A Few Thoughts
On astrology, “western medicine,” and “witchcraft”…
Above is a photo of the “Bridge of Flowers” which spans the Deerfield River and connects Shelburne and Buckland, MA. I have just returned from a a vacation to Massachusetts before the school year reasserts its dominance over my time and energy. I did not bring by laptop and thus authored no articles (nor engaged in any meaningful preparation, academically or otherwise) but I still feel a little unable to crack open the digital clamshell. So…some short thoughts here on the phone! (Also—BUY MY BOOK!)
I once came upon a theological argument of sorts in a YouTube comment thread. It went something like this—
Commenter 1–There must be truth to astrology proper because the Magi were clearly astrologers.
Commenter 2–No they weren’t! God would not use demons to guide them!
Commenter 1–But they were looking at the Heavens for signs! And a star guided them!
Commenter 2–That wasn’t a star according to Elder Pious The Wise of The Holy Mountain who, by way of his Charismatic Disclosures, revealed that the “star” was an Angel!
They’re both right—the Magi were astrologers who correctly interpreted divine signs in the heavens which indicated the location of the incarnation by focusing upon a star AND that star IS an angel.
First, a quick and helpful axiom—the ancients weren’t idiots. Without them we wouldn’t be here. If you find all advanced ancient peoples partaking in a particular practice, then that practice is REAL.
Astrology and astronomy were once one technique. “Astro” means “star,” of course, while “ology” is “study of” and “nomos” means “law.” Ancient people who had spent hours and hours observing the celestial world above (all with the knowledge that there is no thing separate from the spiritual) began to record patterns of the various bodies above and then, based on those movements, predict celestial events. The recordings and predictions became known as “the law of the stars” (astronomy). Likewise, based on these written records and predictions of stars fixed and wandering, these astronomers also studied their observations to understand what might be at stake for their respective communities, thus the “study of the stars” (astrology).
So—first observations are recorded and concrete predictions made and then these records are interpreted for their political significance.
Eventually two other things took place. One, the recorded data was so extensive and the catalogs so immense that one could spend all their time simply interpreting said data and thus astronomy and astrology were divorced. Two, soon after this divorce “mundane astrology” (predicting events of political significance by way of studying the stars) became slowly replaced by “natal astrology,” the interpretation of astrologically significant data for an individual alone in light of the celestial circumstances surrounding their birth.
How “accurate” natal astrology is and how “wicked” it is are two questions I’ve little interest in indulging. However, it’s clear that the invisible order by which all visible reality is supported is not literally insensible to the spiritually sensitive mind.
Every star, including the sun, is nothing more than the temporary veil draped across an angelic (or demonic?) presence. If you really want to be sure then read this.
I hate the term “western medicine,” or, more precisely, I hate what it means on a popular level.
Too often I hear (from some of the smartest people I’ve met) that “while western medicine treats symptoms, eastern medicine treats disease” or something similar. The problem is not that there is no distinction between traditional approaches to medicine and that these distinctions can be made to conform to two basic and large cultural arms of the human experience (which are in turn geographically differentiated), but that there are actually two very DIFFERENT modes of healing that the terms “eastern” and “western” obfuscate.
There is “traditional medicine” and “mechanistic medicine.” Traditional medicine is a human universal found in both the east and the west and while there are some differences here, they are actually far and few between. Traditional medicine writ large emphasizes the body as a holistic system whose boundaries are not terribly precise. Sometimes a particular herb is called for in order to eradicate a fever, other times prayer and herbs. Sometimes it’s the house of the sick person that must be blessed and other times it’s a relationship that needs to be severed. My ancestors in Europe (and in colonial and post-colonial North America) may not have spoken directly of chakras or the like but they were well-aware of the spiritual dimension of health.
Mechanistic medicine, however, is really what people mean when they speak of “western medicine,” crushing the legacy of traditional healing under the weight of ontologically materialistic medicinal theory and praxis. Mechanistic medicine, like all things modern, has been profoundly successful in its own right but, like all things modern, it utterly neglects entire areas of true human experience and true cosmic reality. Most preverse of all is that this neglect has been the very reason mechanistic medicine appears not simply successful but ultimately unassailable.
And what is the core doctrine of mechanistic medicine? The body is a machine which is run entirely upon physicalist (and empirically verifiable) principles and its borders are robust and mostly impregnable. Sure, there is something to “social psychology” and “family dynamics” but even if a religious ritual or ceremonial cleansing seems to be curative, this can only be due to a totally coincidental series of events dressed up in a “post hoc ergo proper hoc” fallacy OR this was just one of those “currently” mysterious happenings that more study will make un-incredible any day now.
What I find perhaps most risible in regards to mechanistic medicine are the twin concepts of “placebo” and “nocebo,” which are somehow perfectly acceptable despite the fact that both literally prove that the body is not at its highest and lowest (from base to tower) a machine but a hybrid system of bloody bones and noetic nimbus. The fact that someone appears to have mentally willed themselves well is just “the placebo effect” and therefore proof of nothing.
Incredible.
At the end of the day what most people have known for all time is true—the best cure for a broken arm is not just a sling but a blessing. Thankfully, modern people are learning that things of the spirit must be reckoned with and loved.
Oddly enough, when I was still a very young atheist there was one essay in Lewis Thomas’ magisterial The Lives of the Cell which already led be to engage in a little bit of questioning. While I cannot remember title of this particular essay (the book is currently in my classroom), it was discussing the ironic qualities of the first ever successful heart transplant.
On one hand, this was the height of innovation in that we were able to keep a human being alive while extracting their primary source of biological animation and replacing that source with a totally new one, all of which culminated in a far longer physical life for the patient.
On the other hand, what could be more basic and primitive than replacing one malfunctioning part for another? The essay was ultimately a meditation upon the necessity of preventative medicine, how preventative medicine should really be lauded as the most advanced healing practice, and why despite its relative lack of dramatic appearance, preventive medicine is really medicine at its apex.
Now, it’s obvious that both transplants (swapping parts) and preventative medicine (regular maintenance) can be equally confirmable to mechanistic medicine as such. However, I would say that in reality mechanistic medicine will always be biased towards something like a transplant because such a procedure clearly indulges the imagery of the body as a machine. Likewise, preventive medicine suggests an entire economy of health that goes far beyond the individual human body.
After all, what is greatest preventive medicine of all but prayer?
“Witchcraft” is another rather poorly applied moniker in quite many of its uses. Go ahead and visit Reddit or YouTube or any other number of platforms and forums and see precisely what so many of these “witches” are doing.
You’ll soon find that their “witchcraft” is almost indistinguishable from the traditional magical, ritual, and healing practices of their great great grandmothers and earlier, all of whom were more than likely rather standard and even “conservative” members of their local parish church, whether that be Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox.
It is, of course, not their fault that what they are engaged in is being called “witchcraft” since it appears the contemporary church in the west has completely dropped the ball on recognizing authentic folk practices as being licit and even “good.” The fact that young women (and young men) with a deep spiritual connection do not automatically seek out the church is a grave indictment of the current state of the church.
Thankfully, this will more than likely change due to the basic facts of general reënchantment and the concomitant parade of funerals which will evict the spirit of “the machine” from the pews.
Or at least I hope so…
