PONDERING PREDICTION (What is it?)      

January 2025

copyright © 2025 by Judith Hill

It’s the New Year! 2025. For quite a number of personal reasons, I decline from making formal public or personal “predictions”.  It’s just not my “thing”. However, I do feel incentivized to write about predictions: what are they, really? What aren’t they? What role did prediction play in the seventeenth century’s “Great Abandonment” of our science? Or, conversely, what hand did prediction play in promoting astrology’s wild popularity surge of the sixteenth century, and currently? And how might those who do offer yearly forecasts, frame these in an ethical and useful manner?

The public expects their nightly weather reports, and eagerly awaits news about that recently restless Volcano or this quarter’s economic forecast. Weirdly, astrologers are vilified for making similar “predictions”. Historically, only some kinds of predictions were deemed illegal by Renaissance church officials. “Natural Astrology” involving weather prediction, crops and medicine were considered a legitimate necessity. How come the public does not know this?

Those concerned about the religious ethics of astrological prediction, should note that not all of what is thought of as astrological prediction is actually “prediction”!  Or that practitioners have options to decline issuing predictions altogether (if they so please).

Perhaps because predictions have been overwhelmingly popular since Renaissance times (when they baited sales of era almanacs), most remain unaware of the manifold genres and uses of astrology that are not prediction reliant. Nor does the public seem aware that only natal prediction for individuals, for the most part, was anathema to Church fathers, and that this sentiment was set quite late in the historic timeline. Jesus himself predicted his own return by a sign to appear in the heavens. So it is time for both astrologers and the public to rethink this prejudice against astrology, and how it involves the subject “prediction”. If it is truly prediction at all!

Let’s examine what prediction actually entails as the different types of time projection. And most importantly, what prediction and forecasting are not.

Fulfilling a plan

If I inform a friend that I plan to purchase a delicious peach pie on Thursday for their dinner party; then come Thursday, buy that pie, this is not prediction. This is merely a fulfillment of something promised or planned that is already in the works. Once the plan is set, it will occur, sans an unsuspected intervention.  How does this translate to an astrological forecast?

Let’s imagine that Mary and John are working hard on their wedding plan and have set their happy day in March. The chart shows that March looks all clear, no obstructions, and excellent for marriage. Unless unsuspecting fate intervenes, Mary and John will be wed in March.

Their astrological transits merely facilitate an “OK, good”.  They do not state unequivocally that the pair will marry, only that the time is ripe to do so. 

Plan fulfillment is not a “prediction”.

It is conceivable that plans made by beings who might live in light-speed time transverse vast time spans from our tiny point of view. Our next Thursday’s pie plan could be their next Thursday plan, two thousand years hence. They wrote their future intent eons of years ago, and we are all stunned and amazed when it comes to pass.

A+B= C

Projected Logical Outcome

If Ed continues to drink and drive, come one fine day there will be consequences.

The skilled astrologer can look down the road and warn: “Ed…if you continue this habit there will be consequences on this future date (gives date).” Ed has a choice, as he can stop. In a sense he is moving in time at a certain speed towards a consequential cliff (logical outcome). The date he might drive over the cliff can be seen in the natal chart.  If he does not cease drinking and driving, he will go over the cliff near a certain date, just as the chart warns!

A+B=C does not constitute an absolute prediction. Neither does a warning of a likely but preventable outcomeconstitute a prediction or “playing God”. This form of assessed guidance is no different than any other kind of advice - excepting it introduces a time factor. The natal chart and transits show the skilled astrologer when all John’s stressors combine. I’ve observed how this mechanism plays out literally hundreds of times.

Projected Logical Outcome can be obtained from the natal chart singly (with indefinite timing), or with the natal plus transits and progressions (for definite timing), or from a horary chart (for approximate timing, sometimes definite).

Seasonal Expectation

Why do we not declare the expected arrival of Spring cherry blossoms a “prediction”?

All manner of life “blooms” come within each life season. Human blooms are unlike trees in that our ripening are individually determined. The natal chart with progressions and transits can identify and pre-determine when romance will bloom, weight will increase, money will flourish, and so forth. This will vary wildly per person!  This one is a childhood actor, and that one reaches fame at fifty. Some might say this does constitute prediction - but I say it is individual “seasonal expectation”, only legible to one literate in the astrological language.

‘Judicial’ vs ‘Natural’ Astrology

Natal astrology was prohibited at the Council of Trent (1545-1563), and more vigorously persecuted by Pope Sixtus V (1580-1590). However, the same council determined Medical Astrology as perfectly legal (and in fact, an expected practice of all realm physicians).  Why?

