In the parlance of 90’s advertising slogans, astrology is Marmite. Some love it, some loathe it, few are indifferent. It has a long and storied history of use alongside medicine, but little scientific support.¹ The majority of studies purporting to examine the accuracy of astrological prediction through tests or statistical examination of simplistic single data points (e.g. “Scorpios are more likely to be murderers”) perform poorly or deny its efficacy whereas only a handful support it, so the preponderance of current evidence refutes astrology. Unfortunately, there are to date no longitudinal studies of the objective performance of astrology as a predictive or analytical tool in real life, over decades, which a bit of careful thought might suggest is the only possible way that any form of divination can be scientifically tested with any expectation of obtaining meaningful results.

The only thing that comes close to supplying this missing real-life testing are the Gauquelin studies² of thousands of people’s birth times and their professions, which rather frustratingly simultaneously suggest an astrological effect (planets close to angles appear to be robustly correlated with profession) and deny it (these correlations do not always correspond with traditional astrological dicta, and the reliability of the data itself is questioned by sceptics). In the absence of such confirmation of its veracity, the onus on anyone using astrology is to ensure that its use does not impair judgement. In other words, anyone such as myself who uses astrology in practice to inform consequential actions (e.g. medicine, economics) must take steps to ensure that sound reasoning based on concrete circumstances and demonstrable facts are not superseded by astrological information.

Western herbal medicine, which many are surprised to learn is not synonymous with the much more well-known Traditional Chinese Medicine or Ayurvedic traditions, also has a long and storied history, but has arguably integrated post-Enlightenment scientific practice more than its oriental counterparts in the form of pharmacology and biomedical diagnostics. Herbal prescriptions are often based on common Western herbs such as Dandelion, Yarrow, Hawthorn, or Chamomile, and a few other key herbs pilfered from indigenous traditions around the world in magpie fashion: plants such as Ginseng from China, Echinacea root from North America, or Cat’s Claw from South America. These medicinal plants are then prescribed based on their traditional usage, modified by contemporary empirical (real-life) observations and pharmacological information, and (when available) clinical studies. In other words, where Western Herbal medicine may fall short of the full “Evidence-Based Medicine” playbook of requirements for practice, with its “gold standard” of double blind placebo-based human clinical trials for each purported usage of any individual substance, the shortfall is arguably supplied by a very long human history of medicinal involvement with these plants, in addition to a growing mechanistic understanding of botanical pharmacology. (Plus of course there is the oft-stated fact that many commonly used pharmaceutical drugs also fall short of the Evidence-Based Medicine gold standard, but that’s a whole other story).

I have gradually incorporated astrology into my practice as a medical herbalist over the past fifteen years or so. I became interested in it during the second year of my herbal medicine BSc back in 2003, on reading the book “Culpeper’s Medicine” by the accomplished Western herbalist and astrologer Graeme Tobyn, based on the life and practice of the maverick 16th century English apothecary astrologer Nicholas Culpeper. Tobyn’s book expertly outlines the traditional pre-Enlightenment practice of humoral medicine, with four humours based on the traditional Aristotelian elements – fire, air, earth and water – to describe and explain physiological changes in an elegant empirical system intended to assist health preservation in the days before microbiology. Astrology was a key part of this system since ancient times, as a convenient means of mapping the context of the patient’s illness and providing a framework for giving advice, shaping remedies, and developing the prognosis. This was by no means cut and dried: as Culpeper himself wrote:

“judge the length or shortness of the disease according as the disease is: for it is not to
be expected that a Feaver should last seven years; and it is as little to be hoped that a
Consumption should be cured in a day.”

In other words, astrology was utilised in the context of the real-life situation: it was a dialogue. Astrology was (and remains) a context-dependent art, not a monodirectional predictive device. When using astrology in my practice as a herbalist, I first make sure I have a mandate from the patient to use it. This is at least partly pragmatic – while I often look at the astrology to satisfy my curiosity and help bring to mind possibilities and remedies I may not come up with by more conventional means, interpreting an astrological chart is skilled work which takes time. Irrespective of what you think of astrology – if it’s objectively “real” or not – it requires actual brainwork, no less than medical diagnostics does.

