by Antonino Anzaldi
The arcana of the stars: astrology books in Casanatense
Not a little the anxiety of many practitioners (professionals or amateurs) of astrology in going around looking, right and left, for scientific justifications for their subject, often and willingly scorned by a certain academic culture and accused, at best, of idle talk. Nor is there a lack, in the cultivator of stellar images, of a frustrating sense of inferiority in witnessing the recognition, the acceptance in officialdom, of other disciplines that he, perhaps even rightly, considers no less “fluid” than his own. First of all, psychology, between philosophy and medicine. Even more so when it clings stubbornly to this psychology (which, even when it is “depth psychology”, is used with casual superficiality). In fact, one can hardly do without, in astrology, at least when dealing with the culturally middle-high class, making constant references to the libido, the Super-Ego, the “father complex”. Supreme infatuation with psychological “science”: in the cheerful picture – no one knows how well intended – of the “correspondence between celestial constellations and interior constellations”, the planetary and zodiacal symbols are translated into terms of psychic structures and Jungian archetypes. Forgetting that, as has been noted, Jung considered astrology as a subject to be studied for its psychological implications and not because he was convinced of the validity of astrological principles. But that’s how it is, the name of the Swiss scholar who, on the other hand, has rather admirably ventured along the paths of parapsychology always has a certain effect, at least on the reader of the columns of women’s magazines. Nor does the (naive?) astrologer fail to point out at times that, to construct the so-called horoscope chart, the sky chart, the birth chart or whatever you want to call it, he “traffics” with latitudes and longitudes, calculates planetary positions, consults ephemerides (compiled by astronomers, he emphasizes), perhaps uses tables of logarithms. And by this you mean that he uses astronomical geography, trigonometry. More science than that! It is true that nowadays the operations just indicated can be performed in a flash with the infamous computer. Better still: what more than the computer can give the unwary the impression of being at the very heart of modern science? Where, with this discourse, one might feel like a physicist who, by pressing the light switch, sets in motion an electromagnetic phenomenon.
Again: not a few, in adoration of the “half-chicken science”, statistics, seek confirmation, precisely statistics, of the traditional statements of astrology. What astrological aspect do one hundred cancer deaths have in common? And what planetary position do forty-eight sports champions have in common? Some of these studies have also been done with a certain completeness, but with results that are all in all not convincing, neither for nor completely against astrology. In short, astrology, despite having in some way contacts, so to speak, with some of those that are considered sciences, does not seem to be a science. Especially since it lacks two of the prerequisites considered fundamental for a discipline to legitimately define itself as scientific: accuracy and full verifiability. When, in fact, do we ever find, at least in the newspapers, two horoscopes that are the same, in substance, for the same zodiac sign?
O. Pisano Astrology… Antuerpiae, 1613
It is true that astrology, with these shortcomings, is in excellent company: the aforementioned presuppositions, in fact, are lacking in many of the so-called “human sciences” and, all things considered, also in economic and medical science. How many medical diagnoses are there in the face of the same symptom, the same syndrome? As many as there are doctors. And how many interpretative nuances of a Saturn-Venus conjunction? As many as there are astrologers.
And yet, venturing into an epistemological discourse, we cannot fail to recall how, for some time now, it has been noted that “scientific propositions are not, according to modern methodologists, unconditionally true propositions in the sense that they produce by intuition (the idea) or through an experimental operation (the fact) a presupposed truth, ideal or factual; they are rather rigor propositions.
The scientific nature of a discourse does not consist in the presupposed truth, ideal or factual; rather, they are rigorous propositions. The scientific nature of a discourse does not consist in truth, that is, in the correspondence of the statement to an objective reality, but in the rigor of its language, that is, in the coherence of a statement with all the other statements that form a system with it… As a consequence of this, a science presents itself as a closed and coherent system of defined propositions… both empirical research (physics) and formal research (mathematics) are recognized as sciences, when their propositions constitute a coherent system of statements”. Coherent system.
