Stuff You Should Know - Horoscopes: Written in the Stars?

Episode Date: December 6, 2016

A lot of people read their daily horoscopes, but does anyone really take stock in them? Turns out the answer is yes, even though there is no evidence of their accuracy. Learn all about horoscopes today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Munga Shatikler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too.

Just a Skyline drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Make your business official with Google and Squarespace. When you create a custom domain and a beautiful business website with Squarespace, you'll receive a free year of business email and professional tools from Google. It's the simplest way to look professional online. Visit squarespace.com slash google to start your free trial and use our offer code WORKS W-O-R-K-S for 10% off your first purchase. Google and Squarespace.

Make it professional. Make it beautiful. Hey, everybody in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area. We're also looking at you, Oakland. We are coming out to SketchFest this year again for the second year in a row and we're doing a rare Sunday afternoon jam. So that is Sunday, January 15th at 1 p.m. You can come see us live and tickets are going to go fast.

So go to sfsketchfest.com and just click on the little ticket links or look at the lineup and follow us there. And we can't wait to see everyone. It's one of our favorite cities to perform in and go to sfsketchfest.com, Oakland, San Francisco. We will see you soon. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over here and we're just relaxing here in Studio 1A. So this is Stuff You Should Know. Oh, I thought it was AstroChat. Yeah. That's what we would call it. AstroChat's a great name.

Or Horoscope. Or should I say Horoscope. No. You shouldn't say that. No. Would you ever want to do a horoscope or astrology podcast? Oh, do you mean on its own? Yeah.

No. I would not. See, well, we were talking about this briefly until I didn't do it this time, but normally whenever this is a secret, Chuck, that I'm about to share with everybody. Oh, the pre-taping secret? Yeah. If we start to talk and get too involved in the topic before we start recording, usually one of us will be like, stop, stop.

This is golden. Just save it for the podcast. Sure. We didn't do that this time. I think we just kind of naturally just continue conversations now. Sort of feed it out. But you were saying that you are, and I don't know if you're ready to admit this or not this early in the episode, you're a little incredulous about horoscopes and astrology.

Yes. Okay. I am as well, but I think the difference between us is you're just kind of like, come on. And as I was researching it more and more, I was like, this is really interesting. I could sit here and read about this all day. And now that it's been brought up, I'm like, I could probably do a skeptical, but not with the aim to destroy it, but just from a skeptic standpoint, podcast on astrology.

I think that that would fascinate me personally and like 10 other people. I hope you get that chance one day. Maybe so. They're a dream. Yeah. I think we got on that because I was having a hard time wrapping my head around a couple of, I'm not going to say scientific parts, but a couple of the sciencey, sciencey parts of this.

And I kept going back to like, oh, cares. It's not real. Yeah. So it was hard for me to commit to the learning of it. And we typically have a thing where it's like, you know, poo poo, people's beliefs. Yeah. We're not really doing that here, but there have been a couple of occasions where we just kind of like, this is, there's just no way.

One of them was crop circles. Yeah. Um, I'm, I don't plan on poo pooing this throughout, but I think it's good for us to state our beliefs from the get go. All right. So that we don't mislead anybody who's, who does believe in it. Well, here's, I did, I had my astrological chart done once. You did.

Yeah. I didn't like seek it out and pay for it. My friend's mom is really into this. And she asked me one time, she's like, do you want me to do your chart? And I went, sure. So she did my chart. And I remember looking at it and thinking like, wow, a lot of this, you know, kind of like when you look at your son's sign, we'll go ahead and say that's what most like, like

when somebody says, what sign are you? Yeah. Or if you read your daily horoscope, it's based on your son's sign. I would look at things like that or like my, whatever my year is on the Chinese zodiac and think like, oh, wow, I am some of these things, but then I'm like not about half of those things. Sure. So I just think it's interesting.

I think it's interesting as well, but again, from a standpoint of where I don't actually believe it's effective or real, but just the thought put into it. And Ed wrote this article, The Grabster, and he makes a really good point, he's saying like, even if you don't believe it or not, getting your, your chart done is interesting in and of itself. I think so. Sure. And at the very least, it's going to force you to be a little more introspective about

yourself than, than you normally would be because you're being presented with basically like, here's your personality according to the cosmos. And it's, you can't help but think, well, like, am I introspective? Am I, do I set things on fire? I think anything that can spur self reflection is valuable in some ways. Yes. I think that's where it interests. I would go to a palm reader just to know what that's like, but I wouldn't leave thinking

like, oh boy. Right. My life is set out for me. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You're no Nancy Reagan. Well, we'll get to that. So.

