Rob Hand
COPYRIGHT CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
MAN ALIVE ASTROLOGY 61-2-2002-8003 PRODUCER DAVID CHERNIACK OPERATOR wl TRANSCRIPTS BY TYPETRONICS - 465-0852
(THIS IS AH, MAN ALIVE AND IT IS SOUND ROLL ONE, PICTURE ROLL ONE)
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ROBERT, WE WILL BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING. WHAT IS ASTROLOGY?
Well there are basically two answers that can be given to that question both of which are correct. Ah, there's a broad definition of astrology which simply postulates that everything in the universe is connected by a symbolic language and that the symbolic language is to be found both within the psyche and within nature. And that we use planets to judge the state of the symbolism in the universe simply because they're mathematically predictable.
UM, UM.
Ah, other things have been used flights of birds ah, I'm not necessarily saying this works, but ah, in principle it should just as valid a way of expressing the parallel symbolism of different plains of the universe as planets. A more narrow definition would be the historical one which is astrology is the art of observing planetary positions, casting horoscopes and checking the correlation with these and human events and human behaviour. The difference is the emphasis on casting of horoscopes there can be an astrology that does not involve horoscopes.
UM, WELL GENERALLY SPEAKING WHAT IS THE WORLD VIEW OF ASTROLOGY AS WE SEE IT?
The world view is so radically different from the prevailing world view which is comes to us largely out of science that to even evaluate astrology in terms of the scientific world view is basically to ask that you ah, ah, use baseball rules to play a game of soccer. Um, astrology, you see, postulates basically mystical world view. And I mystical in the rigorous sense of the word, not in the usual sense of the word that scientists use it. The scientist when he says mystical means befuddled, confused, weird. The technical definition of mystical is that the universe is basically one and that the diversity is an appearance. Ah, astrology comes from that point of view that the entire universe is basically one therefore all of the parts of the apparent diversity reflect the underlying oneness and the evolution of that oneness. Given a world view of this kind you find yourself asking not how does astrology work but how could it not work.
SO EVERYTHING IS INTER-RELATED?
Everything is inter-related. And not in a mechanical way but ah, well they are a mechanical way too, I suppose but in a symbolic way.
SYMBOLIC?
There's underlying unity of symbolism.
I CAME ACROSS A LINE FROM AH, YOUNG WHO SAID THE ACCUMULATED PSYCHOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE OF ANTIQUITY IS ASTROLOGY.
Ah, that of course is a psychologist's perspective. It is that among other things. See the ancients ah, in fact, students of this sort of thing right up until the renaissance or through the renaissance believed that this underlying set of symbolic correspondences united everything and therefore would among other things explain human psychology. Ah, to a great extent astrology was derived by studying human behaviour and activity and one could argue I suppose that the astrologist then projected human behaviour unto the rest of the universe. But, ah, basically we believe you can use astrology as a psychological system because human beings are part of the whole and as part of the whole astrology can be used to study it. Also can be used to study herbs, metals, minerals, ah, stock market behaviour, ah, almost anything that human beings ah, encounter.
ONE OF THE THINGS THAT SEEMS TO ME THAT HAS TO BE LEARNED IS THE WHOLE LANGUAGE
Um
OF ASTROLOGY AND THIS CAN GET IN THE WAY OF UNDERSTANDING SOMETIMES.
Ah, that's true but...
SO PERHAPS, PERHAPS YOU COULD BREAK THIS DOWN FOR ME AND...
Well I was going to say this is a charge that could be levelled at ah, psychics, psychology and just about every other endeavour worth doing as well. Ah, the technical language of astrology is like the technical language of any other discipline it, ah, it's there because ordinary language doesn't express the concepts. Ah, obviously everybody knows more or less what is meant when I say Mars.
UM, UM.
But, ah when I say Mars I don't mean the fourth planet out from the sun, I mean a whole style or architypeoral energies.
UM, UM.
Ah, aggressive, self-assertive, individualistic ah, pugnacious, independent to use a few a key words.
UM, UM.
Tending to be coloured with the colour red or reddish brown, tending to be dry, hot and so forth. Ah, a hot day in the summer, for example would be considered to display Mars symbolism, if it were dry as well.
YES, YEAH. OH, OKAY LET'S, LET'S DESCRIBE TO ME SOME SIGNS.
Well.
WHAT DOES THAT ACTUALLY ENTAIL?
That, that's a very trivial part of astrology actually, what we have there is that in, in the 1920's a newspaperman, who was an astrologer decided to popularize astrology by publishing forecasts based on the ah, sign of the zodiac occupied by the sign of birth. Now, ah, signs of the zodiac here have to be understood as, as being quite different from constellations. Constellations are groupings of stars into apparent pictures. Ah, signs are simply thirty degree divisions of the cycle of the ah, earth around the sun or sun around the earth if you want to taken a little time perspective. Ah thirty degree divisions starting with the position of the sun on the first day of spring. They, they are named after constellations but they are not in fact constellations. With these divisions of the, of the orbit of the sun as I say from an earth centred perspective ah, have been traditionally associated various qualities and when the sun is in those signs ah, March 21st to April 21st is Aries, April 21st to May 21st is Taurus and so forth then people born at that time exhibit the qualities of that sun sign. The problem is they also the exhibit the qualities of the moon sign which is totally unrelated ah, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto signs, rising signs, mid-heaven signs and all sorts of complicated angular relationships among the planets which are actually a lot more important than any of the signs.
UM.
Ah, some signs ah, we all have an ambitious attitude towards sun signs in astrology ah, on one hand we acknowledge they've gotten a lot of people interested in astrology. On the other hand it's like representing the height of modern medicine as being taken an aspirin for a headache. It's about that, it's about that much of a relationship maybe less taking an aspirin is more effective.
UM, UM. ASTROLOGY AS A METHOD OF UNDERSTANDING AH, WHO YOU ARE, UNDERSTANDING THE PRESENT, PREDICTING THE FUTURE.
Um, um. Um, actually understanding who you are is a question only a modern twentieth century person could possibly ask. Everybody else knew who they were, they were themselves.
UM, UM.
Ah, what we mean when we say who am I as what we really mean is what am I with regard to other people and ah, astrology can tell you something about that, quite a bit in fact. Ah, what astrology does is describe the symbolic patterns that are dominant at any point in time and space or in any entity or person that comes into being at that point in time and space. And it can also compare to points of time and space. You can look at right now and see how the symbolism of right now reinforces positively or negatively the symbolism of the point in time when you were born. And it is not usually possible to predict precise events but you can describe the basic kinds of demands that a person will be encountering at any given time. To give an example, it is not usually either possible or desirable to say, you will, you and your wife will be divorced in two years. What you can say is that about two years from now there will be a major dilemma about freedom versus closeness in, in an intimate relationship quite probably your marriage and here are the issues you are going to have to face. If you do not resolve them successfully the marriage will break up. If you do, you will go through a period of testing and you will come out much more solidly than before. This, this may seem like ah, hedging to people but this is in fact, what we believe is the right way to do it.
