- 20 hours ago
Astrology is the subject of this fascinating episode, which discusses why so many Americans believe in the subject and why so many base their lives around it.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00When the moon is full, more crimes of violence occur.
00:16Arrests have been known to increase, as well as admissions to mental hospitals.
00:20Firemen report an unusually high number of fires and freak accidents.
00:34Emergency personnel in hospitals brace themselves for increased caseloads.
00:40Bizarre statements and traumatic actions by usually rational people are attributed to moon madness.
00:46Why? What strange influence does the moon have on the behavior of man?
01:16The three wise men journeyed from the east to Bethlehem.
01:28According to some biblical scholars, they observed the rising of a star and came to pay homage to a newborn king.
01:35In recent translations of the New English Bible, the three wise men, the magi, are called astrologers.
01:43This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture.
01:55The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanation, but not necessarily the only ones, to the mysteries we will examine.
02:02I'm an Aries. I have a Libra rising. My Venus is in Pisces. My moon is in Cancer.
02:14I know an awful lot about it because every man that I like, I'd be sure and check out what his sign is first before I get, you know, too involved.
02:21I'm a Sagittarius and I don't know that much about astrology.
02:23I do know I'm an Aries and I think it's fun to read my horoscope every morning in the paper.
02:31I'm a Libra and I think it's, I'm not real in favor of it because I think it gives people an out, tells them what to do and that's just what they want to do.
02:38My sign is Virgo. I don't think it has much scientific fact because I don't think anybody has ever proved anything.
02:43I'm a Leo and I wish I knew more about it. I really don't. I think it's terrific, very interesting, and I just wish I knew more about it.
02:56And I'm an Aries with Scorpio rising. For most of us, that's as far as it goes. We know our sign, but little beyond that.
03:05What is astrology? Why do 32 million Americans express a belief in it?
03:10Simply put, astrology is the forecasting of events on Earth based on the relationship between the stars, the sun, the moon, and the other planets.
03:20As above, so below.
03:25Perhaps astrology began as a form of survival.
03:28Cavemen looked up into the night sky, trying to determine when to hunt, when to store food, when to seek shelter from wintry storms.
03:36Years passed, and early man realized that the weather, the moon, the sun, and the stars moved in predictable cycles.
03:47Ice Age bone markings suggest that prehistoric men were aware of the cycle of the moon over 32,000 years ago.
03:54In the more recent past, star groupings were identified by assigning them the names of earthly creatures.
04:05Cancer, the crab.
04:07Aries, the ram.
04:10Leo, the lion.
04:13Sagittarius, the archer.
04:15Scorpio, the scorpion.
04:17The formalized study of astrology originated in Mesopotamia at least 3,000 years before Christ.
04:30From there, it spread to Egypt, India, China, and throughout Europe.
04:35The Egyptians devised a calendar, dividing the yearly cycle into 12 houses.
04:41Knowledge of the future was considered a potent weapon.
04:47Only those of royal birth were permitted to learn the mysteries of the heavens.
04:54The great temples and pyramids along the Nile incorporated astronomical calculations in their design.
05:00At that time, astronomy and astrology were considered one and the same.
05:08An astrologer charted the movement of planets and interpreted their influence on the affairs of man.
05:17Four centuries before Christ, the Greeks combined mythology, geometry, and Mesopotamian astrology into a complex system.
05:26In the second century A.D., the Greek mathematician Claudius Ptolemy accurately measured planetary movements.
05:34His prolific research dominated both astrology and astronomy for 1,500 years.
05:41Meanwhile, astrology flourished throughout the Roman Empire.
05:46Moses, father of the Jewish people, practiced astrology.
05:49In Bet Alpha, Israel, a synagogue built in the 6th century A.D., has the zodiac as the centerpiece of its mosaic floor.
06:00Unusual celestial activity apparently heralded the birth of Christ.
06:05Three times in the same year, Saturn and Jupiter moved closely together, forming a conjunction in the constellation of Pisces.
06:13According to some of the newer translations of the Bible, the magi were astrologers.
06:20The first conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter supposedly started them on their long journey.
