Cathy;
"Know so much"? If being able to cast a chart with tables and a calculator from books I read eight years ago (which is what I said) is 'so much' then what do the experts know?! Heaven help us all! Oh, and it's the moon sign that for a given birthdate can vary between one of a few of the possible; can't recall the details. Silly me.
All I actually claim is;
- You can read back a skillfully written summation of a horoscope of a random date to someone, and if they want to believe, they will believe. They will only pick up on the fact it's not THEIR horoscope if they know enough of the terminolgy and associations of Astrology to catch the ruse. This is a fact.
- That astrology has not been proved to work, and that there are no known mechanisms whereby it could work. This is a fact.
- That if any form of divination does work, it's probably just mumbo-jumb being used to focus an innate ability. This is conjecture.
- That threatening bad weather as a result of a conjunction is irresponsible; just as there are people who will drink cyanide so the UFO behind the comet can take them away, so there are people who base their lives on their horoscopes. This is opinion.
And there you are, WITH MY PRECISE AGE RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, and rather than figuring out my birthdate with relatively minor mental arithmatic you figured it out all by yourself.
How impressive - you should do this for a living; there's not one Astrologer I know of how can beat probability in guessing peoples' sun sign, moon sign and rising sign based on a few hundred words of text. You could prove Astrology as a repeatable reliable phenomena in an afternoon, and be a very rich woman.
Being the nasty little skeptic I am I assumed you were just trying to undermine my disbelief in the power of the stars with a cheap trick, but of course, I must be wrong. Seriously; I doubt very much if anyone would be silly enough to try such a blatent lie, as it is unbelievable.
For me, if I assume your good faith, it just shows the amasing power of the subconscious mind, and how when people are riled they do things they normally can't do.
You say 'Astrology is no longer magic'; it never was magic, as there is no magic. Sorry. No Jehober, no lambs and lions playing in the New System of things, no life without end. We're just on a rather prosaic little planet with no apparent provable explanation. Somehow we manage to enjoy ourselves, but some need stories to prepare them to face the dark night, some need a drink, and others face it without fear. I found discovering what WAS under the bed, rather than letting my imagination fill in the space, was the greatest aid in not fearing what there is to come. This is of course an opinion.
Abbadon you said you can get out your tools and tell me when I was born. I would so much like this as I have no birth time and my mother refuses to give me morning or night and if you look, you will see that the Moon moved into a new sign on the day I was born. I would so much like for you to rectify my chart as that would give me a birthtime. You see I have no Ascendant and no Moon placement and without those I don't have a timer to life's events. Since you can do this I would so appeciate it.
Sorry, misunderstanding; I said I could cast a horoscope for a given birth date, time and place using the reference material I have, as in determine by chart etc. the sun sign, moon sign, ascendant, planets, houses, the whole shebang; I could even do a little write up on what it all is meant to mean, although I make no claim to being able to make it as convincing as a professional. Haven't done it for years, but it's just follwoign instructions in a book.
I don't know of any method that would reliably determine your birthtime involving astrology
I see (from your profile) that you're American. I don't know if your birth certificate would have those details (you might not have a copy, but you can get one), or whether you'd be able to get any records from the hospital you were born in. Your mum is probably just being difficult or thinks you'll consort with demons if she gives you your time of birth; she probably remembers at least early am/late am, early pm,/late pm. Next time you talk say about this TV program you saw and how it showed how your sleeping pattern was dictated by your time of birth - she shopuld fill in the gaps automatically as you'd not be prompting her to be difficult by saying anything about casting a horoscope.
...how irresponsible the GB has been in informing those they rule.
I agree with that point, but have to point out that having had my life dictated by a bunch of supsticious waffle from people who wanted to tell me how to run my life 'for my own good', I am very opposed to repeating that mistake.
Carl Jung wrote extensively about Astrology and used it in his work. Albert Einstein also studied Astrology and with two great minds marveling at the wonders of this earth and all it holds I should dismiss it as being something not proven?
My understanding was Jungian psychiatry makes use of architypes, personality types, etc, and used the standard astrological system as a convenient starting point for describing these. I don't think you will find a Jungian psychiatrist who will say that Jungian psychaitry is based on the movements of planets millions and millions of miles away. Likewise, I'll be very surprised if you can prove Eiestein studied astroLOGY, although he may well have dabbled in astroNOMY. In any case, you are using an 'argumenbt from authority', saying something is true because you say someone clever believes it is true. This is a bad argument. If astrology is a provable art, then there will be research that shows this, and people who can, for example, reliably and repeatably guess which sun, moon and rising sign someone is from a few hundred words of text.
I hate to break it to you, but there is no such evidence; there is as much evidence that JW's are THE truth as there is for astrology being an accurate guide and help to planning your life. The believers in both instances think there is evidence as to the relaibility of their source of guidance, but everyone else either doesn't care or thinks they are barmy.