Psychology of Astrology

Millions of people visit astrologers. They seek the advice  of astrologers, and are fully satisfied with the service. Some people I know would consult astrologers on a daily basis. For them, Astrology is true and there is nothing in the world that would change their views.

So, how does it work?  and why do so many people believe in them?


Let us look at  how our attitude influences our belief system (be it astrology or any thing else).


I sum up my conclusion first and then explain it.

“Most of the astrological predictions come true, because we want to make it come true!”

The whole thing hinges on how we interpret the astrologer’s predictions and how we evaluate an incident in our own mind (after the fact).



Let me give you two scenarios: One involves a good prediction from the astrologer, the second involves a bad prediction; and two things happen ( same for both scenarios)  following the prediction.

See Figure on the right and detailed explanation here.

Our attitude influences our interpretation of events

Scene1 - A Bad Prediction:

Ramu goes to an astrologer . The astrologer looks at this horoscope, review his material etc and tell him that the Mars is currently in Aeries (or some thing of that sort) and hence some thing Bad would happen. Therefore Ramu should carry some thing blue.
Two things happen to Ramu:

Incident  1:
One month later, he receives a bonus of  $1000 from his employer
Ramu’s Response/Reaction:
"It is unfair , they gave me  only $1000,  my Colleague got $1500. It is not good time for me".

Incident 2 :

A few weeks  later Ramu drives his bike, and was hit by a truck.  He is pushed out of the road. He falls flat in the ditch with minor injuries, not admitted to hospital but his bike is damaged.
Ramu's reaction:

Ramu will tell his wife that that the astrologer was correct. Some thing terrible happened to him; lucky he carried a blue pen (which he does any way, even before the astrologer’s advice!). He says it is bad that he had to pay a lot of money to repair the bike.



Now rewind the tape, let us take a look at the same two incidents and see how Ramu will react if the astrologer had given him a "good" prediction.

Scene 2 - A good Prediction:

Ramu goes to an astrologer. The astrologer looks at this horoscope, review his material etc and tell him that the Mars is currently in Scorpio (or some thing of that sort) and it is a GOOD time for him, blue will be his lucky colour.
Two things happen in this young man’s life:

Incident 1:

One month later, he receives a bonus of $1,000 from his employer.
Ramu’s Response/Reaction

“Look at this, the astrologers was right; he said it is all good for me”



Incident 2:
 A few weeks later, Ramu drives his bike, and was hit by a truck. He is pushed out of the road. He falls flat in the ditch with some minor injuries, not admitted to hospital but his bike is damaged.


Ramu’s Response/Reaction

He comes home and tells his wife that he escaped an accident by miracle. “It was a pretty big lorry, I still couldn’t believe how I managed to get only minor injuries” .He looks at the pen he usually carries  and says “ it is good that I carried some thing blue just like the way the astrologer recommended, otherwise I would have been dead”.



Incidents 1  and 2  are same in both scenes, but Ramu’s reaction is different.

Depending on the Astrologer’s prediction,  Ramu changes his reaction. His personal reaction to the incident is heavily influenced by what the Astrologer predicted. So as you can see, the astrologer’s prediction is always right, because the way we evaluate an incident is dependent on our mindset and how we are pre-influenced by an astrologer.

The glass is “half empty” when the astrologer give you a grim prediction and “half full” when he gives you a good prediction.




It is how you see your life!.



Likely  you will  never come across any astrologer who can give a detailed and very specific prediction.

  Say, something like “On November 15 at 10.30 am, you will be hit by a black Ford Fiesta Car registration number TN5 6YZ and you will suffer injuries in your lower left jaw, elbow and knee”?.

If you find some one like that let me know!

When god flips the coin

Consider the following hypothetical case of someone (say Mr.X) riding a motor bike in a highway along with 50 other fellow bikers. Suddenly a Meteoroid falls on Mr . X and injure him severely.

Mr. X asks himself: “why me?”. “How come I got hit while the 49 others escaped unharmed”?

In circumstances like this, we resort to the supernatural. “It must be the work of God or some devil or Mars in the wrong box of your horoscope”.

It seems logical to think that there must be a reason why the Meteoroid fell on Mr.X. This is human tendency, to look for reasons and connect anything associated with any event (happy or sad). For example, suppose if Mr.X was wearing a black helmet on that day instead of his usual white helmet, then he is likely to think that the black helmet caused the meteoroid to fall on him.

What is the position of science on things like this? These are called Random Events.

But is there a reason why it fell on Mr.X? Is every random event the work of God (or some unknown supernatural power?).

Let us take the example of tossing coin. You can get “heads” or “Tails” if you toss a coin. It is impossible to predict (using science or otherwise) the outcome of a single coin flip. Now you can extend the Meteoroid logic to the coin flip and you can ask the same question “Why did I get Tails this time? There must be a reason why I got “Tails”? Then we can conclude that there must be someone who is deciding on the outcome. In this case, perhaps God is deciding on the outcome of the coin flip? (Every time anyone flip a coin?)

Suppose we continue to flip the coin and note down the result (heads or tail), after doing this say 100,000 times ( making god work longer!), we will discover that nearly 50% of the time we got heads (or tails). (50% probability). This tells me that there is a pattern for this random event (it still wouldn’t tell me how to predict the outcome of a single coin tosses).


Suppose you pray to god every time you flip the coin and hope for a particular outcome (head or tail), you will notice that God answers your prayer sometimes and not other times! Overall the probability getting heads would still be 50%. Roughly god will answer your prayer 50% of the time (that is if you keep flipping for a long time!- the number of trials should be large to get close to 50%).

There is no supernatural force deciding on the fate of the coin, it is just natural random pattern. Contrary to what you think, a lot of things that happen in our life are just “random”.



Swamy Kujrarananda's Life Curve

Our life is just random. You cannot predict what would happen tomorrow (good or bad). There isn’t any supernatural thing that is going to decide how your day would go. But there is a pattern. We all go through various emotions - happy, sad, sick and joy, love and hate, revenge and forgiveness, etc.

At some point in our life nothing will work, we are miserable ; unhappy; on some other days we are happy as heaven ( see my Life Curve). The pattern of life is same for all – whether you are the Queen of England or a beggar on the street, whether you are priest or an atheist, white or black. This, the natural pattern, is like tossing the coin – it is random, but there  is still a pattern. (Ever wonder why astrologers always tell you something good or bad will happen in six months’ time?)

Our life goes through a pattern of happiness and sorrow – with or without God, with or without angels, demons or fairies or astrologers and the like.

So when a Metroid strikes and injure you, just bear the pain and know that this is random.
Not because you sinned in your past life (karma) or forgot to pray, or that planet mars was angry.

Bad things  happens. It happens to me, to you, to the atheist, the priest and the preacher, and every one on this planet. You need to learn how to deal with them and have the patience and courage to go through them.

In fact what make us happy are all the sad things that happened in our life. Just look back in your life and recall the moments when you had to go through hardship and suffering- the low points in your life. Then take a deep breath and look at your life now. How do you feel now? Happy?
(OK if you are going through hell now, you need to wait a few more months or years and look back!).


Life is just Random… take it with your chin up..