From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Mit, my name is Noman.
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. And a quick question, fellow conspiracy realist, what's your sign?
You're flirting with me?
I'm always always negotiating. We're doing it. We're doing it tonight, folks look at us a pride of Leo's as Western astrology says doing believe it or not? An astrology episode now for a lot of us in the crowd tonight. When you hear the word astrology, it instantly conjures up images of Western astrology. So maybe we make some space. Do you guys want to talk about your own experiences with astrology? Do you have any meaningful ones.
Well being that we're all Leo's. Ben, didn't you pull a horoscope for the three of us?
Yes, we are recorded on February twenty eight, twenty twenty five, as the current calendar reckons and our horoscope for us now not counting Tennessee Pal Dylan aka the Rudebega King, Lord of the Rude Vegas. From a listener mail segment earlier. Dylan is a Virgo. If you are Leo, here's what astrology dot Com says about you. Do you want to do it?
Matt?
Don't feel discouraged if your efforts go unnoticed for now, dearest Leo. As the Pisces moon aspects Mars and Saturn, trust that movement from behind the scenes will get you where you want to be. Continuing your work from the.
Shadows, no comment.
A burst of energy could propel you into the spotlight when Luna aligns with Ranism. Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry going that afternoon, So be prepared to dazzle and or razzle with your eyed at that part, with your wisdom and practical work.
Ethic themes around commitment come into view when Mercury and the nodes of Fate activate tonight. Okay, use this energy to reflect upon or discuss your hopes and dreams before heading to bed.
Guys, what are the nodes of fate and how do they activate? And do they only activate at night or as this said, you know, all day, all night kind of thing.
It's kind of like a nipple situation metaphysically. It can activate it anytime. That sound good with the proper stimulat.
Okay, guys, this his home so hard, all of this stuff.
Oh my god, A shadowy figure, Matt.
I'm doing all that work from behind in the shadows.
A lot of thrust, trusting, trusting, trust that movements.
I don't take notes, so.
Do you take notes? Notes?
Right? So you could tell we're all excited to be back together. You may have read your own horoscope recently. This is publishing in March, in early March. It's February as we record this, the very last day of February, and we have been talking on and offline, hanging out or on air about the many beliefs of astrology. There are tons of belief systems oriented toward figuring out the passage of humanity through interpretations of the stars, finding meaning, context, destiny.
Some people dismiss this entirely. Fellow skeptics in the crowd, we totally get it. We're talking with our pal our complaint department, guy Jonathan Strickland, who is available whenever you have a problem with an episode Jonathan Strickland at iHeartMedia dot com. Please don't hesitate to contact him multiple times.
He loves it, he thrives on it.
Honestly, he's all about it. He is perhaps more skeptical than some others.
What was the question you put to him?
Then?
It was like, do you put how much credence do you put into this?
And I believe he responded with none whatsoever?
Yes, so right to him and other people. As we know, in your personal life as well, fellow listeners, you may be a person who encounters astrology through one system or another as the primary guiding force in your day to day life. Or you may, like Jonathan or Matt Ornoll or Dylan or myself, you may have a close friend who very much follows the guidance of that stars as they see it. But our question tonight is how much
credence do people put in these systems? How far does belief in and practice of astrology go in the modern day?
If you're Jonathan Strickland, none whatsoever credence. But you know results may vary, as you will find out today, and the government also has something to say about these things.
That's right tonight. We are exploring a phenomena that may surprise a lot of our fellow conspiracy realists. The times that modern governments looked to astrology for some serious decisions.
Take a quick word from our sponsor and jump right into it.
Here are the facts, all right, Let's put on our house stuff works hats and just talk about astrology a bit. What's going on here.
It's looking at the stars and the planets and saying, there is significance there in one way or another, especially the time that you were born, like time of day you were born, and the time of year you were born, specifically the month in the day. And it is observing things that happen in the sky and correlating them to what occurs on.
Earth, incorporating latitude and longitude as human civilization wins on. And then perhaps the primary defining factor of divination and astrology in particular is it's classic human. It's looking at the passage of the universe, the beautiful universe, and saying, does how can I make this about me?
So human?
Yeah?
Yeah, I think it comes from that deep thing that consciousness needs, and that is to be able to somehow see a little bit further than your eyes can.
And meaning in it all find some sort of connection to something larger than ourselves and outside.
Of ourselves, to recognize patterns and to leverage those patterns towards some sort of deeper understanding or situational advantage. Astrology is a subgenre of divination. There's so many types of divination. In the notes here, we have a couple that we wanted to shout out. Guys, have you heard of bibliomancy.