But spoiler, I am not Nancy Reagan. We should probably say, for those of you who are confused, they're like, how are they poo-pooing this? Like, this is the science of, of Neil deGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan. I don't understand. We're talking about astrology, not astronomy. Right. So astrology is basically the idea that distant objects out in the cosmos, planets, stars,

constellations specifically, have an influence on our lives and events on the planet. Right. It's very old. I saw it as far back as 5,000 years ago. People were starting to develop astrological systems. I saw more frequently 3,000 years ago with the Babylonians that Western astrology kind of started to develop. Yeah.

Should we talk about history a little bit? Yeah. I think I finally figured out my beef with it. What? Should I hold on to that or should we talk about history first? That's up to you, man. How do you want it to play out? I think.

Just don't forget if you hang on to it. All right. I'm going to write beef at the top of my page. It's going to. You're going to make me hungry. I'm going to make myself to shoot a duck later on. Okay. It's like memento.

I'll come back to that. So history. We need to go back in the Wayback machine way back. To ancient times. To Babylon. Yeah. When basically people. We and we are going back to Babylon.

Especially when people were like looking around at everything and going, I don't get it. Yeah. Why is all this stuff happening? Why did the earth just open up and swallow fish mail? Yeah. Why is it raining? Why is it not raining?

Yeah. Why are the crops doing well? Why are they doing terribly? Yeah. Why is that sun up half the day and down half the day? Yeah. So as humans started to get a little more, I don't know about intelligent, but. Inquisitive?

I was about to say answer-seeky, but inclusive is the word for that. As they started to get a little more answer-seeky, they started to make things up that made them feel better about what was going on. Right. I mean, they did apply a certain measure of science to it, which is where a lot of people who believe in astrology get the idea that it's scientific in some way, shape, or form. Because it does involve the movement studying and tracking the movement of the planets and the constellations, the cosmos, right?

Yeah. And Ed makes a good point. Back then, astronomy and astrology were the same thing. Right. Right. Because you took those observations, astronomy, and then you used them to predict or explain the stuff that was going on here on earth. Right.

Which we now call astrology. Right. But yeah. I don't even know what they called it back then. They called it reality. Probably so. But it wasn't just the Babylonians who were doing this. All over the planet, basically every culture that's ever lived had some sort of astrological

system. Yeah. The Aztec and Incas and the mines in South America, they had a zodiac of 20 symbols, including things like earthquake and ape and rain. When they died out, they took it with them. Ed didn't seep into modern forms of astrology like the Babylonians, for instance. No Spanish Jesuit was saying, so can you explain your astrological system to an Inca emperor that was being tortured to death?

What else? The Chinese, of course, they had their own by 1,000 BC, and they had 24 divisions in a year. Yeah. They had the most complex one probably of all time. Not surprising. No. I don't know why that's not surprising.

They're complex people, maybe. Well, when I think of the zodiac, I think of the Western zodiac and then Chinese zodiac. Yeah, me too. Yeah. The only thing I knew about Chinese zodiac coming in was what year animal I was from the menu at the Chinese restaurant. That's where I learned it, too. Yeah.

I'm the dog. Oh, I'm a dragon. Yeah. Rar. Woof. Jerry? Are you a cat? No.

I'm not a cat. I'm a meowd. That was weird. It was. Maybe her first instinct is just a meowd. There is a year of the cat, the Al Stewart song. Are you the year of the fish, Jerry? What did you do?

Jerry said that she was the ox, the year of the ox, so she's meowd. But what she's called upon to do animal sounds, she meowd. I think it's cute. What if oxes, oxen, meowd? Maybe an ox that was raised by cats. Sure. An ox that might learn to meow. I think that's what Jerry was saying.

This one's getting silly. The horoscope one's getting silly. It is. Is there gas leaking in one of our vents that I don't know about? All right. So back to China, 24 divisions, 28-part lunar zodiac, and then the 12 branches that correspond to the animal. And then those animals have further subdivisions like you could be a fire dog or a water dragon.

Right. Which we'll get to that stuff in a minute too. Yeah, and I didn't know that you could be an elemental animal. I thought it was just straight up animal. I did not know that either. Yeah. That's one thing about astrology. No matter what system you're looking at, there's like, oh, there's this one layer.

And then let's add this other layer, and another layer, and another layer. Right. That's what fascinates me. It's just the thought that's going into it. Sure. What about Babylon, though? What do you mean? Well, I mean...

Oh, oh. That's like the origin of the Western. Yeah. And here is where it becomes painfully obvious that astrology can't possibly be correct or real. Yeah, I know what you're about to say. So our idea of the constellations here in the West came from the ancient Babylonian people and astronomers and astrologers who looked up and they said, oh, Mars is red, so blood

can be red. Yeah. So Mars is probably associated with war. Right. Kind of just made that up. They made it up, and that is fundamentally the basis of astrology. Yeah. Stuff that was made up by the Babylonians can't possibly be true.

