Try telling someone you’re interested in astrology. Watch what happens. If they’re educated, they’ll probably smirk. Maybe laugh a little. They’ll think you’re strange, superstitious, gullible. And you’ll feel it — the dismissal. You’ve been placed outside the realm of reasonable people.

Why does this happen? Partly because we live in a world where science has become our religion. If something can’t be measured with an instrument or proven in a lab, it’s considered nonsense. That attitude has its uses — science has given us medicine, technology, and stability. But it has also produced a kind of arrogance. We forget that science itself is constantly wrong. Always. Medicine once thought bleeding a sick person was a cure. Later, doctors prescribed mercury. Now we use antibiotics — but even those are failing because of resistance. Science advances by failing forward. It’s not absolute truth. It’s trial and error.

And law? Law is also called a science. Yet how often does it fail? How often does justice miscarry? How many innocent people rot in prison while criminals walk free? Still, we don’t dismiss the law as superstition. We recognize its limits and work with it. But when it comes to astrology, we don’t extend the same courtesy. We lump it in with charlatans, gypsies, and frauds.

Part of that is because fraud exists in astrology. There are plenty of quacks who sell horoscopes for pocket change, making vague predictions that could apply to anyone. That’s real. But fraud exists everywhere. There are bad doctors. Corrupt lawyers. Scientists who fake their data. We don’t condemn entire disciplines because of their failures. But we do it with astrology. Why? Because it threatens our worldview.

So what is astrology, really? The word comes from aster, meaning star, and logos, meaning reason. It’s literally the “logic of the stars.” In Sanskrit it’s called Jyotisha — the science of light. That’s not a bad definition. Because astrology isn’t about fortune cookies or party tricks. It’s an attempt to understand how time itself — that great, invisible structure we live inside — leaves its imprint on human life.

Astrology claims there’s a connection between the heavens and human beings. That the movement of planets and stars lines up with patterns in our lives, even in the rise and fall of nations. That sounds strange to modern ears. But think about it: the Sun obviously shapes our existence. Without it there’s no life. Its cycles affect our moods, our crops, our very survival. The Moon pulls the tides of the ocean. If it can move entire seas, is it so absurd to imagine it might influence the rhythms of our bodies, which are mostly water? Jupiter and Saturn, massive planets, exert gravitational pull. The Sun itself responds to their presence — solar storms follow their cycles. If that’s true, why assume Earth, and we who live on it, are immune to such influence?

Skeptics say: correlation doesn’t equal causation. And that’s true. But remember: much of science began with nothing more than noticing patterns. Kepler saw that planets moved in ellipses before anyone knew why. Darwin noticed the beak of a finch before he had the theory of evolution. Observation first, explanation later. Astrology begins in the same way.

The ancient Indian sages, the Maharshis, were not fools. They spent lifetimes studying the patterns of the heavens. And they weren’t just scientists in the narrow sense. They were philosophers, psychologists, seekers of truth. They cultivated inner perception through practices like yoga. They claimed to reach states of awareness where they could perceive reality beyond the limits of the senses. We can laugh at that, or we can admit we barely understand consciousness at all. We’re happy to trust telescopes and microscopes. Why dismiss the mind itself as a tool of observation?

Here’s the deeper point: astrology isn’t really about predicting whether you’ll meet a tall stranger next week. It’s about meaning. It’s about seeing your life as part of a larger order. The modern worldview is materialistic. It says: you’re just atoms bumping around, your consciousness is an accident, and your life ends in nothing. That’s unbearable for most people. Astrology insists that life is not random. That your existence is tied into the fabric of the cosmos. That time itself has a structure, and you are woven into it.

In that sense, astrology is psychological as much as astronomical. It says your actions matter. Every choice ripples outward. Every consequence becomes another cause. That’s karma, in simple terms. It’s not a mystical punishment system. It’s the recognition that nothing you do is isolated. Your past choices shape your present. Your present shapes your future. Astrology tries to map those ripples against the movements of the stars. Whether the stars cause events, or whether they simply mirror them, is almost beside the point. The point is that existence is patterned, not chaotic.

And this is why people keep turning to astrology, even when it’s ridiculed. It speaks to something essential. It tells you that your struggles aren’t just random suffering. That your story has a shape. That you belong to something larger.

Look at it another way. Imagine a tree. If you cut it down and look at the rings, you’ll see thick bands every eleven years or so. Those rings correspond to solar cycles — periods of increased activity on the Sun’s surface. Now, the Sun is ninety-three million miles away, yet its rhythms leave fingerprints in the very wood of a tree. If that’s true for trees, is it so impossible that human lives bear similar marks?

Astrology divides its influence into three levels: physical, mental, and spiritual. Your environment, your temperament, your aspirations — all of these can be read, in part, through the patterns of time. Not as absolute destiny, but as possibility, as probability. The stars don’t write your script. But they might give you the stage directions.

The modern evolutionary theory tells us where we came from. It says nothing about where we’re going. Astrology dares to ask that question. It suggests that your life is not just the sum of your genes and accidents, but part of a longer journey — one that stretches beyond a single lifetime. That idea is old, yes. But it’s also profound. Because it answers the longing we all carry: the longing for meaning, for direction, for hope that our suffering is not wasted.

So should astrology be treated as a science? Maybe, maybe not. But at the very least, it deserves the respect we give to any serious attempt at knowledge. To dismiss it with a sneer is not rationality. It’s arrogance. True rationality demands curiosity. It demands that we examine what has lasted for millennia before we call it nonsense.

And perhaps that’s the final lesson. Astrology, whether you believe in its mechanics or not, forces you to confront the question of order versus chaos. Do you live in a meaningless universe, where your choices vanish into nothing? Or do you live in a cosmos where your life is connected, patterned, significant?

The ancients believed the latter. And maybe that’s why astrology has never died, despite all the ridicule. It refuses to let us forget that meaning itself might be written into the stars.