Some kind of some kind of sorcery involving glossary perhaps I don't know.
Tell me using a random book, turning to a passage. This one is about zoo animals and giant pandas that I'm holding up here and then turning to random passages for divination. There's one Noel will love augury a U g U r y, which is predicting the future by observing birds. And I will defend this one because I do think there's some solid.
Scards are tuned in pretty hardcore to all kinds of things that we cannot perceive.
Wait, wait, does somebody can we do a quick bibliomancy. Let's ask a question in there, bibliomants.
Sure, sure, does everybody have a book?
I no, Well, we just need one use the zoo one one yes?
Or do you want to use a North Korea one? I got? They got too many books? Deers choice?
Too many?
All right? Too many books? All right? So how about this, guys, I have a stack right next to me. I'll run my right pointer finger up and down the stack. You guys, say when starting now?
When?
All right?
Okay, so we are Oh, this is a pretty good one. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. All right, so what let's let's determine our intention and ask our question. You guys, choose question?
Yeah, Matt, please you you do this one.
The question.
The question is playing with playing with pages.
I want to ask something about starlink because there's interesting stuff going on with that, because it's connected, you know, to the stars as well in some way. M Will we all be using starlink as our primary internet at some point in the future.
Will we all be using starlink Internet at some point in the future? Okay, Noel, let's make it collaborative. I'm suscerusing the pages. Say when oh m hmm, okay, I'm running my finger up and down.
Don't look at it, just.
Say when.
What here we go?
And politics has no landscape. The Silesia scene crops out in prospects felt as deeply as any of these, with as much or as little reason. This is from Barnsley and District by Donald Davey, page ten fifty five.
Wait read that first sound. Please give it to us without politics.
That's fantastic.
And politics has no landscape. The Salian scene crops out in prospects felt as deeply as any of these, with as much or as little reason.
Now sounds like that's going to happen by necessity.
It does. I think you're right. So, but we can see here just with that one example, right, we did that on the fly for reel and it if the way that was read. There was a lot of words there, right, There was a lot of meaning that you could pull out of those words. But the first thing appears to apply in some abstract way to the question that was asked.
To the pattern we had primed ourselves to interpret.
Can I can I just say that on the very long flight that I just got back from, on the way to that destination. Starlink was the onboard internet being used, and I had never experienced it before, and it was blazing fast. I can make video calls from forty thousand feet and on the way back it.
Was something else.
It wasn't starlink for whatever reason, I don't have to do it has to do with the route or what. And it was terrible. But I was very impressed with Starling. I don't wan't to give Elon Musk a lot of props, but pretty impressed with that technology.
And there are other forms of divination too, right, there's interpreting patterns and tea leaves. That's passiography. I just learned the word for that.
That was a big one in the White House for a minute, and maybe we'll get into that. I know one first lady at least had her tea leaves red quite often.
Not a euphemism, And noel I don't want to. I don't want to sound dismissive of what you're saying with starlink, because we were on the same flights, the uh, the same thing. So yeah, I think it's very fair of you to give credit where it's due. Also, while we're doing that, Elon Musk did not create, of course, not like.
He didn't create them just about anything that his name.
But what about direct TV?
Is that even in play I'm just kidding.
It wasn't that a service that was like, oh my gosh, I can get my television from the sky.
Satellite stuff.
For sure, there was a moment for satellite TV. Maybe it still applies in some regions, but seems to which is why fluster around here, why everybody should re listen to that Counting Crows album about satellites.
What was it called something the satellites?
Yeah?
No, no, what's the word? What what are we doing to the satellite? What were the Counting Crows doing to the satellites?
Recovery?
Isn't it recovering the satellite? Maybe?
Maybe it's maybe that's it? So, uh, you're probably correct. Another this is interesting another form of divination, phrenologynology, A little.
Bit problem real problematic.
Is that the head heads, it's the head and folks used to use it to very significantly other you know, races that were not what was considered the Master Race.
To justify slat chats. Yeah, yeah, that was their big.
One, and like man versus woman type stuff as well, Right, I remember all that.
Or to also oppress uh oppress lungeons, because we've all got that weird bump in the back of our.
Head and other indigenous people for sure, I mean.
Pretty way way more other people. Yeah, that's that, that should be the focus here. We also know that divination. When you think of the concept, it sounds like something from a dusty scroll or a history book. But again, shout out to our complaint department and shout out to our skeptics in the crowd. Let's remember us conspiracy realist before we get to uh on too high of a of a horse or.