It's just basically a fact. The other big thing is the Babylonians divided the zodiac into 12 equal parts, but according to their own stories, there were 13 constellations in the zodiac, so they just picked one and left it out. Yes. Which was Ophiuchus? I like how you said that. Ophiuchus?

I don't know, man. I've never tried to say that out loud. O-P-H-I-U-C-H-U-S. It's like the hidden zodiac symbol. Well, not hidden. They just kind of said 12 kind of works out better. Right. So let's just leave it out.

Yeah. And if the Babylonians prove anything, it's that for thousands of years, humans have always preferred things to be nice and tidy and neat. Yeah. And that's going to be messy because if you really look at what they were trying to do, it's super messy. So for example, if you are dividing the night sky into 12, trying to assign a month to each horoscope, you've got constellations sloppin' over into other zodiac signs.

The actual movement of the constellations behind the sun is way less than a 30-day standard. I think Scorpio is actually in line with the sun for about seven days out of the year, whereas one of the other ones is around for like 45 days, I believe, a long ago. Yeah. I don't think we even said what that means, though. Maybe I should explain that. Yeah. We should start from the beginning, shall we?

Yeah. We got the history down. Yeah. Do you want to take a break first? Yeah, why not? I'll go check my horoscope and see if it says we should continue. Okay. Let's go.

Okay. On the podcast, HeyDude the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever.

Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing.

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to HeyDude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mangesha Tickler, and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology.

Lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in, and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, cancelled marriages, K-pop? But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good.

There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology? It changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well lucky for us, the horoscope said, finish show. It said ask again later.

Yeah, it said finish show, but take it easy on me. Yeah, lay off jerks. I had even resolved to not poo poo astrology. I think the first thing I did was launch into it. I'm sorry, astrology. So we should get to the basics of all this, and there's two things that we have to point out. One, we would have to spend years researching astrology to really get everything right.

Yes. Two, even if we spent years researching astrology, we would still get stuff wrong depending on who you are because there's a lot of contradictory things. For example, I saw that the moon is a fire sign. I also saw that the moon is associated with water. How is that? Well, I think there have just been so many permutations over the years that it's been kind of mixed together.

So we are going to get things that will contradict your understanding of astrology, I'm quite sure. But for the most part, I feel like if we're sticking to the basics of it, we can get it fairly right, right? Yeah. I mean, the most basic thing is sun sign astrology, which is really just seeing where each planet was when you were born, the day you were born. That's the most simplistic way to look at it.

Right. And when you ask somebody, what's your sign? What's your sign? See? Pisces. Okay. I'm cancer. All that's saying is that on the date of our births, the Pisces constellation allegedly

was behind the sun as it rose. And when I was born, the cancer constellation was behind the sun when it rose. I like to think the sun shined a little brighter when we were born, but I can't prove that. No, but you can just make a pretty good assumption. So the way that you do this is you basically take the sun and the earth in its orbit around the sun, which equals a year, and you draw a line, an arrow even from the earth, put it flat, lay it flat. I forgot to say that.

And you draw an arrow from the earth through the sun and then out the other side of the sun. And wherever that arrow's pointing, which is actually the opposite side of the sun, opposite to earth, whatever constellation that is, that's your sun. Pretty simple stuff, right? So you can think of the, if you thought of a circle around each, if you looked at it as a circle, each sign would be its own little zone, zone, exactly. A pizza slice, a pie slice, whatever.

Yeah. If you have a sweet tooth or a salty tooth, you're going to go with either one of those. Right. What about cake? I guess a cake too. Are you cake or pie? Both. What's your favorite cake?

I like a good coconut cream cake or a coconut frosting cake. Uh huh. Uh huh. What's your favorite pie? Probably. Coconut cream pie? No, actually. That sounds gross.

I would say a good key lime pie, but does cheesecake constitute pie? Oh, I think you've just opened up a hornet's nest. Well, I love cheesecake. Basically, I don't really discriminate. I've learned, I recently started trying cherry pie and I was like, where have you been my whole life? Why did I ever discriminate against you? You know, it's just been sitting there in the pie safe.

Right. Rotting. Yeah. Because no one eats cherry pie anymore. Yeah. And then I came along and ate all the rotten cherry pie and loved it. All right. What about you, cake pie?

Oh, I love the good key lime pies like you were saying, but I don't eat a lot of either. You know, I don't just keep like cake and pie around the house. It's probably a good move. And I don't really eat dessert in the restaurants either. So just neither. Eat more cake just because cakes are the occasion dessert like people bringing cake for birthdays or whatever. Yeah.

