I was digging around some ancient pages on Planet Waves and found this. Notice the award-winning design of the original. This is a comment on what rotten publicists most astrologers are. That’s why you haven’t heard of too many, and none have bestselling books at the moment. Flashback: 2003, the second year of Planet Waves Astrology News.
If anyone understood what astrology is, things might be a little easier. Just about everyone with an education still thinks the primary function of an astrologer is to tell the future. It’s not that we’re not present in the mainstream media; indeed, we are in every edition of just about every newspaper and every magazine. And what we are expected to write are forecasts, and to fit them in 75 words per sign. But since CNN does not care whether someone is going to have a good month for romance, we’re also expected to play Nostradamus and know when big nasty stuff is going to go down. Not, of course, so we can save lives (imagine evacuating the World Trade Center on an astrologer’s say-so). The benefit would be that everyone would be impressed.
Let’s pretend I’m on Larry King Live, along with Marianne Williamson.
Larry King: So Mr. Francis, you’re a professional astrologer. Based on your research, when is the world going to end?
Eric: Well, Larry, I’m not the kind of astrologer who dictates the future. I’m more the kind of astrologer who helps people make choices, work on their personal growth and investigate spiritual questions. Even my forecast columns tend to take the spiritual-psychological approach rather than a predictive one.
Larry: So you’re a minister and psychologist?
Eric: Well no, actually I was an English major, and then I worked as an investigative reporter covering PCBs.
Larry: Let’s switch to Marianne Williamson. Marianne, what do people need to do in order to be happier?
Marianne: Well, Larry, they need to love and forgive one another, and not make such harsh demands of themselves. [End of fake interview.]
In a media marketplace where everything needs to be clearly defined, or at least turned to a cartoon, astrology is completely ill-prepared to stand its ground. Marianne Williamson is a preacher; her job is to preach; she does a fine job of it. She actually has a congregation. We think we know who Marianne is. We know she has something to say. Larry knows what to ask her. We know who Larry is.
But what is astrology’s ground? I have my ideas. Astrology helps us set the larger context for the lives we live, in the age in which we live them. It helps us define the meeting points between a society and an individual. This involves assisting people in making adjustments specific to the time and place in which we are living. Is that newsworthy? What would grandma think?
Yet there are so many different kinds of astrology and so many different technical and philosophical approaches and so many astrologers out there predicting when asteroids will hit the Earth and when George Bush will be abducted by aliens (that already happened, actually) that there seems to be total anarchy. Some astrologers read the future; others do Jungian analysis; others tell you about your karma. This raging diversity is one of the great strengths of astrology. Plus, the fact that it appears as a time-honored tradition in every culture demonstrates that it’s organic. Yet it is rare to get any two astrologers to agree on anything, including what sign the moon is in. A lot of the time Vedic astrology will give you one answer and Western astrology will give you another. How can that be meaningful in the minds of people who don’t know that there are two zodiacs, and that that’s okay?
Not that the media is, in general, especially meaningful. There is simply not time for that. Astrology does not lend itself well to making vast generalizations in sound-bite format. Oh, it often tries, like when you read the predictions for the year ahead in The National Enquirer, and there it usually fails miserably. We have a very serious credibility problem on our hands. As Geoffrey Cornelius points out, astrology does not own up to its own mistakes, even though it makes many.
On the other hand, just about the only way to become really really famous as an astrologer is to predict a disaster, no matter what else you may have predicted. (The word “disaster” means against the stars.) One example is the somewhat vague prediction of the Kennedy assassination by Jeanne Dixon. In order to play that lottery, quite a few astrologers predict disasters in hope that one will come true, and then they’ll be famous.
The Skeptic’s Dictionary writes that, “Dixon achieved a reputation as a very good psychic, however, when the mass media perpetuated the myth that she had predicted President Kennedy’s assassination. In 1956 she predicted in Parade magazine that the 1960 election would be won by a Democrat and that he would die in office, ‘although not necessarily in his first term’. However, in 1960, apparently forgetting or overriding her earlier prediction, she predicted unequivocally that ‘John F. Kennedy [will] fail to win the presidency’.”
Also according to the Skeptic’s Dictionary, Dixon predicted that the Soviets would beat the U.S. to the moon, and that World War III would begin in 1958. When that didn’t happen, they report that she predicted there would be a cure for cancer in 1967.
Okay, not such impressive astrological work, but skeptics would do well to turn their penetrating eye on the media and ask why such nonsense is given credibility. (The answer is that it has entertainment value.) Some astrologers would be better off sticking to “Wear mauve. Taurus plays a role.”
This photo was morphed by Anatoly from the original, available in the below (scroll down, 5th image). I am sitting in for Carrie Prejean. How funny is that. What I love about Carrie is that the sex tapes she did were masturbation displays. Such fundamental sex, and she gives it to herself. The delicate irony is that she got in trouble for speaking out against queer marriage as Miss California. And she puss rather puts herself out there having the most lesbian possible sex: with herself. I hope she goes in there and lets off some of that tension, and finds a moment of self-acceptance for who she is and what she wants. I know she does.
http://planetwaves.net/astrologynews/865607543.html
Len- raison de faire?
On the 2 zodiacs I think of Geocentric as a relationship of Earth to Sol and sidereal as a relationship between sun and galaxy. I think they both work in their ways in a similar way that Sanskrit and Greek both work to describe the universe from different angles.
Thank you, Eric. In my case, each offering of service to the Planet Waves community is preceded by some self-inquiry along the lines of “what is this about, anyway?”. The answer is always, “the chart’s the thing”. Then intuition and inspiration take over and by the blessing of some grace or muse it usually comes out close enough for government work (and, most importantly, no harm done). The fact that there are so many ways to go wrong is indeed intimidating. The promise of contributing to someone’s healing is the reason to do (how would you say that in French – “raisin de sun”?).