Starsign Conclusions

[darunzahn]

Thanks VERY much for the very informative posts. I've heard many of these things before from a friend of mine who has a passion for astronomy and thus thinks astrology is ludicrous. It still fascinates me though, not as much on a "How do the planets affect us." but more towards the "How do the things we 'know' affect us?" After all, I put very little stock in the facts of the Bible, but it is impossible to say it hasn't had a massive influence on today's world.

I couldn't ever plan my day based off of a horoscope. There's just too much opportunity and uniqueness in the world to confine how we gauge the value of a day. Thanks for the replies so far!

[Pix]

i can't remember the details of it , but a while ago a man (whose name i can't remember . really annoyed about that) did an experiment where he gave several people a questionnaire to fill out , and then he wrote them extremely detailed star sign / personality evaluation things

he never read the answers to their questionnaires . all his evaluations were exactly the same for each person .

that's how star signs work . they're just vague enough to apply to everyone , no matter how detailed they might look .

Actually, that was James Randi and it wasn't that detailed, just a bunch of buzz words (assuming we're thinking of the same thing). Actual astrology works a lot differently and not only do the planets matter but also what houses they're in (that is where they're at), and more details. When you get into that then it becomes very specific and they're not even close to being like each other.

It did prove that people are gullible, but even experts get fooled all the time when they're tested, and those people have years of education and experience.

But I do recall my first time in a new age shop (just turned 17) when I saw a card where you figured up your number and then it told all about you. I did the math and found it fit me and said so. The new age guy at the counter was pleased but then I read the other numbers and said they almost all said the same thing in just different words and even the couple that were different also described me. He looked uncomfortable so I said, "Ah well, all numbers are infinite." When he looked confused I said, "You know, Aleister Crowley, Liber 777?" He about freaked and I left never to return. It probably didn't help that I defiantly wore a black trench coat and gothed up months after Columbine (and there was a lot of hysteria generated by supposedly respectable news stations to a gullible public about goths--not that the boys who shot up the school had anything to do with goth subculture--and "trenchoat mafias" at the time).

[Pix]

I think they're meaningless.
I find them funny in their vagueness.

Fun fact:
If we were to count Pluto as big enough to be considered a planet, we would also have to consider Eris a planet.
I wonder how that would effect astrology...

Even asteroids affect charts.

I vaguely recall that discovering planets or otherwise changing how they're defined is either the result of an occult change or causes an occult change, that is this is supposed to be a metaphysical force, not physics. Generally speaking it's based on "as above, so below." Some see that religious so that it's like God's echo, like vibrations before they manifest in the actual world, though others see it as more Jungian and so how we define the celestial objects affects how they affect us (that is we affect the planets and such as much as they affect us, and the cause aren't the celestial objects but a shared understanding/perception of them, and so people born on Mars would have their fears & phobias affected by the moon Phobos not because the moon itself makes the change but because the people subconsciously see it as Phobos and that imbues the moon with the energy of that god which in turn reflects back at us shaping our subconscious).

'Course there's more than one type of astrology, even in the west, and they're not all compatible (though some do mix standard western astrology with Chinese).

ETA: I liked what Anton LaVey (who doesn't believe in it) had to say about astrology: it can be as simple or complicated as you like to make it.

ETA2: sorry if I'm unclear, I just woke up and haven't had breakfast yet.

[bluefox4000]

Just another pile of bull. BUT.....nobody said it wasn't fun.

Mick

[Miles]

Astrology must be bullshit, or else I'm the worst Leo the world has ever seen. :biggrin:

[Corsac]

I find the Chinese Zodiac to be more reliable when it comes to myself, actually its pretty accurate.

[Chase]

I think like, a scientist in France or somewhere once did a study where he put an add in the paper saying he was an astrologer and he'd like to collect their birth dates and what not and gave some hundreds of people there horoscopes and they all said their horoscopes came true, only to find out that the researcher guy gave them all the same horoscope, a serial killers horoscope. I've read it in like, Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World, I just tried to Google it and I got mostly astrologer websites.
I once went to astrology.com to read my horoscope, Virgo, and it said this year because of the planets I guess Virgos should spend the first half of the year on their career or school, and then the next half of the year the planets suggest we should then focus on social and romantic relationships. It didn't take me much to realize that whether the planets have any influence or not, that advice would help anyone.
With horoscopes, I mean I was premature, is it when we where conceived rather than born and I should be a Libra? I guess I kinda am sort of more Virgo than Libra, I idealize organization, but then again I'm not always organized.
I don't really get on how the planets could really effect human behavior. I mean, human behavior is derived from the programming of our brains, all our thoughts, actions, feelings, are all brain chemistry. When you are in a rage, some small part of your brain is overriding the rational part, and if your rational part of your brain is smaller you can be more prone to rage. Psychopaths, people afflicted with psychopathy that is, are found to have brain damage. I don't really see any deviation in the programming of my computer during astronomical events, so I don't see why I should expect it from my brain.
I know a lot of cops say they see more crime and disturbances on full moons. I don't know if that's the moon gravitationally pulling on chemicals in our brains, but there are other variables that still can't be ruled out: the brighter night may perhaps make one think they can commit a crime easier, wife-beaters might subconsciously get this long-day feeling, some primordial drive of hunt, who knows.
My horoscopes almost never come true, not Virgo, not Libra, not Pisces. I'd like to think I'm intelligent, like the Chinese Monkey-sign suggest, though, I'd have to overlook biases of my Class of 2011 to think us 1992's were just gifted.
Really though, I'm more curious as to how we can prevent meteors from hitting Earth like one just did yesterday, or more deadly ones like the one that took out a huge chunk of Russian forests generations before that meteor. Not to mention how little we know about black holes, and the fact that there is a big black hole centered in the center of the Milky Way galaxy and the fact that the solar system was once moving through the galactic core in the dinosaur age, or that Hubble has images of an entire galaxy being sucked into a black hole, and another satellite galaxy on a crash course with it too to be sucked into oblivion.

