" W e in the Church are jar too ready to pass pre-

mature judgment on human experiences that

sometimes oJJer support, strength, reassurance,
and hope to believers."

The Revival of Astrology-

Its Implications for Pastoral Care

r162 do you believe in the ROBERT L. CARRIGAN

"- - " - s t a r s ? asks a woman parishioner Professor of Pastoral Care
of her pastor-counselor. "It's no wonder Saint Paul
my husband and I can't hit it off, we School of Theology Methodist
were born under the wrong signs!" Kansas City, Missouri
states an angry young woman during
,a marriage counseling session with their cerned itself so much with metaphysics
pastor. and occult practice as today. New York
Astrology seems to be increasingly University, among other well-known
invading the pastor-counselor's conver- schools, is offering courses in witch-
sations with his counselees. It has per- craft, magic, and astrology. A strange
meated the very air we breathe, leaving "occult stew" of swamis, gurus, witches,
many people today uncertain whether to mantras, tarot cards, Yoga, I Ching, and
liken it to pollution that beclouds the the new (?) astrology has become the
senses, or to incense whose fragrance current diet on many campuses. In ad-
begets clarity of vision and greater hap- dition, there are 24-hour-a-day Zod~a-
piness for those who use it. tronic telephone services providing com-
As with many phenomena of recent puterized horoscopes on over 2,000 col-
vintage, this form .of secular religion lege campuses across the nation.
may be seen as part of what has been It is not just the young who are be-
called the "Soft Revolution." Sam Keen coming devotees of the astrological arts.
of the Behavioral Science Institute of Statistics have indicated that forty mil-
California writes that "this religion is lion Americans aided by ten thousand
eclectic, experienti~al, mystical and non-professional astrologers, have helped
professional~a do-it-yourself kit com- turn the Zodiac into an astronomical
posed of disciplines and insights drawn $200 million a year business! Even con-
from many religious and occult tradi- servative businesses like banks are
tions. ''1 capitulating to (or capitalizing on) the
Never has the nation's youth con- "signs of the times" by printing astro-
1. Charles "Keen, "The 'Soft' Revolution logical checkbooks in this Age of Aquar-
Explored" in The Christian Century, ius! And in music, dress, jewelry, lec-
December 31, 1969, p. 1667. tures, ,and social discourse we are
bombarded by reminders that this an-
cient and esoteric art is alive and well---
indeed thriving--in America, among
young and old alike. Astrologers today
are consulted increasingly regarding
matters of business, vocational choice,
health and accidents, love and marriage,
self-knowledge, and interpersonal rela-
tions.
It is surprising that a nation which
is steeped in science and committed to
technology and computerized factual
knowledge, is seeing a resurgence of the
occult and mystical aura that surrounds
the ancient art of astrology, which long
antedated the rise of science. As with
alchemy, the magical forerunner of
modern chemistry, interest in astrology
faded with the advent of the empirical
science, astronomy. But it is worth not-
ing that astrology flourished in the Mid-
dle Ages, especially in the 1300's and
1400's, when religion held sway in the
lives of men. Men of God cl.aimed to
discern from the stars and planetary
bodies the rule and will of the Divine
in men's lives, and a strange hybridiza-
tion of astrology and Christian faith
resulted.
Today, many see in the resurging in-
terest in astrology and the "occult sci-
ences" a return to spiritual values. Like
St. Paul's observing that the Athenians
appeared to be a very religious people
because of their tribute to an "unknown
god," campus chaplains and others are
speaking of the new and vital religious
interest reflected in the many "unknown
gods" of mystical and occult practices
today. They see in them a thirst for
mystery, meaning, community, and some
sort of ritual among the younger genera-
tion. T h e question is, does this trend
represent a new religious or psycho-
logical quest, or is it primarily an es-
cape, a revival of paganism and a re-
8 PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY/DECEMBER 1970
treat from reason and responsible par-
ticipation?
A New Mystical Psychology?
A pastoral counseling center recently
observed that its staff of counselors
were confronted increasingly with such
questions and comments from counselees
as: "Doctor, do you know under what
sign you were born?" or "It's no
wonder my roommate and I can't get
along; we were born under the wrong
stars!" One young woman, during a
phase of negative transference in her
therapy, was attempting to rationalize
her desire to quit counseling by claiming
that she and her therapist were astro-
logically incompatible that is, born
under the wrong signs--just as she
and her father had been]
This kind of concern needs to be
taken more seriously than we have taken
followers of the daily syndicated horo-
scope, tea leaf readings, and palmistry.
