Selects: Horoscopes: Written in the Stars?

Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over here and we're just relaxing here in Studio one A. So this stuff you should know? Oh I thought it was astro Chad. Yeah, that's what we would call a great name or horoscope or podcast. Say horror scope. No, you shouldn't say that. No, would you ever want to do a horoscope or astrology podcast? What do you mean on its own? Not see that? Well?

We were talking about this briefly until I didn't do it this time, but normally whenever this is a secret Chuck that I'm about to share with everybody the pre taping secret. Yeah. If we start to talk and get too involved in the topic before we start recording, usually one of us will be like, stop, stop, this is golden to save it for the podcast. We didn't do that this time. I think we just kind of naturally

dis continue conversations with right. But um, you were saying that you are, and I don't know if you're ready to admit this or not this early in the episode. You're a little incredulous about horoscopes and astrology. Yes, okay, Um, I am as well. But the think the difference between us is you're just kind of like, come on, And as I was researching it more and more, I was like,

this is really interesting. I could say here and read about this like all day, and now that it's been brought up, I'm like, I could probably do a skeptical but not with the aim to like destroy it, but

just from a skeptic standpoint podcast on astrology. I think that that would fascinate me personally and like one day maybe, So Yeah, I think we we got on that because I was having a hard time wrapping my head around a couple of I'm not gonna say scientific parts, but a couple of the science science parts of this, and I kept going back to, like, cares it's not real, so it's hard for me to commit to the learning of it. And we typically have a thing where it's like,

you know, poo poo people's beliefs. We're not really doing that here, but there have been a couple of occasions where we just kind of like this is there's just no way. One of them was crop circles. Yeah, um, I'm I don't plan on poo pooing this throughout, but I think it's good for us to state our beliefs from the get go, all right, so that we don't mislead anybody who's who does believe in it. Well, here's I did. I had my astrological chart done once. Um

you did. Yeah, I didn't like seek it out and pay for it. My friend's mom is really into this, and she asked me one time, She's like, do you want me to do your chart? And I went sure, So she did my chart and I remember looking at it and thinking like, wow, a lot of this, you know. It kind of like when you look at your sun sign and we'll go ahead and say that's what most like like when somebody says what sign are you? Yeah, or if you read your daily horoscope, it's it's based

on your sun sign um. I would look at things like that, or like my whatever my year is on the Chinese zodio. I can think like, oh wow, I am some of these things. But then I'm like, not about half of those things. So I just think it's interesting. And I think it's interesting as well, but again from a standpoint of where I don't actually believe it's effective

or real, but just the thought put into it. And Ed wrote this article the Grabster, and he makes a really good point saying like, even if you don't believe it or not getting your your chart done is interesting in and of itself. I think so sure. And at the very least, it's going to force you to be a little more introspective about yourself than than you normally would be, because you're being presented with basically like here's your personality according to the cosmos, and it's you can't

help but think, what, like am I introspective? Am I do I set things on fire? I think anything that can spur self reflection is valuable in some ways. Yes, I think that's where interesting, Like I would go to a palm reader just to know what that's like, but I wouldn't leave thinking like, oh boy, my life is set out for me. Yeah, exactly. You know Nancy Reagan, Well we'll get to that. So but spoiler, I am

not Nancy Reagan. We we should probably say for those of you who are confused, they're like, how are they pooh pooing this? Like this is the science of of Nil deGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan. I don't understand. We're talking about astrology, not astronomy. Um. So. Astrology is basically the idea um that distant objects out on the cosmos, planets, stars, constellations specifically have an influence on our lives and events

on the planet. And it's very old. Um. I saw as far back as five thousand years ago people were starting to develop astrological systems. UM. I saw more frequently three thousand years ago with the Babylonians that Western astrology kind of started to develop. Should we talk about history a little bit? I think I finally figured out my beef with it. Should I hold on to that or should we talk about history first? That's up to you, man,

how do you want it to play out? I just don't forget if you hang onto it all right, I'm gonna write beef at the top of my page. It's gonna you're gonna carrying yourself to shoot a duck later on. Okay, So it's like memento. I'll come back to that. Uh So history, Um, we need to go back in the way back machine, the way way back to ancient times, to Babylon. Yeah, when basically people mean we are going back to Babylon. Basically when people were like looking around

at everything and going, I don't get it. Why is all this stuff happening? Why did the earth just open up and swallow yishmail? Why is it raining? Why is it not raining? Why are the crops doing well? Are they doing terribly? Yeah? Why it was that sun? Uh up half the day and down half the day. Uh So, as humans started to get a little more I don't know about intelligent, but um, inquisitive. Inquisitive. I was about to say answer seeky, but inquisitive is the word for that.