Any, any like publics cake is awesome. There's standard cake with buttercream icing. Yeah. Yeah. Never had it. Oh, Chuck, I'll bring you a slice. I like a good pecan pie, but I eat the pecan now, but I used to not like the nuts. I would just slice that off because I like the jelly.

You'd get rid of the candy pecans. Yeah. But I don't now because now I'm grown up. I just eat the jelly, man, pecan pie. Pumpkin pie. Sure. All right. I'm going all in on pie now that I think about it.

Okay. Pie. All right. Okay. Wait till you try the publics cake though. Where are we? Oh, sorry. We were talking about how.

Pizza pie slices. Right. And each one of those slices is one of the 12 constellations of the zodiac. Right. Okay. So wherever, wherever the earth, whatever constellation is opposite the earth on the other side of the sun, that's your sun sign. And when you were born, that constellation has a bunch of different personality traits

and they are basically imbued onto you. You were born under that sign, which means you are going to have those personality traits. That's the point of what's called the sun sign. That's right. In Western astrology there, you can subdivide it into three groups, mundane astrology, and this is basically what, what is your aim with these mundane astrology is examines world events and makes predictions about big things like the economy and war. Interrogatory astrology, it seeks to make predictions, very specific ones or analyses

for like events or your life maybe. Like for you, the individual. Yeah. More like, say it's like when you, when somebody says they'll consult the stars to see what the best course of action is. That's where they're talking about. Which seems like it overlaps with the last one. I think all three of them could, like if you're doing like a serious chart to figure out something.

A deep dive. You would probably do all three. So what would that be? Natal astrology. Like birth astrology. Yeah. And that's when you read your daily horoscope and that's based on the idea that everything that happens to someone is expressed by the very beginning like that moment you were born.

Right. But ironically, the moment you're born, not the moment you were conceived. So really that's when the astrology starts. Not the moment you're conceived, but the moment you were born. But the idea, this law of beginning says that the moment you're born, the stars basically make everything in your life predestined and therefore predictable if the person knows how to read the stars correctly. That's the basis of astrology.

And then what you would come up with these predictions, this chart, that is your horoscope. That's right. And then there are different, the signs that can be subgrouped into four elements. You've heard of like, I'm a water sign, you're a water sign. Sure. We're both water signs. How about that? Yeah.

So fire sign that would be Aries, Leo, Sagittarius, enthusiasm, action, leadership, open to change, air signs besides cancer and Pisces, you've got Scorpio, emotion, sensitivity, and compassion. Earth signs, Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn, practicality, and a focus on material goals. And then air signs, Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius signifies intellect. Right. And those are the big groupings, the elemental groupings. Right. So here we've kind of come up with another layer, right?

Yeah. So each sign on its own has its own qualities, like for example, the cancer is very domestic, imaginative, thorough, shy, interested in the past and tradition. That's me all over. Is it really? All those things? Yeah. Basically.

But then you lay over the water sign, right, that it's a water sign, so that adds to the emotion or the sensitivity or the compassion of it, where it really starts to get interesting is the idea that there's a relationship between the element and the sign. And those are with the cardinal fixed or mutable. Right. Whether or not you're resistant to change, you're able to change, or what's cardinal? Just general movement. Cardinal is that it moves, right?

So these three things, it's like a whole other layer. And basically, so they have to do with the solstices and the equinoxes. We should say there's a couple of kinds of Western astrology. One is sidereal, which follows the movement of the stars, so your birth sign is sidereal astrology. Yeah. There's another one called tropical that really just has nothing to do with the stars. It's the idea that in the cosmos, the zodiac is fixed, and it really has nothing to do

with the stars. It has to do with the sun's relative position to the horizon. So it has to do with things like solstices and equinoxes. So when you go into the tropical type of astrology, that's when the cardinal fixed and mutable comes up. So a cardinal sign, right? Each element has a cardinal sign. So there's four cardinal signs, and for example, cancer is the cardinal water sign, right?

Each element also has four fixed signs. So Leo is the fixed fire sign that has to do with persistence, perseverance, resistance to change. And then lastly, mutable means you're flexible, adaptable, suggestible, and Gemini is a mutable air sign. There's four different mutable air signs, right? So you put them all together. And what you have is an interaction between the elements and the signs themselves so that

you have sometimes contradictory stuff. You have things that enhance other things, but it's yet another layer. So now you have three layers deep of interpretations of just the signs. And it's up to an astrologer to extract however they want to read it, basically. That makes the point you can ask a hundred different astrologers to look at your chart and they might give you a hundred different readings. Yeah, because it's ultimately the astrologer's interpretation of the information that's presented by the signs and whether they're cardinal or fixed or mutable or what element they are.

