A scientific explanation of why it is not possible to develop a perfect system of astrology

Though writing anything on astrology is just like beating a dead horse here you are if you are curious to know why astrology delivers, sometimes, good results but many a time — even bad results.

Nor does it let us make out — which are unfit predictions and which are quintessential predictions.

One of the reasons is — even though the following premise does not seem to be sturdy, it had got to be made the cardinal premise of astrology since no headway could have been made without making this premise the base-ground of astrology.

The premise that is responsible for the vicissitude of astrology

The premise, in question, is:

“If we know what should have happened in the life of someone, whose zodiac sign may be known to us, in the past — we may take it as a standard, that is, we may take it for granted that what should have happened in his or her case was also going to happen in everybody’s life whose not only the zodiac sign, even the placement of the stars in the sky may be the same.”

But there is one more reason besides it.

Actually, all predictions are made based on a treatise (the Almagest of Astrology) that tells the astrologers — what sort of things may be expected to happen in the life of anybody when any particular planet occupies any specific House (as zodiac pockets of the sky are known as in astrology) depending on his/her zodiac sign.

Though thousands of people should have compiled this treatise by gathering such data the fact is — such treatise couldn’t have been compiled without making a compromise with its accuracy since howsoever best they should have tried; all observations made by them could have never aligned in a straight line.

Some of them must have dithered, as shown in the following diagram if we keep in mind the law of normal distribution.

This diagram makes us alive to the fact that the “Regression Ratio” plays a major role in deciding how much we may rely on any prediction made based on their Almagest.

For instance, if the value of this ratio may have been “0.9”; we have to admit that it should give a leeway of up to 10% wrong predictions.

The same way, if its value may have been “0.8”, it has to give a leeway of up to 20% wrong predictions.

It could have assured us of 100% accuracy only if it should have been possible to develop such a treatise which should have had a “Regression Ratio” as high as “1.0” — which couldn’t have been, at all, possible.

I hope, it makes it clear — what makes astrology so fugitive.

Actually, there are two “Trump Cards” that have saved the life of astrology.

The astrologers realized that it was not enough to have known only which planets occupied which Houses; it was also necessary to know “which other planets are sharing the House along with it” and “how far they have ingressed into the House”.

The “Angle of Ingress” defines the angular distance of the planets from the Entry-Point in degrees and minutes, as shown in the following diagram.

As you would have noticed — it shows the position of various planets in all houses correct to a minute of a degree.

The “Angle of Ingress” may have a value ranging from “0°1'” and “30°”.

Its value shall be “0°1' to 9°59'” if it is near the Entry Point, “10° to 19°59'” if it is in the middle of the House and between “11° to 29° 59'” if it may be on its way out.

I believe it should be these trump cards only that should have led an astrologer, who was well known to me, to have been able to have made so meticulous predictions as they turned out to be — in the following cases.

A case related to orthopaedics

It relates to an incident that had happened about thirty years back when my wife was treading through a public park that separated our home and her hospital, those days.

Some gardeners had dug a few pits in the garden to plant some trees.

Unaware of the pits dug out by them — one of her legs, slipped into one of the pits and she fell down.

Though she arrived home, safe — yet she was not sure whether the bone of her leg may have got cracked a bit.

So I took her to an orthopaedic doctor, who took an X-ray of the leg and showed us something that looked like a hairline in the film and he suggested that there could be a hair-crack in her bone.

So he plastered her leg and told her to come back after one and a half months to get it removed.

But she got so much upset at the very thought that now she won’t be able to see her patients for about two or three months since she would be advised to undergo even physiotherapy after the plaster was cut open.

But, as if it was predestined — an astrologer whom we had visited a year back called upon us and looking at the plaster on her leg told us that according to astrology there was no chance of her getting any orthopaedic trouble, whatsoever, by any chance and he was sure that if we got the plaster removed and got the leg X-rayed afresh we shall discover that she did not have any such problem at all.

Though we hesitated a bit since we had, ourselves, seen a hairline in the X-ray film with our own eyes but he succeeded to convince us that he couldn’t be at all wrong.

So we, finally, gave in and got the plaster removed to get the leg X-rayed once again to check whether there was any crack in the bone or not and to our great astonishment, we found that he was not at all wrong.

Here is yet one more such prediction that may make anybody jump sky-high out of astonishment.

A case related to conjugal disharmony

The same astrologer had told my next-door neighbour on the same day when he had visited us that he would not have any sexual association with his wife anymore.

At that time my neighbour may have been about forty years old and now he is around seventy-five years old — the things took such a turn that he has lived a life of total deprivation beginning from about a month thence after for as long as thirty-five years.

No doubt — such predictions establish that astrology is not so much unscientific as many people think of it.

Of course, we have a reason to believe that if this astrologer would not have told him what was going to happen in his life; he would have, at least, asked his wife — what should have gone so wrong that she should have decided to act in such a perverse manner.

I think — he must have resigned to his fate only because it should have homed into his mind that what the stars foretell is incontrovertible.

We may call it — “Incontrovertibility of Destiny Syndrome”.

Though such syndrome prevents people to try to retrieve themselves, from any mayhem into which they may enter in their life — we can’t deny, we should bear with the errors that occur in astrology since such errors can be fully explained through what we call “variance of the distribution” in mathematics.