Astronomers may think they've finally got things right by demoting Pluto, for 76 years considered the ninth and outermost planet, to a mere "dwarf" planet, but astrologers aren't planning any change in the immense significance they accord to that distant ball of ice.
"This 'demotion' may very well have zilch for effect, at least on astrologers," said Lee Lehman, academic dean of the Kepler College of Astrological Arts and Sciences in Seattle, the only such degree-granting institute in the Western hemisphere.
"Astronomers and astrologers don't talk much -- and haven't for centuries," Ms. Lehman added.
Apart from the fact that astrologers consider their work as unfolding in a sphere quite separate from that of astronomers, they are aware that the definitional change given by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is possibly only provisional, given the tangled history of such name changes in the recent past, Ms. Lehman said.
"By definition, science itself never offers stable, fixed positions," she said. "I'm not saying anything out of school in calling this a 'definition in progress'."
She pointed out that Chiron, a planetoid in the outer reaches of the solar system, was first classified as an asteroid after its discovery in 1977, and later a comet, and is now considered to meet both definitions.
"The scientific definition has shifted several times, but none of that affected the interest of astrologers in Chiron -- and so, by the same token, I don't see why there will be ramifications flowing from the reclassification of Pluto."
A pair of Toronto-based astrologers echoed Ms. Lehman's sentiments.
"Pluto's effect has nothing to do with what scientists decide to call it or how they classify it," said Adel Ather, owner of the astrology studio Typhon Vision.
"Many astrologers believe that Pluto's effects were seen in charts done centuries ago, even from the 1600s -- effects that were mapped out more fully only after Pluto was discovered."
Glen Durkin, another Toronto astrologer, said: "This reclassification is just a small trifle on the periphery of things for me as an astrologer. Pluto's influence and symbolism won't change at all, and neither will my practice of astrology."
For astrologers, the influence of Pluto, small and distant though it is, is "massive and immense, the most powerful planet," Mr. Ather said.
"Pluto represents destruction and rebirth -- it is the definition of intensity, the most extreme drives that humans have."
Mr. Ather said that objects are often discovered at a time that reflects the symbolism of the object. Using Pluto as a case in point, the 1930s were an era of economic upheaval building up to world war, and finally the release of atomic bombs in Japan.
"The atom bomb is very Plutonian," he said. "So is the Second World War. And so is the rebirth of Japan and Europe, which were so badly devastated. Pluto always takes things to the extreme level."
Mr. Ather also found a slight arrogance in the IAU's decision to downgrade Pluto to a dwarf planet.
"I know the scientists don't realize what they're doing, but any downgrading of so significant a planet just can't feel right.
"But what they do, won't matter to us. The bottom line is results, and this reclassification won't modify those at all."
