Horoscopes foretell the future? Our lives are steered by the stars? In A Scheme of Heaven, Alexander Boxer goes beyond the obvious and asks, instead, some fascinating questions. The data scientist has written an enjoyably lucid account of astrology’s ancient origins as astronomy’s fraternal twin. Both were born as humanity tried to systematically locate its place in the cosmos. Boxer’s thesis is that astrology was an early adapter of methods governing today’s world, especially the use of mathematics and data to generate answers. Admittedly, the results produced within closed systems might be logically coherent—but wrong! Boxer tips his hat to the “power in astrology to reveal the surprising ways in which everything, and all of us, are connected to each other across time and space.” Even if the stars don’t guide our destiny, science has shown that we are all made from the same material as the lights in the night sky.