Hedgehog, not a hedgehog round groundhog.
The United States has an annual day dedicated to predicting the weather based on the actions of a specific roundhog.
Is this still called pusatani Phil?
Or is that just in the movie? That's that's the thing.
It's it's it's Phil, But it's filled the way that any airplane the US president is on is automatically Air.
Force one or shik Muhammad it's like something you you get into.
Right or Uga the Uga University of Georgia bulldog that they just keep naming it, and I think adding a number, but it's it's always.
Uga or like the pope hasn't been the same pope the whole time.
True, Oh jeez, yeah the news Yeah yeah, yeah, we'll see, we'll see how that ages.
And also we don't want people to die.
So as divination methods go, astrology is certain the most mainstream that has really caught on and become a huge part of pop culture. I mean you can go to like Spencer at the mall and uh, you know, right next to the uh the naughty toys and edible underwear, you know, and horror movie posters, you can find tapestries of astrological symbols and you know, certain kinds of maps that are used for this very purpose.
Well, for years and years and years and years, the main publications, like newspapers in this country had horoscopes. Like every time they put out something, there was a horoscope in.
There, great drum as you know, you couldn't see it.
When you know, you know, also, uh, Matt Nol, I think you guys, you guys are already aware. But uh, one one interesting gig I had for a while was writing horoscopes.
For yeah, take a newspaper.
Yeah, And I was hired because I wanted to write features about things that I thought more people should learn. The editor said no. They asked me if I believed in horoscopes. I said no, and they said all about hired. Yeah exactly.
Did you consult with any kind of literature when you would make your horoscopes?
Or absolutely?
Okay, okay, cool?
Yeah, absolutely.
I talked with some folks who are considered experts in Western astrology, and also pulled some contacts for non Western astrology. And then you know, you have to to mass point, you have to make it approachable, generally positive. We'll talk about this, But I love the I love the idea of I think it's important for us to acknowledge. The reason astrology remains the most popular form of divination in the in the modern West is because it is the
continuation of a trend. The technology you need to encounter or navigate or interrogate astrology is very simple. You need eyes to see, and you need to leverage the concept of a story.
It's accessible though, too, because wherever you are in the world, you got eyes on the skies. You know, it might look a little different depending on what kind of constellations are visible, and depending on your level of light pollution or lack thereof. But that is a very human commonality and it doesn't really require much improvisation in terms of like finding another thing like bones or tea leaves or what have you.
It's right there, right right.
You need very little equipment, You need the original technology of the humans, which is story, and then you just need to observe a thing that is constant to Prince and Popper alike, the constellations. It also shout out to pop culture. There's a very beautiful song about looking at the same star from Worlds Away.
Uh that five somewhere out there.
Light?
Yeah, what a what a bummer of a film.
All those Blue Company animations were really really sad but awesome. I really love the Secretive name personally, but grew up with that song and it gets stuck in my head.
Out of the clear blue Sky just every now and again.
But that whole family has problems. I've heard, yes, yes, Spoilersmily.
Arrested, development arrested.
Yeah yeah, but you can watch the you can watch the chaos and kay of that family in an excellent documentary.
Series from Ron Howard. Yes, no, actually he was just the narrator. I forget the guy's name.
What's Hurwitz? Mitch Herwitz?
Sorry, carry on credit where it's due. Yeah, great point, Noel. So for most people in the secular West, we would call them casual in husiast of Horoscope's astrology. I want to read the column. Tell me not about necessarily the future of the world, right, like Empires of old, but tell me about myself, right, make the universe about me, and astrology therefore becomes a sort of psychological tool, a diagnostic. It's less about the future, it's more about understanding the
hidden depths of one's own personality. But this was not always the case. Like every serious scientific endeavor in the modern day, this concept was intertwined inextricably with the concept of astronomy. So astrology is to astronomy the way alchemy is to chemistry.
That's exactly right, Ben, I was thinking the same thing. There was a time where those worlds were inextricably linked, and there was magic within science.
Right, they were kind of like cross pursuits.
Yeah, it is almost belief intertwined with with the scientific you know.
Method, just just drive you know, curiosity.
Yeah, see that how is science? The why is spirituality?
Exactly?
That's how as like to put it.
Yeah, you're applying belief to that stuff or you know, or meaning to the stuff that you're approving with the scientific method.
Yeah, and we know this is a super popular universal pursuit. If you ask the modern historical boffins, they're going to tell you that the belief in astrology, or I should say, the practice of astrology, the big daddy ancestor of it, begins back in Mesopotamia, and then it spreads to India.
