Ask An Adult: Are Horoscopes Really A Load Of Old B***cks?

And why you should basically never leave the house if Mercury's in retrograde...

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by Clare Thorp |
Published on

The world is loosely divided into two groups of people. Those who say things like ‘You’re a Scorpio, right? I knew it’ and then those who hear this and tell them to f*ck off.

Horoscopes are divisive things – read devoutly by some, ridiculed by others. Even if we don’t buy into them, most of us sneak a peak once in a while.

But as fun as it is to have Mystic Meg or whoever tell you that yes you will definitely meet a tall, dark stranger - outside a green door with the number 12 on it next Thursday, in fact - how much, if any, science is behind it all?

Astrology works on the idea that the sun, moon, planets and constellations have influence over events on earth. Astrologers use a set of rules about the positions and movements of the planets to make predictions.

So it’s not just someone sat at a desk making some stuff up then? Absolutely not, says astrologer Fiona Graham.

'Astrology has been developed over thousands of years and up until about the late 1600 it was taken very seriously,' she explains. 'The top scientists, thinkers and philosophers all studied it. Sir Isaac Newton took astrology very seriously. It’s only post enlightenment and the age of reason that it fell into a state of decline.

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'A lot of people just dismiss it as a load of old crap,' she adds. 'But I spent years studying it. It’s only if you study it you realise just how detailed it is. I had to learn all about astronomy – because it’s all based on what the planets are doing. I had to learn the whole theory of it and the history of it.'

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But how can say, all people born under the sign of Leo, expect to experience the same thing? 'You’re right to say, how can 1 in 12 people be the same,' says Fiona, explaining that the horoscopes we read in newspapers and magazines are based on a very basic form of astrology.

'If I’m working with an individual I will be looking at a very detailed chart for a specific moment in time, and I will be looking at all the positions of planets, and the moon, their relationships with each other.

'When it comes to doing daily or weekly horoscopes things do become very much more generalised. It’s still based in the astrological science, but it’s a very simplified version of it, using as tiny amount of the tools available.'

So we might not meet the love of our life outside a green door with the number 10 on after all? 'When it gets that specific – I’m not saying it’s a lie, or its made up – but it’s a very imaginative interpretation of what’s there,' says Fiona. 'So don’t rule your life by it.'

Psychologist Dr Max Blumberg thinks we should take all horoscopes with a hefty pinch of salt.

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'Research wise there’s no evidence that horoscopes tell you either what is going to happen to you in the future,' he says. 'Nor does it predict any kind of personality characteristics.'

He thinks horoscopes make it easy for us to find meaning in them. 'There’s something called The Barnum Effect. Barnum was a guy who used to run a circus in America and he used to have psychics there. His psychic would say something like: ‘you’re quite extroverted on the outside and introverted on the inside.'

'Horoscopes are all written with that Barnum effect. Everything has got a double meaning so that they can’t be wrong. You can always find something there that applies to you. It’s more about clever writing that hooks people in.'

And boy does it hook people in. American astrologer Suzanne Miller – the Beyonce of the horoscope world – gets 6.5m people a month reading her online predictions. So what’s the appeal?

'We want answers about what’s going to happen in our lives and what is going to happen next and people turn to amazing sources to find that kind of information,' says Max. 'They’ll turn to psychics, they’ll turn to astrology.

'People who are not particularly empowered, people with low self-esteem, are more likely to grasp at what we would call non-evidence based information, like horoscopes or psychics, than people who feel like they’ve got quite a good handle on the world.'

It’s not just daily horoscopes people buy into, either. Ever noticed how, about three times a year, people start muttering about Mercury in Retrograde and blaming it for everything that goes wrong? But what the hell does it actually mean?

 

'All of the planets have the impact and each represent a particular archetype of energy,' explains Fiona. 'For example Venus is about art and love, Mars is about drive and will, Mercury is about lines of communication and travel.

'Mercury shifts through the zodiac faster than any other planet. When it is in retrograde it slows down and gives the illusion moving backwards through the solar system. During this time there tends to be more delays, as well as the possibility of miscommunication and misunderstanding.'

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Basically, if you turn up late for a job interview, forget to call your mum, or miss your mate’s birthday, it’s a good time to blame Mercury in Retrograde.

There’s even some high-profile events believed by some to be affected by it.

Remember the 2000 US presidential election 'hanging chad' fiasco, where the Florida vote had to be recounted, meaning George Bush eventually won? It happened when Mercury was in Retrograde.

Out of curiosity check the dates that Mercury was in retrograde last year and realise one stint coincided with me hastily signing the contract for a new flat which I almost immediately regretted. A random coincidence, or a sign that I should be paying more attention to the planets? Surely there’ no harm either way?

But Max thinks that horoscopes might be more damaging than we think. 'To the extent that you rely on them and don’t empower yourself – yes [they can be]' he says. 'It the way that it creates dependency, that’s bad. When its starting to take important life decisions from you, that’s not great.'

'It would be nice if horoscopes encourage you to be more independent and free thinking. But then you wouldn’t read the horoscope any more, so they’re not going to tell you that are they?'

So if you turned down a date because your horoscope said it was a bad day for love, or talked yourself out of applying for your dream job because the planets weren’t quite aligned right, then it might be time to step away from the horoscopes and start taking more responsibility for your life.

And what do I think? I remain pretty skeptical. But then what do you expect… I am an Aries after all.

Follow Clare on Twitter @Thorpers

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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.

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