Rowan & Pine: A Feminist Folklore & Mythology Podcast - Episode Fifty-Three： Astrology Pt.2 [With Megan] - Whimsigoths

00:00:00.000 we're not doing good lives it is can't be dealing no i can't be dealing with a shade 0.99

00:00:10.640 like i am gonna be one of those people that complain about this weather i'm not gonna 0.99

00:00:15.100 you know those people that are like oh don't complain about it sure we don't get it that 0.87

00:00:18.980 often i'm like no i am gonna fucking complain about it because it's terrible i can't do anything 0.87

00:00:22.940 i'm not built for it well you know the whole thing can't complain i can i can always complain 0.92

00:00:28.220 it's actually what i'm very good at i'm really good at complaining also i'm actually class at

00:00:33.560 that it's one of our specialties yeah special special interest is complaining complaining 0.95

00:00:38.880 yeah um hello welcome back to ronin pine um me and megan are fucking roasting absolutely roasting 0.96

00:00:48.360 absolutely roasting lads it is so hot um we're sitting on a leather couch um if you have seen 0.84

00:00:54.680 any video clips of this you'll see that we're in shorts don't put us on the wiki feet you don't

00:01:01.080 see our feet you can just see our knees just our knees just for you um but yes we're back only a

00:01:09.320 year late with wow astrology part two so we did astrology august last year uh and that was where

00:01:19.980 Megan worked her witchy magic on me and converted me into astrology where I'm still very much like

00:01:26.820 oh you know like I don't I don't fully believe it now it's like I probably send you astrology

00:01:31.980 memes at least once yeah a day that's actually a really good point especially recently maybe

00:01:37.860 with the oncoming part two of the podcast you're like I gotta get into this kind of frame of mind

00:01:42.880 again yes you know yeah but you've definitely definitely dipped into it more since the podcast

00:01:48.340 that we done was that last august yes holy fuck yeah we did do shadow people yeah that was that

00:01:54.160 was for october the spooky vibes yeah that was interesting but yes astrology august was yeah

00:02:00.880 last year back for astrology part two if you missed it astrology part one was very good and

00:02:07.220 we even had to cut a part out where megan did our birth charts because we yatched for that long oh

00:02:11.880 my god yeah it was ours yeah it was ages but it was so much fun it was so much fun yes and i

00:02:18.100 I, or Megan told me my sun, moon, and rising signs, which I can't remember.

00:02:24.500 So I am Capricorn sun, Virgo ascendant, and Taurus moon.

00:02:29.300 Oh, right.

00:02:29.820 Okay.

00:02:30.280 Yeah.

00:02:30.680 Okay.

00:02:31.300 Because I heard people talking about, somebody was saying, if you have Capricorn and Virgo 0.99

00:02:34.740 into your placements, you're a fucking intense person. 0.96

00:02:37.360 I'm like, oh, that's nice. 0.99

00:02:40.100 I don't find you intense at all.

00:02:41.660 No, but I think it's like, it's, I'm.

00:02:43.900 Just aspects of it.

00:02:45.140 Yeah.

00:02:45.720 In certain.

00:02:46.140 I'm rigid with routines is a big thing.

00:02:48.100 Yeah.

00:02:48.820 Yeah. 1.00

00:02:49.340 And Megan is... 0.96

00:02:50.180 Scorpio, Sun, Gemini, Moon, and Gemini, Ascendant. 0.96

00:02:53.020 Oh, yeah.

00:02:53.480 No, that's right. 0.83

00:02:54.480 I thought you were a double Scorpio.

00:02:56.120 Didn't we have that?

00:02:56.640 I'm a quadruple Scorpio.

00:02:58.180 Oh.

00:02:59.100 Yeah.

00:02:59.420 So I've got multiple planets in Scorpio.

00:03:01.800 I think Mars and Jupiter.

00:03:03.740 Is one of your Venus?

00:03:04.980 Is your Venus?

00:03:05.280 My Venus is in Scorpio.

00:03:06.800 Because I only recently found out about Venus placements and, like, what they mean.

00:03:10.660 Yeah, all about, like, what you're attracted to.

00:03:12.640 Mm-hmm.

00:03:13.040 And also to do with money, I think.

00:03:15.380 Ooh.

00:03:15.900 Yeah.

00:03:16.120 I know Taurus is very to do with money as well

00:03:18.360 but Venus is to do with

00:03:19.980 something to do with money as well

00:03:21.620 what I recently read

00:03:23.080 interesting

00:03:24.500 yeah

00:03:25.200 so yes welcome back to

00:03:28.700 Ron and Pine

00:03:29.620 this is Astrology Part 2

00:03:31.200 because it's been a year

00:03:32.820 I did something that I have literally never done

00:03:35.720 in this podcast before

00:03:36.600 I wrote a recap

00:03:37.960 because it's been a year

00:03:40.720 and I'm not going to make you guys go listen to the

00:03:43.760 Part 1

00:03:44.340 I mean you can if you want

00:03:45.480 I'm not going to stop you. Go listen to it, it was fun

00:03:47.540 I'll take that AdSense

00:03:48.640 It was very fun, go listen

00:03:51.760 It was a lot of fun, and you guys got to know Megan

00:03:54.220 for the first time too

00:03:55.260 In part one, we had a chat about

00:03:58.100 our personal journeys, ranging from

00:04:00.140 Megan's childhood fascination

00:04:02.120 with 90s occult pop culture

00:04:03.940 her Scorpio identity

00:04:05.660 and Mystic Meg in rural

00:04:08.180 Ireland, to my own navigation

00:04:10.120 of internalised misogyny

00:04:11.860 versus a genuine appreciation for

00:04:14.040 feminine camaraderie and the search for cosmic relevance we broke down the foundational big

00:04:19.860 three of the birth chart and then we inserted that into a bonus episode this includes the sun

00:04:26.740 as your identity the moon as the emotional inner world and the rising sign or the ascendant sign

00:04:32.440 as the external mask and what we put out into the world we also spoke about the tech crashes and

00:04:40.040 mental fog of Mercury retrograde 0.87

00:04:42.120 and I cannot fucking believe we're once 0.97

00:04:44.100 again. We're once again in a Mercury retrograde. 0.94

00:04:46.360 Mercury is retrograde

00:04:47.960 once again and I have been

00:04:50.000 feeling it so

00:04:52.020 hard.

00:04:53.900 Like literally anything that

00:04:56.040 could go wrong travel wise for me

00:04:58.180 Oh yeah. I was supposed to go

00:05:00.060 on a ship last weekend. We had to turn around at the

00:05:02.020 airport for

00:05:03.720 family reasons

00:05:04.840 and then I kind of did the thing

00:05:08.060 I'm not meant to do because I booked another trip.

00:05:10.040 immediately maybe you should have waited maybe but i didn't in my defense i didn't realize that

00:05:17.040 mercury was retrograde it's fine it's it's like you once you once you know about it and once it

00:05:23.780 becomes existent in your brain if you don't know about it it's grand nothing applies yeah that's

00:05:29.400 when you invite it into your life on it so yeah yeah then we started because the whole point of

00:05:36.240 this was the feminist history of astrology we delved into its ancient roots charting astrology's 0.99

00:05:43.000 origin as a prestigious male-dominated sacred science and tool of state power starting with

00:05:49.520 mesopotamian cuneiform tablets used by kings to guide farming and medicine to the roman empire

00:05:55.840 where augustus minted coins with his capricorn sign we'll allow him because he's a capricorn

00:06:00.500 while running through this history 0.99

00:06:04.100 Megan looked at some powerful feminist 1.00

00:06:06.180 reclamation of global moon 1.00

00:06:08.180 goddesses, specifically the

00:06:10.180 Greek, Selene, Roman, Luna

00:06:12.040 and Chinese Chang'e 0.57

00:06:14.000 illustrating how patriarchal

00:06:16.280 societies historically codified

00:06:18.200 and intellectualized astrology 0.98

00:06:19.900 to exclude women 1.00

00:06:21.260 ultimately pathologizing 0.91

00:06:23.860 sacred lunar cycles into lunacy

00:06:26.180 before the Copernican revolution

00:06:27.940 fundamentally severed the modern

00:06:30.100 boundaries between astronomy and mysticism. So that was sort of we were getting into when

00:06:37.600 astrology started to fall a little bit out of favor and when it started to become a little

00:06:44.560 bit of a pseudoscience as it is unfortunately known today. So let's pick up essentially around

00:06:51.960 the same time of where we left off and how astrology went from something respected and

00:06:57.560 used by powerful men to a niche fringe belief that is often ridiculed so astrology is it a

00:07:07.200 kind of divination or is it witchcraft well it's been sort of defined as both where we left off

00:07:13.940 it was around the time of the first english witchcraft act of 1542 under henry the eighth

00:07:19.880 it defined witchcraft as a capital offense the witchcraft act specifically targeted people using

00:07:27.540 invocations to find buried gold, recover stolen property, or destroy their neighbour's goods.

00:07:34.180 But this law didn't last long. Just five years later, Edward VI completely repeated it. His

00:07:41.200 regime was rushing to strip away any sweeping spiritual laws that could be twisted to prosecute

00:07:46.360 their own church reformers for heresy. The real shift around astrology happened in 1562 under

00:07:53.420 queen elizabeth the first as her protestant government fought to consolidate its power

00:07:58.720 they became deeply paranoid about the physical harm witches could inflict on victims elizabeth

00:08:04.700 brought in a brand new act against conjurations enchantments and witchcrafts that shifted the

00:08:11.040 focus heavily onto verifiable material evidence of harm i would just love to be prosecuted under

00:08:18.080 an act called that that's just i mean yeah how cool would it have been to be like your witch

00:08:25.520 yeah sentenced to death yeah so we brought her in under the act against conjuration 1.00

00:08:30.800 enchantments and witchcraft i'd like sound i'm like where is this bitch i want to be her 1.00

00:08:36.080 i want to be her friend yeah she sounds cool as fuck yes paradoxically it was a bit more merciful 1.00

00:08:43.360 If a witch caused any sort of harm 0.99

00:08:45.400 Short of death 0.99

00:08:46.340 They got prison instead of execution

00:08:49.200 That is a big shift

00:08:51.140 Compared to what it was like

00:08:53.340 Hanging and stoning to death

00:08:54.900 Yeah, capital offences

00:08:56.340 Massive, massive shift

00:08:58.280 So it's weird because 0.99

00:09:00.120 Was that a huge shift because she was a woman?

00:09:03.940 Well 0.99

00:09:04.300 Virtually but also

00:09:06.820 You probably don't remember

00:09:09.440 This was a year ago

00:09:10.320 In part one

00:09:12.740 This Queen Elizabeth, Elizabeth I, was the English queen that had her own personal astrologer.

00:09:19.640 Right, okay. 1.00

00:09:20.640 John Dee was her astrologer, so she was into all of this shit. 0.99

00:09:24.520 Then why would she demonize it in such a way? 0.99

00:09:27.840 I think it seems to be she's trying to keep the church...

00:09:31.200 Happy.

00:09:31.860 Happy and implicated.

00:09:33.400 And she had, you know the Saoirse Rona movie, Mary, Queen of Scots?

