This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
Abraham used logic and reason to develop faith in God, and in so doing advanced civilization above the superstitious nonsense of his time. Many looked to the sky and studied movements of the stars for spiritual guidance. Abraham was an astronomer as well, but he did not consider the stars and planets themselves gods. The people worshipped fire and stars, but Abraham searched for the singular supreme force of the universe. He considered everything else tools for creation. In order to advance, we likewise must worship the supreme force and not dwell on mere tools. Problems with astrology arise when it ignores logic to predict future events. Objects in outer space do not determine human experience, as they are not the supreme force of the universe.
Superstition results when physical phenomena are initiators of spiritual theory. It is alright to use physical evidence to support a testimony of God, but the testimony becomes idolatry if it starts with physical evidence rather than merely reinforces it. This is something that still unfortunately happens a lot–though we don’t recognize it because they do not admit that their theories are spiritual or “god.” But idolatry is still idolatry by any other name. We pride ourselves as being advanced and rational in modern times, but the worship of physical tools of creation is very prevalent, and astrology is just one case.
Indolence
One reason idolatry exists is sheer laziness. Like Harry Potter, we want to wave a magic wand to get what we want instead of taking the multitudinous hours it takes to understand something and make it happen. More than any time in history, modern civilization is obsessed with instant gratification, and that’s what “magic” is all about. Astrology is a shortcut to getting what you want. It’s like a magician who throws chicken bones on the sidewalk to decide which college you should apply for. The random movements of objects are treated as indicators of the future because to find an actual indicator of future events would be a long and complicated process.
Now, a lot of people say “divination” is the problem. Divination is evil!Skeptics expressed indignation when I claimed that “prudent” is a proper translation for the Hebrew qasam in Isaiah 3:2 and 2 Nephi 13:2. The word qasam really means “to practice divination.” Skeptics say the English word “prudent” obviously means something totally different than “divine.” Does it? A prudent person doesn’t throw chicken bones on the sidewalk, but divination is the “prediction” of future events, usually by “inspiration or divine afflatus.” Does this sound all that different than prudence–“foreseeing by instinct”? Duteronomy 18:10 condemns divination, but that verse is not talking about merely trying to predict future events. The context of the Lord’s commandment is to not “do after the abominations” of neighboring cultures and be “a consulter with familiar spirits” to divine the future.
Is it wrong to seek to find out the future? Well no, we do that all the time. That’s why I look at the calendar on the fridge. That’s why I go to school and seek a better chance at a happy future. It is smart to be concerned about the future, to figure out what is most likely to happen, and to try to make the best outcome possible. I often pray about future events. The problem is also not that astrologists try to figure out the future using physical objects and physical behavior. We do this as well. The temple is a physical place where we perform physical ordinances and consider physical behavior to plan for the future. But the big difference is that in the temple physicality is not treated as the determiner of future spiritual events; it is always the tool of creation. We perform spiritual excercises in the temple to develop godly behavior for the future. The future is not physical reality; it is something that is un-physical until the future becomes now. We therefore treat the future as a spiritual premise–faith–that requires physical exertion to create. We do not shy away from the difficulty of the work it requires to become godly.
Movies like Harry Potter portray “magic” short-cuts. I know, they are just movies, but I think they do encourage a modern-day tendency toward indolance. I recently saw a movie about a science that had “E=Mc²” on the chalkboard in the background. The director probably had no understanding of what this formula really means and the physics behind it, and just threw it in there to sound smart. It actually had nothing to do with what was going on. But movies portray a world where superheroes are just born that way or get exposed to some radioactivity and don’t really become exceptional because of merit. This encourages an attitude of entitlement where we don’t put in the physical exertion and just expect certain outcomes. I believe the reason superhero movies are so popular right now is because America is an aristocracy, and we are searching for some justification for having an elite class that is born into worldly success by little merit of their own. Mythology about divination provides good justification, just like it did in ancient Mesopatamia where an elite class likewise ruled society. If you are open to the idea of inherent exceptionalism, why, maybe you might be chosen by the gods of chance, just like the ocean inexplicably chose Moana to save the world from the volcano monster!
Modern day superstition.
Let Them Be For Signs & Seasons
All that being said, I think there is a place for treating celestial objects as signs of what is to physically come. When God created the world, He said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven… and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years.” The Hebrew word for “signs” is othoth, and derives from athah “to come.” It is used in the bible conjoined with “wonder.” This has led scholars the think that it refers to portents of big events to occur. A very basic example would be the expectation that when summer comes and the earth tilts closer to the sun, the climate will heat up.
Ellicott said in his bible commentary: “more probably it refers to the signs of the zodiac, which anciently played so important a part, not merely in astronomy, but in matters of daily life.” According to the Pulpit bible commentary, it “refers to the subsequent employment of the heavenly bodies ‘as marks or signs of important changes and occurrences in the kingdom of Providence.'” We might think back to the new star in the east which heralded the birth of Jesus Christ. That was a physical phenomenon that preceeded a physical event. As for the zodiac, the big dipper constellation is portrayed on the Salt Lake temple, along with several other temples. If the zodiac were just a bunch of random constellations that ancient superstitious people came up with, why would it be on the wall of the temple? Well, Truman Angell said it was a sign that “the lost may find themselves by the priesthood,” as ancient mariners used the big dipper to find their bearings. I would also point out the vision of stars in Book of Abraham, in which Abraham was told he was among the “noble and great ones.” In Egyptian terms, “noble and great” stars were the highest in the hierarchy of stars was the never-setting polar stars–the north star in the big dipper. And so, it is a sign for the ladder of heaven and priesthood authority to ascend it. In each case, the stars were symbolic “signs” of what was to come.
