: From the Life and Teachings of Jesus: Late that evening Jesus
: gave the united group a memorable talk on ?Magic and
: Superstition.? In those days the appearance of a bright and
: supposedly new star was regarded as a token indicating that
: a great man had been born on earth. Such a star having then
: recently been observed, Andrew asked Jesus if these beliefs
: were well founded. In the long answer to Andrew's question
: the Master entered upon a thoroughgoing discussion of the
: whole subject of human superstition.

: The statement which

: Jesus made at this time may be summarized in modern
: phraseology as follows: 'The courses of the stars in the
: heavens have nothing whatever to do with the events of
: human life on earth. Astronomy is a proper pursuit of
: science, but astrology is a mass of superstitious error
: which has no place in the gospel of the kingdom."'

(hehe) How nice of Paul Bond to "summarize" the words of the one known as Jesus for us.

Each human being has a consciousness, and it contains whatever it contains. Each one expereriences the world _through_ that consciousness, and also expresses forth into the world through it as well. What's in it definitely matters, both coming and going; affects both what one perceives, and how one is perceived by others.

I could agree that "a mass of superstitious error...has no place in the gospel of the kingdom". But that leaves open the question of what is or is not "superstitious error" - and Bond here has taken it upon himself to decide for us whether the Master declared astrology to be such. He likewise has swept _all_ forms of astrology into one broad container, and applied the superstition label to all of it.

I take exception to this; not because I "follow" astrology - I don't - but because I know some folks who do, and who do so rather intelligently and after long consideration. One of them is a research chemist with NASA, who has been there since before it was called "NASA". The gentleman is also a Christian.

Further, it was reported several years ago that a Japanese researcher had found our brains "flip" _on_ our birthdays, each year - left or right side dominance is traded for the other side, in some scientifically measurable way.

We could argue this effect has nothing to do with planets and stars - but it's there, and the timing is consistent; so it must have something to do with something. :)

My guess would be that if we read the recorded words of the one known as Jesus with our heads tilted slightly to one side, we'd discover he may have been saying that the particular superstitions of the day were confused and full of misunderstandings, and therefore should be cast off and disregarded - but that he may have been signalling there was _something_ there still to be understood, if one had ears to hear and eyes to see it.

(Oliver: I'm a Virgo. :)