00:09:38.220 Yes.

00:09:39.400 So Saoirse Rona was playing the Catholic queen.

00:09:41.800 Yes.

00:09:42.200 and she is

00:09:43.160 is it Margot Robbie

00:09:44.060 I think Margot Robbie

00:09:45.020 plays Elizabeth

00:09:45.980 who is the 1.00

00:09:47.240 Protestant queen

00:09:48.020 so she is 0.99

00:09:49.540 Elizabeth

00:09:50.180 and she is 0.54

00:09:51.040 the Protestant queen

00:09:51.820 so it was sort of like 0.89

00:09:53.340 the Protestants

00:09:54.660 taking back power 0.97

00:09:56.020 okay

00:09:56.680 and

00:09:57.800 started just

00:09:59.060 like making sure

00:09:59.840 that their church

00:10:01.000 was

00:10:01.400 top dogs

00:10:02.420 and being

00:10:03.100 top dogs

00:10:04.500 it's weird

00:10:05.600 because I find

00:10:06.300 like strangely

00:10:07.160 Catholicism

00:10:08.220 and spirituality

00:10:08.880 closely linked

00:10:10.220 but also 0.98

00:10:11.100 very fucking 0.96

00:10:12.020 different in their own rights but there it is very like bound in faith you know and and that 0.90

00:10:23.200 is the premise of both spirituality and Catholicism I'm obviously not aware of the workings of

00:10:28.680 Protestantism at all and me not even been Catholic but been brought up obviously in Ireland and

00:10:34.640 Donegal I know Catholicism so I always find them like strangely closely related yeah so I get that

00:10:41.520 point where Protestantism's coming in

00:10:43.760 and they're like nah 1.00

00:10:44.500 fuck all that shit 1.00

00:10:46.560 we want to regain the power 1.00

00:10:48.560 and I wonder is part of it down

00:10:51.760 to the fact that

00:10:53.300 I mean it wasn't always

00:10:55.440 it's not like blanket statement

00:10:57.460 but Catholicism

00:10:59.540 was spread

00:11:01.600 by means of conversion

00:11:02.980 like St. Patrick whereas

00:11:05.160 Protestantism was almost

00:11:07.520 forced upon people 1.00

00:11:08.360 like the king is a Protestant now 1.00

00:11:11.300 particularly the Irish people

00:11:13.480 yes but even the English people

00:11:15.800 like when the king

00:11:16.680 he founded the church so that he could divorce

00:11:19.920 so he just

00:11:22.000 decided Catholicism was out

00:11:23.880 Protestantism was in

00:11:26.060 so I think maybe the fact that

00:11:28.120 when you're trying to convert

00:11:29.760 somebody to something

00:11:30.980 you kind of have to be a bit more

00:11:33.880 lenient with their own beliefs

00:11:35.560 or their beliefs and their

00:11:37.720 you know astrological beliefs

00:11:40.080 or whatever it is

00:11:41.280 whereas protestantism from my reading over here anyway seems to be a lot more you can't believe

00:11:48.840 anything that does not align with yes with this frame of thought frame of mind yeah it's a lot

00:11:54.860 more rigid whereas i mean like growing up we all had our catholic beliefs but everybody had everybody

00:12:01.960 knew somebody who had the cure like both cures and yeah yeah and they were predominantly catholic

00:12:07.860 families yes and they intertwined yeah they might have been like fully pagan cures yeah and then

00:12:15.200 they evolved into catholic cures yes say the rosary to go to mass but there was always this

00:12:20.460 kind of underlining mysticism about it yes you know yeah it was always the spookiest bit you

00:12:26.160 know yeah men and women like absolutely yeah however the law strictly banned non-harmful

00:12:32.460 magic like treasure hunting and it was paired with an act against fond and fantastical prophecies

00:12:38.760 which was a harsh crackdown on predictions of a political nature the panic rose out of the legend 0.98

00:12:45.180 of this is a cool ass bitch mother shipton who was a yorkshire prophetess dubbed england's 0.97

00:12:51.940 nostradamus while historians doubt she was even real hyped up years later by civil war propaganda 0.99

00:12:58.520 the pamphlets her story highlights how while elite gentlemen safely played with scrying mirrors and 0.97

00:13:04.640 alchemy local women practicing the exact same folk magic were branded as dangerous hags 0.53

00:13:10.480 so this woman was literally the pair it was about like 80 to 100 years after her death she was alive

00:13:17.660 during the time of henry the eighth so these are henry the eighth's descendants people started

00:13:22.780 printing her predictions about like the end to monarchies and how like oh the queen was going to

00:13:29.740 die or you know different politicians and they were like vague enough that they could could be

00:13:35.960 possibly true yeah predictions and they were like printing these on like political pamphlets with

00:13:41.220 pictures of her would cut pictures of her as like the face of like it's one of her predictions so

00:13:46.160 it must be true and then it sort of then became self-fulfilling prophecies like they would say

00:13:52.020 that this politician wasn't doing well

00:13:55.200 and then he would not do well

00:13:58.180 because they had written this.

00:13:59.820 So they took advantage of her being like a prophetess.

00:14:03.340 So this law was in response to,

00:14:05.360 they're like, we're outlawing people making prophecies.

00:14:07.940 Prophecies, yeah.

00:14:08.580 It can't happen anymore

00:14:09.700 because there was people losing their jobs.

00:14:12.000 Jesus.

00:14:12.840 Yeah, people losing power.

00:14:14.400 And that's, I have a little note here.

00:14:16.880 It's funny because when I was going through this section,

00:14:19.520 this kind of definition of dangerous magic per se seemed to kind of change depending on who held

00:14:26.820 the power you know like man or woman um and what's interesting is that it isn't always usually the

00:14:32.340 practice itself but often who is practicing it absolutely and that's what i found going through

00:14:38.620 this section i was like ah there's there's shifts here um and power dynamics again so almost like

00:14:46.140 the more elite and powerful yes the the less demonized it was absolutely yeah you know yeah

00:14:52.180 and I think you definitely touch upon that later on as well within this and obviously you'll hear

00:14:57.620 all about that but it was it was that kind of like status with with money or power that it was

00:15:04.940 like oh yeah sure you're signed to just practice away at this like yeah absolutely grand yeah but

00:15:09.740 if you were like a really poor woman and you were practicing herbalism or astrology or like 0.96

00:15:15.360 witchcraft per se it was like no be gone with you you know the same queen who had her own personal

00:15:21.220 male astrologer yeah is outlawing astrology you know you're like how does that make any sense oh

00:15:26.800 yeah of course it does because she's in a position of power yeah yeah so she's pulling up the ladder 1.00

00:15:32.240 behind herself it's like other women can't be powerful as well yeah i'm the only bitch to be 0.92

00:15:37.120 to that point to illustrate this divide further there was a fascinating loophole to this 0.93

00:15:46.440 crackdown on prophecies and those were almanacs so for hundreds of years and they're still on the go

00:15:53.260 today people had been consulting these wildly popular publications which were packed with

00:15:58.680 astrological predictions for weather and farming remarkably they escaped the brutal scrutiny that

00:16:05.320 other kinds of divination faced. They were classified as natural astrology, which was a

00:16:11.220 respected branch of natural philosophy used to understand the physical universe. Now, if you

00:16:17.360 want a breakdown of the opposite of natural astrology, which is judicial astrology, check

00:16:22.380 out our pine cones from last year, from August last year. By 1600, there had probably been over

00:16:29.460 600 different almanacs published

00:16:31.700 in England.

00:16:33.480 And they were still on the increase.

00:16:35.820 Because they were providing empirical

00:16:37.520 data like planetary tables, weather

00:16:39.700 patterns and agricultural cycles

00:16:41.700 almanacs were viewed as practical

00:16:43.860 tools for everyday life, firmly

00:16:45.700 rooted in a Christian worldview.

00:16:47.900 So they weren't dangerous sorcery.

00:16:50.580 So I love that

00:16:51.420 astrology kind of survived by becoming

00:16:53.540 practical.

00:16:56.200 People trusted

00:16:57.940 it because it helped growing crops but not necessarily when it like spoke to people yeah

00:17:03.900 and that kind of like it kind of told me that society has always been drawn to a line between

00:17:09.180 useful knowledge and uncomfortable knowledge yes you know when it's helping with the crops and the

00:17:15.160 the land per se but not when it's telling me about myself no I don't want to know about that

00:17:21.240 Yes, not when it's like self-reflection or introspection and definitely not if it's, where is my husband who hasn't been born?

00:17:31.380 And that was judicial.

00:17:32.240 Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, yeah.

00:17:33.560 I remember us chatting about it.

00:17:35.160 Yeah.

00:17:35.420 Yeah.

00:17:36.100 Where's my husband who disappeared? 0.99

00:17:37.740 Yeah, trying to predict where the fuck they've gone. 0.99

00:17:39.620 Yeah. 0.99

00:17:40.160 They might have had a son who went to...

00:17:42.740 Went missing or something.

00:17:43.620 Yeah, or like, you know, got on a ship and like, did the ship sink somewhere?

00:17:47.140 Like, these guys would be gone for years.

00:17:49.320 Yeah.

00:17:49.540 You know?

00:17:50.220 it's mental

00:17:51.480 it's like incredible

00:17:53.260 and before the word was connected

00:17:55.200 the way it is now

00:17:55.960 it's no wonder why people were trying to consult

00:17:58.640 like anything to give them just a sliver of reassurance

00:18:01.820 absolutely

00:18:02.360 I was like

00:18:03.640 can you imagine your brother going abroad

00:18:06.700 you just know and you're not going to hear from him

00:18:08.480 for at least a year

00:18:09.800 yeah

00:18:10.160 it's crazy

00:18:11.660 that's insane

00:18:13.260 that's absolutely insane

00:18:15.460 but then you do have these people going around

00:18:17.500 practicing a little bit of this and that

00:18:19.400 and it's like oh sure I'll go to Mary up the road there 0.99

00:18:21.460 so she can tell me what the fuck's going on 0.99

00:18:23.420 how mental is that you know 1.00

00:18:27.620 do a bit of tea leaves there 0.99

00:18:31.260 Mary for me to figure out where the fuck Jamie's 0.99

00:18:33.440 gone you know 0.99

00:18:34.200 Jamie's my brother by the way

00:18:37.100 he has never disappeared

00:18:40.380 it went less than just to clarify

00:18:41.780 witchcraft paranoia completely boiled over

00:18:46.760 in 1603 when King James

00:18:49.060 boo king james united the crowns of england and scotland boo for that but also what he does later

00:18:55.380 james had a dark obsession with the occult even writing a best-selling book called demonology

00:19:01.560 he also spells it a very pretentious way which is like anyway he was so terrified of the quote

00:19:07.840 black arts that he convinced parliament to pass the brutal witchcraft statute of 1604

