Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 12:00:20 -0500
From: adam-AT-stremy.com (Adam van Sertima)
Subject: Re: The Stars Down to Earth


Ken,

Astrology (and much of new age"thought") are examples of how principles and
philosphies are drawn into supporting ideologies that their prodgenators
never intended. These examples of "alternative" wisdom then can be used to
support whatever hegemony is functioning, at that time. As you say:

>Of the horoscopes that I have read they are almost
>all exclusively based upon a flakey protestant work ethic,

Give the people what they know- I don't see the Globe & Mail or The
Washington Times selling more copies with horoscopes advising readers "Your
moon sign is rising, so consider subverting the market system" although I
could imagine seeing something like that in a State Socialist environment.
>
>Secondly, methodologically astrology supports a 2 tiered
>world - a material world and a spiritual world.

like Platonism, and so given the history of western philosphy, all
idealisms. But, as you note below

>Thirdly, like fascism astrology does not recommend itself to
>critique.  You have to believe in order to "hear" or "see" the
>bigger picture.
>

I've found that if you talk to many people who attempt to study Astrology,
Crystals and the like, they start using terms taken from science(freqeuncy,
et al).They use these terms metaphorically. This creates the impression of
an underlying methodology. Of course, this is nothing of the sort, merely a
misuse of terms. Physics uses terms such as freqeuncy, to identify a
mathematical concept, so in that sense, Physicists use english language
terms metaphorically, also.

This problem extends to discussions of method and theory. People who want
astrology to "work", use critiques of reason, as a basis for denying the
validity of reason and logic. Examining the limits  of reason and logic is
not the same as simply finding an excuse for ignoring them whenever it
suits someone's polical stance. However that seems to be the case, and the
danger.

Thinking about this makes me hope a mathematician could post something
about the relationship between math and spoken languages.

As an aside, some people have found that the most accurate way to use daily
horoscopes, is to clip them out of the newspaper, and draw them out
randomly from a hat. A statistician would probably have comments about
that.

-Adam