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Astrology
The Jyotish Journey Continues...
by Rohini Ranjan
 Despite
numerous cyber-postings, articles and wagon-loads of information that
already exist on the Worldwide Web, as well as in print and transmitted by
word-of-mouth (yes folks, that mode still exists and quite effectively, I
may add!), the confusion that smolders in otherwise brilliantly-lit minds
and their unrealistic expectations about what astrology represents or can
do, is mind-boggling! There still prevails the magical attraction towards
the aura of mysticism and divinatory aggrandizement around what to many
has now become an organized, 'logical' and almost cerebral pursuit
neo-jyotish! People apply logic to the deductions and symbolism prevailing
in astrology; they try to seek and often successfully draw rational links
between astro-indicators and their influences in our lives, using common
day logic and sometimes logical constructs leaning precariously on
mythological symbolism.
There are some individuals that are really convinced that there is no room
for anything but the left-brained thinking in astrology, at least that is
what they claim publicly, as they tout about astrology being a science;
others are not so sure, and a few even admit that openly. On the other
hand, a few who claim to be curious about astrology but are in the wait
and watch mode, and are really closet-skeptics revealing themselves at
times when their 'expectations' are not met. Others, who though
sympathetic to astrology and astrologers, have a very unrealistic view
about its capabilities, or are too hasty about absorbing the entire
construct. These are individuals who have the potential to learn but lack
in patience.
To some extent, prominent astrologers, old and new, paid or volunteers,
bear some of the responsibility underlying this miasma of misunderstanding
and misinformation. Nearly all astrologers admit that no one they know of
who is using astrology is right all the time. Nor are scientists and
technicians (epidemiologists, psychologists, sociologists, medical
scientists, meteorologists, heck - even space scientists and physicists
and engineers, for that matter!). Claimed percentages of success for
astrologers/jyotishis vary from 70-82% (how did they figure out the 2%
difference (!) I don't know and am just quoting what I have read in
postings!). These are anecdotal accounts and no systematic study has
really been conducted or reported, lest I be misunderstood or worse
misquoted in fragments of what I write! Quizzes here, predictions on the
web there, or in newspapers that no one reads until the astrologer quotes,
evidence lies here, there and elsewhere in bits and pieces.
A reasonably well-organized study in Canada known as the Hamilton Project,
carried out a couple of decades ago with western astrologers doing cold
reading (only birth data) showed miserable results (Astrology Science or
Superstition: Eysenck and Nias). The same happened when they did the
studies that led to the Barnum effect using psychological profiles and
university students. No comparable jyotish study of that caliber has ever
been conceived, or conducted, although stray challenges from one jyotishi
to another have floated in cyberspace from time to time, with little or no
response presumably due to technical reasons from what I can surmise!
Further complicating the claimed 75-82% success is that it does not use
any kind of weighting about the significance of what was predicted.
Surely, something as significant as losing a loved one in an accident or
during a child-birth, or a professional success or failure would be a lot
more important than predicting a minor illness, a minor escape from an
accident or a minor windfall, I hope. This kind of examination has never
been carried out in a significant or meaningful manner, to my knowledge.
Recently a jyotish site, with at that time 1500 to 1600 members, has
carried out some attempts at having members, mostly new to intermediate
students of astrology (they are generally the only daring kind on the
scene for challenges such as these!) respond to nearly-cold reading
quizzes for retroactive readings (e.g., Find what happened on June 26,
2003 to this nativity?). Only five to ten individuals (usually the same
ones!) respond to such challenges. Similar challenges have been posted at
many sites over the last ten years or so. Same level of response! Even
during the 5-7 years from the mid-90s, when the growth of jyotish
information and its dissemination was at its peak and a lot of truly
brilliant intellectual energy was flowing in at least in the realm of
cyber-jyotish, there was very little of the experimental and research
attitude, let alone research attempts. Attempts were dowsed by religious
fanaticism or similar mumbo-jumbo and basically anything goes, we are too
feeble-minded to even attempt or try to examine this wonderful, cosmic
reality kind of attitudes! Then came the period when people got really
protective of territories created thence and despite the plethora of
techniques and complex skeins of logical matrix - the main stream
remained/remains apathetic and peri-meteric in their approach (sounds less
condescending than 'superficial'). It is hard to separate the factual from
the fictional (or in some cases perhaps imaginatively hypothetical)
astrology.