And then we have to also acknowledge that, due to the length of time, the vast chasm of time we're interrogating here, it is almost certain that early civilizations and communities had their own systems of astrology or something we would call astrology, and they are lost to history.
What ELSEO just kind of makes a lot of sense from an early humanity perspective, where it's like this thing that you can see in the sky would be in some way linked to your god and the activities of your god, and I just it's kind of not a very far leap to.
Make, especially when you see in an agrarian community real world results, right, the passage of time.
It makes me think of the dogon tribe in the series b knowledge that they had that was you know, recorded way before at least Western society believes they should have been able to do that.
Right, Yeah, wonderful reference there, Matt. We also have we've explored that in some previous episodes, and I think a few videos. Didn't we do a video on this one?
I believe.
So we're so old, We're not as old as the stars, but we're getting there. We also know that there was this strange, circuitous route that ancient astrological beliefs took before they arrived at your local What should I do today? As a pisces kind of columns? They started in what we call modern astrology kind of begins in Greek civilization during the Hellenistic period, and then it goes to Islamic culture. And we owe a lot to Islamic culture as modern
civilization is part of the Greek tradition. And only then does it return to Europe because Europe had, you know, something called the Dark Ages, and Arabic knowledge bases came back in.
Right.
Recently, had a really quick, sadly brief visit to the Museum of Islamic Culture in Doha, and there's a whole section devoted to technology around astrology and astronomy, and again at the time they were pretty inextricably linked, but things like astrolabes that were used to sort of track the movement and trajectory of different stars. But wrapped up in all of that still very much kind of a divine way of looking at it.
Yes, through the gods we arrive at knowledge. What else would separate the human animal from the rest of the animals. So yeah, across the ancient world people are looking at stars. One of the only constants in existence in that these motions of the heavens. As people didn't think the Earth was moving, they thought the heavens were moving, and so the passage of the heavens to them, assuming that they were in a stationary location, was reproducible, predictable, and had
real world consequence. And at the entire time, this is happening across all civilizations, no exception. People are imposing their own concepts and meaning upon the stars, and these interpretations are often related, Like everybody clocked the North Star doesn't really move relative to your location, so it's good for navigation, But in other ways, these systems often disagreed. A lot of people even now who are casual consumers of the
Western Zodiac think there are twelve sides spoilers. There used to be thirteen. So this is still very much a fluid interpretive system. Is that fair to say? Like, I don't want to throw cold water on.
It, I think so.
Well, No, listening to Neil deGrasse Tyson's thoughts on astrology, he's the cold water. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean he'll hit the facts. Yeah, the facts about that, like the math of it is all wrong, and it just if you look at it hard enough, you'll see the major flaws in like the underlying stuff, you know. I saw
a video the other day on Instagram of somebody. It showed the spinning right and then as it's orbiting around the Sun, and then the Sun moving through space basically because the Sun is traveling extremely fast through space as we go around it. And then it was showing the galaxy, our galaxy moving as we are moving with it. And the comment on the video was like, you're telling me the same stars have been up there the whole time,
over thousands of thousands of years. As we're traveling through the universe this fast and we're moving this fast, and the stars always looked the same. The pushback against that that you have to realize is that it's all about scale distance in scalec.
Yeah, well, it takes us, like, you know, an unmaginable amount of time to perceive changes that happened long, long, long ago, right, because of the inherent lag of it, all right, for the signals the light to try to you know, move through space. We're seeing something from where we stand that happened a long, long long time ago.
Yes, absolutely, But it's also just the distance between our viewpoint and where that light is coming from, right. Yes, So even though we are traveling that fast through the galaxy, you know, writing our star, basically the perspective doesn't change that much in proportion because of how dang far away it is. But it's just one of those things that you I would need a science teacher to sit down and like really explain it to me fully to grasp it, right.
But you know, it's just it's just weird that a video like that could be made and there are probably a lot of people who watch that and go, oh man, those stars are bullshit, those aren't real. That's the firmament.
Yes, the quintessers. That's a great reference too, and we understand like what you're saying, Matty, or what Neil de grass Tyson and other other learned sources in the modern day are pointing out, if you look at the math, there are serious quantitative problems with the axioms upon which most astrological belief systems hinge. That's very diplomatically put again, we are not going to denigrate someone's personal beliefs, right, It's kind of what works for you to a certain threshold.