Such traditional amusements have not
been regarded with the consuming pas-
sion with which enthusiasts are practic-
ing astrology today. To cite one exam-
ple, over 350 department stores nation-
wide report an estimated 30,000 cus-
tomers a month who pay sizable sums
of money for personalized horoscopes, or
"psycho-astrological portraits" as they
are called, from an IBM computer. This
would appear to be more than a curio
or novelty: it is popularized "psy-
chology."
One writer claims that "for many of
today's young men and women, astrology
has simply taken the place of psychology
as the personality decoder of their gen-
eration. ''2 It is a "means of mastering
and perfecting oneself and the world
around us," claims one popular astrolo-
2. Nicholas Pileggi, "The Occult" in Mc-
Call's Magazine, March 1970, p. 140.
ger. Everything from vocational choice
and stock market investments to advice
on love, interpersonal relations, procrea-
tion, and the future, is within the scope
of counsel offered by many of today's
professional astrologers. In short, they
assume the function of professional
counselors for increasing numbers of
serious-minded believers.
From Whence Cometh the
N e w Interest?
What has caused this new seeking of
counsel from the stars? Perhaps we are
seeing a phenomenon produced, in part,
by a space age: when people of the
West are more conscious of the "heaven-
ly bodies" as they are brought closer to
the planets. Landing on the moon may
have had a salutary side-effect of put-
ting people more in touch with planetary
movements and effects than ever before
since early times, when men saw their
destinies written in the heavens. Is it
possible that a feat o f technology may
have precipitated new interest in mytho-
logical beliefs? To a generation in
school during the first moon walk, as-
trology may "personalize" space in a
way not previously possible.
Perhaps an even more profound rea-
son for this unprecedented new interest
in astrology is that today's youth are
simply not as impressed with rational
expl~anations of things as were the chil-
dren of the mechanical age. Astrology
may offer, to borrow the words of Theo-
dore Roszak, "a remarkable defection
from the long-standing tradition of
skeptical secular intellectuality which
has served as a prime vehicle for three
hundred years of scientific and techni-
cal work in the West. ''a Reading the
3. Theodore Roszak, The Making o~ a
Counter Culture. New York: Doubleday
and Company, Inc., 1969, p. 141.
Zodiac may provide a welcome non-
rational perspective on our controlled,
instrumental, and rationally-oriented cul-
ture. If astrology is seen as a new
religion, it would seem to express man's
non-rational religious consciousness.
Much of our Western psychology, in-
heriting the Freudian tradition, has
been burdened with a mechanistic vo-
cabulary and the objective rational pos-
ture of the sciences. The technical, sci-
entific, and medical expertise which
pastoral counseling, like clinical psy-
chology, reflects in its method, has been
the same "prestigious mystology" that
is identified with our technocratic so-
ciety. Indeed, pastoral counseling, using
the language of psychoanalytic therapy,
has frequently described its task as
bringing into more rational control the
irrational forces of a person's life or
aiding in reality-orientation.
But this may be one cause of the
"soft revolution" and/or the astrologi-
cal protest. In the words of Lewis Mum-
ford, "the present revolt of the younger
generation against the machine has
made a practice of promoting disorder
and randomness ''~ to replace our tightly
controlled and instrumental society
which we have lived with since the in-
dustrial revolution. The absurd, the un-
predictable, the awesome, the intuitive,
the ecstatic--none of these fits our life-
style in the West. Astrology, like drugs,
non-Western religions, spiritualism, and
mysticism, cannot be carefully pro-
grammed. It becomes a way to break
out of the prescribed patterns of our
ordered ration,al and routine experi-
ence.
What has this to say to pastoral care?
Or better--what does pastoral care have
to say to an Age of Aquarius?
4. Lewis Mumford, The Myth o/ the Ma-
chine. New York: Harcourt, Brace &
World, 1967, pp. 62-63.
Reading the Positive Signs o[
Astrology
The stance of pastoral care is one of
openness to what a person is striving to
express in and through his behavior. To
read the signs of what astrology means
to its believers suggests that we not sim-
ply prejudge it as a cop-out from
personal responsibility, but consider that
it may be expressing important aspects
of personal and cultural needs. In re-
jecting mystical modes of thought, we
may be rejecting a great deal more than
superstition.
We in the Church are far too ready
to pass premature judgment on human
experiences that sometimes offer sup-
port, strength, reassurance, .and hope to
believers. Many secular pursuits provide
ego-support without which many of the
helping professions would be even more
overtaxed than they are at present. We
tend to look askance upon people's
dependence on everything "unorthodox,"
from mild drugs and alcohol to gurus
and mediums, while failing to consider
how some of these seeming "props"
symbolize human resourcefulness in
meeting personal needs, or people's
search for meaning where other chan-
nels (perhaps the church) may have
failed.
