There have been a number of interesting stories in the last two months, but one of the most fascinating carries on from last issue’s Media Watch, which featured the popularity of biodynamic agriculture, one of the more hidden manifestations of astrology but one that has considerable influence given the increasing availability of biodynamic produce within the organic sector.
The Sunday Times on 31 July carried the story that Prince Charles is now using biodynamic methods. The Sunday Times’ report had that slight tongue-in-cheek air of the amused "what's our slightly whacky heir-to-the-throne up to now" variety. The Guardian followed its usual line of outright ridicule, food producers tended to be quite interested, realising that organic produce sells at a premium and often tastes better, while Paul Murdin, Royal Astronomical Association Treasurer write to the Sunday Times (14 August 2005, p. 18) "the theory that crops are affected by the phase of the moon or its position in the zodiac is unscientific tosh. Anyone who believes that food is better produced this way is better and spends extra for it is wasting their money". It is indeed surprising that that there have been no controlled experiments in this area (to my knowledge) since Colin Bishop reported in the AA Journal (Vol. 10 no 1, Winter 1977/8). More recently, of course, Nick Kollerstrom was involved with BBC Radio 4's Gardeners Question Time, which conducted an experiment in the area. A google search for the words "Prince Charles biodynamic" produced 804 results. No doubt most of those are duplicated, and no doubt this article will make 805, but there is plenty of information out there for a research project in this area.
Another area of interest is the manner in which the press gets hold of astronomical stories and blows them into major dramas. This happened with the last Venus transit, a singularly unspectacular visual event but to read the news you’d imagine that the New Age was beginning. In this case interest was actively promoted by astronomers' organisations. However, one story that appeared from nowhere and circulated widely, especially on the web, related to 2003's close approach of Mars to the Earth. The story was resurrected two years later except that this time Mars was supposed to be as big as the Moon: a search on the web for "Mars Hoax 2005" will give the background to this. The panicky tone of some of the e mails I read was not unlike the famous Orson Welles' War of the Worlds hoax/panic in the 1930s. Clearly there is a public appetite for 'disaster from the stars' stories, whether they include astrology or not. Discussion, though, did intrude into astrology newsletters. On 22 June 2005 Paul Dare wrote to the AFAN Newsletter: "Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye and will be easy to spot", to which Jayj Jacobs trenchantly responded (17 Jul 2005) "While the other info on Mars' closeness was corrected to being 2 yrs old, I’m amazed no one said 'boo' or 'codswallop' to Mars being as large as the full moon : That's not gonna happen ever. Not 2 years ago & not in the year 2287 & not in 60,000 years! Maybe it'll be as bright as the full moon [tho I doubt it], but never that large".
Meanwhile The Observer has launched an astrological advice service, though I only saw this on line so am not sure if it appears in the magazine. As an example, from Sunday July 24, 2005:
Q: Hi Martin, My girlfriend is a lousy driver. She says it’s because she’s a Gemini and can’t concentrate. Is she crazy?
Jim, Glasgow
A: Jim, Speaking as a Gemini, probably. And I’m afraid she’s also going to need a new excuse. Prudential Insurance recently quizzed 2,000 customers and checked their star signs against their driving records. Most likely to make a claim were, in fact, Cancerians. While the lowest number of claims came from the Twins. I also asked our astrologer, Neil Spencer, what he thought. This is what he said: "The butterfly Gemini mind is astrological legend. On the other hand, one of her Twins should be able to handle the driving while the other flits over a dozen topics in as many seconds." (http://tinyurl.com/ac9g3)
What do we make of such things, especially as The Observer is the sister paper of the staunchly anti-astrology Guardian? Perhaps they indicate the normalisation of astrology. Perhaps they indicate that a Sunday newspaper, with its more leisured style cannot afford to ignore or belittle astrology in the same way as its more focused (in demographic terms) daily counterpart.
Lastly, regarding the use of celestial terminology in everyday life, Jill Wood noticed that the system which takes visitors photographs when they arrive at airports is known as Pisces: photos were taken by this system of three of the 7 July bombers in arrival in Pakistan (Metro, 19 July 2005, p. 5). In that respect I noticed that the notice board for the ferry which services the Bristol docks area bears the two words 'Mercury' and 'Taurus'. Some connection, perhaps?