
I was an astrologer - YeGoblynQueenne
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/06/i-was-an-astrologer-how-it-works-psychics
======
wccrawford
After all the help she gave all those people, she quit because someone called
her a fraud and refused her help?

I think this woman needs to stop and revisit what she was doing. She wasn't a
fraud. She was exactly what those people were paying for. For many, it was
someone to talk to. For some, it was someone who could look past their biases
and clear their minds. For some, it was a magic trick.

Her mistake wasn't the advice, but in not giving it in the accepted way: As
mysticism. Tell him to go to the doctor, but have an in-character way of doing
it instead of using logic. If they were willing to listen to logic, they
wouldn't be there.

I'm sure it's stressful to "lie" to people all the time in this way, but all
jobs are stressful in their own ways. And I see nothing in this article to
indicate the author has any other options open to them at the moment.

Edited: Replaced "he" with "she". I was mislead by the image at the top and
actually had to search for the author's name.

~~~
jedimastert
Interestingly, Penn and Teller (although I've never heard Teller talk about it
[har har] they seem to be in agreement) look at and talk about this sort of
moral quandary a lot in the context of the tradition of magicians. For them,
it's not enough to think think that "of course the audience knows" but to be
honest from the get go.

Darren Brown did a stage show called "Miracle" (which was fantastic, but a
different discussion) where he talks about his experience with faith healers
and the like and says at the beginning that, which he doesn't like people
getting suckered or lying, the experience is one that people should have, and
goes on to spend the rest of the show "in character" as a faith healer.

The movie Leap of Faith also explores this moral dilemma.

I've never been upset at people doing whatever it takes to survive, but I
don't think that it excuses you from the ethics of what you do. I definitely
wouldn't consider what he did 100% ethical and it's OK to question what you
do.

Do address something else:

> I think this guy needs to stop and revisit what he was doing. He wasn't a
> fraud. He was exactly what those people were paying for.

The cursed man didn't come in to see a magic trick or to be lied to, he came
to have his curse lifted. There are many many people, whether ignorant or ill,
who do not see this as some sort of entertainment or escapism, but actually
how the world works. This is where the morally questionable part comes in.
It's like casinos or the lottery: plenty of people go in expecting to "throw
their money away" on entertainment, but nothing is done to tell people that
it's not wise to expect anything to actually happen, and over-correlation can
lead to addiction (and yes, addiction to psychics can and does happen)

It's far more grey than you think.

~~~
LandR
I don't like Derren Brown.

I feel he is happy with people leaving his shows believing in psuedo-
scientific nonsense, it's just a different brand of nonsense.

I'd be interested in a poll of people leaving his shows being asked if they
thought it was a) mostly traditional magic / sleight of hand or b) Psychology,
influence, whatever nonsense Brown calls his stuff nowadays.

I might be wrong, but I think most would go with with b)

~~~
davinic
To me NLP always felt more like mysticism than science.

~~~
jedimastert
It's absolutely considered pseudoscience by most people, including Derren
Brown himself [0].

[0]: [http://derrenbrown.co.uk/claim-claim-2/](http://derrenbrown.co.uk/claim-
claim-2/)

------
jermaustin1
This is an discussion I've had plenty of times with my wife (who is a Licensed
Marriage and Family Therapist). It's hard to articulate in words, but I will
try.

What gets me about astrologists and psychics, is they are preying on peoples
innocent stupidity. At best they are reading their clients semi-accurately, at
worst they are swindling them.

But in both cases they are not actually helping the client understand what is
making them feel this way, and helping down on a path that leads to a
healthier self-awareness.

We have a friend who doesn't not believe in psychology, but believes in
psychics. She refuses to go back to a psychologist because the psychologist
wanted her to actually think on and feel her past traumas, to discover why she
has some self destructive tendencies. The psychic she eventually went with and
still uses today (costing just as much as the psychologist -- more if you have
mental health coverage on your insurance) just told her she sees why she is
doing certain things, and to call her if she felt these tendencies coming back
(charging her of course).

My wife thinks that so long as it is helping, it isn't necessarily bad. She
feels that people shouldn't see psychics or read too much into the movement of
planets and stars, but that whats the harm if it makes you feel better.

I feel that the amount of good they could do is way less than the harm they
could do. And that the dangers of allowing another person to give you
untrained/regulated advise is a terrible path to go down instead of
understanding yourself.

~~~
BurningFrog
> _My wife thinks that so long as it is helping, it isn 't necessarily bad._

I'd say that's absolutely the scientific, empirical approach!

Sounds like these psychics serve as a low key religion for these people. As a
pretty hardline atheists, I have over the years had to admit that religion
really works at giving many people hope and sanity.

We may even, as humans, be hardwired to require religion in our lives. I
sometimes miss that I can't have that in my life, because I can see reality as
it is...