As they started to get a little more answer seeky, they started to make things up. Um that made them feel better about what was going on, Right, I mean they they did apply a certain measure of science too, which is where a lot of people who believe in astrology get the idea that it's scientific at some in some way, shape or form, because it does involve the movement, studying and tracking the movement of the planets and the constellations the cosmos, right, Yeah, And that makes a good point.

Back then, astronomy and astrology were the same thing, right, right, because you took those observations astronomy and then you you used them to predict or explain the stuff that was going on here on Earth, right, which we now call astrology, right, Yeah, but yeah, I don't even know what they called it back then. They called it reality, probably so. But it wasn't just the Babylonians who were doing this, Like all over the planet. Basically every culture that's ever lived had

some sort of astrological system. Yeah. The Aztec and Incas and the mines in South America they had zodiac of twenty symbols, including things like earthquake and ape and rain and um. When they died out, they took it with them. Like that doesn't have any It didn't seep into modern forms of astrology like the Babylonians. No, no, Spanish. Jesuit was saying, so can you explain your astrological system to an inca emperor that was being tortured to death? Uh?

What else? The Chinese, of course, they had their own um by a thousand BC, and they had twenty four divisions in a year. Yeah, they had the most complex one, probably of all time. Not surprising. Um, I don't know why that's not surprising. They're complex people. Maybe. Well, when I think of the zodiac, I think of the Western zodiac and then Chinese zodiac. Yeah, me too, And the only thing I knew about Chinese zodiac coming in was what year animal? I was what are you? From the

menu at the Chinese restaurant? That's where I learned it too. Yeah, I'm the dog. Oh I'm a dragon? Yeah wolf? Jerry? Are you a cat? She just me out. That was weird. It was her first instant. There is a year the cat? Huh? That al Stewart's song are you the Year of the Fish? Jerry alight? Like? Jerry's said that she was the Ox year of the Ox. But when she out, but what she's called upon to do? It? Animal? Sound? I think?

Excute it what if oxes oxen me out. Maybe an ox that was raised by cats and it imprinted might learn to me out. I think that's what Jerry was saying. This is getting silly, and the horoscope points getting silly. It is is there gas leaking in? Uh? One of our events that I don't know about? Um? Alright, So back to china UM twenty four divisions twenty eight part lunar zodiac and then the twelve branches that correspond to

the animal, and then those animals have further subdivisions. Uh, like you could be a fire dog or a water dragon, right, which we'll get to that stuff in a minute too. Yeah. And I didn't know that you could be like an elemental animal. I thought it was just straight up animal. I did not know that either. Yeah. Like that's one

thing about astrology. No matter what system you're looking at, there's like, oh, there's this one layer and then let's add this other layer and another layer and another layer. That's so fascinates me. It's just the thought that's going into it. Sure. What about Babylon though, what do you mean? Well? I mean, ohh that's like the origin of the Western Yeah, and here's where it becomes painfully obvious that astrology can't possibly be correct or real. Yeah, I know what you're

about to say. So our idea of the constellations here in the West came from the ancient Babylonian people and astronomers and astrologers who looked up and they said, oh, Mars is red, so blood can be read, so Mars is probably associated with war. Right. They just kind of just made that up. They made it up, and that is fundamentally the basis of astrology. Stuff that was made up by the Babylonians can't possibly be true. It's just basically a fact. The other big thing is the Babylonians

divided the zodiac into twelve equal parts. But um, according to their own stories, there were thirteen constellations in the zodiac. So they just picked one and left it out, Yes, which is choose. I like how you said that. I don't know, man, I've never tried to say that out loud. O p h I U c h U s. It's like the hidden zodiac symbol, well not hidden. They just kind of said, twelve kind of works out better, so let's just leave it out. Yeah, and if the Babylonians

