Astrology Tested

 

The following is an excerpt from a letter I wrote to a very close friend who lives in the States. I have changed all names except my wife, Sharon's, and mine. Jane is the astrologer in the following text.)

...I must take you back to the first time I got a chance to talk to Jane on a one-to-one basis, a day or two after they moved in. Although I was acquainted with Jane's husband, this was the first time I had ever met her. Incidentally, Jane is a native-born Israeli, has done extensive traveling worldwide and speaks and reads English fluently and effortlessly. Sharon I happened to be home from work on this day in November. We both were down with colds and called in sick to work. Jane came back from her errands early and she and I got the introductions out of the way and we all started to chat. Through the course of some light discussion Jane revealed that she was an astrologer, that she had learned the art and science of it some twenty years before, and was certain that she had counseled some seven thousand people in this manner. I looked at her strangely, then said very politely that I didn't believe in astrology since I had read too many newspaper sun-sign columns and was long convinced that it was a lot of hooey. Jane replied that sun-sign columns depend on only on the sun, a single factor in a natal horoscope, which is only two percent of the whole. She used all the other planets for interpretation.

She asked that I provide her with my birth date and said she would attempt to tell me something about myself that she couldn't possibly have known, just to demonstrate that it works. I thought that probably the best way to end this whole discussion was to humor her. I figured that when astrology proved bogus, it would end the discussion. So I gave her the date and expected to hear some very vague and general descriptions that could easily apply to a large bulk of the population.

She got my birth date and looked up the date in a book of planetary positions known as an ephemeris. The ephemeris is a book of columns with numbers of the planetary positions cross-referenced to dates, so that one may find the planetary positions for a particular date. That was all, no interpretations, no text, just columns of numbers. After she studied the references to my birth date for a few minutes, she started to describe me and some of my quirks with unlikely accuracy considering the time I had been acquainted with her. These were not generalities; she gave a description similar to the one I would give about someone I had known intimately for twenty years.

I wanted to know what her trick was. She said there was no trick. I started arguing, giving evidence of how the planets couldn't determine personality traits. She said that the planets and their positions only indicated personality factors but did not control or determine them in any way. When I asked how this could be, she said she didn't know, but one doesn't have to know if it works.

She then asked Sharon for her birth date and, after a few moments of study, she described things about Sharon with the same accuracy as she had with me. I was kind of impressed but still quite skeptical. When she asked if she could check into our relationship, I thought that this would surely show the flaws of astrology, but both Sharon and I were taken aback when she started describing not only major themes in our relationship but also some rough times in our married life and continued to describe both the nature and time frames of difficulties we had in our marriage. Now this was stuff that no one, and I mean no one, knew about. When Sharon and I had difficulties, we resolved them by ourselves and never have needed marital counseling, nor have we ever confided in any friend or family member on these matters. So I was at a real loss to explain how Jane was able to come up with that information so easily, just from scanning columns of numbers.

I still thought that there was a trick to it and told her so. Jane then suggested a third demonstration and asked for the birth date of a good friend of mine saying she would tell me something significant about that friend on that basis. It's hard to play tricks with someone completely unknown, someone you've never met. So I gave Jane the birth date of Sue, my old girlfriend. I told Jane only that we had gone together for three years and had been engaged, but it fell through. That was the sum total of what Jane knew.

After a few more moments of study, Jane asked me what I wanted to hear about Sue. I said, “Please don't tell me, ‘Oh, she’s very intelligent,’ because it would be obvious to you by now that I don''t hang around with dummies. Give me something specific, something unusual about her that is not part of the general population.” Jane gave the matter more thought and studied the ephemeris at Sue's and my birth dates and offered the results of her inquiry. The following was the conversation that we had:

 
J: This woman has or had a very dominant father.

D: That’s correct. However, maybe thirty percent of the population has dominant fathers. What else? You'll have to do better than that.

J: Her father was pretty tough and very domineering, and she wants a husband to act the same way.

D: Uh-huh, but most people unconsciously look for, and get, a father- or mother-figure in a spouse. What you're using here is elementary clinical psychology, not astrology. Try again.