[Roxy]

I find the Chinese Zodiac to be more reliable when it comes to myself, actually its pretty accurate.

I just checked mine and I was surprised to find that it was spot on, I think I'll look into the Chinese Zodiac, since they give more detailed descriptions of your Zodiac personality.

[Miles]

Yeah the Chinese Zodiac sign description seem to match me much better. I wonder why?

But certainly not everyone born in my year is like that, so...

[Pix]

In case anyone is curious, I'll share my experience of it.

The first time I learned about astrology was when I was 17 and learning the Western Mystery Tradition (along with Wicca), though more about using it in magic than in regular astrology. But as an experiment I picked 2 random placements per planet for a natal chart and it did not describe me, not even close, but then I found my REAL placements and it DID, even where it went out on a limb to make such a prediction.

Intrigued, I decided to look up psychics, astrologers, etc, in the library and what they predicted. Just like the fundies predicting the immanent End Times, they failed (remember, libraries keep books a long time, and it was also 2000 by now when many of these books pretty much predicted 2000 or sooner to be apocalyptic decades ago). When I mentioned this to someone he told me to look up the "respected experts" and sure enough the sociologists, environmentalists, and scientists (many of whom also predicted very bad things by 2000) were all wrong as well. No exceptions that I could see, and in a few cases the very opposite happened of what was predicted. And I also found the predictions of these experts predicting the 1996 election just a few months prior and they were SO OFF, even the professional prophets must've cringed. Of course the Satanic Panic showed just how bad the experts could be as well (and even Al Gore joined the crusade!) And as the cherry on top I came across an article explaining an experiment where a chimpanzee randomly chose answers and they were compared to expert predictions by economists & political analysts, and the chimp beat nearly all of them by A LOT (and the very few who did better than the chimp did so only BARELY). All in all it showed me this to be true:

“No, not spoon-bending or horoscopy, not the Golden Dawn or make-believe shamanism, astral projection or the Satanic Mass—if it’s mumbo jumbo you want go for the real stuff, banking, politics, social science—not that weak Blavatsky crap.” ~ Hakim Bey, TAZ

After 9/11 I followed up by looking at Mountain Astrologer at the library. The previous month predicting September said it was going to be one of the most boring months ever. 'Course AFTER the fact astrologers point at all kinds of things on why the stars foretold it (to be fair Mountain Astrologer doesn't represent all astrologers, and experts in respectable fields grossly mess up all the time as well).

Btw, I had an interesting experience with the Tarot and 9/11, but that's another story...

Anyway, for whatever reason I decided to get into astrology back in 2004, and found it promising as well as fun (I really loved puzzles back then and it felt like working out a puzzle). Later I got a new girlfriend and we had a love/hate relationship with each other and we went to counseling, but the only good was that we stopped fighting to commiserate about what an idiot our counselor was (with cheesy, pop psychology lines probably gotten off of Oprah or Dr. Phil and misapplied to us). And as I noticed a psychic fair coming through (which I found out later is thick with professional scam artists, though that's not to say they all are), I convinced her to go with me to an astrologer. Now I don't know if the woman we saw was a really good astrologer or just good at reading people, but she was brilliant, even my skeptical girlfriend thawed to her, and her advice was golden and it made it work for years. And the astrologer also told us that our synastry (how our charts matched) meant lifelong was unlikely so we should consider a fling or it would probably end badly and the astrologer was right on that as well. (Astrology 1, Psychology 0.)

This got me interested in astrology again and I got back into it and offered to do natal charts for others both for the practice and to see how well it was working. Everyone was pleased with the insights and advice I "passed on" from their natal charts (and current patterns), even the one I was worried about as she was a skeptic AND her placements were so contradictory (if I hadn't known her at all I'd have certainly blown it).

And then I lost interest again as other things took my attention. I still have some astrology books and got a workbook that I plan to go through one day but I just haven't felt in the mood yet. My memory of the specifics are so vague that I'll definitely need a refresher before I start on the workbook.

Is it real? I don't know. But I have as much respect for it as I have for psychology, economics, political science, and other "soft sciences." I know many professional astrologers are incompetent and/or scammy, but that's true of every other profession as well. I take all advice from everyone, no matter how "pro" they are (and that includes doctors), with a grain of salt. IF it's real then it's a metaphysical force rather than physical force, and it's also far more complicated than sun sign so that newspaper horoscopes are utterly useless.