prove anything. It's that for thousands of years, humans have always preferred things to be nice and tidy and neat. They don't like it to be messy because if you really look at what they were trying to do, it's super messy. So, for example, if you are dividing the night sky into twelve trying to assign a month to each horoscope, you've got constellations slopping over into other um zodiac signs UM. The the actual movement of the constellations behind the sun uh is way less than a thirty

day standard. Yeah. I think Scorpio is actually in line with the sun for about seven days out of the year, whereas Um, one of one of the other ones is around for like forty five days, I believe. I don't know. I don't think we even said what that means, though, maybe where we should? We should start from the beginning, shall we? We got the history down? Yeah? Do you want to take a break first? Uh? Yeah, why not? I'll go check my horscope and see if it says

we should continue. Okay, Well, lucky for us, the horroscope said finished show, It said ask again later, Yeah, it said finished show the magic take it easy, on me. Yeah, hey, layoff jerks. I had even resolved to not poo poo astrology. I think the first thing I did was launched into it. Yeah, I'm are astrology, so we should get to the basics of all this, and um, we will this. There's two things that we have to point out. One, we would

have to spend years researching astrology to really get everything right. Yes. Too, even if we spent years researching astrology, we would still get stuff wrong depending on who you are, because there's a lot of contradictory things like, for example, I saw that the moon is a fire sign. Also saw that the moon is associated with water. How is that? Well, I think there's just been so many permutations over the

years that it's you know, been kind of mixed together. Okay, so we are going to get things that will contradict your understanding of astrology, I'm quite sure. But for the most part, I feel like if we're sticking to the basics of it, we can get it fairly right. Right, Yeah, I mean the most basic thing is sun sign astrology, which is really just seeing where each planet was when you were born the day you were born. That's the most simplistic way to look at it, right, and when

you ask somebody what's your sign? What's your sign? See piss okay, I'm cancer. All that's saying is that on the date of our births, the Pisces constellation allegedly was behind the sun as it rose, right, and when I was born, the Cancer constellation was behind the sun when it rose, and the I like to think the sunshine a little brighter when we were born, but probably I can't prove that, no, but you can just make a

pretty good assumption. So um. The way that you do this is you basically take the Sun and the Earth in its orbit around the Sun, which equals a year, and you draw a line, an arrow even from the Earth and may put it flat, lay it flat. I

forgot to say that, uh, And you make it. You draw an arrow from the Earth through the Sun and then out the other side of the Sun. And where of the arrows pointing, which is actually what the opposite side of the Sun, opposite to Earth, whatever constellation that is, that's your son. Right. Pretty simple stuff, right, So you can think of the if if you've thought of a circle around each if you looked at it as a circle, each sign would be its own little zone zone exactly.

A pizza slice, a pie slice, whatever. If you have a sweet tooth or a salty tooth, you're gonna go with either one of those. What about cake? I guess a cake too. Are you cake or pie both? Mm hmm. What's your favorite cake? I like a good coconut cream cake or coconut frosting cake. I like, um, it's your favorite pie? Probably you can cream pie. No, actually that sounds gross. I would say a key like a good key lime pie. But does cheesecake constitute pie? I think

you've just opened up a hornet's nest. Well, I love cheesecake. Basically, I don't really discriminate. I've learned. I recently started trying cherry pie, and I was like, where have you been my whole life? Why did I ever discriminate against? You know, it's just been sitting there in the pie safe, rotting because no one eats cherry pie anymore. Yeah, and then I came along and ate all the rotten cherry pie and loved it all right. What about you cake pie? Oh?

I love the good key lime pies like you were saying, But um, I don't eat a lot of either. You know, and just keep like cake and pie around the house. It's probably a good And I don't really eat dessert in the restaurants either, um, so just neither. Probably more cake, just because cakes are the occasion dessert, like people bringing cake for birthdays or whatever. Any any like Publix cake is awesome. There's standard cake with cream icing. Yeah, yeah,

I never had it. Oh, chuck, I'll bring your slice like a good peacan pie. Eat the pecan now. But I used to not like the nuts. I would just slice that off because I like the jelly. You'd get rid of the candy pecans. Yeah, but I don't now because now I'm growing up. Okay, just eat the jelly man, pecan pie, pumpkin pie. Sure, all right, I'm going all in on pie now that I think about it. Okay, pie, all right, Okay, wait till you try the public's cake. Though.

