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Astrology Thoughts

I’ve studied a bit of astrology in my day, and in that time I’ve also mentioned my interest in it (or knowledge of some of it) to people here and there.
One typical question I’ve run across is the, “So, what are (enter astrological sign here — with plural marker) like?” question. It happens almost every time.

Often, as soon as the person asks the question I can tell from the tone quite a bit about what they already know and think about astrology. The top four in my experience are (in no particular order) –
1. The person knows very little and is fairly to highly sceptical.
2. The person knows very little and is interested in learning more.
3. The person feels they know enough and is out to disprove or uncover fallicy.
4. The person knows very little, is OK with that, and feels like astrology is errant and/or morally wrong somehow.

Obviously, I’m quite OK with explaining things to a person #1 or a person #2 from the list above — especially if they have the time and the patience to listen for a bit.
#3s are what really kill me though. They know so little about what they are inquiring about, they often come off immediately as confrontational, and they feel that they are right from the beginning. So, I’m dealing with people who are wanting a fight, and if I participate an ego is at stake.
My typical experience with this is that these #3s ask me The Question in their own unique way. Then, whether I answer them at all or not, they will often proceed to let me know that not all the members of that one (sun) sign are alike. (I am, of course, already well aware of this.) From that logic they conclude that astrology is, of course, errant and they go about their life happy to have won another victory over falseness.
I think that these people are really missing something. They come to me completely alien to nearly all the concepts of astrology, and as aliens they ask a question that is analogous to, “So, what are Humans like?” I might tell them something like, “well, it’s complex, but generally they’ve got two legs that they walk around on, they talk to each other, and love is pretty important to them in general.” Then, to continue the analogy… the alien will look at me, laugh, and say something along these lines — “HA! That’s so wrong! How can you say humans are born like that? I’ve seen some without legs, I’ve seen some that cannot talk, and I’ve heard of many that care nothing of love.”
Basically, any way that I choose to describe a human can be nullified by the alien in the analogy, because people have things happen to them in the course of their lives. The lose limbs, they get scars, some are tall, some are short, some are hairy, some are not, some have piercings, tattoos, venereal diseases, cancers, etc, etc, etc.
However, any reasonable (read: not nit-picky) person can say, “Hey, generally people do have two legs, ten fingers and toes, two arms, hair on their head… they’re just born that way!”
This analogy is how I feel when explaining astrology to someone who is testing me. I try to explain that it is about potentials like DNA or intelligence. Then I make an analogy to intelligent people who have a stong potential to be successdul but are not. I explain that it is not supposed to be perfectly predictive. I even explain that there is a lot more going on than just the sun sign… like the other planets, the 12 houses, the natal chart, etc.
These #3s don’t have time for this though. There’s an agenda here… listen enough to laugh, say something “witty,” and then walk away feeling good and vindicated. “Disproving” things never felt so good!

Posted by David under Reflections |