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I Don’t Believe in Astrology

A GUIDE TO THE

LIFE- CHANGING WISDOM OF THE STARS

DEBRA SILVERMAN

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To all of you who, for almost five decades, have sought me out and invited me to sit next to you as you opened up to your depths and shared your life story. I have loved listening to you.

I adore humans— I carry an unabashed love for the victors who made it through their pain, and as well for the perpetrators who created it. Evil has no power over compassion. My prayer is that we as a species will survive this narrow entrance into the next age, and that many more of us will touch the sweet spot of humility.

With the long view intact, we come to understand our humanness as an unfolding experiment that is about to turn a corner. I pray this book inspires compassion as you and your observer look at yourself and others. Th is is the doorway to the golden age. The future of our children is depending on us.

Astrology is assured of recognition from psychology, without further restrictions, because astrology represents the summation of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity.

— CARL JUNG

God doesn’t play dice.

—ALBERT EINSTEIN

I Don’t Believe in Astrology

Foreword

I FEEL LIKE THIS BOOK was written for me. For most of my life I was proud that I didn’t believe in astrology. Th is is not because I’m some materialist reductionist who thinks everything is woo-woo. I have a crystal in my pocket right now!

But the reason I didn’t believe in astrology is the out-of-the-box explanation of my natal chart didn’t really fit. Or rather, I felt like it could fit everyone. Like an amateur Penn & Teller, I was convinced that all this nonsense about astrology was just the cognitive bias called the Barnum effect writ large.

Underneath that intellectualism was another hidden motivation. I didn’t want anything to limit the possibilities of where I decided to take my life. I wanted to make my own stars, not let some intergalactic zodiac box me in.

When I met Debra Silverman, I told her, “I don’t believe in astrology.” She said, “Great, that’s the title of my next book!” We had a good laugh about it, but it didn’t change my belief. I nonetheless agreed to sit down with her for her flagship Four Elements reading. And it changed my life.

The superficial reading of my natal chart indeed didn’t really fit. But

as we dove deeper into the complexities of the houses, positions, and the entirety of my chart, certain guiding principles of my essence started to be revealed. The king skeptic was retreating under the pursuit of the queen of astrology.

Then, after two hours, it was checkmate. In understanding my inherent nature, I wasn’t limited— I was expanded. I clarified my mission and purpose on a deeper level and understood my inherent vulnerabilities. Th is information is invaluable.

I hope that in reading this book you will start to have the same experience. I invite you to engage with curiosity and creativity. And maybe, just maybe, this book will change your life like my first reading with Debra changed mine.

— Aubrey Marcus

Introduction

Astrology has an honorable history in every nation or race of people on the face of the earth that has attained any degree of civilization. Even the enemies of astrology cannot deny that fact.

—

Luke Dennis Broughton, Elements of Astrology, 1898

LET ME GUESS.

(1) You don’t really believe in astrology, though you kind of wish you did. You’re curious about whether I can change your mind. Or (2) You have begun to believe in astrology, yet you want more information to enhance your belief in the influence of the stars in your life. Either way, you’ve come to the right place. I call this book (and my podcast) I Don’t Believe in Astrology because I, too, was once a skeptic. Over time, that has changed. I have witnessed firsthand, over decades of professional practice applying both psychology and astrology, exactly what astrology is capable of. I am now a firm believer. Something brought you here— some inkling, curiosity, or feeling that there’s more to astrology than a personality sketch or a glib forecast for the day. What you know so far might not feel quite substantial enough

for you to really lean in. I bet you have fl irted with your sun sign. Maybe you’ve had a reading and been surprised at the accuracy. Perhaps you want to believe in a starry world where life finally makes sense.

Astrology is controversial. It might seem overly abstract or fanciful. Astrology to me is nothing less than medicine, a life-changing tool that makes a huge difference, even if you don’t believe in it.

Th ink about it: you don’t have to believe in something for it to work. I’ll bet you believe in true love, even if it has disappointed you at times. You believe in gravity, even though you might not understand it. You trust the lights will come on when you fl ick the switch without being able to explain it. Belief and understanding are not required for love or gravity or electricity to do their thing.

The same is true of astrology. You don’t have to understand it. It’s there for you, no belief required. Over time, and with the help of this book, you will find out how useful this timeless body of wisdom truly is. You don’t have to believe in astrology— astrology believes in you.

