ABSTRACT
Astrologers in the ‘West’ are no longer liable to be fined and imprisoned, although the last prominent cases were only in 1914 in the USA and 1917 in England. Thus Max Weber’s analysis provides an indispensable context for any adequate overall understanding of astrology. Astrology, like every other phenomenon, does not exist unaffected by, and without affecting, the world at large. Consequently it is not surprising that in both its ‘internal’ and ‘external’ relations, its history shows the disenchanting rationalism identified by Weber, that stands in the clearest possible contrast to its divinatory dimension. Astrology’s contemporary survival, and even in some respects flourishing, outrages Dawkins even more. He fails to see that it does so, in large part, not despite modern science but because of it, or rather, its effects. Modern astrology ‘inherited many interesting and profound ideas, but it distorted them, and replaced them by caricatures more adapted to the limited understanding of its practitioners.’.