06:26The second guided them west.
06:29And the third occurred when they arrived in Bethlehem.
06:34Astrology was condemned by early Christians as pagan ritual.
06:38Today, the most extensive astrological library in the world is found, of all places, in the Vatican.
06:48Astrology and astronomy, of course, are very closely related, although there have been many heated battles and debates.
06:54And I've been...
06:55Sidney Omar is one of America's leading astrologers.
06:59His books on the subject have sold over 20 million copies.
07:02I remember one time when MGM was doing a movie called The Heavenly Body, starring Hedy Lamarr and William Powell,
07:10where William Powell played the astronomer, and his wife in the movie, Hedy Lamarr, played the astrologer.
07:16Well, they had to hire two technical advisors for that movie.
07:19It turned out that the astrologer was being paid three times as much as the astronomer.
07:24And when the astronomer found this out, he stormed off the set.
07:27And I suppose perhaps that symbolizes the peak that exists between astrologers and astronomers.
07:33But I always compare it in this manner.
07:35I think an astronomer is a librarian.
07:39He knows where all the books are placed.
07:41He knows the positions of the planets.
07:44But the astrologer reads the books.
07:46He interprets those positions.
07:48From the beginning of recorded history, astrology has been with us.
07:53And astronomers branched out into their own field.
07:56The early astrologers would hire apprentices to do the mathematical work so they could get the proper positions of the planets.
08:04Then the astrologer, the master astrologer, would interpret those positions.
08:08Well, the apprentices eventually branched out into their own science based on mathematics, and they called that science astronomy.
08:15Now, why the two should continue to battle, I don't know.
08:18That's a psychological study in itself.
08:20Dr. George O. Abel, professor of astronomy at UCLA, has debated the value of astrology with Sidney Omar on more than one occasion.
08:31Astrology is an ancient religion with no basis whatsoever.
08:36And yet in more than 15 years of investigation, I have found that astrologers often try to justify their claims with other kinds of celestial effects.
08:44But those are usually wrong.
08:47Take a few examples.
08:49Moon madness.
08:50More than 7,500 murders, suicides, admissions to metal hospitals have been found to have no relation whatsoever to the moon.
08:59Or tides.
09:01The tidal force exerted on me by all of the planets combined is many tens of millions of times weaker than the force of this book upon me.
09:11Or planets and weather.
09:13Although there have been unsuccessful attempts to relate planets to solar activity like sunspots, nobody claims to predict Earth weather with planets.
09:23If we could do that, the weather service would have been out of business many years ago.
09:28Yet, many millions of people fall for astrology.
09:32It is said that even Adolf Hitler did.
09:35But I hope you do not.
09:37Throughout history, however, the misuse of astrology has been legendary.
09:49Rudolf Hess encouraged Adolf Hitler to plan battle strategies with it as they approached World War II.
09:57Rudolf Hess and Joseph Goebbels pressed the leading astrologers of Germany into service.
10:01Their early predictions of victory were propagandized into battle cries.
10:19As Hitler's charts grew increasingly pessimistic, the astrologers were arrested and shipped off to concentration camps.
10:26Karl Kraft, Hitler's personal astrologer, died en route to Buchenwald.
10:35Lewis DeWall, originally an astrologer for the Third Reich, followed the advice of his own chart and fled to Great Britain.
10:47DeWall served Winston Churchill and Britain's strategists throughout World War II.
10:52He knew the methods used by Kraft and other Germans, and predicted dozens of astrological strategies employed by Hitler's forces.
11:12DeWall saw danger signs in the chart of President Roosevelt in 1945, the year FDR suffered a fatal stroke.
11:22He also charted an ominous conjunction of Mars on the star Algol for August 1945.
11:31On the day of the conjunction, the first atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima.
11:36Astrologers have predicted many major crises in history.
11:49Often, however, their warnings have gone unheeded.
11:56I'm an Aquarius, and it's pretty general.
11:58It applies in a lot of situations, but the sign can fit almost anybody or things about the sign.
12:04Aquarius, perhaps, is the most intriguing sign of the Zodiac.
12:08Aquarius is associated with the planet Uranus.
