A Double-Edged Sword? Astrology on the Internet

by Dr. Frances Clynes

Our thanks to the Sophia Centre (http://sophia-project.net) for permission to publish this essay.

Over four billion people worldwide are now on the Internet and astrology has adapted fast to this revolution in communications. The emergence of a global astrological community, especially on Facebook, may be seen as a positive – but the Internet also hosts a troubling abundance of poor quality ‘stargazing’. For her PhD thesis, the author interviewed 65 professional astrologers, and analysed comments from 500 respondents in the US and UK, on how astrology can win or lose in the networked society.

Introduction

According to Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells, who has written extensively on the networked society, the Internet “weaves the fabric of our lives”.1 He states that we live in, on, and by the Internet, in work, business, education, health, governance, entertainment, culture, politics, social movements, war and peace, and friends and family.  With over six billion subscribers using wireless devices, humanity, he claims, is almost fully connected in this network of computer networks that has become the backbone of all activities in all domains, resulting in a networked society that has subsumed the industrial society of the previous two centuries. Social networking sites on the Internet, he observes, have become the social spaces where people meet, socialise, retrieve information, express themselves, work, shop, create, imagine, participate, fight, and shape their experience.2

Despite all of this, he believes there is little understanding of the social implications of the Internet, and encourages the study of what people are actually doing on the Internet as a necessary step towards allowing humankind to fully understand the impact of the Internet on society.3

While, as pointed out by Lindsay Radermacher, there is a vast body of literature devoted to the practice of astrology, until the last decade modern academic work on the topic tended to focus on its history or its role in earlier cultures.4 Since the beginning of the 21st century, the body of literature focusing on astrology and its practice in today’s world has begun to expand. PhD theses by Nick Campion, Bernadette Brady, James Brockbank and an MPhil by Radermacher all focus on modern-day astrology as their subject matter. Their areas include belief in astrology, astrology in education, fate and determinism among astrologers, an examination of the theoretical foundations of astrology and an examination of the dialogue that takes place within an astrological consultation.5

Added to that list is my PhD and soon-to-be-submitted PhDs by Sophia Centre tutors Laura Andrikopoulos and Garry Phillipson.

In 2016 I graduated with a PhD from the Sophia Centre, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, having been supervised by Nick Campion. My thesis, examined the use of the Internet for astrology and by astrologers. As Castells and Radermacher, quoted above, argued, both the Internet and astrology are under-researched. Unsurprisingly, at the beginning of my research in 2007 there was virtually no scholarship on the use of the Internet by astrologers, or, its impact on astrology. If, as stated by Campion, astrology is part of the culture in which it exists, then Castells’ call for more study in the area of Internet practices is relevant to the use of the Internet for astrology.6 A lack of research in this area implies a lack of understanding of the implications of Internet use for astrology.

Patrick Curry stated in 1994 that in order to survive, astrologers have always adapted astrology to the prevailing culture.7 If they have continued to do so, it is possible that changes have occurred in how astrology is being practised in order to adapt it to Castells’ networked society.

What do we use the Internet for?

In 2013, a user of the website AskReddit posed the question, “If someone from the 1950s suddenly appeared today, what would be the most difficult thing to explain to them about life today?” One of the answers, that subsequently did the rounds on Facebook, was: “I possess a device, in my pocket that is capable of accessing the entirety of information known to man. I use it to look at pictures of cats and get in arguments with strangers”.8

In April 2017, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook were launching an augmented reality app using the Facebook camera, that was capable of identifying any object in the environment along with its location, such as the Eiffel Tower or Stonehenge, and allowing the user to access information about that object or edit that information. As an example of how it could be used, Zuckerberg demonstrated the app identifying a bowl of breakfast cereal on a table, placing the text “it’s feeding time” on the table whose dimensions it had been able to calculate, and adding animated mini-sharks diving in and out of the bowl.9

That the human race might use a transformative piece of technology like the Internet for amusement and triviality, was prophesised by one of the early Internet scholars, Erik Davis. In his 1998 book, Techgnosis: Myth, Magic and Mysticism in the Age of Information, discussing the immaterial and other-worldly nature of the place called cyberspace, he wrote:

“In fact many of the worlds we’ll have the opportunity to jack into will more than likely resemble some unholy combination of theme park, bookstore, and mall. The banal fate of our culture may be to simulate the astral realms inside our machines, and then blanket them with Planet Hollywood, Donkey Kong miniature-golf courses, and Lexis-Nexis fast-food data franchises.”10

