversation a week later — and it turns out differently.

Conversely, no chart is any use as an excuse. “That is my Saturn” explains no action left undone. The configuration names the theme, the carrying out is down to you, and that is the more interesting part.

How you spot an unsound prediction

• It gives exact dates for illness, separation or death.
• It creates fear and then offers a remedy for a fee.
• It speaks in commands: you must, you may on no account.
• It is kept so general that it cannot be wrong at all.
• It leaves you dependent instead of trusting you with a decision.

A good reading does the opposite: it names a window of time, describes the theme as precisely as possible and the events as vaguely as necessary — and it tells you where its limit lies. What each kind of horoscope does, you will find under horoscopes; the groundwork is under astrology.