One constructive metaphor for incorporating astrology into contemporary therapeutics could be a Venn diagram: in one circle, we have biomedical diagnostics, modern pathology, microbiology, pharmacology etc; and in the other, we have traditional humoral concepts and astrology. So assuming the client or patient wants me to look at the astrology, I first summarise the case, do a standard differential diagnosis, make a working diagnosis, and create a shortlist of potential plant based remedies and recommendations which may be of use. I then work through the astrology and develop a prognosis and a humoral diagnosis, and refine the treatments through this process. Any conclusions – the working diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment plan – must be compatible with both the biomedical and the humoral-astrological workups. In the hypothetical Venn diagram, the final workup must be drawn principally from the overlap between both circles. For a sceptic, the likelihood is that some important ideas may be excluded by using astrology in this way; in my view, the generation of diagnostic and treatment possibilities is enhanced, so long as care is taken not to neglect pathological or prescriptive potentials.

One fact that may surprise aficionados of contemporary astrology is that the astrological chart primarily made use of in traditional medical astrology is usually not the birth chart. The principal medical chart is often the decumbiture (if it can be got hold of), or more commonly a consultation chart. “Decumbiture” means “lying down” (having the same etymological root as “recumbent”) and is an astrological chart made for the moment when the subject has to take to their bed or is otherwise “laid low” by their illness; a hospital admission time will do as well. Often this time is unknown – patients frequently fail to look at the clock just as they collapse – so the second best option is the start time of a consultation with a practitioner (the consultation chart), discussing the medical issues at hand. In practice, any significant “threshold moment” will do, such as a time when significant medical results are first received, or the time of a significant scan or medical test – usually whichever time is accurate and available, relevant to the medical situation, and earliest in the sequence of events pertaining to the current illness.

This time will then be used to draw up an astrological chart – fast work with computers these days, mere seconds as opposed to twenty minutes or more to calculate one from scratch. An astrological chart is a two-dimensional map of the sky at the time and location of the event, featuring planets, prominent stars, and a few mathematical objects derived from other points in the sky such as the horizon, sun and moon. An astrological chart of any sort is therefore essentially an abstraction derived from real-world data, a conceptual mid-point between the objective features of the sky at the time and the inner world of astrology, populated and restructured by its unique symbol systems and language, to be enlivened through interpretation.

At the risk of labouring a point, the divinatory device of astrology is a kind of mind-machine based on fixed rules using abstracted real-world data as a starting point, and is not a direct interpretation of astronomical data. Astrology uses astronomy as a starting point, then codifies it using a set of rules, and it is this moving pattern that is then interpreted. Sceptical objections to astrology include such gems as “different systems of astrology use different zodiacs, the star signs have moved!” (referring to the precession of the equinoxes, recognised by astrologers since ancient times), or “there is a 13th sign, the zodiac wheel is wrong!” (the constellation Ophiuchus, ditto). To astrologers, such arguments sound like – and are – understandable misapprehensions. Astrology has always been based on this kind of mental mapping of real-world data points to a fixed conceptual framework. In pagan times, the planets were “the chariots of the gods”, not the gods themselves; similarly, the pattern-making movements of the big rocks and bright lights in the sky is the loom on which astrological mind-machines are made, and these mind-machines are the lens through which the astrologer views and projects their interpretations, not the big rocks or the bright lights themselves, or for that matter their NASA-calculated coordinates. To constructively utilise a bit of circular reasoning, in the Hermetic mysteries Mercury was the avatar of the human mind, the representative of science, astrology, and technology; the mind is the messenger, the interpreter, the machine, the non-binary god which connects the above with the below.

