Aneeshka Vyas | Contributor
Featured illustration: Astrology can provide hope to those feeling lost, but should not replace the importance of personal decisions. | Lung Sze Liz
We look up at the sky and can predict rain when dark clouds form; when the sun rises earlier and earlier, we can tell winter is coming to an end; sometimes it just feels like it’s going to be a sunny day in spite of there being a forecast of rain later that afternoon. Don’t you feel like a psychic when your predictions come true? This was what early farmers did to differentiate the seasons, more or less, except they looked at constellations.
Astrology developed around 3,000 BCE when farmers noticed that certain constellations were visible during particular seasons. This knowledge helped them choose appropriate times for planting and harvesting crops, as well as making decisions regarding travel. The full and new moons created especially high and low tides, indicating dangerous waters that fishermen would need to be careful of. Soon, the patterns observed in the appearance of these celestial bodies were used to develop calendars and a better understanding of time. Curiosity lead early astronomers to link particular alignments of the celestial bodies to floods and natural disasters, which was followed by using these alignments to predict destiny and the different aspects of a person’s life.
Your horoscope is based on the position of the stars and planets relative to the Earth at the time of your birth. Each planet has its own characteristics and individual influence on your personality, and the commonly referred-to sun signs are only one aspect of one’s horoscope. There are other influencers, specifically one’s ascendant and moon sign that, along with the sun sign, form the primal triad, which gives a more complete view of a person’s personality. The sun sign is said to depict the central traits of one’s personality, the ascendant signals what others perceive about a person, both in appearance and in personality, and one’s moon sign is reflective of their moods and innermost emotions.
There are different types of astrology based on different celestial bodies. Tropical astrology is most commonly used in the West, and is based on the position of the sun around the Earth. Sidereal astronomy is based on constellations, and is also the branch that introduced the new sign Ophiuchus.
Ophiuchus is a constellation that was discovered in ancient times, but was not recognized as part of tropical astrology. The sun spends less time in Ophiuchus than the other signs and the constellations have shifted since the founding of astrology. The addition of Ophiuchus means that the predictions based on your birth sign are off. However, the introduction of this new constellation as an astrological sign was met with criticism by many well-known astrologers who say the constellations have nothing to do with the way they read people’s horoscope.
The introduction of Ophiuchus has no doubt brought about questions in many people’s minds. Nadishka Pereira, second-year human resource management student, says: “I was not aware that a new sign [was] added. I used to be a Libra, but now I am a Virgo because Ophiuchus was added. NASA mentioned a 13th constellation, and that is what changed everything. I have no idea about how this will affect people, and truthfully it is not a very big part of my life anyway.”
Many people feel astrology is a hoax, since there are no scientific studies proving its validity.
“I believe people are looking towards things that have no accurate base and they are basing many beliefs and aspects of their life [on] this,” says Adam Szocs, third-year mathematics for commerce student. “I just believe that there are more important aspects and events of one’s life that should base the way people think, not an astrology system that categorizes people.”
Psychology professor Raymond Mar says that horoscopes are often attractive to people who are uncomfortable with the uncertainties of their futures.
“Not knowing what might happen to us can cause a great deal of anxiety or worry. Horoscopes are attractive to people because they claim to be able to tell us what will happen, reducing this uncertainty and alleviating our anxieties.”
While astrology can provide a sense of hope and comfort about our future, it may lead to inactivity and lack of self-confidence. Rather than believing in one’s own actions and powers, some may fall into apathy, relying solely on a horoscope’s fate as opposed to making their own.
All in all, horoscopes can be a fun way to discover interesting things about yourself, though at the end, it is completely up to you to decide its accuracy.