~~~
tstrimple
The placebo effect is amazing. It even works if you know it's a placebo!
That's why I still take a ton of vitamin C when I feel a cold coming on and it
seems to prevent it most of the time. While I haven't tried it, I'm sure
something like prayer could have beneficial effects in Atheists as well for
that reason.

~~~
WA
Not sure what to make of this statement. Believe what you want (good for you
if it seems to work), but it sounds a bit like you're overstating the impact
of the placebo effect.

a) It works best, when doctors take their time to prescribe it, even if you
know it's a placebo. There are studies about two groups where one receives a
placebo and the other a placebo and a 10 minute talk. The latter had better
outcomes.

b) The placebo effect works best, if used with symptoms of pain. This is the
most-studied use-case for placebos. With a virus infection like a cold, not so
much. See c)

c) Supplements like vitamin C generally speaking don't seem to really help
when a cold is coming. As long as you have a healthy diet, supplements aren't
required and don't really have a positive effect on your health. Maybe some
stuff makes you feel slightly better, but it doesn't make the infection go
away.

d) Not every cold breaks out. Sleeping helps a lot.

~~~
xenophonf
@tstrimple, that's not what that study says at all. Vitamin C supplementation
_doesn't_ help. From the "Main Results" section of
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23440782](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23440782):

 _No consistent effect of vitamin C was seen on the duration or severity of
colds in the therapeutic trials._

~~~
tstrimple
Followed by: _Nevertheless, given the consistent effect of vitamin C on the
duration and severity of colds in the regular supplementation studies, and the
low cost and safety, it may be worthwhile for common cold patients to test on
an individual basis whether therapeutic vitamin C is beneficial for them._

------
Inu
One shouldn't forget that some practices that appear pseudo-scientific from
today's point of view made sense historically:

"It made perfect sense for ancient man to believe in astrology. The influence
of sun and moon on earthly affairs is obvious. Likewise the stars can be seen
as influential by their association with the seasons. Heavenly bodies are the
prototype of self-motion, which is a property also possessed by beings with a
soul as opposed to inanimate objects. This leads to the idea of the soul being
a "piece of the heavens" and thereby to personal horoscope astrology. The
heavenly bodies are associated with personality traits in a manner that have a
straightforward justification in terms of objective astronomical properties of
these bodies."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCFvtiAig7I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCFvtiAig7I)

~~~
whatshisface
I disagree. You're not an ocean, so looking at the tides and assuming that the
moon has a similar influence on you is an unjustified jump of logic. Then,
when you start inventing _specific effects_ for the moon to have, you're
clearly in the realm of fiction because you know full well you didn't get the
ideas you're writing down from observation.

I have heard before the argument that "being rational wasn't invented until
the 1930s, so you can't call anyone before then irrational," but everybody
knows intuitively that the truth is something they see or something they infer
from what they see, and a lie is something they make up in their own heads.

~~~
simonh
They knew for a fact, without any shadow of a doubt that certain activities on
earth are synchronised with activity in the heavens. This does include human,
animals and plants. Human women have periods roughly synchronised with the
movements of the moon, animals and plants have reproductive cycles
synchronised with the seasons and movements of the sun and stars. These are
facts. Priests and philosophers used astronomical knowledge to predict changes
in the seasons, weather, the flooding of the Nile, to navigate at sea, so they
had an extensive skills set in this area.

Given that there are known synchronisations, it therefore follows there are
likely to be unknown synchronisations, so the logical step is to start looking
for them. Unfortunately we know that if you start looking for patterns in
phenomena that aren't correlated, human beings have a proclivity to find them
anyway. People back then did not know this, and did not have the conceptual
tools to critically analyse evidence to the extent that we do.

~~~
whatshisface
One example of such an inference is, "heart = courage, courage = lion, lion =
yellow, yellow = sun, sun = sunflower, therefore heart medicine = sunflower
seeds." However, even by the standards of the day, that last link could just
as well have been "heart-stopping poison = sunflower seeds." Alchemical tomes
were not all consistent with each other, they disagreed which is what you
would expect if there was a large fictional component to their makeup. People
of all cultures knew better than to make up fiction and tell it to people as
if it were true, however in those times it was not as easy to stop that from
happening as it is today. (And it is not easy even today!)

~~~
dhimes
All it takes is _plausibility_ to make the leap palatable to a large number of
people. In the modern day, an equivalent would be economics.

------
TuringTest
> It dawned on me that my readings were a co-creation

I think this is a key point that rational people and skeptics don't get.
Pseudosciences and pseudotherapies don't work because they produce accurate
results, they work because of the tremendous effort that believers put in them
to make them work.

IMHO, skeptics could help believers much more if they instilled in them some
common sense and safeguards to avoid the worst crooks and dangerous therapies
("buy as many Bach flowers as you wish, it's your money - just don't abandon
your chemotherapy") rather than try to appeal to their rational sense ("don't
you realize how ridiculous it is? It could never work!"). At least in personal
interactions, it is more likely that the former will gradually succeed in
educating them than the latter.

