Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

public manners of the Mauve Decade could convey to a rutty young male almost any

message by how she chose to “read his fortune”-with no impropriety. But neither he

nor she took the cards seriously.

Tarot cards formerly were used only by Gypsy or

fake-Gypsy fortunetellers; they were not an article of commerce, were not easy to

find. Today they are as easy to buy as liquor during prohibition, and also books on

their “interpretation.” Reading the Tarot is taken with deep seriousness by a

dismaying number of people-having the Hanging Man turn up can cause great anguish.

b) Back-to-nature cults: I do not mean nudist resorts or “liberated”

beaches. The growing realization that human bodies are not obscene is a sane,

healthy counter trend in our crazy culture. By back-to-nature cults I mean people

who band together to “return to the land” to grow their own food without pesticides,

without artificial fertilizers, without power machinery, self-reliant in all ways .

. . but with no comprehension that a spading fork implies coal mines, iron ore,

blast furnaces, steel mills, factories, etc., that any building more complex than a

log cabin or a sod house implies a building-materials industry, etc.

If all of us tried to go back-to-nature, most of us would starve rather

quickly. These back-to-nature freaks can’t do arithmetic.

c) The collapse of basic education-no need to repeat.

d) Natal horological astrology-Baseline: fifty-odd years ago astrology was

commonly regarded as a ridiculous former superstition, one all but a tiny minority

had outgrown. It is now the orthodoxy of many, possibly a majority. This

pathological change parallels the decay of public education.

Stipulated: Ancient astrologers were scientists in being able to predict

certain aspects of descriptive astronomy such as eclipses, positions of the sun,

moon, and naked-eye planets, etc. Whether or not they believed the fortunetelling

they supplied to their kings, patrons, or clients is irrelevant. The test of a

science is its ability to predict; in the cited phenomena the Chaldean priests (for

example) performed remarkable feats of prediction with handcrafted naked-eye

instruments.

It has long been known that Sol is the heat engine that controls our

weather. Recently, with the discovery of solar wind, the Van Allen belts, et al., we

have become aware of previously unsuspected variables affecting us and our weather,

and successful predictions are being made empirically-no satisfactory theory.

“What sign were you born under?”-I don’t recall having heard that question

until sometime after World War Two. Today it is almost impossible to attend a social

gathering (including parties made up almost solely of university staff and spouses)

without being asked that question or hearing it asked of someone else.

Today natal horological astrology is so widely accepted that those who

believe in it take it for granted that anyone they meet believes in it, too-if you

don’t, you’re some sort of a nut. I don’t know what percentage of the population

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believe in natal horological astrology (sorry about that clumsy expression but I

wish to limit this precisely to the notion that the exact time, date, latitude, and

longitude of your birth and the pattern of the Sun, Moon, and planets with respect

to the Zodiac at that exact time all constitute a factor affecting your life

comparable in importance to your genetic inheritance and your rearing and

education)-I don’t know the percentage of True Believers but it is high enough that

newspaper editors will omit any feature or secondary news rather than leave out the

daily horoscope.

Or possibly more important than heredity and environment in the minds of

True Believers since it is seriously alleged that this natal heavenly pattern

affects every day of your life-good days for new business ventures-a bad day to

start a trip-and so forth, endlessly.

The test of a science is its capacity to make correct predictions. Possibly

the most respected astrologer in America is a lady who not only has her daily column

in most of the largest newspapers but also annually publishes predictions for the

coming year.

For ten years I clipped her annual predictions, filed them. She is highly

recommended and I think she is sincere; I intended to give her every possible