On 03/03/2015 10:31 AM, salyavin808 wrote:
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <noozguru@...> wrote :
I think the discussion would be different here if our resident
"astrology critics" were actually scientists.
It wouldn't. It might be a bit /more so/ but you won't find any
astronomers or psychologists who think that the position of planets
against a random background of stars can tell you anything about you
or your day that you don't already or know or could have found out
through less esoteric means.
Gee I didn't know that the stars rearranged themselves all the time.
The constellations were of course used as markers. Maybe the planets too
for demarcating repeating cycles in nature that often also reflect in
our personal lives as well as society in general.
I know several psychologists who practice astrology. You lose a point
there. And a few astronomers too. Ding! Again. A geophysicist was a
member of a jyotish study group and his wife wrote about astrology,
yoga, gurus, etc.
Science is about finding the best explanation for a given phenomenon.
The trials that have been conducted into astrology (Xeno posted a good
one the other day) come back negative. If it works we should be able
to prove it. Simple really. Especially considering its claimed power.
All but a few researches have been pretty lame because they were
conducted by people who knew very little about astrology. I told my
friend who commented on that one study I posted a link to the other day
that I could just imagine the answers I would get back from a
questionnaire asking what street people know about astrology. Most
astrologers would probably laugh to and that's why they could care less
what the rest of the world thinks.
To me it makes no sense whatsoever, I can't fit it into cosmology,
psychology, evolutionary theory. It's just a bizarre thing that people
believe. If it makes them happy then fine but I suspect it's all about
intuition and people thinking about people, I don't think it's
anything to do with planets in any way whatsoever. I convert for
evidence. But it''s going to have to be good.
Okay, the Sun and Moon aren't "planets" per se. But I guess you
wouldn't deny the effects of tides would you? Of course in jyotish the
"planets" are called grahas and include the Sun, Moon as well as the
lunar nodes. I've said that some of the planets could be markers which
makes sense. After all people used to tell time via the Sun and Moon.
Then there is the yet inconclusive research into the vibration effects
of planets that seem to still reach earth. This is rather new and is
coming from the research into the effects of smartphone, wifi and other
electromagnetic impulse and how they can influence our minds. Looks
like they resonate the calcium molecules in our brains.
But they are just "science fans" and like to post links to articles
to make people think they are smarter than they are. It's a "poser"
thing. Thing is, if they post something that is a field of science
some of us know about or work with they become mute if you want to
discuss that field. :-D
On 03/02/2015 05:17 PM, feste37 wrote:
You certainly seem to have a high opinion of "science." Science has
given us many wonderful things but there are also many things it
cannot explain. However, this does not mean that those things are
untrue or false. There are more things in heaven and earth, as Hamlet
famously says to Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philsophy. I
suspect that you actually know this very well, and that your apparent
adherence to "science" is more of a pose than anything else. You were
a spiritual seeker all those years and now you are telling me you
don't believe something because "science" tells you it is not so? I
suspect your "atheism" is also something of a pose, but that's
another story.
Feste: As far as what science says about astrology, I couldn't care
less. If science says astrology is rubbish, that it cannot be true,
etc. etc., that directly contradicts my own experience, repeated many
times over half a lifetime. So I go with my own experience. I would
be a fool not to.
*/Turquoise: No, you would be a True Believer, ready to prefer your
own subjective experience no matter what, and never even consider the
possibility that it could have been mistaken -- even if science shows
that it could very well be. I can understand that, but I cannot
respect it. /*
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>, <turquoiseb@...>
<mailto:turquoiseb@...> wrote :
*From:* feste37 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com>
<mailto:no_re...@yahoogroups.com>
I'm not sure what you mean by "normal TM elitist." When I said that
the astrologer Howard Sasportas also happened to be a TM teacher, I
certainly did not mean that that automatically made him better than
others. It was just a piece of information about him, that's all.
Sometimes you read things that aren't there.
*/I don't think so. I wasn't referring to Sasportas as all, and in
fact neither his name nor any reference you made to him registered to
me at all...I've never heard of the guy. I was referring to a
*recurring* sense of elitism that I have perceived in you and in
*most* long-term TMers, exemplified in statements like "I'm sorry for
these scientific types whose minds are so closed. I wonder whether
any of them have ever had their natal chart done by a competent
astrologer. I would doubt it." That's elitism. You *look down* on
those who don't agree with you. Another aspect of elitism, to an even
greater degree, is, "I have studied it, you have not," which as
Salyavin pointed out wasn't even said by Issac Newton about
astrology. You say this a different way in your last statement below.
