The Island of Doubt

Astrology is not usually at the top of my worry list. Sure, there are far too many gullible readers of daily horoscopes, and it did bother me a bit to learn Ronald Reagan was consulting an astrologer while sitting in the White House. The space those astrology columns waste in the newspapers could be put to better use, but most the time, it seems like harmless silliness. At best, one could argue that astrology represents a misguided, primitive form of scientific inquiry into the forces that govern the universe, and it is true that the first modern astronomers were also the last sincere astrologers.

Every now and then, however, I am reminded just how objectionable the whole business really is at its worst.

Sunday's New York Times includes of one those irresistible short pieces on what the astrological community had to say about last week's revision of the solar system. You'd think that after having been forced to incorporate Uranus, Neptune and finally Pluto into their arcane calculations over the last few hundred years, they would have thrown in the towel and at least tried to come up with a reasonable explanation for the shifting facts at the heart of their art, but no.

According to Toronto astrologer Richard Brown, it doesn't matter what the scientists say; a planetary body's effects are real and always have been real, regardless of whether or not we were feeling those effects. That kind of cognitive dissonance is to be expected from someone who either believes in something as stupid as astrology or at least makes a living preying on those who do. As the Times' Henry Fountain wrote, "Not that there is any reason to expect astrologers to be consistent."

What to make, however, of the following statement:

Pluto was discovered in 1930, and to hear Mr. Brown tell it, the planet's energy has already been felt, and rather strongly. "Pluto does not take prisoners," he said. "World War II was your essential Pluto moment."

"Astronomers can tap-dance all they want about nomenclature, but the cat's out of the bag," Mr. Brown added. "The energy has already been released."

So never mind the political consequences of the First World War, naive assessments of those consequences, Adolph Hitler, and Truman's decision to drop the big one, twice. None of those things are important. What really matters are the orbital dynamics of a dwarf planet 6 billion kilometres away.

At risk of making a mountain of a molehill, we should all be offended by such malarky. Blaming god is one thing, but blaming Pluto for the worst excesses of brutality in human history is beyond the pale. I'd like to see other astrologers condemn Brown, in no uncertain terms.

There are other reasons to find Brown offensive. His web site, Karmastrology, is a veritable constellation of idiocy. There you can read about "The cozy little ten-planet world of 20th Century astrology." Ten planets?

And get this, "much of this astronomical exploration is ego-driven for the purpose of career advancement." Yeah. That explains a lot. As does this attempt at uncovering the psychology of the war generation:

During the second segment of Quaoar conjunct Neptune, May 1942 through August 1945, both Quaoar and Neptune were changing signs. Both planets were passing back and forth over the Libra-Virgo cusp and frequently one planet was on one side of the cusp while the other planet was on the opposite side, thus giving a classic dissociate conjunction. These individuals were those born during the middle and late part of World War II, and while they have no conscious recollection of the war for the most part, the temper of the times left its indelible imprint upon them at a deep level, but the confusion often associated with a dissociate conjunction is evident in their inability to articulate the imprint's impact on their lives [emphasis mine].

That may read as so much twaddle, but Brown is only getting started. He then ventures into genuinely dangerous territory:

In generational astrology (the astrology of the outer planets by sign), Quaoar is best seen in it's [sic] ability to define the generation which popular culture now calls the Indigo Children.

The "indigo" kids, it turns out, are a favorite subject for all sorts of New Age quacks. (See this SCICOP essay for a skeptical review.) They are allegedly imbued with unique auras and should be handled with care. Some psychics associate ADHD and other physiological disorders with the indigo effect, and I recently heard a spiritual guide by the name of Angele Fae Moore use her weekly radio segment to warn parents not to treat such children with drugs because that will interfere with their natural potential.

Now, I'm as skeptical about the true nature of the whole ADHD thing as the next guy. But the last thing we need is for parents to determine what treatments their kids need based on the advice of a self-taught therapist who buys into the idea that collective generational pyschology has anything to do with where Quaoar happens to be. It's wrong when Tom Cruise does it in the name of Scientology and its wrong when anyone does it in the name of astrology or any other pseudo-science.