Why (and how) Astrology Works

Many times I have been asked something like: "Ok, you are a smart man with a degree in natural sciences... how come you believe in astrology and stuff like that?" There is no direct answer to that question; maybe the best attempt today, after all these years, would be: "Well, because of the last 20 years doing astrology while observing things happening around me." Anyway, this text may not be the most ambitious piece of writing about that subject, but I will try to make a few points for the reader to ponder.

Do Planets have an imprint on our behaviour?

Often you can hear sceptics saying, rather rashly, that there is no evidence that the motion of the planets has any influence on us. Aside from the fact that they are wrong and should revisit high school, the catch is that astrology has never claimed any such thing. To see how original astrology came into existence we should examine the oldest traditions and see what they had to say about this rather elusive issue.

The Bṛhat Parāśara Horāśāstra (BPHS) - or "Short talk about the passages of time from Parashara" in English - is presumably the oldest comprehensive extant work on natal astrology. We can say that this is almost the seed of all the astrology we have today in the West. It was written as a dialogue between the sage Parashara and his pupil Maitreya. It is estimated that Parashara lived about 5000 years ago, but the Sanskrit in which BPHS is composed dates to the 7th or 8th centuries A.D. Parashara also holds the honour of compiling the first Purana: Vishnu Purana. The ancient Indian sages believed that every human has an immortal essence or soul - this soul in the living being they called Jiva Atma. The word Jiva has the same Indo-European root as the Latin word Vivus: "alive". Jiva Atma is different from pure Atma (pure soul) or Paramatma only by the degree of liberation from Karma. Vishnu is an example of Paramatman (the Supreme Self or the Universal Self). According to Parashara, this Paramatman - or "unborn Lord" as he calls him - has incarnated as nine planets. Here is the quote from BPHS, chapter 2, verses 3–7.

He has incarnated, as the 9 (Nava) Grahas to bestow on the living beings the results due to their Karmas. He is Janardan. He assumed the auspicious form of Grahas to destroy the demons (evil forces) and sustain the divine beings. From Surya the incarnation of Ram, from Candr that of Krishn, from Mangal that of Narasimh, from Budh that of Buddha, from Guru that of Vaman, from Sukr that of Parashuram, from Sani that of Kurma (Tortoise), from Rahu that of Varah (Pig) and from Ketu that of Meen (Fish) occurred.

- BPHS, Chapter 2, verses 3–7

Let's analyse this archaic quote. The first thing to note: Paramatman is incarnated as 9 Grahas. Note that Parashara doesn't mention anything about planets - he speaks about Grahas. Graha is much more than a planet; the name Graha means "laying hold of" and it encompasses the underlying principle behind the planet. Grahas as principles are in our body, mind and soul as much as they are in the planets or any other part of the Universe. The ancient sages believed that no matter how small a particle one might find, within it lies the essence of the whole universe - or as we in the West like to say, "As above, so below" - and so they concluded that any fluctuation of Grahas or basic principles in ourselves can be observed also outside ourselves in the greater image, in this case the periodic movement of the planets of our Solar system.

Jotish name (Graha)	English name (Planet)	Deity name	Human physiology
Surja	Sun	Ram	Thalamus
Chandra (Candr)	Moon	Krishn	Hypothalamus
Mangal	Mars	Narasimh	Amygdala
Budh	Mercury	Buddha	Subthalamus
Shukra (Sukr)	Venus	Parashuram	Substancia Nigra
Guru	Jupiter	Vaman	Globus Pallidus
Shani (Sani)	Saturn	Kurma	Putamen
Rahu	North (Ascending) Lunar Node	Varah	Nucleus Caudatus, head
Ketu	South (Descending) Lunar Node	Meen	Nucleus Caudatus, tail

In the table we can see connections between the principles of Natural Law (Grahas), our local Solar system, and ultimately our individual consciousness through human anatomy. In Hinduism there is a widespread tendency for the individualization and personalization of impersonal principles. Although some Hindus will call their Supreme God Bhagavan (the word Bhagavan has the same Indo-European root as the word Bog, meaning God in most Slavic languages) they will also say that every aspect of that Supreme Being is a separate Deity. Every Graha on a practical level governs some aspect of our lives; Sukra (Venus) governs beauty and love, Mangal (Mars) physical energy and stamina, Budh (Mercury) intellect and so on. Just as the energy level of each Graha fluctuates constantly, so too do different areas of our life experience. The real astrologer is very aware of the fact that although his tools for understanding are the positions of the planets, the planets are not the root of celestial mechanics itself, but merely indicators on this vast cosmic stage - providing clues about happenings on a stratum invisible to our senses, yet having direct influence on our affinities, emotions, thoughts and consequently our destiny.