~~~
davinic
Not to mention that since the placebo effect is so real, it can be unethical
to explain that to someone. When my mother was going through chemo and
radiation and started buying healing crystals as well, I supported her beliefs
in that (she was also doing all the doc recommended stuff).

~~~
TuringTest
It has occurred to me that pseudo-scientific beliefs "work" for believers,
just not in the way that scientists think of a system that works ("I can make
repeatable predictions") but in a social and emotional way ("it makes me feel
good"). That's a reason why it's so hard to get people away from them.

------
jacobwilliamroy
Former fortune teller here. I used to sit on the sidewalk and read the I Ching
to anyone who asked me to, pay-what-you-want. No one ever called me a fraud,
but I still quit. A couple folks were just trying to have fun tossing pennies
at a smelly book, but the vast supermajority of them were feeling highly
anxious because they needed reassurance that their future plans would work
out. What if my kids come to America to live with me? What if I divorce my
husband? What if I quit my job? I feel sad and guilty about answering those
questions by tossing coins around because I think I could have helped them
more if we had cut the magic and just talked honestly about what was going on
with them.

~~~
rytor718
But they almost surely wouldn't have liked you to do that (to cut the magic
and talk honestly). That's why people go to clairvoyants. We're all
embarrassingly expert at self-delusion.

~~~
kjaftaedi
It's easier to believe something as the truth when you think you're hearing it
from 'the universe' rather than a random stranger.

------
hyperpallium
> I heard these stories so often I could often guess what the problem was the
> moment someone walked in.

> "You sounded happier when you said ‘photography’,” I said. My psychic
> teacher was right – the signals we pick up before conscious awareness kicks
> in can be accurate and valuable.

These are valuable skills.

~~~
gvb
> A student there mentioned she wasn’t sure what to specialize in –
> photography, graphic design or maybe industrial design?

It was also the first element in the list. Humans tend to sort by preference,
often subconsciously.

~~~
lm28469
That's how they make you believe, by using basic human patterns/behaviours,
they don't read stars/cards/palms, they read you and make you believe they
know more about you than yourself, which can be helpful in some ways if you
never self reflect.

------
hashberry
It's called "cold reading"[0] and the "Barnum effect."[1]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect)

------
murukesh_s
Being an Indian citizen and especially from the southern state of Kerala, it's
tough to not believe in astrology. It's considered a science in ancient times
and a significant energy was spent on perfecting the art/science. For e.g.
refer to Kerala school of mathematics, which had done some pretty significant
work before Calculus was discovered in Europe and that period most of the
mathematicians were also astronomers as well as astrologers.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_School_of_Astronomy_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_School_of_Astronomy_and_Mathematics).

My own uncle is an Astrologer and sometimes he makes pretty accurate
predictions. He is a retired professor and he does it for a hobby and not for
monetary reasons. I don't have a scientific explanation for how it works, but
would love to apply some statistics/ML learning with reliable public data
available on well known persons whose time and date of birth is published and
find a scientific correlation, if at all it exists.

~~~
freddex
Well, speaking strictly logically: If they were both astronomers and
astrologers, and their astronomy was sound, it does not mean that their
astrology was, too. Many great scientists of the past were religious, and yet
that is no proof of god.

It's just hard for me to see how astrology could work. Either the movement of
the stars affects the fate of individual humans everywhere, in a weird
semantic connection ("Mars, the bringer of war" and so on), or people seek out
astrologers to confirm whatever they need confirmed (Confirmation bias). This
just seems massively more likely and doesn't clash with anything in the
scientific framework. Astrology simply plays into all the biases everyone is
affected by, so I don't mean to belittle anyone who believes or practices it,
but it can't be called a science in any sense of the word.

~~~
derangedHorse
Speaking logically you also can’t discredit any logic behind it as well, just
like one wouldn’t be able to discredit a religion. To know that human behavior
is not affected by the stars requires an understanding of the human mind not
yet attained

------
gerbler
I dressed up as a fortune-teller at a Halloween party in a house I shared with
a few people. It was a fairly big party, 40-50 people. As a joke, I set up a
little booth under a sheet and started telling fortunes.

People went wild for it. Many of them knew it was me (slightly drunk) and they
still sort of believed me. People waited in line for 15-20 minutes. I told
people mostly jokey things that were positive. I started getting adventurous
and told people random things - if they didn't like what I said they were
genuinely sad. What surprised me the most was that people would take anything
seriously from a tipsy fortune-teller beneath a sheet.

~~~
tedajax
It seems like Terry Pratchett was on to something with "headology"

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
Pratchett was on to something with the entire Discworld and other stuff
besides.

Every time I hear of a new, promising cure for Alzheimer's I go a little happy
and a little sad, because I think that, if he had held a bit longer, maybe...

But then, none of those cures ever work out in the end so I'm just left with
the sad. Sad that I never got the chance to see him up close and shake him by
the hand.

------
hosh
That's a great article.

I read astrology charts for a hobby, though I am skilled enough to do it
professionally. I rarely read in person, and tend to read it from just the
chart, via the internet (so very little telegraphing from voice tone and body
language). One of the things that turn me off to reading for people in general
are some of those things that the author brought up:

\- People have a limited range of issues: relationships, career advice. They
need counseling, not an astrology reading.

\- The kind of readings I do or would like to do have little to do with what
the person wants

\- There are actually multiple ways to read charts. For example, two popular
house systems, Placidus, and Whole Sign House can give different apparent
results. Some people get really mad when charts are read with a different
house systems.