Abstract Letters Of An Alphabet – The word othoth is “the Hebrew word for both signs and letters of the alphabet.” So when Genesis says the luminaries were “signs” it is really saying “letter” like in an alphabet. Stars are like letters in an alphabet? That’s interesting. Letters in an alphabet are physical representations that are arranged to abstractly communicate some kind of message. So, these creations of the supreme force of the universe are abstract communications? Again, we do not worship created matter but creations certainly do provide artistic value of communication, do they not?
It is important to understand that letters of the alphabet are purely abstract. In other words, you don’t see the letter “t” and assume that because “t” is shaped like a cross this means the word “the” is talking about Jesus. The physical shape of “t” does not indicate its message. Likewise, the messages communicated by the stars may have little to do with the physical form of the stars themselves. The big mistake with astrology is studying the positions, the timing, imagery of bears and fish that constellations form, intersections of planets, etc. The star that appeared at Jesus’s birth did not hover over the city of Jeruslam as some mistakingly think. It appeared in the east, with a purely abstract meaning behind it.
It really changes our perspective to look at the night sky and see the stars as artistic communication from God, doesn’t it? This might help explain Psalm 147:4: “He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.” Each star has a name? Well sure, each letter of the alphabet has a sound, right? The difference is we only have a couple dozen letters in our alphabet while God has countless letters in the alphabet of the stars.
Psalm 19 gives a pretty clear explanation of the stars’ role as artistic communication from God: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.” (Psalm 19:1-3)
Did you catch that last part? There is no human language where the communications of God through the heavens above are not heard. This reminds me of D&C 88 which tells us Jesus is “the light which is in all things… and [in] the light which shineth, which giveth you light.” A light which lights all other lights. Greek philosophers believed heavenly luminaries were the basis for all human invention, an idea known as ‘natural philosophy.’ Here we learn the universe of God’s creation is inevitably echoed in any language system we humans devise. Our communication is based on His communication. That’s because language is primarily based on mathematical logic, and logic was the basis for God’s designs. “Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” (Psalm 19:1-3)
Here we go from the signs of the stars and end up with the testimony of the Lord. The “bridegroom” is, of course, a reference to Jesus’s covenent with the church as an eternal union. Jesus is born like the sun is born from the “end of the heaven,” or from the east. This explains why the star at his birth shone in the east. It also explain’s the orientation of modern-day temples east to west, and the symbolism seen in the Nauvoo temple of the sun circuiting from east to west. But again, these are abstract definitions. Rational understanding of astronomy can help guide human invention, just as the Greeks said, but there is also an abstract language of communication which strengthens our testimony of Christ and speaks to our spiritual covenants.
Godwin’s Cabalistic Encyclopedia defined othoth as “signs, tokens.” Macmillan in The Psalms defines athoth as “tokens or symbols… a symbol ratifying some covenant of God and man.” This brings us back to Abraham who viewed the stars as emblematic of a covenent between him and God, that his posterity would be as plentiful as the stars in the sky. Clarke’s bible commentary says the verse in Genesis 1 should be read as, “Let them ever be considered as continual tokens of God’s tender care for man, and as standing proofs of his continual miraculous interference.” Abraham did not investigate the stars as a basis of this covanent, but instead understood them to be the product of it, a signifier of it.
Token Or Myth? – A. Burt Horsley at BYU said of astrology: “We need to have our attitudes rationally as well as spiritually grounded and not be influenced and sustained by superstition and myth.” I think reading a horoscope to determine what you should do certainly falls under this category. There is no rational connection between the arrangment of the planets and human behavior. Now, the phases of the moon certainly affect human behavior, and we can logically explain why. It’s possible that stars may affect human behavior in a certain way, and maybe one day it will be explained how. Maybe the arrangement of the solar system affects the earth’s claimate which affects people’s personality. But the mistake is to draw a spiritual conclusion from a physical premise.
Superstition ends up leaving fortune to chance. It is essentially giving up on the future to fate instead of taking control and making fortune the outcome of choice. Faith in astrology bears no fruit, as James E. Talmage illustrated with the story of a boy who consulted a horoscope to deal with a bully at school. It’s true not everything in life has to be explained rationally to be true–faith is not always logically explained–but faith begins with a spiritual premise. Faith does not point to a physical object–whether it be an idol statue, or the planets in the sky, or a modern-day roll of the dice–as the basis for a spiritual explanation.
Esoteria isn’t bad necessarily. I enjoy reading Dan Brown novels and delving into things that are hard to explain. But the unexplained must not be used as a short-cut to justify not having a rational understanding. The luminaries of the sky are God’s tool of creation, and tools must not become our focus instead of the end product. The tool then becomes limiting. Never let yourself be limited by your tool.
We can find patterns that seem to work but are not rationally explained, such as with numerology. For example, when I saw a 12-point altar at an Egyptian temple I immediately thought of the Star of David with its 12 points. I figured there might be something to this pattern of the number 10, and then I remembered reading in a Hugh Nibley volume that this particular Egyptian temple site was related to the Sed-festival. I was then able to deduce how it relates to Abraham. But if we don’t deduce the reasoning behind things and just fixate on a number itself, we can lose focus. Numerology is merely logic, and logic is merely a tool to get to understanding.
The court of Babylon was amazed to find that the prophet Daniel could succeed where they failed at predicting future events. “And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm.” Was Daniel wrong to try to “divine” future events? No. It’s okay to try to figure out the future, plan for the future, and try to affect it. He was a prophet, but he succeeded because he did not use superstition like they did.
Isaiah had no qualms mocking astrologers who didn’t get it right. He imperiously mocked them for their useless superstition in the face of impending doom. “Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it.“ (Isaiah 47:13–14)