Hey, Wait! Is Modern Day Astrology Really About Human Psychology?

STATUTORY WARNING: This post isn't an attempt to hurt someone's sentiments. It's just my personal view on astrology and my musings about it. Thank you.

Ah, astrology. 

There are many, who religiously believe in the magic of the stars. 

And there are many people, who love, love trashing it and scoffing, Blergh! Who believes in stars and all that shit? 

Let me now tell you, some of them are the very same people who follow zodiac pages on Instagram and jump at the chance of  getting their horoscopes read. 

As much as I'd like to say that I'm a perfectly logical human being who thinks she is way above the trappings of astrology, I have to say that I'm equally one of those idiots who follows zodiac pages on Instagram and jump at the chance of getting my horoscope read. And this post is going to be my spiel on what I make of the weird, mystical "science" called astrology. 

MY TRYST WITH ASTROLOGY

With an atheist father and a no-nonsense mother, you'd think that I was far away from the implausible terrain of astrology. And for most part, I think I actually was. I mean, I don't remember any instance in my childhood where people treated me like I was a special snowflake for being born in the day of  a particular astrological star. I also don't remember my maternal grandparents (who I've lived with, all my life) spewing nonsense like, "Oh, you're a lucky soul and you're going to rule the world as per your birth charts." 

(Obviously that wouldn't have happened. My grandpa and I have a lot more intellectual debates than that - such as who gets the remote first or disagreements over the fact that my grandpa shouldn't keep the AC temperature at the room temperature because that defeats the purpose of the AC. My grandma on the other hand, is a highly intellectual being herself. A lady who watches Travel XP, reads newspapers and clicks pictures on my iPad is too smart to even waste her time on trivial shiz such as astrology) 

But I do have a couple of brief instances, where I have confronted astrology. 

The first was when I was a toddler and the entire world except my parents was freaking out about the fact that I was a late bloomer and I wouldn't jabber all cutesy-cutesy like my peers. Instead, I had an unnatural amount of hyperactive energy (which still continues). From my nursery teacher to my neighbours, I was called "a child with problems".

Gasp!

Which was why, my paternal grandfather (an intellectual man a lot like his ENTP son, minus the debating and anti-religious-sentimentalism which my dad has till) went to our village's astrologer to ask if his youngest grandchild was, well, weird. 

The astrologer apparently looked at my chart and proclaimed, "A day will come, sir, when your granddaughter won't stop talking."

Ironically, miles away, the doctor who my logical father took me to (to get me checked and to disprove people's nonsense), had - upon looking at me and gauging my hyperactivity - joked, "You'll come to me one day and say, 'My daughter won't stop talking'." 

That, fortunately, is true. 

After that, astrology never really came up in our conversations until much later, someone very dear to me (till date!) ended up doing the numerological and astrological reading of my birthday and gave me insights about myself at a point in time when I felt the lowest about my self-esteem. Funnily enough, she was scarily accurate about whatever I'd felt in life till that point and whatever advice she gave me had a huge, positive impact on my self-esteem.

Okay, I didn't feel like I was so amazing and so awesome that the whole world would sigh  dreamily and fall in love with me if I did as much as sneeze. And nor did I end up with the feeling that I was the luckiest snowflake in the entire world. 

But after talking to her, I kinda started feeling that I wasn't such a kachra after all. 

And even though, till this date, I don't really believe in the notion of luck (except when some bad-luck befalls and I have to curse like a sailor), the fact that someone actually did a comprehensive psychological study through a "science" that's obscure at best, of my character and my abilities was quite the motivation. 

Which was why, last year, before I started with my postgrad course in Delhi NCR and I was aimless and bored and lazing around at home with my grandmother, I decided to read up more on astrology and how people read birth charts. 

All right, I admit that 90 % of the stuff that was spewed on the internet was bullcrap. But reading through that somehow gave me a basic idea of how the birth charts are crafted and what planets really metaphorically symbolize. Packed with that very vague idea, once I joined my fellowship programme, I ended up "reading" the charts of a couple of my friends. For some strange, some of the wacky stuff I spewed, based on the nonsense I'd read on planets online, actually turned out to be true. 

Now, now, now. Don't you go and think that I've become some sort of a madwoman godwoman! 

I still don't know shit and a major part of me still doesn't even believe that astrology could have merit to it. 

But that got me thinking. And what one of my closest friends said to me, all exasperatedly (in good humour), "Uff, if you keep asking a person if this combo works and if you keep repeating and rephrasing what that person says and come up with some silly judgement of yours, any idiot would think you're an astrologer!" 

And bingo. 

That led me to the question that I'd like to pose: 

IS MODERN DAY ASTROLOGY REALLY ABOUT HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY?

Is it? 

Now that I think of it, I'd merely sectioned planets and houses (there are 12 houses in your birth chart) as random parameters with specific characteristics and based on those parameters, I'd asked questions. Like if someone's house which represented the mother had a "good planet" like Jupiter, I'd ask, all cautiously, "Are you close to your mother?" and that person would suddenly go, "Yes! Yes! Yes! How did you realize that?" and I'd go, as triumphantly as the pandit in Bangalore Days who read Nazriya Nazim's horoscope, "Yes! It shows here so explicitly!" 

If that person would go, "Hmm... not so much. We aren't that close anyway.", then I'd go diplomatically, "You will get a lot of favours from your mom later in life."

Or if I was "predicting" stuff about someone and I'd heard about one particular quality of that person from someone else, I'd just paste that by throwing in some astrological jargon. Or if I'd observe someone doing something, then I'd just paste that with astro lingo instead! 

Which just made me think now: Hey, I am no astrologer in any way. I'm just a dhongi baba who can fit mental puzzle pieces together and spew nonsense that actually seems true. If I go a step further and think more, it just makes me wonder, "Hey! It's not just me. There are so many astrologers who're doing this and probably much worse!" 

Think about it. People go to astrologers, who tell them to do XYZ because their Shani is really strong. People, feeling petrified of Shani (who, mythology-wise speaking, was actually a really cool dude), do exactly what the astrologer tells them. Or if the astrologer knows that the person whose birth chart is being read was born under a so-called lucky star, he/she would predict how this lucky star person is destined for the stars and somehow, with that amount of snivelly flattery, he/she would end up becoming that family's go-to astrologer because "Woh toh accha predict karta hai yaar!" 

Now that we are on this line of thought, I can't help but think about other forms like numerology, where if you add like 50-60 extra letters, you feel good that you took that measure and your life is "better". But is it the addition of those extra letters or is it your own psychological bias that's motivating you to feel that things are "actually better"? 

If you really dig deeper into it, you realize how it ultimately really grills down to common observational skills. And how using those observational skills, one forms one's own judgement and then ultimately advises the client to do what you feel that person would best be suited for. 

Is modern-day astrology truly about the intricate astrology of the past? Or is it just commonplace observation of the human psychology? 

I'd like to believe it's the latter. What do you think? 

Stay awesome as ever, 

Much love, 

Archie <3