The client’s birth chart, an astrological sky-map made for the subject based on the time and place of their birth, may also be used. The value of the birth chart was to help diagnose Temperament (the subject’s baseline humoral balance, or physical tendencies) as well as the nature and location of any illnesses to which they were susceptible, in addition to possible timing and of major medical events or chronic illnesses. Because the birth chart is considered to encompass the subject’s whole life rather than just the specific events under scrutiny, in practice it was often subsidiary to decumbiture or consultation charts in medical situations. More pragmatically, the birth chart was (and still is) frequently unavailable when subjects didn’t know their time of birth, and even today birth times are often rounded up or down on birth certificates, rendering them unreliable, whereas the time of the consultation is always available. And in all cases, astrology was only applied with real-life context to inform it: some so-called reasoning errors are essential for astrology to work in practice, because in effect it is a context-dependent possibility-generating system.

A recent client in their 60s had recurrent, variable patches of itchy skin that cropped up all over their body for about thirty minutes at a time, about five days a week. The itching was intense but bearable, rated 6-7/10; in addition they had occasional intense sharp pain in their left big toe, which could be particularly problematic when driving – downward foot pressure on operating the clutch frequently brought it on. The client was an astrologer, and therefore able to supply an accurate birth chart, which had Saturn rising in its own sign Capricorn, opposed by Mars in Cancer. Amongst other things, Saturn symbolises the skin, and Mars inflammation; Mars in the watery sign Cancer, a sign Mars was traditionally said to be unhappy in (in its “fall”), is anecdotally associated with swellings and hypersensitivity reactions. This being the client’s birth chart, this observed tendency to skin reactivity was therefore likely to be inherent, not just a transient phenomenon; several other things could be inferred from Mars’ presence in the 7th house, the place just above the western horizon that is given the meaning of relationships – as, for example, that separations, relationship stress or interpersonal tensions could be a trigger for such reactions.

From the client’s birth chart their baseline temperament was worked out to be Melancholic Sanguine. Temperament gives information on both personality traits and physiology: in this case, the predominance of “earthy” melancholy with a streak of the “airy” sanguine humour suggests a serious thinker, a pragmatist, and a holder of grudges (melancholy) with a lighter, more playful and lenient side (sanguine); physically, they may be prone to depression, stiffness, coldness, and age-related disorders associated with retention of both physical and psychological “stuff”, though less so than a straight-up Melancholic type. On the other hand, the melancholic tendency to eat more than one can easily digest could be augmented by the secondary sanguine humour, which may increase appetite and sociability a bit. From the client’s case history I made a working diagnosis of pseudogout (the painful toe) and occult Tinea corporis infection (a parasitic skin fungus) with a possible prediabetic state, linked to background stress causing immune system changes over time – a so called Th1 to Th2 shift, which increases allergic sensitivity – plus metabolic changes linked to weight gain having negative effects on peripheral capillary and lymphatic drainage.

I also looked at the consultation chart, (shown below for any astrologically literate folk), set for the exact time their consultation with me began. The first thing I noted was the presence of a problematic planet Mars in Cancer right on the midheaven or M.C. (medium coeli), at the top of the chart at the highest point of the sun’s daily journey through the sky. Mars traditionally symbolises inflammation or problems, and is said to be weak or “in fall” in the zodiac sign Cancer; the midheaven is linked to treatment or medicine in medical astrology, and Mars is said to rule Aries , the sign on the western horizon or right-hand side of the chart³, which can indicate the client’s partner but also shows the therapist, in this case myself! So the astrology suggested there was a danger that medicines I prescribed could cause inflammatory reactions. More promisingly, in the daytime Saturnand the Sunare the “alternative rulers” (known as the almuten in traditional astrology) of Libraand Aries , the zodiac signs on the eastern and western horizon of the chart which represent the client and the practitioner, respectively. The Sun and Saturn were moving towards a harmonious 120-degree aspect of both each other and the degree of the eastern horizon or Ascendant (as this is where the sun ascends each morning), suggesting positive potentials in the therapeutic relationship.