SO IT'S VALUABLE TO KNOW THAT BECAUSE YOU CAN SHAPE YOUR OWN COURSE OF YOUR LIFE?
Yes, you can watch yourself, you can see how you behave, you can see how you exhibit the symbolism that is influencing you and you can learn to flow with it or you flow against it and if you flow against it you'll probably make more mistakes.
SO IF YOU REALLY BELIEVE IN THIS, AND YOU REALLY PAID ATTENTION TO THIS YOU CAN AVOID ALL OF LIFE'S PITFALLS?
There's another requirement, you also have to become increasingly conscious. Ah, obviously if you even on a fairly unconscious level you can use astrology to avoid making moves at bad times. But to really take advantage of astrology requires becoming increasingly self-aware and conscious not only of yourself but of everyone else around you. It, astrology only works as well as you are moving toward enlightenment. The less, the less close you are to enlightenment, the more poorly astrology will assist you. It will, on the other hand the more, the further you are away from enlightenment the more likely astrology will be able to precisely forecast your future.
(A SMALL LAUGH)
Because the more you are away from enlightenment the more of an automaton you become and the more you do in fact become a total blind creature of the movement of the symbols.
UM, UM.
I said symbols not...
SYMBOLS, SYMBOLS, YES, I GOT THAT.
The planets are only a sign of the symbols.
UM, UM. WELL WE'RE, WE'RE TAUGHT IN THE SCIENCES CLASSES AND EVERYTHING ABOUT THE WHOLE COPERNICUS IDEA OF THE UNIVERSE. SO THIS IS A WHOLE DIFFERENT VIEW OF THE ZODIAC THAN WE...
Yeah well Copernicus basically, what Copernicus basically proved ah, was that you can describe the motion of the planets much more elegantly by taking the sun or sun as the stationary point of the solar system rather than the earth. Ah, and that it was stationary but of course, we know the sun isn't stationary, it's moving around the galaxy. Ah, in fact there is no stationary point in the universe anywhere. Ah, so it really becomes merely a matter of convenience what you define as stationary. If you are talking about the mathematical dynamics of the movement of the solar system then by God it is easier to use the sun as the stationary point. If on the other hand, you're talking about the symbolic dynamics of the psyche then what you want to know is the movement of the symbols with respect to the location of the individual psyche. Therefore it is geocentric.
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SO..
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Okay.
(HOLD YOUR THOUGHT)
I tend to talk fast especially if I know the time is an issue.
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CONTRAST THIS FOR ME TO THE COPERNICAN REALITY THAT WE LEARNED IN SCHOOL.
Okay, ah, what Copernicus actually did was to prove that it was simpler to calculate the positions of the planetary bodies defining the sun as stationary. And this was, in turn, extended to the idea that the sun was the centre and the only true stationary point in the solar system. Well, as we now know this isn't true. The sun goes around the centre of the galaxy, the galaxy goes around the centre of metagalaxy and so on probably at infinitum. And in fact, ah, Galileo has, or not Galileo, I'm sorry Einstein has proven that there can be no such thing as a stationary reference point. So the real question for defining a stationary point is answered in terms of what it is you want to do. If you want to calculate the dynamic movements of the solar system you define the sun as stationary. If you want to calculate the dynamics of the symbolism of the solar system then you have to calculate with the psyche as stationary and that means using the earth as centre. Ah, relativity in this small way actually has considerably improved the environment for astrology because we no longer have to deal with embarrassing questions like is the, the earth really the centre of the solar system? Well our answer is from what point of view? Our answer was a question.
SO THE PLANETS REPRESENT ENERGY.
Symbols of, symbolic energy.
SYMBOLIC ENERGY PATTERNS.
Right.
AND THESE SIGNS AH, HOUSES MODIFY THIS ENERGY,..
Yes.
IS THAT CORRECT?
The signs ah, which is actually a point of great controversy in astrology just how effective the signs are. But the signs represent colourations of the basic energy symbolized by the planets and the houses represent areas of action and experience in which these energies manifest. For example, one house the area above the sky in the west, above the horizon, I mean in the west symbolizes intimate one to one relationships and also intimate encounters of the hostile kind.
(CAN WE BACK UP AND GET TO THE ENERGIES THEMSELVES, TO THE PLANETS THEMSELVES AND BEGIN THERE BECAUSE WE SKIPPED OVER)
(CAN I CUT)
YEAH
(NO, NO KEEP GOING)
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DESCRIBE THE PRINCIPAL OF THE, THE PLANETS AS ENERGY.
Okay, the, as I say energies isn't quite the right word it's more like a cluster of qualities found in certain kinds of behaviour and energy manifestation. It sounds rather complicated but ah, for example to dehumanize it for a moment because this makes the principals clearer if a thing is hot, dry, sharp and biting it has the quality of Mars. Now one can say Mars is any energy which is self-assertive, independent, you know like I was saying before, hostile, pugnacious and so forth ah, it has a Mars quality. Um, the, the planets are almost like personalities each one that is it has a collection of attributes. They were originally, of course, gods. Um, most of us do not believe that they are gods and any kind of meaningful sense of the word now, at least not in the sense that I would care to describe here. Um, but like ancient gods they are more like behavioural complexes of personalities than are pure energies in any kind of modern scientific sense. Ah, the signs in turn, oh excuse me, the planets in turn manifest their energies in various kinds of environment and the major classifications of environment in which a planetary energy manifests itself are the signs of houses. The signs subtly alter the colourations of the energies and behavioural patterns of the planets and houses describe the kinds of ah, the areas of action and experience in which the energies manifest. For example a person, one person may have Mars ah, very high in the sky in approximately the area occupied by the sun between noon and 2:00 p.m. and that person ah, will, will seek to make - will use all of his energies to find the truth, to find out what's really so and will fight very hard for ideas. Another person may have Mars just setting in the west but still hasn't set yet, just beginning to set and that person will ah, seek out other people with whom to have conflicts they enjoy a good fight.
UM, UM.
Now in both cases the idea of fighting for something is there but where they fight for it changes.
I FOUND IT INTERESTING WHEN AH, RESEARCHING THIS AND I GOT THINKING BACK TO MY DAYS WHEN I WAS GROWING UP ON THE FARM, MY FATHER WHO WOULDN'T HAVE PAID ANY ATTENTION TO THIS OBVIOUSLY, YOU KNOW KNOWING THE KIND OF GUY HE WAS, BUT HE ALWAYS AH, READ THE ANIMALS DURING A CERTAIN PHASE OF THE MOON. HE ALWAYS PLANTED THE CROPS IN A CERTAIN TIME AND HE DID THIS ONLY BECAUSE IT HAD ALWAYS BEEN DONE IN HIS FAMILY THAT WAY.
