Energies in the sky affect your life, but not as you've been told.

Some time ago I was listening to a podcast featuring an astrologer. And to discuss this topic, astrology, without turning it into a thesis on a bunch of things… I’m going to talk about a couple of points mentioned in the podcast.

But let’s start at the beginning. What is astrology?

According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, astrology is the ‘study of the movements and positions of the sun, moon, planets, and stars in the belief that they affect the character and lives of people’.

It is a pseudoscience because it doesn’t have any scientific foundation, opposite to astronomy, which is es the scientific study of the universe and of objects that exist naturally in space, such as the moon, the sun, planets, and stars.

Ok. It is not fair to say “astrology is a pseudoscience because science says so’ I am going to tell you why being of a zodiac sign doesn’t affect our personality and why a planet being in one place or another doesn’t affect us. Unless that planet comes crashing into us.

What the lady in the podcast was saying (I’m not going to give names to avoid pointing her out or giving her publicity) is that the energy of the universe is reflected in our inner energy.

Let’s begin by understanding what energy is. Energy is the capacity of a body to do work. It is a physical magnitude, something that can be measured. And it can exist in different forms.

There are many classifications of energy, but the fundamental types are:

Mechanical energy: It is related to the movement of a body. It can be kinetic or potential. But we won’t go further into it.
Chemical energy: It is the energy stored in the chemical bonds that join atoms or molecules. For example, the energy stored inside a protein.
Radiant or electromagnetic energy: It is the energy carried by electromagnetic waves: light, X-rays, radio waves, wifi…
Electric energy: It is the energy produced by electrons moving, i.e., electric currents.
Thermal or heat energy: It is the energy produced by molecules moving.
Nuclear energy: It is the energy found inside atoms, in their nucleus.

And… what energy is there in the universe? What energy do the celestial bodies possess?

Since astrology focuses on the planets, the Sun, and the Moon, let’s examine the energy each of them carries and how they influence Earth.

Planets:

They have mechanical energy because they are constantly moving in their orbit around the Sun. They also have thermal or energy heat and receive electromagnetic energy from the Sun.

Of course, they possess nuclear energy and chemical energy because they are made of matter (whether it be rock, gas, or ice), they are made of atoms and molecules. Additionally, they have electrical energy, which we can observe during storms in their atmospheres.

So, planets are loaded with energy. But does it affect us? Well, I’m sorry to say to astrology followers that it doesn’t.

According to NASA, the only way the planets of the solar system affect ours, Earth, is through the force of gravity.

Moon:

For the same reasons mentioned for planets, our satellite also has energy. But, again, it only influences us through gravity and its effect on tides.

Sun:

Our star does transmit energy to us. It really does! Mainly electromagnetic energy. Gravity affects us too, but let’s focus on energy.

In the podcast, this woman said that if Mercury is in retrograde (I didn’t not what the hell that means), communications are affected. “When Mercury is retrograde, the Zoom call drops,” she said.

Mercury doesn’t cause communication failures, but the Sun does.

The Sun, among other things, gives us heat and light. In other words, radiation. Sometimes the Sun can send us more energy than usual. This happens during solar storms, which are like explosions on its surface. This causes disruptions in radio communications and the functioning of GPS and the power grid, potentially leaving us without electricity for a while.

So the Sun sends us energy, but how does it affect our bodies?

Well, it can give us skin cancer if we don’t protect ourselves, help us produce vitamin D in our skin, and provide us with warmth and food. Plants feed on light, and we eat the plants and the animals that eat the plants.

The energy we take into our bodies in the form of food is chemical energy that transforms our metabolism.

So, do the celestial bodies not affect my personality? Well, if you’re a fan of tarot cards and horoscopes, I’m sorry to say that they don’t. Neither the planets, nor the Sun, nor the Moon and its phases, nor the eclipses.

The birth chart, the natal chart, your zodiac sign… are based on the supposed position of the stars (constellations) at the place, day, and time you were born. Personality is a very complex thing that is formed based on biological and environmental factors such as our neurodevelopment or our learning.

People cannot be classified into personality boxes determined by when and where they were born.

And for those of you who have managed to endure until here, I leave you with the most interesting part of the article.

But first, tell me if you identify with any of the following statements:

You need other people to like and admire you, yet you are critical of yourself.
You have a considerable ability that you haven’t yet used.
Sometimes you have doubts about whether you have acted correctly or made the right decisions.
Some of your aspirations tend to be quite unrealistic.

Do you identify with any? Well, you’ve just fallen into the Forer Effect or the personality validation fallacy.

Psychologist B.R. Forer discovered in the mid-20th century that people tend to accept general and vague descriptions of personality as their own.

Furthermore, we tend to think that these statements represent us, even if they are false because we want to be that way. For example, if someone tells me that I am very extroverted, I might believe I am because I would like to be, even if deep down I am introverted.

Forer gave his students a supposed personality test with statements like the ones above, and they all believed they defined them, not knowing they all had the same text. This experiment has been repeated many times since then, and the result is always the same. You can find more information about this experiment in the references.

This trick, and others, are what is used when someone reads tarot cards or horoscopes.

If you’ve endured reading this far, THANK YOU. And if you’re one of those who believe in horoscopes and have endured this long read, you’re one of the people worth debating with.

References:

https://www.theclaycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Energy-Curriculum-Forms.pdf

https://icaen.gencat.cat/es/energia/que_es/

https://energia-nuclear.net/energia/tipos https://www.universidadviu.com/es/actualidad/nuestros-expertos/que-son-materia-y-energia

https://www.ceupe.com/blog/clasificacion-de-la-energia.html

https://www2.uned.es/biblioteca/energiarenovable3/energia.htm

https://www.universidadviu.com/int/actualidad/nuestros-expertos/astronomia-y-astrologia-cual-es-la-diferencia#:~:text=La%20mayor%20diferencia%20que%20encontramos,define%20como%20una%20creencia%20pseudocient%C3%ADfica

https://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/venus/q189.html

https://science.nasa.gov/heliophysics/big-questions/how-does-solar-variability-affect-human-society-technological-systems-and-the-habitability-of-planets

https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/constellations/en/

https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/science/is-astrology-real

Forer Effect