We also need to know everybody was discovering this. Western astrology reached its own conclusions yet Meso American civilizations, Near Ese civilizations, the East Asian theater, all of these ancient communities had their own astrological systems which are still being practiced today. Astrology, now, if you are looking to explore or encounter it, you're going to find countless guides, groups, apps, forums,
publications dedicated to general astrology or specific astrology. And as you have doubtlessly experienced in your own life, fellow conspiracy realist, astrology can be kind of you mentioned Spencer's earlier. It could be kind of a hot topic for the dating scene. Q The sound clip. OMG, you guys, that's so leo for you to.
Say thank you.
So, with some validity, we could assume that astrology today no longer holds that same you know, divine guidance that it offered to past civilizations.
However, we're about to see this assumption could not be further from the truth.
Que the ad break.
Here's where it gets crazy, all right, we talked about it. Most mass market horoscope publications these days are pretty positive. Right. You're not going to open your local paper or for a lot of us in the crowd tonight, you're not going to pull up your you know, your general news app and then see something that says uh uh oh sagittarius. Uh. You know, stay indoors, don't go outside, beware of hawda odyssees, and don't trust men in blue hats or something like that.
Yeah, you know, you don't know.
They're gonna be something vague and generally feel goody or in some way vaguely actionable, or you know, give you something to look out for that is gonna turn your luck around, you know, things like that.
And this makes sense operationally. These are outlets that want you to return in the future. And also I would posit they don't want to be held liable for dangerous or illegal actions a reader might take after they encounter a horoscope.
Yeah, to that point, but I kind of walk back even what I said. They're not actionable exactly at all. They're just sort of like giving you some signs to maybe look out for or just in general, you know, giving you a positive affirmation that things are looking up for you, Vigo, right. But they're not saying, go do the thing, because that's a really good point, Ben. They
don't want to be responsible for anybody misinterpreting that. And maybe because they are so vague, doing something horrible because they think that it's telling them to Aquarius.
Sometimes you want to do things and you do them. Sometimes you want to do things and you don't listen to the voices, Aquarius.
You don't need to take accountability for your actions. It was the stars.
Yeah, sorry, I'm calling out of work because mercury's rising or in retrograde?
Is that the same thing?
What's the different retrograde? Sorry, that's a better thing. That's a better way. And also it sounds like we're we we're obviously not dismissing this. We consider it a personal belief system. And in the West, you know, for practitioners of Western astrology, the first thing you have to point out is that when we're reading those casual horoscopes, we are reading twelve light paragraphs based upon what are called sun signs. Sun signs are just the tip of the astrological iceberg for a reading.
But the in depth astrological readings that many true enthusiasts of this stuff look to pull in so many more details and factors than the kind of generally vague, feel goodery of newspaper horoscopes. Things like the location of each planet, longitude latitude, position of the stars relative to other stars, etc. There's so many more variables that are included and pulling from a much larger data set. So you know, because of that you are going to see more specificity in these conclusions.
For better or for worse. More data to draw from equals more in depth conclusions. And there are tons and tons and tons of deep read services out there, and we want to be very honest, please listen closely. The vast majority of people, institutions, people especially offering deep reed services, are not trying to grift you. They believe in this. They are applying their acumen and their expertise and familiarity to their clients. So they're not trying to, you know,
steal all your money. They are trying to help you. They honestly believe in what they're doing. And most often individuals looking for the deeper read of their astrological position, they will go to another person or a service. And that's where you see modern astrology getting much closer, leaving much closer to the practices of ancient times. Specific conclusions, specific advice, and specific warnings.
And this is probably outside the scope of this episode, but if I'm not mistaken, we've got one coming up on the very topic on Ridiculous History. A lot of those nine hundred number you know, pay by the minute astrological reading services that were much more popular in the late nineties in maybe early two thousands, many of those have been proven to be less of deep reads than they are deep deep grifts.
Shout out to the rude dudes on Ridiculous Crime and they're Misscleo episode by.
The way, nice, I haven't heard that. I need to listen to that one for sure. And what we say modern times, by the way, we're talking eighteen hundreds on where there are specific people that are, you know, giving that kind of granular advice based on the knowledge they pull from the.
Stars, and you might not read about it in the news too often because a lot of people in an increasingly secular world, they kind of want to play it to the side, the kind of want it, you know, not to be the headline. And that that cannot be further from the truth. Right now, as we record, various powerful people and institutions are still consulting astrologers, and it is further not uncommon for these wisdom seekers to modify their real world on Earth actions to comply with to
follow in accordance with the recommendations of their astrologers. Entire countries have indeed modified their actions based on what they perceive to be what I think we could call a conspiracy of constellations. One of the best examples, let's do two examples if we have time. One of the best examples is Miandmar, which we talked about recently in depth.
