Astrology, modernity and the project of self-identity. Issue 3 (2nd July 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Clements, Paul
• Is Part Of: Culture and religion. Volume 21:Issue 3(2020)
• Page Start: 259
• Page End: 279
• Publication Date: 2020-07-02
• Subjects: Dissonance -- divination -- legitimacy -- self-reflexivity -- spirituality -- trans-rational; Religion and culture -- Periodicals; 306.605
• DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2022.2093234
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1475-5610

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This speculative and interdisciplinary article about Western and UK astrology recognises a fluid craft steeped in pre-modern 'magical' symbolism accommodating to differing degrees the modern, linear and literal. It embraces an open framework and employs personal experience that highlights the problems with self-understanding. Astrology may appear detached from its traditional religious foundation and has struggled for cultural legitimacy, but it offers a spiritual understanding, self-knowledge and self-determination. It divines a range of symbolic possibilities that encourages elective biography and instructs the project of self-identity. This in part assuages the existential need to find meaning, questioning established thinking and 'rational' cultural practices. Astrology embeds a spiritual outlook that co-exists with profane individualism and materiality highlighting dissonant modernity.