The apathy and lack of a large number of intense minds applying themselves
to jyotish is not surprising. There still exists a significant stigma in
society about astrology in general. Very few individuals are drawn to its
light due to a genuine, consuming and lasting interest. It still has the
'gypsy' aura of black magic, of mumbo-jumbo and I don't blame the general
public but even amongst the practitioners of the Grand Craft. A large
amount of what is written - what with the sun-sign and moon-sign columns
in prestigious research journals of astrology, and also in pioneering
beacons of jyotish research writing media such as Late B.V. Raman's
Astrological Magazine from Bangalore, and the entertaining but vacuous
books and booklets by authorities (with less nutritious value than
pop-corn for the already well-read enthusiast) who is to blame the casual
reader regarding their poor impression about the field of astrology that
we are so convinced of and dedicated to.
In contrast to the 60s and 70s when some of us were learning astrology, I
find a lot more impatient expectation in current day students (regardless
of age) in getting and following a cook-book approach to astrology. They
are convinced that there *is* (some of you old-timers can tell, I
cyber-teethed on CIS!) a sacred and secret set of principles that if
followed will lead to a bomb-proof reading. They lazily expect others to
first prove that astrology is worth their time and attention! Imagine if
that were the case for other disciplines, engineering and medicine and law
and political science and by Jove, paleontology would probably have
chaired really marasmic professors waiting for a student to come by! What
dedication amongst the neophytes so eager to learn!
There have been more than a few attempts at repackaging astrology, and
jyotish - whatever is available about the discipline - in that kind of
packaged framework and with some success. But, over time, as experience of
the revved-up learners grows, they run into road-blocks and speed-bumps
which make them wonder, ponder, even stumble and some sadly eventually
give up. It is this 'natural selection' aspect of the business of
astrology that, I have always instinctively felt, has protected astrology
from falling into wrong hands for all these eons! Some very revered modern
jyotishis have openly and in a somewhat elitist manner worried about this
and have often quoted Varahamihira and Parashara and others of having
cautioned about giving the gift of astrological knowledge to the unworthy,
spiritually-inadequate students and seekers, but I have always been very
secure about this being a somewhat paranoid territorial human folly for
maintaining possession, control and power, what little can be exercised on
the thin sliver of the converted (of the 6 billion that inhabit this
earth)!
There is nothing that is more dangerous in this world than the formula for
the nuclear bomb, and that all will admit is more readily available to the
populace than are jyotish secrets. Hark! The world is still here is all I
want to remind you, despite our fears voiced in the daily press or
elsewhere for decades and decades! Share freely, you Jyotish gurus and
teachers and trust not just in the power of jyotish but also in its
purifying properties as its follower practices and matures, which I hope
you have personally experienced? The practice of jyotish can change one
gradually, only in a positive way. In some cases it takes longer if too
many malefic planets are influencing the personal indicators, but
ultimately ... it is probably going to be the nuclear bomb rather than
jyotish and its secret powers that could potentially take out this world
and its 'civilization'!
If, like me, you have followed for some time the astrology scene in the
cyber reality as well as the paper-reality, I see more stability on the
western astrology scene than on the jyotish side of things. Sure,
individual mortals move on, as they make room for others and so on, but
the significant mainstream of teachers has been more constant on the
western side than on the eastern side. Just an observation! Perhaps the
jyotish scene is evolving as technology is improving its dissemination and
perhaps that could be the reason. There is also the esoteric, mystical,
religious, everything-can-be-fixed remedial shadow that keeps dogging
jyotish - a shadow that has or perhaps cannot be questioned or confronted
readily or openly, yet. The hypocrisy is obvious! Pick either the
religious, faith-based almost superstitious thinking OR stick with the
slightly more realistic and logical framework. One cannot have it both
ways.
