“It seemed plausible to me that the idea of influences upon various people might be empirically valid.”
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Don’t know about that, but I do think the heavens sometimes serve as signals to mankind as a whole.
e.g. “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars.”
If this means astrological, I color skeptical about that. The Magi saw a star that looked like a miracle. The moon occasionally shines red (this is scientifically due to weather conditions, but the point is how it looks from the earth). A friend of mine who has been under a terrific spiritual assault all his life said that when he was a child, he saw a star fall when he asked God for a sign; this struck me as a suggestion of how Lucifer was cast out of heaven when he sinned.