h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Darakats Rants

Topic:
Astrology

Disclaimer:
Darakat would like this opportunity to point out he has no bad feelings about astrologers, what they do or indeed how they do it. He is quite happy for them to go on doing it. However this is a rant based on the a SINGLE perdition from a SINGLE astrologer, it does not connate any feelings towards astrologers in general, many of whom can be scarily right without never meeting the person. This is mostly a rant on the internet astrological service provided by sara-freder not on astrology or astrologers as a whole. It is however not to go unwarranted that darakat predicts that after this rant is written his own astrological sign (leo) is going to be predicted as having a rather bad few months, and they will probably be right.

Introduction:
Now I have to start of by saying that I am actually a great fan of astrology. Would you credit it? Or indeed believe it? No. Why the hell should this self confessed semi agnostic guy who has no real idea what religion he is any more have a intreats or ever have had a interest in astrology? Well its quite simple. The art, craft and or magic (with or without a extra k or being spelt with a j you know what I mean) of astrology actually amazes and intrigues me, though I know well enough to take it with a grain of salt. Of course any person who know as much as about the future and predicting it as a astrologer will of course have the knowledge of the theory that each prediction that is made is for that particular person as they are in the future from this point on. It of course can change due to unforeseen events. Since there are so many variables involved, many think or indeed believe that near randomness to pure predicational mathematics and indeed magnetic lines can help or hinder a prediction or indeed a person. Now as much as science and indeed that wondrous weekly tome of "new scientist" says about myth and divination it is indeed guilty of the same thing. How? Well mr editor of new scientist only this week did we receive the latest edition of your magazine your and your writers prediction for the uptake of new technologies and invention rate based on the numbers of inventions per year for the last x number of years. How is this different from what the diviners do, I ask? Many a reply will come saying "well its based on real numbers and real math's, etc" and I say to you that since when did a astrological chart not involve real numbers? Have you ever even tried to make a prediction? I think not. Yes neither have I, yet, but thats not to say that you are capable of criticizing what you see as a fake or pretend science, since your bleeding hypocrites. Everybody predicts the future to some extent, they think about what is going to happen and what they hope to happen, the diviner of course is trying that most pure of scientific methods, attempting the double blind test. How can you fail to make up a future thats your version of utopia? Well you can't. So thats what a diviner tries to achieve, a means of predicting the future without having any foreseen bias on there part. What could be more scientific? And of course there are different branches and so on, from tea leaves, to meditation, to reading books, looking at the stars and planets and there passing, and of course making theories as to how each predicts the future. Since when did science not do the same? Only 60 years ago there was no such thing as quantum theory, in fact we were almost certain there wasn't much more universe to discover, until the atom bomb blew that one apart. And of course each and every new theory has its criticizers, fans, ranters and of course everything in between. Not that I am saying that science is bad. Its a great thing, and I am not saying that astrology therefore is correct. Once again I find myself a in-between man, not quite believing one side, or the other. So I decided to run a little test. An experiment that would in my mind settle some of the barrier and well defended set of doubt and uncertainty that I have built up after years of being brought up as a atheist/agnostic. I decided to get my astrological prediction.

Aim:
The aim was purposefully non scientific. Now why? Well if I take a scientific approach every diviner out there will stop reading this rant right now and go to some entrails or charts they have been meaning to catch up on. Were as the scientists who are reading this will keep on reading simply because they want to be proved right anyway, scientific method or not. Well I hate to say it the conclusion is going to be to neither of your likings, but these rants are purposefully designed simply to make you think, feel, and possibly argue about your beliefs.

Method:
1. I entered a free horoscope site known as sara-freder.com and enterd the details that I needed to fill for my horoscope. See details.
2. The horoscope was to be sent to me within 24 hours (I am not sure if it was exact)
3. The only thing I was really interested in was her predications.

Details:
Gender: Mr
DOB: 23/9/21984 - 9:30
Name: Evan
Country: Australia
E-mail: Free Email address
Town: Canberra
No problems or likes specified

Conclusions:
1. The language on the site is very... Well lets say up-beat. I am certain that its actually this that most people protest to. For example "Just imagine what your life would be like if you could know ahead about all the positive events that are going to befall you." This is a prime example of the language that is used and I agree its sickening to everyone I can think of as my friend to hear this sort of stuff. It sounds very "fluffy bunny" sort of stuff. If your a astrologer, try and cut down on this, make your language sound less overacting and exaggerate less, even if this person has the best future ahead of them many a sceptic will take one look at this and say "what posh" and ignore your prediction completely. Not a very profitable or indeed useful result.

