Speaker 1: Everybody, it's your friend Josh. And for this week's Select,
Speaker 1: I chose our two thousand sixteen episode on horoscopes. And
Speaker 1: I was pretty proud of us on this one because
Speaker 1: we took something that both Chuck and I were incredulous
Speaker 1: about and we talked about it on its own terms,
Speaker 1: which can be tough to do. So I'm kind of
Speaker 1: proud of this one, and I hope you at the
Speaker 1: very least enjoy it, if not feel proud of us too.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over here and
Speaker 1: we're just relaxing here in Studio one A. So this
Speaker 1: stuff you should know? Oh I thought it was astro Chad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what we would call a great name or horoscope
Speaker 1: or podcast. Say horror scope. No, you shouldn't say that. No,
Speaker 1: would you ever want to do a horoscope or astrology podcast?
Speaker 1: What do you mean on its own? Not see that? Well?
Speaker 1: We were talking about this briefly until I didn't do
Speaker 1: it this time, but normally whenever this is a secret
Speaker 1: Chuck that I'm about to share with everybody the pre
Speaker 1: taping secret. Yeah. If we start to talk and get
Speaker 1: too involved in the topic before we start recording, usually
Speaker 1: one of us will be like, stop, stop, this is
Speaker 1: golden to save it for the podcast. We didn't do
Speaker 1: that this time. I think we just kind of naturally
Speaker 1: dis continue conversations with right. But um, you were saying
Speaker 1: that you are, and I don't know if you're ready
Speaker 1: to admit this or not this early in the episode.
Speaker 1: You're a little incredulous about horoscopes and astrology. Yes, okay, Um,
Speaker 1: I am as well. But the think the difference between
Speaker 1: us is you're just kind of like, come on, And
Speaker 1: as I was researching it more and more, I was like,
Speaker 1: this is really interesting. I could say here and read
Speaker 1: about this like all day, and now that it's been
Speaker 1: brought up, I'm like, I could probably do a skeptical
Speaker 1: but not with the aim to like destroy it, but
Speaker 1: just from a skeptic standpoint podcast on astrology. I think
Speaker 1: that that would fascinate me personally and like one day maybe,
Speaker 1: So Yeah, I think we we got on that because
Speaker 1: I was having a hard time wrapping my head around
Speaker 1: a couple of I'm not gonna say scientific parts, but
Speaker 1: a couple of the science science parts of this, and
Speaker 1: I kept going back to, like, cares it's not real,
Speaker 1: so it's hard for me to commit to the learning
Speaker 1: of it. And we typically have a thing where it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, poo poo people's beliefs. We're not really doing
Speaker 1: that here, but there have been a couple of occasions
Speaker 1: where we just kind of like this is there's just
Speaker 1: no way. One of them was crop circles. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I'm I don't plan on poo pooing this throughout, but
Speaker 1: I think it's good for us to state our beliefs
Speaker 1: from the get go, all right, so that we don't
Speaker 1: mislead anybody who's who does believe in it. Well, here's
Speaker 1: I did. I had my astrological chart done once. Um
Speaker 1: you did. Yeah, I didn't like seek it out and
Speaker 1: pay for it. My friend's mom is really into this,
Speaker 1: and she asked me one time, She's like, do you
Speaker 1: want me to do your chart? And I went sure,
Speaker 1: So she did my chart and I remember looking at
Speaker 1: it and thinking like, wow, a lot of this, you know.
Speaker 1: It kind of like when you look at your sun
Speaker 1: sign and we'll go ahead and say that's what most
Speaker 1: like like when somebody says what sign are you? Yeah,
Speaker 1: or if you read your daily horoscope, it's it's based
Speaker 1: on your sun sign um. I would look at things
Speaker 1: like that, or like my whatever my year is on
Speaker 1: the Chinese zodio. I can think like, oh wow, I
Speaker 1: am some of these things. But then I'm like, not
Speaker 1: about half of those things. So I just think it's interesting.
Speaker 1: And I think it's interesting as well, but again from
Speaker 1: a standpoint of where I don't actually believe it's effective
Speaker 1: or real, but just the thought put into it. And
Speaker 1: Ed wrote this article the Grabster, and he makes a
Speaker 1: really good point saying like, even if you don't believe
Speaker 1: it or not getting your your chart done is interesting
Speaker 1: in and of itself. I think so sure. And at
Speaker 1: the very least, it's going to force you to be
Speaker 1: a little more introspective about yourself than than you normally
Speaker 1: would be, because you're being presented with basically like here's
Speaker 1: your personality according to the cosmos, and it's you can't
Speaker 1: help but think, what, like am I introspective? Am I
Speaker 1: do I set things on fire? I think anything that
Speaker 1: can spur self reflection is valuable in some ways. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think that's where interesting, Like I would go to
Speaker 1: a palm reader just to know what that's like, but
Speaker 1: I wouldn't leave thinking like, oh boy, my life is
Speaker 1: set out for me. Yeah, exactly. You know Nancy Reagan,
Speaker 1: Well we'll get to that. So but spoiler, I am
Speaker 1: not Nancy Reagan. We we should probably say for those
Speaker 1: of you who are confused, they're like, how are they
Speaker 1: pooh pooing this? Like this is the science of of
Speaker 1: Nil deGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan. I don't understand. We're
Speaker 1: talking about astrology, not astronomy. Um. So. Astrology is basically
Speaker 1: the idea um that distant objects out on the cosmos, planets, stars,
Speaker 1: constellations specifically have an influence on our lives and events
Speaker 1: on the planet. And it's very old. Um. I saw
Speaker 1: as far back as five thousand years ago people were
Speaker 1: starting to develop astrological systems. UM. I saw more frequently
Speaker 1: three thousand years ago with the Babylonians that Western astrology
Speaker 1: kind of started to develop. Should we talk about history
Speaker 1: a little bit? I think I finally figured out my
Speaker 1: beef with it. Should I hold on to that or
Speaker 1: should we talk about history first? That's up to you, man,
Speaker 1: how do you want it to play out? I just
Speaker 1: don't forget if you hang onto it all right, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna write beef at the top of my page. It's
Speaker 1: gonna you're gonna carrying yourself to shoot a duck later on. Okay,
Speaker 1: So it's like memento. I'll come back to that. Uh
Speaker 1: So history, Um, we need to go back in the
Speaker 1: way back machine, the way way back to ancient times,
Speaker 1: to Babylon. Yeah, when basically people mean we are going
Speaker 1: back to Babylon. Basically when people were like looking around
Speaker 1: at everything and going, I don't get it. Why is
Speaker 1: all this stuff happening? Why did the earth just open
Speaker 1: up and swallow yishmail? Why is it raining? Why is
Speaker 1: it not raining? Why are the crops doing well? Are
Speaker 1: they doing terribly? Yeah? Why it was that sun? Uh
Speaker 1: up half the day and down half the day. Uh So,
Speaker 1: as humans started to get a little more I don't
Speaker 1: know about intelligent, but um, inquisitive. Inquisitive. I was about
Speaker 1: to say answer seeky, but inquisitive is the word for that.