00:19:15.320 ramping the penalty back up to 0.93

00:19:17.720 mammistry execution

00:19:18.980 the royal paranoia trickled down

00:19:21.740 to the public fostering a deep

00:19:23.600 bestering anxiety that crossed over

00:19:25.700 from mainland Europe and ultimately

00:19:27.920 cleared the path for the infamous

00:19:29.760 witchfinder general Matthew Hopkins

00:19:31.920 triple boo for

00:19:33.720 Matthew Hopkins. Fuck that guy 1.00

00:19:35.560 so much 1.00

00:19:36.260 he's like, if anybody's

00:19:39.800 listened to our witchcraft

00:19:41.500 episode

00:19:42.420 the witch trials of western

00:19:44.960 Europe, it was part of our mini-series

00:19:46.600 him and

00:19:48.140 oh my god, the guy that wrote

00:19:50.120 Malia Smollett for Kerem 0.94

00:19:51.640 fuck those guys, the original incels 1.00

00:19:54.600 clearly like some woman turned them down 1.00

00:19:57.060 and they just

00:19:57.660 I love this, this is another man coming in and being like

00:20:01.000 no, it's back to death penalty 1.00

00:20:02.660 yeah, must kill them 1.00

00:20:05.340 yeah, kill them all 1.00

00:20:06.600 they can't be allowed to survive 1.00

00:20:08.840 even though all they're doing is

00:20:09.980 for the most part maybe sleeping around a little bit but mainly just making potions

00:20:16.420 and brewing beer like terrible sounds like a good life yeah sleeping around making potions

00:20:24.460 crucially the acts of 1562 and 1604 changed the legal landscape forever by transferring witch

00:20:34.320 trials out of more lenient church courts and straight into ordering criminal courts king

00:20:40.780 james's death penalty law stayed on the books for over a century casting a shadow of fear over

00:20:46.140 england until it was finally repeated in 1736 so this was essentially like this was the catalyst

00:20:54.120 for the witch trials this was this law that like created this whole witch panic the moral panic of

00:21:01.160 the witch trials that killed

00:21:03.220 all of these people, not just women,

00:21:05.160 men, older women,

00:21:07.240 ostracized people, people who just

00:21:09.120 didn't fit into society. 0.98

00:21:10.800 The outcasts. Yeah, the outcasts,

00:21:13.300 the people, and then, I mean, there's a

00:21:15.040 huge theory being posited around that 1.00

00:21:17.100 it was women who owned property, 0.99

00:21:19.520 like they may be widows. Oh, yeah. 1.00

00:21:21.220 So it was a way to get their property

00:21:23.020 from them. Let's take their power away

00:21:25.140 from them. Accus them of being a witch, 1.00

00:21:27.240 have them executed, and then what happens? They have 0.76

00:21:29.060 no children. Yeah. You know?

00:21:31.160 Imagine in this day and age, like I would 100% be stoned to death.

00:21:36.100 Oh yeah, you'd be. 0.99

00:21:37.040 Living by myself, you know, working, paying all my own shit and having four cats at home. 0.96

00:21:41.980 And your four familiars, yes. 0.97

00:21:42.980 Yeah, my four familiars, burning my sage and my incense, like be gone with her.

00:21:47.160 Doing your tarot readings.

00:21:48.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:21:48.880 I'd be 100% accused as a witch and fucking stoned or hung or whatever. 0.99

00:21:53.720 But that would also be, they'd also be like, she's an old woman. 1.00

00:21:56.580 She's batshit insane, yeah. 1.00

00:21:58.000 But in such a good way. 1.00

00:21:59.560 Yeah.

00:22:00.360 Good way.

00:22:00.940 she's harmless so now we're into the true fall from grace when we move into enlightenment and 0.85

00:22:08.400 also unfortunately misogyny the enlightenment of the 18th century championed science logic and

00:22:14.460 reason over mysticism and superstition and astrology took a major hit the witchcraft act

00:22:20.900 of 1736 marked a sharp cultural shift rather than condemning magic as heresy it reclassified many

00:22:28.660 esoteric practices particularly fortune telling as fraudulent schemes this was a true discreditation

00:22:36.020 of astrology and of it's like we're not even going to pretend that you're doing anything magic we're

00:22:44.180 just gonna say that you're completely like just scamming people yeah and that is such a it's a

00:22:49.800 very clever way of outlawing something yeah where you're discrediting it at the same time it's just

00:22:57.400 I have to give them props. That's actually

00:22:59.120 very clever. It's very smart.

00:23:01.600 Yeah, to

00:23:02.280 criminalise it.

00:23:05.340 Divination for money was now

00:23:07.100 a criminal act, not because

00:23:09.060 it invoked supernatural forces, but

00:23:11.100 because it defrauded the gullible.

00:23:13.240 From that time, trials at the

00:23:15.100 Old Bailey, which is the main

00:23:17.100 courts of justice in London, for anybody

00:23:19.120 unfamiliar, reflected

00:23:20.960 this new attitude, focusing on

00:23:23.220 theft and larceny charges against

00:23:25.260 fortune tellers rather than sorcery.

00:23:27.400 As historian Barbara Morey notes, this legal change was passed under the banner of enlightenment reason, but it had just as much to do with social control.

00:23:37.460 It reinforced a growing divide between an emerging middle class and the working poor, painting the urban educated elite as rational and orderly and the rural or itinerant poor, especially women, as backward, superstitious and potentially criminal.

00:23:54.560 okay a little bit of what we touched upon absolutely a couple of minutes ago these

00:23:59.380 commercial fortune tellers were often women working on the fringes of the formal economy 0.77

00:24:04.200 and these are women that like a lot of the time if they didn't have useful skills like you know 1.00

00:24:10.580 if they weren't seamstresses or you know like i said beer brewing area or you know these classic 1.00

00:24:15.960 pottery or something yes classic like women's uh skills skills yep you know what else was left for 0.98

00:24:23.380 them this and maybe like sex work like it's there's yeah it was few and far between back then 0.98

00:24:30.040 and that's why it's only like a joke that we talk about like women relying on men and wanting to get

00:24:35.940 married and all that but in these days yeah that was it was the only option yeah you couldn't make 1.00

00:24:41.540 a living wage by yourself you needed to marry a nice wealthy man that had good work because that

00:24:47.880 it's like your only way out yeah pride and prejudice is the perfect examples of that it's 0.98

00:24:53.340 just elizabeth's mother trying to get all of her daughters married off because they had no money 0.94

00:24:58.280 left she just she knows that she has to get them married to good families or her daughters 1.00

00:25:02.880 and herself as well there's no would have nothing yeah would literally have nothing 1.00

00:25:07.680 so on the other side of that you were which yeah yeah these commercial fortune tellers were often 1.00

00:25:14.860 women working on the fringes of the formal economy using trades like palmistry, face reading and even 1.00

00:25:20.640 minor sleight of hand. Because a quote good fortune relied heavily on gathering quality 1.00

00:25:27.620 personal information, local tradeswomen were perfectly positioned to succeed. Ultimately

00:25:33.460 counselling rather than actual magic was the service they were really offering. In many ways

00:25:38.980 they performed the same pastoral sympathetic work as popular preachers providing a listening

00:25:44.940 ear for family troubles and answering life's everyday riddles from tracking the welfare of

00:25:50.700 absent loved ones and interpreting bad dreams to predicting future marriage and children these laws

00:25:56.380 weren't solely about suppressing magical thinking they policed class boundaries and cast dispersions

00:26:02.300 on the legitimacy of folk practices tied to marginalized communities.

00:26:07.420 So I think it's really interesting that there's a shift in that society kind of stopped searching

00:26:12.880 for meaning and it just changed what was considered respectable. Magic kind of went

00:26:18.340 from being seen as dangerous to now being seen as fake. Yep. But people still wanted guidance.

00:26:25.840 Yes. And in many ways fortune tellers were kind of offering this early forms of emotional support

00:26:31.320 For people but people weren't just

00:26:33.400 Been paid or people weren't 0.99

00:26:35.340 Paying these fortune tellers to fucking tell their 0.99

00:26:37.400 Fortunes or their future they were 1.00

00:26:39.280 Actually just paid to be listened to

00:26:41.160 Yeah in a way

00:26:42.480 When you think about it like a lot of time

00:26:45.040 For like counselling you go there

00:26:47.040 Searching for guidance

00:26:48.320 And meaning

00:26:50.480 Trying to make sense of the 0.97

00:26:53.420 World of what the fuck is happening right now 0.98

00:26:55.120 Yes absolutely 0.99

00:26:56.320 So you have that

00:26:58.140 Imagine you're like

00:27:00.760 a therapist or a counselor that you go to and they're able to give you that like sense of

00:27:06.160 direction and meaning and they also say and by the way i have consulted the stars or i've

00:27:13.240 consulted my crystal ball yes and and they said it's fine they said this is great they backed me

00:27:19.620 up yeah so you'd be like yeah brilliant 100 the the universe is also involved as well as this

00:27:24.660 person in front of me let's go with this yeah of course that is like the least clarification right

00:27:30.620 there yeah yeah I would do it like if I if I fully believed in like crystal balls and like

00:27:37.700 if I could go to a person just be like just tell me what to do there was something really cool about

00:27:44.000 when you were growing up and we do touch about it in the kind of the 90s era

00:27:50.600 there was something really really cool about fortune tellers like my mom never liked any of 0.90

00:27:56.840 that shit but I remember going to Parsons which was like kind of a local fairground in our town 0.97

00:28:02.680 and there used to be somebody in a caravan that went in that you went into and she was a fortune 1.00

00:28:07.820 teller she was from like the Irish traveling community okay and she could read your palm 0.97

00:28:13.140 and she would tell you absolute shit but you were like a child and a teenager you know when she was 0.95

00:28:19.700 like you'll have many boyfriends countless boyfriends and i was like a child at the time 0.98

00:28:25.860 and i was like cool you know and you paid her like i don't know seven euro was like a really

00:28:33.280 specific amount of money oh yeah and like that it was just about not so much your future because

00:28:40.020 you didn't want to go in and be like what's my future well you did as a kid of course but it 0.80

00:28:44.420 was very much just chatting shit and been heard and especially as like a young girl you know 0.95

00:28:50.360 because sometimes like because my mom was heavily Christian I couldn't go to her with all of these 0.99

00:28:54.880 like mystical thoughts because she'd be like demons you know but going to some random fucking 0.99

00:29:02.320 woman at the side of the road in a fucking caravan I was like this is great yes and also when you're 0.98

00:29:09.540 that age when something's just about you yes you feel like center stage yes and it's about you 0.99

00:29:15.120 yeah you just you feel accepted and like you're belonging to something yeah because you have an 0.99

00:29:20.800 interest in it like a heavy interest in it so this random woman in a fucking turban with a 0.97

00:29:25.440 crystal ball that she probably got mr price at the time or god knows what shop you're like class 1.00

00:29:31.200 this is exactly what i've been searching for

00:29:37.340 so this is about the suppression of magical thinking so we had famous figures from the

00:29:44.000 time like voltaire and jonathan swift who was an irishman uh further leading the charge against

00:29:50.560 mysticism and astrology jonathan swift because he was a shitster satirist he really was like

00:29:58.640 he wrote that thing um i love that part a modest proposal have you ever heard of no he wrote like

00:30:04.980 a satire piece that was published and it was basically advising upper class elite british

00:30:12.980 people that the best way to deal with the irish having so many kids would be to eat the children 0.99

00:30:19.560 what the fuck yeah but he like he i know it's satire but like jesus what the fuck but it was 0.99

00:30:26.460 like yeah that was one of his things he also wrote gulliver's travels i didn't know that yeah 0.99

00:30:30.980 yeah i'm actually disgusted that he's irish yeah well protestant irish protestant descendancy like

00:30:38.500 so i'm not gonna say what i'm gonna hold my tongue on that one he's irish in the way that

00:30:45.700 the guinness family are irish you know like uh part of irish history and irish culture but

00:30:50.560 were

00:30:51.840 transmits. Yeah.