/*
*/
/*
*/For the record, I *have no problem* with your statements about
having learned much about yourself from astrology. That's your
concern. Mine is just that as a means of prediction, it's utterly and
completely useless. Its predictive value has never and will never be
proven in any kind of scientific context in which the astrologers are
blinded from meeting their clients (and thus "cold-reading" them) and
prevented from making generalized "predictions" that would apply to
anyone. Another aspect of what I call "TM elitism" is that long-term
TMers tend to believe pretty much *what they were told to believe* by
Maharishi, and seem incapable of challenging or questioning it. /*
We will have to agree to differ about astrology.
*/That's fine with me.
/*
*/
/*
There's far more to it than intuition.
*/I don't think so. /*
As I explained to Sal, the readings I had were not "vague
generalities." They were precise and accurate, and they very much
related to me as a specific individual. You must have either seen
some bad astrologers or have been so lacking in self-insight that you
didn't recognize yourself in what they told you.
*/Either that, or you are like all of those college students in the
famous experiment who were all given the exact same horoscope to read
and told that it was done for them personally. When the real nature
of the experiment was revealed to them, over half refused to believe
that it was true. Even when they compared the "readings" they'd been
given line for line and found them identical, a few refused to
believe it and thought that someone had switched them to play a trick
on them. I think that it's more likely that you bought into
generalities and at this point you don't want to even admit the
possibility that they weren't generalities. But I have no interest in
arguing with you...believe what you want.
/*
*/By the way, that "lacking in self-insight" was another elitist
slam. One might suggest that YOU are so lacking in self-insight that
you don't even realize when you're being an elitist.
/*
I remember hearing that MMY said that the only purpose of astrology
was to predict the future.
*/I have heard the same thing...that he said that. That is what I
dispute. I don't think astrology is of *any use whatsoever* to
predict the future.
/*
*/
/*
I don't think he cared at all about developing an understanding of
the "relative" self, since he promoted transcendence of it. But I
have to disagree with him over that. To me, predicting the future has
been the least important aspect of astrology.
*/That's fair, and I have no issue with you feeling that way. /*
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>, <turquoiseb@...>
<mailto:turquoiseb@...> wrote :
*/On the contrary, I will step up to the plate and give Feste a
detailed (and long) answer from my POV, largely because I think he
was trying *not* to be mean...just a normal TM elitist. ("We can't
help it if these skeptics don't know as much as we do.") :-)/*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* "Michael Jackson mjackson74@... [FairfieldLife]"
<FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
I'll step aside and wait for Sal to answer this one - anything I say
would just sound mean.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* feste37 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com>
<mailto:no_re...@yahoogroups.com>
**
In my experience over the past 35 years, and I have said so on this
board more than once, astrology is the best tool for
self-understanding that there is—at least, the best I have found.
*/Feste will probably be surprised to learn that I agree with him --
that astrology, used correctly, can be a tool for self-analysis and
self-understanding. But so can tarot cards. So can "reading tea
leaves." So can divining the future by examining the recently-removed
entrails of an animal. *In my opinion*, in ALL of these cases it is
possible for a person to gain valuable glimpses into the lives of
themselves or others via any of these "divining tools."
/*
*/
/*
*/BUT, I would also say that IMO the "tools" have nothing whatsoever
to do with what they "see" or what they "learn" except by acting as a
trigger to set off their own intuition. The astrology charts don't do
diddleysquat, and contain no useful information. The tea leaves
likewise don't do diddley, and as for the entrails, well, they're
just a big steaming pile of internal organs. How all of these things
"work" IMO is that they *trick* the practitioner into accessing their
own intuition.
/*
*/Think of it in terms of Disney's "Dumbo." Dumbo the elephant had
huge ears, and after his friend gave him a magic feather to hold in
his trunk, he could fly using them. But, after enjoying flying a lot,
his friend finally told him that it was a normal old turkey feather,
and that the only reason he could fly while holding it and couldn't
fly before was that he *believed* he could if he was holding on to
the "magic" feather. Well, that is how I think astrology, tarot,
reading tea leaves, and reading the steaming entrails of lemurs
"works." They are psychic tricks that the practitioners of these
"arts" play on themselves to trigger their own latent intuition and
kickstart it into working.
/*
*/You may be surprised that I believe in intuition, but you shouldn't
be. I have had sufficient experience with it -- both my own and the
experiences of others -- to realize that there is *something* called
intuition, and that it can work to "see" things that others cannot.
It's not reliable, but IMO it exists. But to come back to this
discussion, IMO the only thing that an astrology chart does is serve
as Dumbo's feather. The charts contain NO useful information because
the whole *premise* of astrology is bullshit. /*
*/
/*
I'm sorry for these scientific
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