OK. After watching this, I am slightly tempted to erase everything I have ever written about sun sign astrologers. Because it is such a wicked response to this skeptic.
(hat tip: The facebook horoscopic astrology forum)
Brilliant Sun Signs Tuesday, Jan 29 2008
astrology and foolish wisdom and oracles and tom foolery aquarius, aries, benloka, bill nye, cancer, capricorn, gemini, leo, libra, pisces, sagitarrius, scorpio, taurus, virgo 1:22 am
Yet Another “Astrologer” to Princess Diana Stripped of Faculty of Astrological Studies Diploma Monday, Jan 28 2008
astro-gossip and astrologers and astrology and debbie frank and ethics in astrology and general knavery and penny thornton and princess diana and skullduggery d.f.astrol.s, debbie frank, ethics in astrology, faculty of astrological studies, penny thornton, princess diana 12:32 am
I am going to London in March for a week and a friend, who was awarded a Certificate from the Faculty of Astrological Studies in London last year, sent me the link to the Faculty’s Annual Open Day in case I might like to purchase a ticket and attend.
While scrolling down the program page, I noticed at the very bottom that yet another Faculty Diploma holder has been stripped of her D.F.Astrol.S. This would make Debbie Frank the second astrologer to late Princess Diana to be stripped of her Faculty Diploma–the first being Penny Thornton in 1995–for violating several clauses in the Faculty’s code of ethics(pdf), the most serious, of course, being the violation of client confidentiality by speaking and writing publicly about their work as astrologers to the princess.
Moving Foward… Thursday, Jan 17 2008
astrology fidaria, Jupiter, saturn, sunrunner 4:23 pm
A year ago, when I posted a video of Fred Mittle of Young@Heart singing Fix You by Cold Play, I was aware that I was entering a crucial Saturnian period in my life. Not only was I in the midst of a 2 year Saturn period via Fidaria, but transiting Saturn in its detriment, was hanging out in one of my angular houses and hitting a number of personal planets by hard aspect. Etc. But I did not expect that a whole year would go by without a single post, even though Saturn is about slowness, halting and yes, even reversals.
But all that is over, I am now in a Jupiter Fidaria (woo hoo!), transiting Saturn is in a Succedent house, and well, the world out there seems a lot more interesting…as I scroll the astrological ‘net, I notice a few things out there that I am looking forward to having some fun with.
Fun being the operative word! To that Jupiterian end, I have taken the liberty of “rectifying” my nome de Blog from daimones to Sunrunner.
(Photo credit: Foundations of Alter to Zeus at Pergamon from Sacred Destinations)
Scorpionic Exile or the Death of Plutocracy? Tuesday, Sep 5 2006
aries and Around the Blogoverse and astrology and foolish wisdom and liz greene and mars and scorpio clyde tombaugh, liz greene, madalyn hillis-dineen, mars, pluto, scorpio 11:27 pm
Okay. I just have to say a few words about this. My Scorpio friends are beginning to suspect that there is a plot afoot to cut them adrift, to cast then into exile with no planet to call home.
All over the globe this week, charts were redrawn to reflect the change. Unlike astronomers, astrologers seem to have no problem contradicting each other, so there was no need for a convention.
Last weekend in the Miami Herald, Madalyn Tillis-Dineen, president of the dubiously-named Massachusetts-based National Council for Geocosmic Research reassured us, “You could argue that [Pluto’s] demotion would cause a problem for people whose charts prominently feature Pluto, but I don’t see those people suddenly losing their jobs or falling on hard times.”
ElsaElsaElsaElsaElsa oh Elsa! Tuesday, Sep 5 2006
Around the Blogoverse and astrologers and astrology and oracles 7:05 pm
Malpractice Sunday, Sep 3 2006
astrological prediction and astrology and general knavery and media and planets and pluto and rob hand afa, astrologers, astrology, ethics in astrology, isar, ncgr, pluto, rob hand, saturn 3:42 pm
As a whole (except when privately kvetching between themselves behind another’s back), astrologers are quite allergic to criticism; whether providing it thoughtfully or accepting it. It is just not done, constructively or otherwise.
My personal theory is that since the word “astrology” is synonymous with pariah, most astrologers find themselves operating as a kind of functional outlaw, living somewhere on a continuum between a healthy capacity to question authority and a pathological disdain for accountability of any kind.