00:30:54.020 Heavy British involvement. Yes.

00:30:56.400 Exactly. Exactly.

00:30:58.500 And that's all we're saying on that because it is the

00:31:00.280 12th of July. And if you know what that means

00:31:02.320 Ding ding ding

00:31:04.920 Somebody will show up at the door

00:31:07.260 I forgot it was the 12th of July

00:31:12.440 I'll just let people google that by themselves

00:31:14.360 I was wondering why there was lots of

00:31:16.520 Catholicism, Protestantism

00:31:18.160 talked to words at the start and then like

00:31:19.940 Ah, yeah. That's what stemmed it.

00:31:22.300 Actually, yeah.

00:31:23.560 It wasn't intentional, but it probably was.

00:31:25.620 It wasn't intentional at all to discuss that,

00:31:28.100 but it is probably in our subconscious

00:31:30.200 due to the weekend

00:31:32.120 that's in it. Yep. Indeedy.

00:31:34.600 So, Jonathan Swift,

00:31:36.840 he targeted an

00:31:38.040 astrologer called John Partridge,

00:31:39.880 who was known for his wildly inaccurate

00:31:41.840 predictions. How did he have work

00:31:44.120 if he was just known for being terrible? Inaccurate, yeah.

00:31:46.400 Yeah. He must have

00:31:48.020 been like like that like fucking comedy or comedic or of some sort people must have just 0.99

00:31:53.660 enjoyed it because they were so terrible yeah you know yeah swift created a fake astrologer named 0.99

00:31:59.920 isaac bickerstaff who predicted quote-unquote predicted partridge's death on a particular day

00:32:07.540 when the day came swift published the announcement and partridge spent years trying to convince

00:32:16.600 people that he wasn't actually dead

00:32:18.240 there's a quote

00:32:20.640 here and it says mourners believing

00:32:22.500 him dead often kept him awake at night

00:32:24.680 by crying outside his window

00:32:26.460 accounts of an

00:32:28.440 undertaker arriving at his house

00:32:30.400 to arrange drapes for the morning

00:32:32.400 an elegy being

00:32:34.440 printed and even a gravestone

00:32:36.500 being carved culminated in

00:32:38.340 partridge publishing a letter in hopes of

00:32:40.520 having the last word and proclaiming

00:32:42.700 and reclaiming himself as living

00:32:44.600 people are crying outside his house 0.98

00:32:47.220 and he's like in there going I'm not fucking dead 0.95

00:32:49.500 I'm alive 0.95

00:32:50.240 I mean very nice that people were crying outside for him

00:32:53.120 but like

00:32:53.840 very easily rectified

00:32:56.740 just go out and be like here lads

00:32:58.940 I'm alive

00:32:59.420 I'm actually fine

00:33:01.320 they'd be like ghost

00:33:02.920 these are the people that were like

00:33:07.120 hugely into astrology at these times

00:33:08.840 they were definitely going to think he was a ghost

00:33:11.240 absolutely

00:33:12.160 hi everyone emily here and neve over here we're just popping in right before the ads

00:33:20.120 to let you know that a rating review or recommendation is like a magic growth potion

00:33:25.440 for your favorite podcast as an indie podcast we really do rely on word of mouth and people

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00:33:43.960 just a rating or a review will do the links to all of our socials are in the link tree which is in

00:33:49.860 the episode description that includes our patreon which is where we upload everything early and ad 0.77

00:33:55.120 free including some fun extras for paid tier members go check it out and fuck yeah folklore

00:34:01.480 step right up to the death kiss traveler podcast where i take you to the dark side of amusement 0.93

00:34:10.200 and the stories are darker than you think my name is marissa your morbidly curious host and this is

00:34:18.820 the only podcast that dives into the horror history and hauntings in the places meant to

00:34:24.220 bring you joy from deadly theme park accidents to circus tragedies to the chilling secrets hiding

00:34:30.700 behind county fair rides i uncover what really happened and the hauntings that may have followed

00:34:37.520 because sometimes the scariest part of the carnival isn't the ride follow death kiss traveler

00:34:44.340 where fun turns fatal and the past never stays buried new episodes on friday listen on your

00:34:51.840 favorite podcast platform and now we're into we're gonna trip into the victorian era which

00:34:59.160 is always a good time yeah switch up in 1802 the society for the suppression of vice was founded

00:35:07.400 in london taking on the quashing of fortune telling as a banner cause this crusade by 0.50

00:35:13.800 middle-class professionals was a fresh attempt to police working-class behaviors and socially

00:35:19.660 distance themselves from them the mission was codified in the vagrancy act of 1824 which 0.86

00:35:26.700 officially made fortune-telling, astrology

00:35:29.060 and spiritualism punishable

00:35:30.960 offences.

00:35:32.960 Anyone professing to tell fortunes

00:35:34.920 or using

00:35:36.260 subtle crafts like palmistry

00:35:39.140 or astrology to deceive

00:35:40.760 the public was legally deemed

00:35:42.760 a rogue and a vagabond.

00:35:44.400 I love the word vagabond.

00:35:46.140 I was going to be a vagabond.

00:35:47.720 I love the word vagabond.

00:35:50.160 But they faced up to three months of

00:35:52.500 imprisonment with hard labour.

00:35:53.960 But astrology wasn't down for long.

00:35:57.060 The Victorian era brought a massive rekindled interest in the spiritual and the occult.

00:36:03.460 Crucially, theosophist Alan Leo helped completely rebrand astrology,

00:36:08.780 shifting its image away from predicting disasters

00:36:11.140 and towards helping individuals understand their personal tendencies.

00:36:15.940 By emphasizing psychological astrology,

00:36:18.920 Leo paved the way for the exact kind of character-driven birth chart readings

00:36:23.260 that we use today what i find really interesting is that every time she seems to disappear by the

00:36:30.480 way astrology is a she okay um it comes back in a different form and alan leo almost turned

00:36:37.160 astrology from like a prediction into a personality type thing so maybe that's why astrology i think

00:36:43.980 has survived a when so many forms of divination haven't because it adapted and it stopped claiming

00:36:50.620 to know exactly what your future looked like and instead it became more about self-reflection

00:36:56.780 so whether you believe it's like true or not um it's much more relatable when people can engage

00:37:04.180 with it hence alan leo bringing in birth charts and things like that it became then it's there's

00:37:10.460 a huge shift and it became much more about self-reflection and okay how do i make sense

00:37:14.740 of what's happening rather than okay how is the farm doing you know if there is you can start

00:37:21.260 seeing within all of these time frames that we talk about that it starts becoming much more

00:37:25.900 about the personal self yes and i think it's alan leo is really really valid within this entire

00:37:32.100 conversation because he almost seems like he was the first to make that shift seems to be yeah it

00:37:39.520 seems like it because everything that like we see coming later like when astrology becomes what we

00:37:45.140 know yeah it all that's all yeah and that's already happened you know but this is like a

00:37:50.380 huge monumental shift that he's like actually lads i'm gonna try to switch this up yeah when

00:37:55.880 it was dying again you know like that's pivotal yes and it also makes it a lot easier to accept

00:38:03.340 and believe because the one thing that i like i would always said about astrology is like every

00:38:08.460 capricorn on earth cannot be having the same day as me you know and that is like that is usually

00:38:14.080 the big criticism for yeah of course for astrology but like when you look at it like a tool for

00:38:19.920 self-reflection and introverted like introversion and how these are the elements that might be

00:38:29.300 affecting my life right now and how are they manifesting in my life exactly yeah it is a huge

00:38:35.920 shift and it's very interesting that it was

00:38:37.980 happening this early back in Victorian times

00:38:40.160 yeah but sure of course

00:38:41.960 the Victorians you know

00:38:43.060 it was a cool era

00:38:44.600 I loved how

00:38:46.580 they were so

00:38:49.840 interested in death

00:38:51.860 and the occult that it was such like a

00:38:53.920 part of their lives and their aesthetic

00:38:55.800 yeah absolutely it's almost like they

00:38:57.960 studied it so

00:38:59.800 in depth to figure out

00:39:01.900 again meaning

00:39:02.980 meaning towards it all

00:39:05.240 and i also think that like irish people we do death really well like we do mourning really well

00:39:12.440 yeah and our funerals are amazing our wakes are great and they are very much

00:39:17.860 like if anyone's unfamiliar of like how an irish like well i'm going to say catholic but

00:39:23.400 like how an irish wake usually goes is the person dies and within three days they are buried yeah

00:39:30.740 one to two of those days

00:39:34.040 they are being waked, which they

00:39:35.980 are in their home with an open

00:39:38.080 casket. Funeral homes are

00:39:40.020 becoming a little bit more common.

00:39:41.540 Yeah. But it's mostly because

00:39:43.280 it's starting to ease the burden on the family

00:39:45.560 to, you know, have their home presentable

00:39:47.440 when this horrible thing's happened. Exactly.

00:39:49.480 100%. But yeah, it's a lot

00:39:51.580 of times, it's in their home.

00:39:53.380 It's done very respectfully. Yes.

00:39:56.300 And as

00:39:57.540 a child growing up with those

00:39:59.580 sort of customs i think it's made me become a lot more comfortable with death a lot more comfortable

00:40:06.180 being around i mean it sounds strange but being around dead bodies and understanding that that

00:40:13.720 person used to be the person you know but they're not really in there anymore see i could never get

00:40:18.640 what the death thing no it's a part of my grieving process and my acceptance if it is somebody say

00:40:28.360 that I grew up knowing or that I was close to

00:40:30.360 for me to touch their hand

00:40:31.840 and that helps me accept that they're

00:40:34.400 gone. It sort of makes it

00:40:36.340 real for me. That bit

00:40:37.980 is like the traumatizing bit for me

00:40:40.440 and why I can't do

00:40:42.040 wakes. Right.

