to think that anynoe who believes in star signs is a complete numpty?

[bettybosseye]

I mean it's so clearly such a great stinking heap of horse shit, how can anyone actually believe it?
Another mum at playgroup today was telling me what kind of personality my 9 month old will have based solely on her star sign.
All pleasant enough stuff but she actually believed it.
What's wrong with people?

OK - can you recommend someone who would take my challenge?

I am interested that you are now saying a properly drawn up chart gives 'a fairly accureate character reading' when earlier you were talking about it tellng what a person's childhood was like, hobbies, career and so on. Why the change? Or have i misundersood?

A character reading will lead to career hobbies etc, a risk taker is going to be keener on rock climbing than knitting, a very artistic person isn't going to want to be an accountant, an over critical, controlling mother is going to to have an effecton character.
I am afraid that the person who did my reading is now dead(and she ran my course) and I really have nothing to do with astrology anymore. One thing is for sure, I wouldn't go to just anyone who sets themselves up as an astrologer-it is open to all sorts there is no control.
I will have a think about it and see if I can recommend a book.
Some charts are much easier, you have so much Leo, seeker that I don't think yours would be too difficult to read in one particular way, but the twins chart was dreadfully difficult because the sun was in aries and the moon in pisces, they contradict each other.
I don't think I could do a chart without more study and I'm not sure that I want to study it further. I am not and astrologer, just saying it is more than sun signs.

Just in isolation seeker, since you sent your birth date you have mercury in Leo which gives a strong will and a fixed purpose,capable of focused concentration. It gives mental self confidence which makes for positiveness in tackling problems. There can be a tendency to deal with things in wide general terms and ignore details. Opinions are formed slowly and changed with reluctance.
(it is in isolation so anyone with mercury in that sign will have it but the reason that I can't read a chart is that it interacts with other things) It also doesn't apply to me at all.
You have the moon in gemini so you will have many of those characteristics, interested in lots of things, talkative-anything you read about sun sign gemini.

Interestingly the only other person to give me her birthdate was PlentyofParsnips who was a cancer sun sign and as water sign could be someone who showed an interest in astrology, she had, but her capricorn moon told her it was a load of rubbish and that is what she now thinks.

Bwahahahaha! Lamorna you are so fucking busted! Excuse after excuse after excuse, and then a 'reading' telling Seeker s/he has these characteristics... which anyone with a basic grasp of character could have gathered from what s/he posts.
I suppose I should be generous enough to consider the possibility that you are sincere-ish and don't actually realise that you are simply an observant person and therefore a good cold reader. Rather than someone who goes a-digging for information anywhere and everywhere on the client (one reason why woo-readings often take a long time; the woo-peddler is digging for information via things like public records and quizzing of acquaintances).

"It would take me hours and hours and I simply don't have the time"

Didn't you say you enjoyed it because it is mathematical or something?

Come on, you know you want to. If it works to your satisfaction, surely it will work to ours.

"People will keep talking about star sign readings. Intellectual ability would be shown by a variety of things, starting with the position of mercury, house and sign and connection to other planets"
you total and utter moron. Could you explain to us then how twins born within a moment of each other, one is severelt brain damaged and one is NT, could you tell us how their intellectual abiltity is determined by the position of a planet and not that one of them was starved of oxygen?

I'm agog, waiting.

I have told people many, many times that I am not an astrologer.It is a skill that I haven't got. People are very complex, they have lots of things in their makeup and I can't tell which will be important and they might use them at different times in their lives. I like running if someone had told me that at 15yrs I would have said it was rubbish, I loathed it with a passion at school and didn't run at all until I was 32yrs.

No astrologer is going to go in for a monetary prize, it isn't a party trick. You can't live your life by astrology, it won't give you answers such as 'what will happen on Tuesday'. It is a useful tool, no more. People usually consult astrology when they have a crisis in their life and want a change of direction.They get more out of it if they discuss it with the astrologer.

I know that people won't accept that big banks and businesses use astrology but they do, I also know that sane, sensible, high achievers consult them. The thing is they won't say so! In RL if someone says astrology is bollocks, I either give the impression that I agree or I keep silent. I don't want to be pointed out as 'that batty woman who believes in the stars'!

I don't know seeker, I can tell from her posts that she is pretty forthright, but I copied out what my book says about mercury in leo. It doesn't apply to everyone. My brother for example has mercury in virgo and he is the exact opposite, he gets so bogged down by small details that he loses sight of the big picture.