\- There was at least once when I used the wrong chart for someone's reading,
and they seemed to relate to that reading.

Having said that, there are enough unusual things that came out of the
experience. I don't think it is completely worthless.

I don't use the method the person described -- sympathetic magic, or word
association. Nor do I base my astrology on the popular notion, that astrology
is a science. It most certainly is not a science. I don't see it as a
celestial clockwork that mechanistically produces results that are predictable
(I have pissed off astrology enthusiasts who think that way).

Instead, my view of astrology is a map for Consciousness (the idea that mind
did not emerge from the mind, but rather, matter solidified from mind), and it
is something I think many (but not not all) psychonauts can relate to. For
those who are exploring things that way, it can be valuable map.

------
banuguler
Co-creation isn’t a bug. It’s a feature.

Astrology has stuck around for 2,500 years is because it is a robust language
developed over millennia to capture the complexity of being human. Your ego,
your communication style, your love language, your instinct for action – each
have their own, often contradictory, flavor.

You can use this language to walk into a room and say, ’I’m going through my
Saturn return. I’m reckoning with restrictions and limits and boundaries right
now.” It’s humanizing, and tender. You can start a conversation, “Why did we
get into that insane fight and why did you shut down? Is it because you’re a
Capricorn Mars?”

People don’t use astrology to predict the future. People use it to explain and
create the present.

BTW ---> We’re probably who she’s subtweeting. And we’re hiring.
[https://www.costarastrology.com/jobs](https://www.costarastrology.com/jobs)

~~~
malvosenior
> _You can use this language to walk into a room and say, ’I’m going through
> my Saturn return. I’m reckoning with restrictions and limits and boundaries
> right now.”_

I wouldn't recommend doing that as anyone who is logic and science based will
immediately cease to take you seriously. We have so much more information on
how the universe works now than we did 2,500 years ago and there's nothing to
suggest that astrology is anything other completely false.

People used to believe that leeches could bleed out toxins, thankfully we've
evolved our knowledge models since then. Let's not go back.

~~~
mathgenius
> anyone who is logic and science based will immediately cease ...

Why be so rigid ? I am a scientist. I would be happy to listen to someone talk
about their "saturn return", etc. etc. if that helps them convey meaning.

~~~
oblio
True, but this is more of a socializing thing, isn't it? If someone I care at
least a bit about says something dumb, I listen to them to figure out if they
have a real concern they're not expressing correctly.

------
kingkawn
Astrology is a means of emotional regulation and the reestablishment of a
sense of control over an otherwise chaotic world. All worldviews, whether they
celebrate themselves for their rigor or not, serves this function in addition
to whatever other outputs they do or do not produce. In my personal experience
women are more often the ones utilizing astrology, which means not that they
are being duped as many of the comments here patronizingly say, but rather
that astrology is solving a particular problem that women have adapted it to
solve.

That there are scams that make use of the symbols of astrology hardly
separates it from the company of any other worldview.

------
buboard
> My friend’s imagination had done all the work.

Sounds a lot like how professional economics or entrepreneurship works

~~~
ipnon
An activity based on intuition or heuristics is going to get fuzzy on the
edges. The saving grace of entrepreneurship is that truly good ideas will
succeed in a market and the ones based on faulty logic will not. There isn't a
similar market function for peoples' internal psychology.

~~~
jacobsenscott
If by "truly good" you mean makes money, that's a tautology. If by "truly
good" you mean materially improves lives entrepreneurship hasn't panned out.

------
mikorym
The town where I went to primary school in somewhat rural South Africa had,
for quite a few years, a stand/shack smack in the middle of the town and on
the side of the main road (if it can be called that). The shack had a big
sign: "ANASTROLOGER HEALER". [1]

I am not sure whether the anastrologer healer misjudged the space on the sign
or what, but kudos to them for remembering the a/an rule for English.

[1] It could also have been "ANASTROGIST HEALER" but I forget now.

------
whatshisface
I have heard of a bias where people will try to justify paying a lot of money
for something by thinking that it's better. The $50 price tag probably made
the spooky predictions appear to work better.

~~~
Pete_D
The price tag probably also helps to discourage repeating too soon. Few things
puncture the illusion of meaningfulness around a tarot reading, I Ching
divination, etc. like rerolling until you get the answer you want.

------
marc_io
For a more contemporary – and informed – view of Astrology, please read “The
Passion of the Western Mind” and “Cosmos and Psyche” (important: you must read
in that order), by Richard Tarnas.

------
cushychicken
>The range of problems faced by people who can afford $50 for fortune telling
turned out to be limited: troubles with romance, troubles at work, trouble
mustering the courage for a much-needed change.

I'm not ready to say fortune telling is good, but I'm not ready to say it's
bad if it's helping people make changes they need to make.

Source: me, who's working on making some big changes in my life. (No fortune
tellers involved.)

------
mettamage
This is just a story for entertainment purposes. It's all true though.

I seriously practiced astrology between the ages of 12 to 16. Specifically
from this book [1].

How did I start believing in it?