The client also visited me in the hour of Mars, calculated by dividing the time between sunup and sundown by twelve, and signing each hour to a planet – which, by the way, is where we derive the names of the days of the week, as the days are named after the planet or planetary deity associated with the fist hour after sunrise. The hour of Mars can indicate “hard work” or some bumps in the road. The upshot of all this was that I advised the client to inform me and stop taking the medicine immediately if they had any uncomfortable reactions to anything I prescribed, and to be vigilant about any medicines or supplements being taken.

In the event, no serious adverse reactions occurred – but I recommended a ginseng supplement at one time which the eagle-eyed client noted the small print on the box said “may contain shellfish” to which they are violently allergic! (Incidentally, the zodiac sign Cancer represents the sea, and shellfish, its symbol being the crab). The purchase was not made, thankfully evading a potential medical emergency. The client also has some blood test readings showing a slow thyroid, the endocrine organ which controls metabolism, situated in the throat. Their thyroid is working at “normal” output levels and they have no symptoms of a slow thyroid, so they have sub-clinical hypothyroidism. Contemporary astrologers assign the thyroid to Mars, along with the adrenals and Mars’ traditional “rulership” of the gallbladder.⁴ Mars is traditionally said to rule the zodiac signs Aries and Scorpio, which in this chart are placed on the cusps of the 2nd and 7th houses, respectively. The 2nd house is the area of the sky midway between the eastern horizon and the “imum coeli” or I.C., the bottom of the chart and the northernmost point of the ecliptic (the plane of the earth’s orbit around the sun) beneath the horizon. The 7th house is the segment just above the western horizon on the right-hand side of the chart. The 2nd house traditionally represents the neck and throat, and the 7th house indicates the lumbar and renal region, suggesting that for this client the thyroid and the adrenals are both struggling in some way, and that medication could aggravate problems with these areas. Because of this client’s sensitivity to some thyroid-supporting plants, I was unable to effectively upgrade their thyroid function, and my strategy of using Dill seed (Anethum graveolens) to lower the levels of thyroid-stimulating hormone, initially effective, reversed and rebounded because the thyroid was not being sufficiently supported by other plants at the same time. The chart clearly shows all these potentials with the prominent 10th house Mars.

The consultation chart suggested the following prognosis: rapid change, with a benign but mutable condition which may revert for a while; some improvement before the end of August 2021, but full resolution not achieved until Spring 2022 (specifically by 30th April). This was based on the following factors: the rapidly-moving sign Libra rising; the “benefic” planet Jupiter in and ruling the 6th house of illness – the place just under the western horizon – in the “mutable” sign Pisces ; and Venus , the principal ruler of Libra and therefore the client’s avatar in the chart, moving into the next sign of Cancer and applying to a harmonious 120 degree aspect of Jupiter. This last condition was most propitious because Cancer is the sign in which Jupiter is said to be exalted, or on its best behaviour, and Pisces is the sign in which Venus is exalted, so the trine of Venus in Cancer to Jupiter in Pisces is called a “mutual reception”, a condition which is highly conducive to resolving problems. In other circumstances, it would be bad to have the client’s primary planetary representative (Venus) moving towards any sort of aspect of the ruler of the 6th house of illness (Jupiter), but in this case the mutual reception suggested a positive outcome.

The timing of the astrological prognosis was based on this applying aspect between Venus (the client) and Jupiter (the illness – or, in this case, because of the reception, its resolution). Venus had to move approximately nine degrees to complete this aspect, which, if taken to be months, corresponded with February 2022. I used another technique to check this timing: when the Sun arrived at a challenging 270 degree angle from its place in the original chart of the 27th May 2021 on the 25th February 2022, exactly three-quarters of the solar year later, there were several positive indications in this new chart which suggested to me that the following quarter of the year would bring clear improvements in health. This is a so-called “crisis chart” used in traditional medical astrology to time medical developments, and they were created using the Moon for acute conditions or the Sun in chronic conditions, by drawing up a new chart for the exact moment the Moon or Sun arrived at 90, 180, 270 or 360/0 from its original position, and reading this new chart both as a stand-alone chart and with reference to the original. This enables a month or a year (or longer) to be quartered (or further sub-divided) to help predict when things are likely to get better or worse, but the overall timing and tendencies can always be found in the original consultation chart. This notion of the “root chart” containing all the condensed information which can then be further teased out and added to with additional timing techniques is a key astrological principle.