It is a useful tool for character traits. Recently seeker wrote about her DD being a sortof 'Chalet School' girl who volunteers for everything and her niece at the same school who goes to school and goes home. This would show up, I bet that seeker's DD has planets in fire and I bet her niece lacks planets in fire and probably has some in water.

I do have a life CoteDAzure! I don't have time! I'm not even sure that if I had the time I want to do it. I am not an astrologer. I have done a cold chart, when I was in my enthusiastic stage, for someone I didn't know anything about and they found it quite apt. I also did a friend's DD who was a toddler, she didn't think much of it but she has said that she got it out recently and actually it now made a lot of sense.

It is like when you study anything, you realise how much there is to know and how little you know, and I was a bit naive and I really don't want to delve into it.I wouldn't look at my DCs charts now, it is better not to know. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

I really don't know why you are so upset by it BuzzLightBeer, or so rude! You don't have to have anything to do with it or take any account. No astrologer is trying to get money off you!
And -no-I don't know why one twin was starved of oxygen- I am not an astrologer, I dare say an astrologer could find the reason.

'Interestingly the only other person to give me her birthdate was PlentyofParsnips who was a cancer sun sign and as water sign could be someone who showed an interest in astrology, she had, but her capricorn moon told her it was a load of rubbish and that is what she now thinks.'

Hahaha priceless!

You are taking a known fact (I've already said I used to be into astrology) then looking in my chart and saying 'that's why' ...

Here's a better test - have a look at my chart and tell me what sort of partner I would be attracted to. What would be in their chart?

I looked at your chart PlentyOfParsnips to see why you thought astrology rubbish. I had already said that anyone with capricorn wouldn't believe a word.Unfortunately on your birthdate the moon was in 2 signs. I thought 'oh dear if it was sagittarius I really can't see anything' I came back and asked if you were born before or after noon with fingers crossed that it wasn't the early hours of the morning. You were the one to tell me that it was a capricorn moon and in opposition to your sun. You couldn't have know this unless at some time you had shown an interest in astrology. People have no idea where their moon is unless they have taken at least a mild interest. If you had had a sagitattarian moon with a cancer sun then I don't think you would have been so dismissive.

I could tell you why you are attracted to a partner but I do not have the time, I haven't really got time to post on here-never mind do all these charts people keep suggesting. I only offered to tell people why they thought it rubbish, nothing more, nothing less.

I don't really get how astrolgy could work.

It's just balls of rock and gas a really long way away, isn't it?

How do those inanimate objects contribute to the personalities of (astronomically speaking) newly evolved creatures one random planet? What exactly is supposed to happen? I dislike that it implicitly puts us at the center of the universe.

If my moon was in sag, you'd have found something else. Stare at anything long enough and you start to see patterns - that's just the way our brains work.

Its just ridiculous babble, nothing more. I don't know how anyone could say/write such bollocks with a straight face.

A capricorn moon in opposition to your sun determining why you do something? Yeah, and the leprechauns are waiting for you at the end of the rainbow with your pot of gold, you whackadoodle.

Actually I couldn't find anything PlentyOfParsnips, having made the rash promise of telling people why they think it rubbish, you were the first person and I thought 'help, if she was born early in the day-I can't give a reason'! I was relieved when you said it was capricorn, as I had said beforehand that anyone with capricorn would rubbish it. It rather let me off the hook!!

I am not an astrologer so I can't look at a chart and read it straight off. I have to get a book out and take all the individual parts and write copious notes and then pull it all together. It would take me hours and hours which a, I haven't got b, I don't want to do to prove a point to strangers who will pick holes where they can and c, if I had all that spare time I have lots of things that I would rather do instead.

I am mildly making the point that I don't think a reading from time of birth is rubbish and some people are getting terribly upset about it. I don't know why, I know all sorts of people with the oddest beliefs (some very close to me)and we get along perfectly well. My DH thinks it is a load of rubbish but we live and let live. He doesn't go calling me a moron!
If a batty stranger on the internet has 'strange ideas' why does it matter? I don't tell anyone that I am interested in it in RL, I don't take money, I don't even offer for free and I don't go around annoying people by saying 'neptune is conjunct your sun' this year!!

Lots of people will think it rubbish, lots of people won't. They can exist together, they don't have to shout down the other.

I don't get why it works either Pasammead I just find it does, it is enough for me but not enough for most people.