00:40:44.160 I know we're veering completely off here

00:40:45.880 but

00:40:46.860 yes on the point of it's so

00:40:50.160 respectable

00:40:50.740 the way that the Irish do funerals

00:40:54.040 but I remember mum 0.99

00:40:56.040 like making me

00:40:58.360 like kiss my granddad's head when he was in the casket and I just remember the feeling and been

00:41:04.760 like I'm fucking traumatized now yeah and again that was out of a respecting that she wanted me

00:41:11.480 to like that for acceptance and all of that kind of stuff but I think ever since I have not been 0.82

00:41:18.720 able to do wakes yeah oh and the fact that I accidentally went to the wrong wake as well in

00:41:23.680 my older years yeah i accidentally went to the wrong wake so i was i was literally looking at 0.63

00:41:29.180 a woman that i'd never met in my life oh shit and had to leg it out of the place oh no so i was like 0.95

00:41:35.220 i can't fucking deal i cannot deal with wakes like but again beautiful ceremonies like been to so 0.99

00:41:42.320 many funerals uh unfortunately you know because life is life you know when people pass away 0.97

00:41:47.420 but the irish do it well we do and i do think it's the community aspect of it is really important

00:41:54.820 and the the ritual of it yeah like understanding that much um but i do think like just going back

00:42:02.360 to the victorian era i think in comparison from what i know about like british mourning practices

00:42:09.320 they're a lot more buttoned up and americans as well they're a lot more like we don't really

00:42:15.140 show the body or we don't really do that

00:42:17.300 much or we don't really live with

00:42:19.360 you know weird choice

00:42:21.320 of words but we don't really like live with the

00:42:23.280 death with the yeah in the same 0.95

00:42:25.320 way as the like Irish people because the 0.99

00:42:27.260 Irish people quite literally live with 1.00

00:42:29.240 the dead body for days you sit up all night 0.98

00:42:31.240 yeah like you're not supposed to leave the person

00:42:33.260 alone yeah you know 0.99

00:42:34.840 I wonder because obviously the Victorian

00:42:37.040 obsession with death came

00:42:39.180 out of Queen Victoria his husband

00:42:41.340 Albert died and she went into

00:42:43.220 mourning for the rest of her life yeah she wore

00:42:45.120 black for the rest of her life and that was where this obsession came and obviously they also had

00:42:50.500 you know huge infant mortality rates vaccinate your kids plagues huge like you know wars and 0.58

00:42:58.780 plagues wars illnesses yeah there was a lot of death yeah there was a lot of death so they had

00:43:04.220 to find meaning and yeah so i do think it was making death more accessible and not just this

00:43:09.860 thing that you don't really talk about and you're not really supposed to acknowledge other than

00:43:13.760 And astrology and the occult and mysticism helped with that.

00:43:18.860 Yes, helped find the meaning of losing people or being able to speak to them.

00:43:23.460 Exactly.

00:43:24.060 Yeah.

00:43:24.780 Absolutely.

00:43:25.460 It just all connects so well.

00:43:26.820 It does connect so well. 0.98

00:43:28.040 Which I do think like, yeah, Victorian era was cool as fuck. 0.99

00:43:31.180 Yeah, it was cool as fuck. 0.99

00:43:32.160 Yeah. 0.97

00:43:34.320 By the 1920s, astrology transitioned into a mass media phenomenon.

00:43:39.140 before this era drawing up a natal chart required tedious manual calculations but newspapers and

00:43:46.820 magazines revolutionized the industry by introducing simplified sun sign based predictions

00:43:53.360 those are the horoscopes that we know i love it yeah by compressing because there's so much stuff

00:44:00.980 that's just really like so much stuff that's part of our lives yeah really good marketing

00:44:05.880 that's all this is essentially like just really good marketing somebody who understood their

00:44:12.220 audience yeah to make astrology accessible yes by compressing the entire global population into 12

00:44:19.800 generalized zodiac signs based purely on birth months editors created highly addictive daily

00:44:26.220 columns that sent circulation numbers skyrocketing the sunday express in england asked astrologer

00:44:34.060 R.H. Kneeler to write about Princess

00:44:36.160 Margaret's birth chart

00:44:37.360 his prediction of a quote

00:44:39.740 eventful life sparked such

00:44:41.980 public fascination that he was soon writing

00:44:44.160 weekly columns. I'm sorry

00:44:45.900 he predicted that a princess would

00:44:48.120 have an eventful life

00:44:49.120 that's a bit

00:44:52.160 low hanging fruit now

00:44:53.340 it's definitely because like

00:44:56.140 the British are so obsessed with royalty

00:44:58.320 oh yeah and the royals you know

00:44:59.900 especially this era of royalty

00:45:01.740 100%

00:45:02.580 They had their young princesses 0.99

00:45:04.280 It's fuck all to do with the fact that he's predicting 1.00

00:45:06.540 Absolute shite 1.00

00:45:07.520 And eventful life 1.00

00:45:09.380 And more to do with

00:45:10.380 Oh it's Princess Margaret's eventful life

00:45:13.400 You know that's the obsession 0.98

00:45:15.220 Of course she was going to have it 0.99

00:45:16.160 That is the obsession with it 0.98

00:45:18.340 So they're like oh fucking happy days 0.99

00:45:20.200 Let's get this dude in who's probably awful 0.98

00:45:22.640 I don't know his work

00:45:24.420 If it goes anything by eventful life

00:45:27.620 I'm sure it's not too good

00:45:29.080 But that was what the obsession was

00:45:31.520 That is so intelligent.

00:45:33.340 Yeah, so clever.

00:45:34.720 So, so intelligent.

00:45:36.660 Despite this booming popularity,

00:45:39.360 early 20th century astrologers still faced legal crackdowns

00:45:42.780 as their work was often classified as illegal fortune-telling.

00:45:47.040 This fight for legitimacy was famously championed by Evangeline Adams,

00:45:51.620 America's first astrological superstar operating out of Carmagee Hall.

00:45:56.860 And if you want to know more about her,

00:45:58.260 she's also mentioned in the judicial astrology episode.

00:46:01.520 To survive ongoing police stings, practitioners followed Adam's lead, rebranding their trade

00:46:07.900 as a systematic, learned practice rooted in character analysis rather than mystical fortune

00:46:14.240 telling.

00:46:15.100 So yeah, they made a science out of it.

00:46:16.620 Another shift.

00:46:17.700 Yeah.

00:46:18.060 Yep.

00:46:19.460 And this is where we also bring in Carl Jung and the Zodiac Mind.

00:46:25.200 So the push for legitimacy perfectly collided with the newly developing field of psychology.

00:46:30.500 as pioneers like Carl Jung began utilising astrological archetypes to analyse the human psyche.

00:46:38.360 He saw zodiac signs and planetary symbolism as reflections of universal archetypes buried deep in the collective unconscious.

00:46:46.940 This permanently shifted astrology away from a rigid, predetermined fate and more toward a tool for self-understanding and mental well-being.

00:46:56.280 suddenly the practice was everywhere from mainstream ladies home journal columns offering

00:47:02.540 advice on children's temperaments to middle-class esoteric craze spreading through masonic lodges

00:47:09.420 as a traumatized post-war public desperate to demystify an uncertain future turned to the stars

00:47:15.920 what i really like about young is that he almost sidestepped the whole debate about whether

00:47:23.180 astrology is real or not and he again was more interested in the meaning behind it so again

00:47:31.200 going back to finding meaning through astrology rather than it being so factual so if a birth

00:47:37.600 chart can encourage somebody to reflect on themselves recognize patterns in their behavior

00:47:42.940 or put words to experiences that maybe they've struggled to explain then that's the psychologically

00:47:48.840 valuable bit in itself and astrology becomes again less about predicting the future and more about

00:47:55.200 understanding oneself yeah and that's what I really liked again within the shift there's a

00:47:59.960 couple of shifts as time goes on that it becomes less factual and is it real and predicting future

00:48:05.340 and more again back to self-reflection it keeps going back to okay how do we understand our own

00:48:11.780 psychological makeup and using astrology helps with that yes and the personality traits yes and

00:48:18.600 who are we you know what are we about how do i interact with other people with different

00:48:23.620 personalities based on yeah based on my zodiac sign or based on their zodiac sign how do we

00:48:29.880 interconnect how do we converse with each other you know anything absolutely anything it's just

00:48:36.040 again going back to meaning yeah and and oneself and self-reflection and that's what i really really

00:48:41.700 like about astrology is that it keeps dipping back to that and it's all perspective it's like

00:48:47.740 two people could experience the exact same thing

00:48:49.960 and based on their

00:48:51.640 makeup, which

00:48:53.420 you could also say the same thing about

00:48:55.340 past experience, they will

00:48:57.720 react in completely different ways.

00:49:00.160 By the 1960s

00:49:02.140 and 70s, astrology was

00:49:03.800 everywhere. The New Age movement

00:49:05.760 embraced the cosmos with open arms.

00:49:08.400 Amid the hippie counterculture,

00:49:10.320 the dawning of the Age of Aquarius

00:49:12.080 symbolized a turning point,

00:49:14.280 a spiritual and social awakening.

00:49:16.860 Astrology appeared in fashion, music, and even corporate workshops.

00:49:22.120 In 1975, alarmed by astrology's popularity,

00:49:26.100 a group of scientists led by Bart Bach, Paul Kurtz, and Lawrence Jerome

00:49:30.900 issued a formal denunciation.

00:49:33.860 Well, that shows you how important it was that they felt the need to issue a formal denunciation.

00:49:38.500 With 192 scientists.

00:49:40.720 Yep.

00:49:41.200 192 scientists

00:49:43.520 including 19 Nobel laureates

00:49:45.700 signed it

00:49:46.480 but astrology just kept going

00:49:48.900 she's a strong queen 0.72

00:49:51.220 the intersection of astrology 1.00

00:49:53.640 and state power reached a

00:49:55.380 modern scandalous peak during

00:49:57.360 the Reagan administration

00:49:58.760 through a secret relationship with

00:50:01.380 astrologer Joan Quigley

00:50:02.900 following the 1981 assassination

00:50:05.440 attempt on Ronald Reagan 0.84

00:50:07.060 First Lady Nancy Reagan hired 1.00

00:50:09.400 quickly to guide the president's schedule for protection. When the news leaked, it ignited a

00:50:15.820 media firestorm, subjecting Nancy to intense public mockery with headlines like, 1.00

00:50:21.560 Astrologer runs the White House. Although Nancy heavily downplayed the arrangement in her memoirs, 0.96

00:50:27.920 insisting that astrology only influenced mundane timing and never actual policy,

00:50:32.980 the scorned Aries astrologer struck back publicly.

00:50:38.040 In her 1990 book, What Does Joan Say?, Quigley claimed a far grander role,

00:50:44.260 asserting that she had a direct line to the Oval Office through the First Lady. 0.86

00:50:48.720 She maintained that she went well beyond scheduling to influence Cold War politics,

00:50:53.680 diplomacy, and the timing of the President's cancer surgery.