The Moon, representing the body and fluctuations in physical health and correlated events, occupies the third house of the consultation chart, representing the mind, the daily routine, siblings, and short journeys, as well as the anatomical region of the arms, shoulders and hands. The Moon rules Cancer, the sign on the cusp of the Midheaven, representing work, mother, and medical treatments, among other things, and is placed in the fire sign Sagittarius ; she separates from an opposition (180 degree aspect) to Venus, the ruler of the Ascendant. Venus is placed in the sociable air sign Gemini , which rules the arms, shoulders and hands, in the 9th house – the area of the chart following the MC counting clockwise, between twelve and one o’clock – representing philosophy, higher education, belief, travel, and anatomically representing the sacral spine, hips and thighs. Because this is a separating aspect, showing things that have already occurred, we can infer predisposing factors from it; and because both Sagittarius and Gemini are known as “mutable” or
“double-bodied” signs, we can infer that there is more than one predisposing factor at work.

In medieval medical terms, these predisposing factors are likely due to Phlegm (Venus, Moon) in the Blood (Air signs, such as Gemini), which could be approximated to mean that some waste products of metabolism are building up and causing issues, and these may be associated with unprocessed emotions. In contemporary physiological terms, there may be an issue with sugars  (Venus) in the blood (Gemini), and perhaps this may be affecting the shoulder girdle and spine somehow – there may be laxity or tissue congestion in these areas, as Venus and Moon can both denote softness, swelling or sensitivity. Because Venus also rules Taurus on the cusp of the 8th
house – midway between the MC and the western horizon, or from one to two o’clock – an area of the chart representing the womb, and Venus and the Moon represent the womb and its lining, there may have been some issues there associated with pelvic and shoulder girdle alignment.

Psychologically, there may have been some stress associated with travel and work, or siblings and mother, which could have led to some indulgences (Venus) e.g. while on holiday or travelling, which aggravated sensitivity. It’s worth noting too that both the Moon and Venus are in square (90 degrees) to Neptune in the 6th house of illness: amongst other things, Neptune represents hypersensitivity, so any or all of these factors may be key descriptors of reasons for the client’s changeable physical issues.

The traditional humoral diagnosis extrapolated from the consultation chart following a full case history and physical examination was for excess Phlegm in the Blood, with outward Choler, and Wind-Melancholy increasing. “Outward choler” means the outward appearance of heat or inflammation, but the real issue was the build up of metabolic waste internally; “wind” = changeable symptoms, and “melancholy”= more toxic or less easily cleared waste causing aging or depression. A modern translation might be something on the lines of metabolic disturbance due to slow metabolism and excess sugar or fat intake resulting in increasing inflammation, predisposing to increasing neurological and capillary circulation disturbances, giving rise to changeable sensory symptoms. The Liver was too Cold, and the Stomach too Hot; so the prescription was based on plants traditionally represented by the planets Venus (representing the client), Mercury (traditionally ruled the feet), Sun (to strengthen vitality) and Saturn (traditionally rules the skin), with the aim of expelling phlegm and choler, cooling the stomach and heating the liver. Herbs of Jupiter, the ruler of the 6th house of illness, were avoided, because the physical liver and lungs – the parts of the body which Jupiter was said to rule or represent – were not diseased, so strengthening Jupiter here would be tantamount to strengthening the illness, not the client.

The final prescription, arrived at after tweaking over several months, is tabulated below:

Instructions: Steep the mixed herbs in 2 cups boiling water for up to 30 minutes. Strain, and drink two cups daily (e.g. one in the morning, one in the afternoon). Make fresh every day.