But, perhaps, is coherence not precisely a property of the system? And that is, isn’t only the set of elements that are coherent with each other called a system? In fact, in dictionaries, under the entry “system”, we find definitions of the type: “connection of elements in an organic whole”; “set of elements that constitute a typical organization” “complex of elements united between them or interdependent”; “ordered complex of knowledge and reasoning arising from common principles” (philosophical system). The system, therefore, is governed by an internal cohesion, it implies the existence of a unity that maintains certain relations between the elements of the system itself, with a view to the fulfillment of certain functions”.’ Now, an unsuspected source, even if en passant, has alluded to astrology as a symbolic system. And if science is, as we have seen above, a (coherent) system, then astrology, as a system, could be understood as a science.
GT Gallucci Theatrum mundi… Venice, 1588
However, astrology is a symbolic system, that is, a (coherent) set of symbols. And it is important to specify what, in this context, should be understood as a symbol. Certainly not a mere sema, a simple sign. The sign, in fact, is an arbitrary convention that leaves the signifier and the signified unrelated to each other. Signs, not symbols, are, for example, the so-called (erroneously) mathematical or chemical symbols, which have a mere representative character and are, in fact, founded on a convention. Proof of this is the possibility of attributing to them, even if different, the same meaning.
Thus, to indicate the mathematical operation of multiplication, both the dot and the cross of Saint Andrew can be used indifferently. Nor are allegory, metaphor, emblem, apologue, attribute, parable, all imaginative forms that do not go beyond the framework of mere representation, symbols.
The symbol, however, is much more than a sign: it does not only conventionally represent a reality already known, but it is also a means to access dimensions of reality that are not “perceptible”, that cannot be reached through the usual logical-rational procedures. And a non-astrologer did not fail to note, in one of his very interesting works on astrology: “In this essay the word `symbol’ is not used in the current but reductive sense of: sign, allegory or any other form of expression of a reality already in the conscious knowledge of an individual or a society. `Symbol’ is used in the sense of: particular way of formulating perceptions or intuitions of reality that would otherwise remain excluded from conscious knowledge.
It is therefore to be understood as a language that carries a plus which, on an individual or collective level, broadens the conscious organized levels, or compensates for their shortcomings”. And if such is the symbol, so too, naturally, is the astrological symbol. Furthermore: as has been authoritatively stated, the symbol “reveals a sacred or cosmological reality that no other ‘manifestation’ is capable of revealing”. Thus, through the symbol (even the astrological one) one can have a metaphysical, intuitive and supra-rational knowledge.
And at this point it is amusing to see the ignorance of those who insist so much on the indeterminacy and contradictoriness of the language of astrology, forgetting that it is a symbolic language and perhaps ignoring that the apparent ambiguity and indeterminacy of the symbol are nothing else, in reality, if not polysemy: “One of the characteristic traits of the symbol is the simultaneity of the meanings it reveals”.
And now we can also see in the right light the criticism, recurrently leveled at astrology, of not taking into account the phenomenon of the procession of the equinoxes, for which, as they say, the zodiac signs would be “changed” and those who believe they are Aries would, in reality, be Pisces. Astrology can ignore the phenomenon in question. It is, in fact, a symbolic system, detached from astronomical reality. And this without prejudice to its scientific nature if, as has been said above, the scientific nature of a discipline does not consist in the correspondence with an external objective reality, but in the rigor of its discourse.
[c
N.L. de la Caille Ephemerides des mouvements celestes… Paris, 1743
Yes, but divination? Because, in fact, the first impact that one usually has with astrology occurs through the horoscope in the newspaper, those few lines that claim to say what will happen (in the day, in the week, in the month, in the year) to those born under the twelve signs of the zodiac. Laughable? Meh! It is certain that, even when written with criteria, the horoscope in the newspaper, regarding, sign by sign, a twelfth of humanity, cannot but be of an extreme generality. And it must always be taken with the benefit of inventory and with a certain irony, playfully. Naturally, however, there is always the astrologer, to whom one goes for the personal horoscope but, for the most part, not moved by thirst for Knowledge or knowledge of oneself, but for knowledge of the future, of one’s own future relative to love, work-money, health. It is true that the divinatory function can be carried out by astrology – why not? – even legitimately. In this, however, it is found in common with all other divination techniques, other techniques of divination, differing only in the specificity of its methods (the interpretation of planetary positions instead of cards thrown on the table, coffee grounds in the cup and so on). But, is there any basis for all this?
