Self-fulfilling Prophecies--Or Not?

I recently read an article in which the author wondered, in essence, whether the seeming accuracy of astrology might be due to the phenomenon of self-fulfilling prophecies. That is, you expect something to happen, so it does. One of my answers to that is partly yes--and that can be a good thing or a bad thing. My other answer is partly no--and that can be a good thing or a bad thing.

Let's talk about the partly no portion first. I know a fair number of people who do not wish to know anything about astrology, and so I do not discuss it with them. In many instances, though, I have their birth data, and therefore know when things are expected to happen in their charts. I have seen many times that a person does not have to expect an astrologically indicated event for one to occur.

In some ways, my boyfriend's situation illustrates my theme. My boyfriend is not dismissive of what I do, but he does not know much about it either. He rarely asks about his own chart, and I rarely give him any information unless he specifically asks for it. Although in many ways he is a typical hard-headed engineer both by profession and temperament, he also displays a normal or normal to high amount of regular human gullibility when it comes to matters of personal interest to him. I know from doing an experiment that I could give a him a personality reading that said virtually anything and he'd think it was very accurate!

For example, I could tell him "you are a very sensitive person inside, but sometimes you appear more insensitive to others than you really feel." He would respond enthusiastically that this was a very accurate description of him. What would not occur to him, however, is that this is a very accurate description of everyone. The nature of human interaction is such that, at times, we are all more sensitive inside than we appear to others; it is part of the self-protective mechanism of being alive! Statements like this, that are applicable to 99.9% of the population, are sometimes used as evidence that astrology is a parlor trick, practiced by charlatans using "cold reading" tricks.

So I've chosen not to tell my potentially very impressionable boyfriend about the so-called "negative" aspects he's been facing over the past few years. I don't want to set him up for negative self-fulfilling prophecies; and I know that people primed to see negative events can often find them with alarming frequency (people who expect negative events during a Mercury retrograde often illustrate this principle).

On the other hand, my silence hasn't prevented certain events from occuring, and it hasn't prevented him from responding to these transits in pained, touching, and self-revealing ways. He recently asked me about a difficult situation that's been occuring over the past few months--if this was in his chart and why hadn't I told him about it. I gave him my answer (and I don't know if I made the right choice) and told him what my prediction would have been if he had asked for it. He concluded that whether I had told him about it or not, he would still have had to deal with it.

In that case, self-fulfilling prophecy was not at work; you could say this situation was the result of decisions made long before I met him that had to play out. Perhaps a bit of a heads up would have been helpful, though. Perhaps the fact that he wasn't expecting the situation right now made it more difficult to deal with.

On the other hand, I have seen him handle other difficult transits with very little distress. So perhaps sometimes the fact that one is not aware of a "prophecy" helps decrease the stress associated with a difficult situation, as one is not so inclined to read a great deal of significance into it. Not knowing could be good--or not so good.

The same ambiguity applies to astrological predictions that do become self-fulfilling prophecies. If you honestly believe, on the basis of an astrological prediction, that you are doomed to be childless, loveless, or have a bad day on Thursday, won't it become more difficult to have children, find love or have a good day on Thursday?

I think in many cases it does become more difficult. Our expectations have a huge effect on how we respond to situations. I personally make it a habit to ignore minor bad aspects and even consciously expect that they will cause me no problems. Yet I frequently see people whose charts indicate the potential for good opportunities that they do not seem to take advantage of.

Sometimes simply the sowing the seed of a good expectation by pointing out an upcoming friendly trine, or even a very unfriendly square that could prove helpful down the line, can motivate a person to start taking advantage of the opportunities and potentials inherent in their lives. I have frequently seen in my own life (and perhaps in my clients' as well) how the seed of a potentially self-fulfilling prophecy of progress or success has eventually sprouted into a real breakthrough. Self-fulfilling prophecy or not, there is almost nothing in life that makes me feel prouder or experience more satisfaction than watching people run with the ball of the opportunities (sometimes disguised as problems) presented to them and make something important come true in their lives.

In essence, that's why I practice astrology--to experience those moments when a person breaks through old barriers and crashes through to a whole new level of experiencing life. And I have to say, deep down, I don't really care whether that's a result of planetary influences or self-fulfilling prophecies. In my perhaps overly pragmatic world-view, it doesn't matter as much whether astrology is "truly" accurate as it does how much benefit people can derive from it.