Right. Well, they can also be masculine or feminine, which Ed points out is not really, can't think of it in terms of gender. It's more like the concept of Yin and Yang, which makes a little more sense. But when I look at mine, Pisces, February 20 to March 20, mutable, water, feminine. Okay. So that's where I am. Emotional, sure.

Self-sacrificing sometimes. Adaptable sometimes. Empathetic almost always. Religious not anymore. Versatile. Sure. Talkative sometimes. Yeah.

You get paid for it. Yeah. Well, sometimes it's really quiet though. Don't want to talk. Okay. So that goes against all astrology. Often takes on the behaviors of others. I don't know about that.

Creative, I hope. Impractical. No, I'm pretty practical. So like, I'm like half and half maybe. Would you say half? I feel like you did. Or maybe more. Maybe 70, 30.

Yeah. That sounds about right. All right. But even still, I mean, that doesn't prove anything. No, of course not. But it did just get you to think about yourself. Exactly. Right.

That's the whole point, right? From what I understand, that's how Ed tells it. So you've got all these different layers to just the sign that you were born under, right? Yes. But there's even deeper layers to the whole thing, right, that has to do with the movement of the constellations or the movement of the sun. And it also has to do with more than just the sign you were born under. Like, when you sit down and you do an astrological chart, you're basically looking at the position

of everything that's taken into account in the cosmos, rather than just what constellations behind the sun when you were born. Right. And then you dive even deeper into this stuff after this message break. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster?

Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? Also leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing

on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to, Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikala, and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second-hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running

and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in, and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, cancelled marriages, K-pop, but just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good, there is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed.

Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Find a skyline drive in the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Chuck, we're talking about how we've got the fixed layers, right? And then depending on when you were born, where you were born, there's a lot of stuff to take into account. And when meaning literally the minute, and second even. Yeah, because one of the zodiacs, well the houses, when you add this other layer, the houses of the zodiac, which are the same thing as the zodiac signs, but they're different.

In this case, they represent the 24-hour movement of the Earth on its axis. So now you have the added layer of time to the moment that you were born to create a genuine astrology chart. So not only are you taking into account time and your sun sign, but you also want to look around if you're a good astrologer and say, okay, where was the moon? What house was Venus in? And you start to basically go through and find the position of every planet, including the sun and the moon.

And the sun and the moon are considered planets as far as astrology goes, right? And then when you put all this stuff together, there's a huge, extremely complex interplay between all these different components that are all supposed to point to the person that you were born as. Right. This is where I think I should say my beef now. Okay. I think it's a good time for that.

My beef is that I couldn't find anywhere, and this is me looking for science where there is none, is why. Like the position of the stars and they all affect who you are and what you're going to be like. All right. Well, explain that to me. How does it do that? Oh, yeah.

What forces, what scientific forces are behind this that cause this? None. Like I get what you're saying, people, the stars are aligned and these things are all in a certain place and you're going to be a certain way. All right. Well, how does it do that? It doesn't. That's where, that's my beef.

So, I mean, that's a legitimate beef. There's no how. No, there's not. Yeah. There's none. I guess I'm not hung up on that fact. I think I just kind of accept it. It's almost like coming upon the belief system of another culture.

Yeah. It's so hard. And knowing that, like I don't subscribe to it, but I'm interested in like what they believe and how it applies to their life, but that doesn't mean that I believe in it. I'm just kind of interested in it in an academic sense. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you're, we're curious people. Right. I get that. Right. So, just don't get hung up on the fact that it doesn't actually work and you'll be interested in it. I promise. No, I do think it's interesting.

And I used to read my horoscope here and there just for fun, just the same way I look at a fortune cookie. It's just a parlor trick to me though. It's not, but anything I would take seriously. I think in astrologer, even if they, even if they said fine, you don't believe in it, it's fine, but this is more than a parlor trick. Like they're really sitting down and applying this and it takes a tremendous amount of time, calculation.

Yeah. A certain measure of science, you have to understand astronomy at least because you have to go figure out when someone was born, where, what was where, right? Yeah. Sure. And so when you're sitting down and doing your chart, you were born of Pisces, right? Yes. So the Pisces constellation was behind the sun, but where was Saturn?

And why would Saturn matter? Well, Saturn is a melancholy planet, right? It sure is. So if Saturn is in a house associated with happiness, you might have a thread of bitter sweetness that runs through your whole life. That might be one interpretation of it. Or you might be happy sometimes and sad sometimes. Maybe.