My dad believed in it and went to an Indian astrologer and the guy gave me a
reading and got my character spot on. Because of that, I became really
enthusiastic. However, since I knew that my family let me down before when it
came to matters of knowledge, I decided to do my best to quickly debunk it as
fast as possible.

I got into palmistry and numerology. It took me 4 years to debunk.

The reason it took 4 years: well with palmistry, it's tough to know where to
start. Furthermore, life events play out on a life scale, so the instant
feedback is zero. At the time, I eventually ruled it out by association, a
very weak argument indeed. Nowadays, I rule it out by logic, but I still can't
empirically rule it out (not that I care).

Numerology was actually doable and that took me 4 years. It took so long
because there's an insidiuous effect going on. With most numbers (check the
source [1]), the descriptions are relatively positive and when you're capable
of always giving quite a positive reading, then people tend to agree with you!
In fact, a psychologist tested this on a 100 college students. He wrote the
same positive personality description for all of them and got 4 out of 5
stars! While I couldn't find the source of that, I could find the source on
something very similar [2].

Eventually I noticed that numerology had an accuracy of 50%, I reasoned that's
basically a coin flip's worth of chance (remember, I was 16, I didn't
understand what base rate meant) and if numerology would be true, I'd expect a
95% accuracy. Also, in hindsight there were some very strong indicators of it
being bullshit. I used the system to pick my friends this way for a while and
that didn't go too well (not too bad either).

I've wasted a lot of time on it and I'm sad that this is the stuff I spent my
time on, and that this is the stuff my dad found important. When I'll be a
dad, I'll teach my kids about math, music and the world. I'll teach them about
numerology and palmistry as a cautionary tail and how to distinguish true
knowledge (math) from nonsense such as astrology (in a scientific sense, I
agree that it's useful for simply talking, etc.).

The irony is, whenever I give readings to people (once per year on average),
they tend to become almost immediate converts despite me saying it's bullshit.
That's something to think about. Even more ironic is that ever since that
period in my life, I behave as my birth date would stipulate. Since whatever
you believe in -- between the ages of 12 and 16 -- stays forever with you.

(Obviously, there's a good explanation for that and it doesn't involve
planets. It definitely involves the effects of a self-fulfilling prophecy)

[1]
[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.70770](https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.70770)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect)

~~~
downvoted
I'll teach them about the true, true nature of truth, about logic and
evidence, and about facts and information. I'll also teach them that they
should be skeptical, and that they need to learn to differentiate truth from
falsehood. I don't know exactly what I'll teach my kids. I'll probably teach
them to trust, and to not believe everything they are told or do. I'm just not
sure which lessons I will teach.

What I do know

------
russfink
What happened to the man who yelled fraud? Don't leave us hanging! :-)

~~~
xwdv
Passed away.

------
a11yguy
I feel 100% sure that the movement/patterns of the planets, the sun, moon and
other celestial objects have a significant effect on who we are and how we
feel. BUT, I am also pretty sure that most people claiming to understand what
is going on are lying.

"Astrology" is real, "astrologists" are charlatans.

~~~
lostcolony
"Third variable problem"

That is, the movement of the stars is predictable...as are a number of other
things in life. That's not to say the stars are in control. This is classic
correlation != causation.

For instance, we know that the amount of natural light a person has has a
pronounced effect on how they feel. So it's fair to say that when (insert
astrological statement here, somethingorother is ascendant, referencing
winter, when there is less daylight), you will be prone to being more
depressed.

This, obviously, has an effect, but to just shrug and say "it's the heavens!"
is both unscientific, and unhelpful (since you can treat it by getting
increased light of a given wavelength. You can't treat "state of the
universe")

~~~
a11yguy
I think your point about 'Third variable problem' is a steelman interpretation
of my statements, and a better path to explore.

------
ipnon
Freud would say that people enjoy having their problems. A dysfunctional
replacement for therapy or a reasonable world-view would let you have the twin
enjoyments of pouring endless effort into a perceived solution (astrological
charts, tarot readings) while doing effectively nothing to resolve the actual
cause.

------
sunseb
If we had to remove all bullshit businesses in the world - not just
astrologers - 99% of stuff we buy and sell could be removed of as well.
Astrology already has a bad rap, but how many beliefs and legit businesses out
there are just scamming people too? I would say many...

~~~
stoolpigeon
Myers Briggs, Enneagram, Strength Finders, it goes on and on. It's big money
and most of it isn't any better than astrology, tarot cards, etc.

------
qwerty456127
> modern astrologers still use Earth-centred charts, as if Copernicus had
> never existed.

That's because it's not about causation but about correlation. Obviously the
stars can not influence our individual lives, nevertheless I can not be
equally sure there is no rhythm driving our personal histories and it can't
correlate with that present in the geocentric model. Perhaps, if that's the
case, a more relevant model could (or could not) be derived given modern
understanding of astronomy but nobody bothers to invent it as long as the
traditional model produces predictions sufficient to satisfy the overwhelming
majority of the target audience.

------
qwerty456127
Not taking it too seriously, I still feel like atrology still is a fun thing
to learn. Can anybody suggest a good reading which won't take too much time
but would still give all the essential knowledge and understanding an
astrologer is supposed to have? I mean the model, the formulae to calculate
the deterministic part, basic clues on interpreting it etc.

Isn't it fun to study magical arts which have deterministic models as
important parts of them?

I'm also curious about how does the rectification thing work. Astrologers say
they can figure out your exact birth time given information about some events
in your life.

