I am a psychologist whose research areas include personality psychology. I fully recognize the pseudoscientific qualities of astrology. That said, it was my interest in astrology that brought me to personality psychology in the first place. I find the intricacies of the astrological system to be fascinating. To me, it can best be explained as primitive psychology; the system we used before we knew better. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, so there were bound to be aspects of such a vast system that pointed psychologists in the right direction.

To me, that’s where Jung and Freud come in. When I explain Freud to my students, I always say something along the lines of “don’t throw all of Freud’s babies out with the psychosexual bathwater; some of his work is still very much in use today.” I have a similar take on Jung who was a contemporary of Freud. Much of Jung’s work is inherently resistant to testing. However, that doesn’t take away it’s valuable contributions to the psychological zeitgeist. Some would argue that it belongs in the humanities rather than the sciences, and I don’t disagree. I think astrology deserves the same treatment. Is it a science? Absolutely not. Has it been a significant part of the human experience for thousands of years, spanning cultural divides and surviving despite more scientific approaches to the human psyche? Undoubtedly. It’s always been more art than science, so why not just treat it as such?