ASTROLOGY

 

Astrology is not Science

 

It is a pseudoscientific divinity practice that tries to discern information on human affairs by studying different placing of celestial planets to the sun’s position, calculated on a mythical system of the time of birth to denote the character, the future, and the fortune or upending misery of that particular human.  It projects a controlling effort by boxing people in their personality and life journey.  And in turn, we fall for it, hook, line and sinker. 

 In my corner of the world, the field of astrologers range from insignificant taro card readers with everything in between, to foreboding psychic mediums, both mumbling jumbo, choosing fancy vocabulary to form sentences that nobody understands, classifying themselves a higher order than ordinary humans. 

    

For years, a 5 star prominent hotel, in the city-center opposite the famous Patpong road that housed a go-go bars of old, where drinks drown the sorrows while enjoying xxx-rated fun, producing more dopamine under the same roof.  This road now occupies Japanese sushi delicacies for weary Japanese tourists, after hot temple tours.  The hotel for many years had the whole of their Mezzanine floor scattered with every kind of fortune teller available.  The choice was mesmerizing, leaving the desire to return to check other divinations.  Palm reading and star chart astrology dominated approximately 20 tables, the rest were tea leaves, crystal balls, numerology and many more.  The only divination left out were spirit mediums. The open Mezzanine floor would not be conducive to foreign hotel guests witnessing such disturbing activity.

At the beginning of each New Year, my countrymen rush to search for the latest, most accurate predictor of the day, to forecast the coming year.  Life’s journey has many transition points.  For instance, a new business best opening launch day is calculated via a star chart.  The wedding date is not chosen out of convenience but calculated by birth-date, birth-time of bride and groom, to bring wedded bliss. More modern couples go to some lengths for caesarian births stretched to make the best human within a slice of calibrated time determined by the guru of the day.  Notice there is never an astrological measured time of death.

 

When we fall for the fortune teller’s prophesy, most of us avail ourselves with the positive, easily forgetting the negative.   Or if the negative is dire; the solution is to make merit, lessening the blow.  Oh, how we fall into and pay high prices to meander through the obstacles of life, often of our own instigation.

Does the power of tomorrow scare us so much that we want to peak over the horizon to be ahead of the challenges.  Apparently it affects us all - from the supreme chief to the homeless vagabond.

 

Let me take you on my journey of being fortune-told  and the psychobabble I swallowed for years, until the last spiritual medium I went along with a group of believers as part of my evening’s entertainment

 

My first introduction was at 12 yrs old on a train journey with my mother from Tehran to the port of Bandar-e Shapur by the Caspian Sea, now re-named Port of Imam Khomeni.  We shared our coach with a middle aged ‘western’ Iranian lady wrapped in a distinctive blue-shawl interwoven with gold silk that sparkled in my eye when the train caught the sun as we passed.   All I remembered from that encounter was my dislike of her prediction after much fanfare of card shuffling, that I will marry young and be divorced soon after marriage. She must have seen the beginnings of my defiant character, used whatever psycho-analytical deduction she had, which made the right impact.

 

Throughout the years, whenever opportunity presented itself – I was there, too many to recount but always ready and willing to believe.   Even my western educated well-known engineer Uncle, known for his scientific mind; (his hobbies included yacht sailing and the non-scientific astrological chart configuration) was asked by my parents that he should find the best date for my wedding.  He came up with the date and time to marry plus the time of consummation.  On every year of our anniversaries, which amounted to almost 50 yrs, we would giggle at the perceived vision, looking at our watch, timing it to fit with the stars.

 

The last encounter was of a spirit medium, engineered by a desire to prove to myself that my countrymen are easily duped.  The society is controlled through celestial belief, mixed with religion, using unquestioning deity that includes all classes of the populace from top to bottom.

 

Bear with me as I relate every sensory perception stimulated, as if you were there with me, to feel the dominant power crossover, finding my trigger but failed.

 

Late into the night, after a party event, I was driven to this spiritual medium situated by the river, near a well-known riverside restaurant. Traversing by foot on narrow single file lanes, resembling slums, where houses were almost on top of each other, turning left and right, left again until lost, impeded by overgrown garbage ready for pickup, loitering dogs, and the odd drunken human.  We arrived at a  heavy glass door, left our shoes outside, and entered a huge colorful room of divine energy.  Dark red walls dictated the mood in this vast room, contrasted with the bright pink laminated vinyl flooring.  Yellow strips on the floor indicating where to sit to queue up.   The ceiling decorated with crisscrossing yellow marigolds resembling draping curtains.  Such color psychology used to alert the spirits hiding behind hundreds of deities, small and large Indian Gods,Thai Buddhas in all shapes and sizes. All revered and worshipped with candles and lighted joss sticks, incense clawing the room and now our clothes.

The spiritual medium dressed in white sitting on a raised podium was deeply in trance with a husband-and-wife team. Her ability to converse with Lakshami the Goddess of wealth, fortune and power, together with Goddess Kali, associated with time, change, creation, destruction and death in tongue, resembling neither Hindu or Urdu, although India does have over 15,800 dialects to detect, it was, nevertheless, an Oscar performance. 

I allowed myself to be mesmerized by the atmosphere, the striking colors,  the sound, the aroma of incense, the incantation, all very addictive and hypnotizing.   While waiting our turn watching and listening, I sense that the fortune teller enjoyed her own voice, the incantation grew louder as I moved to admire an aquarium with two fish swimming in a controlled space much like we were, absorbing the hold she had over everyone in the room.

The room was messily filled with golden trays offering garlands to gold buddha images, standing, lying, seated in all sizes, and varieties of Indian gods and goddesses seemingly staring down, watching.  Face masks of elephants, monkeys, garuda’s and scary unrecognizable dolls that supposedly would terrify anyone if the electricity cut out.

 

Finally, my turn came. I asked to sit opposite her in a chair, instead of the floor, as my weary body was not in its best condition. This gave me the same level – eye to eye.  Just that alone changed everything. (1)  

She went into Indian prayer mode, unrecognizable and mystical enough, no one would refute; came back, with a voice of professionalism, what would I like to know.(2)  

Upon receiving my question, she went back to prayers, this time, harder, longer and louder.  Her judgement of people was at its peak, even at this late into the night, commented that I am not afraid of anything or anyone. I agreed. She said with amazement, not even afraid of the mystical spirits nestling in all the figures.  She said she had never met anyone like me before. (3) 

My immediate unsaid thought; this is a job, your small world keeps you afloat higher from those around you, these dolls and figurines are your protection, so that’s why you have never met someone like me for I am normal, not easily persuaded. Only I allowed my eyes to reveal my thoughts. (4)   

And sensing she lost the control she thought she had of me, went into another spell of prayers, this time with a forebodng tone and wished me well, as she said I will die within the year from bad health (5).  

She thinks “game, set and match”.  Me thinks, “you used your last straw thinking you can finish me off for I was a lost cause, but scare my friends into submission”. (6)

 

We all die, sooner or later, or even today, for no psychobabble can predict what normally happens.  

 My reaction to the five minutes of interplay after a 90 minute wait.  

 

(1)    I won

(2)    She regained her positioning

(3)    Praise first before the impending fall

(4)    I’m in control through my eyes

(5)    Oscar performance much like in a movie

(6)    Ensuring the friends, this is your fate too, if you have little faith.