A spokesman for the Bronx-Lebanon
Mental Health Center in New York City
recently illustrated this need for open-
ness to the function of people's beliefs
by stating that "Spiritism as practiced
by our Puerto Rican patients provides
them with a means of coping with ad-
versities . . . we must overcome our
own natural resistance to spiritism to
work effectively with them."
Astrology seems to meet the personal
needs of some persons to believe in a
transcendent mythology to which they
are somehow related when other mythol-
10
ogies in our culture appear to be van-
ishing. When supportive mythologies
begin to disintegrate (whether religious
or scientific), men seek other mytholo-
gical structures which offer them per-
sonal and interpersonal significance. Our
religious symbols and mythologies, like
many of our religious celebrations, fail
to relate us, as they once did, to cos-
mic history or to the great stories
of man's spiritual quest. Belief in as-
trology may reflect the need to tune in
again to the larger environment, the
"cosmic aren'a" which traditional reli-
ligion has so long ignored. Those ad-
vocating psychedelic drugs often em-
phasize this same point.
The signs of the Zodiac also may
represent a means of breaking out of
the orderly, preset roles and games
that people play in our euhure. When
a person seeks to know your sign, he
often is saying to you, "I want to re-
late to you in a new or different way;
a way that can't be pigeonholed, labeled,
or defined." Society so often defines us
in terms of the categories and roles
that are prescribed for us.
Members of a recent creative en-
counter group spent the first day and a
half of a weekend retreat in the usual
cautious way of sounding each other
out, after which they began talking
about their "signs" and who was astro-
logically compatible to whom. It seemed
as though the group was ~trying to find
some new, different way of relating and
breaking through the interpersonal "log-
jam," and probably the members
felt comfortable enough now to make
the venture. The shift to astrology also
served to enable the person who intro-
duced it to set up her own conditions
of relating and defining herself and the
other members of the group.
Through astrology people may be
PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY/DECEMBER 1970
seeking reprieve from a cautious, pre-
dictable, and sometimes mechanical
order and the feeling that we must ana-
lyze everybody and solve everything in
it. So when a person "out of the blue"
asks you about your sign, he may in
this way be expressing his need for a
new way of responding to you, or he
may be saying that he feels uncomfort.a-
ble, boxed in, controlled or cramped in
his or your role. Then again, he may be
trying to express his feeling that "this
relationship is bigger than both of us,
a thing of predestined significance."
Harvey Cox has pointed up how, on
the other hand, the "astrological trip"
is frequently .a f.orm of play, a way of
relating to each other that we don't
have to take too seriously unless we
want to. In a broader sense, he says,
astrology, drugs, and Zen are all forms
of play, of testing new perceptions of
reality and attempting redefinition of
self without being committed to their
v.alidity in advanceP
Some people feel the need today to
play with new heightened fantasy, which
also may reflect their wish to free them-
selves from the demands for the ex-
actitude of a scientistic society. There
is a strong desire today for the human
spirit to cut loose from controls and
logical certitude to celebrate, to play,
to just be/Such feelings can be a threat
to those in control or needing to have
control. "Workers" with life have al-
ways been uncomfortable with those
who are "players" with life. There is a
joyful abandon in play that the prac-
tical, no-nonsense person can never un-
derstand. The .astrological trip for many
is a fun thing that "turns off" the logi-
cal and serions-minded seeker after
facts.
5. Harvey Cox interviewed by T. George
Harris in Psychology Today, April 1970,
p. 45f.
Negative Signs in the Astrological
Protest
To be open to the positive signs com-
municated by people's behavior does not
mean we must be uncritical and close
our eyes to the negative--potentially if
not actually harmful---effects of that be.
havior. Certainly the revival of astrology
in such significant proportions of the
population points up the crisis of be-
lief in our time. Much of the "soft revo-
lution" that is occurring today may be
seen as the desperate quest to find some-
thing in which to believe in this age
of uncertainty where sacred things are
being torn asunder.
Two obvious psychological dangers
for those who resort to the stars as their
lifetime compass are: (1) the tendency
to project outside of themselves the con-
trol and destiny of their lives, and (2)
a resulting retreat from responsibility
for their behavior and failure in per-
sonal relationships. If I am convinced
in my own mind that my wife and I,
or one of my children and I, are astro-
logically incompatible, I not only can
oonvince, myself that it's "beyond me"
to change the situation, but also that I
bear no responsibility for the relation-
ship being what it is. I must submit
to the dictum that "people can't really
change what they are," and therefore,
"why fight what's written in the
heavens ?"