The Internet’s capacity for trivialisation was one of the major concerns expressed by the sixty-five professional astrologers I interviewed for my PhD. It was also repeatedly commented on by the 500 respondents to questionnaires I had issued at conferences in the UK and the USA. That a great deal of the astrology to be found on it was superficial, meaningless, and sometimes blatantly inaccurate was the single biggest disadvantage they saw of the Internet. This however, was just one of many effects that the Internet has had on modern Western astrology, as it has had on many other areas of life since it began to be used by the general public. Alongside the negative effect of poor quality astrology, were the positive effects of the creation of a world-wide astrological community on Facebook. These were just two of the effects of the Internet on astrology that were identified by the astrologers, but they were the two that aroused the strongest reactions. It is the impact of these two developments, with which this paper is concerned.

The Internet

The Internet came into being in the US with the first message being sent across the network in 1969.11 While initially used for military purposes, it was released to the public in 1983. Technical developments, such as the creation of the World Wide Web in 1991, made the Internet user-friendly and accessible to people unfamiliar with complex technology. Further technical developments and a drop in the prices of computers led to a rapid spread of the Internet. 12 In 2018 there are over four billion users worldwide.13 

The first decade of the 21st century saw the introduction and rapid spread of social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.14 Known as Web 2.0, these applications not only allow users to participate in contributing, organising, and creating their content, but rely on the fact that many people will visit the sites and provide new content that keeps them fresh.15 The most widely used of the social media sites is Facebook which, in December 2017, reported that it has 2.13 billion users each month, making it the second most widely used website in the world.16

All of the astrologers I interviewed used the Internet and had done for many years. Only four of them were not regular users of Facebook.

My Results: Community and Communities

Academic debates about the nature of online communities include the issue of whether or not (in having members in different geographic locations) they actually merit the term ‘community’. Authors differ on whether communication alone, the basis of online communities, is sufficient to make a group a community.17 Almost all of my interviewees believe it is. They were asked if they experienced a sense of community with their online astrological contacts and, with very few exceptions, they stated that they did. The majority of them spoke about the sharing and dissemination of information, the discussion and exchange of views, and general social chit-chat as fundamental to online astrology groups.

As one interviewee said,

I find that I’m talking to a lot of astrologers, day by day, just because they’re my friends on Facebook. From all over the world.

The phrase “all over the world” came up frequently in this context. The interviewees spoke about daily contact with astrologers from all parts of the globe, which had not been possible before the advent of social media. One example of this came from a UK astrologer, who said, “Because you’re aware of what everybody else is doing. You can learn about what people are doing in the USA or Europe and you can feel, somehow, closer to the rest of the astrological community”. This development was seen as a highly positive effect of the Internet. As one astrologer put it, “I love the Internet and I love what the Internet has done for astrology, in that we didn’t really have a place to meet as a global community before”.

Other topics in the academic literature centre around a claim that online communities are a substitute, sometimes a poor substitute, for offline communities.18 In astrology, however, this substitution seems to be viewed positively, due to the fact that many astrologers live in areas where there are simply no offline astrological communities. Some of the interviewees spoke of this as the biggest gift the Internet has given to astrology and astrologers. They claimed that it enabled community and communication where there were none before and most described it as ending a sense of alienation or isolation for themselves or other people concerned. It came up in almost every interview.

One study of online community among Facebook groups found that online communities are often an extension of offline communities, with users befriending, online, people with whom they already have offline ties.19 This does not appear to be true, to the same extent, with astrologers. Only 55% of the questionnaire respondents said that some or all of their online friends were people with whom they had offline friendships. While in general, Facebook users ‘friend’ people they already know in the offline world, astrologers are more likely to do it the other way around. Most of the interviewees told of how they enjoyed meeting someone at a conference that they already knew online.

Detrimental effects of the Internet

The introduction to this article refers to the Internet’s capacity for trivialisation. The superficial nature and poor quality of much online astrology was the single greatest concern of the astrologers I interviewed. The level of concern ranged from the relaxed view that astrology had survived Roman emperors, Popes and the Enlightenment and would survive the Internet, to the view that astrology was being destroyed. For the astrologers on the greatly worried end of the spectrum, a major concern was that an outsider would assume a person calling him or herself an astrologer was, in fact, a qualified or experienced astrologer.

