ask a guy and they’ll (likely) feel
they have all the control. The mind
is a funny thing.
Astrologer Jenny England
believes the planets can determine
our life’s path, so knowing this, we’re
probably more inclined to sit in the
passenger seat. ’Cos it’s written in
the stars, right?
‘When it’s done properly by a
certified astrologer, your astrological
chart is a blueprint of who you are:
your DNA,’ she says. ‘We can’t be
anybody but who we are and when
we try to go against it, we go wrong.
When you get back to your proper
self, you feel happier and content.’
But away from those helpful
confirmations-of-sorts, these maps
are king content creators – read:
money makers. Stories I’ve found
in the past month include: ‘This is
how old you are mentally, according
to your zodiac’ (‘42-49’); ‘This is
what job you were born to have,
according to your zodiac’ (‘to marry
someone rich’); ‘This is the most
annoying thing about you, according
to your zodiac’ (‘I’m a hypocritical
people pleaser’); ‘This is the best
date according to your sign’ (‘taking
a class’). There are even star sign-
themed fragrance-making work-
shops in case you want to know
exactly what a Libran smells like,
and a hotel has opened up in Sydney
with a bespoke program catered to
your own zodiac. We’re approaching
system overload. But at least I can
f lop down on my Libran-bed, wrap
myself in a Libran-robe or enjoy a
Libran-walking tour.Do you believe?
We’re not only keener than ever to
figure out our future whatever the
forecast, we’re taking it far more
seriously, with 58 per cent of 18-
24-year-old Americans believing
astrology is scientific (maybe us
Australians think more realistically).
But it’s not scientific. Far from it.
The mere mention of horoscopes
and science in the same sentence
has the potential to make Bill Nye
spit out his tea. It’s more to do with
our psychological needs – although
we know our horoscope is being
read by millions of other people, we
want to be able to glean a sentence
from it, look off into the distance
and think, ‘It just gets me.’
Case in point: an experiment
conducted in 1948 by Bertram Forer.
The American psychologist told
his students they were receiving a
unique outline of their character
and asked them to rate its accuracy.
The catch? Each of these outlines
was identical, but everyone rated
theirs an excellent description.
Team this with the analysis
of over 22,000 Yahoo horoscopes,
conducted by David McCandless
in The Atlantic, which found each
one mostly rehashed the same old
details for each sign, no matter the
fact each zodiac is meant to possess
varying traits and desires.
As psychoanalyst Gérard Miller
explains, ‘There is something in
each one of us that is superstitious,
that can’t be convinced by reason.
This part of us means we are able
to dream, to access our imagination.
The problem is that it makes us
vulnerable to astrology, clairvoyants
or any type of guru who claims to
know something about our essential
being, our needs, our desires – our
future’ – just something we do not.
A little spirituality, wherever it
may come from, allows us to live in
a make-believe world, where sadness
is seldom mentioned. Because the
truth hurts. But thinking a generic
round-up speaks only to us alludes‘THERE IS SOMETHING
IN EACH OF US THAT IS
SUPERSTITIOUS...’
112 COSMOPOLITAN.com.au TO SUBSCRIBE CALL 136 116