Yeah, so why don't we start there. Formerly known as Burma, Myanmar is a Southeast Asian country that is situated between India, China, and Thailand, and also shares some smaller borders with Bangladesh and Laos.
Yeah, we talked about it very recently with the large facilities that are being built in this country right across the border from some of those bordering countries where there's a bit of a air of lawlessness because of the deep political issue use in Me and Mar right now,
basically civil war. And when we talked about that, I don't know, it's weird to me because when we're talking about Me and Mar in relation to this specifically, are we talking about like the ruling folks from the government that were kind of overthrown that still say they're in power. Are we talking about the folks who are coming in to take to seize power.
Excellent question. We're talking about everyone, Oh called the meme from Gary Oldsman. Yeah, you're You're absolutely right, Matt. There's human trafficking and ongoing civil war, online scam slavery is what we focused on in one episode. Every kind of oppression you could imagine, including espionage, ops by foreign governments and private corporations. Mean R has all of that and more. Currently, as you pointed out, there are two groups that testify
they rule the land. Longstanding somewhat mercurial military junta and then a loose coalition of forces purporting to push democracy look into their funding is all we're going to say there. It struggles with chaos moves toward democracy that have occurred in the lifetimes of most of our listeners. They seem to make headway like Ensong su key, and then abruptly they're shut down a moment later. Me and mar to
your question there. Matt has always had a deep regard and respect for divination, astrology, fortune telling, and in particular numerology, largely based on Buddhist Hindu thought from civilization's past. And we might casually in the West read our son signs in the local paper. You might be, you know, swiping to and fro on a dating app and saying, yeah, classic. I feel like we're trying to use all those theact science.
What we said, Pisces cancer, Virgo leo Aquarius. What's another one, Sagittarius, Sagittarius. You might be like, oh, Sagittarius, awesome. This is an entry point into our conversation. But overwhelmingly in this part of the world, people will consult for what you would consider very serious decisions with longstanding consequences not just the public, but also the people in power, like the generals and
the dictators. Numerous examples of this, like the independence of Burma is probably the moment it became officially independent, is almost certainly based on advice from fortune tellers and numerologists.
Really well, the date is January fourth, nineteen forty eight, at four twenty eight. We understand, we get.
It, ty ty, I knew you guys were cool.
This almost certainly a decision that was made by some very high level advisors practicing astrology, based on interpretations of that type of numerology you were talking about. Ben former dictator General Ney Winn was obsessed with numerology.
Oh yeah, this is where astrology touches the money. Oh this is okay. So if you are increasingly like us, paranoid and carrying a lot of cash, do us a favor and pull out your currency of choice. Look at it and imagine, like if you have a twenty dollars bill and a five dollar bill and some ones or whatever, imagine that all the five dollar bills you have were pulled from currency. Now they're just pieces of paper. Always a danger with fiat currency philosophy but that's what like
you were mentioning. No, that's what nim Win did. In nineteen eighty seven, on the advice of his astrologer, he went to the nation of Burma and said, the denominations of forty five and ninety kats kyats don't count anymore. They're not legal tender. And he probably did it. We're ninety percent certain he made this call because his astrologer told him that his lucky number was nine, and forty five and ninety are divisible by nine. The sum of four plus five, you know, nine, and so on and
so on. The rabbit hole goes deep. So he made this decision affecting currency for millions of people because his astrologer was talking to him about numerology. To be fair, he did live to ninety two. Not bad, not bad at all, right, so maybe maybe hopefully we get to ninety two. But then there's we're set saying this to
set up an other example of astrology and government. In Myanmar in two thousand and two, the military junta hit the local population and later the rest of the world with one hell of a Shamalan plot twist.
Can I just say, if you're looking to find an entry point into the jam band Fish. They have an album called Hunta that's pretty great actually, So just just putting that out there. I'm a fan of the Fish album Hunta.
Unrelated, isn't There is there another band? Uh with Burma in their.
Mission of Burma Okay, kind of a post kind of post hardcore maybe bands, but they're cool.
So what happens in two thousand and two?
Well, a lot, a lot happens in two thousand and two.
That was really I thought it was only three.
Yes, Well, my friends and I we all graduated from high school. That's true. Days. It is weird to think about that this happened just in our lifetime, this kind of thinking all this stuff. It just how modern that really is.
Wait, you were a junior during nine to eleven.
I was.
I was as well.
I remember seeing the planes hit in real time during a computer class. We had a computer like a tech class.
Hmm.