2. My lucky numbers? My lucky numbers? I knew that I would recive lucky numbers but it was not my aim to test these numbers now that there power have probably been completely reduced or some such argument I can reveal that they were 5, 17 and 27.

3. The predictions, and results:
On Thursday, December 09, 2004, I see you receiving some excellent news regarding friendship or romance:

Acutely yes I did. Because this is of a personal nature I won't reveal which friend or if romance did occur (well it didn't but hey I could pretend it did).

On Thursday, December 16, 2004, you will have an exceptional opportunity to change your life,

Yes I did, and to some extent I did change my life. Its been right twice!

On Monday, December 20, 2004, I see you receiving a significant amount of money,

Yes. Actually come to think of it this was the day that the letters containing all the money from various relatives arrived by mail on this day, I did not receive said money till the 25th, but it was money in potential. I certainly received more than I thought I would.

On Saturday, December 25, 2004, you will meet someone unexpectedly and it will turn into a relationship.

Nope sorry. This event did not happen on this day, yes I did meet someone unexpectedly and turn it into a relationship but not on this day. Prediction wrong on time basis.

On Tuesday, December 28, 2004, you will experience some new luck with money (this is a chance for you to bring wealth into your life…)

I never tested this, I got rid of some money actually, bought some books, but on interpretation the books were cheep and indeed worth 10000 words, and so in fact I could say that I did bring more wealth in my life, but no new luck with money as far as I can tell, so this one fails on logic.

I was also told that "Yes, Evan, in a few days, (Five to be exact) things will drastically change as though the slate was wiped clean. This will be your best chance to radically change your life." In those 5 days I did in fact do such a thing, but it the horoscope was not in my mind at the time. So so far we have had a 90% success rate, with a double blind test.

Now there was also a whole bunch about magic charts and certain archaic rituals that I was to perform to bring about some of the more hazy predictions. Now I am not knocking this belief, but the atheist in me has its religiousbullshitometter going off with all "master alarms" showing red. But doing some reading on the subject of rituals and there necessity for bringing about change, I can consider myself moderately educated in why they tell you to perform such things. The reason of course is to make you believe, not in the ritual, but in yourself. That is you should in fact start believing that you can bring about change in your life. Now why do you need to perform ritual to do this? Well as any good psychologist knows you have three definable levels of continuousness, you, yourself and id. Now this is not the formal name of them, and yes I could in theory find the article I read to bring you the proof, but I rather think if you have come this far and understood what I have said then you know perfectly well how to look it up. The you is your formal continuousness, ie the bit that knows your thinking, the bit thats doing the reading right now, the formal you. Its king of your rational domain. The next level is yourself, this is the real you. The part that is doing the interpretation and performing the actions, doing the more complicated bits that seem for no reason to suddenly happen sometimes and take years other times. The Id is the instinctive you, the part of you that works and runs on instinct. Its the bit that makes you squash a bug even if you know you don't want to, its the bit that punches back when you think your a pacifist, its the bit that is what can be accurately called the childlike you. This id takes a heck of a lot of convincing to make you change actions that are hurting or harming you. That is you have to work quite hard sometimes to try and get it to pay attention. You need your other two selves to work together to make it pay attention. Now if you have just read your horoscope for the first time the reason, I fathom is either you are trying it out for yourself or you are desperate. Desperate people generally want to change there life and performing strange ritual is generally the easiest way to convince them that they can actually change themselves, and make themselves change. Of course I am not sure how far into the lessons this is reading, or indeed it sara-freder does indeed take this sort of thing to hart when she does what she does.

4. Arguments against... So far we have only heard good things about sara-freder and horoscopes, and its time I stopped. I am a great fan of divination and yes I would rather like to learn how is done, just to see for-myself more than anything else. However there are a few arguments here that I can see forming in our readers who are not astrologers who are forming a few new and rather calm arguments. They are as follows:

This is all computer generated isn't it?:
Yes I thought this as well. It would not be hard to program a computer to form all of this text using perl, java and a few nice bits of astrological data that are occasionally updated. Now I am not out to prove that sara-freder is indeed computer generated, but I ask all of those who think this site gives accurate astrology to take what it says with a grain of salt. Its also emailed me with more astrological dates of late, none of which have occurred yet and are therefore untested.