Speaker 1: As they started to get a little more answer seeky,
Speaker 1: they started to make things up. Um that made them
Speaker 1: feel better about what was going on, Right, I mean
Speaker 1: they they did apply a certain measure of science too,
Speaker 1: which is where a lot of people who believe in
Speaker 1: astrology get the idea that it's scientific at some in
Speaker 1: some way, shape or form, because it does involve the movement,
Speaker 1: studying and tracking the movement of the planets and the
Speaker 1: constellations the cosmos, right, Yeah, And that makes a good point.
Speaker 1: Back then, astronomy and astrology were the same thing, right, right,
Speaker 1: because you took those observations astronomy and then you you
Speaker 1: used them to predict or explain the stuff that was
Speaker 1: going on here on Earth, right, which we now call astrology, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I don't even know what they called it
Speaker 1: back then. They called it reality, probably so. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't just the Babylonians who were doing this, Like all
Speaker 1: over the planet. Basically every culture that's ever lived had
Speaker 1: some sort of astrological system. Yeah. The Aztec and Incas
Speaker 1: and the mines in South America they had zodiac of
Speaker 1: twenty symbols, including things like earthquake and ape and rain
Speaker 1: and um. When they died out, they took it with them.
Speaker 1: Like that doesn't have any It didn't seep into modern
Speaker 1: forms of astrology like the Babylonians. No, no, Spanish. Jesuit
Speaker 1: was saying, so can you explain your astrological system to
Speaker 1: an inca emperor that was being tortured to death? Uh?
Speaker 1: What else? The Chinese, of course, they had their own
Speaker 1: um by a thousand BC, and they had twenty four
Speaker 1: divisions in a year. Yeah, they had the most complex one,
Speaker 1: probably of all time. Not surprising. Um, I don't know
Speaker 1: why that's not surprising. They're complex people. Maybe. Well, when
Speaker 1: I think of the zodiac, I think of the Western
Speaker 1: zodiac and then Chinese zodiac. Yeah, me too, And the
Speaker 1: only thing I knew about Chinese zodiac coming in was
Speaker 1: what year animal? I was what are you? From the
Speaker 1: menu at the Chinese restaurant? That's where I learned it too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm the dog. Oh I'm a dragon? Yeah wolf? Jerry?
Speaker 1: Are you a cat? She just me out. That was weird.
Speaker 1: It was her first instant. There is a year the cat? Huh?
Speaker 1: That al Stewart's song are you the Year of the Fish?
Speaker 1: Jerry alight? Like? Jerry's said that she was the Ox
Speaker 1: year of the Ox. But when she out, but what
Speaker 1: she's called upon to do? It? Animal? Sound? I think?
Speaker 1: Excute it what if oxes oxen me out. Maybe an
Speaker 1: ox that was raised by cats and it imprinted might
Speaker 1: learn to me out. I think that's what Jerry was saying.
Speaker 1: This is getting silly, and the horoscope points getting silly.
Speaker 1: It is is there gas leaking in? Uh? One of
Speaker 1: our events that I don't know about? Um? Alright, So
Speaker 1: back to china UM twenty four divisions twenty eight part
Speaker 1: lunar zodiac and then the twelve branches that correspond to
Speaker 1: the animal, and then those animals have further subdivisions. Uh,
Speaker 1: like you could be a fire dog or a water dragon, right,
Speaker 1: which we'll get to that stuff in a minute too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know that you could be like an
Speaker 1: elemental animal. I thought it was just straight up animal.
Speaker 1: I did not know that either. Yeah. Like that's one
Speaker 1: thing about astrology. No matter what system you're looking at,
Speaker 1: there's like, oh, there's this one layer and then let's
Speaker 1: add this other layer and another layer and another layer.
Speaker 1: That's so fascinates me. It's just the thought that's going
Speaker 1: into it. Sure. What about Babylon though, what do you mean? Well?
Speaker 1: I mean, ohh that's like the origin of the Western Yeah,
Speaker 1: and here's where it becomes painfully obvious that astrology can't
Speaker 1: possibly be correct or real. Yeah, I know what you're
Speaker 1: about to say. So our idea of the constellations here
Speaker 1: in the West came from the ancient Babylonian people and
Speaker 1: astronomers and astrologers who looked up and they said, oh,
Speaker 1: Mars is red, so blood can be read, so Mars
Speaker 1: is probably associated with war. Right. They just kind of
Speaker 1: just made that up. They made it up, and that
Speaker 1: is fundamentally the basis of astrology. Stuff that was made
Speaker 1: up by the Babylonians can't possibly be true. It's just
Speaker 1: basically a fact. The other big thing is the Babylonians
Speaker 1: divided the zodiac into twelve equal parts. But um, according
Speaker 1: to their own stories, there were thirteen constellations in the zodiac.
Speaker 1: So they just picked one and left it out, Yes,
Speaker 1: which is choose. I like how you said that. I
Speaker 1: don't know, man, I've never tried to say that out loud.
