Flibbertigibbet

I don't think its real but I also don't think anyone would call me a Virgo based on the description. I definitely feel how they describe an Aries is far more fitting for me.

Symptom of living in the dark ages, philosophically and psychologically. When it comes to chemical bonding and physical forces, people barely know what alchemy and aether mean.

How did Rand put it? It's earlier than you think.

Most of the people I’ve met who have anything to do with Astrology only halfheartedly believe in the stuff. They just dabble in it by reading their horoscope in the morning newspaper, and then forget all about it by the end if the day.

Whenever people ask me what my sign is, I usually give them a smartass answer by telling them that I was born in the Year of the Monkey. When they say: “No, not Chinese Astrology! Regular Astrology!” I reply: “Oh, I’m sorry! I wasn’t sure which mystical mumbo-jumbo you were talking about.”

Even though I know that the whole Astrology thing is a bunch of bullcrap, I am still amazed at the number of “believers” who correctly identify me as a Virgo. I have come across this situation more than a few times. What usually happens is this: an astrological enthusiast, who I have never met before, will tell me that I have all of the personality traits of a Virgo. I am not talking about the horoscope-reading-dabbler here either… I am talking about the tarot-card-reading, astrological-charting true-believers. I find this phenomenon to be remarkable because none of them have ever guessed that was a Gemini, Libra, Aquarius or something else. They have never gotten it wrong yet, and I am unable to explain it.

In Georgia, most of the people I met who had anything to do with it would say, "Oh I don't believe it. It's just fun."

But now and then -- moreso here in NYC than I ever encountered in GA -- I meet people who say they think there's something to it.

I have yet to meet anyone who could identify me as a Virgo without me telling them.

Its interesting, isn't it? My office is the same way. All the women here buy into astrology. It’s amazing to me that this part of mysticism has survived the passage of time and hasn’t been displaced by the big religions. Astrology--a system of pagan mystic beliefs that predates Christianity--is published in major, respectable newspapers nationwide. That astonishes me.

But why? Why should it astonish anyone? It's a "system" of belief, just as were alchemy and aether (well, that was just an element of a system - but I don't know the name for whatever constituted physics back then). They weren't displaced until the concrete practicality of chemistry and physics was demonstrated.

I know, I know: The industrial revolution and the fall of communism should make it painfully obvious to all that mysticism is bunk. But those aren't "in-your-face" concretes. Medicine - that's in your face. P-h-armaceuticals {Flibby's spam filter won't let me type that word out, alas.) - that's in your face. Autos and aeros and microwaves and plastics - those are in your face.

But Rand only presented Objectivism less than 75 years ago. And, so far, no one has made any headway into psychology.

Astrology isn't a competitor of astronomy. It's a competitor of psychology and philosophy. And it is still the day of the Greens and Theists.

That is my understanding of what Rand meant what she said "It's earlier than you think."

Until these two sciences (psychology and philosophy) really, REALLY demonstrate, in a "hit you with a truck" kind of way, that they are superior, astrology and such garbage will have as much hold as alchemy and geocentricism (not really a physics model, more of a cosmological model) did in their day.

It's simply not enough to debunk the wrong. You have to actively displace it - with the right.

(I just hope it won't take Armageddon to demonstrate the power of philosophy.)

That’s a bit naïve. A system of astrology has existed in one form or another in every corner of the globe for the past several thousand years. This is despite the emergence of monotheistic religions that present an “all or nothing” approach to philosophy, where there had been none before. That may be because one of the underlying premises of astrology is actually correct: The celestial bodies that surround us have an impact on us and our environment. This is a fact.

It certainly doesn’t take a verifiable and undeniable truth to displace superstition. Religions have risen and fallen in the past without the benefit of truth. In fact, one doesn’t need to look into the past at all to see that there is absolutely no correlation between the widespread availability of facts and the pervasiveness of mysticism. Just look at the United States of today: We’re one of the most technologically advanced nations on the planet, and we’re also the most religious of the western nations.

What I find particularly astonishing is how astrology has survived to this day, touching nearly every culture in some form or another, but not affected by monotheistic religions’ monopoly on the explanation of existence.

Far from being naive, Rachel has hit it squarely on the head. Astrology survives because it is filling the void left by the lack of proper philosophy. Monotheistic religion has had nothing to offer so far but altruism - an ethics of death and self-sacrifice, not a means of living life. Despite their claims to the contrary, religions do not have all the answers men seek.

In other words, they still leave a void that other forms of mysticism will jump into, even if they explicitly forbid it. In fact, one form of mysticism only encourages others, because they all share the same central premises: unreason, seeking answers from an ineffable authority, having one's life ruled by external forces, etc, etc.

And don't let the scientific, technological society around us fool you: it is rotten at its base, lacking a philosophy of reason to properly support it. No amount of technology can replace man's need for philosophy. Nor can a technological society be sustained in the long run without it. Obviously, our technological society with all its wonders was created by the Enlightenment and the philosophies of reason therein. But reason was ejected from philosophy by Kant and the moderns over a hundred years ago. Our society is simply running on inertia from before reason was lost. When (if) we can once again, to borrow a phrase, fix reason firmly into her seat, this time with a complete philosophy that answers and rejects Kant and his ilk's Skeptical undermining of reason and reality - i.e. Ayn Rand's Objectivism - then irrational gobbledygook like astrology will be confined (as it should be) to a handful of nutjobs.

I'm just surprised that people don't observe the advanced scientific and technological achievements of our civilization and work backwards from there to reject the obviously idiotic ideas like astrology.

It shows the power of fundamental ideas. They're surrounded with the riches of reason and for the lack of philosophy, don't even appreciate it.

Heck, most of them have no idea what causes the wonder around them. They take it completely for granted. They think it just got there by magic or something.