Yeah.
HIS FATHER DID IT, HIS GRANDFATHER, WAS HE PRACTICING SOME FORM OF ASTROLOGY HERE?
A very primitive form, um, as popular astrology in the newspaper or sun sign astrology he was practicing moon sign astrology.
UM.
And it is widely believed among agricultural people that ah, the various signs are good for planting spec, specific things. There are four so-called elements of the signs, fire, air, earth and water. They're not elements as science understands them they're more like even more fundamental qualities than the signs. Ah, earth signs were considered to be good for planting crops that primarily grew under the earth.
UM, UM.
Ah, that's just an example. So one tried to plant a crop when the moon was in a sign favourable to that crop.
AND THE SAME WITH BREEDING OF ANIMALS?
Ditto, exactly the same.
WELL, YES, YOU SAY IT'S A PRIMITIVE FORM BECAUSE ASTROLOGY DOES GO BACK SO FAR.
Yes, it does. Ah, in, in the general form of which I defined it earlier that is the generalized study of the relations of the symbols of symbolism between the heavens and the earth, ah, astrology goes back probably it is almost as old as man. Ah, in the more specific modern form of casting of horoscopes and doing forecasts for individuals it goes back to about the last fifth century B.C.
UM, UM, IF IT GOES BACK SO FAR IT SEEMS TO ME IT MUST HAVE RUN INTO SOME CONFLICT AROUND THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
It did, yes, ah, it ran into conflict largely for political reasons.
OH
Um, if you study the bible dispassionately you find that the only thing that was condemned in the bible is pagan astrology. Good Jewish astrology is perfectly okay. Ah, Daniel for example, is described as the finest astrologer in Babylon and he is praised for this, but he is, ah, he is a Jewish astrologer, he is not a pagan astrologer. And all through there are astrological symbols but unfortunately, and this documented very well by France Cumtant? among other people ah, astrology became very associated with the major religions of the Roman Empire that were dominant just before Christianity took over. And so the beginning of a conflict between Christianity and astrology is not theological, its political. Later on it became philosophical.
IT DID MAKE A COME BACK, THOUGH.
It did make a come back.
(CAN I ASK..)
SORRY, OH
(JUST TO PAUSE THERE AND PUSH YOUR GLASSES UP)
IT DID MAKE A COME BACK THOUGH?
Yes, it did. Ah, the main reason why astrology departed the ancient world is because just about everything that required knowledge departed the ancient world. Ah, when, when civilization in the west declined into the middle ages astrology requiring a great deal of ah, scientific observation and background collapsed along with it. Christianity requiring nothing more than ah, an administrative system kept going. Ah, when Greek knowledge came back astrology was part of that Greek knowledge. It is not generally recognized that astrology was integral part of the renaissance. It, it was one of the knowledges that came back. It came back along with the mathematics, the astronomy, along came astrology as well and was considered to be one of the great lost learnings of the ancients that had been recovered in the renaissance. But at this point we enter into the philosophical conflict and the philosophical conflict is very simple astrology basically teaches us that the universe is a living being and that God is, or what ever you want to call it ah, permeates all of that being, otherwise how could you have this symbolic language inherent in both nature and the psyche. Christianity ah, and its predecessor religion Judaism and or, older ones that, that basically believe that God was separate from and outside of nature and that apart from actual living organisms angels, god and demons there was no life in nature at all. And if a person was able to derive living forces from nature it had to be through the action of demons and to this day this is the major objection on the part of Christians to astrology. See, we believe that the universe is inherently alive, there are no demons. We don't need to talk about demons. We are just dealing with intrinsic life forces in the universe. Christians, I should say fundamentalists ah, believing that the universe is intrinsically dead if we find aliveness in the universe it is because we are invoking demons. Well personally I've never seen a demon in my life, at least not ah, through astrology. I've seen some people that might qualify.
SO WHERE DO WE STAND TODAY ON THIS? WHAT, WHAT SORT OF BALANCE DO WE HAVE, WE'RE PRETTY RATIONAL PEOPLE.
Um, the conflict...
(DO YOU WANT TO START OUT PLEASE TO THE, TO THE ENLIGHTENMENT)
Yeah
OKAY
(AND WHAT'S FOLLOWING)
OKAY
Okay, ah, in the enlightenment in the eighteen century, ah, just prior to ah, as part of which astrology fell um, a three- cornered battle began just before the enlightenment got under way. The three-cornered battle was between traditional Christians, ah mechanists who became later known as scientists and the ah, what I will call the natural magicians. Astrology is part of natural magic is simply a philosophy based on the idea that the universe is alive. Originally the mechanists and the natural magicians being both outside of the establishment worked together but as the faction that supported the mechanists became more dominant the war developed between the mechanists and the magicians and the magicians lost. However, there is a most illuminating book.
(I'LL STOP YOU THERE WAR DEVELOPED BETWEEN THE MECHANISTS)
SOUND ROLL 1 ENDS MAN ALIVE ASTROLOGY 61-2-2002-8003 PRODUCER DAVID CHERNIACK OPERATOR wl TRANSCRIPTS BY TYPETRONICS - 465-0852
(THIS IS AH, MAN ALIVE, SOUND ROLL 2, PRODUCTION 2002-8003 ASTROLOGY. BEEP COMING UP AND THIS IS AN INTERVIEW WITH ROB HAND)
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I THINK ROB IS JUST GOING TO PICK IT UP WHERE HE LEFT OFF.
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SO THERE WON'T BE A QUESTION.
(RIGHT)
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OKAY ROB.
Okay so the second stage as the mechanists began to emerge triumphant over traditional Christians was a war between the mechanists and the magicians.
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The second stage as the mechanists began to emerge triumphant over traditional Christians was ah, a war between them and the natural magicians. And what the mechanists shared with the traditional Christians was the idea of the universe being fundamentally dead ah, except of course, for man, god, angels and demons and in fact, many of the early mechanists were stout defenders of the reality of witchcraft. Many of the founding fathers of Royal Society wrote long and learnt tracks on the reality of witchcraft. The astrologers and alchemists who were the bulk the natural magicians opposed the reality of witchcraft. They said, these women weren't witches that they were merely people who had observed nature and knew how to bring the life forces out of nature. And that was still the war, the war was between is the universe fundamentally dead or is the universe fundamentally alive. And anyone who invoked anything like ah, a notion that the universe was alive was roundly exploited. Well among these characters was a mathematician at Cambridge who spent most of his life doing alchemy by far the bulk of his writing is on alchemy but he is now known as one the leading mechanists and this is Sir Isaac Newton. There is biography by ah, Westphal which meticulously documents the alchemy. Ah, he regarded his physics and his mathematics as being things that were interesting. Ah, he was very much interested in writing the Perkeba? when he wrote it but fundamentally he regarded his alchemy and his theology as his important work. He was the last of the great natural magicians.