Speaker 1: O p h I U c h U s. It's
Speaker 1: like the hidden zodiac symbol, well not hidden. They just
Speaker 1: kind of said, twelve kind of works out better, so
Speaker 1: let's just leave it out. Yeah, and if the Babylonians
Speaker 1: prove anything. It's that for thousands of years, humans have
Speaker 1: always preferred things to be nice and tidy and neat.
Speaker 1: They don't like it to be messy because if you
Speaker 1: really look at what they were trying to do, it's
Speaker 1: super messy. So, for example, if you are dividing the
Speaker 1: night sky into twelve trying to assign a month to
Speaker 1: each horoscope, you've got constellations slopping over into other um
Speaker 1: zodiac signs UM. The the actual movement of the constellations
Speaker 1: behind the sun uh is way less than a thirty
Speaker 1: day standard. Yeah. I think Scorpio is actually in line
Speaker 1: with the sun for about seven days out of the year,
Speaker 1: whereas Um, one of one of the other ones is
Speaker 1: around for like forty five days, I believe. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't think we even said what that means, though,
Speaker 1: maybe where we should? We should start from the beginning,
Speaker 1: shall we? We got the history down? Yeah? Do you
Speaker 1: want to take a break first? Uh? Yeah, why not?
Speaker 1: I'll go check my horscope and see if it says
Speaker 1: we should continue. Okay, Well, lucky for us, the horroscope
Speaker 1: said finished show, It said ask again later, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: said finished show the magic take it easy, on me. Yeah, hey,
Speaker 1: layoff jerks. I had even resolved to not poo poo astrology.
Speaker 1: I think the first thing I did was launched into it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm are astrology, so we should get to the basics
Speaker 1: of all this, and um, we will this. There's two
Speaker 1: things that we have to point out. One, we would
Speaker 1: have to spend years researching astrology to really get everything right. Yes. Too,
Speaker 1: even if we spent years researching astrology, we would still
Speaker 1: get stuff wrong depending on who you are, because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of contradictory things like, for example, I saw
Speaker 1: that the moon is a fire sign. Also saw that
Speaker 1: the moon is associated with water. How is that? Well,
Speaker 1: I think there's just been so many permutations over the
Speaker 1: years that it's you know, been kind of mixed together. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we are going to get things that will contradict
Speaker 1: your understanding of astrology, I'm quite sure. But for the
Speaker 1: most part, I feel like if we're sticking to the
Speaker 1: basics of it, we can get it fairly right. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the most basic thing is sun sign astrology,
Speaker 1: which is really just seeing where each planet was when
Speaker 1: you were born the day you were born. That's the
Speaker 1: most simplistic way to look at it, right, and when
Speaker 1: you ask somebody what's your sign? What's your sign? See
Speaker 1: piss okay, I'm cancer. All that's saying is that on
Speaker 1: the date of our births, the Pisces constellation allegedly was
Speaker 1: behind the sun as it rose, right, and when I
Speaker 1: was born, the Cancer constellation was behind the sun when
Speaker 1: it rose, and the I like to think the sunshine
Speaker 1: a little brighter when we were born, but probably I
Speaker 1: can't prove that, no, but you can just make a
Speaker 1: pretty good assumption. So um. The way that you do
Speaker 1: this is you basically take the Sun and the Earth
Speaker 1: in its orbit around the Sun, which equals a year,
Speaker 1: and you draw a line, an arrow even from the
Speaker 1: Earth and may put it flat, lay it flat. I
Speaker 1: forgot to say that, uh, And you make it. You
Speaker 1: draw an arrow from the Earth through the Sun and
Speaker 1: then out the other side of the Sun. And where
Speaker 1: of the arrows pointing, which is actually what the opposite
Speaker 1: side of the Sun, opposite to Earth, whatever constellation that is,
Speaker 1: that's your son. Right. Pretty simple stuff, right, So you
Speaker 1: can think of the if if you've thought of a
Speaker 1: circle around each if you looked at it as a circle,
Speaker 1: each sign would be its own little zone zone exactly.
Speaker 1: A pizza slice, a pie slice, whatever. If you have
Speaker 1: a sweet tooth or a salty tooth, you're gonna go
Speaker 1: with either one of those. What about cake? I guess
Speaker 1: a cake too. Are you cake or pie both? Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: What's your favorite cake? I like a good coconut cream
Speaker 1: cake or coconut frosting cake. I like, um, it's your
Speaker 1: favorite pie? Probably you can cream pie. No, actually that
Speaker 1: sounds gross. I would say a key like a good
Speaker 1: key lime pie. But does cheesecake constitute pie? I think
Speaker 1: you've just opened up a hornet's nest. Well, I love cheesecake. Basically,
Speaker 1: I don't really discriminate. I've learned. I recently started trying
Speaker 1: cherry pie, and I was like, where have you been
Speaker 1: my whole life? Why did I ever discriminate against? You know,
Speaker 1: it's just been sitting there in the pie safe, rotting
Speaker 1: because no one eats cherry pie anymore. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: I came along and ate all the rotten cherry pie
Speaker 1: and loved it all right. What about you cake pie? Oh?
Speaker 1: I love the good key lime pies like you were saying,
Speaker 1: But um, I don't eat a lot of either. You know,
Speaker 1: and just keep like cake and pie around the house.
Speaker 1: It's probably a good And I don't really eat dessert
Speaker 1: in the restaurants either, um, so just neither. Probably more cake,
Speaker 1: just because cakes are the occasion dessert, like people bringing
Speaker 1: cake for birthdays or whatever. Any any like Publix cake
Speaker 1: is awesome. There's standard cake with cream icing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I never had it. Oh, chuck, I'll bring your slice
Speaker 1: like a good peacan pie. Eat the pecan now. But
Speaker 1: I used to not like the nuts. I would just
Speaker 1: slice that off because I like the jelly. You'd get
Speaker 1: rid of the candy pecans. Yeah, but I don't now
Speaker 1: because now I'm growing up. Okay, just eat the jelly man,
Speaker 1: pecan pie, pumpkin pie. Sure, all right, I'm going all
Speaker 1: in on pie now that I think about it. Okay, pie,
Speaker 1: all right, Okay, wait till you try the public's cake. Though.