The term “instant experts” refers to individuals who claim expertise in a particular field, but who have little or no training or experience.20 Almost all the interviews expressed horror at the vast number of instant experts, and generally “bad” astrology to be found on the Internet. While some believed that beginners would learn to discern between “good” and “bad” astrology, others expressed concern that they would not. Many of them stated that a person who was new to astrology and eager to learn would not be able to differentiate between quality astrology and “garbage”.

However the greatest danger, it was believed, was to the potential clients of the instant experts. The interviewees were asked if they believed that poor quality, online astrological material could impact astrology itself. Most of their replies tended to focus on examples of bad practice they had experienced or of which they had heard. This question aroused some of the most strongly worded replies from all of the interviews. The words “fear” and “dangerous” came up frequently in relation to the damage the interviewees believed could be done to clients and, in some cases, students, by inexperienced astrologers who had not been properly taught by a school with a code of ethics. Almost all of them had examples from their dealings with clients and students, of astrologically inaccurate and usually highly negative interpretations of birth charts that had left a client or student highly distressed and frightened. Invariably, they reported, the interpretation had been something the client or student had read on the Internet or had been told by someone who had been self-taught via the Internet. There were fears that “good astrology” would somehow “get lost”, or damaged “to a very dangerous extent”.

On experienced astrologer saw “bad astrology” as a real danger:

The main challenge that I see is there’s a lot of bad astrology on the Internet and it doesn’t get corrected because it’s just being said off the cuff in various ways, in various threads and conversations. I think that creates a lot of misinformation for people that’s not being corrected. I don’t think it can be corrected – not easily.

It was pointed out by some interviewees that a well-designed website did not imply good astrology, but to an unsuspecting beginner a good website might appear authoritative. An astrologer and teacher with over forty years’ experience expressed her frustration at what she considered blind faith in Internet content.

What is the terrifying thing of the Internet, really, is that you can put anything out there; there’s nothing you can do about it. I’ve been to local groups in the past where somebody’s said, ‘oh, I read on the Internet that so-and-so…’, some piece that I think is bloody rubbish…and that is often something quite negative or something so fatalistic. And again, you challenge that and say ‘well, actually, no: that is definitely not true of this, there’s hundreds, thousands of examples to prove that is not true’. You can get the ‘oh well, it’s on the Internet!’ Now, there is a mindset, among some people, that if somebody’s published…on the Internet, it somehow gains validity by being there....So when an actual, physical astrologer says something they think, ‘oh well, that’s not on the Internet so they’re probably wrong.

However, when the information on the Internet about astrology is “good astrology”, or comes from what astrologers consider reliable sources, then the Internet's potential for the dissemination of information was seen as very positive, even by the astrologers above, who were highly critical of the poor quality of some Internet astrology and spoke of its dangers. Almost every astrologer interviewed spoke of dissemination of information as one of the main impacts that the Internet had on the world of astrology, and most qualified this statement. For example, a frequent comment was that there were “pluses and minuses” about this issue. This next astrologer’s view was highly representative of the views of most of the interviewees:

So I think there’s a two-pronged thing. On the one hand, serious astrology can really raise its profile via the Internet but, on the other hand, not-so-serious astrology gets itself a widespread profile and then just gives astrology a very bad name. So I think it’s a double-edged sword, there. It could be very, very good for some reasons but not for others. There’s the possibility of people alighting on serious, interesting, informative information that changes their views completely, of astrology. But there’s also the rubbish stuff and the sensational stuff which would just confirm their beliefs that it’s all rubbish.

One of the ways in which the dissemination of good quality astrological information was seen as positive was that it spread real astrology to the non-astrological public. A frequently expressed view was that social networks contribute to the spread of astrology among the general public and more people were becoming attracted to astrology. It had been noted by several interviewees that non-astrologers now tended to be more knowledgeable about astrology than previously. One interviewee reported a non-astrological friend inquiring a then current Mars Uranus square. Another has found that the term “Mercury Retrograde”, and all it implies to an astrologer, has entered the vernacular.