~~~
RichardCA
This is a good one:

[https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Stargazers-Notebook-Debbi-
Kem...](https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Stargazers-Notebook-Debbi-
Kempton/dp/1892881268)

Astrodeinst / Astro.com has for a long time been a good resource for doing
people's natal charts.

[https://www.astro.com/](https://www.astro.com/)

~~~
RichardCA
You might also find this to be of some use:

[https://www.astrolog.org/astrolog.htm](https://www.astrolog.org/astrolog.htm)

------
polynomial
> "Astrology is one big word association game.”

This is essentially the point Sontag makes in her essay Under the Sign of
Saturn, while adding that word games can be fun, and tell even you a lot about
someone.

------
Merrill
>because if you sprinkle magic on top, you can sell people anything.

WeWork?

~~~
xamuel
What we need is for someone to apply deep neural networks to astrology. Sure,
star-signs never worked in the past, but do you realize how powerful GPUs are
these days? Now please give me a $500mil seed round

~~~
qwerty456127
Some stock market traders actually use astrology and attract investors. Some
even manage to make money this way. Perhaps you'd like to read about W. D.
Gann.

------
werber
I've "read" tarot cards for most of my life and have 0 belief in the
supernatural. But, the cards are prompts for discussions with people, who need
to believe in "magic" to look inside themselves and talk it out with someone.
I don't do it for money anymore, but, I think sitting down with someone who
has empathy for you, tarot reader with cards or priest with a book, can have
some therapeutic value

------
qwerty456127
By the way, I'd like to introduce another astrology-like thing to those who
haven't heard of it so I could find out what smart guys here might say about
it: it's "human design".

It takes your exact birth date+time (+place unless you can specify the
timestamp in UTC) as its only input an produces a very detailed an precise
review of your personality (well, what it actually produces is a bizarre
looking chart with lots of digits and weird words but it's very deterministic
and straightforward to interpret given the knowledge on what do these digits
mean which can be obtained from a book or a paid course, no "sympathetic
magic" or anything like that has to be used).

I have done some research to find out the meaning of the details depicted on
the chart and found out the personality profiling it provides mind-bogglingly
precise. It fits me exactly, while it doesn't fit me at all if I change the
date. I have also tested it against some other people I know well.

It's orders of magnitude more precise than Meyers-Briggs or anything like
that. It absolutely does not feel like cold reading or random stuff which
would more-or-less fit everyone.

How can this possibly work?

The official explanation says it has something to do with neutrinos and CMBR
but this obviously sounds bullshit. Nevertheless it's impossible for me to
deny it works.

This seems so curious I would even conduct a study involving a reasonable
number of subjects to verify the predictions against if I had enough spare
time an money.

------
thanatropism
When I was a teenager (boy), girls were into astrology and one way to be
around them was to indulge them on this. But I told them I had investigated
the existing sign and didn't really identify with any of them; and that I was
looking into maybe creating my own sign once I got to a chart of the
constellations etc. (This was pre-internet.)

~~~
xamuel
Possible plot twist: the girls were into astrology because it gave boys an
easy way to approach and initiate conversation with them ;)

------
droithomme
I used to do Tarot card demonstrations for friends, explaining exactly what
the psychology was, that it was just arbitrary noise and they were projecting
on to random open ended ink blot like designs and assigning meaning to it.

Didn't work. All my friends believe now I am psychic. Because how could I know
these things that I showed them?

------
philshem
It’s my duty to post all relevant and recent NYer articles, so here you go:

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/28/astrology-
in-t...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/28/astrology-in-the-age-
of-uncertainty)

------
yosefzeev
Uh, that's not how any of that works. Rather, that's how it worked for the
article writer.

------
smdz
I do not disagree with astrology but its application. In fact, stuff like
cellular automata got me curious about astrology (obviously I did not find any
relation).

My point of view: astrology is a way of "evaluating the environment/universe
and its effect on us" and determining a probabilistic outcome, not a perfect
outcome. It is more like an ancient equation passed on to astrologers, that
gives us the probability of success for a person trying to cross a river with
a strong current. The intuition about these equations is either long lost and
not yet discovered in science.

I have been told by some astrologers (quite a few) that I could not do certain
things. But I stood determined, and did those successfully. If I had not
tried, I had already failed. But both of us were right. I could not do those
things in a traditional manner, I had to achieve those differently.
Retrospectively, after learning a bit of astrology myself, I can see why they
said so.

------
fortran77
> The clairvoyant had said none of the things my friend claimed. Not a single
> one. My friend’s imagination had done all the work.

This reminds me of people recounting things that they believe happened at a
party in high school 30 years ago, to members of Congress.

------
jmkd
There is an approach of modern astrology that is not predictive and mystical,
and that appeals to many because it is non-judgemental and makes no scientific
claim for itself. It's not a scam or a swindle, it's only claim is being a
guide or tool for creativity.

