Astrology: How does it work?

Do the stars control our activities? Do the planets decide what we wear, whom we marry, what job we do and when to call it ‘The End’? That’s what astrology says, and sounds good if you are a fatalist. If you are not; if you are a creature of logic and a self-made or self-making person, it doesn’t make sense. To determine what type you are, there is an interesting experiment in palmistry; please see if it works for you:

Put your hands together, palms up. Look at the lines on your left palm and the ones on the right. Is the design more or less symmetrical? No, no, it doesn’t mean you will marry someone good looking, as they used to tell me at school. Mates in the playground, not teachers in the classroom! What kind of school do you think I went to?

Back to your upheld palms. Does the left mirror the right? If it does, you are some kind of fatalist. You believe in an external agency; an influencer outside your will: luck, karma, God, fate, your spouse, boss. You will be driven to success or driven plain crazy by things outside your control.

If the design is not symmetrical, then you believe in yourself. You might be a proud product of self-help books or transformation courses and swear by your will. You make your own luck. You might believe that action is the key to success. You don’t buy lottery tickets or exchange wrappers for prizes. You sweat it through.

This experiment is based on the palmist theory that the left palm shows what you were destined for, and the right what you have made out of life. That is, if you are a right-handed person like me. If you are a lefthander, like Leonardo da Vinci and other geniuses, right palm for fate and left for your actions.

Let’s get back to heavenly bodies influencing your daily life. No, not heavenly bodies like Megan Fox. Or even the heavenly body in the next cubicle. Snap! Please pay attention, gents! Jupiter, Saturn, other planets, the sun, moon and the stars. How can they, way above the earth, influence teeny-weeny goings on down below? Astrologers may swear that a certain arrangement of Mars and other planets and houses will cause you to slip on a banana skin on your way to work, but does it really work that way? Makes no sense to a logical person like you, does it? Why can’t the planets go about their daily round of duties instead of interfering with mortal lives? Another funny thought I had: If there’s life on Mars, do Martians have Earth on their horoscopes causing them to slip on banana skins or the Martian equivalent of banana skins? Mind boggles, so let’s have a convenient theory to explain this logically.

Astronomers mapped the heavens and used the knowledge to measure time. Sun rises and sets giving you one day and one trip of the earth round the sun gives one year. The waxing and the waning of the moon roughly take one month. After that, what? How do you measure beyond a year? Jupiter passes a different star-set or constellation roughly once a year. Saturn does it in two and a half years. Using such info, an experienced astrologer can look at your chart and tell you the year of birth and even the time of day. A little practice and you should be able to do it yourself!

So, that gives us our first premise: Astrological charts are great for measuring long periods of time. Check.

If you go around asking people if astrology worked for them, you might be amazed to find that it seems to work sometimes. Man I knew ages ago, a design engineer in an automobile spare part factory was a very careful driver. Had a scooter that he rode at 30 kmph in heavy traffic and 40 kmph on empty roads. Never had an accident in 20 years of driving. One day, after he had left for the day, his wife got a letter from their family astrologer who warned them about a possible accident. Before she had finished reading the letter, her husband was standing on the welcome mat with a funny expression and a bandaged hand. A suicidal street dog had fallen in front of the scooter; he had swerved too hard with the handle bar to spare the dumb animal but spoil his accident-free record. I was there when the mail came in and when the injured chap came in. How do I explain this logically? Can’t. And to leave no doubt whatsoever, he had another accident the following week when the scooter slipped on spilt oil.

So the second premise is: Astrological predictions seem to work. Check.

From 1 and 2 we get: The time a child is born determines the course of events in its life. The planets don’t affect our life, but their position is helpful in timing events.

Inference: The time of birth sets in operation the sequence of future events and their timing.

That is my story, and I intend to stick to it. Please have an open mind and stick around while we explore this together in future hubs.