Fiona Veitch Smith

Every December, with January just around the corner, I wonder what the year ahead holds for me. Will my finances improve? Will I find success in work? Will I finally get that overseas holiday I’ve been hoping for? Will I win my epic battle against cellulite?

Amazingly, the Mail on Sunday realised that I needed guidance in these areas, and very kindly gave me a free ‘month-by-month guide to the year ahead.’ Astrologer Sally Brampton, the author of the guide, signed off by saying: ‘I hope this book helps you to make the right decisions, at the right time, to bring you hope, happiness and fulfilment.’ How nice.

I’m Aquarius, and, according to Sally, am a ‘mass of contradictions and idiosyncrasies: helpful yet intractable; kind and conscientious yet unpredictable and emotionally detached. The sign of eccentricity, originality and genius, (I am) a rebel with - or without - a cause. (I am) relentlessly optimistic, but find it difficult to compromise (my) ideas, ideals or independence’. What a fab person I am! You did notice genius didn’t you?

Birth signs

And you know, it’s as if she really knows me. In February, my birth month, she tells me: ‘If you feel the need to withdraw from all the chaos and confusion and get in touch with your inner self, do so when the Sun aspects Neptune, your ruler on the 3rd. That’s amazing! I went into labour on the 3rd (and certainly felt the need to withdraw), then gave birth to my daughter Megan the next day. Dead accurate. But hang on? What’s this? ‘You will emerge refreshed, renewed and ready to take on new challenges when the Sun enters your birth sign on the 18th.’ All I felt on the 18th was the need for a good night’s sleep and some more painkillers.

OK, so Sally disappointed me. I bet the good folk at www.thefutureminders.com wouldn’t! And they gave me the opportunity to plug in my actual birth day and year. On 16 May they told me: ‘you tend to hold fewer expectations’ and ‘you show an ability to meet the needs of others in original ways that can promote innovative solutions.’ Indeed, I no longer expect to take a shower before 12 Noon nor to sleep through the night without being awakened at least three times. And you could probably describe that impromptu light show with the torch an ‘innovative solution’ to keeping baby entertained at 3am…

Ah, but then I plugged in Megan’s birth details: 4 February 2005. At 16 weeks old, my baby was told: ‘because of too many choices, decisions create dilemmas. Try to discriminate between what has lasting meaning and what has ephemeral appeal. It will save you a lot of worry.’ But what does it mean Mummy? It means go to sleep!‘

Hope and happiness

So where was the hope, happiness and fulfilment? I didn’t find it in the stars, but apparently between 37 - 38% of Britons believe they will. In a poll commissioned by The Sunday Telegraph in 1999 (www.mori.com), 37% of respondents said they believed in astrology. A year earlier, on the other side of the universe, The Sun commissioned a survey which revealed that 38% of Britons believed in astrology and 16% of them had ‘based a life decision on it’. You could say they were ‘practicing believers’ of astrology. Compare this to the December 2000 poll commissioned by the Heaven and Earth Show (www.mori.com) that only 18% of Britons claimed to be ‘practicing members of a formal religion’. That’s only a 2% difference. Mind you, the Telegraph poll also revealed that 15% of respondents believed in Santa Claus! But let’s not go there, not with children around.

So why is it, in a well-educated, still predominantly Christian country (between 74% - 76% describe themselves as ‘Christian’ according to the aforementioned polls), do well over a quarter of the population believe that chunks of lifeless rock in outer space impact their lives?

Beyond ourselves

Quite simply, it’s because people were created to believe in something beyond themselves. It’s a recognition that we cannot and should not negotiate this world on our own. The high number of people who believe in astrology tells me that the likes of Bertrand Russell (who hoped that religion would die out) and Karl Marx (who predicted that it would), were wrong. Although we have seen an undoubted decline in adherents to formal religion, spiritual hunger is still there. And the hungry will be fed.

Astrology is fast food religion. Few people have time these days to devote hours of their lives to going to church and studying the Bible. And why should they, when they can snack on a muffin and their daily stars during a tea break?

Let’s admit it, Christianity is hard work. Yes, there is ‘hope, happiness and fulfilment’ - but at a price. Christianity is about relationship, and like most relationships, it needs to be worked at. Now I’m not talking about salvation by works here, but I do believe that God’s gracious gift of love requires a response. God forgives us and asks us to forgive others. He encourages us to bring him our gifts of worship. We are called upon to pray for others. We are compelled to act when someone is in need. Christianity is not just a ‘personal religion’. It is lived out in community. And that takes time and effort.

Bite-sized guidance

Astrology, on the other hand, requires no such response. It simply answers the question: ‘What’s in it for me?’ It gives us bite-sized guidance in this chaotic world. We can take it or leave it - with or without cream.

