ABSTRACT
The history of astrology, both ‘internally’ and ‘externally’, strongly suggests the overall development Weber called ‘disenchantment’. And this notwithstanding its complexity, nor the fact that at any one time in that history there are coexisting countermovements; nor the absence of a teleological and thus ‘necessary’ movement toward some sort of predetermined goal. As susceptible as anyone else to the seductions of the universalist promise of power, they have cast astrology as a misunderstood and unjustly unrecognized science, dealing with knowledge of an astrally determined future: a caricature at best, and an outright betrayal at worst. Ironically, to the extent that astrology is incorporated into a ‘New Age’ world-view, it becomes embroiled in this sterile dualism which simply feeds the fantasy of a single Truth, to be accomplished by finally successfully absorbing its symbiotic twin. In the case of understanding astrology as divination, however, there is another and more specific obstacle, with strong historical roots.