The council opined that the personal life and character predictions gleaned from natal charts, while thought valid, interfered with God’s Will. This was termed “Judicial Astrology”.  On the other hand, Medical Astrology was “Natural Astrology” (deemed necessary).

This ruling placed physicians in a horrid bind. A Renaissance physician must needfully assess the body’s innate weaknesses, and was expected to note the crises dates of illness, and to offer a reasonable prognosis.  The natal chart was held to be the perfect companion tool to command this process! But now, a doctor could wind up in the Tower of London for interpreting natal charts (as actually happened to John Dee for calculating the child princesses Elizabeth and Mary’s natal charts).

This conundrum partly explains why era physicians avoided reading the eminently revealing natal chart in favor of the somewhat lacking “consulting charts” and “decumbitures” (a chart for the first lying down). Their second reason for avoiding natal charts was because the common folk rarely knew their birth times! Natal charts were the province of Kings and gentry. However, natal charts continued turning up in case study collections and instructive books.

To study a natal chart for possible innate health vulnerabilities is not prediction. Would it construe a prediction for a farmer to state: “this soil looks thin and without augmentation might invite infestation”. No!  Similarly, the use of a natal chart to assess inherent physical frailties for the singular purpose of preempting plausible future health problems does not constitute a prediction. 

The Ripple of the Wave: The future that is already here

We tend to think of the future as anything forward from where we stand now. Next, we envision that immediate future as somehow disconnected from our current ‘now’. However, there are aspects of the close, immediate future that are already part of the present. The ocean wave’s ripples are already folding and rolling into the next wave.

 One’s current activities, connections, thoughts, current state, culture, environment, and plans already collude to cast their ripple forward in time.  The natal chart and transits brilliantly describe the immediate future that is factually already part of the present - and cannot be fully disconnected from the current moment.  To describe the immediate future is not in all cases quite the same as a prediction, because the near future is not actually always entirely different from “now”. To ponder upon ocean waves makes palpable this observation.

So, what is prediction? What would be the sort of illegal prediction the Renaissance Councils were so concerned about?

A prediction is definite, and quite specific statement about a future event, presented as truth, with no choice, and no way out.  “You will meet a red headed man on July 5th”, or old style “You will die falling into a giant bowel of cabbage soup” (yes, you would not believe these scary old listings, stated as truth, based on some previous chart). These sorts of absolute predictions either excite and thrill the client, or conversely, disturb, frighten or depress. Personally, I avoid them.

This “playing God” can be avoided by reframing your words to permit client free will, options, or prevention.  One can also frame one’s observations as potentials, not definites. 

Neither in all cases should one openly state what one sees. Deep down in the subconscious lies the life template. We already intimate or sense our life plan, though usually not consciously. To reveal this knowledge in the light of day may have its consequences, although sometimes wondrous ones. However, this is a delicate affair, requiring significant wisdom and clarity on the part of the practitioner.

Summary

All astrologers must wrestle with the subject of prediction, its ethics, uses, and foremost, should they, or should they not, they engage this style of the art? It is also important to comprehend the history of prediction prejudice, and the reasons why “Judicial” Astrology fueled the negative sentiment of astrology in the West that still hangs on today within many thought arenas.

To reiterate, Medical Astrology as “Natural Astrology”, was an expected tool of physicians in their practices. Being such, it was never considered unethical, unlawful, or evil!

Conversely, Natal astrology was deemed illegal in the sixteenth century primarily due to concern over its practitioners attempting to “play God”, and not because astrology itself was thought inherently invalid or irreligious.  Only ‘Judicial Astrology’ (inclusive of Natal), was banned for the purpose of discouraging predictions that might interfere with the Church’s concept of both human free will and the ‘will of God’. Many Popes and monks continued to study and practice Astrology for various purposes. It is curious to note that some of our Western House systems were developed by Christian monks!  I highly recommend reading the outstanding historical article: “Astrology’s Pew in Church” by Moby Dick Jacob.

One can practice both Medical and Natal astrology without making specific predictions that offer the client no outlet for personal decision, change, or remediation. The astrologer can never possibly know for sure what is going to happen. If inclined, astrologers can also practice within a number of specialty fields that require little or no forecasting whatsoever (e.g. Vocation, Location, Electional Astrology, Synastry, Medical, et al). Concerned practitioners can make their peace with these concepts in their own way.

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Our esteemed Academy Tutor, Marcus Romano, can be reached at: https://www.hillromanoastrology.com