The fault doesn’t lie in our stars when decoding astrology

Largely referred to as a “pseudoscience,” astrology really might be just another way of reflecting on life

In a world riddled with uncertainty, there’s a whole gamut of tools employed by humankind to stay afloat. Think life insurance schemes, investments, health insurance, and to fortify them all, some choose the path of decoding their stars—astrology. “It’s like the mother of all insurances,” laughs Anmol Gandhi, a 32-year-old business owner based in Indore. Gandhi hails from a family of lawyers, a tradition that he broke to set up his own business of providing technical assistance to law firms five years ago.

While his kin are “rational folks,” his interest in astrology has never been explicitly discouraged by them. “But they didn’t specifically encourage it either. Growing up, I had some women friends who were into astrology and Linda Goodman, and that’s where my love for the subject came from. I use it to mostly study people and how likely they are to do something or be a certain way. I am still a bit apprehensive about taking predictions too seriously though,” says Gandhi.

He is always quick to introduce people to the wonders of astrology, but is also mindful of its pitfalls. “Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, I always ask people to not design their lives around astrology and predictions, even if they do believe in them. It will, eventually, make you complacent and urge you to believe that you need to put in no effort to make anything happen,” shares Gandhi.

Contrary to popular belief, astrology cannot be mistaken for a magic wand that solves all of life’s problems, says Kochi-based astrology student Ishita Ray. “The expectation that wearing a gemstone will change one’s life is flawed,” she says. Television and popular culture, to a great extent, is to be blamed for the same.

Shows and newspaper columns dedicated to furnishing astrological solutions for life may have misled people into thinking that this ancient discipline is the secret behind not only marital bliss, but also world peace. “It isn’t, in fact, an exact science because nothing in this universe is static,” says Gandhi. “Astrology can talk about the potential one can or cannot unlock. If you tap into the good part, there’s a chance you may achieve the best possible results in a given situation; if you choose to do nothing, you won’t achieve anything, and your future will entirely depend on that action of yours. Let’s just say, astrology reveals to you the potential choices you may have in any given situation.”

Astrology for beginners

Owing to a white-centric world, the Western school of astrology based on Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos (meaning ‘four books’)—a text on astrological philosophy and practice written in the 2nd century AD—is among the most revered astrological disciplines, followed by Chinese and Vedic astrology in the Indian Subcontinent and Asia at large. However, there are over a hundred different schools of astrology, with each culture having designed their own regimen.

But according to Ray, it helps to remember that astrology can’t be unpacked like a capsule course for anyone attending a tutorial. “It’s basically a way of life. If you are an observant or a reflective person, you yourself can observe your own thoughts and your surroundings and figure out a way to design your own predictive method of finding patterns. It’s like seeing life as a graph—some part of it is going up, while the other is going down at a given point in time,” she says. So, for beginners, or individuals who have only just stumbled upon astrology, the key is to understand that this practice is largely about seeking out and deciphering patterns, which one can do without the crutch of astrology too.

Ray harks back to what American astronomer and planetary scientist Carl Sagan had famously said about the relationship between individuals and the universe: “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” Ray insists that instead of falling for the “gimmicky trends of ‘retrogrades’ and ‘planetary periods,’ it’s best to reflect on life,” emphasising the fact that astrology is essentially a “study of the within—it isn’t out there in the stars or in an almanac. It’s a predictive science based on reflective study.”

How to learn and tutor oneself

In astrology, one school may often lead to another. For both Ray and Vatsala Gaur, a 31-year-old Lucknow-based journalist and astrology enthusiast, their initiation into the subject happened with Western astrology, which is largely horoscopic or tropical, thereby employing a fixed zodiac system. However, with time, they gradually shifted to the Vedic regimen, which uses the sidereal zodiac system, in which positions of planets are computed based on where they are actually observed in the sky with respect to constellations.

“Vedic astrology is definitely an extremely rigorous vidya. With my access to ready-made birth charts and astrologers explaining the readings, I, so far, have not tried to learn it myself. However, even while depending on the readings of other astrologers there are a lot of limitations. Like, for example, based on what my birth chart shows, I can, at most, type moon in Pisces in the fifth house, for which I may get a ready-made result,” says Gaur. According to her, reading more and more charts always helps sharpen one's knowledge. “The quality of your prediction depends on your own level of consciousness. Each reader can bring their own interpretation of a placement. I guess, in the beginning, the sheer number of factors to consider may overwhelm someone looking to learn more about the discipline, but once you get a hang of it, it becomes relatively easier,” she adds.

Even when it comes to practices of divination, such as tarot, the subjectivity of interpreting the deck of 78 cards involving imagery and symbolism points to how nothing in the space or history of astrology can have a one-size-fits-all approach. “That’s why, it’s a little silly to fall for those predictions we see in astrology columns. Those are mostly a product of the Barnum Effect in astrology, where we think a ballpark approximation of traits is specific to how we are as individuals,” says Gandhi.

For 26-year-old Aritraa Dey, a tarot enthusiast based in Kolkata, her interest in this form of cartomancy developed in 2014, when she encountered the strikingly illustrated and colourful cards on Instagram. “I stayed hooked because the procedure of tarot reading doesn't involve random, basic information thrown at you based on planets and placements. I believe in the idea of luck and fate, and cards being pulled by the one who is seeking the reading almost feels like being a part of the process instead of being an external entity who is just a puppet in the hands of a know-it-all human,” she says.

While most students of any form of astrology have their own preferred online resources—like websites, blogs, content creators—or offline ones—like books—they largely concur on the fact that none of it is set in stone, and should be only used as a tool to understand oneself and, by extension, their surroundings better. “It can be easy to blame everything on your stars if you do not have a drive to transcend your limitations,” says Gaur, underlining the fact that more often than not, the fault does not, in fact, lie in our stars, as much as it lies in our minds.

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