From these comments by the interviewees it can be concluded that, in the views of the astrologers, the main challenge to the principles of astrology, comes from people who consider themselves astrologers.21 Poor quality astrological material and astrological interpretations are viewed as dangerous, with many interviewees having seen examples of the danger it can do, first-hand. They believe that the problem of unqualified and untrained people acting as astrologers is greatly exacerbated by the Internet, where anyone can pose as a competent astrologer, and there is no peer-review or regulation. However there was also a plus side to the wide availability of astrological information on the Internet, which can spread “good astrology” and quality information when it comes from a reputable source. The majority of the interviewees made the point that anyone can create an astrological website or post astrological material on a Facebook page that is not in keeping with established good practice in astrology. This poses the question of whether astrology has been irretrievably compromised. The views of the interviewees suggest that, for them, this is a real danger.

Conclusions

“Pluses and minuses”; a “two-pronged thing”; a “double-edged sword”. These were expressions I heard frequently from the interviewees during the course of my research. So the Internet, it is believed, has much to offer astrologers, but can also be extremely damaging to new astrologers and their clients. There were many other effects mentioned by the astrologers, such as the ability to have clients in all corners of the globe, thanks to Skype, and the challenge the Internet posed to traditional astrological organisations which were structured to suit a pre-Internet world and were being forced to adapt.

However the two effects outlined in this paper, most clearly represented the mixed views of many of the interviewees.

The Internet is far from a static medium. What I termed “Astrology on the Go”, or the use of mobile devices for chart calculation, communication and learning, is rapidly increasing. The ability to create charts at the bus stop, on the train, or wherever the astrologer happens to be when an event occurs, is now an everyday reality. Today’s organisations know that a website is most likely to be viewed using a smart phone than any other device, and have to develop their sites accordingly.

The impact of mobile devices on astrology is an extension of the research I carried out, and an area deserving of research in its own right.

 

Endnotes:
1  Manuel Castells, 'Introduction', in Society and the Internet: How Networks of Information and Communication Are Changing Our Lives, ed. by M. Graham, W.H. Dutton, and M. Castells (Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. v-vi, p. v.
2  Castells, Introduction to Society and the Internet,p. v.
3  Castells, Introduction to Society and the Internet,pp. v-vi.
4  Lindsay Radermacher, 'The Role of Dialogue in Astrological Divination', (MPhil Thesis, University of Kent, 2011), p. vi.
5 Nicholas Campion, 'Prophecy, Cosmology and the New Age Movement: The Extent and Nature of Contemporary Belief in Astrology', (PhD, University of the West of England, 2004); Alison Gwendy Bird, 'Astrology in Education: An Ethnography', (University of Sussex, 2006); Bernadette Brady, 'Theories of Fate among Present-Day Astrologers', (University of Wales Trinity Saint David, 2011); James Brockbank, 'The Responsive Cosmos: An Enquiry into the Theoretical Foundation of Astrology', (University of Kent, 2012); Radermacher, 'The Role of Dialogue in Astrological Divination'.
6 Nicholas Campion, 'Introduction: Cultural Astronomy', in Astrology and the Academy, ed. by Patrick Curry and Michael York Nicholas Campion (Bristol: Cinnabar Books, 2004), pp. xv-vvv, p. xxii.
7 Patrick Curry, 'Foreword', The Moment of Astrology: Origins in Divination, Vol.Geoffrey Cornelius,Iss. (London: Arkana, 1994),  xi
8 Anon, "Askreddit,"  https://as.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/15yaap/if_someone_from_the_1950s_suddenly_appeared_today/c7qyp13/.[Accessed 07/08/2017]
9 Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook F8 Keynote Lecture. 2017, San Jose.
10 Erik Davis, Techgnosis: Myth, Magic and Mysticism in the Age of Information (London: Serpents Tail, 2004 [1998]), 231-32.
11 John Naughton, A Brief History of the Future: The Origins of the Internet (Phoenix and London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), 79
12 Naughton, A Brief History of the Future, 47.
13 Anon, "World Internet Statistics,"  http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm.[Accessed 04/03/2018]
14 Gary B. Shelley and Mark Frydenberg, Web 2.0: Concepts and Applications  (Boston: Course Technology,  Cengage Learning, 2011), 1.
15 Shelley and Frydenberg, Web 2.0: Concepts and Applications, 2.
16 Anon, "Facebook Newsroom: Statistics," Facebook,  http://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/.[Accessed 04/03/2018]
17 Derek Foster, 'Community and Identity in the Electronic Village', in Internet Culture, ed. by David Porter (New York London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 23-38, pp. 24-25; Philip E. Agre, 'Designing Genres for New Media: Social, Economic, and Political Contexts', in Cybersociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-Mediated Communication and Community, ed. by Steven G.  Jones (Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage, 1998), pp. 69-99, p. p. 72; Heidi Campbell, Exploring Religious Community Online: We Are One in the Network  (New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc, 2005), p. 42.
18 Jan A.G.M. van Dijk, 'The Reality of Virtual Communities', Trends in Communication, Vol.1,Iss.1 (1998), p 39-63,  44-45; Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier  (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000 (1993)), p. 5; Campbell, Exploring Religious Community Online, p. 29.
19 Nancy K. Baym, 'The Emergence of on-Line Community', in Cybersociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-Mediated Communication and Community, ed. by Steven G.  Jones (Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage, 1998), pp. 35-68, p. 38.
20 Lorne L. Dawson and Douglas E. Cowan, Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet  (New York ; London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 2-3.
21 Christopher Helland, 'Popular Religion and the World Wide Web: A Match Made in (Cyber) Heaven', in Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet, ed. by Lorne L. Dawson and Douglas E. Cowan (New York ; London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 23-35, pp. 24-25.

