On Campus News

Astrologers Take Star Trek to Final Frontier

By StudentFilmmakers.com
posted May 3, 2013, 13:41

Kepler College hosts panel discussion on May 11, 2013 to explore the future of astrology in an age of space colonization and warp drive. Panelists include astrologers Enid Newberg, Donna Woodwell, Samuel F. Reynolds and more.

Science fiction may imagine flights to distant stars, but astrology got there first.

"In one of the early Star Trek novels Mr. Spock observes: 'A starship is the incarnation of humanity's stubborn insistence that life has meaning,'" says Donna Woodwell, Austin, Texas, astrologer and co-editor of an upcoming book on astrology as practical wisdom. "Astrologers have practiced their art for more than 4,000 years. One could argue astrology is also humanity's stubborn insistence that life has meaning."

"Star Trek's fascinating characters and stories in outer space help us understand our inner spaces on Earth," says Ebony Magazine horoscope columnist Samuel F. Reynolds. "The ancients used mythic gods like Mercury and Mars to tell their stories. We use Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk."

Kepler College, an online school of astrology, will host "Star Trek: The Astrological Frontier," a two-hour panel discussion on astrology in a Star-Trek universe on Saturday, May 11 at 4 pm Eastern/1 pm Pacific.

"Astrology's basic premise is that there's a meaningful connection between the configuration of the heavens and what's happening where you are," explains Woodwell. "For any point in space-time, you can create a map of the surrounding sky. Astrologers say that map contains clues about the quality of time of that specific moment. It's as if all points in the universe reflect all other points in a profound way."

This notion leads to some mind-bending trains of thought.

Astrologers have found that the hypothetical charts of fictional characters can provide insight into the psychological realities of that character. For example, astrologers would see in the chart Captain Kirk, a brash explorer of new worlds, even though his birth is merely imagined for 220 years in the future.

"There is no known physical mechanism such as gravity or light that could account for an effect such as this. Something else must be at work, something that challenges a simple materialist view of reality. How many times can you argue such things are 'just a coincidence' without your words ringing hollow? Shouldn't this make us curious?" Woodwell said.

Modern astrology is the descendant of several thousand years of earth-based tradition. Panelists will also explore what happens when humans move out to colonize space.

"Different cultures have come up with a shorthand symbolic language for describing this sky symbolism. I'm sure when presented with a new sky on a distant world, humans will create a new language to describe their experience as beings connected to a living cosmos," says Enid Newberg, president of Kepler College, the online school of astrology that is hosting the event.

Resources:

http://www.kepler.edu/home/

http://www.astrology.com/blogs/donna-woodwell-la-vita-luna