When you pick up a newspaper and flip to the back page the section on horoscopes is sure to catch your eye. Love them or hate them, most people are fascinated by these small boxes of generic, often feel-good information that you’re expected to take as gospel truth and fashion your day, week, month and life after. But how accurate are horoscopes? Are horoscopes accurate enough to rely on? To base major life decisions on?
Trying to decide on the accuracy of something often leads us back to the feet of traditional science and when we think of science as it is today astrology tends to fall short. What we forget is that astrology was once the science of the world, and then as we gained a more mathematical understanding of the world we abandoned the idea of the elements and the metaphysical and instead embraced only what we felt we could prove as absolute via ‘science’. However, because we cannot test astrology, because we dismiss its astronomical connections, because there isn’t a consolidated community presenting findings and beliefs, we dismiss the accuracy of astrology as mere chance and focus instead on where it makes mistakes in order to dismiss it as pseudo-science.
Most often when you hear people dismissing how accurate horoscopes are they point to those quick bits of information in popular magazines and the back pages of newspapers. They point out that these are very general and vague, almost exactly the same from sign to sign and from day to day. What many don’t understand is that true astrology is much more than these simple snippets. Just as you wouldn’t judge a religion based on a ‘Verse of the Day’ desk calendar, you likewise cannot dismiss astrology because of these back-page horoscopes.
In fact, when trying to decide just how accurate a horoscope might be it’s definitely worth considering how seriously Vedic astrology is taken in the country of India and by people who follow Hinduism! Vedic astrology, also known as Jyotisha or Jyotishya is used to determine everything from what career someone should have to what type of person they should marry. It’s such an intrinsic part of their culture that advanced degrees are offered in some Indian universities! If horoscopes aren’t accurate then how can they continue to be held in such high regard?
So then why are horoscopes accurate? If you’re interested in seeing just how accurate astrology and horoscopes can be then begin with having a full astrological chart created for you. Otherwise known as a natal chart and whether done using Western or Vedic astrology, your natal chart is used to create your horoscopes and looks at all the different influences affecting your life. Newspaper horoscopes look at only one influence known as your sun sign. This is what most people think of when they think of horoscopes. Sun signs: Leo, Virgo, Capricorn, etc., are all sun signs but there is more to a horoscope than just the sun sign and having a full natal astrological chart drawn up is the only way to truly determine just how accurate a horoscope can be.
When all the information of a natal chart is used to create an individuals’ horoscope the accuracy is well beyond that of a pop culture magazine or quick pick from a newspaper. If you have the results of your natal chart explained by a professional astrologist you’ll also receive even more meaningful insights than if you were simply trying to explain it all to yourself.
