The Principle of Inversion or Astrology Outside-In

The Principle of Inversion, as I like to call it, is a very useful intellectual tool. It quite often provides a means of expanding insight into any topic it is applied to. For example it is generally accepted that our nervous system responds to outer stimuli and that these are the cause of a chain reaction in the ‘electrical impulses’ between our nerves, which on reaching the brain are transformed into sensation. If we apply the Principle of Inversion, we might ask if the ‘electrical’ activity observed is the result of sensory activity and not its cause. This has far reaching implications. It would mean that any attempts to use neurochemistry to exclusively define sense perception must ultimately fail, as it would be focussing on the end product of a chain of causes and not the causal inception.

Let us now apply the Principle of Inversion to Astrology.

In the tradition, as it is now understood, it is generally accepted that planetary configurations are the cause of events. All levels of judiciary astrology are founded on this axiom. But what if it is the other way around? Or more carefully put, what understanding can we gain if we consider the inverse possibility?

The event would prefigure the planetary configuration. This would mean in a birth chart that the entelechy (Greek, entelekheia: complete) that is born has chosen the date, time and place of birth, that is, has chosen the planetary condition of the chart. This suggests that the entelechy has its origin before conception, an argument that favours reincarnation.

For a horary chart this would suggest that the question, in itself, is already complete before it is asked. The question chooses the time, so to speak. This may be one reason why a repeated question will usually have the same answer, in spite of differences in time and even planetary condition.

With electional astrology we might have to ask whether the election of the chart by the astrologer is already part of the event. The event in itself is complete, in order to happen its window of opportunity must be opened, and the astrologer may be instrumental to this.

This whole chain of questioning brings us back to the age old question of fate vs. free will. On the one side it would appear that we choose our birth time and place. In the case of a question or an event it would seem at first that both are generally predetermined, they exist before asked or before they take place. On closer examination however we may argue that both or placed in the human context. They are complete, but they require human beings, for the most part, to open their window of opportunity, to give them actuality.

Along with the Principle of Inversion there is another. It may be called the Principle of the Periphery, and functions more or less similar to that of inversion. Here we are required to ask whether we shouldn’t also pay attention to the periphery, the planetary spheres, and not only the planets themselves. Here the idea of a window of opportunity takes on another aspect. The planetary spheres contain all potential, as every possible position of a planet is contained by them. Any particular configuration of planets would then act as a filter that allows a particular set of potentials through. The window. The spheres represent completeness, in a plural sense and thus embody all completeness, that is entelechy in all its myriads of form and potential.

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