The Astrology Column of the Los Angeles Times

This study is in the nature of content analysis. About three months of the daily column »Astrological Forecasts« by Caroll Righter in the Los Angeles Times, November 1952 – February 1953, are interpreted. As a corollary, some observations on a number of astrological magazines are presented. We want to give a picture of the specific stimuli operating on followers of astrology whom we hypothetically regard as representative of the whole group of those who go for »secondary occultism,« and of the presumptive effect of these stimuli. We assume that such publications mould some ways of their readers' thinking; yet they pretend to adjust themselves to the readers' needs, wants, wishes and demands in order to »sell.« We regard this content analysis as an inroad to the study of the mentality of larger groups of a similar frame of mind.

There are various reasons for choosing this material. Limitations of research facilities prevented real field work and forced us to concentrate on printed material rather than on primary reactions. Such material seemed to be most copious in astrology and was easily accessible. Also astrology probably has the largest following among the various occultist schools in the population. It is certainly not one of the extreme occultist trades, but puts up a façade of pseudorationality which makes it easier to embrace than, for example, spiritualism. No wraiths appear, and the forecasts pretend to be derived from astronomic facts. Thus astrology might not bring out so clearly psychotic mechanisms as those fashions indulged in by the real lunatic fringe of superstition. This may hamper our study as far as understanding of the deeper unconscious layers of neo-occultism is concerned. This potential disadvantage, however, is compensated by the fact astrology has caught on in such large sections of the population that the findings, in as much as they partly are confined to the ego level and to social determinants, may be generalized with greater confidence. Moreover, it is just »pseudorationality,« the twilight zone between reason and unconscious urges, in which we are specifically interested from the viewpoint of social psychology.

For the time being our study has to limit itself to the qualitative. It represents an attempt to understand what astrological publications mean in terms of reader reactions, on an overt level as well as on a deeper one. While this analysis is guided by psychoanalytic concepts, it should be pointed out from the very beginning that our approach as far as it largely involves social attitudes and actions must largely consider conscious or semiconscious phases. It would be inappropriate to think exclusively in terms of the unconscious where the stimuli themselves are consciously calculated and institutionalized to such an extent that their power of directly reaching the unconscious should not be regarded as absolute and where overt issues of self-interest continuously enter the picture. Frequently, surface aims are fused with vicarious gratifications of the unconscious.

In fact, the concept of the unconscious can not be posited dogmatically in any study concerning the border area of psychological determinants and social attitudes. In the whole field of mass communications, the »hidden meaning« is not truly unconscious at all, but represents a layer which is neither quite admitted nor quite repressed – the sphere of innuendo, the winking of an eye and »you know what I mean.« Frequently one encounters a kind of »mimicking« of the unconscious in the maintenance of certain taboos which, however, are not fully endorsed. No light has so far been thrown on this somewhat obscure psychological zone, and our study should among other things contribute to its understanding. It goes without saying that the ultimate basis of this zone has to be sought in the truly unconscious, but it might be a dangerous fallacy to regard the psychological twilight of numerous mass reactions as straightforward manifestations of the instincts.

So far as effectiveness upon actual reader mentality is concerned, our results must by necessity be regarded as tentative. They provide us with formulations, the validity of which can and should only be established by reader research. We may expect that the authors of our material know what they are doing and to whom they are talking, though they themselves may start from hunches or stereotyped assumptions concerning their readers which facts would not bear out. Moreover, there is little doubt that in any modern mass communications the idea is artificially fostered that one has to cater to the tastes of some group as a means to mould the communication material in a way fitting the mentality of those responsible for the production or their designs. Shifting responsibility from the manipulators to the manipulated is a widespread ideological pattern. We must therefore be cautious not to treat our material dogmatically as a mirrored reflection of the reader's mind.

Conversely, we do not try to make inferences through our analysis about the mentality of those responsible for the publications to be examined, particularly the authors. We do not think that such a study would lead us very far. Even in the sphere of art, the idea of projection has been largely overrated. Although the authors' motivations certainly enter the artifact, they are by no means so all-determining as is often assumed. As soon as an artist has set himself his problem, it obtains some kind of impact of its own, and, in most cases, he has to follow the objective requirements of his product much more than his own urges of expression when he translates his primary conception into artistic reality. To be sure, these objective requirements do not play a decisive role in mass media which stress consumer effect far beyond any artistic or intellectual problem. However, the total setup here tends to limit the chances of projection utterly. Those who produce the material follow innumerable requirements, rules of thumb, set patterns and mechanisms of controls which by necessity reduce to a minimum the range of any kind of self-expression.

Certainly the author's motivations are but one source while the set patterns to which they have to stick seem far more important. While it would be very hard to trace back a production like the Los Angeles Times column to any single source in particular, it is integrated in such a way that the material speaks a kind of language of its own which can be read and understood even if we do not know much about the processes which led to the formulation of the language and infused it with meaning. It ought to be stressed that understanding of such a language cannot confine itself to its single morphemes, but always has to remain conscious of the total pattern in which these morphemes are more or less mechanically interwoven. Some particular devices cropping up in our material such as for example frequent reference to the family background of a person born on a certain day may appear completely trivial and harmless if seen in isolation. In the functional unity of the whole, however, they may obtain a significance far beyond the harmless and comforting idea which is indicated at first sight.