Speaker 1: Where are we? Oh? Sorry? We were talking about how slices, right,
Speaker 1: and each of one of those slices one of the
Speaker 1: twelve constellations of the zodiac. Right, Okay, So wherever wherever
Speaker 1: the Earth, whatever constellation is opposite the Earth on the
Speaker 1: other side of the Sun, that's your sun sign. And
Speaker 1: when you were born. That constellation has a bunch of
Speaker 1: different personality traits and they are basically imbued onto you.
Speaker 1: You were born under that sign, which means you're going
Speaker 1: to have those personality traits. That's the point of what's
Speaker 1: called the sun sign. That's right um in Western astrology.
Speaker 1: There you can subdivide it into three groups. Mundane astrology,
Speaker 1: and this is basically what what is your aim uh
Speaker 1: with these Mundane astrology is examines world events and makes
Speaker 1: predictions about big things like the economy and war. Interrogatory
Speaker 1: astrology it seeks to make predictions very specific ones or
Speaker 1: analyzes for events or your life maybe like for you
Speaker 1: the individual. Yeah. More like you say, it's like when
Speaker 1: you when somebody says they'll consult the stars to see
Speaker 1: what the best course of action is. That's what they're
Speaker 1: talking about, which seems like it overlaps with uh the
Speaker 1: last one. I think all three of them could definitely, Like,
Speaker 1: if you're doing like a serious chart to figure out
Speaker 1: something a deep dive you you would probably do all three.
Speaker 1: So what would that be? Natal astrology uh and birth astrology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's when you read your daily horoscope. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that's based on the idea that every thing that happens
Speaker 1: to someone is expressed by the very beginning, like that
Speaker 1: moment you were born, right, But ironically, the moment you're born,
Speaker 1: not the moment you were conceived. So really that's when
Speaker 1: the astrology starts, not the moment you were conceived, but
Speaker 1: the moment you were born. Right. But the idea, this
Speaker 1: law of beginning says that the moment you're born, the
Speaker 1: stars basically make everything in your life predestined and therefore
Speaker 1: predictable if the person knows how to read the stars correctly.
Speaker 1: That's the basis of astrology. Yeah, and then what you
Speaker 1: would come up with these predictions this chart that is
Speaker 1: your horoscope. That's right, and then uh, there are different
Speaker 1: um the signs that can be subgrouped into four elements
Speaker 1: you've heard of, Like I'm a water sign, your water sign.
Speaker 1: Sure we're both water signs. How about that? Yeah, so
Speaker 1: fire sign that would be Aries Leo, Sagittarius h enthusiasm, action, leadership,
Speaker 1: open to change water signs. Besides cancer and Pisces, you've
Speaker 1: get Scorpio um emotion, sensitivity and compassion or signs Taurus Virgo, Capricorn, practicality,
Speaker 1: and to focus on material goals. And then air signs
Speaker 1: jim and I libra inaquarius into signifies intellect, and those
Speaker 1: are the big groupings, the elemental groupings. Right, So here
Speaker 1: we've kind of come up with another layer, right, like
Speaker 1: since each each sign on its own has its own
Speaker 1: qualities like for example, um, the cancer is very domestic, imaginative,
Speaker 1: thorough shy, interested in the past, and tradition. That's me
Speaker 1: all over? Is it really all those things? Yeah, basically, um.
Speaker 1: But the then you lay over the water sign, right,
Speaker 1: that it's a water sign, So that adds to the
Speaker 1: emotion or the sensitivity or the compassion of it. That
Speaker 1: the where it really starts to get interesting is the
Speaker 1: idea that there's a relationship between mean, the element in
Speaker 1: the sign and those are with the cardinal fixed or mutable. Um, right,
Speaker 1: whether or not you're resistant to change, you're able to change,
Speaker 1: or what's cardinal just general movement. Cardinal is that it moves, right.
Speaker 1: So so these three things, it's like a whole other layer.
Speaker 1: And and basically, um, so they have to do with
Speaker 1: the solstices and the equinoxes. We should say there's a
Speaker 1: couple of kinds of Western astrology. One is sidereal, which
Speaker 1: follows the movement of the stars, so your birth sign
Speaker 1: is sidereal astrology. There's another one called tropical that really
Speaker 1: just has nothing to do with the stars. It's the
Speaker 1: idea that around the in the cosmos, the zodiac is
Speaker 1: fixed and it really has nothing to do with the stars.
Speaker 1: It has to do with the sun's relative position to
Speaker 1: the horizon, so it has to do with things like
Speaker 1: solstices and equinoxes. So when you go into the tropic
Speaker 1: goal um type of astrology, that's when the cardinal fixed
Speaker 1: a mutable comes up, so a cardinal sign. Right, each
Speaker 1: element has a cardinal sign, so there's four cardinal signs,
Speaker 1: and for example, cancer is the cardinal water sign. Right.
Speaker 1: Each element also has four fixed signs, so Leo is
Speaker 1: the fixed fire sign. That has to do with like persistence, perseverance,
Speaker 1: resistance to change. And then lastly, mutable means you're flexible, adaptable, suggestible,
Speaker 1: and Gemini is a mutable air sign. There's four different
Speaker 1: mutable airsigns, right, So you put them all together, and
Speaker 1: what you have is in our interaction between the elements
Speaker 1: and the signs themselves, so that you have sometimes contradictory stuff.
Speaker 1: You have things that enhance other things, but it's yet
Speaker 1: another layer. So now you have three layers deep of
Speaker 1: interpretations of just the signs, and it's up to an
Speaker 1: astrologer to um ex extract whatever however they want to
Speaker 1: read it. Basically, like Ed makes a point, you can
Speaker 1: ask a hundred different astrologers to look at your your
Speaker 1: chart and they might give you a hundred different readings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's ultimately the astrologers interpretation of the information that's
Speaker 1: presented by these the signs and whether they're cardinal or
Speaker 1: fixture mutable, or what element they are. Right, Well, they
Speaker 1: can also be masculine or feminine, which Ed points out
Speaker 1: is not really that can't think of in terms of gender.
