What about astrology and free will? or, more precisely, doesn't astrology assume that most of life is predetermined and fated?

It is comfortable to see free will and determinism as being completely incompatible and mutually exclusive terms, however, there appears to be an intimate connection between them. The great argument from both religious and secular opponents against astrology is that, if true, it presupposes a certain fate or predetermination about the course of individual and collective development. However, astrology illuminates certain trends and not bedrock certainties. The motto of the medieval astrologer was, "the stars incline, they do not compel." Thus, astrology assumes that the greater consciousness and knowledge that can be applied to the deep structures of consciousness, the greater degrees of freedom one has to re-orient one's self to these informing energies or archetypes.

Thus, as a parallel, as science has discovered some fundamental physical "laws" of the universe, the greater ability to manipulate, transcend, and work in cooperation with these "laws." It would be an impossibility to transcend the earth's orbit without a thorough accounting of the effects of the force that once made that transcendence impossible, namely, gravity. The altering of physical and psychological traits would be unfeasible without discovering the base template of the genetic code. The possibility of agriculture was only a reality once natural cycles were thoroughly exploited. Higher degrees of consciousness are really only possible by examining the unconscious. In all of these examples, certain givens or determinants that once obstructed and limited action and free will were the gatekeepers that ultimately increased exponentially one's degrees of freedom once properly understood. Astrology is not an exception. Astrology does assume that certain traits, tendencies, and probabilities do exist but that one increases—not decreases—one's efficacy and self-knowledge by seeing through these deep structures. Thus, astrology does assume a certain degree of determinism that, once understood, leads to increased free will, not fatalism.