Where are we? Oh? Sorry? We were talking about how slices, right, and each of one of those slices one of the twelve constellations of the zodiac. Right, Okay, So wherever wherever the Earth, whatever constellation is opposite the Earth on the other side of the Sun, that's your sun sign. And when you were born. That constellation has a bunch of different personality traits and they are basically imbued onto you. You were born under that sign, which means you're going

to have those personality traits. That's the point of what's called the sun sign. That's right um in Western astrology. There you can subdivide it into three groups. Mundane astrology, and this is basically what what is your aim uh with these Mundane astrology is examines world events and makes predictions about big things like the economy and war. Interrogatory astrology it seeks to make predictions very specific ones or analyzes for events or your life maybe like for you

the individual. Yeah. More like you say, it's like when you when somebody says they'll consult the stars to see what the best course of action is. That's what they're talking about, which seems like it overlaps with uh the last one. I think all three of them could definitely, Like, if you're doing like a serious chart to figure out something a deep dive you you would probably do all three. So what would that be? Natal astrology uh and birth astrology. Yeah,

and that's when you read your daily horoscope. Uh. And that's based on the idea that every thing that happens to someone is expressed by the very beginning, like that moment you were born, right, But ironically, the moment you're born, not the moment you were conceived. So really that's when the astrology starts, not the moment you were conceived, but

the moment you were born. Right. But the idea, this law of beginning says that the moment you're born, the stars basically make everything in your life predestined and therefore predictable if the person knows how to read the stars correctly. That's the basis of astrology. Yeah, and then what you would come up with these predictions this chart that is

your horoscope. That's right, and then uh, there are different um the signs that can be subgrouped into four elements you've heard of, Like I'm a water sign, your water sign. Sure we're both water signs. How about that? Yeah, so fire sign that would be Aries Leo, Sagittarius h enthusiasm, action, leadership, open to change water signs. Besides cancer and Pisces, you've get Scorpio um emotion, sensitivity and compassion or signs Taurus Virgo, Capricorn, practicality,

and to focus on material goals. And then air signs jim and I libra inaquarius into signifies intellect, and those are the big groupings, the elemental groupings. Right, So here we've kind of come up with another layer, right, like since each each sign on its own has its own qualities like for example, um, the cancer is very domestic, imaginative, thorough shy, interested in the past, and tradition. That's me all over? Is it really all those things? Yeah, basically, um.

But the then you lay over the water sign, right, that it's a water sign, So that adds to the emotion or the sensitivity or the compassion of it. That the where it really starts to get interesting is the idea that there's a relationship between mean, the element in the sign and those are with the cardinal fixed or mutable. Um, right, whether or not you're resistant to change, you're able to change, or what's cardinal just general movement. Cardinal is that it moves, right.

So so these three things, it's like a whole other layer. And and basically, um, so they have to do with the solstices and the equinoxes. We should say there's a couple of kinds of Western astrology. One is sidereal, which follows the movement of the stars, so your birth sign is sidereal astrology. There's another one called tropical that really just has nothing to do with the stars. It's the idea that around the in the cosmos, the zodiac is fixed and it really has nothing to do with the stars.

It has to do with the sun's relative position to the horizon, so it has to do with things like solstices and equinoxes. So when you go into the tropic goal um type of astrology, that's when the cardinal fixed a mutable comes up, so a cardinal sign. Right, each element has a cardinal sign, so there's four cardinal signs, and for example, cancer is the cardinal water sign. Right. Each element also has four fixed signs, so Leo is

the fixed fire sign. That has to do with like persistence, perseverance, resistance to change. And then lastly, mutable means you're flexible, adaptable, suggestible, and Gemini is a mutable air sign. There's four different mutable airsigns, right, So you put them all together, and what you have is in our interaction between the elements and the signs themselves, so that you have sometimes contradictory stuff. You have things that enhance other things, but it's yet

another layer. So now you have three layers deep of interpretations of just the signs, and it's up to an astrologer to um ex extract whatever however they want to read it. Basically, like Ed makes a point, you can ask a hundred different astrologers to look at your your chart and they might give you a hundred different readings. Yeah, because it's ultimately the astrologers interpretation of the information that's presented by these the signs and whether they're cardinal or

