extraordinarily strident, passionate, and often filled with outrageous statements.
There is little dispassionate discussion of the issues and much poor scholarship on
both sides” (Mansfield, 1997). In such efforts as the Sophia Project, the Research
Group for the Critical Study of Astrology and the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cul-
tural Astronomy and Astrology, there are concerted attempts to remedy the lacunae of
proper scholarship in research into astrological and related studies.
On the one hand, attempts to “explain” astrology in scientific terms exist. For
instance, Seymour’s physical mechanism model for astrological influence is one such
effort (Seymour 1992). In this case, however, the model is primarily speculative rather
than a truly quantitative physical explanation. It is not supported by the acausal, non-
local, and participatory character of the contemporary quantum mechanical view of
nature. Instead, this last presupposes a unified view of the world as well as an acausal
interconnectedness that is more supportive of astrology’s fundamental assumption of
personal and collective relationship to the cosmos. Current chaos or complexity theo-
ry, in fact, suggests that the universe is more nonlinear than linear. This in turn
implies the possibility of acausal and nonlocal connections or correlations between
the various components of the macro-system (e.g., between planets and people) (Wal-
drop, 1992; Mansfield, 1995).
On the other hand, the SCSCAA, in particular, seeks to employ the phenom-
enological approach of the sociology of religion methodology that endeavors to sus-
pend judgments concerning the “truth” or validity of religious assertion and to look
instead at how such assertions develop, are used and affect those who hold them. A
particular concern is the study of astrology as a lingua franca.A sociology of astrology
becomes a study of both a subculture and society-at-large in how it accommodates or
reacts to the subculture. Astrology possesses a long history both for the West and
other cultures (e.g., those of India and China), and this history and perpetually chang-
ing social dynamic that it has been and continues to be is the focus of research efforts
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