By Jamie Funk
This topic came up recently in a Facebook discussion, which arose from a post on the astrology of the Google Buzz launch. I said that “the leading internet astrologers” are jumping onboard. Defining “leading Internet astrologers” was the next step. This is distinct from the leading astrologers who author books, lecture at conferences or have websites with educational information, but who do not actively engage with others on the internet. To clarify I’ll give a few examples. From the popular culture style of astrology, Elsa Panizzon and Jeffrey Kishner are leading internet astrologers who engage with their user base at their blogs and forums. From the more traditional side of astrology, Noel Tyl and Deborah Houlding would be considered leading Internet astrologers because they engage with their forum members.
Blogs and forums have not been around so long, maybe a decade. Some astrologers are into it and some are not, that’s OK. Books, lectures and websites are an essential source of information for people learning about astrology, but these days the Internet is all about two-way interaction, making new contacts and sharing our ideas. It is making the world a smaller place and lets us form relationship, which would have otherwise been impossible. So the astrological community is part of this process. New people drawn to astrology are more likely to stay with it if they can interact with astrologers at all levels and share their ideas and get feedback.
The Internet is great for astrology in general. It makes so much information freely available but we need to be able to discuss it, debate what is being posted. I have read a fair few articles that I think are misleading at the very least but there is nowhere to leave comments. Time will tell, but I think lecturing style of astrology on the Internet will become less relevant. Ideas need to be challenged for any philosophy to evolve, and the Internet is the perfect medium for this evolution to occur quickly.
Astrology itself has now become a medium for social interaction on the Internet. I’m sure Marina and I are not the first couple to have met in this way. Friendships are started everyday all over the world in astrology forums and networking sites like Facebook. This is promoting astrology more into the mainstream than classes or conferences could ever have done. The language of this social interactions is astrology, whether it’s comparing sun signs for beginners, or sharing thoughts on the secondary progressions of a composite chart for full on astro nerds like me.
What it really comes down to is that people are going to be more drawn to astrology and end up promoting it themselves, if they can interact with others more experienced. Forums seem to be a bit limited in this. Just my personal intuition, but I think the explosion in the number of astrology bloggers is a sign that this community is moving toward a new level of social interaction. The comments on blog article are life forum threads, just like comments on personal pages or fan pages on Facebook. The advantage of blogs articles is that they are not lost in the ocean of babble on forums, and they are indexed on blogs and on the search engines. These are becoming the new reference material for astrologers, more so than books even. It does promote astrology in the best fashion I believe, and most importantly it is available to anyone in the world who has access to a computer, regardless of his or her socio-economic status.
Photo published under a Creative Commons License from Flickr
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About the Author
Jamie Funk hangs his blogging hat at “Funkastrology–Cutting Edge Astrology for Uranian Times which he shares with his fiance Marina. Funkastrology has been listed in The Mountain Astrologer as a hot blog to watch. Of course it is!
Astro Blogging 