fixture mutable, or what element they are. Right, Well, they can also be masculine or feminine, which Ed points out is not really that can't think of in terms of gender. It's more like the concept of yin and yang, which makes a little more sense. But when I look at mine Pisces February twenty to March um mutable water feminine. Okay, so that's where I am. Emotional, sure, self sacrificing, sometimes, adaptable, sometimes empathetic, almost always religious, not anymore versatile, Yeah, sure,

talkative sometimes you get paid for it. Yeah, when sometimes I'm really quiet though, don't want to talk okay, you know, but that goes against all astrology often takes on the behaviors of others. I don't know about that. Creative, I hope. Impractical, No, I'm pretty practical. So like, but more like half and half maybe would you say half? I feel like you did, or maybe more? Maybe that sounds about right all right, but even still, I mean, that doesn't prove anything, no,

of course not. But it did just get you to think about yourself exactly. That's the whole point, right from what I understand. That's how it tells you. So you've got all these different layers to just your just the sign that you were born under, right, yes, but there's even there's even deeper layers to the whole thing. Right, that has to do with the movement of the constellations or the movement of the sun. Um. And it also has to do with more than just the sign you

were born under. Like when you sit down and you do and astro a lot gical chart, you um, you're you're basically looking at the position of everything that's take into into account in the cosmos, rather than just where the constellation, what constellation was behind the someone you were born. Well, we're going to dive even deeper into this stuff after

this message break. So Chuck, we're talking about how we've got like the fixed layers, right, and then depending on when you were born, where you're born, there's a lot of stuff to take into account. And with the wind meaning like literally the minute yes and second yeah, because um, one of the zodiacs, uh, well, the houses when you add this other layer, the houses of the zodiac, which are the same thing as the zodiac signs, but they're different in this case, they represent the twenty four hour

movement of the Earth on its axis. Um. So now you have the added layer of time, yeah, to the to the moment that you were born, um, to to create a genuine like astrology chart. So not only you're taking into account time and your sun sign, but you also want to look around if you're a good astrologer, and say, okay, where was the moon, what house was the was venus in? And you start to you start to basically go through and find the position of every planet,

including the Sun in the moon. Um, and the moon are considered planets right as far as astrology goes. Right, And then when you put all this stuff together, there's a huge extremely complex interplay between all these different um components that are all supposed to point to the person that you were born as. Right, That's this is where I think I should say my beef now, I think it's a good time for that. My beef is that I couldn't find anywhere. And this is me looking for

science where there is none. Is why, like the position of the stars and they all affect who you are and uh and and what you're gonna be Like all right, well explain that to me. How does it do that? Oh? Yeah, that's what forces, what scientific forces are behind this zero that caused this? Like, I get what you're saying. People, The stars are aligned and these things are all in a certain place and you're gonna be a certain way. All right, Well, how does it do that? It doesn't.

That's where that's my beef. So I mean that's a legitimate beef. Um, there's no how, No, there's not. Yeah, there's none. I guess I'm not hung up on that fact. I think I just kind of accept it. And it's almost like coming upon uh and the belief system of another culture. Yeah, it's like I don't subscribe to it, but I'm interested in like what what they believe and how it applies to their life. But that doesn't mean that I believe in it. I'm just I'm just kind

of interested in in an academic sense. Yeah, yeah, well you're we're curious people, so I get that, right, Just so get hung up on the fact that it doesn't actually work, and you'll you'll be interested in I promise now. I do think it's interesting. And I used to read my horoscope here and there just for fun, just the same way I look at a fortune cookie. Um, it's just a parlor trick. That to me though it's not.

But I think an astrologer even if they even if they said, fine, you don't believe in it, that's fine, But this is more than a parlor trick, Like they're really sitting down and applying this. It takes a tremendous amount of time calculation, Um, a certain measure of of science. You have to understand astronomy at least, because you have to go figure out when someone was born where, what

was where right? And so when you're sitting down and doing your chart, you were born Pisces right, So the Pisces constellation was behind the sun, but where was Saturn. And why would Saturn matter? Well, Saturn is a melancholy planet. So if Saturn is in a house associated with happiness, um, you might have a thread of bitter sweetness that runs through your whole life. That might be one interpretation of it. Or you might be happy sometimes and sad sometimes maybe