Or, to put it another way, does it work? Our personal experience leads us to affirm that, in principle, with astrology we do not identify precise facts, but rather particular “climates” more or less favorable to the various types of human events. We would never dare to tell a consultant, for example, that on the next 31st of January he will win the lottery; at most we would venture that, towards the end of January, the “astral climate” seems to favor possible easy gains. But again: assuming that all this is possible, is it the star that, with its “influence”, causes the event? Who knows!
In fact, if certain astral influences cannot be denied (trivial examples are the Moon and the tides and disturbing sunspots), the existence of “radiations” that reach us from the most distant planets has not been demonstrated. It is true that it cannot be excluded, a priori, that, with possible instruments more perfected than the current ones, such “radiations” can be measured. The fact remains that, beyond this causalistic approach, according to which the star (cause) causes the event (effect), there is also what could be called “semiological theory”, according to which the star is only an indicator and not a causer of the event.
A great supporter of this theory was, already in his time, Plotinus. A similar conception implies the idea that the Whole is one and that the individual parts of this Whole, of the universe, are in some way connected to each other so that there is correspondence between the states of things and the celestial figures and vice versa.
But the Jungian theory of synchronicity does not fail to come to mind, relating to the existence of a significant link between two or more facts without there being, however, a relationship between cause and effect between them. Here, it is not a question of coincidence or mere contemporaneity, but rather of something similar to the order of notes and sounds in a piece of music, whereby a note and a sound, precisely, must necessarily be followed by another. And then, if the facts are synchronically linked to each other, it could well be said that someone, even an astrologer, is able to pass from one fact (astral configuration) to another (human event), linked to the first by a relationship of synchronicity. And therefore the celestial fact would not be the cause of the terrestrial fact, but only a significant fact linked to the other synchronically. In any case, astrology, as already underlined several times, is a symbolic system and it would not be “legitimate” to see it as an experimental science, perhaps based on statistics, nor to consider it a mere divinatory technique, confusing it with what is only one of its possible functions, and not even the most sublime.
Bibliography:
A. Barbault From Psychoanalysis to Astrology, Siena, 1911; A. Carotenuto Jung and Italian Culture, Rome, 1977; M. Gauquelin The Dossier of Cosmic Influences, Rome, 1975; N. Bobbio in Essays on the Criticism of Science, Turin, 1950; J. Martinet Introduction to Semiology, Rome, 1976; U. Eco The Absent Structure, Milan, 1968; G. Duran The Anthropological Structures of the Imagination, Bari, 1987; Chevalier, Gheerbrant Dictionary of Symbols, Milan, 1986; L. Aurigemma The Zodiacal Sign of Scorpio, Turin, 1976; M. Eliade Treatise on the History of Religions, Turin, 1972; U. Volli The Rhetoric of the Stars. Semiotics of Astrology , Rome, 1979; Plotinus Enneads; G. Zanieri Astrological medicine and its theory, Rome, 1977; C.G. Jung Synchronicity: an acasual connecting principle in Collected works, Princeton, 1960
The text (A. Anzaldi. Astrology and science or Is Astrology a science?) and the images of the editorial are extracts from the catalogue Gli arcani delle stelle: astrologi e astrologia nella Biblioteca Casanatense (P. 147-150) published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name.
Learn more:
CATALOGUE – The arcana of the stars. Astrologers and astrology in the Casanatense Library. [Gaeta, Gaetagrafiche, 1991]