12:11Astrologers call Uranus the planet of surprise.
12:14And if you're with an Aquarius person, you can be sure of one thing.
12:18You don't know what's going to happen next.
12:20I'm a Cancer, and I'm not quite sure what I feel about astrology.
12:25Some things seem to be true, and some things don't.
12:27Cancer is related to the moon.
12:29Cancer, people are very emotional, and they're changeable where their affections are concerned,
12:35but they're extremely loyal to family members.
12:38Cancer persons harmonize very well with Virgo, with Taurus, with Scorpio, and with Pisces.
12:45I'm a Leo, and I found out that Leo is the strongest sign in the world, and we are born to be natural leaders.
12:53That's what I am.
12:54Leo is the showman of the Zodiac, very creative.
12:57And if you're having a party, you better put a Leo on your invitation list.
13:03My sign is Scorpio.
13:04And I don't know too much about astrology, but when people ask me what my sign is, and I say Scorpio, they go, ooh, like they avoid me.
13:18Except for men.
13:19I've found in my experience that the most feared sign of the Zodiac is Scorpio.
13:25People tend to feel that Scorpios are envious and tense, can be jealous, and they're very passionate lovers.
13:32A psychologist at London University, Dr. Hans Eisning, decided to explode astrology once and for all by taking these basic claims and disproving them.
13:46He made up 2,000 questionnaires, and using a computer and other data in the modern psychologist's laboratory,
13:55he decided that he would check people who were born under the water signs and people who were born under other signs.
14:02Well, much to his astonishment, he found that indeed, the water signs were very emotional.
14:09He said it can't be, but it is.
14:11At his clinic in London, Dr. Eisning also tested the Zodiac signs for introversion and extroversion.
14:18Well, according to the astrologists, if you range the signs in order from Aries through Pisces at the other end,
14:27then the people born under the odd-numbered signs, that is, Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, and Aquarius,
14:37would tend to be extroverted.
14:39And the people born under the even-numbered signs, that's Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn, and Pisces,
14:47would then be introverted.
14:48And this is precisely what, in fact, we found in our sample.
14:53Extroversion really refers to outgoing properties of a person.
14:58He's sociable, impulsive, happy-go-lucky, likes to mix with other people, likes to go to parties, and so on.
15:04And the introvert is the opposite, of course.
15:06He likes to sit at home, read, rather than go to parties, and so on.
15:11These are quite well recognized and quite easy to test in a questionnaire.
15:15We put it through the computer and did a statistical analysis of the data.
15:19And as it happened, they bore out the astrological prediction very well,
15:24which rather surprised me, of course, but there are the results.
15:28And that's what got me interested in this.
15:32Astrology has commercial applications in many phases of business,
15:36including predictions of stock market trends.
15:44According to J.P. Morgan, millionaires don't use astrology,
15:48but billionaires do.
15:51John Henry Nelson, a weather consultant for RCA since 1926,
15:56uses astrological principles to predict storms
15:58which might impair shortwave communications.
16:03Nelson's predictions are amazingly accurate.
16:06When I announced in 1951
16:09that I had found a positive correlation
16:12between planetary angles
16:14and the behavior of shortwave radio signals,
16:17I started quite a controversy
16:19in the field of astrology
16:21and in the field of astronomy.
16:24Inadvertently on my part,
16:26my statement that the planets affect the ionosphere of the Earth
16:30was looked upon as a boost for their area of interest.
16:34I was amazed shortly after that
16:39when I learned through letters I received from astrologers
16:44that Ptolemy, almost 2,000 years ago,
16:47had said the same things that I was saying.
16:50In other words, modern research substantiated his ancient claim.
16:55He came way before his time.
16:56Using Ptolemy's principles, John Henry Nelson successfully charted storm paths 15 months in advance
17:10for a NASA space launch requiring ideal weather.
17:12The late Dr. Eldon Tice of the Methodist Hospital of California in Los Angeles actually regulated the personnel on the maternity ward by the phase of the moon.
17:29He found that when there's a full moon, the maternity ward was very busy.
17:34More babies were born during the full moon.