00:50:57.780 Quigley proudly took credit for dictating the timing of Air Force One flights,

00:51:02.980 State of the Union addresses

00:51:04.620 and Reagan's crucial election

00:51:06.660 debates against Jimmy Carter and

00:51:08.620 Walter Mondale, proving that

00:51:10.720 even in the late 20th century

00:51:12.620 the world's most powerful leaders were

00:51:14.600 still looking to the stars to

00:51:16.680 govern. As much as people

00:51:18.520 might make fun of the medieval kings

00:51:20.720 and the Roman emperors

00:51:22.120 I don't know

00:51:23.800 Not that Ronald Reagan's

00:51:26.180 in any way respectable

00:51:27.560 Ronald Reagan

00:51:30.860 but it's still ongoing

00:51:32.380 yeah it is that search for certainty and the search for meaning when people are feeling adrift

00:51:38.900 when life gets chaotic yeah it dips back something to give them just a sense of something to hold on

00:51:45.000 to though crystal shops and psychic hotlines faded in the 1990s the new age ethos never really

00:51:51.860 disappeared it just shifted its ideas filtered into health care psychology education and beyond

00:51:58.580 the new age and wicker trend in tv films and music kept the interest alive if only in the

00:52:05.180 aesthetic that is quintessential of the decade like what we were talking about in part one it

00:52:10.220 was impossible to avoid astrology growing up it was it was bloody brilliant the whole whims of

00:52:16.680 goth the whole aesthetic yeah was fantastic celestial stuff everywhere yeah it was just

00:52:24.900 brilliant yeah it's timeless as well i wish we could just go back to it becoming that fashionable

00:52:30.840 and everywhere yes i would be delighted yes instead of all these like micro trends yeah

00:52:37.320 it's in for like three months yeah and then disappears i'm like no let's have that all

00:52:42.200 for several years again it became a staple part of british tv from 1994 to 2000 mystic mag mystic

00:52:51.680 Meg. Appeared weekly on

00:52:53.760 the National Lottery Live

00:52:55.380 in Mystic Meg Predicts, which

00:52:57.640 was a 45-second reading segment

00:52:59.840 during which Meg attempted 0.99

00:53:01.680 to predict facts about the future winner. 0.87

00:53:04.660 From

00:53:05.340 1992 to 1995,

00:53:07.820 Russell Grant was a regular

00:53:09.440 expert on This Morning with Richard

00:53:11.460 and Judy, offering

00:53:13.240 astrological advice. He even

00:53:15.500 launched an astrology-themed music

00:53:17.320 prayer, including a cover of The Supremes

00:53:19.680 No Matter What Sign You Are.

00:53:21.680 it is as bad as you're imagining i looked it up it's oh my god and much like we were talking about

00:53:29.200 like that aesthetic throughout the 90s i think that's why so many people our age still love

00:53:35.120 astrology because we grew up in a culture where like this kind of magic mystical thing wasn't

00:53:41.000 about casting spells although a lot of it was as well when you were kids but it came

00:53:45.600 the nice shift is that it became much more about um female empowerment intuition and self-discovery

00:53:54.660 yes yeah the female empowerment thing especially like it was just 100 percent everybody had a

00:54:01.320 quirky aunt sort of yeah and what's interesting in that most of those stories within all of those

00:54:08.260 things that we watched like um charmed and sabrina and buffy and the sisters in practical magic

00:54:13.720 um it was interesting because they all kind of centered around young women learning to trust

00:54:20.280 themselves and the the real message wasn't really about like magic solves everything it was about

00:54:26.240 finding your own voice and trusting your instincts and navigating adulthood as a young woman and like

00:54:33.260 looking back on that it's not surprising that many of us who loved those tv shows and those movies

00:54:38.400 find ourselves very much drawn to astrology later in their life because again it goes back to like

00:54:45.840 who am I and what is my place in the world kind of makes sense of it all yeah yeah the battle for

00:54:52.920 guidance and the battle for like who do I want to be and is this are these predictions resonating

00:54:59.200 with the direction that I want to be going absolutely yeah today astrology is thriving

00:55:05.340 in a digital renaissance particularly among gen z and millennials who view their full birth charts

00:55:12.020 and track planetary cycles as essential tools for self-discovery this revival has found a deeply

00:55:18.640 significant spiritual niche within the lgbtq plus community because queer individuals are often

00:55:25.340 stripped of traditional communities astrology serves as a fluid framework to build chosen

00:55:31.080 families and to strengthen interpersonal

00:55:33.260 bonds. Apps

00:55:35.160 allow users to compare natal charts

00:55:37.220 with friends and mentors,

00:55:39.100 transforming ancient celestial alignments

00:55:41.320 into modern tools for

00:55:43.120 social connection and relationship

00:55:45.000 navigation. Don't dump him just because

00:55:47.020 your astrology app told you to, okay?

00:55:49.260 I will literally go through as

00:55:51.040 we speak on my phone.

00:55:52.960 Do it.

00:55:54.020 I have a sub tab

00:55:56.620 on my iPhone called

00:55:59.060 astrology and you probably know a lot of them but one of them is co-star the other one is know the

00:56:05.880 zodiac and then the other one is moon phase so know the zodiac is run by dosha via that lady i

00:56:11.600 was telling you about in part one yeah in part one and co-star is co-star is very true to the

00:56:20.280 modern tools for social connection because you can add friends on it and then it'll be like

00:56:25.980 it's really cheesy and funny so it'll be like neve is also feeling a particular way today

00:56:33.800 maybe check in and see is she okay you know if we've added each other on this app

00:56:38.680 and then it shows you like do's and don'ts of the day and it's like do dip in the sea don't

00:56:46.760 get in an argument with your neighbor you know it's just ridiculous you know it's very funny but

00:56:54.480 also it goes quite deep as well you know it gets very deep like of course all astrology apps usually 0.99

00:57:00.620 do these days it's not this kind of like mystic meg the sun prediction shit anymore it does delve

00:57:07.360 a little bit deeper into you know you can connect your your signs and your like it'll it'll bring

00:57:14.100 you up your birth chart and it'll show you what um what houses your signs are in and different

00:57:20.020 things like that so it does delve into a lot deeper but it's funny because of that social

00:57:24.200 connection bit is is very light-hearted let's say yeah and it's done in a very playful manner

00:57:30.820 but you can be like did you see that thing on co-star it's very funny you know yeah or you

00:57:37.140 it'll kind of force you to check in with somebody as well if you're friends with them on it

00:57:41.240 yeah it's cool i suppose as well if you're like maybe not like getting on well with somebody

00:57:46.640 if like if it gives you a little yeah you're like don't do that oh yeah and again just making

00:57:53.540 sense and meaning out of maybe little silly predicaments that goes on as well you know

00:57:58.500 yeah it's all very serious sometimes but also like pinch assaulting and it can be taken very 0.66

00:58:04.020 light-hearted yeah yeah you know and be fun it's really fucking fun yeah and it doesn't have to be

00:58:11.120 like this is why

00:58:12.080 it's so interesting how hard people

00:58:15.220 like rally against it

00:58:16.740 because as much as like

00:58:19.140 you know there are fraudsters in any

00:58:21.220 sort of faith or any sort

00:58:23.340 of spirituality

00:58:24.640 any practice

00:58:26.540 for the most part like

00:58:28.140 I don't really hear much about astrologers

00:58:31.040 scamming people

00:58:31.960 you know unless it's like an astrologer to the stars

00:58:35.320 and yeah yeah yeah if it's like

00:58:37.040 a designated avenue they go

00:58:39.140 down crucially astrology offers a safe haven from the historical trauma often associated with

00:58:46.360 organized religion because it exists outside rigid dogmas and binaries its inherent ambiguity and

00:58:53.420 strict lack of strict rules offers immense freedom for those who live outside societal norms

00:58:59.740 as one queer youth profoundly noted astrology provides a sense of spirituality that doesn't

00:59:05.920 shung people allowing individuals to connect with a higher power without the exclusionary

00:59:10.800 boundaries of traditional faiths far from just a casual hobby understanding one's sun moon and

00:59:17.560 rising signs or warning friends not to send a risky email during mercury retrograde has become

00:59:23.540 a radical reclamation of spiritual autonomy and that's why i love that it's harmless it is like

00:59:29.920 it's meant to be fun it's like how we would send each other the memes that we were talking about

00:59:34.940 because strangely some of them are very accurate yes towards your personality you know and then 0.87

00:59:40.940 some of them you're like what the fuck that isn't me at all you don't pinch a salt but like that it's 0.92

00:59:45.500 a fun little light-hearted jest at each other you know it's like oh this is so you yes you get that 0.99

00:59:52.480 little rush of dope yeah exactly and you send it to your mate and then they're like ha ha ha and

00:59:57.720 it's this lovely little connection and lovely little community yes if you didn't have that

01:00:02.800 you wouldn't be sending each other 0.86

01:00:04.060 I mean I'm sure you would send other ridiculous 0.87

01:00:06.860 memes but because they're astrology 0.88

01:00:08.600 related they seem to hit

01:00:10.360 your personal level

01:00:12.600 a little bit more because they're quite

01:00:14.700 accurate you know

01:00:15.780 like those ones that somebody has started making

01:00:18.880 that it's

01:00:19.480 like they'll pair the two signs together

01:00:22.600 like this is Scorpio and Capricorn

01:00:24.820 yeah yeah yeah

01:00:25.580 like the one I think the one I sent you

01:00:28.660 was it like Scorpio and Capricorn

01:00:30.320 basically finding out too much

01:00:32.120 you know and it's just nice to feel seen sometimes and astrology allows you to feel seen it allows

01:00:41.800 you to be part of something yes it allows you to feel like there's a little bit of a sense of

01:00:46.860 community of some sort you know and it might be something that like you kind of didn't really

01:00:52.360 realize about yourself but you're it gets you yeah maybe i'm kind of like that so now we're

01:00:58.460 getting into the cultural double standard the big one and the thing that like made me want to like

01:01:03.580 delve into astrology like this we have stock market prediction predictions data mine personality

01:01:09.700 tests and sports superstitions they're all about as credible as astrology really if you looked at

01:01:16.600 like science like through the scientific method and through a scientific lens but they are not

01:01:21.180 mocked nearly as harshly why because it's mostly men that are interested in these things it has

01:01:27.920 also been argued that economics is a modern form of astrology the quote i have from a article from

01:01:34.820 the times from february 2009 said it is not and never has been a science meaning economics no

01:01:41.820 self-respecting scientist would ever make assumptions such as all other things being

01:01:46.880 equal and then go on to make predictions based on those assumptions the sad thing is that this is

01:01:52.220 what economists do and worse still they go on to believe that their predictions have a scientific

01:01:57.320 infallibility maybe the signs of the zodiac would actually be more reliable men are rarely mocked

01:02:04.240 for their irrational hobbies like fantasy football or conspiracy theories i mean we do mock people

01:02:10.960 for their conspiracy theories if they're like ridiculous and like kind of believing in them is

01:02:15.820 harmful like sometimes people do need to be shamed for their conspiracy theories 100 but it's

01:02:21.440 definitely not an unmasked thing the way astrology is mocked no yeah like think of the likes of

01:02:28.080 andrew tate that was hugely popular in covid times and unfortunately had all of these mental

01:02:36.500 conspiracy theories but he was so well loved and well known among unfortunately loads of young

01:02:44.760 impressionable men and he was never mocked for his mental conspiracy theories or his views upon life

01:02:50.740 because he was a at the time a well-respected man you know yeah him and his brother had a huge 0.94

01:02:57.020 fucking sports background you know they were kind of athletes at the time them talking about the

01:03:01.920 matrix yeah people being out to get him and all that stuff and the whole like pure blood thing 0.99

01:03:06.820 because they weren't vaccinated during covid like that was mental yeah like how insane is that

01:03:12.440 to come out with that kind of statement like yeah that is it and like to create a hierarchy

01:03:18.080 and everyone was like yeah you know absolutely yeah and then it went to like so off-landish

01:03:24.140 into there was unvaccinated men sorry this is going so off topic unvaccinated men like supplying

01:03:32.000 their sperm oh my god as donors because then that would mean that if you you know were inseminated

01:03:40.100 with that that your child would be well that just smacks of like white supremacy in life it's just 0.99