WHAT ABOUT THE USE TODAY OF THE STATISTICAL SCIENCE TO AH, TEST ASTROLOGY?
Ah, it's very important and at the same time very difficult. The problem is that astrology as far as scientific testing is concerned has exactly the same problems as social science.
I SEE.
Which is you're dealing with people and the measurement of people and the measurement of personality variables and all of the things that have afflicted the social sciences also afflict the scientific testing of astrology. What I've finally concluded is that at this point in time the positive results from these tests are very much worth considering. That is when, when statistical testing indicates that something is so, it probably is or at least is part of the truth. When it indicates something isn't so it should be taken less seriously because ah, a bad model is likely to vitiate a test. It's ah, a bad model seldom produce position results, they usually produce negative results which is something you are not usually told in science school. Ah, bad models when you're testing something at all complicated usually produce random results. Ah, so until the scientific testing of astrology has evolved models, mathematical models I'm speaking about here that are appropriate to the testing of astrology. It's negative results should be observed, looked at, examined but not taken as conclusive. The positive results are more impressive although also not conclusive.
WITHOUT GOING INTO AN ENORMOUS DEGREE OF DETAIL, AND YOU CAN KEEP LOOKING AT ROY, WITHOUT GOING INTO AN ENORMOUS DEGREE OF DETAIL CAN YOU GIVE SOME SPECIFIC EXAMPLES OF THIS IN FOR INSTANCE Well, yes the most famous ...
AND LEAD INTO MARKES.
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MARK .......
Mark?
MARK ..........
Oh, right, right.
(OKAY)
The most famous example of the application of statistics to astrology is the work of Michele and Francois Gogalan? Ah, two statisticians from France both trained in psychology, both trained in statistical method. Ah, they found that the position of a planet in the visible sky at birth, that is to say the above the horizon, below the horizon etc. ah, was non-random in the birth charts of people grouped according to profession. Now according to the Naul? hypothesis the planet Mars to take the classic example should have been more or less randomly distributed throughout the sky and the charts of athletics. It wasn't. It had a very improbable distribution. Later on they evolved the good, they evolved the technique further so they correlated it, not with professions but with key words and personality characteristics and the correlations rose considerably. Well one of the things they found was that the areas the planets tended to be most frequently found in were not the areas that astrology would have forecast and consequently they said that the astrological tradition on the matter was completely wrong. Well ah, this particular result I do take rather seriously ah, and have taken it into consideration in my own work. But ah, Michele also did a number of tests which checked the charts of death against the charts of birth and found no significant results. Ah, this I would submit is an example of bad modelling because ah, if you study the old astrology books they tell you there is no one astrological indication. It depends on the kind of death, the kind of life and is completely tailored to the individual horoscope. Well the statistical method doesn't lend itself to this kind of analysis and it couldn't find it. Now I'm not saying that we can in fact predict death from a horoscope, most of us, in fact choose not to even if we could but his negative result in this case is more likely in my opinion to be the result of bad modelling than it is to be the result of, of the data not showing anything. The most significant thing about Gogalan and almost everyone else, the Gogalans I should say and everyone else is that they tend to take one variable at a time, this is known as uniaverit? analysis, one variable analysis. Horoscopes are never analyzed in the univarit manner. An astrologer will look at a chart and say, well yes and here comes a big flow of jargon but don't worry about that. The sun is square Mars but Saturn is rising and this seriously curbs the effect of sun square Mars and also the person has the moon and cancer which makes them too sensitive to be the Marsy type that a sun square Mars suggests and this causes a great personality conflict, part of them wants to be sensitive, part of them wants to be aggressive. The point is the astrologer's end result is the, is the result of synchronizing a large number of factors and until recently nobody has done any kind of statistical modelling that is multi-variate. Well recently a gentlemen who is associated with the University of Michigan ah, Mark Urban Lorraine? has begun to apply want is called multi-variate discriminate analysis which is fairly simple to describe believe it or not. Ah, what it does is it takes two collections of, of data. One has a characteristic, one does not have a characteristic. It feeds the program these two sets of data and gives it a collection of parameters to examine. The program then finds a collection or a complex of perimeters that distinguishes the group that has the trait from the ones does not have the trait. And the first case was members of AA in Michigan versus random population ah, persons. Well so you feed the two groups together and the program derives what's called a discriminate function. That is a function which allows you to discriminate between the two samples. Then you take two more samples one with the population, one without, you scramble them together and you see how well the discriminate function by the program can separate the two back out. Well in every case where he's tried it and he's now tried in cases, in addition to the AA sample in Michigan the program has successfully discriminated between the two populations at a level of confidence way, way above statistical significance. I mean millions to one against chance. I mean just so far beyond range of chance that ah, ah, this constitutes a genuine anomaly from the point of view of conventional science.
SO WHAT IS THE GENERAL SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDE TODAY?
Um, in what I will call the scientific left wing amused bewilderment and possibly mace and sympathy. Ah, in the scientific middle and right wing vicious hostility, ah, a hostility that is way, way beyond the issue of whether we are right or not. Ah, we provoke a reaction in that camp that is, can be only described as religious and I believe it is fundamentally a religious reaction. Because there are a number of other groups of people who, from a scientific point of view are probably wrong ah, to wit almost all practitioners of any religion from scientific view are almost, probable, are probably wrong. But they don't attacked except of course, when they preach that ah, the Genesis has to be taught in public schools. Ah, but otherwise ah, religions are pretty much left alone even though they are just as much in contravention of scientific ah, belief systems as astrology. But astrology gets attacked and I believe this is the modern survival of the old universe is alive versus universe is dead religious conflict.
TELL ME ABOUT THE STAR BABY EPISODE.
(DO YOU WANT TO GO INTO THIS..
OH SORRY.
(JUST A, KEEP IT GENERAL. DON'T DESCRIBE THE EPISODE OF WHAT HAPPENED...YOUR REACTIONS TO IT)
Okay. Well the most, the most ah, is that question going to be left in the star baby question?
(YEAH)
Okay.
OKAY.
Ah, without going into great detail um, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of the Claims of the Paranormal fondly known in our circles as SCICLOP emphasis on the second symbol ah, decided to test the Gogalan material and to make a long story short they did so using scientific techniques that can be described charitably as fudged. Um, those of us on our side prefer the word cheated to fudged but let's, let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Because they admitted themselves several years later that the science they had done was not of the best. They still believe that the Gogalan data was an artifact or somehow a creation of the methodology but they did admit that the, the testing they had done was not very scientifically rigorous and they retracted more or less their condemnation of the Gogalans and also acknowledged that the Gogalans were at the very least honest scientific workers. Um, this is very illustrative of what we're up against. I don't think that most competent scientists would cheat to disprove astrology or similar fields. But debunkers are quite another matter. Because they are essentially trying to maintain, oops.
I HEARD THAT ONE.
TAPE STOPPED.