I did promise to have a think about books.
A good general one is
The Compleat Astrologer by Derek and Julia Parker but it seems to be out of print now.
also
The Practical Astrologer by Nicholas Campion

More specific are any by Liz Greene or Howard Sasportas.

My phase of interest was about 15 yrs ago so my books are old.

Just to get back to Christeen Skinner mentioned earlier she has been making money as a financial astrologer for over 20 yrs, probably well over 30 yrs.
She doesn't advise little Auntie Flo who wants to set up a little hairdressing salon, she flies all over the world and advises people like billionaire owners of shipping companies. She doesn't advertise, it is all word or mouth and she keeps the same clients. I don't think that they would be billionaires if they parted with their money over something that is similar to a belief in leprechauns!
You can think me as moronic as you like, but some big businesses use astrology because they find it worth paying an astrologer-fact. She hasn't been employed like that for all those years without results.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if some firms didn't recruit with the aid of an astrologer, but they would never admit it. It is much more widely used than people realise.

Just because successful people use it doesn't mean they are successful because of it, that's like saying the hugely attractive person who pulls every night does it because they always their lucky pants. They are not connected factors (except for a psychologicalboost maybe

^always wear their lucky pants

Lots of big companies use myers-briggs and that's also a load of old bollocks.

Billionares can be complete morons in this regard too. Plus how do you know she does this consulting? Cos she says so?

Companies use graphology, thats bunkum. And personality tests that have been discredited. I'm sure there are many more, companies use all kinds of crap, it doesn't legitimise anything.

You still haven't told anyone how the position of a planet billions of miles away that has no physical connection to out planet affects whether I'm passive aggressive or neurotic. Whats that you say? You don't know? Thats because its BOLLOCKS.

Bit embarassing about Pluto too huh? Not a planet anymore, how will my chakras realign themselves?

Oh wait a minute, your buddy "Christeen" doesn't know Pluto isn't a planet. You'd think her pices-saggitarian side would have picked that up!

She is doing very well out of a lot of very successful companies for 20+ years. If that is being being a moron dealing in bollocks I wouldn't object to it!
Earning lots of money, being flown all over the world, staying in first class hotels and all because billionaires are stupid enough to pay out without results!!!

Astrology has always been used more widely then you think. It is common knowledge that Hitler had an astrologer to advise him but how many people know that the British government employed Louis de Wohl to work out what Hitler?s astrologer was telling him? Astrologers don?t make it up, they will all read the same signs.

People don?t understand the work of as astrologer. I didn?t when I had a reading; I was determined not to give anything away. I wish that I had been more forthcoming because, although it was fairly accurate, I could have got much more from it had I entered into discussion.

No individual should run their life by astrology. Properly used, astrology teaches self reliance and at the same time opens up new and often unsuspected areas of life, both inner and outer, which may be explored and used. When difficulties arise it suggests several possible approaches to a predicament, which may not have occurred to the person concerned. An astrologer isn?t a ?magician? who will solve it.

A good astrologer will tell you nothing frightening, their purpose is to point out where opportunity may occur, and urge you to grasp it, to help you make the best of yourself, your potential and your life. They can also point out negative patterns of behaviour that hold you back.

You are born with potential; some people never use it or use it later. Take someone like Mary Wesley who had her first novel published at 71 yrs and had 10 best sellers in the last 20 yrs of her life, the potential was always there, I suspect she was busy doing other things earlier in life.

A proper astrologer isn?t going to go in for million dollar prizes, that is missing the entire point of astrology.

Many people will never be convinced, there is no reason why they should be, but I think it is a very closed mind that says it is rubbish when they know nothing except that they are one of 12 sun signs.

Very often you come across this type usually associated with may be crystals, as already mentioned Feng shui, also be careful of people going on about wind chimes.Probably wherever I've worked I've come across these weird utterly boring people,may be slightly drug related in earlier years.These simpletons are usually appear quite happy people but underneath have violent mood swings.But thanks to there very good clairvoyant they know they are soon back on an even keel.

Lamorna, a lot of con artists are extremely successful and make lots of money. It doesn't prove that whatever crap they are selling actually works, particularly as good con artists (which all successful woo peddlers are) are terrific at excuses and get-out clauses as well as the original line of bullshit.
There's basically three categories of woo-peddler: the con artist, the nutjob and the well-meaning idiot. Nutjobs are the most dangerous, well-meaning idiots the most unsuccessful - the gullible punter is best off in the hands of the con artist.