01:03:45.600 fucking crazy yeah it's just absolute lunacy yeah so back to that note is it because he was a man 0.99

01:03:52.720 is it because he was a well-respected man at the time that that wasn't made fun of but astrology 0.98

01:03:56.440 because it's women is hugely made fun of because it's mostly predominantly women not so much now

01:04:02.720 i follow a lot of men that are like heavily and well respected within this astrology realm yes

01:04:09.240 and very very accurate

01:04:11.960 Nicholas Ashbaugh actually is one of them on YouTube

01:04:14.540 he's brilliant

01:04:15.660 there's a couple other ones on Instagram

01:04:17.320 but this was back then

01:04:18.980 you know this was like as it's coming of age

01:04:21.720 to the current point

01:04:22.680 yeah to the digital era

01:04:24.440 yeah exactly

01:04:25.740 and it was predominantly women that practiced it

01:04:28.280 there is that whole like 1.00

01:04:30.380 these fucking incel men talking about their legacy 0.99

01:04:32.960 and all of that sort of stuff 1.00

01:04:34.220 and all of these things that don't actually matter

01:04:36.440 like this whole bloodline 0.99

01:04:38.860 legacy sort of shit 0.99

01:04:40.560 that they go on and like 0.99

01:04:42.200 we mock them but at the same time

01:04:44.260 within their own circles you know

01:04:46.180 there's a lot of people giving them air time

01:04:47.800 you know yeah like we all have

01:04:50.100 rituals and humans

01:04:52.180 not really look for patterns and

01:04:53.780 like with astrology it's just like

01:04:56.160 another expression of that

01:04:57.860 it's patterns it's meaning you know

01:05:00.120 yeah and if you're not making like

01:05:02.140 life or death decisions

01:05:03.300 I just don't see the harm

01:05:06.180 i really don't see the harm like like there are people making decisions based on the economy

01:05:11.580 that's could end up like seriously blowing back on your face yeah causing a huge stock crash or

01:05:17.800 something you know yeah there is the other side of that where it's i'm like i don't really think

01:05:22.100 it's it's good to use astrology for that level of predictions because that's just out in the ether 0.96

01:05:29.240 and like yeah that's just delving into some mad shit you know and probably some really dark shit

01:05:34.880 yeah which isn't what it's meant to be about no you know similar to how i use tarot when you use 0.96

01:05:43.700 tarot we use it as a meditative sort of like we're not going based on what the cards are going to say

01:05:50.640 i'm going to do this yeah or i'm going to engage in this risky behavior or whatever it is it's

01:05:56.220 you're not trying to predict the future with tarot readings either yeah like you're not meant to or

01:06:01.080 not that you're not meant to like you don't with astrology you're not trying to predict the future 0.94

01:06:05.340 you're trying to make sense of what the fuck is happening now that's what you use astrology for 0.94

01:06:10.120 that's what you use tarot for yeah you're trying to figure out what the hell is going on in your 0.99

01:06:14.080 head or in life at this current moment and looking for an outer source to try to regulate what's

01:06:21.760 happening within your own head absolutely and that's how i kind of see it from my own personal

01:06:26.580 experience it could be different for you or anyone else listening yeah and it could evolve

01:06:32.100 into a different thing later yeah as well absolutely how it's evolved over time yeah

01:06:36.640 exactly and it'll be interesting to see how it does evolve over time yeah but an interesting

01:06:41.440 male perspective on astrology is I just thought this was such a like coming from a skeptic's

01:06:48.880 point of view so this is from Penn Badgley's podcast I mean this was posted about three

01:06:55.120 years ago at this point so he had matt rife who is a um comedian yeah he's like a misogynistic

01:07:03.420 comedian like there was this whole scandal of matt rife that like he he built his entire following

01:07:09.760 from his crowd work going viral on tiktok it was because he was like a young attractive guy he

01:07:16.740 gained a major female female following yep and then he got a netflix special and within the

01:07:22.680 first like 10 minutes of his netflix special he makes a domestic violence joke oh and people are

01:07:27.720 like people are like you built your whole thing and then he pretty much doubled down on it and

01:07:33.600 his whole thing was well like i never set out to be like a woman's comedian and like he just he

01:07:38.620 doesn't like that that's the way his career took off he wants to be a guy's guy to know your 0.97

01:07:44.240 fucking audience like those are the people that support you yeah don't make comments like that 0.97

01:07:50.260 yeah and then ever in any context ever not just this just ever yeah it's not right from like the 0.99

01:07:57.360 way the interviews and the the statements he was making around the time it was just very clear that

01:08:01.940 like he has a lot of misogyny within him and he did not like the fact that he was becoming

01:08:09.380 had an all-female following yes this woman's comedian but anyway he was on pen badgley's 0.93

01:08:15.100 podcast pod crushed and he started shitting on astrology this is how pen badgley handled it

01:08:20.080 which i just thought was very cool to hear somebody who's quite intellectual pan badgely

01:08:24.940 is for anybody is like i don't know who that is he was dan humphrey in gossip girl and he was then

01:08:31.580 um joe in you yeah and he is pretty cool guy he also has that really cool bond that i showed you

01:08:38.920 remember or something so good yeah they're really good yeah is it mother mother mother x or yeah

01:08:46.640 T-H-X-R.

01:08:47.680 X-R, yeah.

01:08:48.320 We've never heard it

01:08:48.820 being said out loud.

01:08:49.580 No.

01:08:50.000 Yeah, don't charge us.

01:08:51.300 Yeah.

01:08:51.920 And I'll put the link

01:08:53.160 to this in the show notes

01:08:54.860 as well.

01:08:55.540 Future is like

01:08:56.240 predetermined in the stars.

01:08:57.840 What does a planet

01:08:58.560 that's 90 million miles away

01:09:00.960 from you have to do

01:09:01.560 with anything

01:09:02.540 in your active life?

01:09:04.380 No, trust me.

01:09:04.820 I'm with you on this.

01:09:06.120 At least in the fact

01:09:07.260 that so many people

01:09:08.280 can describe to it.

01:09:08.300 And it's so scared

01:09:09.000 of being cancelled

01:09:09.660 that he won't just

01:09:10.300 come out right and say

01:09:11.380 he doesn't.

01:09:11.980 No, no, because I started

01:09:12.800 You can't get cancelled

01:09:13.740 for being against astrology.

01:09:15.220 You can't get cancelled

01:09:15.640 for anything bad.

01:09:16.420 nice to meet you guys 0.98

01:09:17.660 oh I'm so dumb 0.96

01:09:20.860 no no no because my thing is that 0.95

01:09:25.000 I think there's validity to the

01:09:26.340 arrangement of the physical world

01:09:28.960 around you when you're born

01:09:30.220 there's something to that

01:09:31.080 the arrangement of the cosmos

01:09:32.200 surely it has an influence

01:09:33.980 everything has an influence right

01:09:35.200 I don't see how it has an influence

01:09:37.680 from so far away

01:09:39.020 that's what a ghost is in your house

01:09:41.820 Mercury's not in your house

01:09:43.520 no but it's in your second house bro

01:09:45.980 oh i love that

01:09:50.300 so he was just talking about yeah how like we you know we look at the the pull of the moon on the

01:10:07.140 tides and like the magnetic pull of the earth and the poles and all that so his argument is

01:10:14.940 why wouldn't it affect us as humans yeah why wouldn't the arrangement of the planets have

01:10:20.660 some sort of effect on your surely gravity has an effect on us as well because well particularly

01:10:26.300 the moon yeah because we are made up of water also exactly so yeah but yeah i just thought

01:10:35.320 that was such a good way of like that's so funny now it's in your second eyes bro

01:10:40.040 what a fucking fantastic intellectual throwback yeah so yeah it is it's interesting which beliefs 0.86

01:10:49.020 society considers acceptable fantasy football lucky socks before a match stock market predictions 0.98

01:10:55.320 we all have rituals humans naturally look for patterns and astrology is one expression of that

01:11:00.760 now i do however have to mention that there have been studies scientific studies into astrology

01:11:06.140 we have Sean Carlson's double blind study Megan's like shaking her head going like why

01:11:12.620 Sean Carlson's double blind study in 1985 in a rigorously designed study 28 professional

01:11:20.880 astrologers attempted to match over 100 natal charts to individual psychological profiles

01:11:26.220 using the California psychological inventory the results were no better than chance and the

01:11:33.040 conclusion was that it clearly refutes

01:11:35.160 the astrological hypothesis.

01:11:37.620 Another study was Jeffrey Dean

01:11:39.340 and Ivan Kelly's meta-analysis

01:11:41.340 from 2003. It was an extensive

01:11:43.260 meta-analysis of over 40

01:11:45.160 tests involving 700

01:11:47.000 astrologers and 1,000

01:11:48.940 over 1,000 charts.

01:11:50.280 Too much information.

01:11:54.260 Conclusion.

01:11:55.300 Astrologers performed worse than

01:11:57.260 chance in matching charts to

01:11:59.040 psychological traits. In a

01:12:01.180 large-scale test of persons born less than five minutes apart it found no hint of the similarities

01:12:06.700 predicted by astrology meta-analysis of more than 40 controlled studies suggests that astrologers

01:12:13.080 were unable to perform significantly better than chance even on the more basic tasks such as

01:12:18.820 predicting extroversion more specifically astrologers who claim to use psychic ability

01:12:24.000 perform no better than those who do not how do they expect but within this how do they expect

01:12:30.500 with thousands and thousands of charge

01:12:32.780 and energy flowing around the place

01:12:34.720 and all of this to actually get accurate

01:12:36.620 predictions on what they were trying

01:12:38.660 to find. I think like

01:12:40.660 considering what we've discussed on this

01:12:42.800 episode, I think it's quite an outdated

01:12:44.920 understanding of astrology that

01:12:46.700 they're basing this on. Yeah, they're trying to make

01:12:48.840 it so factual. Yeah.

01:12:51.380 And it's not. It's about mysticism

01:12:52.900 and the wonderful

01:12:54.600 unknown. Yes, and take what resonates

01:12:56.960 and leave the rest. Yes, leave the rest.

01:12:58.560 always and forever

01:13:00.620 that is a pinch of salt

01:13:03.300 but it is, it's once again 0.99

01:13:04.520 mine's like a fucking handful of salt 0.99

01:13:06.300 yeah 0.99

01:13:06.740 but it's just the thing, it's like who's it harming

01:13:10.780 and there's so much work to put into

01:13:12.540 I mean I guess like the problem

01:13:14.620 people have with it is that astrologers make money

01:13:16.540 from it, they think that they're parting

01:13:18.460 people from their money, they're probably like

01:13:20.240 a real job, yeah that is like

01:13:22.380 I mean fair enough

01:13:23.860 how fucking cool would it be if that was your job

01:13:26.020 yeah that you make money from helping people find meaning in themselves probably the most famous one 0.97

01:13:34.080 is the four barium effect from 1949 which was replicated many times students rated identical

01:13:40.940 vague horoscopes as highly accurate the barium effect is the tendency for an individual to give

01:13:46.340 a high accuracy rating to a description of their personality that is supposedly tailored specifically

01:13:51.600 for them, but is in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.