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I don't believe that most ah, legitimate scientists would cheat in order to disprove an ideal like astrology but ah, debunkers were a bit of another matter. Um, one has to ask a question, why would somebody take up a career of debunking haven't they got anything better to do? And in a number of cases I think the answer is probably not. Um, I remember one panel I was up against and I will let them remain nameless consisted of a dean of students, a philosophy of science professor and a pop science writer and these were representatives of the scientific community. One of them had credentials in astronomy. The other two had no credentials in science whatsoever and they were posing as spokespersons for the scientific community and they were operationally debunkers. Another major debunker of course, is a professional magician. Um, what are his credentials outside of the fact that he's good at exposing frauds. Debunkers are essentially trying to maintain their own position about reality and they exhibit by their very behaviour such a conviction that they are right that they will cheat in order to prove they are right. And key point has to be made here they're not dishonest in the ordinary sense of the word. What they're doing is they believe they are right, some anomaly has occurred that makes it look that they are not right but it's really an anomaly therefore it must be suppressed so that the overall truth of their rightness is not interfered with. This is what Colin Wilson calls the right man syndrome and it's right in the sense of righteous not right in the sense of ah, left. Um, where are we going to now?
OKAY
(GOING TO THE ....(voices talking over each other)
Right, ah, the this led of course about ten about 1976...
(YOU HAD BETTER DESCRIBE WHAT IT IS)
YEAH.
Yeah, this led of course in 1976 to a statement being issued ah, by ah, the humanist ah, signed by 186 scientists many of whom had Nobel prizes condemning astrology as being essentially fraudulent and untrue, having no scientific basis. Um, having no scientific basis part ah, is not strictly speaking true, it has some. Um, with local datas specifically ah, but fraudulent it most assuredly it's not. Ah, most of the people, if not all of the people who signed this paper have never personally investigated astrology. They were essentially making a religious statement. Um, some of the debunkers I have mentioned were among these 186. Um, they have never studied it in kind of sense dispassionately. In fact, a point that's worth making is I had never personally known anyone who has seriously taken up the study of astrology with perhaps one exception, I won't go into who has seriously concluded that it's garbage and even the one exception doesn't believe that astrology is garbage he just believes that most of what is done in the name of astrology is garbage, which is quite another matter.
HAS THERE EVER BEEN A TIME IN, IN YOUR OWN PERSONAL LIFE WHEN, WHEN YOU'VE HAD YOUR DOUBTS, HAS THERE BEEN A CRISIS OF, OF FAITH IN YOUR LIFE?
Yes, ah, particularly after the 186 scientists statement ah, I went through a period of long ah, crisis because I kept asking myself the question, now this is a question that any intelligent astrologer has to ask, how is it that people can do all these scientific tests and come up with nothing that correlates with what I experience on a day to day level? And it's taken me a long time to come to the answer. And the answer has to do with reality systems. A reality system is basically a set of rules whereby you maintain your belief systems. And all of them are causological, that is to say they cause you to ask the question in such a way that a certain kind of answer has to come out and I've concluded this is pretty much true of the scientific investigations of astrology and it is of course also true of the astrological efforts to maintain its world view. The problem is the two world views don't make much of a contact and I happen to be among the astrologers who support the creation of a scientific method that is capable of operating in the framework of natural magic. There is nothing in the idea of natural magic that is opposed to the scientific method. It fact it can argued that historically it was the natural magicians that invented the scientific method. There were the first impurists. The first mechanists were entirely theoretical. They, they were very much down on "vulgar imperialism" That quotation you run into quite commonly. Descartes, I believe used the phrase in fact. And um, the problem is that the method has been taken over by the, by the religious position of mechanists materialism. And what we need to do is create a genuine scientific method in the context of natural magic.
THERE IS HOWEVER A GREAT MISUSE OF ASTROLOGY TODAY.
(JUST BEFORE YOU START PICKUP YOUR GLASSES)
Right.
I'LL JUST ASK THE QUESTION AGAIN.
Yeah.
THERE IS HOWEVER A GREAT MISUSE OF ASTROLOGY TODAY.
Not as great as generally supposed. I'll give you an example. You'll find several popular books on astronomy which tell you that astrologist bilked the public out of billions of dollars a year. Ah, a number of us have been trying to find out what happened to that billions of dollars because most of us are you know, not terribly well off. Ah, to make a living in astrology is an extremely tricky business and one person, a Canadian in fact, ah, Malcolm Dean ah, who is a journalist decided to chase down the reference. And after finding out where it had come from discovered that the person had made it up. Now most people have in mind when they talk about the misuse of astrology there are two areas. Ah, one is gypsy tea leaf readers. Ah, now I don't have any quarrel with legitimate gypsy tea leaf reader but quite a few of them are fronts for prostitution operations. That's really what's wrong. Ah, also quite a few of them are bunco operations in which the person ah, agrees to take away a curse that someone has cast on you ah, all you have to do is give them a few hundred dollars and, and they quote, they will burn the hundred dollars magically which will make the curse go away. Of course they burn it by spending it. Um, that isn't astrology. That isn't even a misuse for astrology it has nothing whatsoever to do with astrology even though they may have a zodiac hanging on their wall looks astrologese. Ah, but its, people aren't inclined to make discriminations when they are down on witchcraft, they include us, when they're down on you know, you name they will lump us in with it.
HOW ABOUT ALL THE NEWSPAPER COLUMNS?
The newspaper columns are 99.9 per cent garbage. Ah, some of them, most of them in fact aren't even written by astrologers. Quite a few, if it's signed by somebody like Sidney Omar, he does, he is an astrologer. He applies genuine astrological principals albeit not with brilliant success because sun sign astrology basically doesn't work very well. But he at least follows the rules of the game. There are others however who just simply ah, hire a journalist to take up a pseudonym ah, writes down whatever he feels like and puts it in as a column. One major national column which for reasons of ah, slander and liable I will not name um, actually does use astrology but the column is under the name of a famous psychic astrologer-type person and the column is actually written by an astrologer who simply ah, plagiarizes all the astrology magazines he finds, puts it together and sends it out as, as this person's column. It's a misrepresentation of astrology more than a misuse. It's not what astrology is about. Um,...
HOW ABOUT JEAN DIXON?
Ah, Jean Dixion isn't fundamentally an astrologer, she's a psychic.
(CAN WE GO ON TO THE IDEA OF DOING COUNSELLING AND
YEAH I THINK SO. Ah, one area, another area that of course is cited as being an area of danger is unqualified people doing counselling. Well it depends on what you mean by qualifications. If you mean people who have no ability to do counselling doing counselling you're right. This is also to be found in psychologists psychiatrist. There are quite a few psychologists and psychiatrists who have passed the course as a counsellor who couldn't counsel their, couldn't counsel somebody out of ah, eating a sunday. Um, I don't think that this is as much of a problem in astrology as even astrologers believe it is. Even astrologers are very much ah, hung up on the idea that we must have academic credentials when we do counselling. I happen to be a believer that while one can refine one's counselling talents through training fundamentally you are or are not a counsellor and this is more of a inborn talent than it is an acquired gift. Ah, aside from some principals that you can learn most astrological counsellors that I have personally watched in action are quite good as counsellors. There are a few ah, on whom I have personally declared war who make outrageous statements routinely, but I'm not sure that being trained in counselling would have altered this.