You are not a mistake. No one pushed you onto the bus called life— it’s a volunteer position. We are here on assignment. Even if you don’t believe that (yet), it doesn’t matter because it will become obvious to you eventually that everyone has a purpose and life lessons that are seeking them out.

There are issues that will keep showing up in life until you learn your lessons. Th is is a book about how to turn your confusion into purpose. It’s a book about the negative voices in your head, that restless sense of dissatisfaction, the feeling of not being sure of who you really are. Do you wonder if you’re living your purpose, whether you’re living the right life, whether you’re with the right partner, whether you’re in the right job? Everyone has that inner voice that tells them they are doing something wrong, or should be doing something differently, or should become someone better.

The voices in your head— I call them gremlins— are saboteurs. They say the meanest things about you! They bring you down until you finally

get fed up, hit the crisis point, and at last hear the quieter, kinder, more compassionate voice— the voice I call your observer. Astrology shows you the path through the forest of gremlins into the light of the observer, where those negative voices finally grow quiet enough for the truth to come through.

Astrology shows you who you really are and says, “Hey, this is you, and it’s okay. You have permission to be a daydreamer (Pisces), or ambitious (Capricorn), or strong (Aries). There are reasons you value freedom over relationships (Aquarius), or financial security over frivolous shopping (Taurus), or talking over listening (Gemini). It’s natural for you to obsess about the meaning of life (Sagittarius), or have a morbid curiosity about death (Scorpio), or feel best when your whole family is under one roof (Cancer), or be in love with romance (Libra), or try to get all the attention (Leo). You don’t need to fight it. It’s just you being you.”

Astrology turns on self-awareness. If you are a Virgo, astrology will teach you that you tend to criticize yourself. Bringing that into your awareness helps you to ease up and understand how important it is for you to be precise, attend to details, and check off your to-do list. The voice of your observer (I’m going to show you how to find and hear it) will say, “Yep, you criticize yourself. Don’t worry. You’re okay.” Then if someone tells you, “Hey, relax, it’s not that important,” you’ll know enough about yourself to know that for you, it is important, and that’s okay, too. You love the small stuff. You’ll know you’ve got the observer turned on when you learn to laugh at yourself a little, and genuinely be able to say to yourself, “Oh, there I go again. That’s so me!”

There are struggles inherent in each of the twelve signs. Find your struggle, and you will discover what you are here to learn. You’re not here by accident. There is a curriculum, and a folder in the home oﬃce with your name on it. Astrology provides the keyhole to peek through, to see what your lessons are. It’s a relief to know your challenges are happening for a reason, and most of all, to understand that you’re not to blame. A client once told me she got ten years’ worth of therapy out of one

astrology reading. With this book, I hope to help you gain that same benefit—it’s an eﬃcient route to self-knowledge and relief from your gremlins.

Guess what else: the things you think are wrong with you are your strengths. Th is is the ultimate truth about astrology: it changes what you thought was wrong. That may feel counterintuitive. You are going to find out how the lessons inherent in your struggles take you to the high road of your astrology chart— the road to your highest self. There are repetitive behaviors that follow you around. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing. Those behaviors are your signposts. They are at the heart of understanding your sign and yourself.

As you probably see by now, this isn’t a typical astrology book. Th is is a psychology-of-you book, utilizing astrology as the guiding light, the framework. The signs are a way to talk about your idiosyncrasies and show you that you don’t have to feel bad about your so-called faults. There is nothing wrong with you. You are a divine being who volunteered to take on this lifetime with the exact personality you have. I promise that is the truth. What a wonderful thought: you are exactly as you were meant to be.

ASTROLOGY AS MEDICINE

I understand why people resist and misunderstand astrology as a pseudoscience. It’s just plain strange that the position of the sun would influence your personality, that the moon’s position would describe the nature of your emotional temperament, and that the other planets would influence different aspects of your life. I know it sounds woo-woo, and we have been programmed to deny woo-woo. I certainly have. If you don’t identify with all things mystical or you are suspicious of magical thinking, I am right there with you. Why would you believe in astrology? Th ink about this: people once said all these same things about psychology—

some still do. People often keep their therapy a secret or are embarrassed to admit they tried it, and since not everyone gets results, they may decide it doesn’t work. Yet consider how many people therapy has helped.

I went to graduate school to study clinical psychology. My career has involved working with people of high standing in our society— serious people who live in a world of professionalism and tangible accomplishments. I’m a practical person who has been devoted to teaching and healing since a very young age. I pride myself on changing people’s lives. I focus on results. The goal for a healer is to assist someone with a problem or pain by taking them through a process so that at the end of the session, they walk out with a plan. I have noticed that most of my clients feel better at the end of a good astrology session. That’s a constant.