A Real Collector’s Item (Only $1,955.89) Thursday, Aug 31 2006
astro-gossip and astrology and booknotes and chiron and general knavery and melanie reinhart and planets 5:10 pm
That’s right, $1,955.89 (And .89!) making it perhaps the world’s most expensive contemporary astrology book.
I do own a copy of Melanie Reinhart’s Chiron and the Healing Journey. Slightly yellowed due to the oxidation of the bad Penguin paper, but otherwise in pristine condition.
I would be willing to part with it for only $977.60. At just half of the Amazon.com price, a phenomenal bargain, doncha’ think?
Update (Sep 3, 2006): The price has now increased to $2,121.54! My offer to sell my personal copy for only $977.60 still stands.
Update (Sept 14, 2006): the 2,121.54 copy has presumably been sold.
A Retrograde Mercury Signals Disaster Friday, Jul 21 2006
Around the Blogoverse and astrological prediction and astrology and astrology related and cosmology and foolish wisdom and huffington post and media and oracles 12:20 am
According to Sheldon Drobny (of Air America) over at the Huffington Post, the recent outbreak of war in Lebanon can be at least partially understood by the fact that the hostilities commenced while Mercury is [apparently] traipsing backwards.
The global crisis has intensified recently with the recent Israeli military incursions into Gaza and Lebanon. This intensity of human crisis has fallen into an astronomical period in which the planet Mercury is in retrograde. In astronomical terms, retrograde is a time when the planets appear to have a backward movement in the sky.
Before I get into the meat of this post, I just have to mention a few factoids: (more…)
Anyone Can Do Astrology on TV Friday, Jun 30 2006
astrologers and astrology and astrology related and capricorn and general stupidity and taurus and tom foolery and virgo 7:01 pm
Even voice-overs named Greg Tufaro.
Yesterday’s New York Times features a hilarious article about about how a Brooklyn, New York couple gamed a new reality show “What’s Your Sign? Design” (debuting on cable’s Home and Garden channel) to get a free do-over done on their neglected front parlor.
Alex (wife) and Andrew (husband) Postman put their heads together to present a captivating (for a tv producer, at least) dilemna. She hates color and likes it, though in reality, he doesn’t much care and she really really doesn’t like it. It didn’t hurt that they are a good-looking couple (Alex is “glamorously Pregnant”) and (theoretically) it can’t be hard to make a front parlor room of a Brooklyn Brownstone look good. Eventually they were chosen to be the headline couple:
Can a practical Capricorn and a headstrong Taurus really agree on the look of a room? Find out on What’s Your Sign? Design where zodiac charts and fresh paint mix to create incredible makeovers. Watch an expert designer and a talented astrologer make it work using creative design and a little help from the stars in this innovative series that brings design harmony to couples all over the country.
A Closer Look at Cosmos and Psyche Wednesday, Jun 28 2006
archetypal astrology and archetypes and astrologers and astrology and booknotes and charles harvey and cosmology and cosmos and psyche and general knavery and james hillman and marsilio ficino and richard tarnas and thomas moore c.g. jung, cosmos and psyche, dane rudyar, james hillman, marcilio ficino, mundane astrology, passion of the western mind, rick tarnas, thomas moore 4:34 am
Cosmos and Psyche is hefty book, and it presents many interesting ideas which I am sure many people — those with some prior astrological understanding and those without — will chew on for some time. From an astrological perspective, one of the more exciting things about the book could’ve, should’ve been new access to a comprehensive collection of historical data which could in turn be cross-referenced with astrological data. I have been using Passion of the Western Mind in this precisely this manner for years.
For example in the chronology after the epilogue in my copy of Passion, I noted on page 463 that in 1925, the year Yeat’s Vision, Thomas Dewey’s Experience and Nature, and Alfred Whitehead’s Science and the Modern World were published, Pluto stationed retrograde at 12 Cancer. I did this because I was examining relationships between specific degrees which appeared to be intensified by stations of the outer planets, eclipses and partile aspects between planets, and notable events in art and science. Many of the margins within my copy of the text itself are filled with such notations indicating possible correspondences (only in my case, I used exact aspects) between various historical periods and astrological significators, as are many other books I have studied, particularly history and biographies. This is typically how many modern western astrologers begin to study mundane astrology, before moving on to the complexity of ingress and lunation charts. And Tarnas’s Passion was a godsend in terms of this kind of work and study.