This reveals another danger in as-
trology, namely, a fateful determinism.
What is, is/Like an older theology that
generously sprinkled life with the
phrase, "It's the will of God" and
thereby implied that one can only sub-
mit to the inscrutable Will, the astro-
logical revival tends to posit a similar
determinism, for after all, who can
fight or argue with his stars? One can
only cooperate with the givens.
11
 For example, one astrologer, in ad-
vocating the preparation of one's "na-
tivity" (the chart of heavenly bodies at
the moment of birth) states that through
this means we find the dements that
make up our faults, talents, strengths,
personalities, and abilities, and where
our problems and failures are likely to
be. "Surely there are things out of our
control," she says, and "it is through
knowledge of these forces and influences
on us that we will win out." There is
here, in these right-sounding words, a
self-fulfilling prophecy: namely, that
astrology (o.r the astrologer) will tell
you your faults and weaknesses, prob-
lems and failures, and you have but to
acknowledge them and live in respect
of them.
But could it be that for some people,
astrology, instead of discerning their
weaknesses and faults, actually helps to
reir~/orce and/or create, through the
power of suggestion, our problems and
failures? Consider, for example: how
would a fearful .and anxiety-ridden per-
son respond to reading in his horoscope
that the month of January will be a dan-
gerous month or time of potential ill-
fortune for him? How often does astrol-
ogy reinforce wish-fulfillment, i.e., the
portent that something is going to hap-
pen to me (reinforcing latent suicidal
impulses) or to one of my children
(toward whom I may bear unconscious
hostility) ?
There is considerable truth to the say-
ing "Call me a thief and I'll be a thief."
Consider, then, the psychological effect
on a young Aries person of avid astro-
logically-minded parents who grows up
on the conviction that "You must be-
ware of a wicked temper and an egoistic
intolerance of other people's hang-ups.
You try to domin.ate every situation, in-
sisting on your own point of view. And
if you don't get your way, you may
12
pull a temper tantrum. ''6 Like the belief
that redheads have fiery tempers, the
psychological bombardment is likely to
have its effect both on a growing child
and on others' expectations of him. The
ethos helps create the behavior expected!
This decidely changes the name of the
game.
Counseling the Astrologically-Minded
The crucial question before us is,
what does one do with astrology pastor-
ally, or how can the pastoral counselor
best handle his astrologically-minded
counselee? Like any belief system, of
course, astrology should be taken seri-
ously and regarded as .an expression of
that person's personality and ego needs.
Also it may represent a personality de-
fense or simply a way of coping, like
the function of Spiritism among the
Puerto Ricans, and thus should not be
brushed aside lightly or handled in-
discriminately. To engage in rational
argumentation is likewise an unwise and
fruitless pursuit, just as it is with per-
sons who cling to any ideology for ego-
enhancement (i.e., Americans are su-
perior to Russians).
It is futile, in any case, to debate the
validity of astrology, which can be con-
sidered basically a faith. One can cite
"evidence" both to refute it as super-
stition and to support it as a science.
Among the quotations often used to
support astrology is one by the late
Dr. Ellsworth Huntington of Yale, who
said: "It is obvious that if the electrical
field of the sun or the solar system un-
dergoes variation, there must be corre-
sponding disturbances in the field of the
earth. Thus there is a logical connection
between solar activity, the earth's at-
6. Birdfeather, Merope, Schary, and Wilson,
"The Cosmo Girl's 1970 Bedside Astrolo-
ger," The Hearst Corporation, 1969, p. 2.
PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY/DECEMBER 1970
 mosphere, man's psychological relations,
the prices on the stock market and the
ups and downs of business . . . . "
In seeming support of this statement,
a Japanese doctor is reported to have
recently found that the composition of
human blood changes in relation to the
eleven-year cycle of sunspots and solar
flares, and Dr. Robert O. Becker of the
State University .of New York told an
MIT Conference that "we can only
suspect a general relationship between
the whole human species and the whole
electromagnetic phenomenon that engage
the sun, other stars, and the galaxies."
In neither instance can we speak of
evidence, but certainly these declara-
tions by scientists, indicating the pre-
sence of a direct relationship of some
kind between man and his solar environ-
ment, are suggestive. But to acknowledge
the existence of some connection does
not require acceptance of astrology as
the key to understanding the nature of
that relationship.