In almost five decades of being in practice, it’s still amazing to me how far I move someone along in a therapy session with their astrological chart in my hands, as compared to doing “ordinary” talk therapy. When people come to me complaining that they just aren’t right, I show them how untrue that is. I say, “Yes, I hear you, and guess what? I can explain all of this by looking at your chart. It’s all right here.”

The single most significant influence astrology has is the immediate and dramatic way it changes the way you speak to yourself. It shifts the voices in your head. You become more forgiving and tolerant of yourself and others.

There will always be skeptics. Recently a client told me that when she told her father, who is a doctor, that she was coming to see me, he started screaming at her. Th is was completely out of character for him. He told her, “Those people are quacks! No daughter of mine is wasting her money on astrology!” Th is happens. Her father was embodying the voice of the critic, the voice that defaults to simple logic that often operates in leftbrained people who only trust what they can prove. Fortunately, my client was able to hear her own voice. She left our session realizing many truths about herself. She understood that what she really wanted was to leave a job that made her unhappy and go back to school. She couldn’t

have gotten to that place listening to the voice of her father. Instead, she was able to hear her truth— all because of astrology.

The preconceptions, doubts, questions, or cynicism people bring into my oﬃce quickly evaporate when they feel seen and understood, sometimes for the first time. I love the skeptics. I love it when they get to the end of a session and they say, “How do you know all this? You know me so well. You know me better than I know myself!” They leave with profound insights into their character—with stars in their eyes and a softer heart.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Th is isn’t one more spiritual book fi lled with theories. It’s not going to tell you to buy expensive green drinks, take some newfangled supplement, or encourage you to collect crystals. The truth is that when your “human” gets triggered, the crystals aren’t going to help you. You could be meditating every day and still have gremlins.

There is an epidemic on this planet of anxiety, depression, addiction, all things that describe the personality seeking comfort or some kind of relief from the gremlins. The billion-dollar industries of therapy, biohacking, and self-help can all be reduced to a single question: Are you at peace with who you are? I can guarantee you are going to say no, and that is why you are reading this book.

The function of this book is to give you access to the voice of compassion that knows you are okay, lovable, and a beautiful soul. Learning about yourself in this book will increase your self-awareness and give you access to a kinder inner voice. Who doesn’t need that? The reason people love astrology is because they get insights about themselves that are so different from what their inner critic tells them. Once the observer is turned on, you will have the musculature to activate your positive inner voice through the practice of channeling the observer— and just like that, the gremlins will have nothing on you.

In part 1, you’ll learn about the unfriendly nature of the human condition and how it is not your fault. You are built to sabotage yourself. You will discover how to use psychology with astrology. You’ll learn how to identify the specific gremlins that come with your chart. You’ll learn the technology of how to tap the power of your observer to access the high road of your character. Th is is how you fall in love with the crazy thing called life.

Part 2 consists of 13 chapters, one for each sign, and a special chapter just for the thirteenth sign, which I won’t tell you about just yet. Each chapter will include a psychological analysis of the sun sign, a profi le of someone with this sign, what this sign looks like on the low road and on the high road, how this sign can best work with the observer (you’ll learn about this concept in part 1), what your life lesson is if you are this sign, what medicine will help you, and what it looks and feels like if your moon, Mercury, or Saturn is in this sign, or if this is your rising sign. At the end of each chapter, you’ll get a special meditation just for you, and then I’ll sum it all up by telling you about the sign’s essence.

Just so you know, not everyone relates to their sun sign. In fact, this is one of the main reasons some people don’t believe in astrology. There are good reasons why you might not be a pure example of your sun sign. It might be your moon or your rising sign showing up with a stronger influence. If you have multiple planets in a different sign (a stellium), that sign takes precedence. The planets themselves also have their own qualities and were in certain houses at the time of your birth. All that colors the expression of your sun sign (I’ll tell you more about these influences in part 1). Astrology is complex, with many factors at work. You don’t need to understand at the level of a professional astrologer. What matters is that the themes in your chart will explain you to yourself, and help you to understand others.