Some Serious Astrology Tuesday, Jun 27 2006
age of aquarius and astrologers and astrology and general stupidity and media and michael lutin and tom foolery and virgo age of aquarius, astrologers, birth time, michael lutin 5:33 pm
Update: more on Lutin’s astrological views here.
Some tidbits from a Q & A with famous astrologer Michael Lutin courtesy of The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY):
Q. I’ve heard this is supposed to be the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, which is a time of peace, acceptance and love. Why does it seem like nothing’s getting better?
People always think things are going to be better. They’re never better; they’re just different. We’re moving from the Age of Pisces into the Age of Aquarius, but it’s neurotic to think things are going to get better.
I have my birth certificate here. Can you do my chart super quick or tell me something I don’t know about myself?
You know everything about yourself. The client always knows more about him or herself than the astrologer ever could.
If I gave you my birth date and time, could you give me a fast read?
I would give you that. I couldn’t do anything real for you.
When did you start getting interested in astrology?
I was a teenager. … I didn’t really believe it. I studied it for years and … eventually, after studying chart after chart after chart and seeing the correlations come and be so accurate, I had to either accept it or stop doing it.
What’s your sign?
I never tell. It’s not good for my practice. I try to be neutral in my practice, and people have prejudices against certain signs, so that’s why. People have all kinds of crazy notions, based upon their childhood, mostly. They’ll say, “Oh, I hate Geminis,” and I’ll say, “Is your mother a Gemini?” “Yeah, how’d you know?”
(ed: very badly kept secret at that. Hint, hint – famous for being cheap, nit picking, and according to Forbes Magazine attributed to the highest number of billionaires.)
Sharks Bank Left at the Kuiper Belt Saturday, Jun 24 2006
astro-gossip and astrology and astrology related and ethics in astrology and general knavery and girolamo cardano and j.p. morgan and jerome armstrong and skullduggery and tom foolery 11:26 pm
Update: Jerome Armstrong quotes J.P. Morgan (millionaires don’t use astrology, billionaires do), confesses his faith in our primate ancestors and invites the wingnuts out for a little vipassana meditation! (though Redstate.com is having way too much fun with this to let it go . . . )
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In his biography of the astrologer and mathematician Girolamo Cardano, historian Anthony Grafton likens the role of a modern economist to that of a Rennaissance astrologer.
How about the modern economist as astrologer aka political pundit?
I don’t even know how I stumbled over this — but a pack of rightwingnut bloggers have launched a witch hunt — and are celebrating the the revelation that blogger and author Jerome Armstrong (how many people do you know who have even heard of Jerome Armstrong?) was/is an astrologer as well as a day trader — hmmm, did he study with Ray? — before he became a political consultant.
I am not going to try to recount the particulars as how this came to light, as I am not sure I understand it myself, but one thing is clear — there are no secrets in the lands of the internets. None.
The gist is that apparently an email (alluding to some legal difficulties with the SEC a few years ago in connection to the daytrading dimension of life) circulating on a private list of lefty bloggers fell into the paws of a bigshot wingnut blogger (love to know how much he paid for it!). And somehow, that leaked email inspired/enabled computer wizards on the right to start combing the internet looking for more dirt, and well, to make a long story short, it turns out that Jerome Armstrong of mydd.com is none other than the completely unknown astrologer, Jerome Armstrong (I am serious, who ever heard of an astrologer named Jerome Armstrong?)
Shallow Humor Thursday, Jun 15 2006
astrology and general stupidity and tom foolery aquarius, aries, cancer, capricorn, gemini, leo, libra, sagitarrius, scorpio, taurus, virgo 7:31 pm
ARIES You have a wild imagination and often think you are being followed by the FBI or CIA. You have minor influence on your friends and people resent you for flaunting your power. You lack confidence and are a general dipshit.
TAURUS You are practical and persistent. You have a dogged determination and work like hell. Most people think you are stubborn and bullheaded. You’re nothing but a damned communist.
GEMINI You are a quick and intelligent thinker. People like you because you are bisexual. You are inclined to expect too much for too little. This means you are a cheap bastard. Geminis are notorious for thriving on incest.
CANCER You are sympathetic and understanding to other people’s problems, which makes you a sucker. You are always putting things off. That is why you will always be on welfare and won’t be worth a shit. Everyone in prison is a Cancer.
Fools and Knaves 