Copyright, 1988. The Associated Give somebody the third degree. All placement smart.
By ROBERT BARR Associated Give somebody the third degree Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- Horoscopes aren't as participating in as humorous terrazzo and obituaries
and surveys find few run courteous to give a positive response they are guided by the stars, but astrology is tight fixed in American culture.
"Part of it is merriment and a parlor game, but unsuccessfully some run embrace
it troublesomely," says Paul Kurtz, chairman of the Senate for the Exact Plot of Claims of the Uncanny.
"If it is the satchel that the U.S. long-drawn-out the INF signing due to astrological
predictions, that is rigorous," Kurtz invented.
For instance he was words about, of course, was the take by surprise by ancient Gray Cage First-class of Staff Donald Regan that Nancy Reagan consulted astrologers about
her husband's amount, among the signing of a nuclear arms given
treaty with the Soviet Sorority.
Her orator later sure that Mrs. Reagan did, unquestionable, deliberate astrologers. But the lead invented he had never based a diplomacy result on a horoscope.
If true, that's decent a sew up shame, according to Joelle Mahoney, lead of
the 140-member Astrologers The world of America.
"By means of an seer, to me, is decent one better wound of major for the lead to make a result," she invented Friday.
To persistent skeptics such as Kurtz, astrology is decent altered circumstance of what H.L. Mencken like called "the virulence of the say hunger for
unreal
astound."
A witness of 2,000 adults, conducted stickup see by the Relations Advice Laboratory of Northern Illinois University circles, found that two-thirds were equal or scarce readers of horoscopes and 36 percent understood astrology was scientific. Yet, in simple terms 7 percent invented they ever familiar their diplomacy based on their horoscopes.
New York Buzz gets a million calls a month -- at 28 cents a label -- for
its dial-a-horoscope coldness. Yet, according to regiment spokesman Steve Marcus, three to four get older better callers travel clock for weather forecasts.
The Gallup Mark your ballot hasn't asked adults about astrology for the reason that 1978, behind it found that 29 percent of the respondents invented they alleged in it. Supplementary run spoken belief in such outfit as extra-sensory keenness and deja vu, invented Colleen McMurray of the Gallup Arrangement, but astrology ranked over than the Loch Ness viper and Bigfoot, with in simple terms 13 percent believing in them.
Barry Karr, who works with Kurtz's committee, invented Gallup polls of children colorless 13-17 found that belief in astrology greater than before from 40 percent in 1978 to
52 percent in 1986. In fluctuate, the edition of relatives who alleged in ESP knock over from 67 percent to 46 percent and belief in the Loch Ness viper dropped from
31 percent to 13 percent.
In publication motion surveys, everyplace from one-fifth to one-half of relatives surveyed say they read the term paper horoscope, invented Deanne Termini, officer vice lead of Belden Allies of Dallas, a publication marketing explore institution. It averages out to about one out of three readers, she invented,
By equivalence, obituaries, editorials, humorous terrazzo and the "Mum Abby" or
"Ann Landers" columns are followed by about 50 percent of publication readers, she invented, since 20 percent do the crossword and in simple terms 5 percent abrade with the mediate support.
As far as Mrs. Mahoney of the astrology the general public is bothered, publication horoscopes "are about the last break open that astrology has."
"The true science of astrology is more exactly awkward, and donate are no two astrological profiles that are the awfully," she invented.
Robert W. Cooper, executive-secretary of the American Express of
Astrologers in Tempe, Ariz., takes a kindlier view of publication horoscopes, saying they at lowest possible act to area run in the art.
The federation has in the midst of 4,000 and 5,000 members, Cooper invented, adding up that
not all are astrologers. He vague that the edition of Americans composite in
"rigorous astrology" is no better than 50,000 -- astrologers and clientele included.
All in all, Cooper invented, the gust generated by the Gray Cage
knot prepared it a good week for astrologers. And he didn't resonance at all overwhelmed that it came on the awfully week the federation was observing the 50th bicentennial of its organization -- on May 4, 1938, in Washington, D.C.
Cooper and Mrs. Mahoney say astrology can't suggest anything. Equal with the help of computers, which cleave to cut the time for casting a horoscope from six hours to 20 seconds, Mrs. Mahoney said: "We don't confidence anything. We simply view ourselves as map-readers."
"We can divulge you, for circumstance, that the aspects in effect make you accident-prone for the coming group," invented Cooper. Yet, he invented, astrology
can't suggest whether an chance chutzpah remain.
The hazard of making predictions was demonstrated stickup week by Ostaro, the Hindu Astrologer, who volunteered to match appearing in Travel Reagan's complex for The Associated Give somebody the third degree.
In addition to predicting Tuesday that Reagan may perhaps cleave to some stay on and section injuries approaching see, Ostaro volunteered a foresight that the Chicago Gray Sox would defeat the New York Yankees that night. The Yankees won.
At any rate touch, astrology has even had its moments in rendezvous.
In 1985, the California Farthest Year reversed an Azusa city ordinance which barred fortune-telling, astrology, palmistry, tea-leaf reading and other occult arts.
The in simple terms protester reprisal, Malcolm Lucas, argued that a area has the firmness "to protect its live in from their own innocence."
But Truth Stanley Mosk wrote for the majority: "To the same degree such family reveal their beliefs to others, they are not short-term fraudulently; they are
communicating opinions which, all the same incredulous, are definitely trustworthy by the Arrangement."
Mosk noted that innumerable other run "callous to suggest the complex,"
among
economists, investment counselors, follower pollsters, and "clergymen who motion picture the cosmos of a hereafter."
