Basic Situation of the Column

The column »Astrological Forecasts« by Carroll Righter appears in the Los Angeles Times, a conservative newspaper leaning far to the right wing of the Republican Party. Mr. Righter is well-known in movie circles and is supposed to be the private astrological counsellor to one of the most famous film »stars.« When he took up his work, he obtained considerable publicity also in television. However, his column does not indicate any particular tinge of Hollywood sensationalism or Southern California faddism. The whole outlook of the column is »moderate.« There are only isolated manifestations of obvious superstition or overt irrationalities. Irrationality is rather kept in the background, defining the basis of the whole approach: It is treated as a matter of course that the various prognoses and the corresponding advice are derived from the stars. Astrological niceties and astrological lingo except for the popular twelve signs of the zodiac are absent. The more sinister aspects of astrology such as emphasis on catastrophes and threatening doom hardly make themselves felt. Everything sounds respectable, sedate and sensible and astrology as such is treated as something established and socially recognized, an uncontroversial element of our culture, as though it were somewhat bashful of its own shadiness. Hardly ever does the practical advice tendered to the reader transgress the limits of what one finds in any column dealing with human relations and popular psychology. The only difference is that the writer leans on his distinctly magical and irrational authority which seems to be strangely out of proportion with the common-sense content of what he has to offer. This discrepancy cannot be regarded as accidental. The common-sense advice itself contains, as will be shown later, many spurious »pseudorational« elements, calling for some authoritarian backing to be effective. At the same time, the reluctance of the readers to be »sensible« in just the way the column advocates it, may make for a response which can only be overcome by conjuring up the image of some absolute power. This authoritarian element, incidentally, is also present in the popular psychological columns of which the column is reminiscent in so many respects: their authority is wielded by the expert rather than by the magus while the latter also feels compelled to speak as an expert.

Yet, the implicit irrationality of the column's claim to be inspired by the stars cannot be dismissed in as much as it sets the stage for its effect and fulfils a highly significant function in dealing with the anxieties and difficulties of those at whom the column is directed. Astrology, although it sometimes pretends to be chummy with theology, is basically different from religion. The irrationality of the source is not only kept remote, but is also treated as impersonal and thing-like: there is an underlying philosophy of what might be called naturalist supra-naturalism. This »depersonalized,« merciless aspect of the supposedly transcendent source has much to do with the latent threat spelled by astrology. The source remains entirely abstract, inapproachable and anonymous. This reflects the type of irrationality in which the total order of our life presents itself to most individuals: opaqueness and inscrutability. Naive persons fail to look through the complexities of a highly organized and institutionalized society, but even the sophisticated ones cannot understand it in plain terms of consistency and reason, but are faced with antagonism and absurdities, the most blatant of which is the threat brought to mankind by the very same technology which was furthered in order to make life easier. Who wants to survive under present conditions is tempted to »accept« such absurdities, like the verdict of the stars, rather than to penetrate them by thinking which means discomfort in many directions. In this respect, astrology is truly in harmony with an ubiquitous trend. In as much as the social system is the »fate« of most individuals independent of their will and interest, it is projected upon the stars in order thus to obtain a higher degree of dignity and justification in which the individuals hope to participate themselves. At the same time, the idea that the stars, if one only reads them correctly, offer some advice mitigates the very same fear of the inexorability of social processes the stargazer himself creates. This phase of astrology's own ambivalence is exploited by the »rational« side of the column. The aid and comfort given by the merciless stars is tantamount to the idea that only he who behaves rationally, i.e., achieves complete control over his inner and outer life, has any chance of doing justice to the irrational contradictory requirements of the existent by adjustment. Thus, the discrepancy between the rational and the irrational aspects of the column is expressive of a tension inherent in social reality itself. »To be rational« means not questioning irrational conditions, but to make the best of them from the viewpoint of one's private interests.

A truly unconscious aspect, primitive and possibly decisive, but never allowed to come to the fore in the column, should at least be suggested. Indulgence in astrology may provide those who fall for it with a substitute for sexual pleasure of a passive nature. It means primarily submission to unbridled strength of the absolute power. However, this strength and power ultimately derived from the father imago has become completely depersonalized in astrology. Communion with he stars is an almost unrecognizable and therefore tolerable substitute of the forbidden relation with an omnipotent father figure. People are allowed to enjoy communion with absolute strength in as much as it is considered no longer human. It seems likely that the fantasies about world destruction and ultimate doom appearing in more extremist astrological publications than the Los Angeles Times column are connected with this ultimately sexual content in as much as they are the last vestige of the individual expression of guilt feelings grown as unrecognizable as their libidinal source. Apart from this zone, the stars mean sex without threat. They are depicted as omnipotent, but they are very far away – even farther than the narcissistic leader figures described in Freud's »Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.«