Saturday, September 16, 2006

Doubts

It appears that I'm not the only fan of the subject to harbour doubts about some areas of astrology (I never expected to be!)

Here's an extract from an article (link follows) by an Australian astrologer, Candy
Hillenbrand

".........In the face of such gargantuan claims to be able to answer life's big and little questions, to be able to tell us the why, who, what, where and even when of life, many of us can forget the need to question, to inquire, to investigate, to think for ourselves, to examine and ultimately to doubt. The 'd' word is clearly a dirty word for many astrologers. In the presence of doubt we can find ourselves in a highly uncertain and formless place, bereft of answers, shorn of predictability, and of course we all know that astrologers need answers and thrive on certainty. After all, predictability is our greatest claim to fame. Without that, perhaps we may cease to exist!

But what this questionless state of affairs really engenders is little more than a fundamentalist belief system with all the hallmarks of a somewhat rabid religion. Those few who do dare to ask the difficult questions are more often than not marginalized as heretics to the true cause of astrology, for it seems apparent that astrologers are threatened by too many questions. Yet it is my belief that the discipline and practice of astrology could only benefit from some serious questioning, investigation and ultimately deconstruction. It is important to note that deconstruction is a dismantling process: it is not a destruction as many believe, and its purpose is to find the source of meaning which lies at the core of any system or set of beliefs. As a fellow colleague so eloquently put it: …"if you accept that a construct is an amalgam of meaning(s) produced in and through ideological means, the construct(ed) meaning must be deconstructed in order to reach its source. It's like a forensic scientist or medical coroner examining the innards of the body. Deconstruction leads to a more real, de-politicized understanding of the thing, upon which truth, not ideology, can be built." [15]

All of this may indeed threaten the foundations of our tightly held and secure astro-belief system, but as Dane Rudhyar wrote: "The crisis all human beings face is a crisis of belief". [16] And surely, that is as it should be!

http://www.aplaceinspace.net/Pages/CandyDeconstruction.html

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