Bibliography:
Agre, Philip E., 'Designing Genres for New Media: Social, Economic, and Political Contexts', in CyberSociety 2.0: revisiting computer-mediated communication and community, ed. by Steven G.  Jones (Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage, 1998), pp. 69-99.
Anon, 'AskReddit'(2013) <https://as.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/15yaap/if_someone_from_the_1950s_suddenly_appeared_today/c7qyp13/>.
Anon, 'Facebook Newsroom: Statistics', Facebook, (2015) <http://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/>.
Anon, 'World Internet Statistics'(2018) <http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm>.
Baym, Nancy K., 'The Emergence of On-Line Community', in CyberSociety 2.0: revisiting computer-mediated communication and community, ed. by Steven G.  Jones (Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage, 1998), pp. 35-68.
Bird, Alison Gwendy, 'Astrology in Education: An Ethnography' (University of Sussex, 2006).
Brady, Bernadette, 'Theories of Fate among Present-day Astrologers' (University of Wales Trinity Saint David, 2011).
Brockbank, James, 'The Responsive Cosmos: An Enquiry Into the Theoretical Foundation of Astrology' (University of Kent, 2012).
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Campion, Nicholas, 'Introduction: Cultural Astronomy', in Astrology and the Academy, ed. by Patrick Curry and Michael York Nicholas Campion (Bristol: Cinnabar Books, 2004), pp. xv-vvv.
Campion, Nicholas, 'Prophecy, Cosmology and the New Age Movement: The Extent and Nature of Contemporary Belief in Astrology' (PhD, University of the West of England, 2004).
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Davis, Erik, TechGnosis: Myth, Magic and Mysticism in the Age of Information (London: Serpents Tail, 2004 [1998]).
Dawson, Lorne L., and Cowan, Douglas E., Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet (New York ; London: Routledge, 2004), p. 279 p.
Foster, Derek, 'Community and Identity in the Electronic Village', in Internet Culture, ed. by David Porter (New York London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 23-38.
Helland, Christopher, 'Popular Religion and the World Wide Web: A Match Made in (Cyber) heaven', in Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet, ed. by Lorne L. Dawson and Douglas E. Cowan (New York ; London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 23-35.
Naughton, John, A Brief History of the Future: The Origins of the Internet (Phoenix and London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000).
Radermacher, Lindsay, 'The Role of Dialogue in Astrological Divination' (MPhil Thesis, University of Kent, 2011).
Rheingold, Howard, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000 (1993)).
Shelley, Gary B., and Frydenberg, Mark, Web 2.0: Concepts and Applications, Shelley Cashmann Series (Boston: Course Technology,  Cengage Learning, 2011).
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Zuckerberg, Mark, 'Facebook F8 Keynote Lecture', in Facebook F8 Developer Conference 2017 (San Jose: 2017).

First published by: The Astrological Journal, Apr/May 2018

Author:
Frances Clynes has been a practising astrologer since 1987. Her qualifications include the Diploma from the Faculty of Astrological Studies (for whom she is an online lecturer and a distance learning tutor), an MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology, and a PhD from the Sophia Centre, where she is also a tutor. In addition, she is a board member of the Astrological Association and a council member of the Faculty of Astrological Studies.

The Astrological Association is on Facebook. Join us at: www.facebook.com/AstrologicalAssociation

Image sources:
All images: CC0 Creative Commons, via pixabay.com

© Frances Clynes - 2018

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