17:36Now, Dr. Edson J. Andrews of Tallahassee, Florida, wrote in the Tallahassee Medical Journal
17:42that when tonsillectomies are performed during a full moon, there's more chance of post-operative hemorrhaging than at any other time of the month.
17:52So Dr. Andrews says save full moon nights for romance, not for surgery.
18:01The incidents that we have are way beyond normal.
18:04We have all sorts of things happen in regards to people doing things a little stranger than they usually do,
18:09going out of their way to get in trouble, just really having a problem coping.
18:18As an ambulance driver, I found that you'd see a different type of patient as well as more patients in a given night.
18:25You'd see a lot more trauma, and the trauma would be a bit more profound than normal.
18:30For some reason, other medical problems would appear exaggerated.
18:33It would be hard to describe. You'd always know it was a full moon.
18:36The cause of lunacy or moon madness is still unknown.
18:43It is known, however, that the moon controls the tides in the oceans.
18:51Since humans are 90% water, perhaps the moon controls our tides, too.
18:56Nations have horoscopes as well as people.
19:00Since 1840, in the astrological chart of the United States, the alignment of Saturn and Jupiter has reoccurred at 20-year intervals.
19:09Unfortunately, every president elected during those periods has died in office.
19:15William Henry Harrison, elected 1840, died of pneumonia, 1841.
19:20Abraham Lincoln, elected 1860, assassinated 1865.
19:24James Garfield, elected 1880, assassinated 1881.
19:36William McKinley, elected 1900, assassinated 1901.
19:42Warren Harding, elected 1920, died 1923.
19:47Franklin Roosevelt, elected 1940, died 1945.
19:54John Kennedy, elected 1960, assassinated 1963.
20:00A number of astrologers, including Sidney Omar, saw that President Kennedy's life was in danger.
20:11In American astrology, Leslie McIntyre wrote,
20:14In the past, such configurations have coincided with personal danger to our head of state.
20:21November is obviously fraught with perils.
20:25On October 25th, 1963, in the British magazine Fate,
20:30John Pendragon stated,
20:32The president may make powerful enemies among his own people,
20:36and I would not rule out the possibility of an attempted assassination, or worse, if he has caught off his guard.
20:42Mr. President, I am deeply concerned for your personal safety,
20:47and would respectfully urge you to strengthen your body guard,
20:51especially when you are in the streets and other public places.
20:59Astrologers have not always been harbingers of disaster.
21:03Many astrologers now believe we have entered the age of Aquarius,
21:07an era of growing cooperation among individuals and nations,
21:10a time when the noblest aspirations of mankind can be realized.
21:18I had a brief telephone conversation with Sidney Omar, and I took some notes on what he told me.
21:23He asked me my birth date. I told him it was March 26th, 1931.
21:26He said, you've spent a year of searching and disillusionment.
21:31He said, you tend to become immersed in a part or a mood.
21:35That's probably true.
21:37He told me I have a powerful personality which tends to make people afraid of me,
21:41although I'm actually quite vulnerable.
21:43That's flattering.
21:44Finally, he said, think mentally of one question.
21:48I thought, what's next?
21:50And he said, let go. It's finished.
21:54You're riding a losing proposition.
21:56Take a cold plunge into the future.
21:59Let go of the security of the past.
22:02Thank you very much, Sidney.
22:03Now keep it in mind.
22:05Time will tell.
22:12Lost civilizations.
22:14Extraterrestrials.
22:16Myths and monsters.
22:18Missing persons.
22:20Magic and witchcraft.
22:22Unexplained phenomena.
22:24In search of cameras are traveling the world seeking out these great mysteries.
22:27This program was the result of the work of scientists, researchers, and a group of highly skilled technicians.
22:33At least these skills have been they're a leader only in battleship, but you love them.
22:35And bowling can be sniper shirmen.
22:37The U.S. team arrives the reconfort.
22:39And making sure they come from other'?
22:41The Ultimate Squadron.
22:43And jazolate当 empper a disgruntlet could allow us.
22:45We have to re-entering aqua-under.
22:47An23uon.
22:49The Ultimate.
Be the first to comment