Worth noting here are the outer planets of Western astrology - Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Pluto has recently been reclassified as no longer a planet. For true astrology, that question is entirely irrelevant. The classification of any given celestial body into this or that category is merely a matter of fluctuating human opinion, while the very principle of celestial mechanics is a far more permanent parameter in this story. We can also see that Paramatman has nine possible forms that constitute Jivatman - the human soul - implying that any parameters beyond those nine are just combinations of already existing ones, and therefore redundant. A fitting analogy: you need only two points in a plane to define a line; similarly you need only 9 parameters (the planets that represent Grahas) to define Jivatman, or as Parashara said:

The development and progress of the people and the creation are all under the administration and authority of the Grahas.

Why are Grahas holding us?

This question practically boils down to: how is it all possible? Do we have at least some kind of "technical" hint about what Parashara was really talking about? He was considered one of the greatest sages of all time, but that was some 5000 years ago.

Let's first discuss a few points about the level of astronomical knowledge of this ancient civilization. They had a separate discipline called Vedanga that was an early form of astronomy. Some astronomical equations developed by the ancient Indus Valley civilization are even today in use at NASA. They knew about the precession of the equinox and calculated it so precisely that the margin of error is considered negligible by NASA. Considering that this cycle takes more than 25,000 years, one could ask how they obtained such precise data without modern instruments. They were not just random observers, but knowledgeable astronomers and measurers of time.

Today, we must ask whether there is any scientific discipline that could at least partially explain an ancient text like BPHS. I will give it a try with quantum physics. Let's take a look at the following comparison.

Astrological phenomena	Quantum phenomena
Non-local influence of the planets	Quantum nonlocality (Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen)
Specific influence of an individual planet	Quantum entanglement

To explain what non-locality is, we can cite from Wikipedia:

In physics, nonlocality or action at a distance is the direct interaction of two objects that are separated in space with no perceivable intermediate agency or mechanism.

- Wikipedia, Non-locality

We are speaking about quantum non-locality - precisely what we could expect of a non-mechanical level of consciousness. Let's first explain what this quantum nonlocality really is. We are particularly interested in nonlocality effects produced as a result of entangled quantum states.

Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs or groups of particles are generated or interact in ways such that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently - instead, a quantum state may be given for the system as a whole.

- Wikipedia, Quantum entanglement

If we read this carefully we will see that this is very similar to the Grahas concept. The basic principles of Hindu philosophy are non-local in their core. We have some abstract principles and they are present in every part of the Universe; these principles are not intrinsic to some particular place or time - they are almost some sort of second nature of the Universe. One particular aspect is the same no matter where we look. At the same time, this aspect acts homogeneously and synchronously throughout the whole Universe, or in other words, it is entangled and non-local. This is a non-mechanical principle, so we shouldn't try to explain astrology in purely mechanistic terms. Bell's theorem is very clear about the huge gap between quantum and classical perception:

No physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics.

Some tentative conclusions: we have travelled a long way from BPHS, Parashara and Grahas to the possibility of global consciousness and the intricacies of quantum physics. After all, we can hypothesize some connection between an ancient text that, in a rather archaic yet coherent way, addresses very modern scientific concepts.

1. Astrology at its core is not a discipline that talks about the influence of the planets on a man. It uses the planets as a tool for detecting subtle changes in the collective consciousness and in the individual.
2. Planets can be used just as any other kind of synchronicity tool to detect changes. They are not the exclusive means of detecting those changes but only one of many. All that changes on the highest level is manifested throughout the whole of manifestation.
3. The basic principles and explanations in this ancient astrological treatise are, at their core, explanations of quantum physics effects.
4. There is a growing field in science that tries to explain human consciousness and some paranormal effects, where we see many unusual behaviours that could easily be connected with quantum effects.

One important aspect of all this could be the phenomenon of synchronicity. Synchronicity is intrinsically connected with astrology, tarot and similar disciplines. But that is the subject of another article.