The beginning of the new year is a bloody strange time. The shops have big new displays of fitness gear, diet books pop up everywhere, gyms offer discounted membership packages, and the major newspapers in the UK use half of their front pages advertising their horoscopes for the coming 12 months.
They promise to predict your health, your wealth, your love life & anything else they think you need to hear (like how long you’ll actually use your expensive new gym membership for maybe?) What the hell? Are we in the 21st century yet?
Slowly over the last century people in Britain at least, but not just here, have changed their views of the supernatural in general. Much of this has been put down to science providing evidence to explain natural phenomena. A poignant example is a comparison of the effects of the Krakatoa explosion in the 1800s & the recent devastating Asian tsunamis. It has been said that Krakatoa was seen by the Islamics of the region to be a sign from Allah, and to have led to the uprising against & expulsion of the Dutch there. No-one could explain how or why Krakatoa exploded. It was taken as an act of God by most, as there was no other explanation. Today, instead, we see a worldwide reaction of sympathy and aid, & no-one questions the cause of the disaster as anything but a natural, horrific slipping of two tectonic plates that have been crushing one another, building pressure for centuries.
Our understanding of the world has changed. Why not of the stars? How the hell can people sell “newspapers” by prophesising what will happen to different twelths of the population based on the predictable movements of stars & other planets? Hey, wait a minute, if newspapers were portals for prophets, wouldn’t they be telling us what will happen, not what has?
Astrologers in national newspapers are a sign of our reluctance to leave the dark ages, of our hopes that the future “will turn out all right” & the need for reassurance. Which is what all our paranormal beliefs tend to do for us. Astrology is a sign of our weakness, just like the new year fitness gear, diet books & gym membership.
