When I tell people I’m a humanistic astrologer, the first question I often get is: “What is humanistic astrology?” I use the word humanistic in loose contrast to a fatalistic, or deterministic, approach to astrology.

In this article, I’ll explore the relationship between fate and free will, and why a humanistic approach to astrology takes fate seriously without succumbing to fatalism.

How Studying My Fate Led Me to Humanistic Astrology

Many of us come to astrology out of curiosity about our fate or destiny. I remember reading in college that Scorpio — my Sun sign — is a heavily karmic sign, in Stephen Arroyo’s Astrology, Karma and Transformation, and being fascinated by the idea. I wanted to know more!

Over the course of reading many, many books, I kept finding striking synchronicities in my own life reflected in my natal, transit, and progressed charts. Astrology seemed to work!

But after a while I became disillusioned, because a lot of interpretations in the books I was reading were negative pronouncements, which was discouraging if not downright depressing. To make things worse, there were conflicting interpretations among authors about the same placements, which didn’t make sense.

After realizing I was no closer to figuring out my fate or destiny despite reading so many books, I almost gave up on studying astrology. It was at that point that I started noticing the term humanistic astrology in some of the books I was reading.

The term humanistic astrology wasn’t a specific school headed by one individual, but it represented a stream of astrological thoughts that seemed to originate from Dane Rudhyar, which viewed the natal chart as a map for individual’s growth, rather than a fixed set of fated events.

As an avid reader of self-help books, I firmly believe we have the power to affect our destiny through the choices we make. After reading the works of many humanistically oriented astrologers, I felt validated in my innate belief in human agency. But the question still remained: How much is fated, and how much is free will?

How Much is Fated?

The word fate often implies something predetermined, over which we have no say. While I believe in free will and our power to shape outcomes, some events do seem to be outside our control — and thus fated.

Take your family for instance: You didn’t choose your parents, nor the environment you grew up in. Your race, gender, nationality – these things were given to you, without you having a say in the matter.

I know spiritually minded people say we choose our parents and our birth chart. That may be true — but that’s like saying our higher self, or God, chose our parents for us, which amounts to the same thing as saying “this was fated,” since we have no memory of making that choice.

Then there are the people we meet who feel like soulmates — I don’t believe those encounters happen by accident.

Even the locations we live in might be fated. I lived in Florida for over 25 years, and initially that wasn’t by choice. If you’re familiar with astrology of relocation, I have my Saturn and Mars lines intersecting there — I had no idea about this when I moved, yet Florida turned out to be the perfect place for my personal growth.

Our vocation, if we’re lucky enough to find it, also seems fated. People who discover their calling tend to be using inborn strengths, developed through years of dedicated training — and they often describe themselves as “lucky,” which is itself an echo of fate.

Acknowledging Fate isn’t the Same as Being Fatalistic

As we’ve explored, certain elements of life do seem fated. If you’ve studied natal astrology seriously — as we do in our 9 Powerful Keys for Chart Interpretation — you’ve likely noticed how closely your early home life is reflected in your birth chart. Your natal chart reflects your vocation as well.

If you’ve studied transits and solar arcs, you’ve probably noticed how powerful cycles reflect transformative events in your life. But acknowledging this isn’t the same as saying everything is predestined. That’s the essential difference between a deterministic and a humanistic approach to astrology.

A humanistic approach fully allows for a person’s agency to act, learn, and grow— just as much as their agency to remain passive, feel like a victim, or fail.

While this may sound like common sense, it has real implications for how astrologers interpret charts. For example, does a Saturn transit always imply difficulty and hardship? A purely deterministic astrologer tends to think so, since Saturn is the “greater malefic” in traditional schools of thought.

A humanistic astrologer would first assess where the person stands in relation to their Saturnian energy — their career development, their level of maturity and self-discipline. For someone well on their way to fulfilling their ambition, a Saturn transit might indicate a period of building toward that greater goal, marked by increasing responsibility and authority.

Approaching a Balanced Perspective

In my experience as a consulting astrologer, I’ve seen many people navigate Saturn or Pluto transits positively, because they’re making good use of their own Saturnian or Plutonian energies — self-discipline and maturity for Saturn, transformative insight for Pluto. When challenges do arise, they usually serve as signals pointing to areas that still need development.

In other words, transits seem purposefully tied to the arc of development a person is undergoing — in their career, relationships, or whatever area of life matters most at that time. In that sense, you could say fate is conspiring to help us become who we’re meant to be.

Where a fatalistic approach sees difficult transits as hardships happening to us one after another, a humanistic approach sees those same transits as opportunities for growth and achievement. In The Art of Forecasting, we walk through enough examples of traditionally difficult transits and solar arcs that result in major achievements, that you won’t be able to see them the same way again.

This is different from simply being optimistic. Difficulties in life are real — but they don’t arise simply because Saturn or Pluto is activating your chart. Reacting to so-called malefic transits with blanket negative expectation is both intellectually lazy and observably incorrect.

Even If You have a Positive Destiny, It has to Be Earned

Fate can work both ways. You could be remarkably lucky in your work, finances, health, or relationships — lucky enough to feel genuinely humbled and grateful. But was that good fortune purely a matter of luck, or did you have to earn it?

In most cases I’ve observed, success in any of these areas comes from someone channeling their energy, talent, and strengths in a focused way — often over a long period of time. Fate, including your environment and the people you encounter, may shape the scale of what you achieve. But ultimately, it requires your passionate participation.

You could have a powerful transit or solar arc coming your way — but if you’re not in an environment that allows your strengths to flourish, or if you’re unwilling to explore new paths of development, even the most “benefic” planetary influences won’t do very much for you.

In Closing: A New Way to Engage With Your Fate

On one end of the spectrum we have extreme determinism, where everything is assumed to be predestined. On the other end is the belief that free will trumps everything, and there is no such thing as fate or destiny except what we create for ourselves.

If you’ve read this far, I hope you get a sense that a middle path is possible — one where we acknowledge the presence of fate (situations outside our control), while also recognizing our own power to grow and shape the results of our actions.

I believe everyone has a destiny to contribute to others in a meaningful way, by developing and expressing their strengths. Your free will is your ability to strive to live up to that potential.

Astrology is a tool — like a mirror — that reflects the beliefs of the person using it. You could use it fatalistically, as a series of troubles you have no control over, or humanistically, as a map of your potential. Humanistic astrology doesn’t glorify free will over fate — rather, it acknowledges our power and responsibility to live fully, knowing that is the best way to meet our destiny.