It was sort of the class where everyone just kind of got to, you know, do whatever.
So it comes to pass. It's two thousand and two. A lot of things are happening right as you said, Matt Over in meandmart the rulers of the country until they themselves, you know, fall a foul of coups and so on. They they say they hatch a conspiracy, and they say, all right, our capital city has been Rangoon or called Yanggoon for a long time. Here's what's going to happen. You got two months, everybody, you're gonna move
to our new capital about three hundred clicks north. You're gonna call it Nipita or not Pita part in our pronunciations here, and you're gonna do it right now. And for outsiders and the local population, this made zero sense, primarily because this new capital that they all had to move to to sweet it did not exist. There was no there was a small town, there was no capital. It was all jungle.
Oh it's like Olympics rules. You just build a whole new place.
Yes, yes, yeah, it.
Get in there way before it's ready.
Yep.
Yeah. And there was secondly another thing. So, okay, we'll build the plane while we're flying it, right, we'll build a we'll build a boat while we're on the ocean. Very dangerous, very terrible for the people who are affected by this decision. Their second problem is, then this is something that China and our guys were looking at There's no stratega advantage to moving this capital, nothing that you
could see operationally. There's no improvement in infrastructure because it doesn't exist, no improvement in security nor borders doesn't affect trade routes. There's no like resource extraction perk right meandmar is famous for emeralds, for instance. It's not like right next to an awesome emerald mind, none of that. It is exactly as if someone in the White House in the US woke up one day and said, you, guys, I got a weird vibe. We're moving DC to Edison,
New Jersey. If Edison, New Jersey did not already exist. That's about one hundred and eighty so miles north of d C.
Good thing, all those marble buildings were, you know, built on wheels with them with the possibility to just truck them along the.
Highway, just like disassembly in your ikea furniture. Right. So also add to this, everybody has to move in two months. They also say it has to be a secret, so you can't tell anybody. Imagine you're a public servant in Yonggun and you get you get your moving papers. You have to relocate immediately. You have to do it now, and you cannot take your family with you further. You can't tell them why you're going or where.
Oh man, yeah, so are we saying somebody got some kind of bad reading and and like just said, something bad's gonna happen here. We got to get out now. Don't tell anybody it's happening. We just can't be here.
Right right, right, it's like a it's like that that trope in so many Western action movies. Right, you know, the aliens are coming, only a few people are allowed into the arc.
Right.
So the news did get public and Foreign Embassy's embarrassingly enough, our friends in China, they were they were left out to dry. Well I'm sure, I'm sure they knew a little bit. They had to see something in the wind. But the message they got from Meamar was essentially, you guys don't have to move up with us, but if you want to keep hanging out, well we're not gonna come all the way down to you, so make your choice.
So basically there wasn't a choice.
Everyone had to move, and as you can imagine, there was an absolute melee of hectic conversations. Wasn't the best day to be in the State Department. Ben as you point out astuteley in this outline.
Yeah, oh guys, the stars are telling me it's time for an ad break. We'll be right back.
And we've returned.
Let's get back into our conversation about astrology and governments.
All right?
Why did they do it? Why do they want to keep it secret? We kid thee not the military. Did this based on advice from an astrologer, and you can see it based on the Uh. This very specific timing of these decisions, like the inauguration of the city itself, occurs it again, just like independence, it occurs at a very odd time, like oddly.
Specific November sixth two thousand and five, at six thirty seven am local time. Why is that specific? Like why like what what is the significance?
I mean, why can't why do we have to wait seven minutes? Why can't we just go at six thirty?
Did?
But was it was it purposeful?
Yes?
Yes, dude, it was like this is the time that the thousands of trucks begin, you know, moving as you said, all the all the marble buildings on wheales.
I'd be interested if they write if they write dates year, month, day, five, one, six, six three seven. That's interesting.
Yeah.
And then government workers, the guys we talked about who had to move in silence, right, Uh. They they depart from the old capital to the new one on November eleventh at eleven am. So eleven eleven eleven, regardless of how you write the.
Date, even I know that number is significant.
Make a wish, right, says every toxic relationship you've ever had.
Oh, mine was check the doors, make sure they're locked.
Okay, oh really, no, sour our buddy.
Uh.
Returning guest, General Tan Shui currently alive retired as we record. He's the guy who made the call, and the story is his personal astrologer told him he had to do this these specific times, not just for himself, but because doing so, moving the capital would save the nation of Myanmar from a looming disaster.
It's not to be confused with General Fung Shue, who had a very similar attitude.