J: Her father was very tough and demanding and she wants a husband to act the same way, in a bossy manner, ordering her around. Not abusive, she won't tolerate abuse at all, but she wants a very high degree of bossiness, a narrow range of bossiness that isn't abuse. She wants a husband who treats her like an army sergeant.

D: It's interesting you should put it that way. Sue and I broke up and she married someone else sometime after, but we kept in touch. A few years later, after Sharon and I married, they invited us over for an evening. When I was there I saw her husband order her around, very much like a sergeant would order underlings in a firm and demanding way. "C'mon, Susie! Chop-chop! Let's get a move on!" he barked at her when she delayed setting the table for dinner because she stopped to talk to my wife. I noticed that she seemed to like this treatment very much, and whenever he would boss her around she would break into a slight giggle and display an ear-to-ear smile. She obviously enjoyed that treatment. In fact, after our visit was over, as my wife and I walked to our car, I recall saying to Sharon: “How come he can get away with bossing her around that way when I couldn't?”

Jane's answer was along the lines I was looking for, a specific behavior pattern that was highly atypical in the population. Jane found just such atypical behavior and described it accurately even though she clearly didn't know my ex-girlfriend. Jane seemed to satisfy my criteria.

So with that, it was very clear to me that astrology had a potential to discern personality types and dynamics, although I wasn't entirely sure that she wasn't playing some game. I asked her how she came up with those answers and she gave a capsule explanation that involved a very complex and extensive learning of the symbols attached to the planets, the signs and interpreting layers set up in priorities. I asked her how she learned all that, and she replied, "From books." I asked how I could get some of these to try this out for myself and she said she'd happily lend me the books that she learned from. I figured that if there was some sort of scam involved, which I didn’t see how that could at all be likely, then the books would give the straight story. The thing that really intrigued me was that, if astrology could be learned and applied half as well as Jane appeared to use it, then I had discovered a way of understanding the deeper dynamics of personality. Since high school I had ached to understand what made people tick, and this seemed to provide the key. After more demonstrations by Jane on what astrology could do in the psychological realm I was determined to learn it. I borrowed her books and went through a period of a year where I learned enough to apply it if only to satisfy myself not only that it worked, but I frequently amazed myself at the variety and utility of the things I was learning and applying.

I felt compelled to demonstrate and to test these things I was learning just for myself. I had learned about transitory factors, known as “transits” that influence the natal chart or horoscope, and so have a temporary effect on one's moods or disposition. After I picked up the essence of the idea of transits, I bought a book that catalogued typical moods and behaviors that are correlated with certain transits. I wanted to try it out on someone whose behavior I could predict. The problem was that I didn’t want the individual to know that he or she would be used as a guinea pig for if he or she knew that I was looking for something it might influence that person's behavior. In the end, I decided to attempt to predict my boss's bad days. Now, when I was working in the orchards, our boss was the kind of person who clearly communicated to everyone around what sort of mood he was in. If astrology worked enough to predict his bad days -- and he had a bad day on the average every two months -- then it was more evidence of the validity of astrology. So I obtained his birth date and searched the ephemeris for significant transits that would display anger, short temper, unusual sensitivity or irritation with people or events that he considered inappropriate.

Anyway, I searched and found two transits that would peak on the same day that, I thought, would put anyone into a bad mood by themselves or together. About three weeks later, I saw that my boss would be experiencing a transit that, according to the book, would suggest the feeling that other people or life in general was in conflict with him (transiting Sun square natal Sun). There was another transit that would peak on the same time that the books say many people get the feeling of “one foot on the gas, the other foot on the brake,” or a feeling that life is a struggle (transiting Saturn square natal Jupiter). Either one of these alone can affect one negatively, but both together would have a compound effect that would increase the discomfort and irritation significantly. One could certainly expect to see anger in the person being observed. The only problem is that the day both of these transits would reach their peak was to be early morning on Shabbat, and we don't work on Saturday in these parts. To make matters more complicated, I had off every other Friday as a matter of course and, wouldn’tcha know it, I was scheduled to have that Friday off as well.

