CONFESSIONS OF A LAPSED ASTROLOGER

In view of all the astrological threads about why people believe and practise in it....this is actually a rum kind of anniversary of an event in itself. The last time my progressed Moon made the same place it has reached now was when I visited the campus where I was a student at the time - and walked right into an astrological convention, being hosted by the university where I was studying. It was in 1979.

It could have been a dream come true, as I was fascinated by astrology, had been really hungry to meet other astrologers, get to meet the names behind the books....and names there were aplenty. Michel Gauquelin was there, gallically being anti-astrology, John Addey, looking very frail, Alexander Ruperti, who spoke about his book on transits the next day. He was very dignified in a dry and droll sort of a way and thankfully did not metamorphose during his speech into some kind of a eye-flashing superman - I had already seen his book, but had not really appreciated the esoteric slant of it.

There was a star sign colummist called Roger Elliot, who was kind enough to show off his computerised programme to me along with my chart, at a time when computerised charts were still a relatively new thing, I suppose. Unfortunately, somehow things did not click with Roger - things got off on the wrong footing and I did not really get much out of the encounter - nor he, I suppose. Maybe it was that progressed moon. I had hoped, as a rather geeky undergraduate, that astrology could be a way to really understand others and certainly be truly understood in turn, but that was not to be One or two questions were more intrusuve than the situation warranted, but the others made me feel that my own perceptions had absolutely no validity at all: in fact, the whole exchange was rather more something I would have expected in a scientology centre. Maybe I am just unduly sensitive to creed converters, but I did get the sense that there was some kind of a creed at work, regarding what I was supposed to be like 'really.' The intention had never been to be churlishly resistent at the offer of a freebie reading from somone whose books I had enjoyed, but the experience was so disappointing. He and his wife were also totally dismissive about my creative interests, deciding apparently that this was not supposed to be my prescribed and ’true’ destiny. Compared to others I met later on, however, the good Mr Elliot was relatively benign in outlook, though he seemed more nervous of my horendous afflictions than I would have expected from what seemed to be a wiser Mr Elliot from his books.

Years later, a nice lady from the West Midlands, a palmist who also used astrology a little, was sent to me to be vetted for an organisation which promoted the psychic arts. She told me that if I did not forget about dabbling with painting and drawing and just concentrated on making money instead, I would commit suicide. Another nice example of someone who believes in affirming a client's 'true' path in life.

I know that many people come to the psychic arts because they genuinely are concerned with finding some kind of spirituality, answers to perennial questions to Why We are Here and so on. Time and time again, however, it has seemed to me that there can be a great deal of arrogance on the part of people who believe that they have the keys to the hidden Grand Plan of the universe and of the spiritual evolution of souls – one that can be easily be misused. I once had to deal with a young client whose esoteric astrological guru had told him that he would commit suicide by a certain date, also. To say nothing of the 'New Age' brigade, certainly of the 80's who would opine that if anything bad happens to you - e.g. getting cancer, being born with learning difficulties, struggling financially - it is All Yout Fault and you must have 'wanted' it really, so presumably deserve to be pilloried still further for your wanton 'victim' ways. After once seeing someone beaten up at a so-called New Age camp, it began to occur to me that my own difficulties in dealing with esotericists within the astrological community and the like might not necessarily have anything to do with any over-sensitivity on my part.

So then, this 1979 event certainly began to crysatllise for me the sense that there was not the meeting of minds I had been hoping for within the world of astrology. One or two other people I knew commented that they were surprised at how 'normal' everyone had seemed at the convention, though there was another student friend of mine who commented that the atmosphere of the convention had made her feel uneasy, calling the people present 'elitist.'

Anyway, the astrologers and psychics did not stop me from being creative, though maybe they were certainly right that there would be no commercial advantage to it, other than occasionally having run-offs of my Tarot pack published. It certainly put me off getting too involved in the world of the astrologers. My experience was, time and time again, that many people in this world seemed to enjoy the power they may feel from pigeonholing others, rather than truly getting to know them as unique human beings. I have been accused of scepticism there, but in fact, it is more a question of recognising the dangers of treating astrology as some kind of an esoteric religion – not least of forcing beliefs down someone’s hapless throat. For that, perhaps I can be pleased that at least Mike Harding, who is certainly no more an esotericist than he is avowedly a non-Jungian, raise questions about that. The cult of the Self can become every bit as tyrannous as the most fundamentalist of all religions, I believe now. By pigeonholing people exclusively by what is deemed to be the Self on high amidst a huge circus of commercialism, we blind ourselves to much of their inner complexity and uniqueness as human beings. Why astrology still draws me in the light of factors such as these is a mystery at times, though another astrologer once told me that I had a cluster of midpoints that showed 'the signature of the astrologer.' Pattern recognition and all that.

All I have to do now is go to certain of the interviewees who are featured in Garry Phillipson's tome which looks at astrology from the side of its believers and practioners and sceptics, who I am sure will be all to happy to affirm my ’true’ destiny for me again and stop me from being snowed in by my sad doodling for good along with all my other foolish dreaming, if some of those interviews are truly representative of the way most astrologers still think these days.

With all this considered, I have no return to get unduly involved with the astrological world again and it is why I have suggested elsewhere that whilst the thing might be all very well as 'an eavedropper to the gods' it maybe should not become a religion in itself.

I have one or two essays on my astrological pages, as well as other details of my astrological activities, at