The question is, what is that relation-
ship? Turning to the field of psychology,
we find similar interest in and testimony
to the truth of astrology. The father of
psychoanalysis, in writing on the occult,
said: "I promise to believe in everything
th.at can be made to seem the least bit
reasonable . . . . The thought of that
sour apple makes me shudder, but there
is no way of avoiding biting into it. ''7
Freud was obviously intrigued yet dubi-
ous about the occult "sciences," includ-
ing astrology. Jones, his biographer,
says, "The wish to believe fought hard
with the warning to disbelieve. ''s
7. Letters from Freud to Max Eitingon of
February 4, 1921 and November 13, 1922,
referred to in Ernest Jones, The Life
and Work of Sigmund Fre~d, /1ol. III.
New York: Basic Books, 1957, p. 391.
8. Ernest Jones, The Li]e and Work oJ
Sigmund Freud, Vol. III. New York:
Basic Books, 1957, p. 406.
Carl Jung, on the other hand; out of
his commitment to the occult, set about
gathering horoscopes of over four hun-
dred couples ~and researching, appar-
ently to his satisfaction, the correlation
between the planetary configurations
studied in astrology and the likelihood
of successful marriage. One must of
course consider Jung's bias toward the
extra-sensory and occult in using his
data.
The "Fahh" o] the Counselor
This brief survey of scientists' re-
sponses to astrology is not intended to
solve the question of its validity, but
serves to lead us back to ourselves as
pastoral counselors and our parishion-
ers and counselees. For I am not pri-
marily concerned with or able to debate
the truth claims of astrology, either as
a religious faith or as a new psychology.
I consider myself, if it is not already
obvious, an "astrological agnostic,"
concerned about some of the quackery,
superstition, and fantasy connected with
reading the Zodiac. Yet also I must
recognize and accept it as one form of
reaction to our Western hang-ups with
scientism, control, and analysis, thereby
recapturing some of the lost mystery,
wonder, and awe in our carefully con-
trived and ordered existence. Astrology
also may be pointing the way toward a
more holistic perspective on man in re-
lationship to his cosmos than Western
religious traditions have been able or
willing to do.
But if the aim of psychotherapeutic
science and all counseling is essentially
to help "make reality more enticing than
fantasy," we are faced squarely with
the question: is astrology an aid to
reality-orientation or an expression of
some unhealthy fantasy about life and
human relationship? Is it an escape
13
from life or a resource for life? Lord
knows, we need some escapes today,
but we need to discern between those
that are health-giving (many forms of
recreation, for example) and those that
are unhealthful (such as certain types of
drugs).
The criteria that is most useful to me
in facing these questions is that of rela-
tionship: whatever enhances relating and
dealing directly with our rel.ationships
is facing and not avoiding reality, but
whatever hinders, evades, or is abortive
of man's relationships is misguided. This
involves both our relationship to our
fellow man and to God, who manifests
himself in and through these relation-
ships. The practice of astrology can be
a detriment to relationship, as when
signs are incompatible, and often places
unfair burdens of expectation and dis-
appointment upon people as illustrated
previously.
As a pastoral theologian, I also have
a concern about false: ideologies, reli-
gions, and idolatry which obscure a
man's relationship to God and his
brothers. Insofar as astrology can be
considered a form of "new" religious
faith, based on the signs of the heavens
providing guidance for life, I must in
the name of the Christi,an faith say "no."
To exalt and/or "worship" any part of
the creation, including my stars and
my destiny, rather than the Creator, is
no less an idolatry than to worship at the
feet of our technology or science. And
to displace responsibility for my life and
destiny upon my stars borders on moral
irresponsibility and ultimately can be-
come psychologically incapacitating in-
sofar as it saps personal initiative and
will power (the person, for instance, who
literally awaits his "lucky star").
Finally, we have learned and taught
that effective pastoral care requires self-
knowledge. I have learned that as a
Taurus, I am supposed to be strong of
mind and possess keen insight. If this
paper leads you to doubt my "astro-
logical self-knowledge" and raise ques-
tions about my strength of mind and de-
gree of insight, I respond by inviting
you, in this Age of Aquarius, to ques-
tion the "wisdom" of the s~ars as I
have! It may prove helpful to you and
your counselees.

EN have addressed their eternal You by many names. When they sang of
M what they had thus named, they still meant You: the first myths were
hymns of praise. Then the names entered into the It-language; men felt impelled
more and more to think of and to talk about their e~ernal You as an It. But all
names of God remain hallowed--because they have been used not only to speak
o/ God but also to speak to him.-~MART~r~ BUBERin I and Thou, a new transla-
tion, with a prologue and notes, by Walter Kaufmann (Charles Scribner's Sons,
1970).

]4 PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY/DECEMBER 1970