So I gave up hope of being on hand to witness the expected behavior in my boss and looked for another day that he might be in a foul mood. As it turned out, I returned to work after the weekend, and expected our boss to act like a bear with a sore posterior. I was resigned to the idea that if he was in a bad mood there would be no chance of me knowing about it. I went to work after that weekend and met my coworker, Greg. Before we left for the orchards he launched into a story of what had happened on my day off. It went like this:

 
G: (excitedly): Dale, did you hear what happened to Tom last Friday at work on your day off?

D: No. What happened?

G: Well, Tom told me to meet him at nine o'clock at the poultry run office, and it turned out that I was really early for that meeting, so I stopped into the section of apple orchard next to the poultry run office to check the irrigation computer there. You know that it doesn't take more than two minutes to check that the program ran and the watering was done. It took me only a minute or two to make sure the scheduled watering occurred over the weekend and I went to the office. Heck, it was only a minute or two after nine o'clock, but Tom was waiting for me outside the office with his hands on his hips and was looking really angry at me. When I pulled to a stop, Tom blew up and yelled at me, “Why are you always working at cross-purposes to me? Why do you always make my life so much harder than it has to be?" So Tom yelled and screamed at me for getting in his way and for delaying him. But heck, I was only a minute or two late for this meeting and he had no right to treat me this way. He really got abusive at me so I went to [Tom’s boss] and complained about being abused and that he had no right to chastise me in that way. Anyway, [Tom’s boss] called Tom into his office and gave him a good dressing-down for treating the help so badly. Afterwards Tom came and apologized for the scene he made. Man, I had never seen him in such a state before!

As I listened to this, I was shocked and open-mouthed at what I heard. Without my having been at work on that Friday, while I wasn't around to influence my boss and possibly put him into a bad mood, within twenty-four hours of the expected time of the peak of those transits, Tom announced that he had been feeling exactly what I had predicted he'd feel three weeks before. Specifically, I expected him to feel very much in conflict with others or “the situation” and have the feeling of a struggle. He displayed that very behavior, and his statements showed that this was exactly the way he was feeling.

\
Now, I admit that there some details about this that I got wrong. I figured that the transits of that day would trigger a simple bad day. He didn’t have just a routine bad day; he had a calamitous day that was exceptionally terrible that everyone would remember to this day, years later. I admit that his bad-day experience was far more than I'd expected.

The other detail that wasn’t exactly as I predicted was that the behavior occurred twenty-four hours before the expected peak. I learned that the effects of the transit do not strike suddenly, like lightning, but builds up. The effects can vary according to individuals and their level of self-discipline: one person can lose control and display the effects earlier while another may choose to hold back, grit his or her teeth for much longer and display them later on. The effects of transits are not entirely fated; we can exercise self-control and exert our will over whether we act on the feelings that come upon us. The feelings may be there, but we don't have to act on them.

What I learned from this is that predicting moods and behaviors as a result of them is rather dependant on the individual and that I must take into account the disposition and basic personality of the individual involved, as well as try to assess the desire and ability for self-control. These factors make predictions of this nature more complex but far from impossible. In any case, this prediction of my boss’s bad day from three weeks before worked better than my wildest expectations.

A month or more after that incident, I had a another chance to predict someone's bad day, but this time it worked in reverse in that the explosion had already occurred and I named the very day it happened a month afterward. My in-laws are close friends with a woman I'll call Elna. They are not nearly as close to her husband, whom I'll call Phil. Phil is an unusual character, extremely intelligent and talented, and a highly skilled craftsman. He creates jewelry and combines graphics with brass and silver. He takes brass or silver plates and cuts out designs or calligraphy on them. The man does beautiful work. He also has a love for history and can elucidate at length, and remarkably well, about the ancient world. On the other hand, he's a card-carrying leftist, deluded to the point of loving terrorists and hating Jews. (We have lots of these self-haters among the Jewish people, and to the extent that I've seen it in Israel, it's definitely a serious mental illness among Jews, quite common among the population. By contrast, self-hatred of this kind is rarely seen in the States, only among those with serious emotional illnesses. It’s usually the result of having been emotionally abused in childhood and internalizing the anger and hatred, directing them at the self. In Jewish culture there doesn't need to have been any emotional abuse by parents but by the anti-Semitic surrounding culture. First- and second-generation Holocaust survivors can be prone to display self-hatred.) In Phil’s case, this wasn't due to either childhood abuse or trauma due to Jew-haters. He has some serious emotional problems that may even border on schizophrenia. His wife informed me that Phil's father returned to the US from World War II shell-shocked and completely dysfunctional in the family setting. He later abandoned his family when Phil was a child. When Phil was a pre-teen his mother was confined permanently to a state psychiatric ward for schizophrenia, where she died. Phil was raised by his grandparents. Phil wasn't born Jewish but was converted under Reform auspices by a rabbi in the States who apparently was not concerned about Phil's lack of religious commitment or emotional suitability. Phil has since turned into a Jew-hater himself, and if he gets a sympathetic ear, he'll go on at length about how terrible Jews are and how wonderful Arabs are. In his mind, Arabs can do no wrong and Jews can do no right. When he gets going, his description of events and situation is clearly delusional.