On a deeper level, astrology appears to meet our yearning to know and be known. I remember reading Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs (Pan, 1972) when I was 14 and being completely bowled over. I felt that someone had explained me to myself.

Like most teenagers, I felt that no one understood me. And my efforts at self-expression (through clothes and music) were seen as symptoms of a rebellious nature. I felt alienated and misunderstood. But then one day I picked up Sun Signs and discovered that someone did understand me after all, and that all of the conflicting emotions I felt were shared by other ‘eccentric and original’ people like me - Aquarians. I had recently seen Hair and this led me to believe that Aquarius, of all the signs, was the most special of all. It was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius where people like me, people who didn’t fit in the paint-by-numbers world, would come into our own. Goodman also gave me advice on what kind of person my dream man would be - Aries, if I recall. I went out with one Ariean, and it was a disaster!

The Real Deal

I’ve just realised, ironically, that I don’t even know my husband’s star sign. And we’ve been married for 10 years! His birthday’s in November, so I’m sure I could look it up. But that gives you a clue to the fact that I gave up on all things astrological a long time ago. And why? Because I found the real deal when I met God.

It was actually just a year later, when I was 15. This yearning to know and be known was not answered through astrology. It came one day through a girl called Pamela Maurice who told me about Jesus in the middle of a biology class. I knew Pam didn’t have the best of home lives, yet she radiated such a peace and joy. I asked her why and she told me it was because she knew Jesus. I said that I believed in Jesus too - I’d been to Sunday School after all. All she said was: ‘Do you really?’ And that stuck with me. Did I really? I certainly didn’t have the peace and security that Pam had. I couldn’t say, like she could, that she knew God. I believed he existed, but he was a distant God who had no impact on my life - a bit like the stars and planets, I suppose. So I told Pam the next day that I didn’t really know Jesus. She introduced him to me, and my life has never been the same.

My relationship with God has grown over the last 20 years. Like any relationship, there have been ups and downs, good times and bad. But through it I have discovered who I really am and why I was created. At different times I’ve found comfort, guidance, security and the knowledge that he will always be there for me. ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’ is a verse that has spoken to me many times over the years as well as God’s promise to be with me ‘until the end of time’.

A costly religion

The Daily Mail astrologer wished me ‘hope, happiness and fulfilment’. I have all of that and more. But it comes at a price: not the price of a newspaper, nor the hundreds of pounds I could spend on a ‘personalised reading’, no, it is far more costly than that. It cost God the life of his Son. And what does it cost me? Though freely given and freely received, there is still a price to pay. It costs me time and commitment and, at times, the pain of being shunned and mocked for my beliefs. But it’s worth it.

For those of you who’re hungry and have been dabbling in fast food religion, there’s an eternity of difference between a hamburger and a full-on banquet. Jesus said that he is the bread of life, and only he can truly satisfy our needs. ‘Behold,’ says Jesus in the book of Revelation, ‘I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.’. Now that’s a meal you can’t afford to miss!

Is it written in the stars?

In a study by scientists at Massey University, New Zealand, after conducting extensive personality tests on multiple subjects, it was concluded that there was no correlation between their personality types and Sun, Moon or Ascendant star signs. (Sunday Times, 28 March 1999).

In another study carried out by Geoffrey Dean, a scientist and former astrologer based in Perth, Australia, and Ivan Kelly, a psychologist at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, more than 2,000 babies born in March 1958 (most within minutes of each other) were studied over 40 years. According to astrology, the subjects should have very similar traits. Researchers looked at more than 100 different characteristics, including occupation, anxiety levels, marital status, aggressiveness, sociability, IQ levels and ability in art, sport, mathematics and reading - all of which astrologers claim can be gauged from birth charts. They failed to find any evidence of similarities between the ‘time twins’. (Telegraph, 17 August 2003).

In 1989 it was reported in the Indian Skeptic that an undercover member of the Kansas City Committee for Skeptical Inquiry approached five different astrologers and asked for a reading. Instead of his own particulars, he gave them the birth details of notorious child killer John Gacy, who was later executed in 1984 for the rape and murder of 33 teenage boys. None of the astrologers had anything negative to say to their client. Some of their readings included:

“…just your presence would be of a beneficial nature to other people, a real calming kind of effect… In the past you have used your energies well: so therefore, in this life you have a lot to contribute and you will have some problems but basically your life will be very, very positive.”

“…a fairly well-rounded personality…you can offer a good role model…when you’re working with young people you’re not gonna have a lot of heavy-duty problems.” (www.astrology-and-science.com)

First appeared in Plain Truth, December 2005

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