‘There is not one Astrology with a capital A. In each epoch, the astrology of the time was a reflection of the kind of order each culture saw in celestial motions, or the kind of relationship the culture formulated between heaven and earth.’

This is a statement well worth remembering, and even repeating to ourselves each time we attempt to define the nature of the astrology we practice according to our own individual belief system or world-view. Even more than the context of the culture (and subculture) in which we live, the predisposition of the individual astrologer shapes the definitions and expressions given to astrology, in both practice and philosophy. Astrology cannot be explained by any single theoretical framework, but must be viewed against a specific religious, philosophical, social, and political background and, equally importantly, from the perspective of individual practitioners working within a particular milieu in a particular place, in a particular decade of a particular century. Today, unlike our medieval counterparts, we have a wide range of religious, social and political perspectives from which to choose without fearing we will be burned at the stake, and it becomes increasingly questionable for any of us to attempt to find the ‘One True Astrology’ which will provide us with absolute spiritual and ideological security while identifying heretical astrologies as ‘incorrect’, ‘bad’, or ‘false’.

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