Anyway, Phil and Elna often drop by my in-laws' place when we're there and frankly, I have an impossible time getting close to him. We're quite civil to each other and we all enjoy his encyclopedic knowledge of art and history, but the delusions come thick and fast when he talks politics. Many people who hear him give his candid views walk away shocked at the wild tales he tells. That’s the background on him that is necessary to understand the rest.

I was talking to my mother-in-law on the phone and she mentioned that Phil had “flipped out” and got very violent. She said that one day he started breaking windows, dishes and anything fragile in their apartment. His rage lasted the better part of an hour and did significant damage to their home. Upon hearing that, I asked my mother-in-law not to tell me anything more, that I would attempt to tell her exact date upon which this happened by astrological means. I then went to my file with his natal data (I had asked his wife for his birth date long before) and looked up the planetary positions on his birth date. I had been studying a book with descriptions of transits and one of them fit his behavior exactly. In a nutshell, the planet Mars symbolizes energy, motivation, drive and aggression. When Mars reaches the same position it had at the time of one's birth (called "transiting Mars conjunct natal Mars"), then typically one has a period of significantly heightened energy or motivation, drive or aggression. This last point matched Phil's behavior. So I checked the position of his natal Mars and noticed that three weeks before, on March 23rd, transiting Mars had made a conjunction with it. “This event of destructive behavior occurred on the 23rd of March,” I told my mother-in-law. My mother-in-law then said: “Well, let's see. I went with Elna to a concert a few weeks ago and she told me that it happened the day before. The day of that concert is written on my calendar. Let me check my calendar on the fridge.” She left the phone and returned a minute later and said: “The concert was on March 24th and Elna said that it happened the previous day, which made it the 23rd of March! You were right! How'd you know that?!”

I then explained the facts and assumptions that went into this, and both my in-laws were stunned. My father-in-law was especially shocked, since he's a retired nuclear chemist and worked for Abbott Pharmaceuticals for thirty years. The notion of astrology working at all was simply inconceivable to him. My mother-in-law then began to describe Phil’s behavior as Elna had told her about it, and I then asked her to stop and say no more. I then asked for their indulgence as I looked up a description of this transit in a reference book I have that describes typical emotional responses and behaviors that people have during transits. I read them both the description of transiting Mars conjunct natal Mars. It reads in full:
 

Mars Conjunct Mars: Ego energies and physical energies run very high during this transit. You will feel positively loaded with energy, for which you must find an adequate outlet, or you will have problems. The best way to handle this transit is to do some necessary heavy physical work. But that will work out only if you derive satisfaction from doing it. Otherwise you will feel resentful, which brings out the negative side of this transit. Sports, if you are at all athletic, is an excellent outlet. If you just sit around, you will begin to feel itchy and restless for no apparent reason and then become quite irritable. In this mood you will snap at anyone who comes along for no reason at all. Or you may be spoiling for a fight, even if there is no justification for one.
If you feel none of these effects, look deep inside yourself. You will probably find that you are doing a good job of repressing your feelings. And this is the most dangerous response of all, because the energy will out, either physically through an accident or by projection; that is, you will experience the energy through another. This means that you may have to endure another person's aggressive acts, which may bring you harm.