just every person ever, sure, I mean yeah, definitely. And again I'm not explaining how this works. I'm saying like, this is what an astrologer would would sit down and think, or um, Mars is warlike? Well, if Mars was in um, I don't know, a house associated with aggressiveness, you might get in to fight your whole life, according to this astrology chart. So that's just each planet. Right, Let's say that you have Mars in a an aggressive house and you have Saturn in a happy house. How did those

interact with each other? How does that getting in fights all the time? Uh? Interact with the bitter sweetness that runs through your life. And that's open to interpretation as well. And that's where the astrology I think I was saying astrologist earlier. Is that even a word? I think? So? Okay, it doesn't seem it seems like I've heard that before well at anyway, that's where they come into play, yes,

with their varying interpretations, but not just the interpretations. They're actually going to sit down and figure out what was where, what that means according to the astrological tradition, and then the third step is for them to um interpret it for you, you know what I mean. So, I mean there is a tremendous amount of work to it from what I can tell, for a genuine astrological chart. Your friend's mom hooked you up when you were yeah, I

mean she didn't dash it off in five minutes. Tell you that that was math involved in angles and stuff. So the main thing you're getting if you're looking at like a newspaper or if you have if you're sign up for some sort of internet daily horoscope, is it's usually some sort of personality profile, advice on your life. Uh, maybe some sort of um map. Two for finances you might want to think about, you know, investing soon. That's

where people probably get in trouble um. But it's pretty much personal advice stuff, not so much long term future type of thing, not like predicting your future necessarily. Well, they do to the extent of like you'll have a so so day to day. Yeah, yeah, today will be rather unremarkable, Yeah, or like a lot of times it

can be. I think it's it's like, you know, today might be a good day to reach out to an old friend, and if you follow that advice, then that's great because your old friend probably would want to hear from you. And then you have lunch with that friend and it goes great, and you might say, we'll see there. My my horoscope said to reach out to an old friend and it went awesome, or if it went really horribly, you'd be like, why are you punishing these stars? Yeah?

Or what if you get killed on the way to the lunch? You don't hear those stories. No, But that's the great thing about astrology. It removes personal responsibility from your decision. That's funny, And I should say also, I wanna I want to like there are even more layers to the whole thing than what I what I said, I thought, I hope we kind of got the point across that there's layer upon layer upon layer and they

all interact with one another. But I mean, like in a good astrologer will take into account like whether planet was in retrograde and what that means when you were born you know, um or if it's in retrograde right now. Um, there's just so much to it. I think that's what fascinates me. Well, it makes a good point. Uh, if this is a true science, then it should have it should pass the muster of the of repeatable testing, which of course it doesn't know. Um no, it really really doesn't.

But some other people might say, you know what this is, it's beyond science. This is you shouldn't try and quantify in terms of science. This is something that you can't you can't even understand it. Your puny science cannot explain this, this outside that realm to something that we don't know and understand. And hey, I'm a science guy, but I'm not foolish enough to think there isn't anything out there that I maybe I don't know about or we can't prove it's very healthy. You know, my hat is off

to you, your fort Ian and you don't even know it. Seriously, that's like to me, that's the the pinnacle of what a thinking person can aspire to. Well, I think that's when you stop looking, when you think that we you know, we've got it all figured out, you know, especially when you aggressively attack other people who say otherwise. Well, yeah, that's if this conversation is floating your vocalists in the Enlightenment episode, that was good. That was a good one.

I had a lot to do with that. They have done studies though, on the viability of astrology as far as you know, are are you could do divorce rates um? Are they compatible or do they comply with um or correlate with the compatibility of two people? Astrologically speaking, they don't. Yes, you know, they're supposedly interaction amongst the signs where like you know, virgos don't get along with um, Capricorn or

something like that. Yeah, and that doesn't hold up through scientific study, And if you cherry pick examples in your life, of course you might think it does. Well. Yeah, that's why a lot of people are like, astrology is right. It's a selection bias, is what you're encountering. You're ignoring the stuff that disproves it or that suggests that it's not true, and instead just focusing on the amazing facts where it lines up right right. That's a selection bias, correct,