This was not a scientific test, therefore there are not scientific results, therefore I can safely ignore it, etc:
Yes you can. I am not stopping you from rationalizing why this little test of mine went so well.

Its all interpretation:
This is a argument several of my friends came up with to dispute the results of the experiment as I was performing it. Why did I tell them? Well to find out what arguments there would be to write in the rant silly! This argument is true. Yes it is all interpretation. But what isn't? We all interpret and record and see things differently. In fact its one of these inaudible human traits that we have all come to know and love. Its all going to be based on interpretation even in a scientific experiment, it will be scientific interpretation.

Could this be means of forming a cult?:
Now this is one of the stranger things that people may use as a argument, but its in fact a rather good one. Yes you could form a site promising a new exiting way of predicting the future and giving you a new lease of life, making your own little horoscope scripts and then eventually making your own band of believers whom do your every whim. Its happened before it can happen again, but I rather doubt that sara-freder is attempting this at all. As far as I can tell she is simply a occultist who likes having her own business thats also her pleasure and your just jealous that we don't all get it that easy.

Paying for more info:
Yes sara-freder does ask you to give credit card details to charge you for more details and a better connection to sara-freder herself and in fact the pack that she apparently sends you (I have not tested this as I don't give out my credit card details to anyone knowing exactly how insecure this is and not being able explain why I am receiving mail from some strange horoscope site either) contains a special medallion and a few other odds and sods that are meant to improve your connection to sara-freder. Now many would argue that this means that she is likely to have you believing you can do anything in a few months time, however this is exactly the point, you being able to do what it is you want to do is exactly what the point is! Or is it? I don't chose to say that its right or wrong, but its certainly not either. I am not saying she is out to con you either. Hell from the details I gave her I could be anyone, I could be a mass murderer, and here she is trying to get me to make a spiritual connection to her. Thats extremely risky, don't you think? Astrally speaking? I don't know but her little package costs US$20 plus postage and apparently contains everything you need for a new lease on life.

Final conclusions?:
Well people can say that astrology is crap or good, or even say it accurately predicts many things, or non scientific. Its a psudoscience I agree and probably doesn't accurately predict things that often, however its as good as any other prediction of the future as far as I can tell. Were we not saying in 1995 that by 2004 we would all be living in space and using flying cars? I don't see many space dwellers or indeed cars that are flying. So I take even those apparently more accurate predictions of the future with a grain of salt. I personally think its probably best, if you want to predict the future or try and understand the past is to use as many methods as conveniently possible, formulate a means of integrating them, reading that prediction and then getting on with things in the clear and present. Or whatever you feel is right.
Enjoy the future.

Well done

I'm on the "its a load of tosh," side, particularly as I know something about its origins and the arbitraryness of the calculations they use. Its like that thing with the waiter and the bill and the change. Also because I've done calculations on the gravitational effect and luminosity of the moon, stars and planets as compared with, for example, a nearby building.

But, I am kind of intrigued by the idea that the time of year that people are born might have some affect on their personality.

Ah, the classic theory of the time of year affecting personality. It is an interesting thought, but I'm not altogether sure of it. Astrology can be great fun, but I can't think that widespread predictions for anything are accurate. We know the meteorologists have science behind their predictions, and look how often they are incorrect. Babblebabble, nicely compiled, Evan.

This is all based on one sort of divination from one person, and it doesn't prove them wrong and is hardly scientific, but it took a rather large time to do. This rant has taken more work than any of the others combined.

Noble effort.

I dunno, the weather predictions seem fairly reliable to me.

Its hard to know what to compare.

Science and astrology can both predict more or less where the planets are going to be in relation to the Earth though .

I however agree with DNA on the absence of earth in most astrological charts, I say we make our own charts with earth a factor

Evan, How about a reverse-test?

I'll feed you my details, you grab them, I wont look, and then after the month, we'll compare the 'scope to what actually happened.

Gender: Mr
DOB: 7/1/1983 - 10:30p
Name: Chad
Country: Australia
E-mail: Free Email address
Town: Canberra
I dont know what it means by problems or likes....

I predict that it will be a resounding failue, or that you will decide not to do it at all.

Sorry dude you have to do it yourself.

How can I do a blind post test if I know it before the fact?

Hey, my prediction was right, you decided not to bother!

I predict I will not be able to convince you

Thats about as close to divination as you will ever get