On the other hand, this transit is quite good for initiating any new project on your own. It is a transit of beginnings, and you should use it for that purpose, particularly for projects that you will be identified with and be given great credit for. Don't expect such projects to go along without opposition, however. Watch for strong resistance from others when Mars squares your natal Mars in about six months, although the precise time may vary. About one year from now, when Mars is in opposition to your natal Mars, you will know whether or not your project is successful. (Hand, Planets in Transit: Life Cycles For Living. Whitford Press, Atglen, PA: c.1976, ISBN 0-914918-24-9)
 

My mother-in-law exclaimed that the description above described Phil’s behavior “to a T!” She said Elna reported that Phil had gotten up really grouchy and was very antsy and didn't know what to do with himself. He had so much energy that he couldn't sit down to do any of his art projects. After a period of badgering Elna and their son, Phil exploded in rage and began to trash their apartment. After I read the above description, it was clear to both my in-laws that the feelings and behaviors described were not vague approximations that could apply generally to anyone at any time. The above are specific and objective. My father-in-law was just floored that this worked and said, “Clearly, there's something to astrology.”

So after these and quite a few other tests that I performed to see whether astrology is valid, I can definitely say that I am not a "believer" in it. I do not think that one should "believe" in it at all. It's not a religion where one takes it as an article of faith. If it works and can deliver results, then it can be used as a tool, and if the tool doesn’t work, it should be discarded.From what I've seen, if one absorbs the tremendous amount of learning that this subject requires, it can appear to work magic. However, it is neither magic nor occult. Astrology is based on observation and the correlation of the planets with human feelings and behaviors over millennia and requires mental operations of both synthesis and analysis, often back-to-back and together. Simple sun-sign astrology, which is popularized in the pulp magazines and newspapers, is only its most oversimplified and trivialized form. The sun in a horoscope only accounts for two percent of one's entire chart, and anyone who has decided that astrology does or does not work on the basis of sun-sign astrology has not even begun to test it for real.

When I look at someone's chart, I consider the positions of the sun, moon and all other planets. (I even work with an asteroid.) I must assess the angles between them all, together with the house positions, which are essential to determine the areas of life that the planet's influence expresses. There are sensitive points in everyone’s natal chart that are mathematically derived, though there is nothing in that position of a physical nature. Astrologers use these, too. For a shallow analysis synthesis of a chart, I must take into account a minimum of some forty factors. To do a standard reading, I can't consider any less than three hundred factors. Some two million factors can be derived from one chart. The problem is never one of a lack of data, but that there's so much data that no one can work with it all, so there are standard methods for delineating the chart by sorting and setting priorities among all the factors. Obviously, no one can blend even one thousand factors. So after a great deal of experience -- that is, after working with several thousand people an their charts, one's intuition becomes highly developed and the intuition uses this to absorb and process great volumes of data. When one's intuition has had enough experience and works well, the results can seem like magic, but they ain’t. I haven't gotten to the point where my intuition contributes significantly to the process, yet I get really good results even without it. When I have a counseling session I get the client's natal data first, construct the chart on my PC, and then spend ten to fifteen minutes studying it before seeing the person. After fifteen minutes of dialogue with the client it’s not unusual for him or her to tell me: “Gee, what you told me about myself took my therapist four months of twice-weekly sessions to uncover!”

A colleague at work was interested and asked me for an in-depth reading, since she was both interested and skeptical. I agreed and she came over for two evenings, during both of which we had four-hour sessions. I explained about two-thirds of what I could see at my level of learning and figured we could go on for at least another four hours. She was satisfied with what she heard and said that I was ninety percent accurate in what I had told her about herself.
 

