Quora answers, because no one cares about Quora

Hi there. I hope you have missed me :).

I missed writing this newsletter. But things got in the way.

And, if you ever stopped doing something you did once a week, you know how it goes. A week becomes a month quickly.

Before it becomes a year, I decided to write anything. At first, I thought about posting here about some of the astrological figures I (re)discovered while writing a book (it’s in Portuguese, the name is “O Frei e a Astrologia” — “The Friar and Astrology”, and it’s mostly not written by me, but by “The friar” himself, Frei João Pacheco, an 18th-Century Portuguese Augustinian Eremite who wrote a defense of astrology).

But I have already posted about some of them on my Facebook page (Cardinal Pierre D’Aily, “Petrus de Aliaco”; Ricciardo Montepulciano, father of Pope Marcellus II; and friar Giovanni Giuntini, Junctinus).

So, I decided to post some old answers I wrote at Quora. The site is dead — really. But I still like my old posts, and it would be a shame to let them there, rotting.

It was never good for astrology anyway; due to its inner rules, you could be flagged if you don’t answer the question received (I mean, if your text was not an answer; you could ignore it, of course). So, if someone posted “My data of birth are XYZ, will I become a dentist?”, if you tried to explain why this is wrong, you could receive a warning.

So, here go some of them.

“What are practical uses for astrology?”

“Among many others situations, it can help in:

• solving health problems, especially those connected to bad lifestyles, wrong diets, or “unrelated” different health issues that regular medicine doesn’t help;

• planning ahead, knowing — within a reasonable error margin, astrologers do not see the future — the probable outcomes of whatever moves the client is doing, or planning to do (change of job, of house, new relationships, etc);

• choosing the best options do invest money, the best estate to buy, when something will be sold, or which business option will be more profitable;

• discovering how the weather is going to be in a particular event/ocasion;

• relationship problems;

• choosing (within concrete options; the client has to do some work) the best career;

• discovering whether your lost pet is alive, and whether it will come back…

“Is astrology a reliable art?”

Yes.

“Do flegmatics ever become successful?”

Yep. As long as they have a passion to pursue.

See, cholerics are driven by fire — inner fire, as it were, a necessity to act.

Phlegmatics are on the opposite pole of action, passion. They are driven by the object of desire. If they have one (or if they have an object that repels them, to move the other way), they will work hard, and they’ll probably succeed.

And phlegmatics are like water: they not only adapt, but they don’t recognize boundaries well.

Out of my head, without looking for it, the current president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, and Babe Ruth, the record-setting, all-time-great baseball players, are examples of very successful phlegmatics.

“What is Ophiucus?”

It’s a constellation, a group of stars. Regardless of the media hype, it’s know for millenia. (It’s not a sign; signs are not constellations).

“Is there any chance that astrology is real? Lately I am seeing a lot of what appears to be cosmic influence.”

Yes. Both in the sense of “it’s a thing that exists” and in the sense of “there is something true in it”.

But, on the other hand, cosmic influence is not (in astrological terms, that is. I’m not talking about the light and heat from the Sun, the Moon’s effect on tides, etc).

Astrology is a symbolic art, not a science of unknown physical forces.

“Why do people blame things on Mercury in retrograde?”

Because they feel the need to blame it on something.

All of the five traditional visible planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; the Sun and the Moon are, astrologically speaking, also planets, but they’re obviously different from the rest and don’t ever undergo this) and even the “new planets” (Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto) have periods of retrogradation.

Sometimes, they seem to stop and move in the opposite direction of their “normal”, direct, motion, due to the motion of the Earth in relation to the Sun, and to the configuration of the Solar System.

If Mercury retrograde meant anything mercury-related would go wrong… Well, why not include the other four?

Every time Saturn goes retrograde, limits would be blurred, bones would break, dams would collapse, and people wouldn’t die. And Saturn stays retrograde for quite a long time.

“How accurate are astrology birthcharts if it only covers the planets we are aware of? There may be an infinite number of planets in the universe.”

And why would all the “infinite” number of planets matter? Astrology is a symbolic art/technique that relies on the visual arrangement of the sky. It’s not a power plant harvesting energy from planets.

“What is your opinion is astrology or genetics stronger?”

It makes no sense. They’re not forces acting on the same level, this comparison is impossible.

“When did people start caring about astrology?”

People “care about” astrology since the dawn of time, apparently.

“How are astronomy and astrology different in their literal view of the stars?”

Astronomy sees the stars and planets in terms of quantifiable and measurable variables.

Astrology sees them in terms of their appearance in the night sky and the natural symbolism they entail.

One looks at their quantities, the other, at their qualities.

Can astrology predict the future of a person?

Yes.

“Why don’t astrologers use astrology as a tool to help humanity free of cost, e.g., there is a huge opportunity in the area of guiding the younger generation in making right career choices based on their planet disposition in their birth chart?

If you see any value in physicians, engineers, teachers, police officers, psychologists… Try to think about why do they work for a pay.

“What is the best professional astrology freeware?”

Do you want interpretation or just to cast a chart (so you can judge it)?

In the first case, none. No freeware (or “paidware”, as far as I know) does anything worth reading in terms of interpretation.

In the second case, I like Morinus a lot. It’s easy to use, light, and without unnecessary clutter.

There is one, astrowin or astrolog (I’m not sure), which is simpler in resources and less easy to use.

That’s it for now. I hope you like these answers, I have tons of them to show.

My best,

Marcos.