Those of us who were around in the 1970s often felt we might not make it through that strange decade with our sanity intact if just one more person came up to us at a party and said: "What sign are you?" That particular form of silliness has not so much sunk without a trace as risen without a trace: Astrology can now be studied, for a bachelor's or master's degree, at the Kepler College of Astrological Arts and Sciences in Seattle. Nothing very deplorable about that, you might think. The New Age movement has thrown up all sorts of odd manifestations. Kepler College, however, is authorized by the Higher Education Coordinating Board of Washington State.
As Kepler College prepares to take in its second freshman class, from Paris comes the story of Mme. Elizabeth Teissier, who has just received a passing grade from the Sorbonne sociology department for a 900-page Ph.D. dissertation on astrology, in which she makes it plain that she takes this "science" very seriously. Mme. Teissier is, in fact, a professional astrologer, and served in that capacity to the late French president Francois Mitterrand. The gist of her dissertation, according to one sociologist who has read it, is: "that astrology is the victim of domination. That science, which is renamed 'official science' or 'monolithic thought,' oppresses astrology." The acceptance of Mme. Teissier's thesis by the Sorbonne has created a great fuss in France, especially among professional sociologists, who apparently are not much taken with Mme. Teissier's having described Max Weber, one of the revered founders of their discipline, as "a pragmatic Taurus." After firing off a single letter of self-justification to the French newspaper Le Monde (the valediction read: "Astrally yours"), Mme. Teissier is not speaking to the press.
Further afield, India's large and prestigious scientific community is up in arms about a decision by that country's education authorities to create astrology departments in 24 public universities in the next academic year. At a time when India is building a reputation as a rising power in information technology, the official sanctioning of astrology would, says world-renowned astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar, take India "backwards to medieval times."