There is no one you know who doesn’t have a mental health issue that plagues them. It is a universal song that is remedied with awareness, although never completely corrected. We live this life managing and healing

the voices in our heads, which are simply described by the twelve signs. It will become almost funny when you see how obvious it is what your internal dialogue repeats. It becomes endearing that the very things that are driving you crazy— and they really are— are your best friends. Every single one of your crises is a doorway to your awakening. Similarly, all your gremlins are reciting the broken records that are your alerts, your SOS to say, “I must need help because the same things keep happening to me.”

Astrology is a doorway into a chamber of timeless wisdom. Your soul is waiting for you to become conscious of your assignment. While it might seem mystical or like a Disney movie that a book could magically bring you closer to your soul, that is my hope for this book. Who has ever given you permission slips to understand yourself and be yourself? That is the ingredient irritating your system, causing you discomfort and that underlying sense of dissatisfaction. While you may think you’ve got a spiritual practice going, until you fall in love with your unique soul and the requirements that come with it, you’re fooling yourself.

So come on in! It’s so bright and meaningful inside this sacred conversation. My Gemini personality wants you to play with me, and I just want you to jump in right now and begin this process. So let’s go!

PART I Psychological Astrology and the Nature of the Unconscious Mind

As long as man struggles with his mortality, he is affected by the myriad mutations of heaven and earth. Astrology is the study of man’s response to planetary stimuli. The stars have no conscious benevolence or animosity; they merely send forth positive and negative radiations. Of themselves, these do not help or harm humanity, but o er a lawful channel for the outward operation of cause-e ect equilibriums.

—Paramahansa Yogananda , Autobiography of a Yogi

Falling in Love with Your Fate

Have you ever asked yourself: What am I here for? What am I supposed to be in this life? If you have, you have begun to live in a new way. It is my deep belief that the function of astrology is to help men and women, who have begun to ask questions concerning the purpose and meaning of their own lives, to find answers to these questions. Astrology has little real value to offer to people who do not ask such questions.

— Dane Rudhyar

IT’S A SETUP. YOU COULDN’T get it right, even if you tried. We’re all guilty— of being human. We sabotage ourselves. We don’t act in our own best interest. We break people’s hearts, and our hearts get broken. We leave, and are left. We betray, and are betrayed. Someone you know will cheat, get addicted, ghost people. We insist on acting in ways that are not in our own best interest, make us feel bad, and set us up to question who we are as individuals and even as a species. At worst, these existential questions plague us with no satisfying answers. It is how we are wired. Human nature has a strange and nonsensical operating system.

Here’s a thought: What if it’s not anybody’s fault that we are a bad design? Not your parents’, not your partner’s, not your life choices’, and not your fault that your mind doesn’t move directly to comfort, wisdom, or clear answers? Wouldn’t that be a relief?

When I was in my twenties in graduate school for clinical psychology, I remember at the very beginning of the program I was in a room with about fi fty other students. The professor asked us why we wanted to study psychology. I raised my hand and said, “Because I want to know why we don’t do the things that are good for us. Why don’t we exercise? Why don’t we eat well? Why don’t we do what will set us free? Why don’t we quit the job we hate? Why don’t we leave the relationship that’s not healthy?” I really wanted to know. It was the reason I chose psychology— why don’t we humans do what will make us happy?

Psychology never answered that question completely . . . astrology did. The answer to that question is simple: it’s our design faults. It’s the way we are wired. People are so stupid, they don’t even know they’re smart. And that’s just dumb! The good news is that it’s not fatal.

We are evolving. You wouldn’t be reading this book if you didn’t have an appetite to learn and grow. However, no matter how evolved we get, inside everyone’s mind lives unconscious impulses keeping us from doing what’s good for us. We can’t explain why it’s so easy to slide into laziness, depression, or anxiety— those saboteurs arrive and we surrender. We can’t help it—human nature by design has a natural propensity to go to the lowest level and let gravity take over. It’s the kid who steals the candy and says, “I couldn’t help it!”

Let’s be honest: it takes so much effort to take the high road. We doubt our instincts and our decisions. We are not designed to immediately forgive or to feel joy easily. We tend to blame before we forgive—forgiveness is a learned skill and blame is an automatic behavior. Forgiveness doesn’t come naturally.

Here are some examples of the human condition and our faulty design (I’ll point out more throughout the book):

y Peace eludes us: The first and most important design fault is that the human mind cannot sustain peace. We struggle. We have a hard time getting along with each other. We live for drama. Th ink about it: the people we pay the most, actors and athletes, are the ones who create drama for us to watch. We fear differences. We judge each other, often uncharitably. We gossip. We’re nosy— popular culture and social media are based on that truth.

