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Tuesday, August 1, 2006 | Beyond Belief

Mirrored at: http://www.planetwaves.net/ericfrancis/reports/

TODAY working on the September horoscopes at the Natural Café, I got into "the discussion" again. After answering the question, what do you do, I was asked the next question, "You don't really believe in astrology, do you?"

Oh, God. Not again.

Only in cafés does this one happen. In cafés, everyone is a skeptic. Or a genius. It must be the caffeine.

The person did not know it, but I was interviewing her for a freelance gig. She was a 25-year-old travel journalist from Italy who writes in English, and I am always scouting the world for writing talent. Her question was authentic enough, though not exactly what you would call incisive. I explained that I don't "believe in" astrology, I just work with it. It's as natural as the seasons changing. Once you start working with it, you can see and feel it happen. An astrological chart is data; an astrologer interprets the data, just like in every other field.

Then came the leap. "So you mean our lives are fated?" -- with the usual, I refuse to believe that, etc., etc. (Yes, our lives are fated: you will go home; you will turn on the TV; you are fated to see advertising and senseless violence; and it will rearrange your mind. No, I did not say that.)

I explained that just because I can predict that winter is coming doesn't mean I can predict whether you'll freeze or be warm, but I can indeed tell you that winter is coming. I can also point out that you have options.

This was too complicated for her. Free will is confusing. I tried a new approach, new metaphor. "Let's say you're about to cross that street. I can pretty much tell you there's traffic and you need to look both ways before you step off the curb. I can't tell you what you're going to do."

"But you can tell me a car is coming?" She was having a hard time with this.

"I can tell you it's a street with traffic. I can suggest you look."

The discussion did not get much further. To her credit, she did ask about what the earliest sources of astrological knowledge were and I said a lot of it goes back to Ptolemy, and they got a lot of their information from the Arabs, who also (the story goes) came up with math.

However, I did not ask for her email address and she did not get my usual courtesy of a comp subscription that I extend to anyone who's interested, who I happen to meet in real life. This is, usually, part of my ongoing project of mixing cyberspace with what hackers call meatspace; that is, weaving virtual reality with physical reality. But I was entirely disinterested in any form of contact with her, and the fact that she was a journalist I found most unimpressive. Being a journalist calls for being open minded, if only for 10 to 15 minutes at a time.

Oh, she was an Aquarius, and so was her boyfriend. She said people would always say to her, "You and your boyfriend are both Aquarius. Aquarius is such an independent sign. How can you be in a relationship?" (This was offered as proof that astrology is bullshit.) I gave her Jonathan Cainer's answer to this one: "There's no reason two Aquarians can't be in a relationship any more than there is that two people from Australia can't be in a relationship."

Praise the Lord, an email came in on her laptop, offering her a job, which some weeks ago she was turned down for, but a new one opened up. She disappeared back into cyberspace. I did not mention that Mercury was now direct. I just kept working on my horoscopes. But I was left, once again, with the feeling that belief is like a glass box we walk around in. The box is heavy, the air is stuffy in there, and reality is indeed predetermined.

For the world to get past its current juggernaut, we are going to need to work with our beliefs. Let's see, a lot of people believed that George Bush would be good for the country/world. God knows who next they will believe will be fantastic. A lot of people believe it's the end of the world and Jesus is coming back, so why bother. A lot of people believe there is an endless supply of oil. Plenty of people believe that nobody (such as themselves) has an impact on the world.

The problem with belief is that it's very difficult to reason with. It exists within its own reality framework and nothing else matters. The young Italian journalist, for example, was claiming that I believed something, when in reality, her belief is what she was looking at. She was claiming to take the rational approach ("not believing") without any data or facts to inform her position. This is arbitrary, not based on reasoning. If you pretend to believe in science or scholarship, presumably something must be tested or studied before it's judged.

But usually, all that data is ignored. Belief gets in the way -- and we really need to get beyond belief.

It may indeed be difficult to get people to believe there's an energy shortage until they actually show up at the gas pump and there's nothing left. A lot of people who had their houses washed away now believe in climate change. Many are now observing that you cannot make war on terror; all you get is more war, and more terror.

Most people don't set aside their beliefs and come to astrology until they really need it.