Babeled

I recently stumbled upon a website which offers an astrological horoscope for Barack Obama.

Thats right! For a limited time you, yes you, can peer into the future and know exactly whats going to happen to Barack! Sounds exciting doesn’t it!? Well, maybe, but the only problem is that it doesn’t seem to predict anything except that Barack was born to share his vision with the world. No offense, but isn’t that what we all do every day in our own unique ways - just rarely in front of a television camera?

In this example, as in so many others we can remember, Astrology clearly reveals it’s Achilles Heel: vague generalization. This of course is the weakness of all occult arts which claim to predict the future. Even secular attempts to predict the future course of world or personal events are usually way off the mark due to our tendency to wish for a particular future rather than observe the actual trends and patterns that surround us. Oh, and of course then there’s SLOTs - that just throws a big monkey wrench into prediction.

So we are left to wonder why, with fluff as its foundation, astrology has managed to survive for millennia? It has seen the rise and fall of the greatest empires. It has outlived various forms of social organization. It is found in a vast diversity of cultures which on the surface appear as though opposites. What then is the appeal of this mysterious craft? Is there truth to astrology, or has it survived on the wishful thinking of the collective imagination?

During my search for some truth I came across an interesting article which explained the scientific foundations of astrology. The author reveals that due to all things being connected there should be no confusion as to why the movement of Saturn is keeping you unemployed, and why the movement of Jupiter is controlling your spending habits. Ok. Well if that didn’t satisfy your need for logic, then learning that the interference between planets’ electromagnetic radiation creates all known psychological phenomenon should help. You see, gravity and electricity are related and so are all things, and all things live in the universe, and yeah.

Well, needless to say, these explanations left me as confused and in doubt as I was when I started. As a last resort, I decided to get a free horoscope done by Astro, the site where I found Obama’s report. To it’s credit the site provides a wealth of free information to satisfy one’s curiosity, as well as a few interpretations that felt accurate. However, the more the interpretations felt dead-on, the more annoyed I became by my lack of understanding of how astrology could possibly work.

To anyone out there who genuinely believes in Astrology, I hereby challenge you to enlighten this Doubting Babeler. Is there anybody out there?

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