Planets and predictions
I have had a love-hate relationship with Indian astrology. May be 'love' and 'hate' are strong words, but the phrase captures the essence reasonably.
As a kid, I learnt a bit of astrology myself, under my grandpa. My grandpa's predictions eminently came true in many cases. Understandably, my family, by and large, believes in astrology. When I learnt the basics myself, I too was approached by the extended family. For a while I thoroughly enjoyed being at the centre of attention. Soon, it wore off. I realized that when it came to specific questions, I was only making inspired and educated guesses. Besides the excessive interest and belief in predictions turned me off.
Of late, there has possibly been a change again. I wonder if I had tried to throw the baby with the bath water, so to say. May be apart from the guess-work and the placebo effect, there is a teeny-tiny bit of sense to the whole thing. A scientific approach to the topic definitely requires an in-depth study, under the specific experimental conditions, to test the sense of the subject.
In any case, this post was inspired by an amusing incident. I met someone in my extended family, who apparently dabbles in astrology a fair bit. My aunt introduced me and said that as a kid I too had learnt astrology. And that I had just given my civil services exams.
I thought I was just doing small-talk and not appearing dumb about what I had learnt in astrology, but I had inadvertently revealed the strategic planets, so to say, of my own chart to him. He figured the rest from my birth year. His mind raced with the mathematical calculations involved, and he started making small predictions.
He told me that the presence of multiple planets in the fifth house implied a chequered career. And that the presence of Ketu - a foreign planet - in the tenth house (labha kshetram) meant that I would always profit from foreign countries (like Singapore and the USA, for example :)
Before he could pronounce a verdict on my eagerly awaited results, I scurried to change the topic and engage other on-lookers into another topic.
As a kid, I learnt a bit of astrology myself, under my grandpa. My grandpa's predictions eminently came true in many cases. Understandably, my family, by and large, believes in astrology. When I learnt the basics myself, I too was approached by the extended family. For a while I thoroughly enjoyed being at the centre of attention. Soon, it wore off. I realized that when it came to specific questions, I was only making inspired and educated guesses. Besides the excessive interest and belief in predictions turned me off.
Of late, there has possibly been a change again. I wonder if I had tried to throw the baby with the bath water, so to say. May be apart from the guess-work and the placebo effect, there is a teeny-tiny bit of sense to the whole thing. A scientific approach to the topic definitely requires an in-depth study, under the specific experimental conditions, to test the sense of the subject.
In any case, this post was inspired by an amusing incident. I met someone in my extended family, who apparently dabbles in astrology a fair bit. My aunt introduced me and said that as a kid I too had learnt astrology. And that I had just given my civil services exams.
I thought I was just doing small-talk and not appearing dumb about what I had learnt in astrology, but I had inadvertently revealed the strategic planets, so to say, of my own chart to him. He figured the rest from my birth year. His mind raced with the mathematical calculations involved, and he started making small predictions.
He told me that the presence of multiple planets in the fifth house implied a chequered career. And that the presence of Ketu - a foreign planet - in the tenth house (labha kshetram) meant that I would always profit from foreign countries (like Singapore and the USA, for example :)
Before he could pronounce a verdict on my eagerly awaited results, I scurried to change the topic and engage other on-lookers into another topic.
posted by Anand at 4:12 PM
3 Comments:
Care to spell out what you think are the redeeming features of astrology?
I don't think along those lines.. For something to be considered organized knowledge, experimentation and verification is the only means. And it would be unscientific to reject something without trying it out under the conditions precribed.
The features of astrology are so far away from Newton's laws, that they might be rejected on just a casual perusal, just as quantum mechanics was rejected by Einstein.
The belief/non-belief in astrology is conditioned largely by our own culture and the environment in which we've grown up. You having been brought up in an environment where there was an astrologer today makes you present this argument. I'd discount it.
Of course it'd be GREAT to think that astrology is CORRECT. So long as it's NOT proven I'd rather remain a sceptic. Incidentally I too can read the charts and make predictions. I learnt it myself while I was a kid.
Post a Comment
<< Home