Astrologers: Question from a semi-skeptic.

[InvisibleTouch]

A few days ago I followed a link out of this group, to a site where you could create your astrological chart after putting in birthdate, time, and location. Then you could click on each aspect of the chart and a window would pop up with an interpretation. Sorry I don't have the link handy anymore, but it was a site recommended here, and as I'm always curious, I played with it for a while.

My question is - I kept getting contradictory information from the same chart. The explanations would say "You're skilled at putting thoughts and emotions into words" vs. "You have a hard time articulating your thoughts and emotions"; "You're a natural leadership figure" vs. "You feel more comfortable in a supportive, nurturing role"; "You prefer to be among people and don't like to be alone" vs. "You prefer to live in your own little private fantasy world." These aren't exact quotes, but this is the gist. Now, while some of these contradictory statements might just be true at different times and in different circumstances (sometimes I really am a natural leadership figure, and other times I really do prefer to meld into the background), there are other dichotomies that just can't be reconciled ("You prefer to be among people and dislike solitude" is false false false no matter how I turn it).

So ... what's up with that? I know this was just an automated program, but shouldn't all the aspects of a single chart harmonize to some degree?

I don't entirely discount the validity of astrology (but like a lot of other things, I feel that it "works" for reasons other than what most people seem to think), but it's incidents like the above that really make me wonder.

Any insights are appreciated.

[Nancy Waterman]

1. I have never liked computer generated charts for just this reason

The real art to astrology is weaving the whole thing together to get a coherent picture. There are often contradictory parts to a person, more often than not. But while one may be strongly activated during one period of time, a contradictory quality may be strong during another. If I were to describe each of the ingredients in a spaghetti sauce to you, they might sound contradictory, and you wouldn't get much of sense of the whole by tasting the various parts.

[Me.]

2. Not An Astrologer

but do know which house a planet is placed in and the degree, it's in, makes a difference. In addition, the planets movements have progressed since you were born and how they now affect your chart is also defining. And then there are tons of other aspects, chiron, nodes, ascendant etc, that go into defining the definitive you.

Einstein believed in astrology (there is a thread in this forum) and he was no mean shakes in the thinking dept.

[Eloriel]

3. There are so many different ways any one little piece of a chart

can manifest -- and they don't all manifest in exactly the same ways for everyone. In fact, the possible meanings and permutations in any given chart approach or exceed infinity, near as I can tell. Also, sometimes other factors outweigh or cancel certain things out. And Nancy's comments about the fact that we're all a mass of contradictions anyway (I certainly am!) is apt too.

Occasionally (or more often -- esp. with computer-generated charts), the way something is phrased doesn't quite fit the native, but rephrased it suddenly hits like a ton of bricks.

Etc.

As an aside, these are some of the types of issues you run into that make astrology difficult to impossible to "prove" scientifically -- it's simply not possible to quantify and pin down things about astrology in the way "science" demands. Or at least I've never been able to think of how it could be done, even remotely, and I've spent some time thinking about it.