Speaker 1: It's more like the concept of yin and yang, which
Speaker 1: makes a little more sense. But when I look at
Speaker 1: mine Pisces February twenty to March um mutable water feminine. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's where I am. Emotional, sure, self sacrificing, sometimes, adaptable,
Speaker 1: sometimes empathetic, almost always religious, not anymore versatile, Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: talkative sometimes you get paid for it. Yeah, when sometimes
Speaker 1: I'm really quiet though, don't want to talk okay, you know,
Speaker 1: but that goes against all astrology often takes on the
Speaker 1: behaviors of others. I don't know about that. Creative, I hope. Impractical, No,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty practical. So like, but more like half and
Speaker 1: half maybe would you say half? I feel like you did,
Speaker 1: or maybe more? Maybe that sounds about right all right,
Speaker 1: but even still, I mean, that doesn't prove anything, no,
Speaker 1: of course not. But it did just get you to
Speaker 1: think about yourself exactly. That's the whole point, right from
Speaker 1: what I understand. That's how it tells you. So you've
Speaker 1: got all these different layers to just your just the
Speaker 1: sign that you were born under, right, yes, but there's
Speaker 1: even there's even deeper layers to the whole thing. Right,
Speaker 1: that has to do with the movement of the constellations
Speaker 1: or the movement of the sun. Um. And it also
Speaker 1: has to do with more than just the sign you
Speaker 1: were born under. Like when you sit down and you
Speaker 1: do and astro a lot gical chart, you um, you're
Speaker 1: you're basically looking at the position of everything that's take
Speaker 1: into into account in the cosmos, rather than just where
Speaker 1: the constellation, what constellation was behind the someone you were born. Well,
Speaker 1: we're going to dive even deeper into this stuff after
Speaker 1: this message break. So Chuck, we're talking about how we've
Speaker 1: got like the fixed layers, right, and then depending on
Speaker 1: when you were born, where you're born, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff to take into account. And with the wind
Speaker 1: meaning like literally the minute yes and second yeah, because um,
Speaker 1: one of the zodiacs, uh, well, the houses when you
Speaker 1: add this other layer, the houses of the zodiac, which
Speaker 1: are the same thing as the zodiac signs, but they're
Speaker 1: different in this case, they represent the twenty four hour
Speaker 1: movement of the Earth on its axis. Um. So now
Speaker 1: you have the added layer of time, yeah, to the
Speaker 1: to the moment that you were born, um, to to
Speaker 1: create a genuine like astrology chart. So not only you're
Speaker 1: taking into account time and your sun sign, but you
Speaker 1: also want to look around if you're a good astrologer,
Speaker 1: and say, okay, where was the moon, what house was
Speaker 1: the was venus in? And you start to you start
Speaker 1: to basically go through and find the position of every planet,
Speaker 1: including the Sun in the moon. Um, and the moon
Speaker 1: are considered planets right as far as astrology goes. Right,
Speaker 1: And then when you put all this stuff together, there's
Speaker 1: a huge extremely complex interplay between all these different um
Speaker 1: components that are all supposed to point to the person
Speaker 1: that you were born as. Right, That's this is where
Speaker 1: I think I should say my beef now, I think
Speaker 1: it's a good time for that. My beef is that
Speaker 1: I couldn't find anywhere. And this is me looking for
Speaker 1: science where there is none. Is why, like the position
Speaker 1: of the stars and they all affect who you are
Speaker 1: and uh and and what you're gonna be Like all right,
Speaker 1: well explain that to me. How does it do that? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what forces, what scientific forces are behind this zero
Speaker 1: that caused this? Like, I get what you're saying. People,
Speaker 1: The stars are aligned and these things are all in
Speaker 1: a certain place and you're gonna be a certain way.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, how does it do that? It doesn't.
Speaker 1: That's where that's my beef. So I mean that's a
Speaker 1: legitimate beef. Um, there's no how, No, there's not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's none. I guess I'm not hung up on that fact.
Speaker 1: I think I just kind of accept it. And it's
Speaker 1: almost like coming upon uh and the belief system of
Speaker 1: another culture. Yeah, it's like I don't subscribe to it,
Speaker 1: but I'm interested in like what what they believe and
Speaker 1: how it applies to their life. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that I believe in it. I'm just I'm just kind
Speaker 1: of interested in in an academic sense. Yeah, yeah, well
Speaker 1: you're we're curious people, so I get that, right, Just
Speaker 1: so get hung up on the fact that it doesn't
Speaker 1: actually work, and you'll you'll be interested in I promise now.
Speaker 1: I do think it's interesting. And I used to read
Speaker 1: my horoscope here and there just for fun, just the
Speaker 1: same way I look at a fortune cookie. Um, it's
Speaker 1: just a parlor trick. That to me though it's not.
Speaker 1: But I think an astrologer even if they even if
Speaker 1: they said, fine, you don't believe in it, that's fine,
Speaker 1: But this is more than a parlor trick, Like they're
Speaker 1: really sitting down and applying this. It takes a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of time calculation, Um, a certain measure of of science.
Speaker 1: You have to understand astronomy at least, because you have
Speaker 1: to go figure out when someone was born where, what
Speaker 1: was where right? And so when you're sitting down and
Speaker 1: doing your chart, you were born Pisces right, So the
Speaker 1: Pisces constellation was behind the sun, but where was Saturn.
Speaker 1: And why would Saturn matter? Well, Saturn is a melancholy planet.
Speaker 1: So if Saturn is in a house associated with happiness, um,
Speaker 1: you might have a thread of bitter sweetness that runs
Speaker 1: through your whole life. That might be one interpretation of it.