I think? So I need to know more about all the different biases. It's interesting we should say another thing that kind of suggests that astrology is not accurate. The zodiac signs are no longer where they're supposed to be if you're going by your birth date. For example, I was born to life fifteen, so I would be a cancer if you actually follow the constellations. I'm I'm a Gemini. Never knew that. So Geminis are um concerned with information,

highly literate, curious, adaptable, absent minded, love to travel. I am a Gemini. So the reason why is because when astrology was first created them the earth, the constellations were lined up with where they were originally. As the Earth rotate, it's on his access at wobbles over the last couple of thousand years. It's wobbled so that those constellations are no longer where they were when they set them three thousand years ago. So today we have totally different um,

totally different signs. What would mind be? Can can figured that out? So you were born in the IDEs of March, you're still a Pisces man, I'm sorry, no, I love it. I am uh now I am now a Gemini because it got moved so Let's let's go through because I think a lot of people don't know this, and NASA blogged about it a couple of years ago and really caused a stir um. Is Jerry still a cat ox? Jerry? Jerry's Birthday's April something? Right, Jerry's birthday is what's your birthday?

Your birthday's Valentine's Day. I didn't know that. Jerry just said her birthday is February fourteenth, because we have to edit out any Jerry talk, right, Jerry, what are supposed to be normally? You are a Capricorn. You are January twenty to February six As far as NASA is concerned, you're a Capricorn. So it starts and we should say I don't think we said this, but the zodiac officially in the West starts with aries and moves on um.

So starting with Capricorn because NASA is like, now we're gonna start with the beginning of the year, Capricorn January twenty to February six. Okay, Aquarius is now February sixteenth to March eleventh. And you'll notice these aren't necessarily thirty day period. Yeah, you were, uh Pisces March eleventh to April eighteenth. Aries April eighteenth to May tourists May thirteenth of June twenty one. It's a long one, uh. Jemini June to July twenty that's me now, cancer July twenty August.

I used to be a cancer Leo August tenth to September six. Virgo September Sixteber Libra October November, Scorpio November nine. That's six days. You've got six days to be a scorpio. It's kind of neat uh oh fucus, Yeah, the long Forgotten November nine, December. Crazy. There's people out there don't even know that they're that signed yeah, or how to pronounce it right? No one does. No one alive knows how to pronounce that. Uh. And then Sagittarius December sevente

to January. Wow, I don't even know anything anymore. No, no one does, Chuck. I think this is fascinating stuff that I've been thinking a lot lately about what does shape your personality and what you become in life as far as nature and nurture, and some people might throw this in there. I think we should totally do a podcast on birth order. Oh Yeah, that's a good one, super fascinating to me. Or whether, um, whether hearing your name or the vibrations caused by saying your own name

throughout your life has an effect on your personality. What have you heard that one? Yeah? Supposedly the vibrations are the frequency made from hearing and saying your own name throughout your life makes your makes your personality a certain one. Weird. Yeah, I mean it's probably not true, but it's interesting. Well, we tease Ronald Reagan earlier. Well, we didn't tease Ronald Reagan.

We did, but we can't talk about astrology without talking a little bit about the Reagan administration because uh in nine uh Ron and Nancy were uh out. It's sort of exposed. Yeah, as is having an astrologer on the payroll to the tune of about how much three grand grand per what reading a month? Three grand a month? It's not bad. No, this lady was working hard, Joan quickly down under certain nickname medicine woman, and it was revealed that she uh wrote up star charts uh and

basically detailed even down to the minute. Supposedly, depending on who you listen to, what Reagan's schedule should look like right, So this lady was definitely doing mundane interrogatory and natal astrology combined to create a chart. Yes, for sure. And Chief of staff Don Reagan wrote in his memoir Um, I mean he, I mean, this is is not a matter of debate or anything. No, this is for for real.

But Don Regan wrote in his memoirs, and he talked about, um, you know, capturing the public's attention like that was a big deal because it looked like what was going on was going on, which was that his schedule was kind of being determined by an astrologistloger, like, you can't talk to Gorby today, this is a bad day to propose the Salt treaty. Wait until you know novem. That's when

you Mr. Gorby. And then Don Reagan would be told by Nancy, uh, he he should be talking to Gorbion because she would meet with Nancy only met ron once supposedly, um and and Nancy downplayed it a lot, of course, they all tried to distance well. They said it was more of a hobby and and she definitely had no impact on decisions. It was really just about scheduling, that's what they said. Scheduling decisions. But she wrote a book actually, uh, miss Quigley in it was called this is the most