Jyotish literature is freely available and nowhere in the astrology
classics is there a mention of 'wearing' gemstones as being capable of
remedying karma! In the past, rich landlords and kings used to make gifts
of gemstones to priests and other perhaps more worthy causes. Gemstones
had been associated with planets to promote that sattwik, supportive
practice. Pray tell me: How does giving a chunk of ruby in gift to a poor
monastic and pure priestly being - if I wish to improve my sun -
equate with wearing the same chunk of ruby on my third finger in all pomp
and glory to accompany the other three rings I am adorning my body with,
at the same time? Is karma or Whoever represents the Hindu counterpart of
the Saint of the Pearly Gates fame, that inane? I suppose there is some
good karma in sustaining and providing for the livelihood of the internet
gem-dealer, and as a secondary good karma, supporting your credit card
dealer or paypal, but, come-on people, honestly! And, tell that to the
hoards of eager karma-fixers who want a remedial gem prescription,
including science-heads, engineers, doctors, teachers, even jyotishis of
many years who should by now really know better! A doctor friend of mine
once told me long ago, how disappointed his rural patients used to get
unless he prescribed at least a vitamin to them or some medicine even if
they did not really need that probably to make up for that long arduous
bus ride they took from their village to the city hospital, only to find
out that they simply had a case of *nerves* or no life-threatening organic
disease and that no chemical remedy was really necessary!
Over the last ten to fifteen years, the cyber realm of internet has
literally exploded with some overheated, overworked computer hard-drives
serving as reminders of there not being any unmixed good! Jyotish lists
and websites and creative expressions of sharing have sprung up all over
the place. While many sites are for business and promotional in nature,
there are in this desert of commercialism, a few oases of knowledge and
research. Charts get discussed, sometimes properly and thoroughly but even
at other times, you can at least walk away with one or more charts to
study and examine, sometimes with an associated email address for
follow-up if such is entertained or welcome. But, by far, most of these
discussions are carried out by explorers, beginners or intermediate
students of jyotish. Some of these are well-versed in technical knowledge
but haven't had the drive, chance or patience to sit down and study
charts, enough number of charts anyway to really count as experience.
Brilliant otherwise, their questioning and expression of problems in
jyotish are wonderful, and jyotish is a good ground for such questions,
but little true knowledge emerges without the practical focus or
resources. Rather than replay or rehash some brilliant or rare technique
or epithet, or an entire review on ancient books of questionable vintage
or purity, it would be more educational if just charts were discussed,
against the backdrop of tenets. Howsoever obvious or logical sounding, if
the combination does not pan out in a chart then of what value is it to
the learner in the next astrological adventure that they face when someone
draws their chart in front of them and asks for instructions and guidance
through the rest of his or her life, in fifteen minutes or less? It is
naive to assume, and many do, that what is given in astrological books,
original, translated modern versions and rehashed accounts borrowing
unabashedly from original sources and generous others may not consistently
come through in real slices of life, the charts that are not often
discussed in modern exchanges and almost never showed up in so called
classical texts! Somebody, please go figure this, already!
I think some of the biggest modern gifts to astrology and jyotish in
particular have come from the software savvy astrologers. Nearly all
astrology calculation software came about because the individual had a
love for or knowledge of astrology and had the necessary programming
skills. Many different flavors show up in the software and though none of
them is perfect, but then, nor is this world! Add to those ventures and
attempts to help out, the few databases that exist and at least one of
which has serious potential for research applications, namely
AstroDatabank, these are all very exciting developments, something that
was hard to imagine as recently as 30 years ago! While we drive these
folks crazy with our demands for more and more improvements, all of us
astrologers of any and all cloths should take a moment to thank
individuals like Michael Erlewine, John Halloran, Michael Boender, Andrew
Foss, Andrew Haydn, Das Goravani, Lois Rodden and Mark McDonough and many
others.