WELL HOW DOES ONE SHOP FOR A GOOD ONE?
That's a good question. Probably the last place to start is the telephone directory because ah, unless it is listed under astrologer. Astrologers tend not to advertise because it attracts the wrong people. That is to say people who are after astrologers. Word of mouth ah, most areas there is an astrology organization and they know who the good ones are, that's an excellent way of going about it. In Canada one of the leading organization is the ah, ah, Canadian Federation of Astrologers, Federation of Canadian Astrologers, excuse me FCA. Ah, they have a large concentration around Toronto but are represented throughout the ah, common, throughout the ah, country. Um, they definitely know who the goods ones are and Canada has quite a few highly skilled astrologers.
(CAN WE GO ON)
WE ARE DUE TO CUT RIGHT, OH SORRY WANT TO GO ON, OKAY.
(AH, PROBLEM OF TIME TWINS AND I'LL LET YOU ANSWER THE QUESTION THEN I'LL FILM THE QUESTION COMING BACK THE OTHER WAY, IT'S ALRIGHT)
OKAY, YOU WANT ME TO AH, ASK AS IF HE HAD ASKED IT, OKAY.
(OH AND PUSH YOUR GLASSES ON)
Yeah. Time twins ah, time twins is a one of the common problems levelled or common issues levelled at astrologers. How can two people born at exactly the same time, date and place have different lives? Well number one is that's only a problem if you assume the horoscope is believed to be totally determining. We don't believe that it is. We believe that any one person with a given horoscope can produce quite a few different kinds of life. In fact, we believe that it is largely the responsibility of the person to determine the kind of life - you have a road map, okay the road map says that you can go from city A to city B by this route, this route, this route, or this route, you can't go by a route other than the ones that are specified but you can take any of those routes. That's basically what a horoscope does. You have to follow your horoscope but your horoscope gives you quite a few routes. Is that clicking up?
(TAPE STOPPED)
SOUND ROLL 2 ENDS MAN ALIVE ASTROLOGY 61-2-2002-8003 PRODUCER DAVID CHERNIACK OPERATOR wl TRANSCRIPTS BY TYPETRONICS - 465-0852
(THIS IS AH, MAN ALIVE - SOUND ROLL NO. 3, PICTURE ROLL NUMBER 5)
(PART 3 CONTINUATION WITH ROBERT HAND)
(TRANSCRIPTS PLEASE)
(SYNC BEEP)
So the horoscope is just like the road map. It shows you a lot of roads. You have to follow one of them but it doesn't limit you as to which one you can follow. So the horoscope is not terminate therefore people with essentially the same chart can follow very different routes. But there is another problem. There aren't that many real documented cases of time twins. You see the most important elements in the horoscope change noticeably in five minutes of time. That is to say, we use routinely techniques which can discriminate between charts that are five minutes difference. Ah, I quite routinely check a chart against events to see if, if the chart accurately times the events and I will move it back three or four minutes I, I, can tell the difference. So to get two people who are really born at exactly the same time, date, and place is a very tricky bit of business. What people have done is to assume that they must be different, in fact, it hasn't been documented very well one way or the other. But I would say from the astrological point of view we would not expect them to be the same.
THANK YOU.
(OKAY LET'S CUT)
(SYNC BEEP)
ROB WHAT EFFECT HAS THE PERSONAL COMPUTER HAD ON ASTROLOGY?
Quite a bit ah, astrology is very math intensive. Ah, even just casting a simple natal chart involves locating all of the planetary positions in the sky at the time of birth, locating what degree of the zodiac was rising at the time and place of birth and what was culminating at the time and place of birth. Ah, by hand it takes a competent professional astrologer at least fifteen minutes to cast a single chart, which may not seem all that backbreaking but lets say you have to do quite a few of them. And of course you don't just cast a chart you also subject it to various other techniques like progressions, directions, doing transits, it's not important that people know what these are but ah, we're talking about fifteen minutes or more per operation and you can easily get up into two or three hours of work by hand preparing for a consultation.
SO REALLY ALL IT DOES IS SPEED IT UP?
It speeds it up a lot, also it, it does, it enables us to do things that were simply impractical before. Ah, not too much at this point does it allow us to do anything we couldn't have done before. Ah, but with the advan - increasing advent of graphics techniques, it's beginning to do that as well.
YOU MEAN IT HAS AN ABILITY TO DO STATISTICAL ANALYSIS?
It can do statistical analysis. The programmes available for microcomputers that do statistical analysis have been fairly ah, feeble until recently. Um, the most powerful statistical techniques that we need to use for astrology are not available at all on microcomputers as yet, but the machine we have here on the desk is a 32 bit IBM compatible and when the new operating systems are available for this, this would be capable of doing it as soon as the software is transported.
WHAT IS IT THAT YOU DO HERE IN, IN TERMS OF AH, COMPUTER SOFTWARE?
Ah, we write the calculation software for astrologists. This program that we have up here which is the one on the notebook there Nova, ah, basically is an encyclopedic program that does, I won't say every computer, every ah, calculation technique an astrologer would ever want to use but it does a fairly high percentage of them.
CAN YOU SHOW ME HOW IT WORKS?
Sure, um, remember that what you are about to see takes fifteen minutes by hand. Shall I have a print too?
(NO NOT ON THIS)
Okay, I'll have it go to the screen. One okay, we are going to calculate a birth chart and just to keep it simple I'll calculate it for right now. So I enter the name, I enter the date, time a.m., p.m. This is all being added automatically as I'm doing right now and the programme knows that, but I could have entered anything. I,I pick what's called the house system which something we need not go into here and we're going now to send that last chart to the screen. I have to find it first, it's number 48 um, okay and that will be it. Now the data has all been entered and we're now going to cast the chart and send the printout over to the screen. We're off. It's calculating, doing the outer planets. There it is and there it is on the screen.
THERE, IS IT.
That's ah, that's about fifteen minutes work including a drawing of the wheel. Ah, so it's quite a speed increase. Ah, much faster than anything could have been done in the past. And this is a simple astrological technique, from here it gets very complicated.
OKAY, THANK YOU.
(CAN WE STOP FOR A SEC)
(OKAY, LETS CUT)
GOOD.
(SPEED)
(ROLL SOUND)
(SYNC BEEP)
(OKAY ROB YOU CAN DO THE KEYS, NO TALKING)
Just putting in.
(OKAY THAT SHOULD DO IT)
(ROLL TAPE)
(SYNC BEEP)
OKAY, SO YOU'RE GOING TO DO MINE?