We especially talk badly, internally, about ourselves. Is there anyone who doesn’t live with a negative voice in their head that self-doubts, even degrades and demeans? Those voices get loud, whether it’s the voice that criticizes what you see in the mirror first thing in the morning, or the one that keeps you up in the middle of the night, worrying about what happened or what’s to come. We worry— oh, how we worry! We worry about whether we’re doing the right thing, making the right decision, making the most out of our lives, doing what we should be doing or doing something we shouldn’t be doing; whether we are really loved or loving well enough; whether we are wasting our lives. We are consistently unsettled. The universal inner dialogue is too often riddled with fear, judgments, and busyness. That’s just nuts!

y Forgiveness doesn’t come naturally— blame and shame do: For so many, apologizing is not natural. We immediately blame the other, and walk away with a grudge. We aren’t designed to take responsibility for our lives. We aren’t built to own our humanness. We make mistakes. Rather than admitting to them, we tend to turn to blame, denial, addiction, escapism, and secret shame.

It’s someone else’s fault that the relationship failed, the addiction developed, the job was lost, the accident happened, the childhood was ruined. Th ink of the child who spills the juice and when his

mother turns around, points at his brother and says, “He did it!” leaving the mother perplexed because nobody will take responsibility. In a moment, everyone is angry, caught in the web of human nature. Blame is simply part of the human condition. It’s way too easy to point the finger rather than accept that our imperfections might have something to teach us about compassion.

y We are pathologically insecure: Another strange design fault are our inherent feelings of insecurity. Everyone has them. We feel watched and judged, if not by others, then by the voices inside our heads— that running commentary that creates and encourages insecurities. Even with therapy and meditation, too often the results are disappointing. Many give up when the effort doesn’t feel worth the results. And so we return to the broken record that something is wrong with us. We must be bad because we are unhappy. What kind of logic is that? (Taurus, Virgo, and Cancer are the signs most susceptible to insecurity.)

y We learn the hard way: Often, it takes a tragedy, like a serious illness or a brush with death, to change behavior or attitude. In my early twenties, I was introduced to the books of Alice Bailey— they were the first stop on my spiritual journey. In her book Initiation, Human and Solar, she wrote (I am paraphrasing) that the goal of this game called life is to go through initiations— better known as crises— to see if you will allow your soul to intervene. In other words, the purpose of crisis is to see whether or not you will wake up, seek your soul, and turn these lessons into a joyful practice of full acceptance. Welcome to planet Earth, where you will be presented with meaningful lessons over and over again, disguised as your personal trauma drama, until you finally get the message— whether you like it or not. It’s the only way we really learn. Too bad no one informed you (until now).

y We prioritize instant grati cation: We choose instant gratification over patience. We are not built for future pacing. We go for

immediate pleasure rather than preparing for what’s to come. I find it so strange that we as a collective cannot look generations ahead to contemplate the implications of our actions for our children’s children. Humans do not come programmed with the long view or a trustworthy impulse control. (Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius are most likely to fall prey to this one.) Humans are consumption machines.

y We resist change: Think about the past and your ancestors; they struggled just like you. Their hearts got broken, they got sick, they did things they regretted, they got hurt, they lived unhappily. Here we are, generations later, doing exactly the same things. The sins of our fathers and mothers follow us around. We resist changing the story. We resist change altogether. We may read books about how to change. In reality, it’s easy to contemplate and hard to do. Dare I say that as a species, we are lazy, impulsive, and naturally lack wisdom? (Taurus, Cancer, and Scorpio really resist change!)

y We have triggers: If I look at your chart, I will know exactly how to push your buttons. For a Virgo, I just make a mess and leave it. For a Gemini, I refuse to talk. For a Leo, I ignore you. For an Aries, I disagree with you. For an Aquarius, I tell you you’re just like everybody else. For a Cancer, I insult your family. Once the ego is triggered by your family member, your boss, your mean friend, or someone on the internet, any wisdom you might have been studying or good habits you’ve been trying to implement go right out the window.

Th ink about driving a car, getting cut off, and how quickly your higher self is eclipsed by your reactivity. Do you fl ip someone off or swear at them in a rage? All it takes is for someone to prod the tender spots in your psyche and I guarantee you will take it personally. You know that idea that you shouldn’t take anything personally? Bullshit. Everyone does. An air sign will push feelings away entirely and replace them with denial. She’ll say, “I don’t even care.” Or perhaps you act out with destructive behavior— typical of the fi re