Speaker 1: Or you might be happy sometimes and sad sometimes maybe
Speaker 1: just every person ever, sure, I mean yeah, definitely. And
Speaker 1: again I'm not explaining how this works. I'm saying like,
Speaker 1: this is what an astrologer would would sit down and think,
Speaker 1: or um, Mars is warlike? Well, if Mars was in um,
Speaker 1: I don't know, a house associated with aggressiveness, you might
Speaker 1: get in to fight your whole life, according to this
Speaker 1: astrology chart. So that's just each planet. Right, Let's say
Speaker 1: that you have Mars in a an aggressive house and
Speaker 1: you have Saturn in a happy house. How did those
Speaker 1: interact with each other? How does that getting in fights
Speaker 1: all the time? Uh? Interact with the bitter sweetness that
Speaker 1: runs through your life. And that's open to interpretation as well.
Speaker 1: And that's where the astrology I think I was saying
Speaker 1: astrologist earlier. Is that even a word? I think? So? Okay,
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem it seems like I've heard that before
Speaker 1: well at anyway, that's where they come into play, yes,
Speaker 1: with their varying interpretations, but not just the interpretations. They're
Speaker 1: actually going to sit down and figure out what was where,
Speaker 1: what that means according to the astrological tradition, and then
Speaker 1: the third step is for them to um interpret it
Speaker 1: for you, you know what I mean. So, I mean
Speaker 1: there is a tremendous amount of work to it from
Speaker 1: what I can tell, for a genuine astrological chart. Your
Speaker 1: friend's mom hooked you up when you were yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean she didn't dash it off in five minutes. Tell
Speaker 1: you that that was math involved in angles and stuff.
Speaker 1: So the main thing you're getting if you're looking at
Speaker 1: like a newspaper or if you have if you're sign
Speaker 1: up for some sort of internet daily horoscope, is it's
Speaker 1: usually some sort of personality profile, advice on your life. Uh,
Speaker 1: maybe some sort of um map. Two for finances you
Speaker 1: might want to think about, you know, investing soon. That's
Speaker 1: where people probably get in trouble um. But it's pretty
Speaker 1: much personal advice stuff, not so much long term future
Speaker 1: type of thing, not like predicting your future necessarily. Well,
Speaker 1: they do to the extent of like you'll have a
Speaker 1: so so day to day. Yeah, yeah, today will be
Speaker 1: rather unremarkable, Yeah, or like a lot of times it
Speaker 1: can be. I think it's it's like, you know, today
Speaker 1: might be a good day to reach out to an
Speaker 1: old friend, and if you follow that advice, then that's
Speaker 1: great because your old friend probably would want to hear
Speaker 1: from you. And then you have lunch with that friend
Speaker 1: and it goes great, and you might say, we'll see there.
Speaker 1: My my horoscope said to reach out to an old
Speaker 1: friend and it went awesome, or if it went really horribly,
Speaker 1: you'd be like, why are you punishing these stars? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Or what if you get killed on the way to
Speaker 1: the lunch? You don't hear those stories. No, But that's
Speaker 1: the great thing about astrology. It removes personal responsibility from
Speaker 1: your decision. That's funny, And I should say also, I
Speaker 1: wanna I want to like there are even more layers
Speaker 1: to the whole thing than what I what I said,
Speaker 1: I thought, I hope we kind of got the point
Speaker 1: across that there's layer upon layer upon layer and they
Speaker 1: all interact with one another. But I mean, like in
Speaker 1: a good astrologer will take into account like whether planet
Speaker 1: was in retrograde and what that means when you were
Speaker 1: born you know, um or if it's in retrograde right now. Um,
Speaker 1: there's just so much to it. I think that's what
Speaker 1: fascinates me. Well, it makes a good point. Uh, if
Speaker 1: this is a true science, then it should have it
Speaker 1: should pass the muster of the of repeatable testing, which
Speaker 1: of course it doesn't know. Um no, it really really doesn't.
Speaker 1: But some other people might say, you know what this is,
Speaker 1: it's beyond science. This is you shouldn't try and quantify
Speaker 1: in terms of science. This is something that you can't
Speaker 1: you can't even understand it. Your puny science cannot explain this,
Speaker 1: this outside that realm to something that we don't know
Speaker 1: and understand. And hey, I'm a science guy, but I'm
Speaker 1: not foolish enough to think there isn't anything out there
Speaker 1: that I maybe I don't know about or we can't
Speaker 1: prove it's very healthy. You know, my hat is off
Speaker 1: to you, your fort Ian and you don't even know it. Seriously,
Speaker 1: that's like to me, that's the the pinnacle of what
Speaker 1: a thinking person can aspire to. Well, I think that's
Speaker 1: when you stop looking, when you think that we you know,
Speaker 1: we've got it all figured out, you know, especially when
Speaker 1: you aggressively attack other people who say otherwise. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's if this conversation is floating your vocalists in the
Speaker 1: Enlightenment episode, that was good. That was a good one.
Speaker 1: I had a lot to do with that. They have
Speaker 1: done studies though, on the viability of astrology as far
Speaker 1: as you know, are are you could do divorce rates um?
Speaker 1: Are they compatible or do they comply with um or
Speaker 1: correlate with the compatibility of two people? Astrologically speaking, they don't. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, they're supposedly interaction amongst the signs where like
Speaker 1: you know, virgos don't get along with um, Capricorn or
Speaker 1: something like that. Yeah, and that doesn't hold up through
Speaker 1: scientific study, And if you cherry pick examples in your life,
Speaker 1: of course you might think it does. Well. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: why a lot of people are like, astrology is right.
Speaker 1: It's a selection bias, is what you're encountering. You're ignoring
Speaker 1: the stuff that disproves it or that suggests that it's
Speaker 1: not true, and instead just focusing on the amazing facts
Speaker 1: where it lines up right right. That's a selection bias, correct,
Speaker 1: I think? So I need to know more about all
Speaker 1: the different biases. It's interesting we should say another thing
Speaker 1: that kind of suggests that astrology is not accurate. The
Speaker 1: zodiac signs are no longer where they're supposed to be
Speaker 1: if you're going by your birth date. For example, I
Speaker 1: was born to life fifteen, so I would be a
Speaker 1: cancer if you actually follow the constellations. I'm I'm a Gemini.