Which is every person ever. Sure. I mean, yeah. And again, I'm not explaining how this works, I'm just saying like this is what an astrologer would sit down and think. Or Mars is warlike. Well if Mars was in, I don't know, a house associated with aggressiveness, you might get into fights your whole life according to this astrology chart.

So that's just each planet, right? Let's say that you have Mars in an aggressive house and you have Saturn in a happy house house. How do those interact with each other? How does that, getting in fights all the time, interact with the bitter sweetness that runs through your life? And that's open to interpretation as well. And that's where the astrologer, I think I was saying the astrologist earlier.

Is that even a word? I think so. Okay. It doesn't seem, it seems like I've heard that before. Well, in any way, that's where they come into play with their varying interpretations. But not just the interpretations, they're actually going to sit down and figure out what was where, what that means according to the astrological tradition. And then the third step is for them to interpret it for you.

Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, I mean, there is a tremendous amount of work to it from what I can tell for a genuine astrological chart. Your friend's mom hooked you up when you were... Yeah. I mean, she didn't dash it off in five minutes, I'll tell you that.

Yeah. There was math involved. And angles and stuff. So, the main thing you're getting, if you're looking at like a newspaper or if you have, if you're signed up for some sort of internet daily horoscope is it's usually some sort of personality profile, advice on your life, maybe some sort of map to... For finances, you might want to think about, you know, investing soon. That's where people probably get in trouble.

But it's pretty much personal advice stuff. Not so much long-term future type of thing, not like predicting your future necessarily. Well, they do to the extent of like, you'll have a so-so day today. Yeah, yeah. Today will be rather unremarkable. Yeah. Or like, a lot of times it can be, I think it's like, you know, today might be a good day to reach out to an old friend.

And if you follow that advice, then that's great because your old friend probably would want to hear from you. And then you have lunch with that friend and it goes great. And you might say, we'll see you there. My horoscope said to reach out to an old friend and it went awesome. Or if it went really horribly, you'd be like, why are you punishing me, stars? Yeah. Or what if you get killed on the way to the lunch?

Like, you don't hear those stories. No, but that's the great thing about astrology. It removes personal responsibility from your decisions. That's funny. I would say also, I want to like, there are even more layers to the whole thing than what I said. Oh, sure. I hope we kind of got the point across that there's layer upon layer upon layer and they

all interact with one another. But I mean, like in a good astrologer, we'll take into account like, well, they're playing it was in retrograde and what that means when you were born, you know? Or if it's in retrograde right now, there's just so much to it. I think that's what fascinates me. Well, Ed makes a good point, if this is a true science, then it should have, it should pass the muster of the, of repeatable testing, which of course it doesn't. No.

No, it really, really doesn't. But some other people might say, you know what? This is, it's beyond science. This is, you shouldn't try and quantify it in terms of science. This is something that you can't, you can't even understand it. Your puny science cannot explain this. Yeah. It exists outside that realm to something that we don't know and understand and hey,

I'm a science guy, but I'm not foolish enough to think there isn't anything out there that I maybe don't know about or we can't prove. I think it's very healthy. You know? I, my hat is off to you. You're a 40 and you don't even know it. Seriously, that's like, to me, that's the, the pinnacle of what a thinking person can aspire to.

Well, I think that's when you stop looking, when you think that we, you know, we've got it all figured out. Right. You know? Yeah. Especially when you aggressively attack other people who say otherwise. Well, yeah. That's, if this conversation is floating your vocalist in the Enlightenment episode, that

was good. Oh, that was a good one. Had a lot to do with that. They have done studies though on the viability of astrology as far as, you know, are you could divorce rates, are they compatible or do they comply with or correlate with the compatibility of two people astrologically speaking? Yeah. They don't.

Yes. You know, there's supposedly interaction amongst the signs where like, you know, Virgos don't get along with Capricorns or something like that. Yeah. And that doesn't hold up through scientific study. And if you cherry pick examples in your life, of course you might think it does. Well, yeah. That's why a lot of people are like astrology is right.

A selection bias is what you're encountering. You're ignoring the stuff that disproves it or that suggests that it's not true and instead just focusing on the amazing facts where it lines up. Right. Right. That's a selection bias. Correct? I think so.

I need to know more about all the different biases. It's interesting. We should say another thing that kind of suggests that astrology is not accurate. The zodiac signs are no longer where they're supposed to be. Yeah. If you're going by your birth date, for example, I was born July 15th, so I would be a cancer. If you actually follow the constellations, I'm a Gemini. Oh, really?

Never knew that. So, Gemini's are concerned with information, highly literate, curious, adaptable, absent-minded, love to travel. Whoa. I am a Gemini. Wow. So, the reason why is because when astrology was first created, the Earth, the constellations were lined up with where they were originally.