Right, the program is all loaded. Okay Roy and B-o-n-i-s-t-e- e-l?
THAT'S RIGHT.
Okay, date?
AH, MAY 29, 1930.
Five, twenty-nine 1930, okay, time?
AH, SEVEN-THIRTY A.M.
Seven-thirty a.m., eastern standard time, it's at Trenton, Ontario right?
THAT'S RIGHT. I, I LOOKED UP THE.
Right.
BUT IT'S UM 44 NORTH 06, 77 WEST 35.
Okay, now that takes, and we go to the screen module so we can get it onto the screen and you're number forty-nine.
I'M NUMBER FORTY-NINE?
You are forty-nine in this ah,
FILE
File, right. Okay here we go fifteen minutes of work and done. And there's your horoscope.
AH, THERE IS IT.
Yes, you have Cancer rising ah, which I'm not going to talk until I have seen what else is going on here.
WHAT IS THAT BAD?
No, no, no it just that it's best not to take things out of context.
OKAY.
Ah, okay ah, the moon is in Gemini, okay you got sun and moon in Gemini ah, which would make you a more than, which would make you more than a normally Gemini type of person which is fond of communication, interested in ideals, ah, sometimes lacking persistence but the Cancer is a sign that contradicts that. This is, the is the kind of tension you are under. The Cancer sign people are fond of roots, home, where you came from, really like to be around familiar surroundings and some how or other those elements are at war.
UM.
Because there, there the Gemini likes total freedom and the Cancer likes to have everything very familiar and tied down. Ah, very, very close rising is the planet Pluto which becomes a very powerful point in the chart and that indicates that ah, have a fairly strong will, you slowly but inexorably work to make changes in your surroundings and these changes because of an angle to Uranus are very often of a revolutionary or innovative nature. Ah, this is very good for working in any kind of an electronic media.
UM.
The Pluto not so much, as the Uranus. The Pluto is neither here or there. Ah, the Gemini is also very useful for working in the kind of media you work in, in fact, any astrology textbook will tell you that your work is ruled by Gemini.
I'VE HEARD THAT BEFORE, THAT IT'S GOOD FOR COMMUNICATIONS.
Right, um, the moon is on the same degree as Jupiter very closely which ah, makes it easy for you to make people like you but at the same time ah, you're reluctant to show your emotions. They're perfectly okay, but you don't know that. Everybody, you, you think it's being sloppy, everybody else thinks it's fine.
HA, HA, AH, THAT'S LIKELY RIGHT. I LIKE THIS ROOTS BUSINESS AT HOME, I REALLY WOULD MUCH SOONER BE HOME THAN HERE.
Yeah.
REALLY.
Yeah, the Cancer rising is pretty strong and ah, and while Gemini is your sun sign it's in a place that indicates that it's repressed and held back.
RIGHT.
The twelfth house. Ah, that is a sort of quick thumbnail analysis and doesn't even begin to represent what astrology can really do but ah, that gives you some idea of why it's difficult to have a machine do a complete job.
YEAH.
Because machines work, as all programs do is say you have the sun in Gemini, the moon in Gemini and they describe that, you have the moon in Cancer they describe that and there will be these outrageous contradicts and he going to, ha?
(LAUGHTER)
Although we are working with a gentlemen from Switzerland ah, ah, who has created a program which resolves the contradictions and quite successfully.
UM, UM.
Um, I won't say that everything in the program is absolutely correct but its rate of accuracy is astonishing.
UM, GOOD.
These are artificial intelligence techniques.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
(OKAY, CUT)
(GOOD, VERY GOOD)
(TAPE STOPPED)
(READY TO ROLL)
(SPEED)
(SYNC BEEP)
Ready?
OKAY, YEAH.
Ah, this is an example of an application which is nearly impossible by hand. Ah, it can be done but what I'm about to show you represents weeks of work rather than fifteen minutes. This is a program that is under development. This is a program designed to detect the presence of planetary cycles in the stock market. And the way it does it is by taking each period that a cycle rules and putting them on top of each other and creating a composite rhythm. And the theory is that the affects other than the cycle that exists in each example of a cycle will cancel out when you put them together.
I SEE.
So, lets say that so here we have a Saturn Uranus cycle being on June 8, 1919, it's graphed now one on June 10, 1931 and it's graphed and it goes and does for 1942, 1952, 1965, 1976 and that should be the last one, yeah and now when I hit the enter key we'll see a composite graph and as you can see the graph immediately starts dipping down and then gradually in a kind of wavering way goes back up again.
UM.
And it peaks just before the event. Ah, the interesting thing about this is that we are just now at the beginning here where it goes down rapidly.
THAT, THAT'S US THERE RIGHT NOW?
We're right about here, yeah.
UM.
Actually we're back here because the conjunction hasn't occurred yet, which is what this works from. So we are in the middle of a rapid down period which will be followed by another down period. As a matter of fact this is a fairly a, this, this little chunk of graph here is a fairly accurate description of what the averages have been doing for the last six or seven months.
YES, SO THIS WOULD BE WORTH QUITE
(TAPE END)
SOUND ROLL 3 ENDS MAN ALIVE ASTROLOGY 61-2-2002-8003 PRODUCER DAVID CHERNIACK OPERATOR wl TRANSCRIPTS BY TYPETRONICS - 465-0852
ALL THIS HOT INFORMATION I CAN'T STAND IT.
(MAN ALIVE, SOUND 4, PICTURE ROLL 6 CONTINUATION)
(SPEED)
(SYNC BEEP)
SO THIS WOULD BE WORTH QUITE A BIT FOR SOMEONE TO KNOW.
Yes, although anybody who trades on the basis of his own graph would be ah, high road to bankruptcy. But the idea here is the program will allow you when it's finished to take several of these and mathematically analyze them and combine them with various waiting factors and the end result could be, I say could be, I make no promises ah, a graph that allows you to predict the movement of the markets in advance with fairly reasonable degree of accuracy.
ARE THERE SEVERAL PEOPLE DOING THIS, OR ARE YOU ONE OF THE FEW IN THE FIELD?
Oh, I think this approach may be peculiar to myself but I didn't invent this approach.
OKAY, THAT'S OKAY.
(TAPE STOPPED)
(JUST A NOTE HERE THIS WILL BE A HEAD SLATE AH, ON THE VERBALS. (TALKING OVER EACH OTHER))
(...MYLES, REFERENCE ON THE TOP COMING UP)
(CAN WE HAVE SPEED?)
(SPEED)
(SYNC BEEP)
OKAY ROBERT.
Okay, so here you have the graphing cycle beginning on June 8th, 1919, January 10th, 1931, the next cycle March 25th, 1942 and we have one 1952, 1965, 1976, that should be the last one. Then when I hit enter we'll get a composite of all the graphs.
YES.
And as you can see, it starts...