Speaker 1: Never knew that. So Geminis are um concerned with information,
Speaker 1: highly literate, curious, adaptable, absent minded, love to travel. I
Speaker 1: am a Gemini. So the reason why is because when
Speaker 1: astrology was first created them the earth, the constellations were
Speaker 1: lined up with where they were originally. As the Earth rotate,
Speaker 1: it's on his access at wobbles over the last couple
Speaker 1: of thousand years. It's wobbled so that those constellations are
Speaker 1: no longer where they were when they set them three
Speaker 1: thousand years ago. So today we have totally different um,
Speaker 1: totally different signs. What would mind be? Can can figured
Speaker 1: that out? So you were born in the IDEs of March,
Speaker 1: you're still a Pisces man, I'm sorry, no, I love it.
Speaker 1: I am uh now I am now a Gemini because
Speaker 1: it got moved so Let's let's go through because I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people don't know this, and NASA
Speaker 1: blogged about it a couple of years ago and really
Speaker 1: caused a stir um. Is Jerry still a cat ox? Jerry?
Speaker 1: Jerry's Birthday's April something? Right, Jerry's birthday is what's your birthday?
Speaker 1: Your birthday's Valentine's Day. I didn't know that. Jerry just
Speaker 1: said her birthday is February fourteenth, because we have to
Speaker 1: edit out any Jerry talk, right, Jerry, what are supposed
Speaker 1: to be normally? You are a Capricorn. You are January
Speaker 1: twenty to February six As far as NASA is concerned,
Speaker 1: you're a Capricorn. So it starts and we should say
Speaker 1: I don't think we said this, but the zodiac officially
Speaker 1: in the West starts with aries and moves on um.
Speaker 1: So starting with Capricorn because NASA is like, now we're
Speaker 1: gonna start with the beginning of the year, Capricorn January
Speaker 1: twenty to February six. Okay, Aquarius is now February sixteenth
Speaker 1: to March eleventh. And you'll notice these aren't necessarily thirty
Speaker 1: day period. Yeah, you were, uh Pisces March eleventh to
Speaker 1: April eighteenth. Aries April eighteenth to May tourists May thirteenth
Speaker 1: of June twenty one. It's a long one, uh. Jemini
Speaker 1: June to July twenty that's me now, cancer July twenty August.
Speaker 1: I used to be a cancer Leo August tenth to
Speaker 1: September six. Virgo September Sixteber Libra October November, Scorpio November nine.
Speaker 1: That's six days. You've got six days to be a scorpio.
Speaker 1: It's kind of neat uh oh fucus, Yeah, the long
Speaker 1: Forgotten November nine, December. Crazy. There's people out there don't
Speaker 1: even know that they're that signed yeah, or how to
Speaker 1: pronounce it right? No one does. No one alive knows
Speaker 1: how to pronounce that. Uh. And then Sagittarius December sevente
Speaker 1: to January. Wow, I don't even know anything anymore. No,
Speaker 1: no one does, Chuck. I think this is fascinating stuff
Speaker 1: that I've been thinking a lot lately about what does
Speaker 1: shape your personality and what you become in life as
Speaker 1: far as nature and nurture, and some people might throw
Speaker 1: this in there. I think we should totally do a
Speaker 1: podcast on birth order. Oh Yeah, that's a good one,
Speaker 1: super fascinating to me. Or whether, um, whether hearing your
Speaker 1: name or the vibrations caused by saying your own name
Speaker 1: throughout your life has an effect on your personality. What
Speaker 1: have you heard that one? Yeah? Supposedly the vibrations are
Speaker 1: the frequency made from hearing and saying your own name
Speaker 1: throughout your life makes your makes your personality a certain one. Weird. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's probably not true, but it's interesting. Well,
Speaker 1: we tease Ronald Reagan earlier. Well, we didn't tease Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 1: We did, but we can't talk about astrology without talking
Speaker 1: a little bit about the Reagan administration because uh in
Speaker 1: nine uh Ron and Nancy were uh out. It's sort
Speaker 1: of exposed. Yeah, as is having an astrologer on the
Speaker 1: payroll to the tune of about how much three grand
Speaker 1: grand per what reading a month? Three grand a month?
Speaker 1: It's not bad. No, this lady was working hard, Joan
Speaker 1: quickly down under certain nickname medicine woman, and it was
Speaker 1: revealed that she uh wrote up star charts uh and
Speaker 1: basically detailed even down to the minute. Supposedly, depending on
Speaker 1: who you listen to, what Reagan's schedule should look like right,
Speaker 1: So this lady was definitely doing mundane interrogatory and natal
Speaker 1: astrology combined to create a chart. Yes, for sure. And
Speaker 1: Chief of staff Don Reagan wrote in his memoir Um,
Speaker 1: I mean he, I mean, this is is not a
Speaker 1: matter of debate or anything. No, this is for for real.
Speaker 1: But Don Regan wrote in his memoirs, and he talked about, um,
Speaker 1: you know, capturing the public's attention like that was a
Speaker 1: big deal because it looked like what was going on
Speaker 1: was going on, which was that his schedule was kind
Speaker 1: of being determined by an astrologistloger, like, you can't talk
Speaker 1: to Gorby today, this is a bad day to propose
Speaker 1: the Salt treaty. Wait until you know novem. That's when
Speaker 1: you Mr. Gorby. And then Don Reagan would be told
Speaker 1: by Nancy, uh, he he should be talking to Gorbion
Speaker 1: because she would meet with Nancy only met ron once supposedly,
Speaker 1: um and and Nancy downplayed it a lot, of course,
Speaker 1: they all tried to distance well. They said it was
Speaker 1: more of a hobby and and she definitely had no
Speaker 1: impact on decisions. It was really just about scheduling, that's
Speaker 1: what they said. Scheduling decisions. But she wrote a book actually, uh,
Speaker 1: miss Quigley in it was called this is the most
Speaker 1: on the nose book title of all time. It was
Speaker 1: called what does Jones say? Colin my seven years as
Speaker 1: White House astrologer to Nancy and Ronald Reagan, by me,
Speaker 1: do you get it? Um? And she said a quote.
