As I mentioned before, to me sidereal astrology is the most reliable method of divination. It's also the only one, as far as I'm aware of, that can be scientifically tested (randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled tests). Everyone can become an astrologer, just like everyone can become a mathemetician or learn Spanish. It doesn't require intuition or special skills. All it requires is good software (or the patience and time to calculate many, many charts for one person) and the memorization of standard interpretations (for example, Mars rules conflict, Mercury communication etc., it takes a couple of months to learn them all).
Astrology is also the only method of divination that has a serious impact on our view of the world. For if life on Earth and the stars surrounding us are related, this has far reaching implications for both science and religion. Science will have to take into account that each of us is literally one with the universe. Religion will have to take into account that everything is predetermined to evolve as it does, and so there is no point in "choosing" to serve God, for all future choices ("free will") are the result of the universe as a whole, not any individual. At this point in time (less so in the past) both religions and schools of science despise astrology. There are some fields of interest which are currently looked down upon by both "science" and "religion": philosophy, psychology, psychedelics, astrology. And it is these four that could unite and rectify the misconceptions of both science and religion. In the distant past there was no difference between science and religion, and philosophy, psychology, psychedelics and astrology were what united them.
Now, before I get too philosophical again, I just wanted to mention that this morning I received a response from someone whose chart I had studied in 2006. At that time I was new on a certain forum, and decided to challenge the skeptics. I asked anyone to send me 6 sets of birth data (different hours, days, months and years), only one of which would be the actual birth chart of the person challenging me.
Previously I had done something similar with 10 charts, eight of which I connected to the proper persons (I mixed two up, but as it turned out they were both writers interested in the occult, just that one of them wrote philosophy, and the other science fiction).
I knew very little about the person who decided to challenge me (a woman from the UK), but by asking two questions about her life I picked the right birth chart. Though she had always been writing cynical one-liners on the forum, I wrote that she could become a writer if she wanted to. She responded that she had already written more than 3/4 of a children's book. No one knew about that except two or three of her best friends.
This morning I got a message from this woman. Seems I had made some predictions about her love life back then (June 2006), and it turns out I was on the spot:
Hi Ivar!
How are you?
I read your post on the MM thread - prefer to respond here if that's ok?
Well, remember when we had to supply you with five fake birth dates and our real one and you had to guess which one was us? Well, you suggested that by August I would be in love with the 'right' person. I doubted it a little, as an honest sceptic, but you were correct. The love of my life finally BECAME the love of my life and has been since July. We are really happy, although there's a fair distance geographically at the moment and we have to see each other every other weekend. I plan to move at Easter to live with him so I'll be doing some supply teaching which I'm VERY nervous about. It's a massive upheaval. I'm giving up my job, my flat and everything I'm comfortable with to give this relationship a chance.... who knows? I think it'll be fine.
My writing has taken a back seat for a while. I seem to have lost my flow. The first chapter of my book was published in an anthology but since then, creatively I don't feel very productive, but I think when I make some of these big changes, it might fuel the writing again.
All the best
How on Earth could I have predicted this about a complete stranger, two years in advance? I'm not a psychic. I just did some calculations based on this physical dimension, interpreted them according to standard methods, and voila.
There is no soul. There is no God. If there was a soul, it would be forever "dominated" by the planets, which by derivation would be controlled by God.
Instead I suggest there is only this universe. Souls are not injected into that universe. Consciousness as we know it is a physical phenonenon, the ever changing awareness of the electric/chemical state of being of our nervous system, in complete harmony with the chemicals outside ourselves, including big rocks and gas planets. When the body dies, the nervous system shuts down and awareness ceases to be for that organism. All that happens between birth and death is a certain vibration of the universe. Hence the events between birth and death of a particular "self" harmonically correlate to the movements of the universe.
Even enlightenment doesn't serve the individual after death, because there truly is no soul that leaves the body, goes to heaven or reincarnates. Enlightenment can be useful for those who continue to live in the now however, as being enlightened is the most enjoyable state of being, and beneficial for mankind and the environment it is embedded in.
That is why (truly!) enlightened thought must be shared with other human beings, not to preach or convert, but because true enlightenment diminishes suffering and brings peace and happiness. Unless ones insights serve human society, and the planet, it is quite meaningless, just like the honey a bee has collected is pretty much useless unless it take that honey to the hive. The hive is more important than any particular bee. The bees instinctively know this. Mankind probably knew it once, but rugged individualism has made him forget.
A couple of days ago (for my world views are still changing every day) I stopped thinking in terms of "I am" (as in "aham brahmasmi" and "