on the nose book title of all time. It was called what does Jones say? Colin my seven years as White House astrologer to Nancy and Ronald Reagan, by me, do you get it? Um? And she said a quote. I was responsible for timing all press conferences, most speeches. The State of the Union addresses the takeoffs and landings of Air Force one. I picked the time of Ronald Reagan's debate with Jimmy Carter and the two debates with Mondale, all extended trips abroad as well as shorter trips and

one day excursions. End quote. Yeah, um, so yes, the leader of the free world, arguably the most powerful American president in recent memory, had his schedule determined by an astrologer. So weird. I got a couple more things, all right, what you got? So? Um? Apparently Americans around the time of Reagan had hit like basically a low in believing

in astrology. They were They did a poll after that that news came out, and they found that American belief overall in astrology um was a twelve, which is down from this is an eight eight, which is down from ten years before, which makes total sense, like coming off of the the hippie age and the goofy seventies into the very like kind of cynical late eighties. Uh, it aligns perfectly right the stars. So somebody forgot to send

Nancy and Ron that memo. So in two thousand and four, another poll found that it had gone back up to no idea why and then another poll I saw that asked something different rather than do you believe in astrology? Asked, um, would you say that astrology is quote not at all scientific?

In two thousand and four, sixty six percent of Americans said that in two not scientific, so basically they don't believe in astrology six and then in two twelve um percent said that, So apparently belief in astrology is still on the increase. Interesting, Even more interesting, in China of the public says they don't believe in astrology compared to about fort here. And then lastly, I have one more story ready, and there's actually a blog post you can

go recalled the Genius Mural at St. John's. Okay you yeah, it's from years back, but I just came across the story is amazing. There's this place called St. John's Anglican Church's in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia and Um. It was built in seventeen fifty four and it was built with a mural on the ceiling of the night sky with gilded stars. And they were remodeling the church and they wanted to redo the mural right recreated exactly as it had been.

But they realized they didn't have any dead on photographs of it, so they had to kind of like figure out what to do. So they hired an astronomer and he started poking around into it and he realized that the mural, which had been constructed in seventeen fifty four, was the exact scene of the night sky over Lunenburg on December one, which is in the Christian tradition, is

the night Christ was born. Somebody in seventeen fifty four accurately calculated what this guy had looked like fifty four years before on December and turned it into a mural. Isn't that amazing? Amazing? I love that story. Pretty cool. So that's astrology and what's the name of that story, The genius Genius mural at St. John's. Nice thanks man, Are you got anything else? Nope. I can talk about this all day. Are you sure? I think we did right by it. If you want to know more about astrology,

go read Joan Quigley's book. And since I said Joan quickly, it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this Star Wars action figure and hey, guys, love the show like the I can say, like all the other fans. Is definitely my favorite thing to listen to. My transplant to Texas from Tennessee, and I always get excited when I can make that long drive back home and binge on your interesting material. Just listen to action figures and was thrilled to hear you talk about Star Wars action figures.

I'm one of those Star Wars guys you mentioned that read away too much of the fan fiction and new way too many characters, uh, too many of the character names. I wanted to share a fact I thought was interesting about the Kinner toys and two of the Bounty Hunter characters seen in an Empire strikes Back. Kinner went originally packaging the characters mislabeled for loam. I'm probably not even

pronouncing that right. Uh. For the number four dash l O M originally the droid and zook us Zu c k Uss originally the bug looking guy and switched their names. How that somebody got fired for that? Do you believe it? The name is stuck in until and you can see on newer packaging of the Hasbro toys that their names have been switched back. I always thought it was interesting and interesting mishap. Thanks for all you guys do, and I've learned so much and it's love referencing your show

every chance I get. Sincerely, Rison Ford, Adam West No ps, sadly I'm not him. Wow? How great would that be? Man? That that nice email, Adam? That was full of drama, suspense facts and I could do my con NERD voice nice man, which I completely stole from him. Sure, I just want to make that clear, Yeah, claiming it as your own right to homage to Conan. Uh well, Adam,

thank you, that was a great one. If you want to get in touch with us, like Adam did, you can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you should know uh and you can also hang up with us at s y SK podcast, send us an email to uh stuff podcast, how stuff works dot com and has always joined us at home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot Com Stuff you Should Know is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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