It works in the same way the I Ching does, simply by presenting connections
and ideas to people and allowing them to draw conclusions, resolve issues and
work on their healing.

Without the I Ching we would not have the best of Philip K Dick, so dismissing
all forms of astrology disempowers those for whom it is genuinely useful and
inspirational.

This is an unfashionable and unscientific view, but that does not decrease the
value for humans who - it turns out - are never 100% rational beings, and
that's a wonderful thing.

~~~
bena
And without amphetamines and his suicide attempt we wouldn't have A Scanner
Darkly.

That doesn't make either of those things good.

So I really wouldn't template my life off of things Philip K Dick did.

~~~
jmkd
My point is he used an artform to inspire his art, and we all should be
afforded that privilege.

Yes I believe art is a good thing, whether it turns you into a murderer or a
saint is a different topic.

~~~
bena
My point is that Philip K Dick was Philip K Dick. The I Ching didn't make him
a brilliant artist. Neither did amphetamines. Neither did attempting suicide.
He did all of those things _and_ was a brilliant artist.

Yes, he used aspects of his life to influence his art, but everyone does.
Whether they realize it or not.

So even had Philip K Dick not heard of the I Ching, he would have still
produced brilliant work.

------
toss1
While listening to an NPR radio interview on astrology, I got increasingly
impatient with the nonsense, and it just occurred to me that astrology is
nothing but quasi-random assertions acted upon by confirmation bias.

Nicely confirmed by this key passage in the article: "Some repeat customers
claimed I’d made very specific predictions, of a kind I never made. It dawned
on me that my readings were a co-creation – I would weave a story and, later,
the customer’s memory would add new elements. "

This whole practice has endured for millenia, is built on the foundation of
one of the most common of human mental error conditions.

Makes me wonder about the likelihood of other massive fundamental erroneous
practices we haven't yet learned to question.

------
kept3k
I believe what was going on was some Spiritual Warfare.

It's interesting that she was working with the two different sides. And they
were actively pulling against one another. This isn't uncommon.

God was showing her what true love and compassion looks like at the Catholic
hospital.

The devil didn't like that. He wanted to deceive her into thinking she could
be a psychic, and that she can control the universe with her own free will.
She was also actively deceiving her clients, who were turning to her instead
of God.

------
cptaj
Guilty click. Immediately ran away after the site blocked 90% of the screen
with curtains

------
GrumpyNl
I have worked for and with them. One word, charlatans.

------
air7
I'm surprised by the many positive/understanding comments on this thread.
Personally I find this kind of behavior despicable. Giving people what they
ask for doesn't make it morally justifiable. Even if helps then in the short
term.

Astrologers, psychics, tarot readers and the likes are mis-educating people.
Pushing the population back towards the dark ages. The real danger of this is
specifically when it seems to work, in that it strengthens people's belief in
"something" "beyond understanding" "magic" etc. Adults living in a fairy-tale
world is dangerous. There is no moral dilemma. People who want their curse
lifted should not have anyone to go to that isn't a doctor.

Personally I also add "mentalists" and the likes to the list. I find Darren
Brown, Lior Suchard and the such just as despicable as Uri Geller or any other
con-man. The small yet crucial difference between a "mentalist" and a magician
is the back story, and more importantly the effect of the back story on the
viewer's world view: A magician leaves the viewer with the (very important)
realization that they too can be fooled and they are not smart enough to
understand and explain everything they experience. This is a very
uncomfortable feeling for most people but honest magicians leave you with it.
"Mentalists" ease your pain by throwing in an pseudo scientific "explanation":
NLP, body reading, etc. But with that they rob the viewer of a valuable life
lesson about their own shortcomings, and replace it with a wrong understanding
of how the world works.

~~~
Noos
The problem is the doctors can't lift the curse. At best, they can only treat
it, and sometimes you treat it by bargaining other aspects of your life for it
(the side effects medicine and treatment may give.) There are no
"shortcomings" to learn a life lesson from.

Or perhaps they are. Cinderella is told there are no fairy godmothers, so pull
your self up by your bootstraps and go get your prince! Until she realizes
what this mean is that unless she is incredibly lucky, she will be a scully
maid forever.

Be careful when you wish for this. The reality is that a secular and
scientific culture cannot solve or help as much as you think, and by driving
out people's illusions about their chances you might end up driving any sense
of hope from them at all.

------
_bxg1
> I watched nuns offer compassionate care to the dying...I became
> uncomfortably aware that New Agers do not build hospitals or feed alcoholics
> – they buy self-actualisation at the cash register.

> Half the time, though, I couldn’t get a word in. It turned out what most
> people want is the chance to unload for an hour.

> “Get to a doctor,” I told him. “Now.”

I grew up in an evangelical, southern-baptist church. I indeed saw many
mission trips, community events, charitable efforts. But there was always a
catch: it was _always_ a veiled effort to convert people. You didn't _have_ to
convert of course, but that's what the whole thing was about. Every greeting,
every friendly conversation, every volunteer effort. They were all just
spoonfuls of sugar. None of it was without ulterior motives. It was like one
of those business "seminars" that really just wants you to buy something.
Every interaction with another human was steeped in this mentality. Of course,
when asked, they would argue that converting people is the most compassionate
thing you can possibly do. I have to disagree.