The tools are pretty much all there, but my general feeling is that the
research component from the calculation software is not really improving
as much as the horoscope calculation routines! I think this is driven by
user demand and what is lacking from the research scene is user
participation! If the relatively small user-base actually begins to use
these tools and tries to push these to their limits, inadequacies would
emerge glaringly and programmers will be motivated to focus on improving
those areas of their products and as a happy corollary, the days of
'cheesy' reviews would be over. Cheesy reviews that indicate that the
reviewer has not really tested the product hard and probably does not have
the know-how of what is really needed in terms of calculations or
research. Sad is the day when product reviews begin to sound suspiciously
like a reworked promotional flyer that is taken off the programmer's
website! People bitch about the inadequacy of research features in
available commercial software. It is because they do not provide feedback.
And the feedback needs to come in large numbers because if it is only one
or two users pestering the software programmer, he or she cannot be
faulted for thinking that it is not a popular 'need' and so he cannot be
blamed for making a business decision about how much time to spend into
that part of the project, as he or she turns a deaf ear to the 'nag' who
just won't go away! And, if the silence of the users indicates that there
is not really any interest in improving the research capabilities of these
software, then what could be sadder for the future of astrology?
Some Interesting Data on Retrograde Planets
On asking several individuals, it seemed to be the general impression that
mercury would be one of the commonest retrograde planet in horoscopes. On
the other hand, I had the feeling that slower planets overall probably
clocked in more days of retrograde motion than inner and faster planets,
Venus and mercury, but never really looked into it. Just to fulfill my
curiosity, I decided to look this up in the Astrodatabank software (newer
versions like 2 and 3 have a Vedic version of the databank too.). For
quick explorations like these, I use the Rodden database with data quality
A and up. Using that filter, I got 19192 charts (private individuals,
celebrities, pretty much all walks of life the good, bad and the ugly,
with the following distribution:
Mercury 6.4% times retrograde in these charts
Venus 5.2% times retrograde in these charts
Mars 7.5% times
Jupiter 22.4% times
Saturn 26.1% times
charts with at least one planet retrograde = 52.3%
One can assume that in half of the charts seen, at least one of the planet
would be retrograde with the likelihood of the planet being Saturn >
Jupiter > Mars > Mercury > Venus.
Looking at the percent of times that the ruler of a house was retrograde,
I got a range from 8.8% to 13.3% (Ruler of XII least likely, ruler of VII
most likely and ascendant clocking in at 9.5% times)
Benefics (Venus, well associated mercury and Jupiter as per the software
which is rigid in this respect!) were 17.5% times retrograde, malefics
(nodes, Mars, Saturn, ill associated Mercury, Sun) were 8.4% times
retrograde in the 19192 charts examined.
Just to cream the software a bit more, I looked at the percentage of
charts with one of the inner planets retrograde (12.6%) or one of the
outer planets retrograde (46.7%), Situations where one of the inner or one
of the outer planets was retrograde brought the percentage to close to 50%
(not surprisingly).
I looked at the situations where a planet was in its own sign and
retrograde. The following pattern emerged:
Mercury - Gemini 0% Virgo 100%
Venus - Taurus 30% Libra 70%
Mars - Aries 42% Scorpio 58%
Jupiter - Sagittarius 55% Pisces 45%
Saturn - Capricorn 52% Aqua 48%
As you can see it is not uniformly distributed with something very
interesting going on with mercury in this sample of 19192 charts! I don't
know why mercury was never retrograde in sidereal Gemini!
August 7, 2004
Top | Astrology
Image under license with Gettyimages.com
Published in arrangement with
Crystal
Pages, Ottawa.
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