Why Is Astrology So Hard to Define?

Ask ten different people what astrology is and you’ll probably receive ten different answers.

Some will dismiss it as superstition. Others will describe it as psychology, spirituality, or fortune telling. Some approach it as a symbolic language for understanding human experience, while others see it as an ancient divinatory practice. Even among astrologers themselves, there is remarkably little agreement about where astrology belongs.

Perhaps that isn’t because astrology has failed to define itself.

Perhaps it’s because we’re asking it to fit into categories that were never designed to contain it.

Our need to categorise

Human beings have an extraordinary ability to organise the world around us. We naturally classify, measure, compare, and create systems that help us make sense of reality. Much of our scientific progress has come from this ability to observe patterns, test ideas, and refine our understanding through evidence.

This way of knowing has transformed the world.

Medicine, engineering, astronomy, and countless other disciplines have flourished because of careful observation and rigorous testing. It has given us an incredible capacity to understand the physical universe and improve the quality of our lives.

The difficulty begins when we quietly assume that every meaningful human experience should be understood in exactly the same way.

Some questions are naturally suited to scientific investigation.

Others ask something entirely different.

Different questions

Science is remarkably good at asking questions about mechanism.

How does this happen?

What causes it?

Can the results be measured?

Can they be replicated?

These are invaluable questions, and they have fundamentally changed our understanding of the world.

But human beings have never only asked questions about mechanism.

We’ve also asked questions about meaning.

Why did this experience affect me so deeply?

Why does this moment feel significant?

How do I understand this chapter of my life?

How do I make sense of suffering, joy, coincidence, purpose, or change?

These aren’t necessarily questions with measurable answers, yet they’re no less human because of it.

Perhaps the mistake isn’t expecting science to answer these questions.

Perhaps it’s expecting every meaningful question to belong to science.

Astrology doesn’t fit neatly

This is where astrology becomes difficult to define.

It isn’t psychology, although many astrologers use psychological language.

It isn’t a religion, although it often invites reflection on questions that religions have explored for centuries.

It isn’t science, despite relying on precise astronomical calculations and mathematical techniques to determine the positions and movements of celestial bodies.

Nor is it simply fortune telling, despite that often being how it’s portrayed in popular culture.

Astrology seems to exist somewhere between several different ways of understanding reality, borrowing from each without being fully contained by any of them.

Perhaps that’s why it has remained so difficult to define.

An ancient practice in a modern world

One of the interesting assumptions we often make is that astrology should comfortably fit into one of our modern disciplines.

Yet astrology emerged long before those disciplines existed.

For much of human history, the boundaries between philosophy, astronomy, medicine, mathematics, religion, and astrology were far less distinct than they are today. These fields gradually specialised over centuries, each developing its own methods, language, and standards of evidence.

Astrology didn’t evolve outside those traditions.

It evolved before many of those distinctions had even been drawn.

Perhaps part of our difficulty lies in trying to place an ancient symbolic practice inside categories that were created much later.

A language of meaning

For me, astrology is perhaps best understood as a symbolic language.

Like literature, mythology, dreams, or poetry, symbolism isn’t primarily concerned with proving itself. Its purpose is to illuminate aspects of human experience that often resist straightforward explanation.

A poem isn’t considered successful because it can be scientifically verified.

A piece of music isn’t meaningful because it can be measured.

Their value lies elsewhere.

Astrology seems to operate in a similar way.

It invites us into a conversation with symbols that help us reflect on our lives, relationships, challenges, and patterns, provided we don’t mistake those symbols for a fixed identity. Whether someone understands those symbols psychologically, spiritually, philosophically, or through another framework will naturally depend on their own worldview.

Perhaps this is why two astrologers can look at the same chart and arrive at different, yet equally meaningful, insights.

They’re not simply applying a formula.

They’re participating in an act of interpretation.

The role of the astrologer

This is one of the aspects of astrology that I find most fascinating.

No birth chart speaks for itself.

There is always a person sitting with it.

Every astrologer brings their own experience, philosophy, training, cultural background, and understanding to the symbols they’re interpreting. The chart remains the same, yet the conversation that unfolds around it can vary considerably depending on who is reading it and what questions are being asked.

Jeffrey Cornelius explores this beautifully in The Moment of Astrology, where he examines astrology not simply as a technique, but as a living encounter between the astrologer, the client, and the symbolic moment itself. Whether or not one agrees with his conclusions, his work offers a thoughtful reminder that astrology cannot be reduced to calculations alone.

The calculations matter.

But so does the person interpreting them.

Why definition may be the wrong goal

Perhaps astrology has remained so difficult to define because we’re asking it to answer a question it was never intended to answer.

Instead of asking whether astrology is psychology, spirituality, science, religion, or fortune telling, perhaps we might ask what kind of practice it actually is.

For me, astrology sits at the meeting point of observation, symbolism, philosophy, and divination. It draws on precise astronomical calculation while inviting reflection on meaning, timing, and the unfolding of human experience. That combination is unusual, which may be exactly why it continues to resist simple definition.

Perhaps not everything valuable needs to fit neatly into a single category. The same might be true of ourselves.

Some practices invite us to measure.

Others invite us to interpret.

Astrology has always seemed to ask us to do a little of both.

If this reflection has you thinking about the stories and symbols through which you understand your own life, I’ve created a short reflective guide called The Pattern Finder. It’s designed to help you notice recurring thoughts, behaviours, and patterns without rushing to explain or resolve them. It offers a grounded place to become more attentive to your own experience, allowing meaning to emerge before conclusions do.

Photo Credit: Pixel Parker