No, General so over in China who who you know? People were like, General, We've got a lot of problems, and he said to hold on taste this.
Yeahous, yeah it was.
It's a little known fact that the astrologer of the General there owned a lot of property where the new capital. No, I'm just joking that that's not true, but you can imagine.
It probably got a sweetheart deal. There's this deep What we're saying is there's a deep, abiding relationship between Myanmar's government policy and numerology. And there are so many more examples of this, including including how one day true story the general astrologer's staff told him that a woman will one day lead the country, and as a result, we've linked a picture here in our notes the General and
his entourage dawned traditional women's clothing for a photo. Op. Okay, yeah, try to loophole it a little bit.
Yeah, and.
I know, I know, I'm watching you guys. Look at the picture. It definitely look bad.
No, it's just like, yeah, it looks like a skirt of some sort.
But just like I think it's called a lungee. But just like the guy who changed the currency to extend his lifespan and then later lived to ninety two. True believers in astrological systems here will argue that the predictions of the heavens came to pass because in two thousand and eight, Me and Mar experienced the worst natural disaster in all of its recorded history, and it hit yangun So.
On May second, two thousand and eight, the tropical cyclone Nargus made landfall, passing by the old capitol and caused at least fifteen point three billion US dollars worth of damage, killed hundreds of thousands of people, an absolute tragedy in humanitarian crisis, so many in fact, that we still aren't quite sure what the death toll actually was.
Wow, and it bypassed the new capitol, or didn't touch the new capital and.
Touch it didn't touch it. And it also was kind of a close it was. It was a close scrape with the old capital, So there was tremendous damage, as you were saying, old to the infrastructure. Hundreds of thousands of people did die, but for a lot of people observing this who survived, this proved that the astrologer had effected powers to foretell the future, to say the sooth.
Yeah, at least you know, for them, because it's personal experience that close and yeah, you can see how that would reinforce the belief for sure.
And then we can also see how the more skeptical in the audience would say, look at the geography, look at the climate, you know, something like this was statistically inevitable.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, it's a rough one. I mean, and also, you know worthy astrologers, correct? Does this depend on your individual perspective? Are we as Westerner's outhering as we mentioned earlier, and hey they're hi there, Hello there, folks. Brief pause, We went offline and consulted our own star chart aka our publishing buffer. In our schedules.
It becomes an Excel spreadsheet form.
Yes, yes, a very mystical Excel spreadsheet. And we are going to make this a series. We've given a brief exploration of the history of astrology right the world entire We've looked at specific instances in the Nation of Mean Marnie Burma. And when we return in chapter two, we're taking this closer to home, all the way to the White House.
We're going stateside. We're gonna talk a little bit about.
Reagan, oh yeah, and Reagan exactly, oh yeah.
And older presidents that you don't remember, like Franklin Pierce.
I remember, I wasn't impressed, but I remember I don't use a snap address. We're going to show you that this practice that we're talking about doesn't doesn't just exist in lands some may consider far flung. Now again, we have always endeavored to be I was going to say acknowledged, acknowledgeful, respectful of and acknowledging of people's personal beliefs and practices.
And we know this may be a divisive topic. A lot of us in the crowd tonight are hardcore skeptics, A lot of us are very much true believers, and we want to hear from all of you. This show does not exist without you, so thank you so much for tuning in. Thanks always to our long suffering producers, Try Force and the Tennessee pal Let us know your thoughts and join us for chapter two of the Exploration on astrology and Government. Hey guys, how do I get
in touch with you? We've got good news. You can find us online. You can send us an email. You can even tappity tap us on a telephonic device. It's true.
If you want to find us on the internet, on your social media platform with choice, you can find us at the handle conspiracy stuff, where we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy, on YouTube, where we have video content a little for your enjoyment, and on x nay fka Twitter, on Instagram and TikTok. However, we are conspiracy stuff show.
Please don't tap or direct phones. There are plenty of people doing that already. Hi ha joke, any jokes. Our number is one eight three three std WYTK. When you call in, give yourself a cool nickname and let us know whether or not we can use your name and message on the air. Again. It's a three minutevoicemail, That's
what it is, and use it if you wish. If you wish to instead, send us links, longer thoughts, maybe even I don't know a picture of a kitty cat or a doggie doo or another animal in your life. We love those. Why not send us an email? We are the.
Entities that read every piece of correspondence we receive. We've actually returned from abroad and are catching up with you void wise as we return, be well aware, yet I'd afraid Sometimes the void writes back, Hey is that true? How can I learn for certain? Well, there's one way, step a little further from the light. Join us here in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.