Speaker 1: I was responsible for timing all press conferences, most speeches.
Speaker 1: The State of the Union addresses the takeoffs and landings
Speaker 1: of Air Force one. I picked the time of Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan's debate with Jimmy Carter and the two debates with Mondale,
Speaker 1: all extended trips abroad as well as shorter trips and
Speaker 1: one day excursions. End quote. Yeah, um, so yes, the
Speaker 1: leader of the free world, arguably the most powerful American
Speaker 1: president in recent memory, had his schedule determined by an astrologer.
Speaker 1: So weird. I got a couple more things, all right,
Speaker 1: what you got? So? Um? Apparently Americans around the time
Speaker 1: of Reagan had hit like basically a low in believing
Speaker 1: in astrology. They were They did a poll after that
Speaker 1: that news came out, and they found that American belief
Speaker 1: overall in astrology um was a twelve, which is down
Speaker 1: from this is an eight eight, which is down from
Speaker 1: ten years before, which makes total sense, like coming off
Speaker 1: of the the hippie age and the goofy seventies into
Speaker 1: the very like kind of cynical late eighties. Uh, it
Speaker 1: aligns perfectly right the stars. So somebody forgot to send
Speaker 1: Nancy and Ron that memo. So in two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: another poll found that it had gone back up to
Speaker 1: no idea why and then another poll I saw that
Speaker 1: asked something different rather than do you believe in astrology? Asked, um,
Speaker 1: would you say that astrology is quote not at all scientific?
Speaker 1: In two thousand and four, sixty six percent of Americans
Speaker 1: said that in two not scientific, so basically they don't
Speaker 1: believe in astrology six and then in two twelve um
Speaker 1: percent said that, So apparently belief in astrology is still
Speaker 1: on the increase. Interesting, Even more interesting, in China of
Speaker 1: the public says they don't believe in astrology compared to
Speaker 1: about fort here. And then lastly, I have one more
Speaker 1: story ready, and there's actually a blog post you can
Speaker 1: go recalled the Genius Mural at St. John's. Okay you yeah,
Speaker 1: it's from years back, but I just came across the
Speaker 1: story is amazing. There's this place called St. John's Anglican
Speaker 1: Church's in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia and Um. It was built
Speaker 1: in seventeen fifty four and it was built with a
Speaker 1: mural on the ceiling of the night sky with gilded stars.
Speaker 1: And they were remodeling the church and they wanted to
Speaker 1: redo the mural right recreated exactly as it had been.
Speaker 1: But they realized they didn't have any dead on photographs
Speaker 1: of it, so they had to kind of like figure
Speaker 1: out what to do. So they hired an astronomer and
Speaker 1: he started poking around into it and he realized that
Speaker 1: the mural, which had been constructed in seventeen fifty four,
Speaker 1: was the exact scene of the night sky over Lunenburg
Speaker 1: on December one, which is in the Christian tradition, is
Speaker 1: the night Christ was born. Somebody in seventeen fifty four
Speaker 1: accurately calculated what this guy had looked like fifty four
Speaker 1: years before on December and turned it into a mural.
Speaker 1: Isn't that amazing? Amazing? I love that story. Pretty cool.
Speaker 1: So that's astrology and what's the name of that story,
Speaker 1: The genius Genius mural at St. John's. Nice thanks man,
Speaker 1: Are you got anything else? Nope. I can talk about
Speaker 1: this all day. Are you sure? I think we did
Speaker 1: right by it. If you want to know more about astrology,
Speaker 1: go read Joan Quigley's book. And since I said Joan quickly,
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this Star
Speaker 1: Wars action figure and hey, guys, love the show like
Speaker 1: the I can say, like all the other fans. Is
Speaker 1: definitely my favorite thing to listen to. My transplant to
Speaker 1: Texas from Tennessee, and I always get excited when I
Speaker 1: can make that long drive back home and binge on
Speaker 1: your interesting material. Just listen to action figures and was
Speaker 1: thrilled to hear you talk about Star Wars action figures.
Speaker 1: I'm one of those Star Wars guys you mentioned that
Speaker 1: read away too much of the fan fiction and new
Speaker 1: way too many characters, uh, too many of the character names.
Speaker 1: I wanted to share a fact I thought was interesting
Speaker 1: about the Kinner toys and two of the Bounty Hunter
Speaker 1: characters seen in an Empire strikes Back. Kinner went originally
Speaker 1: packaging the characters mislabeled for loam. I'm probably not even
Speaker 1: pronouncing that right. Uh. For the number four dash l
Speaker 1: O M originally the droid and zook us Zu c
Speaker 1: k Uss originally the bug looking guy and switched their names.
Speaker 1: How that somebody got fired for that? Do you believe it?
Speaker 1: The name is stuck in until and you can see
Speaker 1: on newer packaging of the Hasbro toys that their names
Speaker 1: have been switched back. I always thought it was interesting
Speaker 1: and interesting mishap. Thanks for all you guys do, and
Speaker 1: I've learned so much and it's love referencing your show
Speaker 1: every chance I get. Sincerely, Rison Ford, Adam West No ps,
Speaker 1: sadly I'm not him. Wow? How great would that be? Man?
Speaker 1: That that nice email, Adam? That was full of drama,
Speaker 1: suspense facts and I could do my con NERD voice
Speaker 1: nice man, which I completely stole from him. Sure, I
Speaker 1: just want to make that clear, Yeah, claiming it as
Speaker 1: your own right to homage to Conan. Uh well, Adam,
Speaker 1: thank you, that was a great one. If you want
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us, like Adam did, you
Speaker 1: can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you
Speaker 1: should know uh and you can also hang up with
Speaker 1: us at s y SK podcast, send us an email
Speaker 1: to uh stuff podcast, how stuff works dot com and
Speaker 1: has always joined us at home on the web, Stuff
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