Events played out according to the sequence described by the initial prognosis. By April 2022 the client’s skin issues had all-but resolved, with no itching at all (0/10) and just an occasional red patch appearing, and the toe pain had completely gone (0/10). However still needed to use the herbs regularly, their cholesterol levels remained slightly high, and their sub-clinical low thyroid function persisted. If this client receives further treatment from me in future, I will most likely create a new consultation chart directed towards these issues because the timeframe inferred from the initial consultation chart has elapsed and the main presenting symptoms have shifted – or, as I like to think of it, a layer of the onion has been peeled off. This new consultation chart would then be used to help create a novel therapeutic framework, with the common-sense proviso that effective treatments or strategies will only be overhauled if they cease to be effective; in other words, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

In medieval and Renaissance astrological practice, physicians would often refuse to treat a patient deemed incurable or “having the finger of God upon them” in an astrological chart. But scientific “disproofs” of astrology have shown that “time twins”, people born at the same time and place, can have radically different lives. This doesn’t to my mind disprove astrology at all, as I argue that astrology only ever comes alive when plugged into a context, but this finding should liberate us from traditional fatalism – in Culpeper’s words, empirical knowledge can help us to “see what a Monster Tradition is, and… avoid being led by the nose by it, as Bears are led to the stake”. In the worst-case scenario, where perhaps astrology indicates that a health problem may not resolve or get worse, it is therefore helpful not to limit oneself to a predetermined outcome, as we know that a given set of astrological conditions can show up in more than one way. Depending on the canvas – the patient and their medical situation – the medical astrologer’s job is to help the client paint themselves into the best possible picture. In practice this means using an astrological prognosis as a jumping-off point; I see it as an elasticated blueprint, or a template – with good treatment, timelines can be extended or shrunk, and outcomes optimised.

In my own practice, the framework that astrology provides gives me greater assurance in my work, which is very valuable given that the confidence of healthcare providers in their treatments is strongly associated with their effectiveness in practice.⁵ It helps me be more objective and dispassionate in my evaluations, and tackle problems with greater equanimity; for example, if the astrology indicates a potential issue with the prescription, as in the case described above, being mindful of this potential can help mitigate or prevent any issues, or prevent them from derailing the therapeutic relationship. It inspires more inventive and lateral thinking when devising prescriptions and treatment strategies as a result of the mental limbo dance under the twin strictures of biomedical diagnostics and astrological symbolism. And last but not least, seeing one’s story described in symbols from the sky can itself have a healing effect: in the words of Viktor Frankl,

“despair is suffering without meaning”, and astrology is an ancient and powerful strange attractor for underlying patterns of significance, for divining a coherent and constructive answer to “why me?”

MGP 2024

Notes

¹ For a compilation of studies refuting astrology, see https://astrology-and-science.com/; for some supporting it, see https://www.astrology.co.uk/tests/

² https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/gauquelin-michel roland-1928-1991

³The chart is like an upside-down compass, with North at the bottom, the Eastern horizon on the left, South at the top, and West on the right.

⁴The thyroid and adrenals were not recognised organs in traditional medicine, whereas the gallbladder was well known. A similar issue applies to the pancreas, unknown to the ancients, which contemporary astrologers assign to Venus. Traditionally that region of the body (near the lower end of the ribcage on the left hand side, known as the left hypochondrium) would have been assigned to the Spleen, ruled by Saturn.

⁵See the work of Daniel Moerman, listed in the bibliography, on this topic: “skeptics can heal 30% to 40% of their patients with inert medication, while enthusiasts can heal 70% to 90%”.

Bibliography

Culpeper, N. (1655; repub. 2003). Astrological Judgment of Diseases from the Decumbiture of the Sick. Astrology Classics, U.S.A.
Culpeper, N. (1653; repub. 2007). Culpeper’s Complete Herbal. Wordsworth Reference, London.
Lilly, W. (1647; repub. 2004). Christian Astology, Books I & II. Astrology Classics, U.S.A.
Moerman, D. (2002). Meaning, medicine, and the ‘placebo effect’. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, U.K.
Saunders, R. (1677; repub. 2003). The Astrological Judgment and Practice of Physick. Astrology
Classics, U.S.A.
Tobyn, G. (1997). Culpeper’s Medicine. Element Books, U.K.