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Friday, January 07, 2005

VIA Butterflies and Wheels:



"BY JUPITER, THE ASTROLOGERS MISSED A TRICK

Catherine Bennett
Thursday January 6, 2005

Guardian

It is to be hoped that Tony Blair's intervention in the debate on faith and the tsunami has reassured some of the worshippers perplexed by this apparent waywardness on the part of a benign, omniscient deity. Questioned by Edward Stourton yesterday on the Today programme, the prime minister said he agreed with the Archbishop of Canterbury - who thinks the disaster is compatible with belief in a merciful God (prime ministers, you gather, are not the only individuals who occasionally need an undisturbed vacation). It is only a pity that in the course of his impressively wide-ranging interview, Stourton did not go on to consult Blair on behalf of another group of devotees who may now find their beliefs severely tested.

Why, many formerly trusting followers of horoscopes may be asking, was this colossal event not presaged in the stars? Or, failing that, in someone's palm, crystal ball, tea leaves or chicken's entrails? How, in the circumstances, are they to carry on believing? If an event such as this can go unpredicted by leading, professional astrologers, could it mean the whole edifice of astrology is an abject superstition? That the constellations are not, as previously advertised, heavenly guides to life on Earth, but as indifferent, and as meaningless as "a patch of curiously shaped damp on the bathroom ceiling" (as Richard Dawkins once, unforgettably put it) ...

Peta High, chair of the International Association of Professional Astrologers, insists that there is absolutely no reason for belief in astrology to be shaken, even if, to her knowledge, no astrologer predicted anything of the kind. Looking back, of course, it's a different matter. High says she has retrospectively cast a chart for the area showing a disturbing conjunction of Jupiter (vastness) and Pluto (devastation), which, even if it had been spotted earlier, might have been interpreted as an augury of quite a different kind of catastrophe. "It's much easier for an individual than it is for a country," she says. Could some of the individuals brought down in this catastrophe have had astrological foreknowledge? "Probably there was tough stuff in the charts for all these people," High says, hastily adding that she means individualised birth charts, not sun-sign horoscopes. "They will have stuff in their natal charts." So maybe an early-warning system wouldn't have worked anyway.

At the Astrological Association, someone has emailed to say the disaster was predicted, on the record, in Norway; a claim which, if true, could signify a very profitable year for Norwegian astrologers, even as it raises questions about our native practitioners, who work, after all, with exactly the same celestial material. None of the professional astrologers whose forecasts appear so prominently in our newspapers so much as hinted, in their predictions for last year, at a particularly grim end to 2004. Not even Justin Toper, even though he ventured, among a host of forecasts made last January, to present Express readers with their "unique travel guide" for planning holidays: "What are the ideal dates for your star sign to get away for a romantic break - or take a trip of a lifetime with your family?"

But the work must go on. Having overlooked the biggest natural disaster for 40 years, the soothsayers are now busy selling predictions for 2005, whether over the internet as individual 12-month forecasts (available from Russell Grant for £34.95 apiece, Full Astro Travel horoscope, £49.95), or to newspapers, as sun-sign horoscopes. In our more sensitive sister paper, the Observer, Neil Spencer identifies Neptune as "a key player ... its ongoing alignments with benign Jupiter sound a note of optimism in world affairs ..." Introducing pages of predictions in the Daily Mail, Jonathan Cainer - "Britain's Top Astrologer" - is more preoccupied with the contribution of the recently discovered planet Sedna, which now appears to be making up for lost time. "Undoubtedly," he says, Sedna is "a symbol of hope for all humanity ... the planet of emotional intelligence." Undoubtedly? On the Astrology News website, there is already speculation that the tsunami "because it involves destruction originating from a submarine source ... appears to fall in line with the mythological themes of Sedna". Suggesting that the California Institute of Technology scientists whose decision it was, last year, to name the planet after the Inuit sea goddess, may be more competent in the divination department than all the UK's astrologers put together."