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Astrology between religion and science

An abridgement of Astrologie als Religion und "Erfahrungswissenschaft" (Astrology between religion and "experience-science") by Gustav-Adolf Schoener, REMID, Marburg 2002. Dr Schoener is at the Department of Religious Studies at Hannover University and is noted for his interest in astrology. It is based on the English translation by Shane Denson at www.esoterica.msu.edu/VolumeIV/astrology.htm, which has 19,200 words including a bibliography of 66 items (43 in German) and 80 footnotes.

Abstract -- Astrology assumes that all of nature including the planets has a spiritual essence linked by analogies and sympathies. It claims to provide a spiritual interpretation of the world based on scientific knowledge about planetary positions. That is, it wants to be religion and science at the same time. The absence of convincing scientific support for astrological claims makes it difficult to see astrology except in religious terms. Religious scholarship does not consider whether an idea is true or not. It considers only whether people hold such ideas, and the effect of those ideas on their experiences. Thus the mysterious ideas of astrology can be viewed in the same way as the ideas of life after death, purgatory, karma and reincarnation. The article also briefly describes the influence of Theosophist and Jungian ideas, and the importance of astrology in the history of religions. With 12 in-text references most of them in German.