What I never got, even as a convert, was a real chance to unload to someone
who would actually, truly listen. As someone with deep anxiety and depression,
nobody ever told me to go to a therapist. Not once. They would always nod, and
smile sympathetically, and say "have faith and leave it up to God".

Every religion - even every religious body - is different. I just felt the
need to provide a counterexample to the rosy light that traditional religion
was left in by the author. For me, Christianity was astrology: something that
made me feel superficially better sometimes, but was really just pushing me
further and further away from any actual healing or personal development.

~~~
sdegutis
> For me, Christianity was astrology: something that made me feel
> superficially better sometimes, but was really just pushing me further and
> further away from any actual healing or personal development.

> I grew up in an evangelical, southern-baptist church.

 _Well there 's your problem._ Not all denominations are created equal.

> None of it was without ulterior motives.

Yes, this is what you get when you take away the real heart of Christianity,
all you have left is a useless shadow of the real thing that can't produce its
proper effects in a soul.

I really have to write a book about this. There are too many people who have
absolutely no idea what Christianity is, and because of that, they all keep
abandoning it and refuse to even consider it. Or they hold fast to an
emasculated, false version of it, and spread this counterfeit religion
believing it to be the real thing, despite it not producing the fruits of it
within their own lives.

But in the meantime, check out:

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHr17i6CU5FgiHD3hI0k0...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHr17i6CU5FgiHD3hI0k0PnCjrxdphNSG)

and

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6znY3VjqN25fNvGKVRLU...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6znY3VjqN25fNvGKVRLU0tLZ-
TC8aM_3)

~~~
NotSammyHagar
Okay, I listed to it for 20 minutes (I was going to stop after 5 ;-)). That
guy was a good speaker. His church has had some great philosophical thinkers
and done a lot for charity and helping people.

How do you reconcile that with the terrible things that have been part of it.
That church has itself had some serious problems, including being part of
destroying the culture of people in the new world, oppressing women, went
through periods of multiple competing leaders who demonized each other,
suppressed and basically enabled continuing abuse of children by religious
leaders in the current era.

I find it very difficult to reconcile these two competing facts, which seems
to be pretty common in other christian denominations also (such as the
endlessly depressing stories in Dan Savage's old columns on church leaders
abusing their congregations).

~~~
sergiosgc
I can try to answer that, even though I'm not actively catholic. You must
evaluate an entity (person, organization, company) by what it is, not what it
was. What it was can be a hint about what it is, but you must be available to
reevaluate. You must be available to _forgive_, which happens to be a central
tenet of Christianity.

~~~
mattigames
The covering up of modern pedophile practices inside the catholic church is
part of what it is not what it was. Also they have enormous amounts of money,
in other words practice none of the material detachment they claim to follow.

------
sunseb
I don't understand how HN algorithm works. Sometimes, submissions like this
link seem to magically pop from nowhere?

~~~
naringas
right now at 12p UTC there's a different set of top stories. I call these Euro
top stories. Within the next 2-4 hours USA will wake up and the top stories
will change.

~~~
tcpekin
Having moved continents last year, I think this is very apparent. European
morning stores are the day/evenings of the US, and then like you say, between
2 and 4pm the active stories are more highly variable, as the US wakes up.

------
rafaelvasco
The most complete definition for our reality that I've seen is that everything
is One. Everything in the Universe is connected, part of a whole; Everything
is made of the same basic components, only vibrating, at different
frequencies; As we are all made of the same basic components and everything is
interconnected, we can affect the Universe , just as the Universe affects us.
That for me explains and validates most of these concepts that most people
think are fantasy: Clairvoyance, Telekinesis, Mind Reading, Telepathy etc;
Once you start seeing the big picture you start to glimpse reality; Science is
just starting to grasp these concepts. There will come a time when mysticism
and science will be one and the same, and religion won't exist; Because we
won't be needing it anymore; We'd have transcended it;

~~~
lm28469
> There will come a time when mysticism and science will be one and the same

Mysticism stop being mysticism when it becomes science. Magnets were magic
until we figured out how they work, &c.

> Clairvoyance, Telekinesis, Mind Reading, Telepathy etc;

I'm as open as can be but as long as there is literally nothing that back that
up I won't buy it. There is no difference between a psychic and a 8 years old
kid trying to throw energy balls out of his hands by concentrating very hard
after watching one too many dragon balls episode.

~~~
egypturnash
Here's a book chock full of the results of numerous studies and meta-analyses
that backs it up. [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35805860-real-
magic](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35805860-real-magic)

Here's another book with the results of a few studies and first-hand accounts
of the experience of how saying "so actually um there seems to be something
going on here" is career poison because it's going against the currently-
accepted dogma: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8025803-the-energy-
cure](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8025803-the-energy-cure)

~~~
dkersten
Where can I find these studies, outside of someone's for-profit book?
Preferably in a peer reviewed form.

