Prognosis

Originally synonymous with Prediction, usage has attached to it a more conservative meaning, that of "a probability of outcome." Astrologers who adhere to the doctrine of Free-Will, and who seek only to render helpful assistance and wise guidance through a crisis, rather than to mystify and astound, generally prefer this terminology. They do not hesitate to draw forth a complete case-history of everything that might have bearing on the matter under consideration, before passing judgment, in preference to the exhibitionist feat of telling the client what he reads from the chart concerning the past. A recent treatise on a phase of scientific astrology says the "astrological prognosis must be guided by every personal fact or situation of the person in question. The researcher should take into consideration these attendant circumstances and from them deduce the logical results of the indicated astrological conditioning. By this procedure, astrology supplies the factor for psychological analysis that psychology alone could never authoritatively deduce." With utter frankness, the author adds: "There is no infallible certainty in astrological prediction any more than there is in medical or meteorological prognosis. A doctor can only prog- nosticate within limits of probability the course an illness will run, and can err even as the meteorologist in a weather forecast." Medicine achieved respectability through the impersonal approach, and Astrology might with profit emulate the example.