How is it possible for astrology to work?
There are at least two schools of thought. One common explanation is a principle similar, in some ways, to synchronicity, an acausal connecting principle proposed by Carl Jung. The general idea is that events on earth of a certain nature coincide in time with astronomical events of a similar nature (according to the symbolic significance of the planets and their relations in the heavens). Although synchronicity operates throughout the universe, the planets might have special significance because they are part of collective experience (that is, we can all see them or know about them) and so they can take on a collective meaning — they can speak to the “collective unconscious.” But Jung’s synchronicity principle and the related one that is applied to the astrological question are still hypothetical and still not well understood. (Another related idea is Kammerer’s seriality.) Jung’s idea is similar to the ancient hermetic idea of resonant bonds of sympathy between “similars” (which shar
