My wife brought home a booklet she picked up yesterday. Titled "Holistic Happenings" she left it out on the table so I’d see it. I sometimes think she’s trying to induce me into a coronary so she can reap the hundreds of dollars of my life insurance.
Anyway, I sat down over my bowl of generic-brand Cocoa Krispies and started reading the rag. I was expecting it to be silly, but my oh my. I nearly choked on my cereal.
There’s a column in the back for something called "Shamanic Astrology". You can imagine how I felt about that. The guru of this particular New Age, uh, stuff, had this to say:
"Wholeness is awakening to your shadow as well as your light, balancing the upper, lower, and middle worlds, and integrating your past lineage with your future soul intention. "
If you can understand what he’s trying to say there, seek help. And not the shamanic kind.
Normally, I don’t make fun of stuff like this, but c’mon. That sentence is meaningless. It sounds deep, but it doesn’t say anything. It’s content-free. It’s the celery stick of philosophy.
I know, I know– I live in Northern California, and I should expect such nonsense to pervade the culture. But it’s frustrating anyway. And I also know it’s not restricted to this area, it’s all over this country. Red state, blue state, this kind of fuzzy thinking can be found everywhere.
Do me a favor folks. I don’t care if you agree with me or not, but just do this one little thing: think. Think clearly. That’s all you need to do. As I like to say, the Universe is cool enough without having to make up garbage about it.
P.S. I have a general astrology debunking I’ll be unleashing on the website soon. Stay Tuned.
March 15th, 2005 at 10:03 pm
Whoa, I’m the first to leave a comment….
Coooool
I’ll say what I said earlier:
Cool, this is going to be awesome.
I’m looking forward to the astrology bashing btw…
It is the most annoying pseudo in my opinion…
Probably because so many people my age belive in it…
March 16th, 2005 at 5:13 am
You have to wonder what these gurus are thinking when they write this stuff. Who actually believes this?
March 16th, 2005 at 1:41 pm
People who could probably use much more qualified assistance. A lot of people out there, a few I’ve known, are so lost because of some perceived inadequacy or personal tragedy that they’re easy fodder for a smooth line of spiritual jetwash.
March 16th, 2005 at 3:56 pm
Astrology debunking! Great. I already read one myself, a pretty good one too, in Astronomy Magazine (December 2004 issue, “The truth about astrology”)
I can’t believe some people believes in that… But they’re happy when someone tells them they’ll be happy today because Venus is somewhere in some constellation… Well, suits them.
March 16th, 2005 at 4:01 pm
It’s the result of the age-old conflict between feeling and thinking. Strong feelings are mistaken for proven facts. The mesmerizing mumbo-jumbo of rituals produces emotional reactions that, if not filtered, analyzed, and controlled, are mistaken for real results and actual occurrences.
Then, when the trance is broken, and what actually happened is coolly evaluated, the complete lack of any basis in fact becomes readily apparent. The BA’s quote from “Holistic Happenings”, illustrates this quite well. To folks under the spell of the shaman, those words make perfect sense, but in the cold, sober light of reason, are revealed to be nonsense.
“Your species has the most amazing capacity for self-deception, matched only by its ingenuity in destroying itself.” — The 7th Doctor Who
March 16th, 2005 at 8:22 pm
When I was still a college student, the Powers That Be at our school paper decided that having just any ol’ horoscope was boring, so instead, we went for Mayan Cosmology. Much of which made even less sense than that. The other copy editor and I practically arm wrestled to see who was going to be forced to slog through it that week, trying to make some grammatical sense out of it.
March 17th, 2005 at 8:40 am
Man, if it wasn’t for my conscience, I would go into that business so fast…
March 29th, 2005 at 8:13 pm
“Wholeness is awakening to your shadow as well as your light, balancing the upper, lower, and middle worlds, and integrating your past lineage with your future soul intention. ”
Actually, if you take this apart, some of it DOES make sense. (Please note, I am agnostic. I do NOT believe in all this.)
“Wholeness” – duh, being whole, being complete.
“your shadow” – your dark side. This is in psychology, can’t think what it’s called right now. Some people are more in tune with their dark side than others – this does NOT refer to criminal or wrong acts.
“balancing the upper, lower, and middle worlds” – not entirely sure on this one, except it reminds me of Tolkien’s Middle Earth.
“integrating … soul intention” – combining your past experiences, whether they be in this lifetime or in past lifetimes (if you believe in reincarnation) with your future dreams and goals.
So basically, this person’s saying that in order to be a whole and balanced individual, you need to acknowledge and become comfortable with your dark/shadow side as well as your light side, you need to balance all parts of your life, and you need to both come to grips with your past as well as be aware of your future goals.
See? When you translate it like that, it makes sense and isn’t so bad.
April 1st, 2005 at 11:23 am
Sure, sure!
It’s just the same old & tired, meaningless, new age self help rhetoric that has been re-worded.
It makes the same amount of sense as it originally did. Just step outside the New Age loop, and you will see what we’re talking about.
And just for your information. It only takes a little rationality and intelligence to be a whole and balanced individual, not this trash!
October 9th, 2005 at 6:45 pm
In response to Seamyst, the point being made is that whenever astrology
or new-age philosophy has any meaning, the meaning derives from the way
in which it is interpreted by the listener. In other words, the wisdom is input
by the client, not supplied by the practitioner. So even though it may have
some value in encouraging people to introspect, it’s obviously a pretty good
racket! I suppose some might argue that so is psychology, but at least there
is a great effort there to establish reliable credentials and accountability.
January 21st, 2007 at 2:25 pm
There is more to life than rationality. There are feelings, thoughts, passions, desires…. Have any of you heard of Jung? Ever heard of archetypes? Are all of that knowledge new age BS according to you rational people?
It is obvous most of the people on this blog have the mercury in Aries.
February 18th, 2009 at 2:24 am
Astrology sucks!
Astrology sucks!
Astrology sucks!
Astrology sucks!
Astrology sucks!
Astrology sucks!
February 18th, 2009 at 2:32 am
Hmm… the “<_h1 -h6_>” HTML tags don’t work here.
February 18th, 2009 at 2:33 am
Trying to breath new life into old posts Ivan3man?
January 11th, 2010 at 5:37 am
Mercury in Aries!! : ) LMAO!
If you’re not serious, you’re amazing!
If you were serious – dude, get a freaking real life – get out of this crap!
June 24th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
@ 14. Shane Says:
And succeeding by the looks of it! Is there anything wrong with that? I don’t think so!
June 25th, 2010 at 1:03 am
Interesting post. I’m a more recent reader of BABlog, having only been here about two years, now. But so many people criticize Dr. Plait for including skeptical content in an “astronomy blog”, I think it’s interesting that his THIRD posting was a skeptical posting. So by all rights, notwithstanding the perfectly reasonable argument that it’s Dr. Plait’s blog and he can write about whatever the hell he wants, this IS a skeptical blog, as much as it’s an astronomy blog.
Let me tell you a secret, here where nobody will read it. I MUCH prefer the skeptical content to the astronomy content. I like Dr. Plait’s take on the skeptical world, much better than PZ or any of the others. So, here’s to BA(skeptic)Blog.