Right. As the Earth rotates on its axis, it wobbles. Yeah, per se. And over the last couple of thousand years, it's wobbled so that those constellations are no longer where they were when they set them 3,000 years ago. Right. So, today, we have totally different signs. What would mine be?

Can I figure that out? So, you were born on the Ides of March. You're still a Pisces, man. I'm sorry. Oh, no. I love it. I am now a Gemini because it got moved. So, let's go through.

Because I think a lot of people don't know this, and NASA blogged about it a couple of years ago and really caused a stir. Is Jerry still a cat ox? Jerry's birthday is April, something, right? Jerry's birthday is, what's your birthday? Your birthday is Valentine's Day? I didn't know that. Jerry just said her birthday is February 14th because we have to edit out any Jerry

talk, right? Jerry, what are you supposed to be normally? You are a Capricorn. You are January 20th to February 16th. As far as NASA is concerned, you're a Capricorn. So, it starts, and we should say, I don't think we said this, but Zodiac officially in the West starts with Aries and moves on. So, starting with Capricorn, because NASA is like, no, we're going to start with the

beginning of the year. Capricorn January 20th to February 16th. Okay. Aquarius is now February 16th to March 11th, and you'll notice these aren't necessarily 30-day periods. Yeah, it's so close. Yeah, you are. Pisces, March 11th to April 18th, Aries, April 18th to May 13th, Taurus, May 13th to June

21st. That's a long one. Gemini, June 21st to July 20th. That's me now. Cancer, July 20th to August 10th. I used to be a cancer. Leo, August 10th to September 16th, Virgo, September 16th to October 30th, Libra, October 30th to November 23rd, Scorpio, November 23rd to 29th.

That's six days. You got six days to be a Scorpio. Wow. It's kind of neat. Ophiuchus. Yeah, the long-forgotten. November 29th to December 17th. Wow.

Isn't that crazy? There's people out there who don't even know that they're that sign. Yeah, or how to pronounce it. Right. No one does. No one alive knows how to pronounce that. And then Sagittarius, December 17th to January 20th. Wow.

I don't even know anything anymore. No one does, Chuck. I think this is fascinating stuff though. I've been thinking a lot lately about what does shape your personality and what you become in life as far as nature and nurture. And some people might throw this in there. I think we should totally do a podcast on birth order. Oh, yeah.

That's a good one. Super fascinating to me. Or whether hearing your name or the vibrations caused by saying your own name throughout your life has an effect on your personality. What? You heard that one? No. Yeah.

Supposedly the vibrations or the frequency made from hearing and saying your own name throughout your life makes your personality a certain way. Weird. Yeah. I mean, it's probably not true, but it's interesting. Well, we teased Ronald Reagan earlier. Well, we didn't tease Ronald Reagan. We did.

But we can't talk about astrology without talking a little bit about the Reagan administration because in 1988, Ron and Nancy were outed, sort of exposed, yeah, as having an astrologer on the payroll to the tune of about how much? Three grand? Three grand. Per what? Reading? A month.

Three grand a month. Yeah. That's not bad. No. This lady was working hard. Joan Quigley, Down Under. That's her nickname. Medicine woman.

Well, it was revealed that she wrote up star charts and basically detailed even down to the minute, supposedly, depending on who you listen to, what Reagan's schedule should look like. Right. So this lady was definitely doing mundane, interrogatory, and natal astrology combined to create a chart. Yes. For sure.

And Chief of Staff, Don Regan, wrote in his memoir, I mean, this is not a matter of debate or anything. No. This was for real. For real. But Don Regan wrote in his memoirs, and he talked about capturing the public's attention like that was a big deal because it looked like what was going on, was going on, which was his schedule was kind of being determined by an astrologer.

Right. Like, you can't talk to Gorby today. This is a bad day to propose the Salt Treaty, wait until November 18th. That's when you talk to Gorby. And then Don Regan would be told by Nancy he should be talking to Gorby on November 18th. Yeah, because she would meet with Nancy. Right.

Only met Ron once, supposedly. And Nancy downplayed it a lot. Of course, they all tried to distance themselves. She's like, it's Charlie. He's just so stupid. Well, they said it was more of a hobby, and she definitely had no impact on decisions. It was really just about scheduling. Okay.

That's what they said. Scheduling decisions. But she wrote a book actually, Ms. Quigley, in 1990, it was called, this is the most on-the-nose book title of all time, it was called What Does Joan Say, Colin, My Seven Years as White House Astrologer to Nancy and Ronald Regan. By me, with Joan. Do you get it? And she said, quote, I was responsible for timing all press conferences, most speeches,

the state of the union addresses, the takeoffs and landings of Air Force One, I picked the time of Ronald Regan's debate with Jimmy Carter, and the two debates with Mondale, all extended trips abroad, as well as shorter trips and one day excursions, end quote. So yes, the leader of the free world, arguably the most powerful American president in recent memory, had his schedule determined by an astrologer. So weird. I got a couple more things. All right.