01:13:57.020 If more information is requested for a prediction, the more accepting people are of the results.

01:14:03.300 In 1949, Bertram Forer conducted a personality test on students in his classroom.

01:14:09.280 Each student was given a supposedly individual assessment, but actually all students received

01:14:14.540 the same assessment. The personality descriptions were taken from a book on astrology when the

01:14:20.240 students were asked to comment on the accuracy of the test more than 40 gave the top mark of five

01:14:25.840 out of five and the average rating was 4.2 but like humans are narcissistic also it just seems

01:14:33.700 like these tests have been deemed as some kind of like social experiment more than anything to do

01:14:37.980 with astrology you know yeah what are people willing to accept when they're told that this

01:14:44.860 is the truth about you yeah and if it's positive yeah you know yeah it's it's so regimented it's

01:14:50.740 so factual it's so not how astrology is meant to be yeah why is astrology when mostly enjoyed by

01:14:57.920 women or queer people seen as uniquely embarrassing well i have a quote here from astrologer chani

01:15:03.600 nicholas introspection is still incorrectly regarded as a feminine trait and with that

01:15:09.200 astrology has become an easy area to target women because it is based on this because of this there 0.78

01:15:15.280 has been a projection of illegitimacy in the discipline leaving to its constant dismissal 0.98

01:15:20.520 however it is well received amongst women for that same reason women often take comfort in

01:15:26.280 astrology because there is a freedom of expression allowable with others or spiritually women feel

01:15:32.360 understood in a space that sees value in emotions unfortunately this is still not the same for men

01:15:38.620 who are societally bound to an emotionally rigid yardstick and that also comes back to the divine

01:15:44.520 feminine sort of thing where like to be masculine you have to be facts based and to be and you have

01:15:51.120 to deal only in absolutes and deal only in what you can see and what you can tangibly feel and

01:15:58.180 logic yes yep and that's also like it sort of reduces the divine feminine and femininity down

01:16:05.320 to airy fairy and like there is no value to your intuition or because what is into intuition only

01:16:13.220 you basing ideas on your own lived experience and like what you believe to be true because

01:16:20.100 of what you have experienced in your past experiences yeah intuition kicks in you listen

01:16:26.040 to it it's normally right yeah they talk about like mother's intuition it's i mean who else is

01:16:33.000 going to care about their child more than a mother so when her intuition is telling her to be careful

01:16:38.220 and to check on her child or whatever it might be it's usually right because she is the one person

01:16:44.500 who should be yeah like how was that debunked yeah it's impossible it's just lunacy to debunk

01:16:51.460 an intuition i'm sure men have intuition as well yeah they listen to it as well but yet it's this

01:16:58.900 thing that's not really delved into yeah they probably credit their intuition to something

01:17:04.340 else you know to something that they read somewhere i'm like well no you know you could

01:17:10.660 have just picked this up on vibes dude like that yeah that's okay too it's a very real thing and

01:17:17.080 then there's also misunderstandings of what the purpose of astrology is as megan has pointed out

01:17:21.940 a lot one's fate is not hopelessly written in the stars one's astrological horoscope may be

01:17:27.660 compared metaphorically to one's genetic heritage a tall person has all freedom in the word to do

01:17:33.160 whatever he pleases as a tall person he cannot turn himself into a short person we all have our

01:17:38.460 potentials and our limitations the astrological horoscope is simply a map of those potentials

01:17:43.840 and limitations and a reputable astrologer's job is to help the client decide how to best

01:17:49.040 to make the most of potentials and work within limitations and that is from mary devlin writing

01:17:54.880 to LA Times. So again, I sometimes wonder if women are drawn to astrology because we're often 0.94

01:18:01.140 encouraged to be emotionally literate. And astrology gives us permission, and not just us,

01:18:07.560 but people permission to ask questions about themselves. So whether somebody really believes

01:18:12.620 it literally or symbolically, it's a fundamental exercise of self-reflection. Again, looking within

01:18:21.180 oneself which I think that is hugely important to develop as a human being develop and not 0.99

01:18:27.160 becoming a fucking asshole in life you know you self-reflect astrology I know on a personal level 0.99

01:18:33.560 has helped me self-reflect I've used it as a tool to figure out and help me how I operate again it 1.00

01:18:40.900 could be so different but this is just my perception of it yeah it's all within the self

01:18:46.500 i don't think i've ever found in life another tool to be able to help me with that other than 1.00

01:18:53.280 maybe somebody else been like you're being a fucking asshole you know and then i'm like right 0.99

01:18:59.060 let me consult the cards on this and like maybe it gives because as you're talking about like 1.00

01:19:05.120 allowing women to be emotionally literate and emotionally expressive maybe it gives them a

01:19:11.220 little bit of weight behind that like it gives a little bit of credibility to their emotions 0.97

01:19:15.820 It's almost like they've been allowed to articulate themselves with the backing of astrology to help.

01:19:25.220 It's been a nice little sprinkle tool to be like, no, this is a valid feeling.

01:19:31.240 These are valid emotions. 0.99

01:19:34.040 And also because the fucking moon is going nuts or the sun is going nuts or Jupiter or whatever it may be, you know. 0.99

01:19:40.920 And people think, oh, that's crazy. 0.99

01:19:42.740 But to me, I'm like, no, it's a genuine thing.

01:19:45.820 you know planetary alignments affect us as human beings like how can you not see this

01:19:51.720 i have been on a journey with astrology yes astrology has always been about pattern

01:19:58.500 meaning and relationship whether you believe in it or not the stars can be a site of connection 0.90

01:20:03.200 identity and even resistance which i goes punk as fuck and i think that's why it's like i was

01:20:10.680 so open to it i was like i want to be i would love this aspect of it that it's like a little 0.90

01:20:16.640 bit counterculture yeah you know it's dismissal has as much to do with who practices it as it is

01:20:22.900 with what it claims to do dismissal can often come from misogyny and the belief that anything

01:20:29.200 relies that relies on vibes is anti-intellectual the scientific studies debunking astrology

01:20:35.960 They operate on the assumption that this belief is harmful.

01:20:39.060 And as we've sort of talked about, like, unless you're completely scamming somebody for money,

01:20:43.180 there are completely free and cost-free ways to engage with astrology.

01:20:47.060 Absolutely.

01:20:47.820 You know, so this whole thing of, like, if you believe in it, you're going to be duped

01:20:52.020 and you're going to fall for anything.

01:20:53.720 It's, these things aren't mutually exclusive.

01:20:55.600 Like, you can't, you can be a skeptic and also get scammed.

01:20:59.080 Yep.

01:20:59.880 Depending on what it is.

01:21:01.060 But I think it's interesting and healthy that people question astrology because their questioning doesn't work. It's why do people across cultures keep returning to it? If the predictive claims aren't supported, that doesn't automatically explain why astrology has persisted for thousands of years.

01:21:21.300 so whether people believe in astrology is literally influencing our lives or whether

01:21:26.560 they see it as a symbolic language I think it's a real strength that invites us to actually pause

01:21:32.440 and reflect I've always been somebody that looks for patterns and I naturally try to like connect

01:21:39.600 the dots and make sense of what's happening around me and like I touched on before I think astrology

01:21:45.580 has become one of my frameworks that I use to do that and it's never really been about predicting

01:21:50.920 tomorrow but it's helping me understand what's happening today and interestingly enough over

01:21:57.780 the last few weeks life really fucking forced me to slow down i had like health issues and

01:22:03.060 procedures and moments where like i physically couldn't keep going at the pace i was going 0.90

01:22:07.320 that i wanted to and then looking back i'm like ah it's because mercury is in retro

01:22:13.660 and it became a really meaningful symbol for me during that period not because i can prove

01:22:20.780 that Mercury retrograde caused those events to happen. But what it done for me was it encouraged

01:22:26.520 me to ask myself, what if there wasn't this interruption? What if there wasn't this invitation

01:22:34.740 to reassess and recover and reset before moving forward? And that way of thinking genuinely helped

01:22:41.060 me. So not as it Mercury retrograde, not as it only just about the usual spouting shit of 0.95

01:22:46.480 technology is interrupted 0.69

01:22:49.120 and communication is interrupted

01:22:51.060 Mercury Retrograde is also

01:22:53.060 hugely important

01:22:54.380 for making you slow down

01:22:57.260 it's asking you to take

01:22:59.300 a pump the brakes lad

01:23:00.780 you know and asking you to pause

01:23:02.720 and take a moment

01:23:05.080 so I couldn't like figure

01:23:07.220 out why that was happening so

01:23:08.840 of course I'm turning to try to find

01:23:11.100 meaning of why it's happening and I'm like 0.98

01:23:12.960 oh fuck yeah Mercury Retrograde 0.94

01:23:15.080 maybe that's why astrology has kind of survived for thousands of years because whether you see 0.99

01:23:21.080 it as a cause make influence or simply a symbolic framework it gives people the language to reflect

01:23:28.280 on their lives so for me that's where the value lies not in its certainty but in the curiosity of

01:23:35.480 it yes absolutely i love that so much and for me astrology isn't about surrendering the

01:23:42.040 responsibility to the planets it's about

01:23:44.220 paying attention to myself

01:23:45.840 to the seasons of my life

01:23:48.360 and ask myself

01:23:50.500 the questions that I might have been too busy

01:23:52.240 to ask myself

01:23:53.220 so whether the stars are guiding us

01:23:56.080 or simply giving us a language

01:23:57.760 for reflection I think

01:24:00.160 there's something profoundly human in that

01:24:02.460 yes

01:24:04.040 snap through that

01:24:07.960 I love that

01:24:09.200 I love that so much

01:24:12.040 I'm so glad we got, like, to do, like, the part two of this episode.

01:24:15.720 I know.

01:24:16.200 I am.

01:24:16.580 I'm glad.

01:24:17.140 It's always so much fun.

01:24:19.240 So this has been part two of A Feminist History of Astrology.

01:24:24.600 We're in Astrology August, so keep an eye on your feeds for an astrology-themed pinecones 0.75

01:24:31.920 as well.

01:24:32.460 Also going up this month.

01:24:33.820 Cool.

01:24:34.800 And then we will be into Sea Timber, so we'll be doing our...

01:24:38.560 Oh, yes.

01:24:39.440 Yes.

01:24:39.840 I just started plotting my

01:24:41.880 Sea Timber releases

01:24:44.140 and we're going

01:24:46.060 Japanese. Oh yes.

01:24:48.320 Japanese folklore. Fuck yeah. 1.00

01:24:50.000 Keep an eye on your feeds for that. 1.00

01:24:52.160 Oh that's so cool. Yeah. I love that.

01:24:54.420 Can't wait to see you. Yes.

01:24:56.220 So thank you so much for

01:24:57.900 joining us. I am Niamh.

01:25:00.740 I'm Megan. 0.99

01:25:01.920 And fuck yeah folklore. 1.00

01:25:03.820 Fuck yeah folklore. 1.00

01:25:05.500 Bye. 1.00

01:25:09.840 We'll see you next time.

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Rowan & Pine: A Feminist Folklore & Mythology Podcast - August 12, 2026

Episode Fifty-Three： Astrology Pt.2 [With Megan] - Whimsigoths

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