STARTS WITH THE THIRD.
And it dips right down and then gradually crawls back up then goes up over the average line and we're now right about here where it suddenly going down and will continue going down for ah, roughly ten per cent of the cycle.
SO THIS WOULD BE VERY VALUABLE FOR SOMEONE TO KNOW, RIGHT NOW?
Yes, ah, this, this cycle would indicate pretty much what has just happened in the market.
UM, UM.
(GOOD, LETS CUT)
(TAPE STOPPED)
(THIS WILL BE A LITTLE WHILE SOUNDING WHILE THE COMPUTER RUNS)
(COMPUTER RUNNING)
(SYNC BEEP)
(THANK YOU)
(THAT'S IN THE ROOM WITH A GUY WITH THE PINK SHIRT BACK THERE CAMERA)
(TAKE TWO)
(THAT'S LIKE COMING UP)
(SYNC BEEP)
(COMPUTER RUNNING)
(THAT'S GOOD)
(OKAY)
(THANK YOU)
(YEP)
(COMPUTER SOUNDS)
(SYNC BEEP, BEEP)
(TWO BEEPS)
(SYNC BEEP)
(YEAH THAT'S WHAT'S WRONG. THAT'S OKAY AT LEAST WE FOUND IT. I DON'T KNOW, THERE'S NO PROBLEM, OKAY BYE, BYE)
(YOU CAN START ON THE COMPUTER)
(SYNC BEEP)
(..YOU TALK TO SOMEBODY ABOUT LIKE THIS)
Oh, okay, I should just move my lips like their ah.
NO TALK.
Talk?
YEAH
Okay, ah, time zone initials eastern daylight time and we do probable zodiac and we will do procession corrected and we're going to go with nail? and our format file is normal so you just hit return, hit return for no extra points file MCT. And then you type zero to end input and two to process your data. (Computer running)
(talking in background, telephone ringing)
Rob, that's Phoebe Taylor with Colubine on 510. Phoebe Taylor. Ah, you want me to screen it, hold on. Hi, can you please tell me what this is about.
(telephone ringing)
Astrollay? ordering desk. Oh sure and who do you want me to send it to? Okay, okay, Texas and the zip code? 78759 and what type of computer do you have? Okay, okay well what I'll do is send you out the brochures of all of um, the software that we have for all of those machines. And ah, could I ask where you may have heard of us? Dell horoscope, okay so I'll, that's right, yeah. Um, so it's going Sally Coe, it's C-o-e, 7202 Chesleymoore, Austin, Texas.
(AH, NO SLATE ON THAT I'M AFRAID WE SAID WE WEREN'T GOING TO GIVE TAIL SLATES, SO AH, THAT'S IT, YOU'LL HAVE TO HAND SYNC IT.
(HAND SYNC)
(THAT WAS THE REGULAR LADY ON THE TELEPHONE)
(LET'S LEAVE IT AWHILE TRAFFIC GOING BY)
(CUT)
(THIS WILL BE A BIT OF WILD SOUND OUTSIDE THE HOUSE FURTHER AWAY FROM THE ROAD)
(OH GOD, HERE EVERYBODY IS DRIVEN THE NUT GARDEN)
(SO ENDS THE ONLY BIRD IN THE WHOLE LOT HERE. THAT'S THE END OF THE WILD SOUND HERE)
(YEP, THIS IS A HEAD SLATE COMING UP NOW, CAMERAS ROLLING, SOUND, SLATE)
(SLATE)
GIVEN THE FACT THAT ASTROLOGY IS BEEN AROUND FOR SO LONG, ONE WOULD THINK THE WORLD VIEW WOULD BE SOMEWHAT DIFFERENT.
Ah, quite different. It's a bit different from the prevailing western world view for almost 2,000 years. Ah, the great change was the advent of Christianity, which isn't necessarily opposed to astrology as such, but astrology was firmly embedded in a metaphysical system known as hermedicism ? which taught that the entire universe is permeated with aliveness and that there are these symbolic correspondences to be experienced at every level. For example, the water is the moon, the sky is Jupiter, rocks are Saturn.
UM, UM.
Pulverized rock be Mercury, Saturn ah, fog well now we say fog is Neptune in the old days they would have said it was the moon and so everything around us manifests symbolism of the planets at different levels. Ah, the chief difference however is this notion of aliveness, that even though rock may appear to be dead it contains something that can be meaningful, meaningfully described as a life force of its own.
UM, UM, YES, YES.
And it's this unity of life forces at all levels that allows the planets to correlate in some way with human life.
YES.
And not only human life but also other aspects of the world as well.
UM, UM. DOES THIS BOTHER YOU AT ALL, THE CRITICISM THAT ASTROLOGY GETS. I MEAN THIS IS YOUR CHOSEN WORK, THIS IS YOUR PROFESSION, YOU BELIEVE IN IT VERY DEEPLY.
Well I don't find a position about belief, my brother when he was confronted with this cut line would always ask, do you believe in a socket wrench?
LAUGHTER.
See it isn't a matter of belief, you know what you can do with it and you know what you can't do with it.
YES.
And belief implies that your, you have a position in the absence of experience.
UM, UM.
And we do not have the absence of experience we have a great deal of experience. Ah, the people did, the people disbelieve it, which is a belief.
UM.
Disbelief is a belief.
YES, YES, YES, OF COURSE, YES.
Ah, there isn't anything seriously wrong with me, ah, unless they get derisive and nasty about it.
RIGHT.
Then it does, of course.
YES.
But as long as somebody is polite about it, I don't really mind. The position that a rational person should have about astrology if he or she has never studied the subject is no position.
YES, YES.
There's no need to believe it or disbelieve it, they just say, well I, I haven't, I haven't encountered it, I don't know if it's true.
WHICH IS THE SAME OF, OF FAITH GENERALLY.
Yes, yes.
UM, BUT YOU'VE ALWAYS INTERESTED IN IT SINCE THE TIME YOU WERE A TEENAGER?
Yes, I started studying it at the age of seventeen. Ah, my father got me into it he was using it to forecast the stock market which is where that program came from.
YES, YES.
Ah, twenty-seven years later.
BUT THERE'S NO PLACE YOU CAN GO TO A UNIVERSITY TO GET A DEGREE IN ASTROLOGY OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT, IS THERE?
Ah, not a regular university but, well actually there is a graduate program now ah, associated with a school in Boulder, Colorado. I don't remember exactly which school, it's come into existence, it's a Masters program and astrologers are beginning to develop their own certification systems independently of the universities. We think this may lead to something.
WHAT, THE, THE WORD IS SPREADING, LIKE MORE PEOPLE BELIEVING NOW AND IT IS AH.
Hard to say, I, I think it's more like the people who believe are getting to be a higher and higher calibre.
AH, YES, YES.
Foggy, isn't it. (laughter)
(TAPE STOPPED) SOUND ROLL 4 ENDS