What you got? Apparently, Americans around the time of Regan had hit basically a low in believing in astrology. They did a poll after that news came out and they found that American belief overall in astrology was at 12%, which is down from, this is an 88, which is down from 29%, 10 years before in 1970. Yeah, which makes total sense, like coming off of the hippie age and the goofy 70s into the very kind of cynical late 80s, it aligns perfectly with the stars. Somebody forgot to send Nancy and Ron that memo.

So in 2004, another poll found that it had gone back up to 29%, no idea why. And then another poll I saw that asked something different rather than do you believe in astrology asked, would you say that astrology is, quote, not at all scientific? In 2004, 66% of Americans said that. In 2012. That it was not scientific. Not scientific. So basically, they don't believe in astrology, 66%.

And then in 2012, 55% said that. So apparently, belief in astrology is still on the increase. Interesting. Even more interesting. Even in 92% of the public says they don't believe in astrology compared to about 45% here. And then lastly, I have one more story. You ready?

Yeah. And there's actually a blog post you can go read called The Genius Mural at St. John's. Okay. By you? Yeah. It's from years back, but I just came across this story. It's amazing. There's this place called St. John's Anglican Church in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

And it was built in 1754, and it was built with a mural on the ceiling of the night sky with gilded stars. Lovely. And they were remodeling the church, and they wanted to redo the mural, right, recreated exactly as it had been. But they realized they didn't have any dead-on photographs of it. So they had to kind of like figure out what to do. Right.

So they hired an astronomer, and he started poking around into it. And he realized that the mural, which had been constructed in 1754, was the exact scene of the night sky over Lunenburg on December 24th, 1 CE, which in the Christian tradition is the night Christ was born. Somebody in 1754 accurately calculated what the sky had looked like 1754 years before on December 24th and turned it into a mural. Isn't that amazing? Amazing.

I love that story. Pretty cool. Yeah. So that's astrology. And what's the name of that story? The... Genius mural at St. John's. Nice.

Thanks, man. You got anything else? Nope. I could talk about this all day. You sure? I think we did right by it. If you want to know more about astrology, go read Joan Quigley's book. And since I said Joan Quigley, it's time for Listener Mail.

I'm going to call this Star Wars action figure, Nierd. Hey, guys. Love the show. I like to... I can say like all the other fans, it's definitely my favorite thing to listen to. I'm a transplant to Texas from Tennessee, and I always get excited when I can make that long drive back home and binge on your interesting material. Just listen to action figures and was thrilled to hear you talk about Star Wars action figures.

I'm one of those Star Wars guys you mentioned that read away too much of the fan fiction and knew way too many characters, too many of the character names. I wanted to share a fact I thought was interesting about the Kinner toys, and two of the bounty hunter characters seen in Empire strikes back. Kinner went originally packaging the characters, mislabeled for Loam, I'm probably not even pronouncing that right, for the number 4-LOM, originally the droid, and the Zuckus, Z-U-C-K-U-S-S, originally the bug looking guy, and switched their names. I'll bet somebody got fired for that one.

Did you believe it? The name stuck until 1989, and you can see on newer packaging of the Hasbro toys that their names have been switched back. I always thought it was interesting, an interesting mishap. Thanks for all you guys do, and I've learned so much, and it's love referencing your show every chance I get. Sincerely, Adam West, PS, sadly I'm not him. Wow.

How great would that be? Man, that nice email, Adam, it was full of drama, suspense, facts. And I could do my Conan the Bride nerd voice, which I completely stole from him. Sure. Just want to make that clear. I'm not claiming it as your own right. It's an homage to Conan. Yep.

Well, Adam, thank you. That was a great one. If you want to get in touch with us like Adam did, you can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can hang out with Chuck too at Charles W. Chuck Bryant at Facebook. You can hang out with me on Twitter, Josh underscore um underscore Clark. And you can also hang out with us at SYSK Podcast. And send us an email to stuffpodcastandhowstuffworks.com and always join us at our home on the web,

stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. I'm Munga Shatigler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed.

Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, I'm Kaylee Shore. On my podcast Too Much to Say, I share my thoughts on everything from music to martinis, social media to social anxiety, regrets to risky texts, and so much more. I have been known to read my literal diary entries on my show and sometimes I do interviews

with my crazy group of friends. So if you guys want to tune in, you can hear new episodes of Too Much to Say every Wednesday on the National Podcast Network, available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to them.