The beauty of psychological astrology is that it is a diagnostic tool second to none. Not only can it tell someone a great deal about a person, but it can account for changes in one's emotional states and moods. Statistical markers have been discovered that can indicate the existence and severity of mental illness. A competent astrologer can foresee major life upheavals even years before they occur. Major life upheavals can take between one and a half to three and a half years and are characterized by five or six identifiable stages: the introductory stage, the crisis, the partial solution and the conclusion. All of those stages have periods in between of development where the process progresses and plateau periods where the process seems to be put on hold. A competent astrologer can give dates of each of those phases with awesome precision, describe the issues at hand and tell the client what there is to learn from that life upheaval in order to help make the process more efficient and less painful. One of the greatest comforts anyone in a major life upheaval can be given is the time frame that it will take. Just to have an idea how long one has to endure those issues and knowing that the worst is over does much to alleviate anxiety. Another thing that psychological astrology can do is plot the personality dynamics between two people and give a solid description of how and why a relationship does or does not work. This is a magnificent tool when couples are interested in marrying or have come for marital counseling. One can understand business relationships, parent-child relationships and friendships with this tool. Counseling with astrology uses the symbols of the planets to understand the internal dynamics of a person. When a client must make changes, the symbols are a guide to the sorts of changes that possible and those that are not. Suggesting changes by using the symbols in their dynamic setting as a guide makes sure that the client is never asked to go against the grain of his or her fundamental personality, so making changes is more like swimming downstream and the effort is just in switching tracks rather than attempting to swim across the current or, worse yet, upstream, which will guarantee failure.

I think this tool is great for helping to determine the type of profession one would be suited for and can easily save people years of trying out different jobs or courses of study until they discover their talents and interests. The utility and practical application of psychological astrology is simply staggering to me even to this day. It took a good four years to learn it on my own and another two just to gain enough experience to get where I am today, and there is still so much to learn. But considering how people can benefit by it, every moment I spent learning was well worth it.

Man, to learn this one has to memorize three hundred fifty points just for starters, one has to be darn good at geometry just to study the chart and to construct charts manually, and one has to understand calculus (thank God my PC does this work!). One has to learn to learn to handle and recognize symbols, which is a different mental function from the raw mathematical ability mentioned above. One has to use both synthesis and analysis -- not easy, since the brain centers that control these two functions are located in different hemispheres (fortunately, I've had neurological testing that determined that I have co-dominant hemispheres so switching back and forth between analysis and synthesis is easy for me.) One has to blend factors in prioritized layers and it's not unusual to blend clusters of factors successively that, if diagrammed, would look like long chains of algebraic functions. All this has to be done in one's head and not on paper.

I have one degree in social work and another in technical theatre and television production, yet my mental facilities have never been put under such demands as with astrology. Never have I had to use so many diverse areas of intellectual function as this, and I consider the years I spent wrestling with it to have been the greatest mental challenge of my life. No course of study that I have ever undertaken has demanded so much mental agility. I wouldn’t dare consider wasting my time with it if the results were vague and indistinct.

To make matters more interesting, free will is still a significant factor is this whole process. People can consciously and deliberately choose how they respond to situations. Astrology does not show fate; it indicates probability. Planetary influences shape our inclinations, but we can refuse to go along. We can always deny, sublimate, project, compensate and repress our feelings and inclinations. We have the choice of how to direct our lives, and while astrology shows the limits of our personalities' parameters, we can still operate within a specified range.

The more one understands the astrological influences on one's life, the less influence they have. To some, this seems like one of life's greatest ironies or contradictions, but it's really quite logical. If we understand the influences, it's not hard to use our free will to figure out how to work with or around them.

So anyway, I’m glad you sent me your birth date a while back. What I’d like, if you wouldn't mind, is to have your birth time and the name of the hospital you were born in. I recall that you were born in Chicago and that's generally good enough, but I have a penchant for accuracy and my atlas of geographical coordinates has a listing of every hospital and birthing clinic in the United States and Canada. What is even more important is the birth time. An astrologer can do forty percent good work just by knowing the birth date and birthplace, but an accurate birth time is extremely important to get the details. Hopefully you have your birth time on your birth certificate. Asking your mom to remember the minute of your birth is not very accurate as birthing mothers often have lots of other things on their minds at the time. Mothers' memories are frequently off by several hours and a birth chart changes every four minutes. An accurate birth time is based on the public record, and I strongly advise getting yours from the Illinois State Dept. of Public Records. I had to pay a coupla bucks to get a copy of my birth certificate but I had to specify that I wanted the birth time printed on it. Some states must be specifically asked to include this information.

Anyway, that's it about astrology for now. Enough digression -- back to the issue at hand. …